Cross-Weapon usage (instead of "combat styles") IS POSSIBLE to make

[Mephesh]

So I just recently saw a video from Swtorista, regarding "combat styles", about how it would not be possible for Commando healers to shoot their "green beam of love" with weapons like snipers or blasters.

 

I think Swtorista is a great content creator, but her statement is as wrong as you can get.

 

It is actually very easy and simple to do.

 

All weapons in swtor have attachment points, designated points for missile graphics and weapon tuning effects.

All the programmer needs to do is to link the animation to the weapon attachment point, and boom, there you go having a "green beam of love" from your sniper.

Work time: less then 2 minutes of writing a few lines of code and doing some copypasta.

 

The same holds true for animations. All character animations are compatible with each ragdoll obviously. You can have your sith warrior do commando poses and vice versa.

 

So actually, beeing a Commander Cody with 2 Blasters AND playing with commando class/skilltrees is possible, if the developer team would take a minute to adjust every skill to multiple weapons.

 

To create a very basic, but working all classes -> all weapons (still seperated between lightsabers(force) and guns(tech)) the workload would be doable withing 1 week for the developer team. For adding new animations, like form3 skills with 2 lightsabers, maybe another week at most.

 

If they would only put in the work and give us REAL combat styles, that we all hoped for, instead of just detaching class stories from combat classes, that would be great. (and possible to do)

[Toraak]

Hate to say this BUT. None of us know how difficult it would be because none of us know how the coding was done with this engine.

 

So just because you think it would be easy doesn't mean your right.

[SteveTheCynic]

I'm so glad that you know better than they do what it would take to modify their code. Maybe they should ...

 

investigate how come an outsider was able to see their code

 

What? You were expecting me to invite them to hire you?

 

Ha ha, fooled you...

 

More seriously, are you really expecting that changing a few attachement points is all it would take to make dualsabres work correctly with Marauder abilities? I mean, sure, it's *possible*, but it's not nearly as simple as you think it is.

[MadDutchman]

Sorry, but this is the same argument people have been making for many years now.

 

It doesn't make any more sense now with combat styles than it did before them.

 

Sure, some abilities could work (especially on the blasters), but many would need to be completely redone.

 

So no, it would not "take a minute". That you seem to think you know the code base well enough to make the claim is just pure arrogance. (and as a professional software developer, I can tell you there are few things more annoying than an armchair developer who does crap like this)

[LordCamTheGreat]

The devs said that combat styles is a step in that direction. They want to do it, it's just not happening for this expansion because while sure, changing an attachment point and matching up the animations for one single ability might not take that long and sounds simple, doing it for every ability and testing it so that it works properly with every combination of weapon would take a lot longer - and we have no idea how many devs would be actively working on it at any given time. That's a lot of time potentially spent by a few people when they could be creating new animations for all the new enemies and npcs that will likely be in the next expansion.

 

There is a particular skill morph that is currently on the PTS for the Guardian, I believe something along the lines of "skewer" and it still has a To Do for the animation side of things. Guardian was the first combat style to reach the PTS months ago, and the animation hasn't been done. Sure, the PTS is subject to change and they might not keep that ability choice in the future. But, if it were so simple and so easy to do, someone would have cooked it up in 2 minutes.

 

I'm not going to presume how hard or easy it is to change things. I understand where you're coming from and it makes sense logically, but we just don't know. If combat styles really are a step in the direction of full weapon swapping like Chris Schmidt implied, I'd expect it to feature in a year or two down the line.

[OddballEasyEight]

So I just recently saw a video from Swtorista, regarding "combat styles", about how it would not be possible for Commando healers to shoot their "green beam of love" with weapons like snipers or blasters.

 

I think Swtorista is a great content creator, but her statement is as wrong as you can get.

 

It is actually very easy and simple to do.

 

All weapons in swtor have attachment points, designated points for missile graphics and weapon tuning effects.

All the programmer needs to do is to link the animation to the weapon attachment point, and boom, there you go having a "green beam of love" from your sniper.

Work time: less then 2 minutes of writing a few lines of code and doing some copypasta.

 

The same holds true for animations. All character animations are compatible with each ragdoll obviously. You can have your sith warrior do commando poses and vice versa.

 

So actually, beeing a Commander Cody with 2 Blasters AND playing with commando class/skilltrees is possible, if the developer team would take a minute to adjust every skill to multiple weapons.

 

To create a very basic, but working all classes -> all weapons (still seperated between lightsabers(force) and guns(tech)) the workload would be doable withing 1 week for the developer team. For adding new animations, like form3 skills with 2 lightsabers, maybe another week at most.

 

If they would only put in the work and give us REAL combat styles, that we all hoped for, instead of just detaching class stories from combat classes, that would be great. (and possible to do)

 

How many games have you programmed using the Hero engine?

And if so, have you even looked at the very modified Hero engine that Swtor uses?

 

Let's not pretend that you know better than the devs on this.

[Tsillah]

ahh, another armchair developer.

[Phazonfreak]

Another glaring issue that is completely downplayed by the op with this supposed easy solution is that weapons are not interchangable when it comes to stat distribution and the weapon ability power of a class (or Combat Style). An Assault Cannon has different inherent stats compared to a Blaster Rifle with different values that calculate the power of certain abilities. Same is happening when your character is using one or two lightsabers. If they allowed for interchangable weapons just like that without going over all the inherent weapon stats and ability values, balancing would be even more broken than it currently is. And it would take way more than a minute to get it right. Edited October 3, 2021 by Phazonfreak

[WaywardOne]

How many games have you programmed using the Hero engine?

