Freedom to chose your weapon

[Terrorus]

The desire to be able to choose the weapons for your character is something that has been present in the SWTOR community since launch (and maybe even before that). I will not get into the reasons behind BioWare weapon assignment decisions.

Below I will expose the issues for the implementation of weapon freedom of choice I could see and ways to work arround them. What I have NOT and WILL NOT do is try to give melee weapons to ranged classes nor the other way arround (I've never seen anyone ask for this, but there is always one crazy enough).

 

WARNING: wall of text ahead.

 

Let’s take a look at what would be the main issues with opening up weapons selection and a few suggestions on how to deal with them.

When referring to classes I’ll use the imperial classes, because I’m more familiar with them.

First of all, let’s stablish a few things.

1. Opening up weapons would give us 3 new possibilities, each with its particular developments:

a. A dual wielder using only one weapon (Marauder with single saber and Mercenary with single pistol)

b. A single wielder dual wielding (Juggernaut, Assassin or Sorcerer with two sabers or Power Tech with two pistols)

c. A class wielding a different type of weapon (Warriors with saberstaffs; Bounty Hunters with rifles and Imperial Agents with pistols)

2. Opening up weapons selection would pose the developers challenges on 2 fronts

a. Animations

b. Mechanics

 

 

A – A dual wielder using one weapon

The dual wielding classes rely on output to perform their roles. A healer needs to heal high and fast and a DPS needs to cause damage. As the game is today, simply removing one weapon from your character is a good way to perform poorly. A dual wielder class needs the extra weapon to increase his damage/heals output and to be able to use certain abilities. And, of course, there is that stat increase.

Solution: substitute the offhand weapon for a new type of item, similar to a Focus (I’ll call the new item Accessory from now on). The accessory would be an item equal to a weapon in stats and modable versions of it would use the same parts. What it would do is give stats as a weapon, allow the character to perform the extra attack (thus making the DPS the same as with two weapons) and be completely invisible.

Production challenges: first of all a completely new class of items would have to be created by BW. From basic ones for level 10 characters, to endgame versions. This could be done by simply copying/pasting the stats of the existing offhand weapons to this new invisible item. Still, I see how this could be a lot of work.

As for the animations, well, I had better comment on them at the end as it is more of a general commentary than one for each specific situation.

 

B – Single Wielders wielding dual weapons

The major problem here is balancing. Single weapon classes have, by design, lower base DPS than their dual wielding counterparts. Simply allowing a Juggernaut to use a saber in the offhand would pretty much make the class not work as intended.

Solution: I can think of two possibilities

1- The creation of two new items, the ‘dual sabers’ and the ‘dual pistols’. These items are identical to their single counterparts in stats and mod capacity, go on the main hand slot, but when equipped they show as two weapons. In combat the two weapons would only deal damage as one, although both would be animated and used in combat. This way you see your character dual wielding but there is no increase to its damage output.

The problem for visual customization avid players would be the impossibility of choosing the offhand weapon separately from the main hand.

2- The creation of four new items, the ‘saber focus’, the ‘saber shield’, the ‘pistol focus’ and the ‘pistol shield’. These are exclusively offhand items. They have the stats of focuses or shields but have the visual appearance of a saber or pistol. This way you get the same results as option ‘1’ above, but with more freedom to choose the visuals of your offhand weapon.

This way player can pair equipment as they see fit for better visual customization.

Number ‘2’ is my favorite option, but it surely is far more work for the development team.

 

C – Wielding a different class of weapon

Now this is probably the category of higher interest for the players. The rifle wielding BH’s are here. I personally would love to see my Juggernaut tanking with a saberstaff.

I am going to breakdown this topic in a few cases, to better explain everything.

Juggernauts or Sorcerers with saberstaffs and Power Techs with blaster rifles: A simple permission to wield the weapon on the main hand would make every player happy. The offhand item needs no tweaks at all. The problem is base damage. It is my understanding saberstaffs/rifles have higher base damage than single sabers/pistols, although I might be mistaken. I am unsure as to what a good workaround would be, or if the real impact would be noticeable enough to even warrant a correction. Most of the Sorcerers attacks don’t use the saber at all, so it would be the class less affected by this issue.

Marauders with saberstaffs and Mercenaries with blaster rifles: Not too different from the last case. The permission to wield the new weapon would leave the offhand slot empty. The solution is to put an Accessory (proposed in section ‘A’ above) on the offhand slot and it is done. The increased damage output issue applies as well.

Even though I haven’t seen any specifics on changing the Imperial Agents weapon selections, I’ll address the possibilities I can see.

The IA is a unique class in the sense that it is actually a dual wielding class. Sort of. They carry rifles on the main hand and a knife on the offhand. The knife is used for certain abilities and has damage stats of its own, so any alteration that would require the removal of the knife would probably be very complex.

The simplest case is an IA wielding a pistol. This falls on the same category as Power Techs with blaster rifles. Just the permission and the damage output issues (As I’ve stated before I’m not sure if there is a significant, if any, difference in base damage between pistols and rifles).

Now a dual pistol wielding Imperial Agent would require one of two approaches. The first (and simple) is the “dual pistols main-hand item” proposed above. Not my favorite choice as it limits player aesthetical choices.

The second approach is to create yet another item, one that would work as a knife (in stats and use of melee abilities), but would show as a second pistol for all other situations (quite similar to the “shield/focus saber/pistol”).

