Forums: Suggestions

I was thinking that having spears would be pretty nice.
They’ll come either as melee-blades-spears or melee-polearms-spears.
Basically, most spear actions will have a range of 2, but will cause less damage or even be unable to attack at range 1.
The second type of spear actions will work on adjacent allies, and will counterattack anyone using melee actions on that ally, phallanx-style.

Good idea, but hard to implement, as some may argue that a staff, in itself, is a polearm as well. We had the idea, but we don’t know how to sort it and how to fit it into the rest of the melee skill tree correctly.

Melee Adjacent Buffs… that’s something that’s very complicated. The “Protective Blades” and “Protective Bludgeons” actions were originally planned to be such buffs (used on yourself, but in effect protecting yourself and adjacent allies) but since you would have been able to split up (move away) with the effect on yourself, the only solution to make this somewhat consistent and logical would have been to take the effect away if the affected ally moves. We can’t take away effects like that (actually, we can’t at all, right now) so my only solution to this dilemma was to take away all movement on all affected characters. As this would be quite unique, unforeseeable by many (especially new players) and if unexpected quite frustrating, we left it out and, instead of making it AoE double-blunt/blade-defense we made it slightly better, self-only versions of it.

Maybe, when Sheck finds a solution to empty space targetting, invisible/detectable effects, we’ll get the possibility to have self-targetted buffs affect adjacent spaces (relative to the buffed character). There is still a lot of room for improvements.

I see your point.
Maybe give it a 1 turn MP-denial effect on the ally? and cause the defending character to lose HIS MP when he uses it?

Yeah, I like the idea of “polearms” that allow for a slightly longer melee range. I think it would be more appropriate to do Melee-Polearms, and then under Polearms have Spears and Poleaxes. I think it’s ok to assume that Staves (at least, in Aethora) are designed for relatively close range combat and defense.

The only downside to polearms is that they would require two hands to use. One thing we could do, instead of coming up with a way to designate them as “two-handed” weapons (i.e. taking up both slots in the inventory) is something like what we have already for staves, which is an action called “two-handed strike”. This is a combo action that requires Brawling and Staves. By requiring brawling, we’re assuming there is one hand free (it might be gloved or knuckled, which is ok) to grab onto the staff with. So that’s a possibility for Polearms. The quirk is that if you equip any non-Brawling weapon in one hand and a Polearm in the other hand, the Polearm skill is going to be pretty useless.

So yeah, it’s possible – but it will probably be something that gets introduced later on, once we finish building Hopilus and start adding new continents.

Melee Adjacent Buffs…

Yeah, I have some ideas about implementing them – I won’t go into them here though, I’ll take that discussion to the development server :P

forcing polearms to combo with Brawling is problematic, I think.
If you have to use them with brawling, then you can’t use them with any other skill.

With Brawling, there could be still other skills involved: With the Polearm and with the Brawling item. (Imagine a Drak Polearm (with Frost secondary) and Ember Gloves (Brawling-Fire) – Polearm-Usage by Polearm+Brawling) If they don’t have primary polearm actions, but only Polearm-Brawling combos, they can even be used with secondary polearms and secondary brawling items.
It’s in any way much better than making Polearms two-handed and denying any secondary weapon at all. That only makes Polearm plus whatever is secondary on the Polearm possible – because Polearms traditionally are two-handed weapons.

Or do you mean we can’t combine them with other skills for actions? So, like make a fire-polearm attack? We technically could do tri-skill combos. We only have opted against it so far. If it would work out like this, it may actually provide a solution for Ranged and Polearms… so maybe these would get a basic-two-skill-combo they require, and then +x. For normal stuff, that’s too simple to make a difference, but here it may work.

