Two-handed Polearm Weapons...

As mentioned elsewhere...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coolio I could get behind Scythes if they were in a powerset that included the following weapon choices: Scythes Hockey Sticks Boes Quaterstaffs Halbards Bladed Spears Vanguard Sword (Double ended) Extending Acrobat Staff (DnD TV series) Walking Sticks Canes Anyone else agree?

While I'd agree that the set would be very cool....

I'd prefer to see some non-weapon/prop sets come out instead.

-Rachel-

The issue with polearms has come up many times, and here it is: Most polearms aren't used in similar manners.

Compare the following weapons:
Spear
Scythe (Reaper-style)
Warscythe or Naginata
Quarterstaff

You have 4 pole weapons there, all of which are used in completely different styles in combat. The spear is a thrusting weapon, the Naginata and Warscythe are used for slashing, the quarterstaff is used in all manner of strike, and the Reaper-Style Scythe, which most are familiar with, is swung down or in to pierce opponents with it, or brought in low to slash and hook legs... But it's not even a real weapon: it's a farm implement that was sometimes used to kill people and got popularized due to the Reaper metaphor. And then there's the hockey stick, which is never used with any skill other than BASHBASHBASH.

Look, I would absolutely LOVE a pole weapon. I've got one character who used a Scythe in D+D (because it's cool, even if it's not a very good weapon. He eventually became pure grapplemonkey and is Dark Melee in City) and another who I had in D+D who I'd make in City in a heartbeat if quarterstaff was an option. The issue is: how do you make a polearm set that works for all polearms?

First off, you need to discount Quarterstaff entirely (which would anger a lot of people) and make the set do Lethal damage. Then you'd need multiple animations because the Thrust attacks that work on Spear don't work on Scythe, and though Warscythe and Naginata can pull off much of both, those aren't the most popular types of weapons.

On top of that, most people want more non-weapon sets. We've got a lot of weapon sets, and people want to see more "superhero" powers and less "Warcraft" powers. As much as we all love medieval weaponry, this is a Superhero game, not the standard Medieval fantasy. We've got plenty of tools to make those fantasy characters, but there's a lot of "super" styles that are yet to be covered.


In short: I would love polearms as a set, but I forsee it as a very problematic addition.

Since no one has done it yet, why don't I just give an example...

Stab - You stab at your opponent with the end of your Staff. The impact area is so small, that this attack does Lethal damage. Melee, Moderate Dam (Lethal) Recharge: Fast
Swing - You swing your Staff in an arc, striking your foe solidly. This attack does only Smashing damage, but does more damage than Stab. It is not as fast, however. Melee, High Dam (Smashing) Recharge: Moderate
Sweep - You sweep your Staff in a complex manuever that strikes all foes in front of you. The damage is less than Swing, but can hit multiple foes. Melee (Cone) Moderate Dam (Smashing) Recharge: Moderate
Build Up - (just the normal build up)
Hook - You hook your opponent with the end of your Staff and bring him to the ground. The attack itself does minor damage, but has a very high chance of knockdown. Melee, Minor Dam (Lethal), Foe Knockback Recharge: Moderate
Taunt/Confront - (just the normal taunt)
Whirling Staff - You spin your Staff, striking all foes around you. This attack can knock foes to the ground as the end of the staff catches them. PBAoE Melee, Moderate DMG (Smash) Foe Knockback
Dancing Staff - You strike and slash with the end of your staff, doing major Lethal and Smashing damage to your foe. The final attack will send your foe into the air. (This would be a very elaborate animation, using complicated spins and thrusts of the staff, but all striking at one target) Melee, Extreme DMG (Lethal, Smash) Foe Knockup. Recharge: Slow
Figure Eight - You begin a complex spin of your staff, striking at all opponents in a wide arc in front of you. This attack does serious damage. (Again, a fairly complex animation utilizing spinning of the staff, more like a couple of "figure eights" instead of just one) Melee (Cone) Superior DMG (Smashing) Recharge: Slow

I'm not considering any secondary effects because there could be many possibilities for that. Knockback would be very likely, or the -Def from Broadsword for the tip attacks. (And note the purpose of the tip of a pole arm often WAS to rip open the armor of a foe, so -Def would fit) This is very similar to Broadsword, Battle Axe, and War Mace, though, with the "Hook" attack replacing Parry. Hook may need to do more damage than that, similar to Clobber/Jawbreaker, but it might need to do Smashing damage if the damage were more than just minor. (Or a combination, like Dancing Staff)

Also, I've suggested a "dual staves combining into one staff" Power Set in the past, and that would have to be a different thing. You wouldn't have the Lethal damage in that case, instead you would have attacks that would combine the two staves (which are held separately to simplify the idle animation) for a sweeping strike. However, I think this layout would fit more different types of weapons. A polearm probably wouldn't work well with the splitting concept. Although honestly, I'm not sure the splitting concept would even be implementable.

