Dual wield for knives, daggers, etc.

[MZ3K]

Sup

I would suggest first familiarizing yourself with this sever before making any further posts in the suggestions forums. Just a thought.

I already addressed that. You never reply to the content of a post. Never.

 

[Bromista]

Hi

 

[Arch Enemy]

@halygon

Proposal:

• Create a dual wield skill
• Any character whose melee skill is greater than x can equip a small weapon (knife, dagger, cleaver, etc.) in their LH.
• Whenever a player fights with a weapon in each hand the dual wield skill (DW) increases.
• The lower of the melee skill and DW determines the player's chance to hit with the LH weapon.
• The lower of the parry skill and DW determines the player's chance to parry with the LH weapon. (Optional)

If testing were to reveal that a regular weapon in the RH and a small weapon in the LH were over-powered, then

• appropriately reduce the damage done by weapons when both the RH and LH are equipped, or
• permit a small weapon in the LH only when a small weapon is also in the RH.

If testing were to reveal that a small weapon in each hand were under-powered, then

• appropriately increase the damage done by small weapons , or
• create a special move whose use would require that the player have two small weapons equipped.

Regarding templates:

Two free hands are needed to cast, one free hand is needed to use pots. This would preclude magery and alchemy from templates with dual wield. I've already stated that melee would be a prerequisite for dual wield. I think it's fair to assume that tactics, resist, and (to a lesser extent) anatomy, are must-haves for any melee fighter. As such, viable dual wield templates would include five skills:

• Tactics
• Melee weapon
• Dual wield
• Resist
• Anatomy

That leaves room for two more skills. There are three fighting skills that a player might want to add to that template:

• Healing
• Parrying
• Poisoning

Regarding poisoning:

Poisoning increases the chance to poison on a hit from 20% to 40%. On the face of it, the combination of dual wield and poisoning seems to have the greatest potential to result in an OP template. However, I don't think that the combination would be as OP as it might seem at first blush:

First, dual wielders wouId not hit twice as often: Given a fight between GM fighters, there is a 50% chance that any one swing will hit its target. Consequently, during the time it takes for a single wielder to swing once, the dual wielder would have a 25% chance of hitting his opponent twice and a 50% chance of hitting his opponent exactly once. Therefore, if there is a 40% chance to poison on a hit with GM poisoning, then the single wielder's chance to poison on one swing is 20%; whereas the dual wielder's chance to poison during the same amount of time would be 36%.

Moreover, if a player were to include poisoning in her template, she would have to forgo either healing or parrying (assuming that the ability to parry with the LH weapon were included in the implementation). Given that the dual wielder can't equip a shield, if she were to forgo parrying, she would sacrifice a great deal of defense. However, if she were to forgo healing instead, she would forgo all opportunities to regenerate that would not require her to de-equip and re-equip.




Extra historical stuff:

During the renaissance, dual wielding two daggers, or a dagger and a rapier, was a popular fighting style. Generally, the dagger was used to parry blows, but it also provided extra attack options.

I think the problem with introducing another skill for melee is that it needs to be unique somehow and have it's own niche. If it's just that you can use two small weapons and do damage that is roughly equivalent to that of a traditional dexer, then what's the point of introducing the skill? If it does more damage than a traditional dexer, then everyone will just dual wield and no one will play traditional dexers. If it does less damage than no one is going to bother using dual wielding.

I think you need to focus on proposing the unique advantages and disadvantages of this skill. I know you said it would make for a more effective anti-mage template, I think you should expand on that. We already have traditional dexers that can hit with a poisoned kryss while throwing explo pots. That's a lot of potential spell disruption already right there, and since you can't throw explo pots while dual wielding, it seems to me the spell disruption potential might be roughly equivalent as well, given how spammable explo pots are.

So how exactly would it be more anti-mage than a traditional dexer? And what would be the balancing drawbacks for this increased anti-mage power?

But in all honesty I think the main problem you're going to face is people just hearing the words "dual wielding" on a mostly Renaissance era server. You're talking about implementing PvP related skills from the Samurai Empire expansion. AoS had already drastically changed things from the UOR era, and people who play on this server play here because they enjoyed UO as it was during that time. When they hear that aspects of the game from a time period AFTER AoS have been imported, ESPECIALLY when it affects PvP, they are most likely going to be turned off by it and may decide to not even give it a try.

 

[Bromista]

Props. I couldn't put the kid gloves on. Meanwhile you handled that with some serious tact.

I ran out of patience for this kinda stuff a long time ago, jaded by years of dealing with suggestions from people that are clearly looking for a server that is not UOF.

Being the most popular free server has its downsides too sometimes.

 

[King Dingaling]

im just gonna say this...

although i dont think dual weild is all that ridiculous of an idea, the main problem is the fact its something totally new to UO, and unrelated to the time frame this server is based on. Sure, things from other eras of UO are added, but to add a whole new weapon skill here probably wont be a priority any time soon, and shouldnt be.

 

[MZ3K]

... it needs to be unique somehow and have it's own niche.

Agreed.

If it's just that you can use two small weapons and do damage that is roughly equivalent to that of a traditional dexer, then what's the point of introducing the skill? If it does more damage than a traditional dexer, then everyone will just dual wield and no one will play traditional dexers. If it does less damage than no one is going to bother using dual wielding.

Dual wield should add about as much variety to both fencing and swords as lumberjacking added to swords when it was introduced.

Dual wield could be played by either a fencer or a swordsman. However, I expect that it would be played mostly by fencers, and so it would be, in effect, the fencer's version of the axer. If you compare it with the axer, and you bear in mind that the axer is not considered an unbalanced template then it should be easy to see that the dual wielder would be a balanced template.

The lumberjack forgoes the use of pots or a shield.
The dual-wielder would forgo the use of pots or a shield

The lumberjack is especially challenging for mages (as consequence of concussing blows)
The dual-wielders would be especially challenging for mages (as a consequence of a faster swing rate)

The lumberjack loses his chance to poison
The dual-wielder would increase her chance to poison

The lumberjack gains DPS against heavy armor
The dual-wielder loses DPS against heavy armor

The lumberjack gains DPS against light armor,
The dual-wielder neither gains nor loses DPS against light armor

 

[Winstonian]

I like the suggestion. Instead of adding a skill, use one of the skills that already exists (arms lore, for example). Restrict dual wielding to knives, daggers and clubs only. Balance the damage to mesh with other melee options.

More options only stands to make the game better. Continuing to diversify UOF will only help it to grow in popularity.