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Skills bound to weapons? Really?
diabel
Member UncommonPosts: 36
Has this been officially confirmed? It seems SOE is promoting "freedom to play your way" yet force you to use specific weapons for skills? I don't mind 8 skills but being forced to use a certain weapon is what broke GW2 for me, that and the lack of trinity and the zerg fest that followed.
Would be nice if there is a way around this. I enjoy playing a necromancer with a staff and don't like the idea of being forced to use a dagger just to get the "best" spells. Anyone else feel this way or is it just me?
Comments
I agree I dont enjoy having skills being bound to certain weapons (specifically magical and ranged abilities).
Melee abilities is a different kettle of fish, I think that weapon specific skills should be bound to a weapons, so for example I can't do a massive overhead smash with a tiny dagger.
But if I want to cast a fireball it shouldn't matter what weapon im using.
Perhaps they're going to link skills to weapon types because you can't honestly say a dagger will have allot of defensive capabilities whereas a staff can be used for defense. It is also pretty rational that you can't bash someone without a shield or project a force field when you're holding a sword. In my mind edged weapons to a caster would mean focused abilities and spells with a more offensive flavor (shooting lightning out your sword?) while a staff would be more defensive and leaning towards AOE and more defensive abilities. I hope that's how they work with it and give every weapon and off hand its own treatment and keep in mind which item is offensive and which is defensive in nature.
I agree, at maximum they should make the weapon skills very basic attacks that suit that weapon. These attacks should be modified by class spells, or even better crafter made enchantments like combo fields and combos all in one attack.
But it does make sense as far as gameplay realism, I mean imagine it this way from a tactical point of view, certain tools/weapons are better than others based on the task at hand.
Lets assume a spear would be better suited to fighting a beast than daggers would be for my class, so it be more practical to use the spear over daggers, no matter how much I love my daggers. Now that doesn't mean you can't use daggers it just means you are not using the best weapon for the job.
Same goes in all games really, there is a set weapon, armor, abilities or build based on scenarios to do the best possible job, min-maxing essentially. I am sure you can still use whatever weapon you want 24/7 though and supplement its shortcomings with 4 abilities from 40 classes worth of abilities, and/or select your targets very carefully.
Then again we don't know how they've implemented anything yet other than each weapon has a set of skills that varies based on the class that is using it.
Personally, I think it kind of makes sense to have specific skills for different weapons.
In many games, you pick a class, and that class has a certain list of abilities, but are locked to using certain weapon types.
Mage - staff / scepter
Warrior - sword / axe
So by removing the restriction on playing a specific class, warrior / mage, and allowing you to multiclass, and use any weapon, it then makes more sense to attach the skills to the weapon.
Then if you have a thrust skill, you would use that skill on a pointy weapon, sword, lance, rather than thrust on a mages sceptor.
You will be able to get every weapon, and every class, it would be a nightmare to have the skills separate from the weapon, if you want to quick swap from a dps to a healer for example, you would have to change the weapon, the armour, and the hotbars.
Not forgetting that it's only 4 of the 8 skills that are weapon based on the hotbar, the other 4 are character based.
I think something along the lines of Secret World, with the saved skills and a dropdown would be good, and extend it into something like the Final Fantasy XIV system, where you can save sets of armour, and link all that to a weapon set, would be excellent. Change the weapon, and the lot changes, something they should have extended in the Rift souls system in my opinion.
I didn't consider and agree with the comments here regarding the realism factor. This makes alot of sense for melee type skills but not so much for magic. I guess it would be too much work and unfair for melee and magic to have different rules.
There are class specific abilities too the 4 types are
Offensive
Defensive
Movement
Utility
And each class is different with these 4 things, as in rogues get 2 offense abilities slots and 2 utility slots but not the other two, or wizards get 2 movements slots, 1 defensive and 1 offensive. Blademasters have 1 of each.
So you can wield a sword and have a wizards offensive spell on I guess. Like be a warrior that can shoot fireballs or something.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOKhfxwLokg
I like to think of magic users tied to weapons in two different lights:
1. Magic users channel the magic through the staff implement differently than how they channel magic through a dagger implement.
e.g.
A skill that makes me sacrifice life to do damage may use a ritual dagger to draw my own blood for the spell.
2. The spellcaster binds spells to the weapon much like in D&D.
e.g.
I find a Searing Staff that has some fire skills. Those fire skills were bound to the staff by the spellcaster that I killed to get the staff. My character does not actually know the spells, but he/she can utilize the power that is bound to the staff to cast the spells.
Little forum boys with their polished cyber toys: whine whine, boo-hoo, talk talk.