And if so, have you even looked at the very modified Hero engine that Swtor uses?

 

Let's not pretend that you know better than the devs on this.

 

He's arguing with swtorista and others like her that have made similar arguments, not swtor developers. I'm unaware of any comments by current BW Devs that what the poster is talking about would be too hard to do or require an exponentially problematic # of brand new animations. My guess is that the major wave that raised player's hopes around the idea of offering weapon choices within an advance class (thanks in part to a badly executed off-the-cuff 7.0 unveiling) is the first time BW seriously considered giving us the option.

 

The reason we don't have different weapons/styles allowed for advanced classes with the original game as it was released is not because "it would be too hard to do all of the animations" - it's because the original developers/producers of swtor were philosophically very much against the idea. There's no reason juggernauts have to use different animations than guardians, or that powertechs and vanguards should play with completely distinct animations/weapons when they're otherwise the same class. Most other games don't have mirror classes, a horde warrior is an alliance warrior, etc even though race choices might be different and class quests would obviously be different in games like Wow. The original devs did that, made juggernauts and guardians very different visually, because they felt like it; if cost and animation resources was such an issue maybe they wouldn't have? Some of them talked in great detail about how each class should have a specific look and be instantly recognizable/distinguishable. They gave every class specific armor choices and one weapon. The original devs/producers of this game were wrong about a lot of things and swtor has reconsidered many of their maxims (similar choices didn't go over well in Warhammer either).

 

But I don't agree that fixing it now would be an easy task. When I first saw the breakdown of BW's plans for the 10 year anniversary, something Keith started plugging more than two years ago and that we've been told would be special, I thought this, allowing style/weapon choices for advanced classes, could have been the "big project" they referred to, especially since "changing styles" was announced as their #1 feature for the 10-year anniversary. It never occurred to me that allowing dual specs/class-switching would be a major programming challenge or something to build a big 2-year expac around. I've been surprised before. But considering the amount of work they're doing just to nerf the ACs and remove things like utility choices without mentioning either of those things in their 7.0 unveiling at the beginning of July, and considering that the xpac is less than three months away from being released, at this point I really don't feel like I know what 7.0 is going to be about at all.

Edited October 4, 2021 by WaywardOne

[phalczen]

Another glaring issue that is completely downplayed by the op with this supposed easy solution is that weapons are not interchangable when it comes to stat distribution and the weapon ability power of a class (or Combat Style). An Assault Cannon has different inherent stats compared to a Blaster Rifle with different values that calculate the power of certain abilities. Same is happening when your character is using one or two lightsabers. If they allowed for interchangable weapons just like that without going over all the inherent weapon stats and ability values, balancing would be even more broken than it currently is. And it would take way more than a minute to get it right.

 

Well, that's something more solvable than the animations. Without going into a ton of detail, the weapon's stats may make very little difference in a Force/Tech damage ("yellow damage") heavy class.

 

For other classes that are more dependent on white damage (weapon damage), I would assume that if there was a way to "weapon swap", it would presumably involve both hands. Assault cannons and sniper rifles are balanced against their two handed mirrors because of the off hand generator or vibroknife in exchange for the off-hand pistol. An assault cannon or sniper rifle have higher damage range, given the same Versatile Barrel, because the Commando and the Sniper lack an off-hand pistol to increase damage. So I don't think weapon swapping would allow someone to dual wield, for example, an assault cannon and a pistol. So, maintaining the correct off-hand will automatically balance the mainhand.

 

Anyway, on-topic, I don't think weapon swapping is as simple as moving the animation attachment point for a particle effect, but I'm glad the OP thinks they have solved the problem. Regardless, its not going to be in 7.0 but perhaps Combat Styles might allow for it in the future. As I've said in other threads about 7.0, I may not find the same degree of value in it as others, but that's irrelevant. Personally, I don't see a Trooper using moves like "Dirty Kick" or some of the other smuggler-themed abilities, but I guess some people would and now they will have their chance.

Edited October 4, 2021 by phalczen

[OddballEasyEight]

He's arguing with swtorista and others like her that have made similar arguments, not swtor developers.

 

Sure, he may be arguing with them and not the devs, but he's using arguments like this:

 

All weapons in swtor have attachment points, designated points for missile graphics and weapon tuning effects.

All the programmer needs to do is to link the animation to the weapon attachment point, and boom, there you go having a "green beam of love" from your sniper.

Work time: less then 2 minutes of writing a few lines of code and doing some copypasta.

 

And that's what I'm putting into question here.

[KoriVash]

I know nothing about coding, nothing about the difficulties in doing cross-weapons for our characters. However like just about everyone else here who has posted/asked, how do you know OP, that it's easy to do?

 

In the most simplistic terms, if it was easy, BW would do it, or at least say they not doing it for artistic reasons/character development or some such reason.

 

I also watch Swtorista on youtube as well, and as such will take just a few seconds to shout out to that player to keep up the good youtube posts going forward.

 

However still not seen anything about combat styles so far that interest me in any way. At least it's optional for players.

[JediQuaker]

As the guy says in Jurassic Park (roughly) "You were so busy asking 'can' we do it, you forgot to ask 'should' we do it?"

😇