Puzzle Quest 2 Interview
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Does the weapon system also add some a loot element? Do the monsters have item drops, or are there conditions to meet to get certain weapons, et cetera?
SF: Well, there's a number of things about the weapons. To start with, you've got exactly which kinds of weapons you're going to equip. So am I going to use a two-handed weapon and use up both my weapon slots? It'll do more damage, sure, but it will take more action points to activate, and that might be the way I'm gearing my character, for a build that uses a lot of action points to do a lot of damage.
Do I want to use two weapons, a bigger one and a small one? A bigger one to do the big hits, and a smaller one to finish of an opponent, perhaps. Do I want to use a weapon and a shield to improve my defense? Do I want to walk out there with a potion in my hand, that I can increase my mana with?
An interesting [character] build I saw the other week was a two potion-wielding wizard. One yellow potion, one blue one. He wasn't about dealing damage with his weapons, he was about pumping up his mana to cast more spells. So it's left us with a lot of variety in how we can build the characters, and that's really nice.
The monsters don't actually drop items. They're not actually dropping swords, but they are dropping what we call trait items and components, and those I things I can use to upgrade my weapons in the game. And monsters will drop bits of metal and wood, or amber, or pearls, or emeralds. I can take these to a merchant in town and use them to upgrade certain weapons.
It's a bit like an item crafting system, really. I can take my sword and turn it into a fine sword, then turn it into a masterwork sword. Each time I upgrade it, it's getting more bonuses, and as I finally upgrade it through the last levels, epic up to legendary, it's picking up special bonuses, and doing things like increasing my critical chance and increasing my spell resistance.
So there aren't like multiple swords that you would have to collect necessarily. It's all about gearing your one weapon set.
SF: Well, there are 33 different types of weapons in the game, each with slightly different stats and different abilities. For instance, if I pick up a missile weapon, missile weapons increase my initial action points, as well as doing damage like a regular weapon. Two-handed weapons just do a lot of damage.
We have other variations like the larger two-handed weapons only the barbarian can use. The bigger shields and armor, only the templar can use. The big poisons, only the assassin can use. There's certain weapon types tied to certain classes.
So it's quite a complex system, even down to having what we call racial types on items, which is like elven swords and dwarven swords, and providing slightly different bonuses to each other.
