Multiple Attacks for Weapons

[zetsuke]

So, there has been a discussion happening on the MUD about multiple weapon attacks. Several ideas have been put forward, including: unlocking secondary attacks for weapons just as you would unlock normal secondary attacks as you level, having a 'weapon attack skill' that increases with use (such that at 10% you would only be able to make two attacks with a kunai, and at 50% you would be able to make two attacks with a sword, etc.), and having different weapon skills (2-handed sword skill, sword skill, kunai/dagger skill, staff, club, etc.) Thought? Discuss!

[Yamashita]

I would probably go for multiple weapon attacks along the same lines as the current multiple unarmed attacks, primarily because it would probably mean less coding for Gatz, but I wouldn't oppose any of the other suggestions. Although, the differing weapon type skills seems a bit overkill as there aren't many of each type of weapon, save blades, at this point.

[zetsuke]

I would agree. However, Hitoshi brought up a point that I think is fairly valid: Attacking twice with a kunai is not nearly the same thing as attacking twice with a staff or a nodachi or an oversized oar (you get the idea). Plus, there's no reason I couldn't add a wider variety of weapons for all level ranges if there was a need/want.

[Gatz]

So, there would be weapon styles then? Like Swords, Knives, Staffs, etc?

[Yamashita]

So, there would be weapon styles then? Like Swords, Knives, Staffs, etc?

That would seem to be the idea from Hitoshi and Zetsuke. It would certainly allow for more variety between characters.

[Hitoshi]

Mine is sort of a combination of weapon skills and weapon weight. For example at 100% in swords with a ~5 pound weapon and say 15 str you get 3 attacks a round which is the max (about the same as unarmed). But if the weapon weighed say 15 pounds and you only had 5 strength, no matter what your skill in swords you'd only do 1 attack per round.

Now I have no concrete ideas as to what the ratios and scales for weight vs strength vs skills should be as it's kind of a complex system but that's my 2 cents.

[Kotani]

*EDIT* One thing I want to make VERY clear before people sit and attack numbers, I admit that I'm not too knowledgeable with the numbers people are pulling in game, so when it comes to theorycrafting, if you have more solid examples and accurate data, please post them. I can only base things off my experience with things and my personal builds.

-Original post-
I'd personally be interested in seeing some numbers from people demonstrating weapon damage in its current incantation to further illustrate how an implementation like this would affect that. Its hard for me to have an opinion either way aside from the acknowledgement that it may be hard to balance "fairly".

Just theorycrafting, if a weapon (on average) allows a person to do 30 damage per hit now, and there were multiple weapon attacks a round (we'll say 3), that 30 damage becomes a potential 90 damage per round. Throw in the kick of your choice (I'll guess 40 damage for no-shadow kick, though I'm pretty sure that's more, as well as adding baikyuu kesson into it), and we're theory crafting at 0-130 damage per round based on that. Compare that to barehanded as it is now... Kaosu is doing around 20 damage a hit barehanded in hebi, so same three attacks, 60 damage, add another 150 for dragon punch, and per round, we're looking at 210 damage. However, I believe the lag on DP is about 1.5 rounds, so the "average" round of damage will probably be less... Of course, tai isn't my speciality in game, and as an edit, I can't remember if you auto-attack the round after you use dragon punch, if that's the case, then we'll use no-shadow for the same damage as a third example.

So, assuming everything hits its a theory crafted 130 damage per round with a weapon vs 210 damage a round (or 100 damage with no-shadow).

This is before we factor in non-tai builds, or stats. A player with 30 str and a solid weapon would probably be doing comparable damage to barehanded fighting. So, cross specialities, how would this effect nin/gen specialiists? (even if we assume everyone ends up 100/100/100, we aren't that way as we level, especially before nin gets a nuke)

Next up, with 74 trains to go into stats, we're looking at a "balanced" build having 15 down the board. How much would this punish someone for being "balanced" vs being yet another meatshield juggernaught that is all too common (I say it with love)? Also, with a change like this, it would change the way mobs are fought to an extent, so would any nin/gen user be able to keep up with the sustained daamge that a high/str weapon build can do, and would the game itself start evolving around said build? Also factor in if weapon jutsu are added...

