A Hero Only As Good As His Weapon?

[Deltara]

This subject has been glanced here or there on many threads lately, so I wanted to give it a thread of its own to hear some interesting discussion.

Summary: I would like to see classes be allowed to wield different weapons.

ex. Perhaps a MRD could wield all 2-handed weapons. (G.Axe, G.Katana, G.Sword, G.Club)

Jobs could specialize in the weapons (G. Axe for WAR, G. KTN for SAM, G. SWD for DRK, G. Club for Barbarian, etc. etc)



When the game was released, the Armory System was applauded for its versatiliy, allowing you to build any character you wanted. These days it has been limited more and more (and for good reason) and it feels like characters don't really have unique builds at all.

I believe introducing multiple weapons per class or class/job would go a long way to making each character more unique and allow people more options from which to choose a playstyle that suits them.

The Armory system was created to make you feel free to make any type of character you like, but it has become antiquated and is now a prison for our creativity.

I would be happy to see all classes and jobs wielding different types of weapons, but realistically it might make more sense to give extra weapons to classes only as it would fit the spirit of classes being more versatile and jobs being more specialized.

Anyway, i'd love to hear ideas expanding, amending, refuting. What do you guys think?

[Skies]

Well, as it is there is already a certain variation of weapons, albeit within a bigger 'category'.
For example, Pugilist weapons include katars, claws, cesti and hell even a hook but all are 'wear over fist' weapons. Gladiator weapons do include both swords and knives but both are still 'bladed' weapons. Those are just what I remember offhand. After this is really vague in my memory.

I do believe that Archers include bow, longbow and now also a pulley bow, all of them still bows but we've the possibility of touching upon crossbows and arbalests in the future. Lancers include lances, forks and halberds (n-not sure on Halberd? Might be a Marauder weapon after all given it's a poleaxe), their weapons are basically 'polearms', of which there is certainly a great variety of which that the game devs could add to them. Marauders deal exclusively in axes larger and larger, I don't know enough about axes to give you the current varieties, although seeing one-handed machetes and perhaps seeing them wield greatswords would be nice making them the doublehand masters. Uhn... Am I forgetting somebody?

[Deltara]

While I respect the different varieties of lances and bows, they are all wielded with the exact same animations and with the exact same weaponskills (I'm not a martial artist, but I'm guessing that a halberd and a long spear shouldn't be wielded the same way). I'm not talking about aesthetic differences as much as different weapons entirely, with their own weaponskills and such.

But that does bring me to the suggestion that perhaps different types of bows or lances could have different weaponskills. That would make things interesting as well.

[Ruri]

I am in favor of this.

[Rau]

Lancer used to make a distinction between Lance and Halbred, but after 1.18 or 1.19, they got rid of that :|

Well, granted Halbreds were useless, but still, it was cool :<

[Brannigan]

While I respect the different varieties of lances and bows, they are all wielded with the exact same animations and with the exact same weaponskills (I'm not a martial artist, but I'm guessing that a halberd and a long spear shouldn't be wielded the same way). I'm not talking about aesthetic differences as much as different weapons entirely, with their own weaponskills and such.

But that does bring me to the suggestion that perhaps different types of bows or lances could have different weaponskills. That would make things interesting as well.

The thing is weaponskills and combos make up a big bulk of class skills already. If you're generating a new set of weaponskills for a new weapon type you might as well go all the way and add the 5-7 other abilities needed for a new class.

That said, there is some precedent for smaller weapons of the same type (1h/2h caster weapons) but I kind of doubt they'll go this route for gla/mrd (2h swords and 1h axes respectively) because again, they'd need to generate a whole new set of animations.

[Akubikumo]

Love it. Make this happen please.

[DeadRiser]

Lancer used to make a distinction between Lance and Halbred, but after 1.18 or 1.19, they got rid of that :|

Well, granted Halbreds were useless, but still, it was cool :<

Is that the attack where the would swing the lance instead of stabbing? I hate that ALL lances are swung now. It defeats the purpose using that with a spear lol

I would love this idea.

[Akubikumo]

ya! never understood the swinging-a-lance-around thing. What is this? Calligraphy? Lances are for Lancing!

[Vaymathias]

I'm certainly for classes no longer being restricted to a single weapon/type, however, how would weapon skills work?

What I mean is, would weapons skills be tied to the weapon? Or still tied to the character just a different animation with a different weapon? Perhaps a combination? Like GLD's always having a defense reduction debuff on their first weapon skill regardless of weapon, and LNC's always have a damage bonus, so that even though it's the same weapon skill they would be altered for each class.

Second, not only would I like all the weapons freed up from classes, I would like them to have combinations new to Final Fantasy between jobs and weapons. Like staffs for Marauders (Warriors) or katanas and great swords for Lancers (and Dragoons), though I guess changing the Lancer class name would be kinda necessary, lol.