Because unless you're going to do some rather amazing mathmatical and statistical acrobatics to balance everything to seamless perfection, it's always going to come down to an optimal solution after all the people experimenting. Case in point, speed wounders. Stats got changed, precision was made worthless, it was quickly realized that speed wounders were the only way to go.

It doesn't help that wounding is already delicate for warriors. You're trying to juggle bowling balls while standing on thin ice on a lake full of hungy sharks.

Well, to be honest, that's what multiple weapon types are for. If you want speed, grab a katana. If you want wounding, grab a greatsword. There is still plenty of room for strategy without needing variable stats within weapon types.

I'd also like to clarify that Xenthos' "bashing weapons" aren't pushed into prec as you can tell with the 107 precision stat which could be raised up to make his numbers much more better. Also had to edit the above post cause I had his times switched around.

Someone want to list all types of weapons and propose what the stats should be?

Estarra, this here is the example.

Look at the speed difference, precision difference, and the wounding difference. Those 5 points of strength are having a huge impact. Bashing weapons (280) with semi-decent prec and high strength are the ultimate weapons right now, due to strength's impact after that rebalancing.

Why not do away with weapon stats altogether and just let each spec have a Damage/Wounding/Speed/All-Rounder since even if you do make base stats for weapons, unless you change how the formulas work, people will always pick the speed weapon.

Yeah no? According to this system, if precision suddenly became worthwhile, I'd need to increase mine by almost 200 steel per one hander. Not in this lifetime.

As I understand it, the proposal would make all weapons the same statistically, so you don't grab a katana- you forge you claymore to max out speed. (or maybe you do forge your katana to do the same).

This would be nice, so we aren't all still running around with hammers/katanas/raipers/klangaxes, which is the case for everything now. I mean, I keep my claymore as a novelty as much as anything else!

As for ranges!

I'm going to go out on a limb and say make everything base 180 max, and balance around that. It solves the problem of extremes, and it even addresses part of the whole 'zomg bashing inequity' concern that people get up in arms about by slowing warriors down from the 280+ speeds.

Of course, it would take wounding rebalancing and some serious work to pull off, and you'd still need the wounding bonus for 2handers, but it would make everything so much more simple across the board in the long run.

Hrm, this is giving me a headache and making me remember why we haven't touched forging.

Okay, I'm going to make the executive decision and say we are NOT going to let all weapons have base stats. Rather, forgers would be allowed to temper the numbers however they want. Let's work from there.

Step 1: Readjust formulas. If the stances are the issue, they may just have to go away and be replaced by something else.

Step 2: Once all stats are useful towards their intended goals again, you can give each weapon type a "general range" (speed weapons can be up near maximum speed, low damage, medium precision for example).

I know you just made the decision otherwise, but the biggest hurdle here really is the statistics themselves. If you don't change the formula, the only thing that matters is going for max speed, in which case everyone is talking about wanting to make their weapons max speed via tempering.

Well, here's the big problem: the stats themselves are imbalanced. Right now people will pick speed no matter what, because it has more sway over wounds per second than any other stat.

The first step is re balancing the stats so that damage and precision mean something again. The three stats should all have equal weight before this solution can really work.

At that point, there are already four weapons in each spec: regular, speed, damage, precision. It would be easiest to say that every stat has a range from x to y, and that x and y do not change in value between stats. Then, one stat is high, one is medium, one is low.

As a side note: I remember when precision was actually worth it, and greatswords were the favored weapon of pureblades. I remember fighting with them twenty levels lower than I am now and actually pulling off critical level wounds (as opposed to switching specs because I was sick of not getting past light). Those were good times.

I'm saying, just go with 180 max for damage, 180 max for speed, and... whatever 500ish approximates to with 1 handers for precision- 225? Honestly it would be most cognitively simple to max precison at 180 (keeping the 2.2 multiplier for two handers), and then balance the wounding formulas accordingly, and put the forging monster to sleep forever.

Heh,

You think you guys get headaches, try forging a new set of weapons when you switch class, I've been waiting for 4 weeks for Melville to forge 4 rapiers for me and he's only managed 2 in that time. Which is why I forgot forging for poisons, I'd rather pay someone else to do it for me.

If weapons aren't going to have base stats, then could an adjustment to the formulas please be made to make damage and precision weapons worthwhile please? Vathael has a higher damage output with his Hammers than I would have with broadswords, and he's already demonstrated his much higher wounding rate and speed vs Xenthos.

Ah, yes, pre-nerf precision and 2-3 combo beheads. Yes those were the days and I think the reason that precision was changed.

Meh, that figures. We were all agreeing on something for once.

You know not what you say! Weren't you part of the contingent that agreed on the current formula the last time we did this?

Excuse me?

What he said.

I remember throwing a lot of numbers to you about how high strength's impact was, but this is one of those things that can only really be found out through extensive use, not 2 hours on a test server with one other person and a God.

Plus, you readjusted strength's impact after that, remember?

I think the problem is that this isn't technically an issue regarding forging, but rather combat as a whole.

That said: I would -LOVE- to see precision and damage mean as much as speed, and I would also love to see the ability to forge a katana up to greatsword specs just for the RP of it.