Really, I'm more concerned with the long term effects and balance as far as stats and specialties go. I'd be curious to see some legitimate numbers beyond my own theorycrafting to represent different builds and damage comparisons.

With that said, I think Koroshiya has a solid and interesting idea, assuming the numbers add up well enough.

Now, my own thoughts on the matter, I'm curious about design intent on Gatz's part. The idea of fighting with various weapons strikes me as being more significant to the samurai job sheet (I've haven't been following that to know what the status is, though). Kunai seem to be the most commonly used weapon in Naruto, if they use them at all. Larger (or exotic) weapons seem to be more tailored for independent characters. If Gatz intends on the remort code he mentioned on Halloween, weapon usage sounds like a great potential UBA (like the two-handed swords) rather then a general change.

All in all though, interesting idea. I'd love to see a design write up with the theorycrafted numbers.

[Gatz]

One of my biggest issues with letting people get multiple hits in with weapons is that there is very little incentive to not use weapons. While I feel in the Naruto-verse, unless you have an amazing weapon, you're using hand-to-hand combat. I started to try to code things to more and more go for hand-to-hand combat, but I see the appeal of using a weapon. However, the normal SMAUG style profiecines for weapons sort of suck. A lot of the logic is still left in there, and I might just put them back in.

However, weapons under SMAUG aren't very different, there is stabbing, slashing and pounding. Those are the main types and 99% of the weapons used on NM use one of them. I always felt a big overhaul to the weapon system would be needed to make it interesting, but I don't want to heavily remove the focus from hand-to-hand.

If a lot of players want it, I might be swayed to do put the normal proficiencies back in, but as you raise their percent you can do more attacks depending on how many 'attacks' you know, ie 'second attack'. However, it'd still probably cap you at maybe 3 attacks per round. I don't want to see what happened years ago and the 'weapon wars' per se where folks just bitched until high level players retrieved them awesome weapon X and no one bothered using any jutsu ever, because with 4 attacks and an awesome weapon they felt they could just let auto-combat work its magic.

I like some of what you all are saying, but I think a better solution needs to be met. Maybe even making it so every attack after your first is a bit weaker with a weapon.

[Isamu]

I think having proficiency with Weapons would be neat, and as the % goes up, the upper threshold for damage with the weapon should go up slightly (I'm thinking 1 dmg per 20%), but the lower threshold should remain the same. 3 hits with a weapon should be the max, any more and damage per round would start getting ridiculous.

Having weapon styles would be neat as a UBA upon Re-Mort, characters would have enhanced damage with the weapon of choice, but lowered damage with all other weapons, maybe even unarmed damage would be lowered. As a part of the style, there could be a "limit break" type attack, that requires most of your Chakra and/or Stamina (all but say 10 chakra/100 stamina), and based upon how much it pumps out the damage would be affected(Chakra should have more weight than stamina by a long shot). Of course the problem with this are the builds that pump up one stat in particular, Kotani is going for Chakra and I'm going for Stamina. At around 3500 Stamina, this move could potentially be unstoppable, so there would have to be serious limits to when one could use the skill, say being under 25% HP(when you see the "You wish your wounds would stop bleeding so much" start popping up) and perhaps there could be an HP % cost for it to limit it's usage as well. I just realized how off topic this is...

Getting back to the topic: Each subsequent weapon attack should have lower hit % than the one before, 1st-95, 2nd-70%, 3rd-45% (maybe even more drastic since 3 would be the max)
That's all I've got for right now.

[Ichiro]

I'll post more on my thoughts about this, but here are some example numbers from me:

Unarmed combat: I do around 8 to 13 points of damage per hit, I get up to 4 hits per round. Lets say that I usually do 9 points of damage with each of those hits, that's 36 points of damage in a round.

Armed combat: [using my renamed katana that does Damage is 15 to 32 (average 23)] I usually end up doing 19 damage, although as high as 33 once and 30 once, to the same opponent with one attack.

Both of these are in hebi style, against the same opponent. Despite the weapon being well above normal damage-wise, I still do more damage unarmed. I don't even have a super-ridiculous-taijutsu-specialist-level strength score either.

