Weapon Allowance. Distorts actual power rating? (in General)

Hi all, it's late and I can't quite form what I want to say, so please bear with me. :)

Should the Weapon Allowance be disposted of?

If anyone doesn't use their full Weapon Allowance, they are inherantly at a weakness to other teams of the same size that do. Do we really need a weapon allowance?

Tanks need weapons to function, that's why the allowance exists, but given two tanks of equal size, both using weapon that don't fill the allowance, why should one using a whip have the same PR as one using say a battle axe?

Maybe we need to assign PR weighting to all weapons, with the bigger cheaper upgraded, more powerful weapons having a heigher weighting than those lesser to them, to accuratly report a teams PR and make all teams and set ups more level to each other at a glance.

Just a thought.

I don't have any pros or cons for PR weighting idea.

I think Weapon Allowance should not be removed.
If someone does not use the weapon allowance, my guess is, the teams will not be very effective (better to say the weapon will be weak compared to the opponents'). It is the same as if you had 300k MM while opponents' already have 600k AMF which will most certainly make the MM Mage kill himself.

imo any tank based character with weapons below the allowance isn't optimalised.

but they shouldn't be counted for what they don't use, in other words they don't have the PR bonus or penalty.

characters maximising the weapon allowance also don't have a big penalty, only a puny one...

How about to equal sized Tank based teams. Both with an unused Weapon Allowance of 1 Mil (that's a big team! ;) ).

First tank gets a BoNE and ups it to just under the WA.

The next uses a Katana and gets it to just under the WA.

Both teams have the same PR as neither weapon exceeds the WA. But having a higher base, the BoNE has smaller upgrade costs and is a more damaging, or powerful weapon.

In this case, you'ld expect the BoNE using team to be the most pwerful, but the PR of both doesn't reflect this.

Actually, ignore the Weapon Allowance. All weapons should have a PR weighting.

A BoNE that increases PR by x is more powerful than a whip that increases PR by the same amount.

Katana costs more money to upgrade, but then again, it is less strong at the same NW.

Indeed those 2 teams would be equal in terms of PR and MPR, but you can then see at the scores that one is better than the other, and also you can see the weapons when you inspect.

But PR given should not be equal. One is better than the other and should provide more PR.

Also, any team that does not fully use thier Weapon Allowance isn't optimised...

Also the Katana tank team has an option to buy other weapon, BONE or if he/she chooses something else which suits for the given Tank strategy...

This game is about options and choices. If someone will choose to put 10 mil into Katana, it is his/her choice.

What choice is there if a handful of weapons are so much better than the rest?

I've said before, get rid of tulwars etc, as they serve no use. But give each weapon a PR weighting, and there's a small reason to choose again.

Do you pump that BoNE, knowing your PR will rocket, or stick with the slightly less damaging Katana which won't increase your PR as much?

GL...

Seriously...

Stop making me agree with you.

*sigh*

I hate agreeing with people.
It's so unfair. :(

This is a great idea that would add a lot to CB strategy and make people think twice about things rather than just putting a lot of USD into a BoNE or MH and being done with it.
I also agree (but don't particuarly care about) the weapon allowance idea. If it changes, good. If it doesn't, meh, I probably wouldn't have noticed the change anyway.

The weapon PR weight would add a lot and take away very little (or nothing at all).
CB doesn't need any balancing changes right now.
CB doesn't really need any new items.
There's not much of the essentials that it needs.
So it's time for CB to take a step forward and not only use armor PR weighting, but also weapon PR weighting.

just woke up so crazy idea here.

why not make it so higher nw means better weapon,
and make a weighted rating for forging and BS'ing a weapon

seems it would be easier for ppl to understand, wow my els is 1 mil nw and the next upgrade is 100k but hey cool the BS is only charging me 10k because its such a nice weapon and easy to upgrade.

I like cb1 :P

Ok let's look it from this end then:

Lets say a BoNE has a higher PR weighting than a Katana.

If both characters still have their weapons below the Allowance then it still makes no difference for their PR.



But if you get rid of the weapon NW allowance then Tanks are really nerfed down, because they NEED the weapons to work as well as Armor, mages only need armor...

so a situation with 1 minion tank vs 1 minion mage with same MPR and same NW from armor armor would then be:

tank: MPR + armor PR + weapon PR
mage: MPR + armor PR

then the tank would have a much higher PR outcome

A weapons allowance avoids a low-level antitank penalty and adds a dimension of strategy.

Allowance good.

This is the reason for the allowance per Jon:

Basically, everything will count towards PR, except for a weapon "allowance." Since tanks need NW + ST combined to keep dmg growth up, weapon NW up to a point (about 2/3 of all the XP your [character] has trained, since that's easier to calculate inside a trigger than what ST would turn out to be after all the bonuses are added in) doesn't count towards your PR. NW above that cap is counted normally.

Leave it alone, tanks suffer enough for a high PR. I think I understand the idea of a weapon weighting but that is more of a NW issue addressed by Jon above. IE if you want to use a Bone, you can buy on with NW over a katana. No one is forcing you to use a katana over a Bone but you need to use some weapon to do damage as a tank.

Okay, then why the hell use a rare weapon?

