A Hero Only As Good As His Weapon?

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?

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?

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.

I am in favor of this.

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 :<

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.

Love it. Make this happen please.

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Originally Posted by 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 :<

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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.

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

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.

It would probably be best to tie weaponskills to the weapons themselves, rather than to the classes. That way you could switch up weapons and have different options. If you tied them to the character, then we would be back to just different weapons to look pretty instead of strategizing.

On a side note about the spear animation (swinging), it might be cool to swap out the swinging motion for hitting the mob with the butt of your spear. lol

... Deltara are you AWARE of what you just said? Really?
'tie weaponskills to the weapons themselves' is exactly exactly what classes are. I mean... I cannot even... Imagine what else do you mean.

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Originally Posted by Skies

... Deltara are you AWARE of what you just said? Really?
'tie weaponskills to the weapons themselves' is exactly exactly what classes are. I mean... I cannot even... Imagine what else do you mean.

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Ok here we go.

What I mean is that "Riot Blade" should be a sword weaponskill and not a gladiator weaponskill. If archer equips a sword, they should get the "Riot Blade" weaponskill, instead of using a sword and getting archer weaponskills with the sword.

Archer should not be able to use "Gloom Arrow" when wielding a dagger... archer would get dagger weaponskills then.

There was another popular Square-Enix MMORPG which allowed each job to use multiple weapons each with weaponskills tied to the weapons. Trust me, it worked just fine.

If my marauder has a bow equipped and wants to shadowbind, he should be allowed to shadowbind, instead of being forced to use skull sunder with the bow.

But if they want to tie weaponskills to classes, that's fine too. That's how the game was back in the day. I could use axe weaponskills with my pugilist hand-to-hand weapons, but it really felt out of place.

I think you are getting caught up in the classes being completely defined by the weapon they have equipped. I would rather classes stand alone, regardless of the weapon they have equipped.

So in your view, Deltara, what would a Class be? If we move all the abilities from classes to the weapons and make so you can't use a WS from a different weapon with your current one... You'd end up essentially with the game as it is, with the 'Class' being only a name and you'd end up pretty much unable to use any 'cross-class' abilities at all.

Let me go back to the example in the original post.

I'm on MRD, using a G.Axe. It is identical to the class as we see it today.

I switch to a Great Katana. I keep all of my abilities and traits, but lose the G.Axe weaponskills and gain Great Katana weaponskills.

I can still use Berserk, Provoke, Bloodbath... but i get different weaponskills with different weapons.

My "Godsbane" combo turns into a "Ronin's Destiny" combo... or whatever the weaponskills for great katana would be.

I switch to Great club and keep all my marauder abilities (berserk, provoke, etc) but i get great club weaponskills instead (and bludgeoning damage to boot ^^)

Multiple weapons (each with their own weaponskills) for each class, while retaining the class abilities.

Sorry for the confusion.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Deltara

Let me go back to the example in the original post.

I'm on MRD, using a G.Axe. It is identical to the class as we see it today.

I switch to a Great Katana. I keep all of my abilities and traits, but lose the G.Axe weaponskills and gain Great Katana weaponskills.

I can still use Berserk, Provoke, Bloodbath... but i get different weaponskills with different weapons.

My "Godsbane" combo turns into a "Ronin's Destiny" combo... or whatever the weaponskills for great katana would be.

I switch to Great club and keep all my marauder abilities (berserk, provoke, etc) but i get great club weaponskills instead (and bludgeoning damage to boot ^^)

Multiple weapons (each with their own weaponskills) for each class, while retaining the class abilities.

Sorry for the confusion.

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I think with this set up, some aspect of the class should alter or add to the WSs. Take sword for example, there would be 6 sword weapon skills that every class gets that equips a sword, but Marauder would get an AOE WS as well, or two, maybe one or both taking place at the end of a chain.

Or like DRG being the class that gets all of the good chains for each weapon skill, but for others it would vary a little bit.

If not effecting that actual weapon skills that you get, they should at least get specific modifiers tagged to to certain WSs, just for a slight bit of variation, like an accuracy bonus for GLD, or AOE effect for MRD, or enmity reduction from WSs for DRG.