I can understand wanting to draw things towards being unarmed. However, if a player wants to use a weapon, it almost seems like we're discouraging them from the idea. *shrug*

[Kiir]

I know this thread is pretty old, but I want to add in my two cents. Though I may be out-dated and not knowing how some things may have changed with weapons. And I will say that I'd like to see a more unique way to make weapons an alternative. Not just by upping/lowering the damage/attacks, but having some pretty unique bonuses, downsides (Like the handseal thing, or certain styles not allowing it for instance).

Benefits of a weapon:

• Early on, it's better to have one since the boost in damage is helpful compared to having one, or even two attacks.
• Burst damage -- if you hit, it'll be hurting compared to unarmed.
• Parrying

Downsides of a weapon:

• Must remove to use Jutsu
• Only one attack -- depending on the situation, this can be a huge problem. The longer you fight, the less it's a problem, but for shorter fights, having multiple weak chances to hit will generally be better, since it's not an all-or-nothing. This basically means you need a superb hitroll to roll-down the chance of missing
• Baikyuu Kesson is ineffective with weapons

So, I'm fine with weapons being one-attack, if there were further incentive to make it a little worthwhile. Possibilities (View as either innate, Battle abilities, Taijutsu skills, or maybe even a fourth Ninjatool/Equipment category to practice):

• When parrying, gain the ability to retort/counter for damage. Possibly removing STR bonus from the damroll, only STR bonus, a fraction of normal damage, etc. Possibility of capping number of parries in a round.
• Bonuses to AC (I know that there is some, apparently, but maybe better bonus), since you're able to deny your opponent from getting closer than if you were hand-to-hand. Possibly related to the weapon itself (To adjust between small/large)
• Have max number of attacks and/or parries in the weapons themselves, that way you can use, say, a kunai to attack a few more times -- easier to swing around than a claymore, or the fact that you have a free hand to attack with as well. I imagine this would be annoying to code and such, as would any other "related to weapon" comments I make.
• Allow the use of seals for small weapons that you can still hold onto, like kunai or shuriken (Kunai do have that convenient loop)

Balancing ideas, to possibly offset the above if felt necessary

• Reduction to hitroll because of predictability/slower movements of swinging a weapon around. Possibly related to the weapon itself (To adjust between small/large)
• More stamina drain per round of combat because of the effort of swinging the weapon. Possibly related to the weapon itself (To adjust between small/large)
• Broken arms cause your weapon to either drop in your inventory (I say this because it'd suck to have it drop to the ground every time it happens), or to basically stop working. Can't wave one around with broken arms, eh?
• Less bonus from STR to damage.

I will say that I can't say I miss the days of doing 20 damage per hit, 3 hits per round, that was just absurd. There just needs to be limitations set so it curves off in a way, and offers differing bonuses compared to using a weapon. As it stands right now, it's practically worthless to use it on a Taijutsu user since they should use Baikyuu Kesson and have a High STR, and for Nin/Gen, they'd have to remove it constantly to use their abilities, but could use it a little bit.

Also, weapons were more useful back in the day where you had to use practices to gain [Number] Attack, since you could save on practices and just use a weapon, but since the BA change, weapon users took an indirect hit.

How about an SBA to add weapon bonuses?

[Ichiro]

I'm not sure that what you've said really addresses the problem that people currently have with weapons. You say that you miss the days of doing 20 damage 3 times a round, but I have regularly seen taijutsu users do 30-ish (or more) damage 4 or 5 times in a round. When you have someone doing 100 to 200 damage in a round, with their fists (without using jutsu), yet you can only do 30 damage once a round with a weapon (barring particularly special weapons)...that's when things seem unbalanced. Even higher level ninjutsu users don't really have much reason to use weapons as they will start doing more damage with just their fists than they have a chance of doing with a weapon, purely because they get more attacks.

The benefits that you list are really only applicable early on, and the downsides only become more apparent as you progress in level.

I agree that long-term the best thing to do would probably be to just change the current system entirely or add a new system all together, even if only to make weapons into their own unique and interesting system that will add additional depth to the game. However, I think that for now, the best thing is to figure out some sort of fairly simple, easy to implement idea that will make weapons more than just something neat that people sort of use in RP occasionally.