Idea for "Dual Wielding Weapons" skill.

[Ni-]

This is in response to a question posed by Jeremy in a thread that appears to have made it to SNR.

So for melee, what are you looking for, exactly? You mention Dual Wield - what does that mean to you (aside from the obvious art/animation things?) How would it change gameplay? What do you feel is missing from your template now?

Dual Wielding.
- Placing a one handed weapon in the off hand will slow the swing speed of that weapon by 1.5 times. e.g. a Kryss in the main hand would be 2.00 second swing speed, a Kryss in the off hand would be 3.00 second swing speed.
- Using a Weapon in the off hand causes it to only be partially effective as it would have been in the main hand. This could be accomplished multiple ways... either force the off hand weapon to be about half as effective as it would have been if it were in the main hand or give the off hand a severe -HCI.
- Damage from the off hand weapon could be reduced to 25-75% of the normal weapons base dmg totals.
- If this option proves to be pretty powerful then require Parry similar to how Bushido does, or require both Parry and Bushido.
- Each weapon would have it's own Properties added to it's own calculations. e.g. HCI found on a Ring would count for both weapon attacks. HCI found on the off hand weapon would not count for the main hand calculation and vise versa.
- One or multiple of the penalties (Swing Speed, Hit Chance, Damage) on the off handed weapon could scale with the increase in skill.
- - Swing Speed could start at 2x Swing speed time to 1.5 Swing Speed time.
- - Damage could start at 25% of the normal Base Damage and increase to a max of 75% of the normal Base Damage.
- - Hit Chance, either...
- - - start at 25% effectiveness of the normal weapon, increasing to 75% effectiveness at max skill.
OR
- - - Start at -75% HCI and increase to -25% HCI.
- Wrestling could have no penalties. At max skill a wrestler would basically be striking with both hands at the same Swing Speed, Hit chance, and Damage.


Just a quick thought...


How sweet would it be to be able to wield Twin Scimitars?

 

[T_Amon_from_work]

This is in response to a question posed by Jeremy in a thread that appears to have made it to SNR.



Dual Wielding.
- Placing a one handed weapon in the off hand will slow the swing speed of that weapon by 1.5 times. e.g. a Kryss in the main hand would be 2.00 second swing speed, a Kryss in the off hand would be 3.00 second swing speed.
- Using a Weapon in the off hand causes it to only be partially effective as it would have been in the main hand. This could be accomplished multiple ways... either force the off hand weapon to be about half as effective as it would have been if it were in the main hand or give the off hand a severe -HCI.
- Damage from the off hand weapon could be reduced to 25-75% of the normal weapons base dmg totals.
- If this option proves to be pretty powerful then require Parry similar to how Bushido does, or require both Parry and Bushido.
- Each weapon would have it's own Properties added to it's own calculations. e.g. HCI found on a Ring would count for both weapon attacks. HCI found on the off hand weapon would not count for the main hand calculation and vise versa.
- One or multiple of the penalties (Swing Speed, Hit Chance, Damage) on the off handed weapon could scale with the increase in skill.
- - Swing Speed could start at 2x Swing speed time to 1.5 Swing Speed time.
- - Damage could start at 25% of the normal Base Damage and increase to a max of 75% of the normal Base Damage.
- - Hit Chance, either...
- - - start at 25% effectiveness of the normal weapon, increasing to 75% effectiveness at max skill.
OR
- - - Start at -75% HCI and increase to -25% HCI.
- Wrestling could have no penalties. At max skill a wrestler would basically be striking with both hands at the same Swing Speed, Hit chance, and Damage.


Just a quick thought...


How sweet would it be to be able to wield Twin Scimitars?

I'm thinking the offhand penalties are pretty stiff. Tone them down some BUT add a penalty for a secondary weapon that is not within the same basic class as the primary. Example: Soul Seeker is Swords and similar to a Radiant Scimitar class/style weapon.

If I dual-equip SS plus a Katana I incur off-hand and unlike penalties. If I equip another SS or something in the Radiant Scimitar area, then I incur the off-hand penalty and no unlike weapon penalty.

However, what if the character equips two exact weapons? Off-hand penalty applies, but would there be a gain by using twins? What is the effect of dual-wield to specials like double-strike and so forth? Does Enemy of One apply equally to both weapons used?

I'm just raising questions but am seriously interested in the ability to dual-wield ever since I experienced it in DAoC several years back.

 

[Violence]

For excellent Dual Wield implementation and how it is balanced against the other classes' abilities you should THOROUGHLY EXAMINE Diablo 2, Titan Quest : Immortal Throne and Neverwinter Nights 2. :gun:

As for online games examples of Dual Wield being fun AND fair check Lineage, WoW and and Age Of Conan.

Basically as I'm always saying in every other post about SA and new skills.. UO is once more left behind. Far behind. It's all about casters and it's getting way old.

