Was just reading through a few of the recent “people yelling at each other” threads, and noticed among all the yelling, there seemed to be a fair amount directed at the Heatblades I made. I was just curious, is this a widely shared sentiment? I really tried to make them balanced, and thought I had did pretty good. I didn’t intend them to be a super crazy, silly weapon, I thought it would be genuinely useful to have an item that you could not only fight with, but see where you’re going at night too. People didn’t seem to like the flaming baseball bat either, I thought it would just be a torch with a heavier stick.
Are I just being too sensitive? Or shoul I try to do a major rebalance on these?
I like them.
I don’t always use them or anything, but I think they’re fine just as they are.
Pesonally, I always put them in the joke category. Are they oped? Sort of, but then, with a decent char, so are any of the higher tier melee weps really, and they dont have ‘whoops, buildings on fire’ situations that come from playing with fire. Frankly, after playing with them a few times ive just ignored them. The idea of using them as a lightsource seems fairly silly tbh, batteries and flashlights are easier to come by and more effective. I think most of the hate is directed at the silliness of the things. Rebalance probably isnt going to help.
Id also point out that that much of the recent whining on the forums seems to be for the sake of whining rather than as constructive criticism.
My vote is you are being too sensitive and should channel your worries into designing some decent flamethrowers or something.
In my personal opinion, they seem weird, especially the firebrand (sorry if it wasn’t you who made firebrand) “broadsword and the torch” and “the blade is glowing with heat” sounds silly without any explanation how it works; the Louisville Slaughterer is okay because I assume that you wrap the gasoline-soaked rag around the bat, the rag won’t interfere with the bat’s main function that is batting zombie’s head in.
I don’t really mind its’ state right now, but maybe nerf it down (the flamming sword)? Unless there is a good reason why its’ cutting damage is so high (higher than the ordinary broadsword) - then the description could use some adjustments, to avoid that “flaming big-ass sword” cliché, which the firebrand is overlapping now.
Yeah, right now the main problem is that their stats are sort of… very good. This is a problem for several melee weapons that are a good deal more powerful than they have any real right to be.
If anything, their base stats should be less than the weapon they are modifying (wrapping a bat in cloth reduces the damage it deals, tying a tube to a sword and lighting it on fire makes it a lot harder to swing effectively) rather than being somehow BETTER.
Yes, i’m with infectedmochi on this. Really, the functions of the thing makes little sense.
On the subject of making weapons that can glow red hot, what about replacing makeshift-spraycan-flamethrower fireblades with something like a blade with some heavy heating elements on it connected to a UPS or something? I’m thinking like the heating element is straightened out and placed on the metal where the notch goes usually, which makes it bulkier, a better bashing weapon, a less effective cutting weapon, but allows you to cut through zombies like hot butter or set things on fire?
Really, not sure if any less ridiculous then the actual heatblades, but makes more sense to me.
FWIW the melee-booking PR recipe-locks the heatblades in two fairly specialized books: engines & welding. As such, they’re about to become a helluva lot tougher to get at, IMO, so I think leaving them powerful is worthwhile. They’ll be a nice prize for studious mechanics or engineers.
And if anyone nerfs No.9 or the flammenschwert, I’ll be very disappointed.
(Maybe making the Slaughterer an aluminum bat? That’s a pretty common critique I see, and if aluminum is worse that should be explained somewhere.)
I kind of wish there weren’t so many recipes locked away in books now, illiterate characters get access to practically none of the fun stuff now. Maybe have rare items have a small chance of spawning in the world, with a way to reverse engineer it with high enough fabrication?
I think they’re bloody ridiculous
However I could care less if they stay in or not, no one’s forcing me to use them.
I really like the fireblades!
Dont remove my No.9 its the only reason i am still in the game!
I like the heatblades.
The descriptions and variants and humerous nature of them HAS made me a supporter of keeping them in. I just think they need something mechanically to keep them interesting. Having them randomly light things on fire, or giving them a time limit for how long they can be ‘on’ before they start hurting the user, would both be worthwhile I think. Their physical stats should also be the same or less than their component’s stats, although the bonus heat damage should make them better.
The Chainsaw Latajang, now, if THAT stays in it should just have a (25-melee_skill)% chance per attack to lose a limb for the person using it. 
Thanks for all the comment everybody, it’s a relief to know I was just overreacting. I do like the ideas for improving them, especially things like a limit on how long they can be switched on or random fires. It’s beyond my ability to code though, but I would be thrilled if someone would add that kind of thing to them.
I’ll try to think about rebalancing the stats a little, here’s some ideas off top-of-head:
1 - reduce the to-hit values when switched on to represent them being too hot to handle (pun)
2 - revamp the cutting/bashing values a bit. Currently, they just have a 20% cut bonus when switched on to represent the heat damage, maybe make the cut damage when off less than the base item because of the extra parts? Increase bashing a little because of said parts?
3 - I noticed recently there’s a new “hurt self when pulled” flag that was added for the latajang, I might add that to the active Heatblades.
How do these sound? Does anyone have any other suggestions?
I also like dwarfkoala’s idea of an electric blade, I may make one of those in addition to the gas ones.
I do not like them because they seem really silly. It strikes me as one of those weapons that isn’t all that well thought out. Too much raw and undisguised handwavium, and reliance on the rule of cool even though the average gamer must have seen this stuff many times before.
