I've been thinking about this a bit recently and realised that most (At least ALL the ones I've played) has done weapon carry just plain wrong. What I mean with weapon carry I mean when you have it "sheathed".
Let me give you a couple of images to illustrate what I mean.
Let me point out what I find is wrong with this.
The Mace is carried upside down (something common with axes too), it would just hit your leg and be an annoyance.
The Staff is just floating there on the back, if you gonna have a big ass decorated walking stick, use it to walk.
The Sword has the same problem as the Staff(lets not talk about drawing a big sword from the back) and it isn't even in a sheath, something a Sword probably should be.
These are VERY common ways to depict the "sheathed" state of weaponry, especially in MMO's. And what I propose is as follows.
Shafter weapons such as staves, spears and maybe 2-handed axes/maces should be held in the hand, all of them can quite easily (exception of the mace I guess if it isn't of hammer shape) be used as walking aid, maybe give a bonus to mobility in rougher terrain.
Bladed weapons like swords and daggers should be in sheaths, otherwise they are done pretty well (exception being 2handers on the back).
Single handed maces and axes is probably the easiest fix, flip them around. The head should be facing up with the shaft down, there's good reason they are carried like that throughout history till this day. Maybe give axes a small sheath for the head.
Bows, well I am no expert on bows really but I have seen shortbows being carried in beautiful sheaths on the lower back and side in many cultures, especially those in the middle east and asia.
Another thing I would like to have gone is the floating weapons thing, but I am not sure how hard this would be for I imagine it would require a lot of detail.
//Voices of Terminus' Youmu Svartie
Sheaths would be cool, but I think another issue here is the size of these weapons, particularly the mace. If you flip that around, that's not going to look very good either. The maces that were carried that way on belts were much smaller, I reckon. So small, in fact, that you might not notice it in the belt. Anything the size of the mace in the image here would be for two hands, I'd say. That said, I'm not a stickler weapon realism in these games. I generally lean toward the weapon models that I feel are more realistic myself, but I accept these larger weapons and have come to expect them.
EDIT: Also agree that keeping staves off the back would be cool.
I'd prefer weapons be hidden entirely, myself, when not in use. But if a player wanted to show them, optionally, slung/sheathed? Great, go ahead. Even make it the default choice. An option to hide them, though, either me hiding my weapons from everyone (server side), or me muting/ignoring/hiding everyone elses weapons (client side), both when not in combat? Would love those options.
A character sprinting with weapons out looks... well, goofy, to me. There are very few animations that make it look good, because... it's impractical. Especially with very large weapons or very long ones.
Would say that having them be invisible should only be an option and not the solution. How are you going to make everyone else jelous of your awesome weapon otherwise?Running with weapons can be very "clunky", the best way is usually to grab the axe/mace on the shaft by the head or in case of a sword to hold it point down on the blade by the hilt, or grab the weapon with two hands if it is long (I think the new game For Honor does this good if I remember, but very different game). And I'm not sure I would call it impractical, running with your weapon without having to put it away is very much something that is usefull and needed.
Weapons in general seem to have a size problem in MMO's. Low level weaponry is usually really good and within realistic measuments, but as soon as you get to higher level things and they want to make things look "cool" the answer seems to be to make them bigger and add spikes/skulls. Maces/Hammers seem to suffer the most from this and if they become those sizes I don't know how you would make a realistic way of carry really, point up carry with something that big is not very good looking or practical (more than just carrying it is not practical).
//Voices of Terminus' Youmu Svartie
I am totally with you about the size of weapons Youmu, I don't know if they are so large to show detail or what, but they do seem unwieldy a lot of the time. That one on the back couldn't even be drawn. I would also like to see sheathing and the like worked on a bit to make it look better.
Staves/2h need to be able to be on the back imo. Think about the most recent stream where they were climbing. Those 2h have to be somewhere out of the way. Now... I like the staff in Log Horizon that extended for the style of some staves.
Something like that doesn't have as many constraints. I doubt it would be worth the time to the devs, but if they do something like this style I think it would be nice to be able to toggle always extended vs in combat. Standing around town with an awesome staff that's collapsed wouldn't look as cool (imo) or some people may just prefer to always have the extended look but want that specific weapon.
I don't see the need to make the carrying of sheathed weapons more realistic. It seems like it would take a lot of development time with minimal impact.
To implement this, what would you have to do?
1) Create buckles, belts, and straps to secure each unique weapon type, so they don't appear to be floating.
2) Create animations for unsheathing and resheathing each unique weapon type.
Not to mention, how does your character have the particular strap or belt that can hold the weapon? When you switch from carrying a sword to a bow, does the bow holster just magically appear? No, no, that simply won't do. That's just as unrealalistic as having a floating weapon. Does every character who can wield a bow always have a bow strap displayed on their avatar? Maybe there should be a special holster slot so that you can equip a holster item for each of your different weapon types? But what if you have a sword but not the sword holster item...