We could also find other combinations. Polearm+Brawling, Polearm+Gravity, Polearm+Airwind… and then, from there, go with tri-skill. Polearm+Brawling+Fire. Polearm+Airwind+Frost…

Those are good points – almost good enough to work well – but it makes me realize one other thing. If basic polearm actions and brawling are married in that way, then anyone who gets good with a polearm is also simultaneously getting good with hand to hand fighting – not very fair to the other melee skills….

hmm. good point.
I thought that 3 skill actions were out, but if it’s a question of opting not to do it so far then it’s a whole different story.
As for the polearms and brawling being tied together, I don’t think it’s that much of a problem, since you’re going to have a serious disadvantage when using 3 skill actions, because you HAVE to use a secondary skill.

It’s not 100% correct that we simply opted not to do it.

At first, it was unnecessary, we wanted to get as many 2-skill combos as we wanted first. The system itself, as far as I know, can handle 3-skill combos. At the point when we were discussing 3-skill combo actions, we came to the conclusion that this was not viable:
3-Metatherics and 3-Melee combos were almost unthinkable, as the weaponry for that was too rare and sometimes too far-fetched… which would have limited us to 2-Melee + Metatherics, Melee + 2-Metatherics. Which would, in turn, have made most, if not all, of the new 3-skill actions melee ranged, and likely Metatherics-Infused Melee attacks like one of the largest groups of actions we currently have.

see my ideas can be good(occasionally, at least) ;-)

Sorry if this will be considered thread necromancy, but this forum’s rather slow, so…

I’m posting in support of this idea. Pole weapons are some of my favorites and would be a great idea. I think Melee-Polearms-Spears/Poleaxes would be a great tree, too…Poleaxes is a very clever way to add axes in the game, which are otherwise mysteriously absent.

Just to throw in my two-cents after reading through this…speaking as someone who has at least basic knowledge of how to handle a couple weapons, most spears and such can be “choked up” on to allow them to be used on closer-up opponents. Now, granted, this takes skill to do properly, is unwieldy, and not at all ideal, but it may give another idea how combinations involving this skill might work. Not sure I like the idea of marrying Polearms to Brawling…would be unnecessarily restrictive when you can just limit polearm attacks when in use with other melee weapons.

The main thing is: A weapon is made up of one or two skills. One-skill weapons automatically allow ALL actions that require only that skill. Two skill weapons allow ALL actions of the first skill and all those actions of the second skill that use combinations that you have with your weapon.

So… if we make true Polearm attacks Polearm primary, you can use them with any combination, no matter if you are wielding a warhammer, a longsword or a Krati Stone Staff in your other hand at the same time. (Means: We can’t limit an action to be used with “Polearm, but NOT with Blades OR Blunt OR Hand to Hand” or something, PLUS: metatherical weapons usually are held like sceptres as well, thus you don’t have a free hand with these, either.)

If we make it by combinations, we’d have to take a “normal” one (without burning or something) and that’d likely become Brawling as it makes the most sense. This would have to be used with all normal polearm attacks, or the normal polearm attacks would be split around between several skill sections. Plus, any normal combination (Burning Poleaxe Strike or something, Polearm/Fire for the example) would be available with ANY Polearm in one hand and ANY fire weapon (including, for example, a Plateney Hunting Torch Clubs/Fire) in the other.

Other option? Flag Polearms that they are two-handed (taking both slots), denying combinability altogether. Or make standard actions requiring them to be “choked up” (something that I can imagine rather well) which would be nonsensical as it requires some skill to do so effectively, and it would again limit “normal”, two handed strikes to some sort of combination, most likely with Brawling.

Plus: Staves are polearms, too, at least in some sense. So we’d have to break up the skill tree, or it’d get confusing.

Just to get back on this discussion. I’d love to see some halberds or something, but I can’t see it happening. Thanks for the input, though.

I like the idea of polearm weapons, and I think the combinations way you mentioned is the best.
Maybe you could change the staves skill into polearms and create some subskills (including staves?).
One point which is in favour of the combinations idea is that you get a penalty (less possibilities) if you use a polearm weapon without the right combination, for example the only primary attack with a polearm could be some kind of weak hit and nothing more, and the strong attacks work only as an assistance to primary the primary brawling skill.