I won't even start an argument about how 2Handed Weapons really DESERVE SPECIAL SKILLS TOO.

F*CK THROWING SKILL. :loser:

 

[Corrupted Goblin]

BARBARIAN CLASS!!!!! i think in order to run dual wield you would need to run a complete warrior template and have atleast 100 in weapon tact and anat real skill. other than that i am completely ok with duel weilding

 

[JC the Builder]

If you duel wield then using bandages should be prohibited.

 

[kinney42]

If you duel wield then using bandages should be prohibited.

Not ok for bandages with 2 weapons in hands But it's totally ok to use a bandage when you have a weapon and shield in hands?
yeah, that makes sense.

 

[JC the Builder]

If you are actively wielding two weapons, that is different from having a second hand ready to balance a large weapon or hold a shield. It may not may perfect realistic sense, but prohibiting bandage use when duel wielding could help balance such a skill.

 

[Nexus]

I'm opposed to any type of dual wield, it will cause nightmares in PvP regardless. This doesn't allow for any limitation on special strikes for weapons leading to balance issues. I'd much rather see them introduce something like the various parrying daggers. The Main Gauche, Sword Breaker, and the Trident Daggers. The main purpose of these is to replace the shield, the Main Gauche could be a parry weapon with a small chance to land an additional hit passively...The Sword Breaker could be the same with the addition of a small chance to disarm again passively, the Trident Dagger similar to the Sword breaker but have a slightly higher disarm chance yet again passively. Maybe have a Tactics/Parry requirement for the secondary effects to be able to work.

These wouldn't be off balancing...as long as there are no ways to boost the disarm or hit chance of the off hand weapon.....

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

argh.

 

[Gheed]

As for online games examples of Dual Wield being fun AND fair check Lineage, WoW and and Age Of Conan.

Add FFXI to the list of solid Dual Wield ability. While technicly only available on their ninja class job, they add the delay of both weapons.. so wielding two 2 second weapons results in a 4 second delay. Then as the ninja gets higher in level they get various dual wield traits. First level is a -10% to the combined delay. Second is a -15%... on up to dual wield 4 (-30% combined delay).

You could easily factor that in to UO by adding a -1% delay per every 4 points in Dual Wield and Tactics skill. Require that -1% be tied to stamina as well so you would get a -30% combined delay at 120 dual wield/tactics and stamina.

 

[Norrar]

i want duel wield... but i wouldnt want to be able to use specials on offhand wep.

annnddd... if you look it up, samurai would use two weps as well as just one (make gm bushido a req.)

 

[Connor_Graham]

If you are actively wielding two weapons, that is different from having a second hand ready to balance a large weapon or hold a shield. It may not may perfect realistic sense, but prohibiting bandage use when duel wielding could help balance such a skill.

The fact that you'd have to use another 100 skill points would be enough to balance such a skill. Not being able to use the primary healing method for a warrior is just dumb, especially under the premise that it's because you have a weapon in that hand.

Like you'd be able to bandage yourself now while swinging a sword, fending off another sword or claw that's beating on your 100 lb shield, while drinking a magic potion and casting magic spells, with magic spells being cast on you.

 

[Connor_Graham]

This doesn't allow for any limitation on special strikes for weapons leading to balance issues.

A simple limitation would be to not allow specials to be used on the off hand weapon.

Problem solved.

 

[ultima online]

a wizard done it!

Like you'd be able to bandage yourself now while swinging a sword, fending off another sword or claw that's beating on your 100 lb shield, while drinking a magic potion and casting magic spells, with magic spells being cast on you.

dont forget they can ressurect dead people too!

 

[Basara]

I'm opposed to dual-wield personally, but if it was implemented, this is how I'd do it.

1. The weapons cannot strike at the same time.

2. The Weapons alternate swings, using the average of the two weapon's unmodified swing speeds, plus 1 tick. So, if you used weapons that had speeds of 3s & 2.5s, the average would be 2.75, plus the 0.25 for the extra tick, and so would have a base swing of 3s. SSI from the weapons would be combined, then divided by 2, then added to SSI from non-weapon items and the swing speed increases from high dexterity.

3. DI would be similarly averaged as SSI was. HCI & DCI would combine, but suffer a penalty of -24%, -2% per 10 points in the Dual Wield skill. Luck, FC & FCR, if on the weapons, are cumulative (just like weapon & shield). Other weapon properties only come into play when the weapon they are on is swinging.

4. Special moves have their timer increased to 5 seconds, cost 5 more to use (and the 5 mana penalty is doubled by too-quick use), and the special move timer applies to both weapons.