Both approaches incur in the need of creating new items.

On animations

Any change in weapon set-up for any class would require heavy work on animations and BW has stated that as being the prime deterrent for any plans on “weapon freedom”. I have to say I only partially agree with them.

In situations where an advanced class is going to be wielding the weapon of the other advanced class, the abilities that are shared between them already have animations. The ones not shared would need new ones. When wielding a new weapon for the class, all animations would need working.

However, the game has plenty of animations available on enemies and companion characters. Take Jaesa Willsaam, for example, who is a melee DPS character with a “sith warrior like” combat style (lightning powers excluded) who wields a saberstaff. It is not ideal, but some animations could be reused from NPCs to lessen the work required in development.

 

Overall, I believe it is feasible. When I started thinking about this issue and what would be a good solution to bring this feature to players, I believed it would take far more work. Even with the creation of new items, they could be in stats carbon copies of items already in game, and animations can be recycled (not ideal, but I’d be ok with it if it means we get weapon freedom). There are, of course, technical issues that I have no way of knowing and could make my suggestions impossible to implement.

Anyway, this wall of text is a compilation of my conclusions and proposed solutions for the requested possibility of wielding whatever weapon we choose.

Comments and suggestions welcome as always and thanks for taking the time to read.

[antonmasik]

One issue is that each class will be much less unique. Basically all force-users will look and feel like one generic group running around with whatever stick or 2 sticks you want. "Shooter" classes become another generic group.

 

I personally don't feel strongly about weapon restrictions one way or another. I can see how current approach is good for over-all picture of the game and I can also understand that people want more customisation.

 

I'll think along from the technical point of view. One thing to notice is that currently mirror classes and their weapons are balanced. This means that:

* sniper with sniper rifle and vibroknife is no more or less powerful than gunslinger with dual pistols.

* operative with rifle and vibroknife is no more or less powerful than scoundrel with pistol and scattergun.

* mercenary with dual pistols is no more or less powerful than commando with autocannon and generator.

* powertech with pistol and generator is no more or less powerful than vanguard with a rifle and generator.

So, as the first step of losening up weapon restrictions, it seems safe from the balancing standpoint to allow mirror class weapon choices. I would suggest cartel market or legacy unlock, so that initial uniqueness of classes is preserved, but people can change it if they really want it.

[cyrusramsey]

You type up this wall of text about things that are essentially non-issues, from a development pov, and then all but dismiss the reason why we haven't and will not see this, while even acknowledging that you are aware of the argument.

 

Animations are the problem and will stay the problem, even repurposing existing animations will require work to implement and test, effort that would need to be put into a system that already works as intended.

[Terrorus]

You type up this wall of text about things that are essentially non-issues, from a development pov, and then all but dismiss the reason why we haven't and will not see this, while even acknowledging that you are aware of the argument.

 

Animations are the problem and will stay the problem, even repurposing existing animations will require work to implement and test, effort that would need to be put into a system that already works as intended.

 

The reason I decided to write all of this is I feel most threads in this area of the forum start as requests rather than sugestions. My thoughts were on trying to bring a solution as complete as I can. As I'm not an animator and my programming skills are rather limited, I focused on the problems I could identify and propose a way arround them.

The animations are, from a dev pov, the most complex and and problematic part. But it is my belief BW has a lot of assets already in game at their disposal which could be used towards solving this. With that in mind it is my understanding that the reason BW doesn't work on this is more about lack of a real desire to do it than real technical impedment.

[Draconite]

I totally agree. What I really miss from the orifinal KOTOR is the freedom to choose dual lightsabers/double-bladed lightsaber/single lightsaber. I changed it several times during the game.. just when I felt like it would be fun to go single, I just had single lightsaber.. when I felt like going with double bladed lightsaber, I changed. It might seem like a tiny detail, but it gives you the strong RP feeling. I totally miss that here.. being stuck with 1/2/double lightsaber all the time.

 

Also I would like to see the possibility to display vibroknife (holding it) as Operative. It is close-quater combat class. The main rotation uses mainly vibroknife, yet you only see your char running around with stupid rifle. It's a pity. This is just an example to show, that more freedom in displayed weapon might be welcome.

 

So yea. Would be great if you BW could do something for us dreamers.

[cyrusramsey]

The reason I decided to write all of this is I feel most threads in this area of the forum start as requests rather than sugestions. My thoughts were on trying to bring a solution as complete as I can. As I'm not an animator and my programming skills are rather limited, I focused on the problems I could identify and propose a way arround them.

The animations are, from a dev pov, the most complex and and problematic part. But it is my belief BW has a lot of assets already in game at their disposal which could be used towards solving this. With that in mind it is my understanding that the reason BW doesn't work on this is more about lack of a real desire to do it than real technical impedment.

 

But it is not just a matter of assets. You cannot simply take something that works in one situation and stuff it into another, that's what breaks games and frankly, they do that enough as it is. Even if they were to make not a single new animation, it would still require them to put work into changing something that already works as intended.

 

Mind you, I am not saying they shouldn't do this or that I don't want them to, just explaining why they won't. They've had the tendency to only work on aspects of the game that are either new content (sort of), broken content (sometimes, anyway) or content that somehow causes a problem in other aspects of the game.

 

You want them to change a system that works as intended, add new graphical elements to a system that is not broken. It will not alter gameplay and will still cost time and effort to accomplish, it's not going to happen.