Posted: Thu Dec 25, 2003 11:49 am
Ooh, the nonsense is flying...
Well, there's a lot of conflation here of personal taste with real game issues. Weapons & skills that strike you as unbalanced or unreasonable, graphics you don't like? Live with them or don't use them, or write a MOD if you like. Generally, I think that SoA/ToB does a good job balancing dual wield and two handers - even offhand shields remain quite valid, at least situationally.
Some general observations:
Vorpal weapons are a bit of a disappointment - most of the guys you'd really want to be able to insta-kill are immune to the effects.
Other than Blackrazor, there are NO really stellar longswords in SOA - the Equalizer is ok, but no more and you get it quite late. Sword of Roses is a decent weapon, but nothing compelling about it all. Daystar is killer versus undead, but mostly because of the effect. There's this vast sea of mediocre longswords out there.
Why is no-one mentioning staves? There are a ton of good ones available, especially with Item Upgrade, and you can even backstab with (most of) them = they're not JUST for mages ya know. In the other blunts, here are very nice hammers and flails, and pretty good clubs, but maces = TEH LAME, pretty much.
Katanas are rarish, but not too bad - there's certainly enough for one Katana user, two if one doesn't dual wield them, and Celestial Fury / Sanchuudoku is a mighty nice combo.
Generally, it seems to work well to have the bulk of your characters use non-overlapping weapon skills, with the exception of staves and two handers, where you can kit multiple characters out in at least adequate weapons.
Good gaming, Merry Christmas, have fun!
Well, there's a lot of conflation here of personal taste with real game issues. Weapons & skills that strike you as unbalanced or unreasonable, graphics you don't like? Live with them or don't use them, or write a MOD if you like. Generally, I think that SoA/ToB does a good job balancing dual wield and two handers - even offhand shields remain quite valid, at least situationally.
Some general observations:
Vorpal weapons are a bit of a disappointment - most of the guys you'd really want to be able to insta-kill are immune to the effects.
Other than Blackrazor, there are NO really stellar longswords in SOA - the Equalizer is ok, but no more and you get it quite late. Sword of Roses is a decent weapon, but nothing compelling about it all. Daystar is killer versus undead, but mostly because of the effect. There's this vast sea of mediocre longswords out there.
Why is no-one mentioning staves? There are a ton of good ones available, especially with Item Upgrade, and you can even backstab with (most of) them = they're not JUST for mages ya know. In the other blunts, here are very nice hammers and flails, and pretty good clubs, but maces = TEH LAME, pretty much.
Katanas are rarish, but not too bad - there's certainly enough for one Katana user, two if one doesn't dual wield them, and Celestial Fury / Sanchuudoku is a mighty nice combo.
Generally, it seems to work well to have the bulk of your characters use non-overlapping weapon skills, with the exception of staves and two handers, where you can kit multiple characters out in at least adequate weapons.
Good gaming, Merry Christmas, have fun!