I'd just like some two-hande animations for mace, axe and sword. I mean, the Wolf Spiders seem perfectly able to use two hands on their mace, and the ghost slaying axe temp also manages it.

Some of the mace and axe animations just look...really pansy. To me at least. YMMV

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

The problem with long hafted weapons in CoX isn't easily addressed. BABs has, on multiple occasions, pretty much said it's not happening because of the inability to do the crazy spinny things that players would want from such powers and sets.

The problem has to do with locational anchors for the weapons. It's possible to anchor a single weapon to multiple body points, but the problem is that, unlike real life, weapons are anchored to body points, not the other way around and, because of the very nature of a game in which the models can have a near-infinite variety of body shapes, it's impossible to force every linked body point to form a straight line with the line of the weapon itself.

If weapons were anchored to multiple body points, if the other hand was off even a little, the entire area of the weapon between the two body points would be bent compared to the rest of the weapon.

Another problem is that, as far as we know (and I think BABs might have actually explicitly told us this as well, but I'm not sure), it's not possible to manipulate an anchor point. Essentially, you'd be holding on the same spot on any long handed weapon with whatever body anchor it was attached too. When you're dealing with a long hafted weapon where grip shifting is actually a rather large part of learning to fight with it, this doesn't really look good or make much sense, especially when you're trying to do many of the more spectacular and visually stunning attacks that people would probably expect. Now, one workaround that I conceived of (though I'm not entirely sure is possible thanks to not having an intimate knowledge of the system), is to simply leave the anchor points alone but manipulate the weapon itself with each attack so that the portions of the weapon would extend or contract based on the needed weapon grip. If your grip were shifting down the haft, the game would act as if the shaft below the anchor point was shrinking and the shaft above it was growing. Visually, this would look pretty much identical to just shifting your grip. Even so, this isn't really an effective solution because there are other problems unless the devs can manage to generate some pretty sophisticated calculation functions to calculate angles between each body point and force the angle of the weapon to follow that angle rather than the angle specified by the normal animation.

Now, the current animations that look like there are 2 body point anchors accomplish this by making one of the other hands move roughly to the right spot without ever anchoring onto the weapon and simply using the clipping mechanism the engine uses to make it look like it's holding on to the weapon. It's actually possible, thanks to this lack of anchoring of the other hand, to have the unanchored hand completely unattached to the weapon itself. There was a rather famous screencap a few years ago of a katana wielder that had manipulated the body scales to such an extent that the left hand (the unanchored one) wasn't touching the Katana at all, even though it was making a fist.

Now, Katana gets away with this because the distance between the two hands isn't significant. It takes a lot of scale manipulation in order to generate a significant visible difference in hand placement. When you begin attempting to do this with long hafted weapons, the distance between your grip is going to be orders of magnitude larger than the difference in grip distance with a Katana. Because of this, you'd have to do a lot less than you would for a Katana to make it apparent that your off hand isn't even touching the haft.

Well, precedent for weapons moving away from their anchor points already exists in the game in a few powers. Broadswrod and family have a Taunt which sees the character juggling the sword, which visibly leaves the hand. More recently, Dual Pistols' Piercing Rounds sees you toss both guns through the air and see them do spectacular spins and twirls. Obviously, animating weapons that have a non-static link between model and anchor point position and orientation is POSSIBLE. That was never in question. The question is if this is a viable mechanic to use for more complicated actions.

As far as I've seen, all an anchor point does is define a "space" for the item in question, giving its coordinate system a base, as it were. "This is your world. What I do with it, you do not care." However, animating the item within its own space, relative to its anchor point is easily possible. The problem is that it will always animate relative to anchor point location and orientation, and a halberd weapon will need to be animated relative to the entire model. What that means is it will require a complex system of translation to turn the desired general movement in to an anchor point specific movement. This is further complicated because you're going to have to be animating and rotating the anchor point itself, all amounting to a LOT of work.

The theory behind this is actually relatively straightforward mathematics, but this is more a question of how City of Heroes implements those animation systems than how such motion would be described in 3D space.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Spining animations...
Dual Pistols!

The thread died over a year ago.