Should Weapon Types Have Small Affects?

[l3lessed]

I was having some thoughts about other things that can be added to Daggerfall weapons to make combat more immersive without making the game feel unrealistic or too easy.

My thought is to add a chance or method for having weapons do small affects based on what type they are, somewhat like skyrims perk system that allowed you to make blunt weapons reduce armor and piercing weapons to cause bleeding and so on.

The affects off the top of my head would be as follows:

• Blunt: Short stun and reduce total armor of enemy. Need some type of visual indicator for this happening? (Crushes armor and causes blunt trauma)
• Piercing: Ignores a percentage of armor and can cause bleeding damage, which would use the particle system to mimic real bleeding. (Punctures armor and creates large deeps wounds that bleed)
• Slashing: Reduces enemy damage and slower attack/move speed. Also needs some form of visual indicator for this. (Makes it harder for the enemy to hit with force by cutting tendons and muscles with the sharp blade)
• Two handed Melee: Maybe at some point you can grab and move enemies around, like wrestling them and using them as shields in combat.

Just some thoughts as I get closer to the first complete release of my combat mod. This may be something to add as a follow-up expansion to it after initial drop. Any thoughts?

[FrancoStrider]

Short answer, yes.

I don't know about bleeding effects (doesn't make a whole lot of sense, as all weapons can potentially do that), but maybe take a leaf out of Dark Souls for a second and more have damage types rather than the weapons.

Blunt (maces, hammers)Good against armor, carapace creatures (giant bugs), skeletons and other undead.
Slashing (swords, axes, daggers) Good against animals and soft skin monsters.
Piercing (arrows, Swords/daggers via the thrust move), decent against armor and against scaly creatures.

Just as examples.

[l3lessed]

Hmm, I hear you, but there is also truth to weapons being built to do certain things. There is a reason there are so many variations of melee weapons throughout human history, and it isn't because each melee weapon did the exact same thing to the human body. I am going to avoid the true realistic argument that certain weapons wouldn't ever get through certain armors, as I hate mechanics that make a player completely useless no matter how hard and good they fight an opponent.

As an example of weapon variation for damaging affects, arrows alone had so many differing heads, and one of them was a large type of squared pyramid head meant specifically for causing massive bleeding if it managed to puncture the skin under the plate armor. Weapons had differing blade styles and end styles based on their affects and how well they would be in said battle conditions. Curved blades are great of mounted combat because they slide into the flesh and out easier without snagging and causing the rider to get pulled off. Or, axes and maces that had a large square pyramid at the end, which was used to puncture holes into large armor and more importantly the body. You try stopping the bleeding on a square pyramid wound in your abdomen; going to bleed much longer and more than if you were slashed with a fine blade and could close/sow/treat the wound easier.

Also, there is already a mod that does much of that. I believe physical combat and armor overhaul actually makes very similar changes to what you propose below, where certain weapons are more affective against certain types of enemies. https://www.nexusmods.com/daggerfallunity/mods/76

I want to try to replicate the feeling that you're actually slowly wearing down and damaging your appointment to death, and these affects to me are the best way. Setup on my Skyrim build, it made combat feel really engaging because every hit had the potential to change the combat. I guess this is what I'm trying to kind of replicate with these affects.

Man, does my composition major come out on these forums. I can be so long winded. Thanks for the input.