Guild Wars 2

Boring intro:
Hey I doubt few of your ideas will be implemented either.

Here’s an idea for how I think weapons should have been done, and perhaps should be done. It would take a drastic overhaul though. It could happen, with an expansion or something. Hey, WoW completely redid their entire world for Cata; and skill trees from the ground up for Pandaland.

Current state
As the game currently exists, weapons are not very interesting. The weapon type matters, but other than that, they’re basically stat sticks. They have some neat graphics, but functionally, the difference between two great swords is purely the difference in stats. Boring.

The reason its like this is because the skills that come with weapons is purely attached to the class you are. So a guardian will see any great sword as the same abilities, and a mesmer as a totally different set of abilities.

Cool new idea
Now imagine this revamp: Skills are attached to the weapons instead. Or, in other words, ever weapon is a satchel. Now in one sense, this does cause a bit of homogenization. If a mesmer picks up a great sword, it is going to give the same attack skills as if a guardian picks it up. Some of the unique skills that classes have would have to be moved to the class specific skills instead.

But here’s the interesting part: What if not every weapon had the same skills? There would be general weapon types: most great swords would have similar skills it gives. But there could then be a few neat things: sub-weapon types. If you have a one-handed broadsword, it might give a range of skills, but if you pick up a rapier, it might have one or two skills different. The two swords might share the first two slots: a thrust attack, a flurry attack, but then the broadsword might have a cleave and the rapier instead has a defensive parry. In general, weapon types would share themes. Daggers would all ignore defense but not be as high damage, though a shiv might have more stabby type skills where a main gauche might have an attack stab, but then two defensive parries.

And, if you pick up a magic phantom blade, instead of having the normal thrust attack, maybe instead it has a ghostly flame attack, unique to that sword.

In other words, the weapon you wield suddenly matters. You get that legendary sword, it’s not cool because it has a flashy skin and on a spreadsheet marginally increases your damage over seconds by a fraction, but it has unique abilities!

Considerations

Difficulty in implementation
The thing is, this doesn’t take as huge of a revamp as it sounds. The long part would be to develop a system for balancing skills. Classes would need some changes: it would be nice to turn some of the current weapon skills in to class skills, and class skills would probably see a lot more action instead of being the clutch ability for tough fights.

All current weapons could be revamped based on their weapon type, then they could go through and see if they want to add unique skills to some of the current interesting weapons. The sword that looks like a saw might get a septic slash, a flaming sword might get a blazing sweep, etc.

Class homogeneity
Yes, it does mean that you are reducing class variety by making a dagger wielded by a thief do similar attacks as a dagger wielded by a mage. In this way it does reduce variety.

But the thing that makes this work is you move skills to the class that synergize with the weapon type. For instance:

On a thief, shadowstep would be moved to a thief skill. Backstab bonus damage would just be part of the class. Daggers would be a natural for a thief in order to set up these backstabs, apply poison etc because they would be themed on ignoring defense, allowing thief skills to find their mark. Swords would be good for a different style, more swordsmanship and combat instead of sneaking in close and assassinating.

For an elementalist, yes daggers would still have the same skill as thief weapons and for a lot of mages it might make staves more attractive, but there could be some skills that do things like enchant your weapon with magic damage bonus. A nasty surprise for someone who gets in close to your elementalist.

On the other hand, staves would be focused on range, and the damage would be modified by your magic damage. Staves could have a lot of interesting variety too. A flaming staff could have different attacks than an ice staff. There could be a healing staff that doesn’t even have attacks, letting you instead rely on your elementalist or guardian class skills and use the weapon for support instead.

Balance
This is probably the area that would take the most work. If a dev is making their super cool unique sword that replaces the slash attack with a flurry of bone projectiles out of the ground, there would have to be some overlying system of rating the strength and balance.

There would need to be a way of converting “units”. How much is 500 damage of single target melee range damage worth compared to 500 damage of point blank AoE damage? How much is that worth in single-target elemental damage, or armor penetrating damage? etc. Once you set up a system of conversions, you could actually affect balance with a single adjustment of a conversion. If they decide AoE skills are too overpowered, they reduce the conversion rate, and suddenly all weapons with an AoE skill do slightly less damage. Easy overall system to balance.

