It is more a “realism” issue than a gameplay issue, but…
Why is the chainmail suit better than plate armor at almost everything?
Why does the o-yoroi give 1 encumbrance and the plate armor 2, while giving (virtually) the same protection?
And the ornamental plate armor? Why is it so much better than the standard one when it’s supposed to be ornamental?
Maybe something went over my head, but i don’t see why some things are like they are right now.
EDIT: Also, why are both versions of the leather armor better than the plate armor?
I dunno man. It’s also hilarious that katanas and nodachis are faster and lighter than broadswords and zweihanders, while anyone with an interest in military history will tell you that Japanese swords are heavier and slower to swing than western swords thanks to their unique construction and balancing.
Oh, say it straight: thanks to japanese having access only to very subpar quality metal ores and even that ores were very limited in quantity =)[/quote]
Yep that’s right, the materials used were bad, but now imagine if they used good materials! A katana made with high class materials uhhhh!
If you would make a broadsword and a katana out of the same materials the katana would have a far better cutting/slashing ability and the same durability, but it would weigh a bit more. The weight of the katana is mainly due to the folding of the metal and the good cutting/slashing ability is caused by the cut of the blade (european swords curve outwards , while japanese curve inwards).
And also if you take a look at the “original” katanas: I direct hit on a bad spot and you get a crack/broken katana due to the bad metal used, where a broadsword doesn’t have that problem.
A katana CUTS the enemy, where a broadsword HACKS them.
Well, deviating a bit from the armor part… What the hell is going on with the goddamn bokken?
It requires a high skill to make, alright, but WHY does a wooden sword have so much damn attack?
The quarterstaff, ironshod quarterstaff, even the rapier, which is a proper weapon are WORSE than it. My god, is this “weeaboo balancing” still a thing? This remembers me too much of the “katanas are overpowered in d20” copypasta.
A katana is not that much better than a broadsword, just watch some videos of people hacking at stuff with swords. The outward curvature enhances the cut somewhat, but the strength on katanas if you make them out of good materials is their heavy blade, being able to carry more inertia when chopping. They should be heavier than a standard broadsword, i’m alright if they are slightly better/more cutting centered.
The stupid thing still is almost all armors being better than the plate armor, which is dumb IMO.
Also, sorry for the rant about the weapons, I don’t want to derail the thread
On a serious note regarding katanas - they’re just very long and thin meat cleavers. You can’t really poke with them and fencing is almost impossible because they are tip-heavy.
I blame weaboos for popularizing dis shite as something good.
That’s uhhh… that’s completely wrong and part of the ‘cult of the katana’ ideology. Against an unarmoured enemy, both will slice through reasonably well, against an armoured enemy they’ll have difficulty penetrating with a slash. That’s why most field weapons of the era were designed to stab more often than not, and why the katana was a fall-back of the fall-back.
Honestly the katana is a decent weapon, but there’s only one or two variants, and they’re fairly specialized to a certain fighting style. The longsword has an INCREDIBLE amount of variants, most of which serve reasonably well as a short-ish stabbing implement that can also be used to cut into things.
Also
If you would make a broadsword and a katana out of the same materials the katana would have a far better cutting/slashing ability and the same durability, but it would weigh a bit more. The weight of the katana is mainly due to the folding of the metal and the good cutting/slashing ability is caused by the cut of the blade (european swords curve outwards , while japanese curve inwards).
The katana would lack the same durability, due to the forging method the blade as a whole becomes rather brittle, but can maintain a good cutting edge and the blade itself holds an edge rather well.
Folding the sword doesn’t increase weight, you can’t make iron more dense just by hitting it with a hammer, all the folding does is make the carbon more evenly distributed throughout the blad.
Also that last bit confuses me, when you say the Japanese sword curves inwards did you mean like a Shotel?
Basically, the katana is a weapon which in a fight is… only slightly better for cutting than a longsword, say the Oakeshott type XIX. In terms of durability in a sword fight, versatility in guard maneuvers, armour piercing and effective ranges, the longsword is a far better weapon.
Regarding the armors, I think somebody’s gonna have to go through and make a reasonable baseline, having several people with different perspectives trying to balance the same thing always ends up with something skewed, I haven’t really paid much attention to armors lately since my usual MO is to avoid getting hit at all.