The very existence of heatblades offends me, I demand the ENTIRE GAME be rewritten, people who actually like them are worse than furry(s) and hitler combined. There is a special level of hell reserved just for repeated-rapists,terrorists and people who like heatblades in a video game.
[size=1pt]The above is purely sarcastic and not to be taken serious(In case that wasn’t obvious)[/size]
In actuality, they seem kinda silly but I don’t mind them.
[quote=“Natures Witness, post:13, topic:4558”]Thanks for all the comment everybody, it’s a relief to know I was just overreacting. I do like the ideas for improving them, especially things like a limit on how long they can be switched on or random fires. It’s beyond my ability to code though, but I would be thrilled if someone would add that kind of thing to them.
I’ll try to think about rebalancing the stats a little, here’s some ideas off top-of-head:
1 - reduce the to-hit values when switched on to represent them being too hot to handle (pun)
2 - revamp the cutting/bashing values a bit. Currently, they just have a 20% cut bonus when switched on to represent the heat damage, maybe make the cut damage when off less than the base item because of the extra parts? Increase bashing a little because of said parts?
3 - I noticed recently there’s a new “hurt self when pulled” flag that was added for the latajang, I might add that to the active Heatblades.
How do these sound? Does anyone have any other suggestions?
I also like dwarfkoala’s idea of an electric blade, I may make one of those in addition to the gas ones.[/quote]
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I’d say reduce to-hit altogether on the smaller blades. Adding the fire systems probably throws off the balance, possibly the grip too, so -1 or -2 total could be feasible. Perhaps -1 off & -2 on?
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With the new flaming damage, probably a good idea.
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I suggested that tag because if one of your saws gets stuck and you lose the handle, you’ve got another saw coming right at you. D: Not sure the fireblades really qualify for that.
Electric swords will be popular, though I’m not sure how damaging they’d be. Ought to be insulated for Shocker purposes, though.
Thanks for the suggestions, that will really help. I hadn’t heard that the flaming tag got changed, what does it do now? If it adds base damage, I can probably drop the static cut bonus entirely, it was just sort of a placeholder until I thought of something better.
I think the electrical sword is going to be more of a utility thing than anything else, when switched on a small damage bonus, and in might try to think of a rationale for it to gain NON_STICK as opposed to FLAMING. It’s also going to be usable to shock people like the tazer, and it’s going to have a soldering iron attachment in the handle :). I’m also going to have to think of a theme, possibly a mechanic-slang, grease monkey approach.
My electric blade idea was that you’d have current running through heating elements on the blade, not that the blade itself would be a heating element, mostly because high quality steel is not an ideal material for making heating elements, and thus much energy would flow through it instead of heating it up. Your idea of a blade that has awesome current flowing through the blade itself, thus making a sort of electric-fence-sword, is kinda awesome too. I propose that both be added to the game and that the heating element blade replaces the current heatblade vanillas.
If you were to rebalance the heatblades so it has actual risks instead of being a straight up upgrade to the regular swords, and maybe change the crafting recipe a bit, i’d like that too. I just find the idea that you can attach a flamethrower to a sword and not burn yourself or your surroundings kinda difficult to imagine.
EDIT: Thinking a little, I realize that the heating-element heatblades may not be as good as say the actual fireblades when it comes to setting things on fire, so rebalanced vanilla heatblades may have a place there. Electric heatblades would presumably be less risky as the heat output isn’t going to spread by fire, it’s going to be concentrated on the blade via contact from the heating elements.
There’s two “sensible” ways to do an electrical weapon - either a two-contact weapon (which already exists with the taser, not sure if we have cattle prods yet) or a weapon that generates so much electricity that it grounds through the target and causes damage in the process.
If you’re going to make an electric weapon, you might first consider making something like an electric trident. Central prong for straight up damage, and side prongs carrying electrical charge. Although honestly the best part of an electric weapon is that you don’t have to get a solid hit - it’s just about making contact. If you look at the new weapon guidelines, this gives electric weapons (the base form) an improved chance to hit. From a gameplay perspective it’s a bit rough to try and combine a powerful regular melee weapon and an electric weapon, since their benefits are different. Swinging a weapon, you want to swing in succession and have multiple impacts - this is represented by high base damage values and low use speeds. For electrical damage, you want to touch and hold because the thing that matters is time in contact - this is (or should be, if things were balanced right now, which they aren’t really) represented by a bonus chance to hit but a very slow ‘attack speed’ comparatively.
An electric sword might work but would absolutely require a UPS, and every strike should drain a massive amount of power if the weapon is activated. What would be cool, however, was if there was a chance to deal the electric damage even if you failed to do any regular damage - so you “miss” with the swing, but still make enough contact to zap the thing and send it into convulsions, disabling the enemy.
In fact, since ‘activated’ items are actually completely different items from inactive ones, what you might consider doing is (when activated) basically assuming the player is now trying to ‘touch’ the enemy instead of swinging at them - so you get a bonus to-hit but increase the time cost of a swing.
If electricity slowed and disabled the enemy, it might be an efficient weapon because you can start with a ‘shock’ attack, quickly toggle it to conserve power by straight up hacking away at the disabled enemy.
Would you consider the electric heatblade to be sensible?