Weapon Familiarity Bonus

When picking up a sword, the damage you normally do would be a factor of skills + stats. If you use the same weapon to kill 100 monsters (arbitrary number), you could be granted a +5% (arbitrary factor) damage/accuracy bonus for that specific weapon as you are now familiar with its weight, feel, and speed. It becomes an extension of your arm and you have come to trust your blade.

One day you find a new and better sword. You put down Old Faithful and begin getting a feel for the new one. This better sword may now do slightly less damage/accuracy than your Old Faithful until you kill enough with it to regain the familiarity bonus. It is now stronger than your old one and you've bonded with Trusty Rusty.

Now think about this mechanic along side increasing repair bills and PvP. If each repair bill is increasingly more costly than the last, once you beat your sword up enough where the cost of a brand new sword is cheaper than the repair, players would typically switch to the new one. With a 5% familiarity bonus to Trusty Rusty, now you have a reason to pay these much higher repair costs to keep that weapon and its bonus in play. PvPers will want that edge, and paying higher repair bills on their favorite weapons would act as both a money sink and offer a more personal connection to your favorite weapon.

This is my sword. There are many like it but this one is mine. A small bonus to a weapon that you have seasoned in blood is both realistic and immersive. It also adds a personal and tangible "value" to keeping it with you. The most cost effective route will still be to replace the weapon and stimulate the economy, but a high level money sink is always needed and this one is optional to boot.

 

Do you think you could do the same thing with just visual effects? Rather than a stat boost, you just swing your sword in cooler ways?

I'd like to see all stat boosts in the game be tactical decisions. i.e. standing on a hill, flanking someone, carrying a weapon in the other hand, etc. Rather than having such a thing as better with a sword or a better sword.

 

Visual effects are possible, but I argue what would the point of attacking extra stylishly in battle be? Are you dazzling your target or is your flourish opening them up for a critical strike on a weak point? Perhaps weapon familiarity adds a new "combat rune" to your deck that you only get access to from using a specific weapon for a long time. It does not need to be overpowered.

 

I thought Chris had touched on an affinity system that worked much like you described. That was my impression of it anyway. I'll have to dig up that video.. it was an older one (during the KS if I remember right).

I think it's a great idea.

 

We have discussed a design concept like this but called it Weapon Affinity. The goal, like mentioned, was to represent familiarity with a certain weapon that is gained over time. I like the uniqueness it adds to a specific weapon. A good fictional construct for "powering up" a weapon is a way I look at it. This concept would certainly influence your desire to repair a weapon. This will be a tricky balance.

 

Would not using a type of weapon for an amount of time indicate a loss of Affinity for that weapon? I would support that.

 

About 7 years ago I was working on a community/indie MMO called Project Wish. I came up with the same or similar concept of having weapon familiarity as a means to allowing players to create and become the characters they envisioned more so than simply what generic MMO combat systems have come to allow. For what it's worth this is what I wrote back in 2006 on the PW forum (edited in retrospect to make a little more sense),

 

One of the Dev's mentioned being able to display your old good sword in your house. It would be too expensive to repair but you might use it on special occasions, such as a difficult fight. I think keeping your affinity would help you do this. You might spring for 1 more repair bill on your old favorite/best weapon if you need to that way. I think it sounds like fun and adds something unique to the game.... You'll want to hold on to that old worn out sword, instead of scrapping it.

 

My original design idea had weapon affinity decreasing under certain circumstances.

Good stuff knoxiTV. That is a great summary of the basic concept. We are keeping it simple for now but I like the depth you described.

 

I've read something like this a long long time ago, and I have almost forgotten about it until I read this. I like this idea of you doing more damage the more you use a particular weapon.

Is there a similar feature in the game where, the more goblins you kill, the stronger you are against them? Like after killing 100 goblins, you are more familiar with their weaknesses and do +5% more damage. After killing 1000 goblins, you get +10% damage against them. And you also get a title "Goblin Slayer".

 

@Bzus (and others): Consider, please, a multi-level option -- family, class, style, particular -- with increasing boundaries to attain the familiarity, and benefits therefrom. (Example: 'One-handed' (family); 'Sword' (class), 'longsword' (style), and 'my longsword' (particular).) Perhaps as the games develop, this complexity gets programmed and added.

Training and time -- practice, practice, practice -- are required to build familiarity. Experience does allow some 'bleeding' or generality, but muscles and nerves need to be conditioned. The learning curve shortens with greater and greater experience, but does not magically disappear (...room for creative spellmaking inserted now).

Interestingly, people are 'wired' to use tools; brainscans have shown that the 'mental model' of brain function extends to incorporate a tool. It happens quickest with hand-held tools (a huge amount of our brain is devoted to that small fraction of our body); but it takes most time for unbalancing tools (large, bulky, changing-center-of-motion ones). So having a weapons affinity effect in-game improves the game's 'realism'.

One of the best classes in knife defense I experienced, incorporated our never, ever, ever putting the knife down (out of our hand) except when we were actually engaging in the moment of conflict. As soon as the move was completed, both participants (pairs of black belts) put their respective knives back into their hands, even before moving back into postion to start the next 'throw'. In just about one hour, the knives were far more adaptably and unconsciously wielded.

I've used the same technique in training people to shoot, for rifles, pistols, and shotguns.

 

Getting extremely detailed... I hope we can see something like this though. The more familiar you are with a certain weapon type, (and even further: the size, style and make of a specific style of weapon type) the more proficient you are with it?

It can be done, right?