Explain redraw for me?

Your claim was that the current system works fine. I didn't feel the need to add a +1 to the comment that it in no way resembles realism (i.e. your assertion that drawing weapons from nowhere is somehow better than them just appearing from nowhere). I did feel the need to add, however, that I think it is further a problem because it artificially reduces your options for performance and adds QOL issues that have no real need to be added. And I don't think QOL has anything to do with min/maxing.

My point is that the current system does nothing at all to mimic "realism" so why add QOL and DPS complications if there isn't even a relative benefit for realism? And I really don't accept that someone's "concept" requires that they frequently draw weapons from nowhere instead of having those weapons from nowhere materialize in their hands.

It's impossible to know how the developers feel about the current set of affairs, except that at one time Back Alley Brawler attempted to fix the current version. So it really is not a choice between the old slow animations and the current re-draw system. There are other options, and we would already have something different if the first attempt to fix the current system had worked.

In any case this isn't just a question of "DPS." The set that drives me insane with redraw is Trick Arrow. That isn't a DPS issue, its a PITA one where your bwo disappears constantly if you are one of those Defenders or Corruptors who mixes in attacks.

Having one weapon redraw is mildly annoying.

But having TWO weapon redraw is just borderline unbearable: Beam Rifle / Trick Arrow, Dual Pistol / Trick Arrow or Assault Rifle/TA.

I can't imagine myself playing one of those, no matter how good the theme is.

I've noticed that there are some inconsistencies in Mace Mastery and Bane's Mace. I can't remember which attack but I recall shatter armor not causing weapon redraw??


So what we are saying here is that Stone Melee, Ice and even Fiery Melee sword attacks don't suffer from redraw because they made animation specifically to bypass the weapon draw? I just don't know why stone melee can bypass redraw whereas other weapon sets can't.


And about /Thorn Assault, I felt there is redraw delay when I level my Fire/Thorn to 50. I felt that whenever I use Char and then jump back to use Impale, there's always a delay and impale won't go out until I land. Visually there is just a delay there and it's an eye sore.

And I know there is definitely a redraw penalty in Claw because my stalker would use patron Dark Blast and then Focus and there is a minor delay but not the other way around.

Redraw, redraw, redraw...

....That reminds me...i gotta pick back up playing my thugs/ta MM that has his personal attacks, picked the Ghost Slaying Axe from vet rewards, and has the Nem Staff and Blackwand, and was planning on going with Black Scorpion for patron powers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe ::looks at RaikenX's signature:: Something funny.

If my minimum threshold for playing something is a 3, and if something that used to be a 1 became a 2, the improvement is meaningless to me, it's still too weak - and, to paraphrase someone else's argument, I could say it's actually detrimental as that it was buffed once reduces the chance it'll be buffed again.

Drawing (and not even sheating) your sword 50 times per fight does not look good. It looks silly. I'm willing to accept people flying, throwing fireballs or getting superpowers from radiation poisoning but I have to come up with seriously contrived scenarios to explain Fighter McNotMagicDude's sword mysteriously vanishing in air everytime he uses his healing abilities derived from his mutant lineage.

To deride the issue as a minmax-centric one is a misconstruction, unless you define anyone who picks Hasten or mix and match SOs to not go over the ED cap as minmaxing, which, while technically true, is essentially meaningless as this concerns the vast majority of the game's population. Redraw is enough of a problem that it falls into that same threshold of minmaxing ; nobody needs to be a number cruncher to realise it's a pain in the *** to be still in the middle of that Headsplitter animation after popping Recon while the targeted lieut is defeated by SuperBrutorz666 with a well placed Knockout Blow.

What looking at numbers show, however, is that despite this gameplay disadvantage, weapons don't really get a significant numerical advantage for it. Even in theorycraft spreadsheet ST DPS weapon sets tend to be at the bottom of the pole, and only tend to have good AoE in fantasy scenarios assuming the player hits close to the target cap each and everytime without spending even a second positioning himself.

What's my suggestion to improve it? As others said, just get rid of it. There's no sheathing, so why should there be drawing? Or bake it into the power like Fire or Stone melee. There would probably be customisation issues, yadda yadda. Truth be told, I couldn't care less - I'm with Deus on this, I just avoid these sets like the plague ; unless I'm deliberately trying something different than I know won't be a serious concept character nor win any awards for performance.

My 2 cents in the topic (for me this is actually a big topic with two big points of view)

1. First Cent: MixMaxing. I appreciate drastically the effort placed in the last weaponset balancing that improved weapon based powersets when used in synergy, but that I feel was never enough. Although I dont see it as a "penalty" but a "encouragement" to stay within the set, weapon sets are not globally balanced to do more damage if you stay inside it.
   
   From such a balance perspective, if there was a slight damage buff after a redraw was forced on you, in the form of weapon attack proc that made up for the time lost in the redraw, I'd be happy. It also would be the kind of thing you would not involve animation department in, keeping it exclusively in the hands of the power balance team.
   
   
2. Second Cent: From an aesthetic standpoint, I HATE redraws. Most of them anyways (Claws, Spines and Thorns are OK in my book.) They are too slow, horribly slow, or at least look slow.
   
   I personally love when I'm tossing a wave of melee attacks with my Fiery Melee tank and suddenly a sword just shows up in my hand and hits the foe, and I keep shifting between melee and fiery sword attacks.
   
   It feels fast and dynamic. The claws redraw may be more visible, but it actually looks like something you may do in the middle of a fight.
   
   For the most part, weapon redraws feel as something you would only do if you were 100 feet away from your foe.
   
   Due to this, I would love to have either much much shorter and dynamic weapon redraw animations (for all sets but the 3 listed above) or the ability to entirely interrupt the redraw* if you are already in melee range.