Weapon Classes Are Too Restrictive
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I feel like I'm being railroaded into specific combos and playstyles when I chose a spear. Weapon Swap helps, but on some things it will not. Whirlwind consumption for example is only doable with spear equipped.
I know things might change when we get more weapons and skills, but here's my suggested anecdotes for designing skill weapon requirements and combos: make 50% of skills work with 2-3 weapon types, 25% work with 1, and 25% are buffs/combo setups/reservation skills. To explain, some skills would be very characteristic to the weapon, and the rest would be common familiar skills and buffs with familiar advantages and combos, I do feel like I need to explain, that it is very much in human nature to favour the familiar and safe known things, and there is not enough of that in the game currently when talking about skills. To allow cross weapon type combos, the game should more heavily rely to charge generations and consumptions. Parried is a great, effective debuff, but you can only consume parried with spear skills and a single support. Instead of extra hoops, parry could be a frenzy charge generator for a multitude of different skill consumptions. | |
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It makes sense from a balancing standpoint. It's hard to balance a single set of skill numbers across a lot of different weapons.
What's missing is something like skill variants where you could use the same or similar skills for different weapon types. That way we have a lot more options but GGG can still tweak it for each weapon type. |
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" We are basically thinking along the same lines, like, why not? It doesn't really make weapons more unique, the feeling of a weapon when you do the animations is what is important for ARPG. There are plenty of skills that would feel fitting for more than one archetype already. |
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" It's not a balancing issue, it's a design choice to make weapons feel more unique from each other, and less like stat-sticks. Regardless, I disagree with both points. The feeling of a weapon can differ, even with the same or very similar skills. There is nothing stopping them from cherry-picking what can and cannot be used over different weapon classes, so if something seems broken, simply exclude it. The biggest thing missing from PoE2 is build diversity IMO. A lot of it comes from being railroaded into prebuilt archetypes through the weapon-specific system. |
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Another problem with the hardcoded weapon skills is class identity. Classes don't have a visual identity anymore, weapons do. A Witch has the same exact stance with a Xbow that a Merc does. In PoE1 a Witch drags a 2-handed sword around on the ground as if they can barely lift it. The Merc and Sorc wearing the same weapon side by side can barely be told apart depending on their armor. Kinda lame in my opinion.
I also hate how it creates prefabbed combos like people are posting here. Player expression is like following a flow chart now. If used this skill, follow with this. PoE1 has a system that could solve this in the future, if it's hopefully implemented, which is Transfigured Gems. |
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" It is also very weird to be loose on class identity, but strict on weapons. Seems antithetical. Last edited by AverBeg7#1689 on Apr 7, 2025, 2:13:33 AM
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Agreed.
I feel like there should be a 50/50 mix of weapon-specific skills and ones that can be used between all or multiple. Why do I need a crossbow to throw a grenade? What is it about Rolling Slam or Leap Slam that requires a mace to do? |
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