Seriously, if a katana and a BoNE that are equially as capable of providing damage have the same effect on your PR givin their PR weight... why the hell have rares?

Use a rare weapon for a couple of reasons:

1) Higher base damage
2) Easier upgrade curve.

if you have 2 different weapons with equal damage dealing and PR gaining, still one of them is more expensive to upgrade...

Cool, keep the allowance, but add a PR weighting to all weapons.

Shade; "equal damage dealing and PR gaining" That can only happen with exactly the same weapon. Because of differing upgrade costs/base damage, to get two different weapons with equal damage dealing capability, one *has* to increase PR more than the other.

not precicely:


if we'd take imaginary weapons 1 and 2

weapon 1 has a NW of 8 mil
weapon 2 has a NW of 6 mil

they both do the same damage.

weapon 1 has a PR rate of 25%, so 2 mil gets counted to PR
weapon 2 has a PR rate of 33% so 2 mil gets counted to PR

same PR same damage different NW ;)

Why I really don't like the weapon allowance;

Two teams of the same PR. Both use exactly the same weapon, which is just under the allowance so has no impact on PR. There are enough differencies between the two teams that one could be said to have a much better strategy working than the other.

So good in fact, this team can switch out to a weapon 1/2 the size and still beat the other team.

But both are still the same PR.

Shouldn't the better team, get better rewards for using a smaller weapon?

To balance, stick a PR weight on skills and spells. Job done.

/me gives up :p

Hehehehe, didn't see your last post shade! ;) You are talking about some kind of weapon PR weighting aren't you? In which case we're in agreement on that! :D

"Okay, then why the hell use a rare weapon?

Seriously, if a katana and a BoNE that are equially as capable of providing damage have the same effect on your PR givin their PR weight... why the hell have rares?"

Because, it does more damage.
Higher damage, but PR will grow faster.
However, a katana will keep you much closer to your MPR.
You can upgrade further.
Say we have two 100k MPR characters.
1 has a BoNE, he upgrades for 1mil NW and it gains him 10k PR.
2 has a Katana, he keeps upgrading until he also hits 10k PR increase, he gets 1.4mil. His weapon is going to be much smaller. There's no arguing against that.

Most characters will stick with their BoNE or MH. However, it will open a lot of doors for anyone with half a brain. ;)

Why some do people think that BONE and MH are the only weapons worth playing at the top?

I think since the introduction of VB there are 5 weapons you could play at the top (BONE, MH, ELS, BoTH, VB) and none of them has such advantage that we should consider that weapon as the only one worth playing in the end.

There are 31 melee weapons. Only three stand out for use in the end game, BoNE (most damaging weapon in the game), MH (Most damaging VA weapon inthe game) and the VB (for it's 1/2 AC/Endurance/Protection).

The ELS is just a smaller BoNE, with a higher base dex cth and a higher upgrade cost, the same for the BoTh compared to a MH. Maybe the higher base cth will mater, but personally I'd go for a cheaper '+' upgrade cost than a higher base dex cth. The dex penalty with shields for the 2 handed weapons is really nothing.

Plus BL (and which Tank doesn't take BL these days?) amplifies big damage, so you get the most out of it with the most damaging weapons.

3 out of 31. That's not even quite 10%.

Does anyone not agree that a whip of the same PR increase as a BoNE/MH/VB is not as powerful?

the "big four" have identical pth upgrade costs

;) Cool! I didn't know that!

In that case, the only difference between choosing a BoTH/ELS over a BoNE/MH would be, higher base dex cth and no (less?) Shield penalty over higher base damage and cheaper 'X' upgrade.

Hit slightly more often for tanks around your dex range, or do more damage on every hit?

I still think BL sways choice towards damage.

I did know that, and people can see it on my site ;)

I did know that. :P

Well, kind of..

But the only one worth using is the MH.
I just add in BoNE to keep people happy. ;)

Or possibly VB.. although I'd recomend against it.

Sure, just pick on us BoNE swinging minority members. You know you'd have a lot more opposition if you said Morg instead. ;)

I don't like the extra weapon NW allowance theory. As I'm sure it's been said, tanks already have a hard enough time. If you want to add more NW allowance to the game- do it to fireballs. Those dwarf any BoNE or Katanas you can swing at them. Plus the reason the big four is the big four, is well, it's the big four weapons. Those are the ones you can't afford right at the start- so they're what you get your Katana to work your way towards. Don't handi-cap them because Joe-Newbie wants to have his Katana or VB to be more viable at the top.

Besides, and I am guessing here, wasn't part of the reason for the heavy NW allowance on particular mage gear items because of massive prices? There has been no price increase in melee weapons in ages, and now you're lucky to get NW in cash for an even mid-sized weapon (maybe barring MH?). The extra PR penalty on mage armor helps drive prices down by keeping some people away from them. Why drive down weapon prices even more?

X upgrade costs are also the same for the big 4, at least that's the case in CB1 (I have one each of the big 4 at exactly x100+100, all same NW).

really bart, i could have sworn the loch's + and X were supposed to be cheaper...if that's the case...time to get a BTh...

MrChuckles, can you say some reasons, why MH is the only weapon worth using?

novice: the damage's all those weapons do still is different :)

Tank nerf-age? :( :( :(