Dual wield spears

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Hazard
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Re: Dual wield spears

Post by Hazard » Sun Nov 14, 2021 2:19 am

Dual wield shields when?

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fulminea
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Re: Dual wield spears

Post by fulminea » Mon Nov 15, 2021 3:03 pm

Irongron wrote:
Sun Nov 14, 2021 12:09 am
I've asked that duel wield spear are disabled. So don't build for them.
Thank god. I saw some characters with two spears running around and was absolutely horrified.

MageTankTech
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Re: Dual wield spears

Post by MageTankTech » Tue Nov 16, 2021 12:24 am

fulminea wrote:
Mon Nov 15, 2021 3:03 pm
Irongron wrote:
Sun Nov 14, 2021 12:09 am
I've asked that duel wield spear are disabled. So don't build for them.
Thank god. I saw some characters with two spears running around and was absolutely horrified.
Why?

Void
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Re: Dual wield spears

Post by Void » Tue Nov 16, 2021 6:11 am

MageTankTech wrote:
Tue Nov 16, 2021 12:24 am
fulminea wrote:
Mon Nov 15, 2021 3:03 pm
Irongron wrote:
Sun Nov 14, 2021 12:09 am
I've asked that duel wield spear are disabled. So don't build for them.
Thank god. I saw some characters with two spears running around and was absolutely horrified.
Why?
It is an anime/wuxia (xianxia) trope. That's why some people might dislike that.

See analysis:
https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com ... ing-spears

And here's an example:
https://guide.fire-emblem-heroes.com/wp ... lide01.png

It is close to "dual wield two dire maces" in terms of plausibility.
Another forum ban, here we go again.

MageTankTech
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Re: Dual wield spears

Post by MageTankTech » Tue Nov 16, 2021 9:39 pm

So effectively, realism trumps everything?

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Ork
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Re: Dual wield spears

Post by Ork » Wed Nov 17, 2021 1:44 am

MageTankTech wrote:
Tue Nov 16, 2021 9:39 pm
So effectively, realism trumps everything?
Aesthetics do, not realism. NWN was not made to animate dual spears, so it looks way worse than it ought.

Void
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Re: Dual wield spears

Post by Void » Wed Nov 17, 2021 3:55 am

MageTankTech wrote:
Tue Nov 16, 2021 9:39 pm
So effectively, realism trumps everything?
You would need to ask Irongorn for the reason.

There are many possible reasons, one that I listed is just one out of many.

I do personally think that wuxia "over the top" stylystics do not mesh well with d&d, however.
Another forum ban, here we go again.

MageTankTech
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Re: Dual wield spears

Post by MageTankTech » Wed Nov 17, 2021 4:34 am

To be perfectly blunt, I just like the way the character looks when they are holding the two spears. The animations for most of the weapons used during combat in nwn tend to look clunky to me.

So, I typically just ignore how they look during combat and focus on how they look when the character is idle.

But if it really is such an issue then so be it.

Void
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Re: Dual wield spears

Post by Void » Wed Nov 17, 2021 5:09 am

MageTankTech wrote:
Wed Nov 17, 2021 4:34 am
To be perfectly blunt, I just like the way the character looks when they are holding the two spears. The animations for most of the weapons used during combat in nwn tend to look clunky to me.

So, I typically just ignore how they look during combat and focus on how they look when the character is idle.

But if it really is such an issue then so be it.
I enjoy combat animations very much. The characters precisely block strikes in most cases, and whoever was making the game made sure to handle most combinations of weapons. So they dodge, block with shields, block with dual weapons, single weapons, and so on. It is one of the best aspects of the game. Monsters do that as well, although there are amusing situations like when a dragon tries to block a strike with claws. Nwn2, in contrast, does not have anything like that.

As for reasons, you'd need to ask Irongorn, like I said.
Another forum ban, here we go again.

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Re: Dual wield spears

Post by Kenji » Mon Nov 22, 2021 12:02 am

The spear will likely have the light flail/whip treatment where one can still wield an eligible offhand weapon with the spear being a main-hand weapon only.

Combat animation-wise this means one can be whacking targets with the spear. While this can likely be rectified with changing animation % chance in the .2da setting, if this still turns out to be too aesthetically displeasing, it's very likely that we'll revert the spear to 1H and shield only.

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msterswrdsmn
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Re: Dual wield spears

Post by msterswrdsmn » Fri Nov 26, 2021 5:25 pm

I am very, very weirded out by "spears are small" now.

Spears are long weapons, but they were made small to support a shield and sword combination? Still wierds me out, as a shield and spear combination is less effective with a longer spear outside of a group formation compared to just using it 2 handed.

Shortspears worked well with shields, when you didn't have a lot of room to manuever or manipulate a weapon and you were literally mashing/pinning someone with your shield while stabbing them. Its the same reason very short swords, like pugio's were effective. Especially in formations. This is where the pawn movement for capturing in chess came about; its easier to got for a flanking stab on the person focused on the guy next to you than it is the person directly in front of you.

Regular spears were a bit too long to really wield with a single hand with the same effectiveness. They were more effective two-handed due to being able to use both hands to control the tip, as well as sliding the shaft through one hand to thrust and recover (kinda like chopping wood with an axe).