The thing that can be hard to balance is if certain skills synergize too well with a certain class skill. And like any MMO, that probably would just take constant tweaking. That already happens anyways. That wouldn’t be a new problem.

conclusion
As you can see, overall, this creates a huge opportunity to create variety and let people tinker with all sorts of new combinations. In something like an MMO, or any game really, being able to fiddle with combinations to find what you really like is a big draw and great way to personalize your character.

Furthermore, now the weapon you use suddenly matters. The difference between weapons isn’t purely on a “this weapon has better stats so is objectively better” level, but instead weapons that are of equal strength may be totally different in function to each other. Horizontal growth instead of vertical.

To be honest, I don’t like this idea at all, even if it were practical. It makes skin way more important than it currently is. “I like hammer X, but I want the abilities of hammer Y…” would be a serious problem. Right now, whether I use the most affordable weapon option (at the exotic level, anyway) or something super-expensive like Mjölnir, it doesn’t matter. Even with ascended/legendary weapons, the stats make a marginal difference. If suddenly Mjönir had super cool, powerful abilities, demand for an already outrageously priced skin goes up even further, and those are new skills most players will never even be able to afford, so it’s only fun for the in-game rich or lucky.

The homogenization of weapon skills erodes the distinction between classes. Basically, a Mesmer would play like half a Mesmer (depending on utility skills for flavorful abilities, with weapon skills being the same as a Warrior using the same sword.) Thief’s Dual Wield mechanic? Gone. Elementalist Attunements? Gone. Some classes might be able to survive some shuffling around of their abilities, but there are class mechanics that would be completely unrecognizable, and that’s a loss of some interesting gameplay elements.

Rukh.9287:

In other words, the weapon you wield suddenly matters. You get that legendary sword, it’s not cool because it has a flashy skin and on a spreadsheet marginally increases your damage over seconds by a fraction, but it has unique abilities!

It sounds good on paper, but this is a terrible idea in practice. If the Legendary weapon abilities are extremely good, everyone without the Legendary is at a potentially serious disadvantage, and that goes for any rare skin with unique abilities tied to it. If the Legendary weapon abilities are average, then people are going to either have to put up with abilities they might not like in return for the skin, or they’ll have to transmute it onto something else, depending on how transmutation works in this new system. It becomes a nightmare to balance, because the system has a ton of potential abilities, some of which are extremely hard to obtain, all of which have to be balanced when used in conjunction with any set of profession-based utility skills.

I don’t say all this to be mean, but out of appreciation for the current system and what it does well. I like the idea that, if I like Staff abilities for my class, I get access to those early on, and no one is going to have a big advantage over me just because they managed to farm/find a rare Staff with better skills. I like that classes have their unique abilities integrated into their weapon skills, so that a Staff Elementalist and a Staff Mesmer don’t play the same way.

I understand your concern about making certain weapons desirable based on abilities instead of skins, and yes that would happen. I personally am ok with that but I can understand others not.

I don’t think your second concern about classes being “half” a class is correct though. What it does is change your class identity from how you swing a weapon to what other skills you get. You move the important skills that were formerly weapon skills to class skills so people can mix and match them. So, while your class may now be less about what primary attack it grants, overall your character has a whole lot more variety.

And yes, you can’t overpower the legendary weapons. That goes without needing to be said. You can make them unique, but as I said, balance needs to be closely adhered to.

If half my skills are generic (1-5) and only half (6-0) are class-specific, my class identity is going to feel less important and distinct than if 1-0 are all class-specific. I might still be able to select my old class skills as utility skills, but that’s still only half the skills I’m actually using, and they’re left to compete against all the other class skills for those very few slots. Under this system, my character is mechanically defined half by my weapon and half by my class, which is comparable to the existing system, but the flavor of my class only then touches half of my skills. That’s a loss of identity.

I would rather my basic character abilities be determined by their personal abilities with a given weapon, as seen through the lens of their class identity, rather than them merely being a vehicle for the weapon’s abilities. That can be interesting with kits, banners, and conjures, which are free of the economic implications of the system, but I wouldn’t want to see it as the basic rule of the game.

