Melee weapons balance

Howdy.

Right now it makes no sense to use anything other than a two-handed hammer. Sure, there are some broken legendaries of all kinds, but I am talking about basic weapon class here. So, this is my proposal.

1-handed in general
+: can be used as dual wielded, increasing dps.
+: can be used with shield, increasing protection.
+: usually (on average, not always) faster than 2-handed.
-: shorter than 2-handed.

2-handed in general
+: longer reach
+: high hit damage
-: usually slower
-: no dual/shield option
-: higher cost

1-handed weapons

Daggers
+: cheap, easy to make
+: fast
+: produces leather and meat
-: very short
-: very low damage, but not that bad dps because of speed

Short swords
+: also cheap and easy to make
+: better reach and damage
+: slower, but dps is a bit better than of dagger, comparable to long sword
-: not a hunting weapon
-: still short and weak

Long swords
+: best reach except for spears
+: good speed
+: higher chance to have bonus modifiers (poison etc, whatever)
-: costly, hard to make (elite weapon)
-: not that good dps

Axes
+: best dps
+: great speed
+: average price, moderately hard to make
-: lower chance to have extra modifiers
-: short reach

Maces, hammers
+: best hit damage, oneshotting weapons
+: similar cost to axe
-: low (!) dps compared to axes and long swords
-: low speed
-: mediocre reach

Spears
+: best reach
+: some spera
-: low speed

So. Daggers are niche hunting weapons. Short swords are sorta "default". Long swords are costly and long, easy to use weapons for agile dodgers. Axes are maximum dps incarnates, sacrificing everything to go in and kill. Maces/hammers are slow onehotters, also for agile (and risky) people. Spears are almost a ranged weapons, designed to kite.

This system provides a weapon for each style of a player. More than that, it makes it sensible to hoard various weapons and to use them according to situation. For example, while I may prefer to roam with two-handed sword, I may decide to switch to hammer to oneshot some nasty monsters in a dungeon, or to dual axes to deal maximum raw dps to a boss.

 

I never use two handed weapons, because I can have a shield or a machine pistol with my one handed sword. The dps difference equals out in the end with those in hand. And you can already dual wield.. or did I misunderstand your post about 1-handed weapons?

 

Seems like a lot of people don't realize that if you dual wield two 1H, hitting both mouse buttons at the same time "adds" both values for a single damage number. i.e. 1H swords doing 10 dmg each, if synchronized, you will see 20 dmg pop up.

Unfortunately, if they are slightly out of synch, only 1 hit will register...which also points to another flaw of the current system : the knockback. The second hit doesn't register because the monster is pushed away right after the first hit. This also affects DPS. The faster and shorter the weapon, the less its DPS value is relevant. A hit means the monster is pushed away, before the player closes in and hit again the weapon is ready to hit...so the DPS formula is in reality :

dmg / (time to close in) OR (speed of weapon IF (time to close in < speed of weapon))

time to close in being affected by weapon reach

Anyway, one way to fix this temporarily is to transform the knockback effect into an effect, just like burning, poisoning, etc. I'm guessing that players will be able to disassemble weapons into parts eventually...so the possibility of creating a weapon that maximize DPS with no knockbacks should be there.

 

Shields are awesome. In any scenario where the enemy has ranged attacks coming too frequently to dodge OR you don't have the luxury of space with which to dodge it can change an attack doing 150 to one that only hits you for less than 20. The two handed weapons are certainly wonderful, though. Great arc, high damage, but... The swing rate is kinda poor... The DPS is higher on average, though, and the knock back usually makes them better. The lack of a shield can really be a deal breaker, though. As a result my main weapon is never a 2-handed, though I do keep one on hand when I can afford a hit or I have proper room to move.

Shields are awesome. They just are.

That said, guns are horrible. Even a dagger can out DPS them. The energy consumption is terrible and even if it wasn't, they just don't do enough damage to be worth it. T10 rocket launcher does just over 2k damage a shot while a T10 1-handed sword I make does 2k... The difference? Rocket Launcher has a DPS of 800 a second while the sword has one over 2k and the sword doesn't require energy so I can use tech constantly without much concern.

Oh, and dual wielding one handed weapons and getting enemies in the corner makes a fight sooooooo hilariously one sided. It's funny.

 

Yes, I did notice that stunlocking enemies is a problem at the moment. Makes fights kinda one sided. And ofc the other hillarious technique is hitting someone with a one hander down a hillside, jumping after the individual, and finishing it off during the fall animation with repeated slashes.

 

I still think rare melee weapons need to be added.

 

I will say that the random weapons that drop from enemies are underwhelming. I've yet to see anything in T10 that really competes with the weapons you can naturally make yourself. Found a legendary Tesla Coil weapon on a T10 planet after killing a rare mob and it only did 800 or so damage. Kinda a let down given how dangerous the mob was... It does fire off a bolt that does an additional 200 damage, but that's still only 1k damage and the swing speed isn't anything to really write home about.