5. Being hit by most weapon special moves (including monster special attacks like the colossal blow or breath weapons) has a chance to disarm one of the weapons. Being hit by disarm can disarm one or both weapons (separate checks for each weapon, and if the primary weapon resists, the secondary is at a penalty to resist disarm; conversly, if the primary is disarmed, the secondary gets a bonus to resist the disarm). Stopping bleeding or resurrecting someone with the healing skill will require leaving dual wield (removing one weapon), but normal healing will not.

6. The bonuses & penalties to parry for dual wield function exactly like the Bushido ones, only treating 2 weapons as the "2-handed weapon" of Bushido's parry.

7. Daishos that are loot (not crafted) can be taken into the imbuing system to be split into their component weapons (katana and wakasashi), to be used by the dual wielder. The other two-weapon items from SE will be as well, though stats would have to be made for only one part.

 

[Ni-]

I feel the the severe Hit Chance, Damage, and Swing Speed limitations I originally suggested would be enough to keep combat somewhat balanced.

The healing limitations seems a bit extraneous. An excuse about the inability of being able to apply bandages while holding 2 weapons could easily be ported over to Archery or 2 handed melee weapons or shields. If an archer can apply bandages between bow shots without having to worry about the time it takes to nock and aim an arrow then a Dual Wielder should be able to apply bandages also. If the excuse is that there is down time for 2 handed weapon or shield fighters, then there could also be down time for Dual Wielders. I don't see Parriers drop their shields to apply bandages.

The DPS output should have similar results as Tactics. To me, the fact that 200 points would need to be invested(Parry/DualWield) should be more than enough balancing measures.

Dual Wielding would be similar to Bushido(needing Parry), instead of defensive it would be offensive(without spells).

 

[Chad Sexington]

So for melee, what are you looking for, exactly? You mention Dual Wield - what does that mean to you (aside from the obvious art/animation things?) How would it change gameplay? What do you feel is missing from your template now?

I like the idea of a Barbarian class.

What are the qualities of Barbarians, you ask? The ability to use many types of weapons.

Duel Wielding should require two different weapon skills. You shouldn't be able to wield 2 swords, 2 maces, or 2 fencing weapons at once. You should be forced to (and the game should check) your skill in 2 of the 3 fighting skills: Swords, Fencing, Mace Fighting.

You'd get many bonuses, but you'd have to give up potentially 120 skill points.

Let the balance come from skill points, not from more calculator work.




edit: The benefit would be potentially 4 different specials without switching, and stacking of effects like HLD from one weapon and not having HLD on another. (Maybe a slight increase in swing.)

 

[Arch Magus]

I like the idea of a Barbarian class.

What are the qualities of Barbarians, you ask? The ability to use many types of weapons.

Duel Wielding should require two different weapon skills. You shouldn't be able to wield 2 swords, 2 maces, or 2 fencing weapons at once. You should be forced to (and the game should check) your skill in 2 of the 3 fighting skills: Swords, Fencing, Mace Fighting.

You'd get many bonuses, but you'd have to give up potentially 120 skill points.

Let the balance come from skill points, not from more calculator work.




edit: The benefit would be potentially 4 different specials without switching, and stacking of effects like HLD from one weapon and not having HLD on another. (Maybe a slight increase in swing.)

Personally I hate the whole idea of Dual weild in UO...

BUT , if it was done, Chad's idea here is the best so far. Probably a good idea to include Tactics inthere too.

 

[Ni-]

Chad, with your idea you're saying that you'd have to have Swords, Macing, and Barbarian skills. How would that be different from Swords, Parry, and Dual Wielding, from the view-point of skill points? I don't like the idea of being forced to have 2 different weapons. Considereing we're talking about a fantasy game, of the few dual wielding fantasy characters I've read about, half of them have used the same type of weapons.

I still say only allow the main hand weapon to utilize the special attacks, or possibly also allow only the primary attack of the off hand weapon. The idea is to limit the offhanded weapons effectiveness so that is seems to be around the effectiveness of having 70ish in the weapons skill.

Basically the main handed weapon would be un-effected with or without the dual wielding skill. An off handed weapon would become more effective the higher the skill, but even at max dual wielding skill it would still be only half as effective as the main hand weapon, which total would cause the meleer to be 1.5 times as effective that wielding a single weapon.

This would basically be the opposite of Bushido. Bushido allows the meleer to last longer because of boosted defense. A Dual Wielder wouldn't have that defense bonus, instead they would have a boosted offense.

Ultimately, the different limitations on Hit Chance, Weapon Damage and Swing Speed could be adjusted for balancing purposes.

The number I present in this idea are to give an idea. The final numbers would come from the Devs through Q&A and Testers

 

[Eslake]

Like you'd be able to bandage yourself now while swinging a sword, fending off another sword or claw that's beating on your 100 lb shield, while drinking a magic potion and casting magic spells, with magic spells being cast on you.

Actually a Stone weight is roughly 2 pounds, so most shields in the game weigh more like 15 pounds than 100. But I agree with what you're saying.

