There are some ways in which 1.6 (1.7 isn’t real) was better. The game was more refined. Audio files played much better. It seems the QP algorithm is back with vengeance. Weapon/career balance is much worse than in 1.6. Although I will caveat this by saying IB and FK are in much better places than they were in 1.6. So win some/lose some. Beastmen aren’t just overpopulated. They still have never fixed the issues that made everyone rage about Beastmen from the start. Jank attack patterns. Backstabs rarely playing. Archers. Horribly balanced in comparison to the other factions.
Having said all of this, I much prefer 2.0 to 1.6. I just think it is false to say that 2.0 is objectively better.
No it isn’t. Really. I can understand your issues with beastmens but balance wise, it’s really better now than before. We’re seeing a lot more weapon variety in all modes than we ever had.
I’m not really sure that’s true. But even if it is, a lot of that could be just because everything changed so much that people don’t really know what’s good. Or it could be that combat basically feels the same now no matter what weapon you’re using, so people can just use whatever.
Edit: I would agree that we’re seeing shield use a lot more than in the past, but 1h axe has become a rarity. And instead of a meta A&F obsession, the meta obsession is rapier. It’s completely disingenuous to claim that all weapons are good now.
Well I specifically linked guides made by the same person so it matters ‘a bit less’ but you could compare old guides from steam against newer ones as well.
Many of the legend builds in 1.6 were meme builds. It wasn’t that they were competitive with the meta builds. It was just that legend is really easy. Cheese is now making build guides for Cata instead of legend.
This is relevant because, as Cata becomes easier, there will be more and more builds that people post because they are “fun” or meme. Not because they are good. When cheese and I first posted the build guides, every career had 1 or two builds and we usually had to stretch to make that work. Of course, things have changed since then and he’s learned new information. I haven’t bothered checking them in a while.
So you’re telling there’s less variety. I’m telling there’s more and you tell me only dwons builds count now ? Why not see stats about cataclysm vs dwons ?
Ok so your point is, if I understand well after clarifying, that legend is too easy to compare “variety of weapons”, because, as it was too easy, you could play absolutely everything.
So cata is the new relevance when it comes to builds.
Therefore I can’t prove variety with guides. Because legend is still easy.
What about asking @Fatshark_Hedge for the statistical data of use of each weapon for a single character for example ? Like Bardin 1.6 vs Bardin 2.0 (or another char, I don’t mind)
Would that be better ?
This is exactly what I said. However, you’re still comparing legend to Cata. It’s more accurate to compare Onslaught to cata imo. They are far more comparable difficulties than 1.6 legend and 2.0 cata.
And I’m trying to help you out here, btw. The statistics are 99% likely to show that there was a greater weapon variety in 1.6. However, I’m saying that is not really accurate because of the differences in difficulty. Your point was that 2.0 has better variety.
I am heavily doubting that. But the good thing is, I don’t have to waste time convincing you from the opposite and you don’t have to waste time convincing me. As Froh said (and I especially confirmed that last developer update) Fatshark has all telemetry data which shows which weapon/class/talents the players are picking. And I would be very very VERY surprised if the result shows more variety for 1.6.
1.6 was super meta slaving versus dps dps and more dps. If someone in the forum asked how to build shields, one of the first answers always was “You don’t”. Defensive builds were considered dentrimental by several players because “Why waste time crowd controlling if you can kill them in the same time?” In my opinion, the telemetry data will show more variety for 2.0.
Granted we have still some dps slaving in Legend (and old and current Legend still have the “anything goes” situation, so no difference there) but for Cataclysm I see 80 % of all weapons regularly in use. The ones I really rarely see are for the most part the 1H weapons. If we solve this by sensible toning down of the dual wielding weapons like someone proposed above or by mindless buffzerking the 1h weapons to make them more generic, bland and uninteresting is another discussion.
For many discussions in the forum, we often see that people want weapons blindly overpowered or don’t care for their actual strengths like the reoccurring demand for “buffing” the Blunderbuss. Although the shotgun is the only weapon in the game which reliably can take out one or even multiple berserkers with one shot and pairs very well with the Mercenary. Giving the Shotgun armor damage would completely break the weapon in a bad way.
We could go back and forth endlessy but like I said, FS HAS the data and any claim for underused weapons/talents/etc. can directly be controlled by them for any difficulty. But I am sure FS will not shows us this data for several reasons.
People say: In 1.6 you could use every weapon and it worked. Yea, maybe. But you always saw just the very same weapons in public games like Axe+Falchion in 90 % of all games no matter the career (now I see regularly A&F, Billhook, Rapier, Greatsword. sometimes Falchion and Flail and nearly never 1H axe). Also on 2.0 Legend you can still use every weapon.
Devblog are all about development. So I guess that having the game designer side sometimes to speak about weapon balance for example, could be a great hindsight.
This is exactly my point. You saw all the weapons in 1.6 as well. It’s called a meme build. As content becomes easier to clear, you can more freely abandon the meta. There is currently a cata build posted in squirrel squad build around blowing yourself up as IB. He runs that built in cata. Is it good? no. Its for fun. This same stuff happened in 1.6. However, most players are still using meta weapons. 9/10 times if you see a salts he has BH, A+F, Rapier. You mostly play legend right? Do people run meta builds in legend or is it just whatever works?
I don’t know why you keep bringing up meme builds when, clearly, people using weapons that they consider trash for the lulz is zero proof that there was proper weapon variety.
Your entire argument is “There was more weapon variety in 1.6 because legend was so pathetically easy people were tired of using the meta weapons and started memeing with all the bad weapons (which was almost all of them)”
That’s a crap argument for weapon variety. The truth is that when saltzpyres wanted to tryhard 1.6, they went A&F. and nothing else. And that’s not weapon variety. That’s not balance.
Now they use all the weapons consistently, save for the 1h axe. Rapier, Billhook, A&F, Flail, 1h Falchion and 2h Sword are all used because they’re good. Not to meme around or for the lulz. Because people genuinely use them to win and like them.