Idea to make spears more usable

Started by pablo603, August 01, 2018, 07:52:09 AM

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pablo603

Spears feel abandoned. Most people use long swords over spears.

I got an idea to make them more used
Since the unstable 1.0 buffs melee and made guns not able to shoot at point blank it encourages to build a two person "wall" (melee in front of the shooter)
Maybe when a melee guy has a spear and is in front of another colonist he could put his spear towards the enemy like in a phalanx formation. It would increase his range of attack (Maybe half a tile longer so he can kill when enemy is trying to climb the sandbags) and would deal damage to enemies with high speed like spears do to horses.

Klomster

Give actual reach to spears?

I'm all in, phalanxes sound fun.

WoesteWam


patoka

wooden and metal shields should definitely be added. maybe not as strong as shield belts but depending on shield types additional defense for the wearer. a bucklar would only give armor to the off hand, but a big round shield would defend the body and both arms (if used correctly not just the off hand gets defended, unlike what is shown in holywood movies), a kite shield would additionally defend the legs. a tower shield could be added to archers which if deployed would defend their whole body kinda like a portable sandbag.

these would be excellent additions to the new medieval parts of the game.

and to come back to the original point, spears should definitely have additional reach. if currently range 1 means you can stab someone with a knife or punch or even headbutt them, then spears should definitely have at the very least range 2, if not 3. otherwise that's not spearfighting but more like half-swording.
surely you dont need to rebutcher corpses that you already half butchered if you leave the table to smoke a joint real quick?

Klomster

Shields for simplicity could add dodge chance.
Or if one felt like adding it, a separate parry chance.

Since it simply giving armour is a bit odd (sure to the hand, fine) since a shield is not just material in the way, it's something you actively use to protect yourself.
So it working as a passive power field would be very odd. But alas, a simple way to add it.

But i still think it makes more sense with melee dodge chance, representing getting the shield in the way thus negating the attack.

patoka

melee vs melee, yes, probably, unless it's about maces and clubs vs shields. then, armour makes more sense imo, as especially maces are built in a way that they wont glance off, unlike the steel blade of a sword for example.headbutts are probably also harder to dodge with a shield than without one, therefore using it as straight armor makes more sense there aswell imo.

once it comes to pawns with charge rifles shooting at medieval shields i am 100% positive that armor makes more sense than dodge chance (i am not sure if you can even dodge bullets...probably not, so this point of mine doesnt mean anything)
surely you dont need to rebutcher corpses that you already half butchered if you leave the table to smoke a joint real quick?

Bolgfred

And that's the point where the topic switched away from spears, up to shields.

But, back to spears, I don't think it makes sense to give spears a higher range. Not because it's not cool(it is), but because it would be too difficult to implement in question of balancing and such.

I see the characteristics of a spear in stopping power. Horses know best, there's no joke in a spear to slow you down.
I dunno if melee weapons have a stopping value like ranged weapons do, but I would switch them as giving spears a high chance, clubs and ikwa medium, and  sword a low chance for stopping.

This would turn the spear more into a crowd control weapon, whilst swords stay high dps. Maybe the ikwa could become the high penetration weapon to make them anti-armor as their speciality.
"The earth has only been lent to us,
but no one has said anything about returning."
-J.R. Van Devil

Razzoriel

- First-strike. Spears allow wielders to attack twice before the other pawn can attack once. This gives the spear an upperhand of two attacks in any given situation for melee.

- Additional dodge chance. Spears keep people in check for attacks and have reach. Longer weapons have bigger radius of influence than shorter ones, making it more difficult to reach.

- More armor penetration. Make spears be less effective against low-armor, mass attackers than the sword, but more effective against highly-armored targets.

- Brace. Click it and the pawn becomes immobile. The first enemy pawn that attacks it in melee makes the defending bracing pawn deal +50% damage in his first attack affected by the enemy's Moving stat (if a tribal with 50% moving engages your bracing pawn, the bracing attack deals instead +25% damage). Bracing is disabled for X seconds after the spearwielding pawn leaves combat, to prevent spamming and exploitage.

Greep

#8
Quote from: Bolgfred on August 07, 2018, 05:28:09 AM
And that's the point where the topic switched away from spears, up to shields.

But, back to spears, I don't think it makes sense to give spears a higher range. Not because it's not cool(it is), but because it would be too difficult to implement in question of balancing and such.

I see the characteristics of a spear in stopping power. Horses know best, there's no joke in a spear to slow you down.
I dunno if melee weapons have a stopping value like ranged weapons do, but I would switch them as giving spears a high chance, clubs and ikwa medium, and  sword a low chance for stopping.

This would turn the spear more into a crowd control weapon, whilst swords stay high dps. Maybe the ikwa could become the high penetration weapon to make them anti-armor as their speciality.

There's also the point of why would you use a melee weapon as ranged when you have guns.  Cases where you'd want to use a spear, e.g. behind sword dudes, you're better off with a charge rifle or lowly heavy smg/shotgun

I honestly like the pre-nerf version of spears really, as a great counter to mechs.  Just you know, not QUITE so horrible overpowered.
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