Besides, they already Gave us dual wield, or as close to it as they ever will.

Ever equip Sai?

That is as close as they will give us.
It works in games with classes where Class penalties can help balance the ability to strike with 2 weapons, but in UO it would be the biggest balancing nightmare since the game's inception.

 

[Omnius]

require anat, tactics and armslore. and have armslore reduce the penalty to your weapons from dual wielding at 60/70/80/90/ and at gm in progressive steps so dual wielding with legendary tactics and anat with gm armslore would be very formidable dmg output but have parry suffer alot from dual wielding.

opens up armslore/anat/tactics/swords/bushido/healing/chiv to pvp. heavily gear reliant template but able to compete with most mages/archers in efficiency.

 

[Connor_Graham]

Actually a Stone weight is roughly 2 pounds, so most shields in the game weigh more like 15 pounds than 100. But I agree with what you're saying.

Obviously they've never picked up a real shield.

And I always thought the real (not UO) weight of a stone was more like 20 pounds, which would make more sense with some of the weights.

 

[T_Amon_from_work]

Wiki sez:

The stone is a unit of weight. It is part of the Imperial system of weights and measures used in the British Isles, and formerly used in most Commonwealth countries. It is equal to 14 pounds and to 6.35029318 kilograms.
Eight stone make a hundredweight in the Imperial system.

Based on this, an ingame weight of 5 (stone) = about 70 US pounds.

 

[Connor_Graham]

Ah ok. I was close then. I always knew it was a fair amount of weight.

 

[Ni-]

Actually a Stone weight is roughly 2 pounds, so most shields in the game weigh more like 15 pounds than 100. But I agree with what you're saying.

Besides, they already Gave us dual wield, or as close to it as they ever will.

Ever equip Sai?

That is as close as they will give us.
It works in games with classes where Class penalties can help balance the ability to strike with 2 weapons, but in UO it would be the biggest balancing nightmare since the game's inception.

hhmmm...

What about allowing embuing to combine 2 1-handed-weapons into a 1 2-handed-weapon graphic? That could avoid a whole combat balance. Just average all the base weapon mods(base min dmg, base max dmg, base swing speed)?

Then only like types should be combinable...

Not sure how Item properties would be combined...

Unless the new combination item kept all the item properties and weapon skill from the main handed weapon, and just average the base weapon mods togather.

Would that be any more acceptable?

 

[Ni-]

hhmmm...

What about allowing embuing to combine 2 1-handed-weapons into a 1 2-handed-weapon graphic? That could avoid a whole combat balance. Just average all the base weapon mods(base min dmg, base max dmg, base swing speed)?

Then only like types should be combinable...

Not sure how Item properties would be combined...

Unless the new combination item kept all the item properties and weapon skill from the main handed weapon, and just average the base weapon mods togather.

Would that be any more acceptable?

That would actually nerf the higher DPS weapon. I just input a test of a weapon combination of a Kryss and a Mace. A lone Kryss started out at a DPS of 31.57(this is including a bunch of calculating factors, but all those factors were the same for all tests). A lone Mace started out at 23.32. The combination of both would be either 24.6 if the swing speed was rounded up to 2.5 or 31.092 if the swing speed was rounded down to 2.25.

Base Base
Damage Swing
Min-Max Speed
Kryss 10-12 2.00
Mace 12-14 2.75

Combo 11-13 2.375*

* = would need to be rounded to either 2.25 or 2.50

 

[Kith Kanan]

DAOC , savages dual wield monster class .....

 

[Eslake]

Obviously they've never picked up a real shield.

And I always thought the real (not UO) weight of a stone was more like 20 pounds, which would make more sense with some of the weights.

There are actually different "Stone" weights. But we asked back around 99 what it really weighed, and were told it was from an old merchants system where a stone held in the palm of the hand was a basis of measuring weight for foodstuffs being sold. - and that it would be around 2 pounds.

Which makes more sense than the 20 (or the 14 from the english system mentioned below your post) since that would mean players could walk around carrying nearly 4 metric tons of gear.

Not that being able to cart around 1000 lbs is realistic, but we are supposed to be playing "Heros" of a sort, so it isn't too twisted.


As to real shields, you are right for the most part. I have a small if exclusive collection of historical armors and weaponry, and can attest that some of them make me wonder how anyone could ever have actually Used one in battle.
But some are also much lighter than you would think. I have 2 Roman metal-capped hide bucklers that only weigh about 4lbs each, and they aren't replicas.


Since I'm already off-topic, I wish they would allow us to craft Leather shields, since historically speaking, more shields actually Used in battle were made primarily from hides than from metals.

---
My bad, the merchants system wasn't UO. But it still makes more sense that way that to say my miner is carrying home 7,000 pounds of ingots each trip.