Going for realism can quickly become more trouble than it's worth.
Although that might be cool for staves the "just magic it" solutiuon is highly unsatisfying imo. I don't see what would stop one from just shifing the pole into the belt on the backside temporarily for doing such things or to sling them around you as you climb. But for "daily" use such as walking around I would rather not have someone sling their staff on the back, just a quick thought about Gandalf doing that or some traveller with a quarterstaff is a little silly. For big swords, axes and maces I don't have a problem of them carrying them on the back, I do have a problem them being depicted as being drawn from the back and that the sword is sheathless.
Wellspring said:I don't see the need to make the carrying of sheathed weapons more realistic. It seems like it would take a lot of development time with minimal impact.
To implement this, what would you have to do?
1) Create buckles, belts, and straps to secure each unique weapon type, so they don't appear to be floating.
2) Create animations for unsheathing and resheathing each unique weapon type.
Not to mention, how does your character have the particular strap or belt that can hold the weapon? When you switch from carrying a sword to a bow, does the bow holster just magically appear? No, no, that simply won't do. That's just as unrealalistic as having a floating weapon. Does every character who can wield a bow always have a bow strap displayed on their avatar? Maybe there should be a special holster slot so that you can equip a holster item for each of your different weapon types? But what if you have a sword but not the sword holster item...
Going for realism can quickly become more trouble than it's worth.
The creation of stuff like buckles, belts and suspesion for the weapon, although would be awesome I think the detail and work requires is a little much maybe. On the part of animation it would not require much more, one for sword and a little different one for mace/axe really. On the "particular strap or belt that can hold the weapon" part, historically items such as axes and maces were not uncommonly just put through the belt directly or through a ring attached to the belt, nothing fancy and switching between something like a bow and sword I don't understand what you mean, why would the bow have to dissapear? You have the bow there, holstered and when you switch you sheath your sword and take out the bow I am unsure what you are getting at. No holster item, you would have them there with the weapons that you have equipped, every sword comes with a scabbard.
In a perfect world I would like a way to change where weapons are sheathed and give options. I could do without actual sheaths, but those would be cool too.
What I mean by changing the way they are sheathed is...
If I am dual wielding swords or daggers, let me choose to put them on my hips, or over my shoulders - Link style, Crossed, or even my lower back or any other combination.
If I am using a staff, let me choose if I want to always carry it, like a walking stick, or if I want it on my back. Also make it so I can choose if I want it in my hands during spellcasting or not.
If I am using a bow, let me choose if I want to carry it always, or sling it over my body.
bigdogchris said:They could try better when doing the art for sheathed, I will agree with that. But my biggest complaint about #3 is why is a female adventurer wearing a bikini?
I don't think it is a bikini, just the character model in underwear, just picked something from google so.
This is less about animation and more static, do they go into the same category? Well, given stuff like combat animations are not done I imagine this kind of thing is not done yet either, it wouldn't be changing anything if it doesn't exist yet and therefore it wouldn't really require more development time.
Youmu said:bigdogchris said:They could try better when doing the art for sheathed, I will agree with that. But my biggest complaint about #3 is why is a female adventurer wearing a bikini?
I don't think it is a bikini, just the character model in underwear, just picked something from google so.
Yeah, it's a screenshot of a female GuildWars 2 character with armor removed.
Clipping is a pretty serious issue, which is the reason for a lot of these weird ways of storing weapons. It's very difficult to have interesting or realistic ways to store weapons without introducing clipping issues, because pretty much all of the armor in the game has to be built while taking into consideration the many different ways of storing weapons.
As impractical as it is, even in Vanguard, my preferred method was to just use the /command that changed how weapons were wielded to always hold them in my hands, similar to how EQ did it. No clipping issues for the devs to worry about, even if it sacrifices some realism.
This is also the biggest reason why weapons disappear when swapping between melee/ranged, for instance. The number of clipping points of a bow stored on the back is painful to think about. EQ2 allows you to wear your bow there, but you have to hide your cloak in exchange. Vanguard allowed you too, but the bottom part of the bow would clip into your ass when you would run.
I love the idea of staves being held in the hand and placed on the ground at rest like a walking stick.
Axes and such not so much. These should be sheathed in an axe ring on the back or side along with maces.
This is a fantasy game, there needs to be some suspention of disbelief. Swords sheathed on the back aren't realistic, but is fine in a game.
They would have to make a separate sheath for each item. And these days, so many of the weapons are of outrageous size and shape that no one could wear them on the belt. The style of weapons bigger than characters is one of the reasons I do not play Asian MMOs.
Not a good budget choice.