It seems that when it comes to weapons, there's a disproportionate distribution.

Swords, maces, axes, and daggers are available in profusion, while staves, spears, polearms, whips, and flails are exceedingly rare.

While of course swords are the most common weapon, there seems to be a much larger discrepancy than there should be. Am I alone in thinking this?

>It seems that when it comes to weapons, there's a
>disproportionate distribution.

They are available in the proportion of classes that can use them. This means staff/spear/polearm/whip/flail are not as common as sword/mace/dagger.

>Swords, maces, axes, and daggers are available in profusion,
>while staves, spears, polearms, whips, and flails are
>exceedingly rare.
>
>While of course swords are the most common weapon, there seems
>to be a much larger discrepancy than there should be. Am I
>alone in thinking this?

And the formulas used for limiting these items take that into account. I don't see any problems with the amount of any of these weapons.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

I think he may have a point, albeit a small one. It always seems easier to get good swords than to get comparably good staffs, spears, polearms, etc. I've never actually tried to get whips/flails.

Goodies seem to have it easier w/ the non-popular weapons. Thunderlance, sceptre of light, staff of dawn, sung wood, all the mithril stuff from that one explore area. At low levels, silver poleaxe.

Neither seems hugely out of whack, but maybe just a little.

Neither seems hugely out of whack, but maybe just a little.

Yup. There's always a few niches that aren't keeping pace with the rest. Part of my duties with the area team are aimed at correcting these with new projects, and a lot of the recent 'sprinkling' projects (new objects in old areas) were designed to fill niches.

As a small example, if you look over the Glauruk area, it's spear-oriented, and also has a low-level magical device and some facewear. Newer area projects will be taking these sorts of things into account.

That said, as Zulgh emphasized, we're not aiming to have exactly the same number of each weapon. Swords are popular in areas because a lot of classes use (and favor) them.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

When I make a sword spec, I don't have my eyes on any specific sword. There are so many cool ones that you're sure to run accross something.

When I make a spear spec, I have a one track mind. Find a titanium spear.

There aren't that many "badass" spears. Sahuagin is heavy for most spear specs, which doesn't leave much else besides titanium to aspire to.

I can think of a dozen swords that make me drool, and only 1, possibly 2 spears.

That's more an indicator of your lack of area knowledge than a flaw in the game, I'd say.

Granted, yes, there are always going to be more swords than spears, but I can probably come up with half a dozen cool-ass spears without having to even think outside areas that I modified (where modification is partially of the form 'add cool-ass spear to area') or wrote.

Not every problem is caused by lack of competance on someone else's part.

You are, however, definitely missing out on some very cool spears that are already in the game. The titanium is always going to be arguably the best choice for things like being the tank for XP runs or raiding a cabal unopposed due to the nature of its utility, but for PK purposes there are spears out there that make it look like junk.

Is that enough to make up your margin of difference? Maybe, maybe not.

Sure there are cool spears. They're just usually harder to get than cool swords. Unless you can request. Even then I'm not sure the one I'm thinking of qualifies as "cool-ass" considering it doesn't exploit any vulns. But I could also be displaying my ignorance of some of the new areas. The past, for one.

I agree... I haven't even been playing long and I can think up 4 cool ass spears that I would love to have. Especially that black and purple one that makes you run to a healer to get slept (hope I haven't said too much)

--SIG
Two wrongs dont make a right, but three rights make a left

more now, than ever before, in fact. This is a summary of some good ones done off the top of my head...

Flails, I can think of trollmasters, crimson slumber, entwined evergreen, pestilence. There aren't too many flail users and these decent flails are usually more than enough to go around.

Polearms are quite plentiful. Mithril voulge, man-at-arms one, flaming and black bardiches, then a wrathing one which is nice for good aligns, and your basic scythe that can be bought in one of the weaponsmiths.

Whips, demon whip, diamond studded whip, willow branch, alligator skin one, chromatic one (if you ever see this), and several others I can't remember even though I have one in my possession.

Spears, again, plentiful. Staves too. There is an abundance of a basic wooden staff that is decent.

I suggest you spend some time exploring the past. The past is a good source for most of these.

The only one I've seen a real shortage of is the staff. Then again, I didn't search very hard. I've seen a decent number of both weak and strong ones, but I came across few enough mid range ones while I once considered it for a warrior's second spec, that I decided against it.

However, there are definitely enough flails and whips, even if there's not as many easy to find examples of other things. The huge number of swords doesn't mean there aren't enough choices on other weapons, it just means they aren't as easy to find.