A few quick videos for entertainment purposes to illustrate this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3TBhWXnbGs <-2 handed spear usage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLLv8E2pWdk <-very much recommend this if this sort of thing interests you. Spears vs swords, as well as the difference between shield/spear and 2 handed spears

Maybe making 2 different groups of spears? Shortspears and regular spears, one for shield usage and one for two handed usage? I saw pikes are a thing now, and those are -horrific- against people in a duel or dungeon setting, being very long, bulky, and unwieldly (mainly used to break charges from a distance)

Void
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Re: Dual wield spears

Post by Void » Fri Nov 26, 2021 5:31 pm

msterswrdsmn wrote:
Fri Nov 26, 2021 5:25 pm
Maybe making 2 different groups of spears? Shortspears and regular spears, one for shield usage and one for two handed usage? I saw pikes are a thing now, and those are -horrific- against people in a duel or dungeon setting, being very long, bulky, and unwieldly (mainly used to break charges from a distance)
I would pretty much want to see this happen. The original spear could be used two-handed and that made it a decent choice for some situations.
Another forum ban, here we go again.

a shrouded figure
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Re: Dual wield spears

Post by a shrouded figure » Sat Nov 27, 2021 8:20 pm

I’m only disappointed because spears were the only weapons that wild dwarves could two hand with proper animations :(

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Hazard
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Re: Dual wield spears

Post by Hazard » Sun Nov 28, 2021 3:43 am

I liked spears being a one-hand and two-hand weapon. It was fun being able to switch between using a shield when solo/supporting someone and using two hands for better thrusts when you have someone supporting you.

I understand why the change was made, but it's sad to see a weapon lose versatility. I really enjoy the -twohand mechanic with one handed weapons and would like to see it applied to weapons that are traditionally two-handed, like longswords .. and capable of it, like spears.

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Re: Dual wield spears

Post by Kenji » Thu Dec 02, 2021 8:34 pm

msterswrdsmn wrote:
Fri Nov 26, 2021 5:25 pm
I am very, very weirded out by "spears are small" now.

Spears are long weapons, but they were made small to support a shield and sword combination? Still wierds me out, as a shield and spear combination is less effective with a longer spear outside of a group formation compared to just using it 2 handed.

Shortspears worked well with shields, when you didn't have a lot of room to manuever or manipulate a weapon and you were literally mashing/pinning someone with your shield while stabbing them. Its the same reason very short swords, like pugio's were effective. Especially in formations. This is where the pawn movement for capturing in chess came about; its easier to got for a flanking stab on the person focused on the guy next to you than it is the person directly in front of you.

Regular spears were a bit too long to really wield with a single hand with the same effectiveness. They were more effective two-handed due to being able to use both hands to control the tip, as well as sliding the shaft through one hand to thrust and recover (kinda like chopping wood with an axe).

A few quick videos for entertainment purposes to illustrate this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3TBhWXnbGs <-2 handed spear usage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLLv8E2pWdk <-very much recommend this if this sort of thing interests you. Spears vs swords, as well as the difference between shield/spear and 2 handed spears

Maybe making 2 different groups of spears? Shortspears and regular spears, one for shield usage and one for two handed usage? I saw pikes are a thing now, and those are -horrific- against people in a duel or dungeon setting, being very long, bulky, and unwieldly (mainly used to break charges from a distance)
This discussion falls into the debate of realism vs aesthetics vs mechanics. Let’s first address why now Spear vs Pike, when historically they are Shortspear, Spear, and Pike in terms of lengths.

We first had vanilla spear: large weapon with crappy stats.

Spear was then changed to medium to allow medium creatures to wield it with 2H polearm animation and shield.

Flailing with a tower shield while bashing with the spear’s butt-end was deemed aesthetically displeasing by the community (poll link here) and so we changed it to 1H animation and thrust-only

Small PCs began to wield these spears like what a medium creature would with a greatsword - double-gripping the spear. And that was deemed just as displeasing aesthetically by the administration.

The short-term fix is to change Spear to small, so small PCs can wield them one-handed. We introduce a new Large spear variant so medium creatures can still wield a longer spear with proper animation.

Now, initially we were going to rename “Spear” into “Short Spear” and the new 2H spear “Long Spear”. But the similarity in name might cause confusion among the player base, so we decided to keep the spear name as is and name the new longer spear “Pike”, even though we know pikes to be a far longer spear variant than the one we have now.

The decision for these changes was made based on aesthetics over anything mechanical, much less anything realistic.

In short, this will likely be how we decide on certain design changes from now on:
Aesthetics > Mechanics > Realism

We will take all of the three into account, but when we have to choose, that’ll be the order of importance.

The poll should allow indefinite vote changes, so if any of you dislike the current set up, feel free to comment there on the poll in attempts to change everyone else’s mind. I personally know very well on how the loud few may appear to speak for the silent majority that it’s more reasonable to trust poll results over a few posts from the same person on this debate over aesthetics.

MRFTW
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Re: Dual wield spears

Post by MRFTW » Thu Dec 02, 2021 11:39 pm

Did we ever get a yes/no on if spears are intended to be finesseable?

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Kenji
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Re: Dual wield spears

Post by Kenji » Fri Jan 07, 2022 2:27 am

https://youtu.be/-GQs5pniZSA?t=156

I'd post the Wheel of Time Aiel fight scene, too, but that one's probably beyond pg13

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