I hope the polearm idea won’t die in this thread :-)

In German, the saying goes: “Was uns nicht umbringt, macht uns härter.”, which literally translates into: “What doesn’t kill us makes us tougher.” and exactly that’s the way such suggestion threads work. A good, well-thought out suggestion will be reviewed, and likely heavily criticized. Every single, small fault, error or problem will be gazed upon, and it will burn brightly… err… well. Then it can be backed up. Errors can be cleared up. Mistakes can be corrected. Stuff can be added in support, where stuff is missing.

This idea is good. It’s not yet realistic enough, but it is still discussed – and considered.

One point which is in favour of the combinations idea is that you get a penalty (less possibilities) if you use a polearm weapon without the right combination, for example the only primary attack with a polearm could be some kind of weak hit and nothing more, and the strong attacks work only as an assistance to primary the primary brawling skill.

That’s a pretty interesting solution. I like the thinking outside the box – up until now, all melee skills have one basic attack that has a baseline damage factor – in other words, they are pretty much your average attack. The one thing that still doesn’t feel right is the brawling combo – I liked the idea originally, because it meant even if you were wearing a spiked glove or something, you could still use the polearm, and therefore introduce more combo actions. The part that doesn’t feel right is the way the skill system works – as you use your polearm, you’d be increasing your Brawling and Hand-to-Hand skills; and that’s definitely not fair to the Blade and Blunt users (edit: I guess I already said this once before, now that I go back and read the rest of the thread).

If we were able to work polearms into the game, now that we have the minimum range setting for actions, we could always do one weak melee range action and another that has a min range so you can’t use it on someone right next to you, but someone one tile away (and it would be a normal strength attack – polearms would likely be high damage and low speed, so the end result would be stronger than the average blunt or blade attack).

Here’s another thought:
you’ve said before that 3 skill actions are possible.
so add a new skill called something like “offhand”, and make all “Standard” polearm attacks require the polearm skill and the offhand skill. then you can add 3 skill polearm-offhand-other skill actions.
make the offhand skill available on glove type items alone, and you’ve both blocked the ability to use polearms with any other weapon, and allowed for combos with meta skills from either the weapon or the glove.
This doesn’t, of course, prevent you from adding weak polearm only actions.

a bit convoluted, but it should work

Edit:
as an added bonus, the 2 handed staff action can be changed to the new offhand skill as well.

Main problem with a “offhand” category is that it’d require weapons with three skills instead of two.

Question, while I’m thinking about it…are we going under the assumption, then, that our characters do not have the time in combat to sheath and re-draw weapons? I can understand why you’d want to make the assumption that their weapons are essentially glued to their hands due to how the system works…I’m just having trouble visualizing some of these actions being done with one hand (staff fighting, brawling and grappling especially.) Now, yes, if the only way to incorporate poles is to make it married to brawling, then yeah, it may not be worth putting in. I’m just asking if it actually has to be that way to begin with.

Also…Sheck, any chance you can clarify on the whole “unfair to blade/blunt users because hand to hand will level up as well” thing? I assume you’re talking about how most melee skills can only join with metatherics or with other skills in their own skill group, like no Clubs+Long Blades skill. However, this is joining with Hand to Hand we’re talking about, and both blades and blunts can already do this anyway (Two-Handed Strike and Grab and Stab.)

The problem with that is, that it’d be more than one or two combinations out of many, but Sheck’s talking about the idea of making Polearm-usage “married” to Brawling, e.g. Polearm + Brawling ( + X )
One-handed staff fighting is possible, although it’s likely “too effective” in the game for how it would be done one-handed. I’m not especially knowledgeable about brawling (slug, for example, is described as a one-handed strike, while fire/stone/plant + brawling combinations suggest that both fists are used) – grappling… well, some of the most effective grappling combinations only require one hand/arm, but then again we’re taking the stretch here to say that whips can grapple… so I don’t know.