One thing that should probably be taken into account for melee combat is what your target is wearing, killing a guy wearing riot gear or plate armor with a sword/stick/bayonet should have a higher chance to damage your weapon, not just make it harder to damage the target.
Having messed around with various different swords and talked with people who know a hundred times more than I do on the subject, this sounds about right to me.
A katana would work fine against unarmored zombies as long as you maintained it properly, but it’s hardly the best sword to take down zombies in riot or firefighting gear.
Here’s a quick comparison of a few swords in my current version’s json, they’re in the right area but seem a bit off:
The katana and broadsword have identical weight, both have Durable_Melee, Sheath_Sword, and Iaijutsu.
The katana has Slice, Rapid attack, WBLOCK_2, +1 to hit, 4 bash, 38 cutting, and takes 115 moves per attack.
The broadsword has Chop, WBLOCK_1, +2 to hit, 8 bash, 35 cutting, and takes 111 moves per attack.
A Rapier is about 12% lighter and has +2 to hit, 29 stabbing, and takes 105 moves per attack.
Note: In-game WBLOCK_1 is Parry, and WBLOCK_2 is Block, I’m not sure how these work exactly but blocking with a rapier vs parrying with a broadsword seems a bit awkward.
I also don’t know the difference between Chop and Slice (Especially since any sword can do both of these), but I’m mostly really curious about why the katana has Rapid strikes. Katanas aren’t significantly faster or easier to use than any other sword of similar size and weight.
I just want to point that katana was never intended for blocking - its sharpness and its brittleness would result in blade chipping or outright breaking if used to block even moderately strong strike.
Oh, say it straight: thanks to japanese having access only to very subpar quality metal ores and even that ores were very limited in quantity =)[/quote]
Yep that’s right, the materials used were bad, but now imagine if they used good materials! A katana made with high class materials uhhhh!
If you would make a broadsword and a katana out of the same materials the katana would have a far better cutting/slashing ability and the same durability, but it would weigh a bit more. The weight of the katana is mainly due to the folding of the metal and the good cutting/slashing ability is caused by the cut of the blade (european swords curve outwards , while japanese curve inwards).
And also if you take a look at the “original” katanas: I direct hit on a bad spot and you get a crack/broken katana due to the bad metal used, where a broadsword doesn’t have that problem.
A katana CUTS the enemy, where a broadsword HACKS them.[/quote]
Uh no. The entire deal about the construction of the katana is that it’s a heavier and slower blade than a European sword or Eastern sword. All katanas are a bit heavier and slower than other swords. It’s what makes katanas unique among swords.
As for the stats of plate armour… I’d like to point everyone’s attention to WW2 special forces wearing steel cuirasses when placing/disarming explosives or raiding nazi HQ’s. Steel cuirasses won’t stop high-powered bullets, but they’re good enough to catch a bullet from a side arm. And when you’re raiding an enemy HQ, you’re not up against guys with machine guns. You’re up against officers and administrative personel with… side arms.
It’s a nice benchmark for what plate armour should get for stats. Frankly, it should have one the highest defenses vs. cutting, with only various high-tech armours being better.
Just FYI, if you actually want a balance change to happen, it’s a very good idea to not call people names or invoke some kind of japanophile conspiracy, it makes it extremely difficult to take you seriously.
Doing some research on the topic, I found out that following Japan opening trade with Europe, some samurai began importing European steel breastplates and mounted them on their o-yoroi. Might be a nice rare variant on the o-yoroi.
As for why katanas are a bit slower and heavier (the weight isn’t really the issue as much as it’s the balance. Katanas have a weird “heavy” balance compared to other swords around the world.) than European and continental Asian swords, that’s probably due to a lack of (wearable) shields. The Japanese certainly had shitty steel, but given how much time they spend on swords and how few swords they produced (as well as no steel armour), that’s rather ignorable. I know that in Europe, Asia and the Middle-East, swords were designed to be light and quick, so you could attack the enemy and retreat back behind your shield before the enemy could retaliate. And as shields were phased out as plate armour popped up, light and quick weapons were still the big deal, because a light two-handed sword could hold off many enemy soldiers just by using wrist movements. Light blades were also required when you were caught without a blunt weapon vs. a plate armoured soldier, since you could try and worm your blade into the gaps of the armour, which can’t be done with a heavy blade.
