This is funny.
While I want this for ranged weapons, because melee weapons have different attack combos I’m really not sure how it would work, or if it really needs to be done. I would be fine, and probably even prefer ranged weapons getting customization of stats while weapons only get cosmetic customization.
If we get nothing concrete I think I will have a Joker™ moment.
I think it could work. When I first installed Darktide and looked at the weapon cards, you could see their combos. Like strikedown, strikedown, sweep or whatever those are called.
I found a pic of the time (notice the ingenious percentage less bars system):
Anyways, when I saw this my first instinct was that these weapons could be modified to have different combos, and that’s why they’re displayed. I think that could actually work with such a system, like you put a different handle on your shovel and now its second heavy attack is an overhead. Then you replace the pommel and the light attack pattern changes. Just for an example. This would then probably come with stat changes to the attackspeed/damage values which would then replace the MK system.
Or atleast that’s how I imagined it could work when I wrote it, I’m just spitballing
But then the problem is is that everyone will just choose either best horde clear light pattern best single target heavy attacks, or vice versa. I think this would really hurt weapon variety and would lead to more “master of all” weapons that don’t have significant weaknesses.
And then there’s also a big problems of animations. Suddenly, you have to animate every light attack combo and how they switch with every other attack pattern on the heavy attack pattern. That is a lot of work, not to mention balancing. Same thing with the different types of push attacks.
And that’s if you just use every pre existing combo.
Making every step of a combo customizable seems like a nightmare. Animating every single possible intereaction between every single light, heavy, and push attack sounds hellish.
I think it sounds cool in concept but bad in practice…the only way I think it could work would be to not interact with combos but just with the weapon’s base stats, and just keep all the different Mark variants for melee weapons.
I think it wouldn’t be different from how it is now, if it’s well implemented. I guess it would be a balance nightmare if you let people split up the attacks, you’re right, and I don’t really expect that kind of effort. Inherently you could really just make the current weapon marks into a customization part, hypothetically. But then the customization would have to be cosmetic which is what you said so I think you’re right after all.
Maybe it would replace the weapon stat bars functionally, which would be one step above cosmetic and still retain the idea. Like instead of hoping your power sword rolls 80% damage, 50% mobility, you can just put the heavy blade on it and it gets the equivalent stat distro.(then the “weapon base” part would determine if it’s an MK6 or MK3 sword, inherently)
This is sort of what I was getting at here.
I guess you wouldn’t have to retain marks, just choose 1 of the families’ attack patterns for the weapon.
M and B Bannerlord has a really fun weapon customization system for melee weapons. Each weapon part, and than the size of each weapon part that you can customize on a slider change how the weapon functions. Something like that could’ve been cool and maybe even added more varitey, because you could play the same moveset in 2 different ways, with fast low damage or slow high damage.
Also when you scrap weapons you actually get weapon crafting materials back (
)
I gotcha now, I was being a bit dense. Customization for actual gameplay differences like in mountain blade would definitely be really fun if balance permits. There’s definitely potential to mess with movesets in some way too via the special attacks now that I think about it. Maybe introducing a couple new options for each wep would be fun (I always liked that one nutshot on the combat axe and wish more weps had it)
Although in the end it’s all just dreaming since who knows if they’re even doing anything customization related. I think it would singlehandedly be the best patch for Darktide they could possibly release. Would instantly solve a ton of issues and open up tons of new replay value
I would say almost certainly not. I would absolutely love if they were but extremely doubt that they are. The most I can expect is that in the new system you might get a unique skin for a maxed out weapon or something similar, like VT 2 Red Illusions. Even then I’m doubtful if we will get that seeing how much stingier they are in DT than in VT 2.
Hell, I’m unsure if we will even be able to modify weapon stat rolls in any way with the update.
So yes this is in general talking about stuff I would love to see, but understand that it will never happen.
