Pole Arms, Staffs, And The Shocking Lack Of Spears

[8r8kSpider]

Alright, so let me ask a question before I lay out how I feel about this. Does anyone in the game actually like the current situation with pole-arms? Anyone who actually uses them with any frequency? 

 

If you said yes, I guess you don't want it to change? My assumption is that you said no; so I'm going to list what's wrong and how I'd go about fixing it. First though, a bit of irritation.

 

We have a whipsword, two of them, three greatsword stances, two glaive stances (even though there are only four of them in the game) and it feels like any time a new, fancy weapon gets released, it has a new stance. I'm gonna be honest here. That rapier coming out today? I logged in to see if it was a regular sword. No. It has its whole own stance. Why then, did anyone think it was cool to add a trident, a weapon which, by its own statistics deals puncture damage, and then slap it into the "polearm" category!? 

 

This brings me to my next point: Pole arms are woefully uncared for, Staffs too, but Pole Arms have a total of Two stances, and I'm loathe to even call them that. Each stance has a single combo, and both function the exact same way excluding that combo. I'm not happy with this, especially considering the animators at DE are clearly very talented, and managed to come up with animations for whips, and whip-swords, and glaives, and all manner of other completely off-the-wall weapons, it's really hard to believe they haven't come up with at least two or three other animation sets for Pole Arm combos. 

 

Let's talk about staffs and pole arms themselves, Pole Arms seem to be about sticking a large blade on the end of a rod and hefting it around as fluidly as possible, staves are more balanced in their use, being that each end is (supposed to be anyway), balanced. So what's up with the Tipedo? It looks more like a pole arm to me, but I guess it's a staff? Sure okay, no big right? Right. Now, to me, the Orthos Prime looks more like a staff then a polearm, with the tiny blades on it... but there's no way to convince me that a Trident is a freaking "polearm".

 

I'm well aware, that by all technical and conventional definitions that it is in fact, a type of pole arm. Because a pole arm is that, it's an arm, a weapon, on a pole. So that's fair. But remember what I said about the Tipedo? It too could be considered a pole arm and it isn't, so consider this me shutting down that line of conversation right now. I'm not going to nitpick what "should" and "should not" count as a Polearm/Spear/Staff with people and make this topic what it's about; Why are Polearms so completely ignored, apparently? 

 

Now there's that word again, it was in the title so you knew this was coming; Spears. How could one of the most broadly used classes of weapon in the world go so completely ignored for so long? We have whipswords people, Whip-Swords! Now don't get me wrong, I love whipswords, but as far as real weapons go, they don't have much of a place in the history books, unless you think anime counts as a history book. Spears however, belong in this game, thrusting pole arm weapons belong in their whole own class, a class that, when I was made aware of its existence, the Trident, Sydon, made me believe was finally being added to the game! Think about it, adding a class of thrown weapon that isn't the glaive, perhaps could have innate thrown punch-through, throw in a straight line with "punch-through" instead of number of bounces. You can't tell me it wouldn't be amazing to watch rhino chuck a javelin at a line of guys, watch them all get pinned to the ground, and have the spear simply fly back into his hands in reverse.

 

Again I'm going to have to shut down "but how would a spear magically return to the tenno" arguments. Again, feel free to make them, but I'm not going to respond; they're tenno. They can float at will. All of them. It's literal Spacemagic. The glaives manage to magically find their way back to the tenno every single time, why can't a thrown spear? 

 

Here's what I'm going to finish this off with; my suggestions for fixing the current situation.

 

Stances: Add at least one combo to both Shimmering Blight and Bleeding Willow, then add a third pole arm stance focusing more on using the balanced double-ended nature of the Pole-Arm type weapons (Orthos, Tonbo).

 

Spears: Make a new weapon category with at least one really solid stance mod, and move the Sydon over to that category, whether they're thrown or not, this should be a class of weapons focused on thrusting and single target damage, with a sweeping knockdown combo, possibly. Having this class of weapon allows for a whole host of weapons that don't make sense to slip into either Pole Arms, or Staves. 

