Voulge weirdness

[Kamiyama]

The normal voulge is not unbalanced but the shortened voulge is. Why?

It's sort of like an axe blade at the end of a stick. The blade is going to be heavy. The longer the stick is, the more unwieldy (and thus unbalanced) the weapon will be. If you shorten the stick, you get more control over the weapon because it's not leveraging all that weight against your muscles.

Leveraging is exactly the right word by the way. This is literally how levers work. The longer the stick, the easier it is to move large objects.

That axe head at the end of a long stick is going to feel much more difficult to swing because your muscles are the focal point holding all that weight. Put the axe head at the end of a shorter stick and it's going to be easier to swing.

It should be the opposite of how it currently works in the game. The voulge should be unbalanced and the shortened voulge should not be unbalanced.

I really want to get a balanced shortened voulge with that nice speed buff from the balanced tag so I can have a two-handed axe I can swing around, beat on shields with, and also block with in duels.

The normal voulge is slower so it's not something that would be good to duel with.

[Khalunka]

What is your goal with your topic? Game is hella old. Maybe you could try using Morph's Editor and change that weapon as it suits you.

[Kamiyama]

The way it works irritates me. That is all.

[stun]

There are two weapons called 'voulge' and one called 'shortened voulge'. The item that's actually considered voulge internally (that can't stab, isn't unbalanced, and isn't that long) isn't relevant to this conversation. For clarity, the shortened voulge can also be called two_handed_battle_axe_c and the longer form, which is unbalanced, is two_handed_battle_long_axe_a.

The long voulge has a length of 175, yet only weighs 3.0 and at it's head does 40 chopping damage.
The short voulge has a length of 100, yet still weighs 4.5 and at it's head does 45 chopping damage.
It's clear that the short voulge has a much, much, much heavier head. It produces more force despite being shorter and weighs more despite having ~half the shaft. It's an incredibly heavy and awkward weapon. By way of comparison, all the other two_handed_battle_long_axe's (e.g. long bardiche) with similar functionality to the voulge which have the same damage at the tips of their much longer swing than the short voulge weigh more than the short voulge (at least 4.75) and are considerably shorter than the long voulge. Claiming the long voulge is the one that would be unbalanced is like saying that a quarterstaff is harder to swing and control than a sledgehammer.

Outside of this strict comparison, your view on wielding polearms is also too simplistic.
You won't place both hands on the different weapons at the same length up the shaft. You can hold a longer weapon much further up the shaft, and aren't forced to adopt that exaggerated baseball bat pose to swing it effectively. The longer voulge literally has different animations because it is a polearm, and not a 2handed weapon. Have you seen how you swing the shortened voulge on the horse?
You can also retrieve the head of weapons with longer shafts by feeding the shaft back to your dominant hand. This is pretty fast depending on how heavy your weapon actually is, and again the long voulge isn't much heavier than a spear, many of which it is longer than. This is not a weapon with a heavy head.

Originally posted by Kamiyama:

I really want to get a balanced shortened voulge with that nice speed buff from the balanced tag so I can have a two-handed axe I can swing around, beat on shields with, and also block with in duels.

The normal voulge is slower so it's not something that would be good to duel with.

Not being able to stab makes it useless for srs bzns online duels anyway. (lol)
There are plenty of very good 2handed axes in this game, many faster than the short voulge. No need to ask for the shortened voulge specifically.

Also, 'unbalanced' just means the feint window after release is shorter. I mean, you have to get this monster head moving, so yeah, that seems accurate.

[Kamiyama]

I found a balanced two handed sabre with 99 speed and 47 cut damage. I really like it. Will this penetrate plate armor? Can I use it for the rest of the game?

I think the only thing that would hit harder would be a bardiche that does 50 damage per hit,

Personally I don't like thrust attacks because I tend to miss and that leaves me exposed. Swinging it around like I'm conan the barbarian makes it much easier to hit opponents and if they don't block they're going to take damage. It makes it much less likely for them to counter-attack. Also being able to block fast is important when you're fighting assassins so I like to have a "dueling weapon" that isn't unbalanced.

I also have a sledgehammer I use for taking prisoners. But I only use that from horseback when I'm in a proper battle.

[stun]

Originally posted by Kamiyama:

I found a balanced two handed sabre with 99 speed and 47 cut damage. I really like it. Will this penetrate plate armor? Can I use it for the rest of the game?

Yes. Soak is randomized anyway.
Yes. You may need very high stats or consistent movement bonus to oneshot mamlukes/knights/sergents but it's fine to have to take two hits for such rare units anyway.
The 2h sabre is probably the best weapon in the game at carving up massed troops in sieges, but when you're circle kiting infantry from a horse you may want something longer to outrange their 2h weapons. If you're already at the stage of using troops then this isn't really an issue.

Originally posted by Kamiyama:

I think the only thing that would hit harder would be a bardiche that does 50 damage per hit

There are longaxes and great long axes that get up to 54c and are slightly longer but they are all slower.
Edit:

Originally posted by Kamiyama:

Personally I don't like thrust attacks because I tend to miss and that leaves me exposed.

The reason you need a stab for pvp duels is for chambering. It's basically not relevant to singleplayer unless you're making a vanity recording of chambering a couched lance or something (you should be aware that it can happen to you though, particularly if you're walking up and swinging on someone with a slightly longer weapon than you).
Having no stab makes using the weapon on the horse much more convenient in my experience, since I find you end up looking down quite a lot.