Two weapons for Dual-Wield + Sword & Shield instead of three?

Eps · October 2014

I'm running a character that uses Dual Wielding on one hotbar, and One-Hand & Shield on the other. What really irks me is that you need three separate weapons to run this setup, instead of the logical two. Right now it's not a big issue, but I imagine it will be a big problem in the end game, where getting top-end weapons is hard.

So, please add the option to weapon-switch between the two fighting styles while having only two weapons equipped in total? The way I see this implemented is that you put the second weapon into the off-hand slot of the Dual-Wield hotbar, while keeping the main-hand slot empty. (This configuration currently results in the character fighting hand-to-hand)

nerevarine1138 · October 2014

That's something I don't see them changing. Your weapon sets always have to be different items, even if you have the exact same type of weapon in both slots.

Eps · October 2014

Is there really a reason to have things work that way, though? I imagine people would be very glad to not be forced to acquire duplicate weapons just so they can use hotbar swapping.

nerevarine1138 · October 2014

Eps wrote: »

Is there really a reason to have things work that way, though? I imagine people would be very glad to not be forced to acquire duplicate weapons just so they can use hotbar swapping.

I'd imagine it has something to do with forcing people to acquire duplicate weapons in order to not give a material advantage to people who keep the same weapon equipped in both slots.

Eps · October 2014

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

I'd imagine it has something to do with forcing people to acquire duplicate weapons in order to not give a material advantage to people who keep the same weapon equipped in both slots.

There is no advantage, really. Anyone can just put all their weapon abilities on one hotbar and their non-weapon abilities on the other, without equipping anything for that second hotbar. The actual swapping happens so fast that temporarily switching to "weaponless mode" to use an ability doesn't impact the fight at all.

Or you can equip a trash weapon for flavor - the result is the same.

nerevarine1138 · October 2014

Eps wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

I'd imagine it has something to do with forcing people to acquire duplicate weapons in order to not give a material advantage to people who keep the same weapon equipped in both slots.

There is no advantage, really. Anyone can just put all their weapon abilities on one hotbar and their non-weapon abilities on the other, without equipping anything for that second hotbar. The actual swapping happens so fast that temporarily switching to "weaponless mode" to use an ability doesn't impact the fight at all.

Again, a material advantage. If you choose to equip the same weapon in both slots, you have spent less time/gold/materials than I have.

Eps · October 2014

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Again, a material advantage. If you choose to equip the same weapon in both slots, you have spent less time/gold/materials than I have.

The trade-off is having more in-combat flexibility, and abilities from more than one skill line available for better synergies with the non-combat abilities. So you either save up and make a focused character, or you invest into making it more diverse.

However, in the case of the setup that I outlined above, it's an even greater investment than usual. All other setups require 2-3 items in the hand slots. This one requires 4. Which is a tad much.

Rodario · October 2014

Only if it would also work that way if you have the same weapon type in both slots e.g. if you only equip one two-hander and you swap weapons without anything in the secondary slots, that two-hander stays equipped.

I don't see them changing it though. I'm sure they thought about it and decided to go with the system we have now.

stevar · October 2014

+1

I personalyl would like to be able to swap only the skill bar keeping the weapons ;-)

Eps · October 2014

Rodario wrote: »

Only if it would also work that way if you have the same weapon type in both slots e.g. if you only equip one two-hander and you swap weapons without anything in the secondary slots, that two-hander stays equipped.

I'm thinking the same as well.

MorHawk · October 2014

As Nerevarine said, unfair advantage. Why should you get a discount on a separate weapon type, simply because you happen to have chosen the only two types that share an item class? You already get the flexibility of being able to switch them around as required. For example, if one had a damage of 45 and another 40, and you picked up a 50, you could scrap the 40 and 'hand-me-down' the 45. If someone's dual-staffing in the same scenario and the 50 they pick up is the same type as the 45, they don't have the option, so would be stuck with a 40/50 set up. Make sense?

That aside, in general I can sort of see the value of linking the same weapon set in both slots. Matter of fact (name drop incoming), I surprised Paul Sage with this very question in one of the early AMAs. You're often penalizing yourself pretty good by not taking advantage of the flexibility of two weapon types, and allowing it regardless of weapon type would be more equitable. Even then though, that would allow people to just blitz their resources on one good weapon that they could then link to both bars. Too open to exploiting. Plus it'd look silly putting your weapon away to swap, then pulling out the same one. They'd have to code a completely different animation for that scenario. Simply a bad idea.

Eps · October 2014

Or they could not play an animation at all?

TehMagnus · October 2014

OR you can just deal with it like any other VR14 player using the same weapons in two hands who had to craft it, enchant it and make it legendary without crying about it.

