I think two-handed weapons are too weak

[Fynnegan]

I've already played different builds and party constellations, but I quickly noticed that two-handed weapons aren't even close in terms of damage than dual wielding weapons.

Already in vanilla state two weapons are better than one two-handed weapon, the gap even widens when you modify them, two weapons with more damage/critical are better than one weapon with more damage/critical. Not to mention that dual wield benefits more from damage enhacing buffs like fury/charge because of more attacks.

First strike can't make up for this loss of damage, because it's not guaranteed that your first strike user gets attacked for sure. I've tested several times and besides some niche builds (like the greatsword riposte/counterattack build) two-haned weapons are inferior to dual wield.

I think the damage of one strike of a two-handed weapon need to be on par with the two attacks of dual wield.

I love this game and I hope wielding two-handed weapons gets more viable :)

[Kezarus]

Thanks for the contribution, Fynnegan! We try our best to make this game as balanced as possible. Maybe we can tweak the numbers and that's really easy to do. We just need to make that with care not to balloon them out of proportion. Will look into that! ^_~

[Vex]

Perhaps, but I don't think it matters unless you're min-maxing? I've got an Orc with the Legendary two-handed hammer and two-handed axe with the two-handed mastery and he tends to just wipe out everything around him with whirlwind, regardless of guard/armor. I've also got an elf with the legendary spear and dagger for dual-wielding, and they generally just kill enemies one at a time as fan of knives doesn't compare to whirlwind for AOE damage.

[Darkluv]

2H sword tank might become the only main stream build but there are niche builds that can work with 2H weapons. You can make a sylvan rusher with 2H hammers to shoot into the enemy formation from the start and putting it's AOE capabilities to work before they mix in with your melee.

[Fynnegan]

Originally posted by Vex:

Perhaps, but I don't think it matters unless you're min-maxing? I've got an Orc with the Legendary two-handed hammer and two-handed axe with the two-handed mastery and he tends to just wipe out everything around him with whirlwind, regardless of guard/armor. I've also got an elf with the legendary spear and dagger for dual-wielding, and they generally just kill enemies one at a time as fan of knives doesn't compare to whirlwind for AOE damage.

I love min-maxing :)
Sure, almost every playstyle is viable and it's difficult to mess up a build, but like in every other game of this kind there are stronger and weaker weapons/builds/magic whatsoever.
Just because the game mechanics are so easy to access and understand, the gap between some weapons really stand out. For example the two-handed spear, it has first-strike and can be thrown, these two features are a little bit counterproductive, the former needs to be close to the enemy, the latter needs some space. I couldn't make a build with a two-handed spear work at the same level like dual wielding or at least the other two handed weapons. But it's fun to play nontheless!

Originally posted by Kezarus:

Thanks for the contribution, Fynnegan! We try our best to make this game as balanced as possible. Maybe we can tweak the numbers and that's really easy to do. We just need to make that with care not to balloon them out of proportion. Will look into that! ^_~

Thanks, that would be great!
I think a minor tweak is enough to make two-handed weapons worthwile and more effective. I'm looking forward now to my two-handed hammer-guy smashing heads ;)

[Kezarus]

I was discussing with the QA yesterday and we will have more back and forth today. But the 2-Handed weapons are already too powerful and the 2 Weapons stacks bonuses like crazy. One of the ideas was to reduce the weapon damages and leave the 2-Handed as it is. But that one of the many ideas. We are still talking about it.

Does anyone have suggestions? =]

Cheers!

[redwitch]

Originally posted by Kezarus:

I was discussing with the QA yesterday and we will have more back and forth today. But the 2-Handed weapons are already too powerful and the 2 Weapons stacks bonuses like crazy. One of the ideas was to reduce the weapon damages and leave the 2-Handed as it is. But that one of the many ideas. We are still talking about it.

Does anyone have suggestions? =]

Cheers!

yes, tweaking the 2 weapons bonuses may be the better approach. I've noticed that enemies wielding 2 weapons, esp. multi attacks, can be devastating. If one of my characters gets knocked down it's mostly by a combination of them.

[Fynnegan]

Originally posted by redwitch:

Originally posted by Kezarus:

I was discussing with the QA yesterday and we will have more back and forth today. But the 2-Handed weapons are already too powerful and the 2 Weapons stacks bonuses like crazy. One of the ideas was to reduce the weapon damages and leave the 2-Handed as it is. But that one of the many ideas. We are still talking about it.

Does anyone have suggestions? =]

Cheers!

yes, tweaking the 2 weapons bonuses may be the better approach. I've noticed that enemies wielding 2 weapons, esp. multi attacks, can be devastating. If one of my characters gets knocked down it's mostly by a combination of them.

Is certainly possible, but tweaking weapon damage down results in longer fights and in a game which is so combat heavy like this one long fights might become tedious. I like that fights are fast paced in Endless RPG, with the only things which make fights longer are heavy armored undead, kiting archers - and of course too little damage.

I noticed today that Shield Bash only works for the main attack and not for skills like e.g, Feint. Is this intended? As it is now it makes Shield Bash nearly useless. It may be better if it works with skill attacks, too.

[Kezarus]

Yeah, that's why we are think about it carefully. One bad tweak and the game can turns towards the wrong way.