My pet theory at this point is that Fatshark was ordered to scrap the weapon customization system by their stakeholders and cannot publically comment on that fact. The continued silence is otherwise so counterproductive to player relations that I can’t think of another fitting explanation, but I guess we’ll never know either way.
That wouldn’t explain all the other things they scrapped / never finished, across multiple games, over many, many years.
It’s a far more realistic explanation that FS management loves to overpromise and underdeliver, and just closes their eyes and ears and hopes no one notices. There’s a great many things they should have made public statements on, not just scrapped systems, so the far more likely reason is that they don’t want to communicate, and don’t understand how to communicate or how to manage and cultivate their customers.
It never occurred to me how much that old douche embodies the FS spirit. The amount of things he promised for Fable 1 & 2 are very much in line with all the things FS claimed Darktide to have lol
Todd is also a close one. I remember his line about “having to buy a new graphics card just for Starfield because it’ll have amazing graphics”
Todd is a walking pile of lies. I was going to say he does have the excuse of just being a PR person, but I now see that he is actually game director and executive producer at Bethslop. Tastes vary of course, but in my opinion Beth hasn’t made anything interesting since… Morrowind, maybe?
Edit: Pete Hines was the PR guy, not Todd. Doesn’t matter, they both said wild crazy things.
I actually feel bad for Todd Howard more than anything… if you watch videos from varying stages of his career, you can actually see the passion being slowly sucked out of him.
Ever since Todd Howard was promoted to mouthpiece for ZeniMax there’s been an even more noticeable decline in quality across all BGS titles.
That seems the most plausible.
Dude was really doing his best work when he was working on the early terminator games.
That game had some amazing breakthrough stuff like usable vehicles in semi non liner levels which wouldn’t really be a thing until half life 2.
We’ve gone from breakthroughs years before modern standards to “lets release the same game multiple times but set in new locations”
While Oblivion was a massive step down from Morrowind I still enjoyed it. Skyrim was where the sense of slop began for me.
Last Beth game I officially bouht was in fact Morrowind as well I think.
Eeeh… I see where you’re coming from, but at the same time, I see more than a few shadows of Bob Iger in Todd for me to really sympathize with him.
You know, an emphatic, Dunning-Kruger-y, egocentric douche-canoe, but delivered in a soft-spoken tone of voice.
Now that I think of it, the parallels only becomes more glaring when you look at the downward trajectory of both Disney and Microsoft.
this is just silly, one look at how the game has to reload a character when you change cosmetics tells you the engine would never hold up to having to re-up dynamically changing weapons smoothly. look at the way they handle weapon-skins, every new weapon has to be finalized into a set skin for optimization. i bet that mod’s related to a lot of stutter issues.
while i got no clue what figures the dudes in that position make, i wager it’d be more than enough for me to comfortably call it quits.
with that thought in mind i can’t help but harbor a grudge to not say “f’it we do a classic fallout instead of this disneyworld travesty” and flip the table.
worst to happen is retirement and giving the fans a game they long for, adult themes, interplay era style and a big finger to shareholders.
if i had that cushion to plant my butt onto i’d have dropped my mic ages ago.
but thats just an unfounded theory and whishful thinking.
rather be remembered for that one amazing title than drown in an endless pool of worsening mediocrity.
fallout 4 with mods is great(as long as i can put the fallout back into it and the clownery out) fallout 76 is a theme park joke of sorts it seems and starfield for all its blandness might not exist at all for all i care.
if friends and family ask me for fallout advice after seeing me in love with the franchise and countless 1/6 figures in my collection, not one complained after getting accompanied through 1&2 and called it an eye opener afterwards.
It’s what happens when you sell your soul to the Devil.
They sniff the money and dive straight in.
People tend to exaggerate the accomplishments of individuals and are prone to personality cults.
Take Chris Avellone for example. The man wrote what was possibly the best RGP ever to be written with Planescape Torment, or was at least credited for it completely. Yet failed to produce anything remotely similar in terms of quality ever since.
Sometimes the magic isn’t just one person but the complex interaction of time, place, setting and other people.