In the real world there isn't magic (sorry to burst anyone's bubble), so it's a non sequitur to talk much about realism to begin with. However, in past fantasy worlds from fantasy novels, items were very important for magic users. In some stories items are needed for magic, in others it enhances it, and sometimes magical power is exclusive to an object.
In Harry Potter for example, everyone uses wands. Magic flows through people and an object is needed to focus and direct this chaotic mess. Or perhaps items are needed to harness the energy to begin with.
In the real world, there are things you can do with spear and there are things you can do with swords. There is very little overlap in bodily motions used, or the way injury in inflicted on others. In some situations, combat experts will say "a spear would be a lot more useful." If a person was constantly in that situation (like lets say, a wall of pikeman), he would get over his preferences and use the damn spear.
That might be what you have to do if you find yourself constantly in situations where daggers are better than staves, even though the devs are sure to try to find a place for staves. I find it likely that there will be class combinations and jobs related to necromancer where a staff wins out, and others where the dagger is the better choice.
This. End of story
Binding spells to weapons would be a good solution.
It makes sense to offer abilities to certain weapons that fit the style of the weapon.
However, there should be basic stats of a weapon, accuracy at a certain range, defense chance, swing speed, chance to bash, or chance to penetrate etc, then that way a person could try to put any ability they wanted.
An ogre with a dagger would be able to use that weapon more effectively as a lance to a small target, and maybe even depending on their stats and other gear could do that warrior flip over using the dagger and then body slam move.
However, there are chances it could misfire. If EQN is avoiding misfire and random rolls on weapons or even abilities then swapping and mutilclassing makes less sense.
For example a rogue wearing heavy armor: can they do that? If so then it affects thejr attack speed.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
I think you misunderstood. They confirmed during SOE live panels that any class can use any weapon but that every class will use that weapon differently.
What they've confirmed in the Reddit interview is what's previously been suggested in that you'll have a "primary" class, which impacts HOW you use your weapon.
So if you're a "primary" Mage - you can still use every weapon in the game, but you'll use them all in a "magey" way. You can pick your 4 non-weapon abilities from different classes, but you 4 weapon abilities are based on the combination of weapon + primary class.
What the mechanic for selecting the primary class is hasn't been made clear.
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall
Currently Playing: ESO
I didnt know that - thanks
EQ2 fan sites
No they didn't. They specifically said each class can use 2 different weapon types.
They did? I coulda sworn they said there are no restrictions. my bad then.
Ok, i found the reference, it does indeed look like you're locked to two weapons per class. bleh...
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall
Currently Playing: ESO
Actually, it could be used to add more freedom instead of less. If there are plenty of weapons around you can specc your skills with the wepon you need at the time, and cool rarer weapons could have one or more standard skill replaced with a special skill. Like a flaming sword could replace the usual high strike with a flaming strike and so on.
You of course need to have a flaming sword to get that attack but that isn't different from some MMOs (like GW1) where you can learn certain attacks from certain things.
With an option to switch between 2 or 3 weapons you get plenty of skills to choose from.
But if you have the choice of 2 or 3 standard weapons and all weapons of the same type have the same skill together with no in combat switching the game indeed would take freedom away from you.
That's more of a time development constraint than straight up design limitation. They can easily add weapons skills to classes through updates and patches...
Say the 8 classes you get to choose from in the start are archetypes.
Then the 40 classes would be like having 5 flavours of every archetype.
So is possible you just pick the version of the archetype you want that uses weapons the way you want. And then save your build and rename it necromancer.
You can always choose your weapon, right?
Besides, it always seems weird to me that a huge hammer and a tiny dagger can share the same skills...
I admit I have mixed feelings about this but from a realistic point of view it makes sense, the way you wield a sword has simulairities betwine a blunt weapon, axe, dagger but they still are used in significant different manners.The functionality strong and weak points of each are different.
Im curious to see how it pans out in the game but it can go either way, work out great or very poorly.
It's the same in GW2. The only multiclassing comes from the 4 class ability slots that you could swap another class ability from another class. Any other customization is from gear.
One thing I hope is that since weapon is gear, that you can find a sweet staff that modifies skills in a way that puts a twist on how certain classes may use it.
For example, Path of Exile has support gems you slot in equipment that modify your skills.
Here are some examples of PoE support gems useful to a mage.
Lesser Multiple Projectiles:
- 150% Mana Cost Multiplier
- 2 additional Projectiles
- 30% less Projectile Damage
Point Blank:
- 120% Mana Cost Multiplier
- x% reduced Attack Speed
- Projectile attacks deal up to 50% more damage to very close targets, but deal less damage to farther away targets
Concentrated Effect:
- 160% Mana Cost Multiplier
- x% more Area Damage
- 30% reduced Area of Effect radius
Then collecting different types of staffs would add some longevity.