About Shield Bash, it's make to be almost like a second weapon. So the "sacrifice" you made by not having a weapon in the offhand is greatly reduced. Also, it provokes anyone that it hits. But, then again, it's still a shield.

[redwitch]

Originally posted by Fynnegan:

Is certainly possible, but tweaking weapon damage down results in longer fights and in a game which is so combat heavy like this one long fights might become tedious. I like that fights are fast paced in Endless RPG, with the only things which make fights longer are heavy armored undead, kiting archers - and of course too little damage.

I noticed today that Shield Bash only works for the main attack and not for skills like e.g, Feint. Is this intended? As it is now it makes Shield Bash nearly useless. It may be better if it works with skill attacks, too.

well, you have a point, but I still argue that 2 weapons wielders are OP compared to all others. The AI likes to spam them, esp, the cultists, and 2 of them double wielding axes have no trouble destroying my highly armored and buffed tank. Compared to them any other is just ridiculously harmless.

[Vex]

Sounds to me like dual-wielders need a hard counter, is all.

Perhaps if used against a character equipped with a shield, multiple attacks are blocked for full, without draining guard or shredding armor beyond that first initial hit to land? It'd give shields a bit more value in party building, while a player's dual-wielders can just be directed to avoid enemies equipped with shields, or switch to a different weapon set.

[redwitch]

btw ... to address the issue of reducing the length of the fights maybe the reinforcement mechanics could be addressed, at least optional, as it's true that clearing dungeons requires a lot of time, esp. if the encounters include reinforcement waves, and those fights tend to get really tedious.

[redwitch]

concerning dual wielding units, also, they seem to be almost immune to AOE magic attacks, because of their high evasion. I have a red mage with the master skill and each time I cast it in a bandit or cultists camp it doesn't do any damage at all, because everyone evades it (not the single target attacks). This combined with the deadly attacks by dual-wielders makes clearing these camps much much harder than undead and warlords camps which rely more on heavily armored shield wielders and 2-handed units. They have also a lot of mages but they hardly do any serious damage. Like the archers they are just annoying because they wander up and down the map and you have to chase them down.

[Kezarus]

Maybe dual wielding is being... greatly overrated. 😅 In terms of overall damage and bonuses, yeah, it's a bit too much. But that's it.

Evasion is based on Guard (up to 20% max) and is countered by Guard Breaker. Reflex Saves are based on Speed and can halve AoE attacks (even Cleave and Fan of Spikes). None of these are granted by wielding two weapons. =]

Also, using two weapons denies the use of a shield or a two-handed weapon, one gives a lot of Guard (which recovers over time) and First Strike (which is king when facing other melee attackers). And maybe the balance is skewed toward dual wielding.

I'm still a bit worried about the amount of raw damage dual wielding has, but if I reduce it, it’ll do almost no damage in the early game. Reducing the damage bonuses might also introduce too many bugs at this stage of development. I'm still thinking though.


Cheers! =]

[redwitch]

Originally posted by Kezarus:

Maybe dual wielding is being... greatly overrated. 😅 In terms of overall damage and bonuses, yeah, it's a bit too much. But that's it.

Evasion is based on Guard (up to 20% max) and is countered by Guard Breaker. Reflex Saves are based on Speed and can halve AoE attacks (even Cleave and Fan of Spikes). None of these are granted by wielding two weapons. =]

Also, using two weapons denies the use of a shield or a two-handed weapon, one gives a lot of Guard (which recovers over time) and First Strike (which is king when facing other melee attackers). And maybe the balance is skewed toward dual wielding.

I'm still a bit worried about the amount of raw damage dual wielding has, but if I reduce it, it’ll do almost no damage in the early game. Reducing the damage bonuses might also introduce too many bugs at this stage of development. I'm still thinking though.


Cheers! =]

well, I'm sure you know best how to balance your game :-)
I'm just giving some impressions of my gameplay, over 50 hours already, and I noticed a big difference in the difficulty in dealing with the different base types. Undead and warlords are pretty easy by now, my party is max level with high level equipment, but cultists and bandits are usually much more challenging, mainly due to the damage dual wielders do. It may happen to get one unit knocked down right at combart start if 2 or 3 dual wielders (esp. axes) decide to focus at them. Yes, they are much more frail and easy to kill, but their damage output and high initiative makes them much more dangerous nonetheless.

[Vex]

Originally posted by Kezarus:

Maybe dual wielding is being... greatly overrated. 😅 In terms of overall damage and bonuses, yeah, it's a bit too much. But that's it.

The thing is, when you've got enough damage to clear the field, then defense doesn't matter. If you don't get attacked because all your enemies are dead, then you take no damage.

Most weapons and combat styles have some sort of hard counter. Swords/Axes don't work well against enemies with armor, for example, whereas maces are the hard counter to armored units.

Dual wielding effectively doubles the strengths of a given weapon, while trivializing its weakness by getting in multiple hits (particularly if one gets the multi-hit skill and masters it to hit 4 times).

It's why I suggested shields being their hard counter, effectively full-blocking all but the first hit. I mean, it only makes sense. If someone is going to throw an axe into your face half a dozen times, and you have a shield, why wouldn't you use it?

"Hit me once, shame on you. Hit me twice, shame on me."