Eps · October 2014

Well, what I'm proposing is that those same VR14 and above players don't have to craft extra weapons if they don't want to use two weapon skill lines, and Dual-Wield + Sword & Board players don't need to craft more items than everyone else (4 vs. 2-3). Is that unreasonable?

MorHawk · October 2014

Eps wrote: »

Or they could not play an animation at all?

You're playing at semantics, that's a moot point. Whether a different animation or none at all, they would still have to code a different scenario for when the weapon you're swapping to is the same one. Extra level of complexity.

Eps wrote: »

Well, what I'm proposing is that those same VR14 and above players don't have to craft extra weapons if they don't want to use two weapon skill lines, and Dual-Wield + Sword & Board players don't need to craft more items than everyone else (4 vs. 2-3). Is that unreasonable?

This comes down to the age-old debate between reality and gameplay. You keep pushing the argument that "you shouldn't have to craft another one if you already have one", and your proposal does indeed make sense if you take the assumption that everything must always follow reality exactly. However, as said, this would create an inequity in the gameplay, however you roll it. Thus, when a rule of reality starts to negatively impact gameplay, the former must always suffer.

eventide03b14a_ESO · October 2014

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Eps wrote: »

Is there really a reason to have things work that way, though? I imagine people would be very glad to not be forced to acquire duplicate weapons just so they can use hotbar swapping.

I'd imagine it has something to do with forcing people to acquire duplicate weapons in order to not give a material advantage to people who keep the same weapon equipped in both slots.

You know that's not the reason. It's most likely because they can't figure out how to reliably code it.

spryler · October 2014

So 12 additional Ore, 1 additional Trait gem, 1 additional motif gem every 4-6 levels when you replace gear? If you use tradeskills this is not that big a deal. At all.

Oh wait, upgrade mats. Ok that makes it a little bit more of a big deal, still not much imo.

Csub · October 2014

Besides unfair material advantage as Nerevarine said before, if you think about it, it is called weapon swap and not ability bar swap. I know, that is not the explanation but since it is called weapon swap, it is only logical you actually have to swap weapons.

Stx · October 2014

Dual wield/ onehand/shield also get an extra enchant, and extra set bonus slot over two-handers... so I think its perfectly fine to have to actually get all of the weapons and equip them.

But.. If you want to use the same weapons for both bars I don't see why that would be a problem. It would work the same for all weapons, you just give up versatility for it.

BRogueNZ · October 2014

Csub wrote: »

Besides unfair material advantage as Nerevarine said before, if you think about it, it is called weapon swap and not ability bar swap. I know, that is not the explanation but since it is called weapon swap, it is only logical you actually have to swap weapons.

Using that logic then, the skill bar shouldn't change at all.

It is a skill swap, just poorly named.

I too can't see any sensible reason why you can't share weapons across skill bars, especially given that with limited ability slots if you wish to use more skills related to weapon type you include a few on your second bar.

Its just an unnecessary inconvenience.

Nestor · October 2014

Csub wrote: »

Besides unfair material advantage as Nerevarine said before, if you think about it, it is called weapon swap and not ability bar swap. I know, that is not the explanation but since it is called weapon swap, it is only logical you actually have to swap weapons.

Yep, your skills are there to support your weapon. You swap weapons in this game. As for using the same weapons on both skill bars, well, why in earth would you do that?

Besides, how many mats does it take to make a sword, hammer, axe or a dagger? Don't have the materials, deconstruct two things and you can make whatever you want.

Oh, wait, this is just a way to get around the 5 skill limitation in the rotation. OK, nothing to see here.

DenverRalphy · October 2014

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Eps wrote: »

Is there really a reason to have things work that way, though? I imagine people would be very glad to not be forced to acquire duplicate weapons just so they can use hotbar swapping.

I'd imagine it has something to do with forcing people to acquire duplicate weapons in order to not give a material advantage to people who keep the same weapon equipped in both slots.

There'd be no material advantage. Any player could use the same mechanic. Nobody would have an upper hand on another. As I've seen you profess the "choices should matter" argument, then I'd expect that you could see the merit in the OPs question.

If there were any advantage, it'd be to those who actually had two different weapon types on each bar to take advantage of skill diversity.

Personally, I think each bar should utilize a "loadout" mechanic. You should be able to use the same weapon/s on both bars without having to craft multiple identical weapons.

At best, the current solution is just an unnecessary gold sink that has little if any impact on the gold market.

I have a NB that has to maintain 4 weapons, even though both bars are DW daggers. Both sets virtually identical.

BRogueNZ · October 2014

Nestor wrote: »

Yep, your skills are there to support your weapon. You swap weapons in this game. As for using the same weapons on both skill bars, well, why in earth would you do that?