As for balance, I’m extremely skeptical that so many weapons could be given interesting abilities that don’t shake out to be unbalanced. Even now, when class skills are restricted to the support skills of that class, there are weapons in that are generally more useful than others, and this suggestion would introduce a lot of new abilities, or combinations of abilities, that have to be balanced with the support skills of each possible class. And since they’re tied to equipment, it’s not enough to simply get “a short bow;” you might have to get a 150g shortbow to have the same skills as the most popular build, or else fall behind. And instead of just competing with others in your class who want that build, you may very well be competing with everyone for that same build.

I sorta like this idea, but my idea was a twist on it. Instead of your suggestion, I was thinking more along the lines of all “styles” of abilities.

Example:
Greatsword1 is always a direct strike. For a Guardian, it would pierce in it’s strike. A Warrior would do more damage with the same swing-speed. A Ranger would add vulnerability. Etc. But when it came down to it, they’re all a strike.
Greatsword2 could be a gap-closer. This would be like Binding Blade for Guardian. For a Mesmer it could do what Sword3 does on live. Ranger/Warrior would have their leaps.

And so on. So the generic theme of the weapon is the same, but the actual implementation is different. Meaning you’d still have a different style of play on a different profession with the same weapon, but all-in-all it would have the same root.

On top of that, certain weapons would have added cosmetic effects. Nothing as drastic as a Legendary bonus, but to use current abilities as an example, Greatsword3 for a Mesmer does the illusion spike from the ground. With Foefire (I think that’s the sword?), it would be a blue burst of flame. No damage or effects added. just visual. The Legendary weapons would be the ones to get the bonus effects. Twilight could cause a Dark Field surrounding the impact, Sunrise could Blind, Eternity could do both.

Dalent.9358:

So the generic theme of the weapon is the same, but the actual implementation is different. Meaning you’d still have a different style of play on a different profession with the same weapon, but all-in-all it would have the same root.

Two quick questions: Why would we want each weapon to be more similar than they already are, with very slight variances between classes? What do we get in return for making each class play in a way that’s less distinct from the others than they currently are?

(There are reasons I can think of, but I’d like to hear which ones you have in mind.)

Familiarity. Alts exist. I can’t tell you the times I stumble between classes. Attempt to Blink on my Warrior. Attempt to Death Shroud on my Ranger. Etc.

If we allowed weapons to have a similar base mechanic, not only would this make it easier to jump between classes (not saying it’s difficult by any means), but could allow for more “effects.” As it stands, Legendaries have the only real weapon effects. Footfalls, changing spells, character auras. Fractal Weapons are the only other weapons that come to mind that have an effect like this, and it’s a trail.
Now, don’t take that as me saying all weapons should have effects. But I think certain named ones should have more. Like Foefire and Mjolnir for example. Mjolnir could literally just spark with every hit it made and I think that would be just. It’s not a Legendary, it doesn’t need more than that.

I think I answered both your questions there at once, if I didn’t let me know and I’ll try again. But now I’d like to hear your answer to your own question.

Most of the reason that comes to mind for me is balance. Instead of comparing apples to oranges, it’s easier to compare Granny Smith apples to Gala apples. Shifting emphasis to the physical nature of weapons instead of the personal/cultural filters of classes is another, although, personally, that’s not a reason I’d like to see acted on.

In simplest terms, if I’m an elementalist and I’m using basic, non-magical daggers, I want to use those daggers as a focus for magic, not just as something to stab, slash, and parry with in between casting spells. I’m more interested in seeing how a trained ranger handles an axe, compared to how a necromancer would, than I am in seeing both of them handle normal axes the same way, and leave more unique attacks to high-end magical weapons.

I love alts, and part of that, for me, is how differently they play. If I want to play something similar-but-different to my class, I just switch up my weapons or utilities. If I want to play something that uses a staff totally differently, I can change class.

(I might be underselling the class differentiation in your idea, but it’s still a concern of mine. While more complex, I prefer to keep classes more distinct.)