Considering Dual Wielding

Game Talk The Drawing Board
1

I was thinking about how to implement dual weapons, and i hit upon an idea that might work.

Melee weapons have a requirement of strength to use with one hand.

Guns could have a requirement of Dexterity to wield with one hand.

Case in point, you are Survivor McSurvivorton, walking through a street. You are wielding a Zweihander, which has a one handed requirement of 16 strength. You have only 14 strength, which is still high, but not high enough.

Suddenly several brutes appear.

Thinking quickly you smoke some crack, or shoot some adrenaline, bringing your strength to 18.

With your now higher strength you pull out another zweihander, useing the (I)nventory to map it to your now free hand.
Now until the drugs wear off, you are dual wielding Zweihanders. Once they do wear off, you immediately drop one sword, or return it to your inventory if there is room. This would happen automatically. Instituting dual wielding like this could bring up a wealth of new tactical options, and difficulties. this would raise the complexity of the game in a more organic way.

Any thoughts or problems you see i’d like too hear.

2

See http://smf.cataclysmdda.com/index.php?topic=10444.msg247535#msg247535

3

Don’t forget, we’d need that off-hand mechanic for making shields work. X3

4

That’s in the post, shields would just be weapons with good off-hand blocking ability :slight_smile:

5

I would think certain martial arts styles would give benefits to dual wielding melee weapons that would offset the penalties, or certain weapons that are designed to be dual wielded, like a sai.

6

Hmm, that could work, but then you lose the passive value against ranged attacks that my shields do. ;A;

7

Wow Kevin Granade responded.

I have been touched by greatness.

8

Hmm, that could work, but then you lose the passive value against ranged attacks that my shields do. ;A;[/quote]
There’s nothing stopping us from re-adding that kind of ability :slight_smile:

9

Hmm, that could work, but then you lose the passive value against ranged attacks that my shields do. ;A;[/quote]
There’s nothing stopping us from re-adding that kind of ability :)[/quote]

Nothing stopping you, at least. My impressive ability to break the source code is stopping me. XP

10

I’d add shields to aid the playing character, and improve all the current zombies with the Hadouken ability.

That way, you can explore some loaded guy’s mansion with a broadsword in one, and a kite shield in off-hand. It makes sense to approach the desk in that room, lean the shield against the desk-siding and fill your backpack with booze, cigars and occasional luxury weapon. Also, it is encouraged to wield the iron shield because it is perfect for heating up MREs and corn dogs; just crack that lighter open and use the mighty iron barrier as a grill.

Opening a stuck door whilst wielding both the sword and shield may prove less handy, however. That’s why you need to, automatically of course, hold the shield between and with your knees and quickly open the door; the thing about to happen is crucial.
The friendliest type of a mansion Zombie is called The Hulk, but he’s gifted with competitiveness. As you’re trying to move to the side, making some space to swing the door wide open, he’ll try to H a d o u k e n you whilst the shield is still in between your knees. Thus, you need to have yet another, strapped-on type of shield called buckler to survive his next move: the Quest to impale your head, and yet again Hadouken you with his off-hand, and into oblivion.

11

I nod to the realism argument, but cannot help shyly pointing to the Rule of Fun.

12

You have a false premise there, that making things more complicated and/or realistic makes them less fun.
My goal is to make things more realistic and fun.

13

Or as I usually put it, realistic touches are best when they enhance gameplay, rather than detract from it.

14

How about this:

A shield is an item, with the stats you’d expect from a shield. You can hold it.

BUT, it is also a mod. All melee weapons get a shield attachment slot so that you can slap that on there and emulate holding both at the same time.

Also, there really needs to be a way to hold a shield out, because if there’s anything I’d do when I’m trying to survive a volley of 9mm bullets from a turret, it’s hold something thick and metal between me and it and pray it runs out of rounds before I run out of barrier.

15

[quote=“Wally-kun, post:14, topic:10455”]How about this:

A shield is an item, with the stats you’d expect from a shield. You can hold it.

BUT, it is also a mod. All melee weapons get a shield attachment slot so that you can slap that on there and emulate holding both at the same time.

Also, there really needs to be a way to hold a shield out, because if there’s anything I’d do when I’m trying to survive a volley of 9mm bullets from a turret, it’s hold something thick and metal between me and it and pray it runs out of rounds before I run out of barrier.[/quote]
That’s a really hacky way to accomplish something that should be able to be done properly by simulating you having two hands instead of one.

16

Not as hacky as my “shields as armor” take on it? ;w;

17

Almost exactly as hack. The simple answer is I am extremely unlikely to merge an implementation of shields that does not establish an off hand and support for it.

18

Ah. Saddragon ensues. Though yeah, would make them more useful and…overall, interesting if their functionality was more complete instead of hacked-up, true. Just not something I can cook up as easily.

19

Lemme see… was it Incursion roguelike that had a solid ground for main and off-hand?

Altough really inconvenient for a typical RL player IMHO, it most surely is a good basis to reconsider realism considering manipulating different objects when it comes to RL games. Let’s assume it applies to CataDDA:

Besides typical slots for clothing and armor, you can do as much damage in one round as both your arms can manage. A proficient dual-wielder could fire up two burts from each uzi, attempt to hit single target with three bullets from each or aim a shot, but from only one weapon. When in melee, you can develop a style and try exotic stuff like shield-bashing and whatnot. All that, however, doesn’t solve the object manipulation issue.

So, what did the creator of Incursion do, exactly… He created an extra slot which he named (something like) in-air which lets you access objects in containers, on the floor and more. It simply represents an object you’re holding ATM and it doesn’t allow you to do much more than chewing a bubblegum until you finish the job. So, let’s imagine a mom (yes, a typical mom-with-kid) holding her daughter in main hand (it’s an arm, moreso) and wielding a plastic shopping bag in off-hand. The pig-tailed poopbag drops a toy on the ground, so she must grab the kid tightly, put her hand through the bag handles, crouch and pick up the damned toy, get up put the toy into her daughter’s hands and finally - get hold of the shopping bag again. The in-air object, as you can see, made her completely prone and unable to do anything else until the action was finished, since she was dual-wielding!

Your typical CataDDA character isn’t much different; he/she could wield a crowbar in main, and some swordlike item in off-hand since a crate needed prying. Let’s say there was a chocolate inside, so he/she decided to eat it. Even though the character was just eating, the chocolate was treated as an in-air object since it had to be picked up before accessing. After breaking the seal, the character’s elbow presses the crowbar against the chest, picking the object up. (E)at the “in-air” chocolate by picking it up with main hand so you can rip the wrapper with your teeth, and you’re left with the wrapper itself afterwards. You can then discard the in-air object which allows you to handle the crowbar and, for the sake of it, pry yet another thing in this ep. of Chocolate Quest.

Enough said, it is a feature of the inventory system. You can close the inventory to access other game aspects whilst there’s still that in-air object in your hands, but you can’t attempt any other action until you finish manipulating that object. With one-hand system currently in place you can always count on that other arm of yours to help you wrap things up swiftly. Guess the question really is about the complexity of dealing with items in CataDDA and other roguelike games.

The other “workaround” could guess the player character has a holster/sheath for every item, and perhaps a girdle of sorts for the shield items. It could treat the wielding items as temporarily strapped-on items, at the cost of realism.

20

Seems a tad odd. In game terms, we already have some limited ability to interact with or use items on the ground, if the player’s standing over them. We could abstract it away by making interactions slower if if your off-hand is occupied, which has already been discussed.

Also, if an off-hand becomes a thing, can left-handedness be a thing? owo