Serious or sarcastic?

Why wouldn't you use the same weapon?
If you've x weapon maxed and fill your bars with weapon, class, guild/assault/support skills you have no need for another weapon type.

DenverRalphy · October 2014

Nestor wrote: »

Csub wrote: »

Besides unfair material advantage as Nerevarine said before, if you think about it, it is called weapon swap and not ability bar swap. I know, that is not the explanation but since it is called weapon swap, it is only logical you actually have to swap weapons.

Yep, your skills are there to support your weapon. You swap weapons in this game. As for using the same weapons on both skill bars, well, why in earth would you do that?

To combine weapon skills with class skills. Ie.. A NB may want to
utilize all DW skills, and still have access to Assassin/Shadow/Siphon skills.

Besides, how many mats does it take to make a sword, hammer, axe or a dagger? Don't have the materials, deconstruct two things and you can make whatever you want.

Mats for Yellow quality can get expensive.

Oh, wait, this is just a way to get around the 5 skill limitation in the rotation. OK, nothing to see here.

It's not a method to "get around" the 5 skill limit. You can already do that. In fact, even the in-game loading screen tips give advice as to how to do exactly that.

danovic · October 2014

Why would anyone have melee weapons on both bars anyway? It should be a range bar and a melee bar.

Nestor · October 2014

BRogueNZ wrote: »

Serious or sarcastic?

Why wouldn't you use the same weapon?
If you've x weapon maxed and fill your bars with weapon, class, guild/assault/support skills you have no need for another weapon type.

I dunno, maybe because people want Ranged and Melee attacks.

I have run two sets of 1H/S before, but each sword and shield had different enchantments on them for different kinds of mobs. Fire and Ice affect different Mobs differently. Or poison or whatever. Now, the only reason I did this was my Dragon Knight went all the way to VR1 before ever developing a second weapon skill. I was quite surprised at my own procrastination on that. I did not do this for very long as it was not that useful tactically. I even tried making one bar all Stamina and one bar all Magic, still was not the best way tactically to do things.

So, that's why I wonder why anyone would really want to do this. The only reason I can think of is to have 10 skills available with one weapon type.

Sure, if you make things Legendary, it can cost some Tempers to run different weapon sets, but those are not really that hard to come by, either from hirelings or purchasing. I get Legendary tempers from my L3 Mules who have L1 Hirelings if you don't want to spend any gold.

Eps · October 2014

Stx wrote: »

Dual wield/ onehand/shield also get an extra enchant, and extra set bonus slot over two-handers... so I think its perfectly fine to have to actually get all of the weapons and equip them.

Hmm, I honestly didn't think of that. Does anyone know if a weapon's set bonus applies when you're currently not switched to its skill bar?

danovic wrote: »

Why would anyone have melee weapons on both bars anyway? It should be a range bar and a melee bar.

I want one bar for quickly killing key targets among mob groups in Group Dungeons as well as solo questing, and another for tanking bosses. Also, flavor.

BRogueNZ · October 2014

Nestor wrote: »

BRogueNZ wrote: »

Serious or sarcastic?

Why wouldn't you use the same weapon?
If you've x weapon maxed and fill your bars with weapon, class, guild/assault/support skills you have no need for another weapon type.

I dunno, maybe because people want Ranged and Melee attacks.

I have run two sets of 1H/S before, but each sword and shield had different enchantments on them for different kinds of mobs. Fire and Ice affect different Mobs differently. Or poison or whatever. Now, the only reason I did this was my Dragon Knight went all the way to VR1 before ever developing a second weapon skill. I was quite surprised at my own procrastination on that. I did not do this for very long as it was not that useful tactically. I even tried making one bar all Stamina and one bar all Magic, still was not the best way tactically to do things.

So, that's why I wonder why anyone would really want to do this. The only reason I can think of is to have 10 skills available with one weapon type.

Sure, if you make things Legendary, it can cost some Tempers to run different weapon sets, but those are not really that hard to come by, either from hirelings or purchasing. I get Legendary tempers from my L3 Mules who have L1 Hirelings if you don't want to spend any gold.

Sure.
Personally I run resto staff both bars. Between all of the Templar Class abilities and a couple of Mage guild spells I don't really require another weapon to be equipped between skill sets and it just bugs me that I have to have two of them.

Nestor · October 2014

The real issue here is this. Everyone who wants two sets of skill bars has to have two sets of weapons. Usually people have a AoE/DPS or a Ranged/Melee set, but it can be any combo.

So, the issue is, why should some people not have to have two sets of weapons to have two skill bars just because they use the same weapons. Where everyone else has to have two sets of weapons for two skill bars.

Making the game easier for you does not make the game better for everyone.