Weapon weights... *sigh*

[Faerador]

It's pretty ridiculous to have "swords" weighing almost 200 pounds. Assuming a blade that's 4 inches wide, 5 feet long and an INCH thick, made of the purest osmium, you MIGHT achieve a sword weighing that much, but just barely.

These blades aren't osmium. Given we're collecting iron to forge them, they're made out of iron, or steel if we're being generous and assuming that they're going through some alloying process, likely with magnesium, tungsten, carbon, chromium, or nickel, etc. Steels just don't have the density necessary to generate a 200-pound sword, unless it's 15 feet long, 4 inches wide, and with a blade an inch thick.

Given all that, I think the weapon weights need to be scaled back and rebalanced. I mean, why would anyone try to use a blade made out of a material far denser than necessary. It's not like these toons are trying to slice atoms apart or furbish the interior of a nuclear reactor centrifuge. They're using weapons the way people have always used weapons: to hurt and kill each other. No human is going to use a weapon that fails in its sole purpose. It's, and pardon the French, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stupid. If the devs are looking to balance combat gameplay, they need to find a better option than these artificial and unreasonable numbers.

[Hatsune Neko Gaming]

they are also a tool for strength training.
and it's a video game, weights don't have to match what's possible in real life.

[Faerador]

I knew someone would give that justification. To which I reply: Weights may not have to match "reality," except in a game that purports to simulate reality. To do otherwise is sloppy, bad world-building. There's no reason the weights cannot be scaled appropriately, as there are better ways to incorporate "strength training" too.

But it must be affirmed, that's just my own two cents, and why this thread is in "Gameplay and Balance," rather than "Bugs." I don't intend to start an argument, merely a discussion. Further, if I could, I'd definitely mod this goofiness out of my own game. However, we do not seem to have the tools to do so.

[Hatsune Neko Gaming]

Originally posted by Faerador:

I knew someone would give that justification. To which I reply: Weights may not have to match "reality," except in a game that purports to simulate reality.

not really
there's lots of things in game that do not match reality.
though i'm no expert on weapons, Shidan is the one for that, he could explain much better as i believe there is another purpose to the weight and it involves combat.

[Shidan]

The weights are heavily used to influence speed and the like, but nothing that couldn't also be fairly easily scaled to smaller weights. If all weights were halved it would be pretty easy to make the effects the same, as long as everything stayed consistent relative to each other.

That said, personally the over weighted weapons doesn't bother me at all. Though it's not like I would mind them changed either. It's simply something I can over look without it breaking my immersion.

Is important to note though, this game has never purported itself to represent realistic combat. The dev had many unrealistic action-movie style inspirations with regards to combat, things like punches that send people flying 10 meters back, or deflecting arrows with a sword. Lifting and fighting with a super heavy sword fits right in with that style imo.

[Gopher]

suggest it for someone to make a mod fixing this issue

[Faerador]

Originally posted by Sweaty Gopher:

suggest it for someone to make a mod fixing this issue

You can't, really. You have a "base weight" you can set as a minimum, but there's no way to set a maximum weight, as the weight scales off blunt damage. This is why the higher ranked weapons weigh more, despite being made of exactly the same material. You can't nerf weight without nerfing damage. Just more bad design that hopefully won't be designed in such an asinine way in Kenshi 2.

Originally posted by HaTsUnE_NeKo:

there's lots of things in game that do not match reality

I mean, yeah if you're talking about the sci-fi elements that don't exist in our universe, but as far as physics-breaking, immersion-breaking design choices, I can't think of many apart from weapons that weigh 200 pounds yet require no Mako-infused SOLDIER to wield.

Originally posted by Shidan:

That said, personally the over weighted weapons doesn't bother me at all. Though it's not like I would mind them changed either. It's simply something I can over look without it breaking my immersion.

Yeah, it's not a huge deal as far as something along the lines of never wanting to play the game again, but it is a bit immersion breaking for me, and more than just a minor annoyance. The problem is, it's another minor issue in the plethora of problems that keep this game from being great.