 

That's it, that's my post; TL:DR? There's no functional excuse for considering the Sydon a Polearm, Spears belong in this game, add more combos to Polearm stances because they're very sadly lacking. 

Edited January 14, 2016 by 8r8kSpider

[(PSN)Akuma_Asura_]

+1

[TheVeiledScion]

Yes! Spears. I think they could even function like throwing weapons, press to strike, hold to throw.

[exaCel]

+1

 

I second this. All of this. Spears should absolutely be added to this game. They are an excellent multi-use weapon and, like OP mentioned, are "one of the most broadly used classes of weapon in the world."

 

I know that there are always game engine limitations when it comes to incorporating new mechanics, but I feel the talented development team at Digital Extremes is more than capable of adding a weapon class such as this in the game beyond merging it under the bland category of polearms. I am 100% behind the addition of this type of weapon, and I know for a fact a lot of the players invested in this game are as well.

 

 

EDIT: spelling and grammar

Edited January 14, 2016 by exaCel

[--F--NerevarCM]

If DE add a spear class in game, every spear weapon will be the same. Perfuration based, Syndon being Status based and one more Crit Based and that is. If DE add more, it will be the same perfuration based weapon with a diferent speed and model. Because Spears are perfuration based pole arms. A impact pole arm is a staff, and a slash pole arm is a halberd. 

 

Add a new perfuration based stance to pole arms and we're fine.

[Guest]

+1

Spears can sync with the Trident well, maybe a new stance?

And inb4 double-headed spears and dual phased spears.

 

Add a new perfuration based stance to pole arms and we're fine.

Kinda cool, but it has to proc frequently. Polearms need a buff anyway.

[Epsik-kun]

If DE add a spear class in game, every spear weapon will be the same.

We have slash and impact bows and whole weapon categories for nunchucks and nikanas. I don't think that's an argument.

Edited January 15, 2016 by Epsik-kun

[Varzy]

Just make a polearm stance for spears. They've got one in the china build, I believe.

[8r8kSpider]

Just make a polearm stance for spears. They've got one in the china build, I believe.

I did a bit of digging and I found no evidence of this, links? 

[Guest]

I don't like an amphis or a bo prime skewering an enemy just because of a stance mod. A different stance would ruin the weapon's design, so I'm not really sure adding a spear stance to polearm would be appropriate.

[(PSN)VariantX7]

+1

I second this. All of this. Spears should absolutely be added to this game. They are an excellent multi-use weapon and, like OP mentioned, are "one of the most broadly used classes of weapon in the world."

I know that there are always game engine limitations when it comes to incorporating new mechanics, but I feel the talented development team at Digital Extremes is more than capable of adding a weapon class such as this in the game beyond merging it under the bland category of polearms. I am 100% behind the addition of this type of weapon, and I know for a fact a lot of the players invested in this game are as well.

EDIT: spelling and grammar

There are no engine limitations to adding a spear stance. Not when they've added functionally far more complicated weapons like rapiers, gunblades, sword and whip, and nunchaku to the game. This is a manpower and time issue. This is also something they've probably overlooked.

[Otis.Driftwood]

Spear and shield cos i wanna be a space ninja Leonidias.
Or make spear as combo usable throwable gear and keep our sword/axe and shield aka Achilles.
Overlooking a weapon type that is the worlds oldest type of weapon is a huge mistake.
Where would we all be if early humanoids never sharpened their sticks?

Edited January 19, 2016 by Otis.Driftwood

[Malvavisc0]

I designed a spear weapon for a contest 2 years ago...

The idea was that it would teleport back to you once it hit your target... 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/147661-phase-1-melee-weapon-concept-submissions/page-37#entry1861644

[cookieknife]

see here is the thing. POLE ARMS ARE SPEARS, they have 2 spaces on each stance to make stabs but theyre being lazy with melee, sydon was ignored while destreza was givin all the attention in the world for a boring weapon