Since Japanese soldiers would rarely have to deal with shields, it would have made a minimal impact on their weapon construction. Combat would revolve more on getting in the hit before you get hit. No shields. Parrying would certainly be an option. Katanas and such were just for nobility, and they had the dosh to repair it. Whether that’s smart in a post-apocalyptic setting is something different, but generally, swordsmen have this rule: If X is bad for your weapon, and Y is bad for you, do X. Dead men can’t hold weapons.
That is rather understandable: from the very beginning samurais were supposed to be mounted archers, not foot swordsmen. So swords were side-arms for them and did not deserve much love. Swords gained much of their popularity while being badges of office in more peaceful times.
Not really. Due to japanese swords being tip-balanced they are ill-adapted to stop enemy strikes. More so ken-jutsu actually discouraged such use of swords: “if you have time to parry - you have time to strike, so you should strike, not parry”. Usually couter-striking have priority over parrying.
[quote=“Kevin Granade, post:11, topic:8642”]Just FYI, if you actually want a balance change to happen, it’s a very good idea to not call people names or invoke some kind of japanophile conspiracy, it makes it extremely difficult to take you seriously.[/quote]Top kek
Anyway, does anyone have some sort of sughested stats for the misrepresented weapons? Quick strike definitely seems unfitting for the katana…
I got a feeling it is mostly just impropercombat ability assignment
Fortunately this wasn’t the only place I’d heard complaints re bokken, so it’s been nerfed as part of a general fix-NIR PR.
Katana can be knocked down to W_BLOCK1 but I’m more likely to take away its DURABLE_MELEE flag than its ability to block altogether.
(Block-quality affects its ability to block and to cancel damage if successful. 2 is good blocking, 1 is marginal but better than nothing. 3 is “shield” and currently only available on manhole covers.)
Katana is definitely DURABLE_MELEE material, everything specifically designed to be used as a melee weapon should have that flag.
Likewise it definitely falls in the W_BLOCK2 bucket. If some european swords don’t have that flag that should, that’s something much more likely to get fixed as a matter of course.
If I see some data on relative speeds of weapons I could definitely see nerfing the attack cost, but frankly I’ve never seen any data presented in this area, just unsupported appeals to authority like, “anyone with an interest in military history”.
Another protip for debate, if your entire argument is literally a textbook logical fallacy, I might not be very inclined to take your position seriously.
I did a little research on the subject, but i have no sword training or meaningful experience with swords. I apologize if what i’m about to say is wildly inaccurate:
Katanas seems correctly implemented, in that they are slightly slower than broadswords, and better at cutting/worse at bashing.
In many Japanese stories the heroes carry more than one katana + backup blades (in part because of their proneness to breakage). Consequently they were perceived as fragile® than longswords.
Katanas were not used usually for blocking or bashing (because of fragility or just their offensive style?), but i guess they would be used for parrying.
Modern katanas like the ones encountered in this game are not made of inferior iron, so their durability depends just on the blade’s design, and that may be superior to western ones. Otoh, a katana craftable in 8 hrs would not be crafted via superior, time-consuming metallurgic methodologies, just modern materials and tools. Modern steel should not need those methodologies to be just as tough though.
The katana style favours fast cutting strikes through the flesh, while a broadsword can afford to be more defensive and also use piercing, cutting and bashing attacks. Single edged vs double edged also means that katana style may be more flowing and offensive.
My thoughts on what would be best to do:
If a new category of durability between the DURABLE_MELEE and the lack of it would be to be added, katanas should be in it. Otherwise they are correct.
I’d certainly move the broadsword (and zweihaenders?) one step up in blocking: to W_BLOCK2
I can argue also that the katana could be W_BLOCK1, not W_BLOCK2 (is it harder to block with it rather than broadswords? anyone has experience on that?)
Stats are fine but maybe add a piercing move for broadswords on top of it all?
I’d put a pierce move on pretty much all straight swords if they haven’t got it (rapier, broadsword, zweihander, etc), (excluding any ancient swords from before the Roman Empire if they ever get added in).
And Kevin Granade, this guy has a number of videos about the balance and weight of katanas and how it doesn’t match up to the pop culture image compared to other swords around. Given how he’s an archeologist and a fencer, I’d say it’s a valid source.
I’m sure he’s a more valid source for information than any of us here including me.
