Gimped weapons

[bfox3]

About a week ago I started to get into the post-50 harvesting and crafting game, and I've run into some interesting problems. I am a melee weapon crafter that harvests his own mats. In the Cities of Intuition, I had nodes for all four of the high-damage components for weapons: big shells, oath bark, dzao/buo fiber and scrath wood (sometimes tansy). I was crafting max damage weapons with these materials with no problem, life was good.

Now I am looking for higher q mats, so for the past week I have been venturing into very dangerous regions looking for nodes. After nearly a week, I finally found choice nodes for all four components, the fourth one last night. Now the mats I found were not the same: I found horny shells, oath bark, anete fiber and scrath wood. I saw that the stats on the mats were not as high damage as the old mats I was using, but I figured that I would try it out anyway by making some weapons with them. If it's not as high damage, I reasoned, maybe it will be faster, lower penalty, better dodge or parry, or something else that will make it appealing enough to sell.

I bought a Medium Quality Long Sword plan and made a MQ sword at q60 with the new mats. Here's the surprise for me: it was inferior in every respect except one to my Low Quality q50 Long Sword. The damage was 23 points lower, the speed was lower, the Target Parry Modifier and Target Dodge Modifier were exactly the same (0) and the penalty was the same, 50. The only thing that was better was the weight: the MQ sword was 1.5 kg lighter (who cares). Now looking at the mats, the stats skew hard toward TDM, but the finished weapon does not reflect any improvement in that stat. None of the stats of the materials, in fact, seems to have any impact on the weapon other than speed, damage and lightness.

This is a gimp weapon, totally useless and unsaleable. Putting aside the fact that a weapon labeled "medium quality" ought to be better than one labeled "low quality", my question is was it intended that only damage and speed would matter? Why even bother with the other stats on the materials if so? From where I sit, there is one shell type and one bark type worth harvesting. All the rest are crap: choice, excellent or otherwise.

After I made this weapon, and realized that 3 of the 4 choice nodes I spent a week finding are now useless, I have to admit to being discouraged enough that I had to log off. I just don't want to spend another week or more trying to randomly scan sections of ground for 3 specific types of 3 specific mats in choice or better, all the while dodging heinously high aggro mobs. If specific item tracking worked, it might be slightly less painful, but it doesn't (for a mathematical proof that it doesn't, see the crafting player guide section).

I always thought that the reason you had all the different stats on materials is that it would provide diversity of crafted items: some guys would sell high damage weapons, some high speed weapons, some with high parry modifiers, some with low action penalty, etc. Apparently this is not the case: there is one high damage/high speed combination, and any other combination of mats is inferior, even to weapons of a supposedly lower tier.

Very disappointing.

[parisg]

Here's the problem:

You only see about 4 out of 8 stats. The dodge/ parry modifiers don't work properly. I know for sure that Aneta Fiber helps you dodging more or hitting more (forgot which). Unfortunately it does not show in the weapons stats. You have to trust that it works. Given the dodging rate highly improves with a dodging armor I would say it is implemented.

The sword is not gimped (even though lightness is not what most people look for). You just can not see it.

The 16 landmarks limitation is widely known and has been discussed before. We even voted that we want to see unlimited amounts of them. Now its waiting time.

Back to my tea.

[usagiyo]

Yana wood notes are the best counterweights, not tansy ... Am I right? And dzao fiber of bzuo.

Yes, once you've started making weapons with max damage, you really don't want to go backwards, unless your talking daggers and upping max speed for a little damage.

there are other materials you can use, other then harvested to make better weapons too.


Also, medium quality weapons appear to offer nothing other then looks.

[bfox3]

Here's the problem:

You only see about 4 out of 8 stats. The dodge/ parry modifiers don't work properly. I know for sure that Aneta Fiber helps you dodging more or hitting more (forgot which). Unfortunately it does not show in the weapons stats. You have to trust that it works. Given the dodging rate highly improves with a dodging armor I would say it is implemented.

The sword is not gimped (even though lightness is not what most people look for). You just can not see it.

The 16 landmarks limitation is widely known and has been discussed before. We even voted that we want to see unlimited amounts of them. Now its waiting time.

Back to my tea.

I didn't bring up the 16 landmarks thing, although that is a pain in the ass.

Great sales pitch: buy my cool weapon which has great dodge, you just can't see it. Trust me: it's there.

I have a feeling that this is not going to be a high priority for the devs, what with the Tryker mat problem and the high decay. Unfortunate, since this bug pretty much puts me out of business. The frustration comes from the hours and hours and hours of prospecting, harvesting and dying that it took to make 3 or 4 weapons that I now learn have secret powers that no one can see.

[nunyas]

Yana wood notes are the best counterweights, not tansy ... Am I right? And dzao fiber of bzuo.

Yes, once you've started making weapons with max damage, you really don't want to go backwards, unless your talking daggers and upping max speed for a little damage.

there are other materials you can use, other then harvested to make better weapons too.


Also, medium quality weapons appear to offer nothing other then looks.

Negative, Yana wood is not the best counter weight, Tansy is better. Yana makes an very good mat for making Hammers though. Though, I must admit that I am not all that impressed with Tansy either, nor am I impressed with Dzao. However, I've yet to find any grip or counter weight mats that match what I'm looking for in those two fields. Given that you can create a max damage weapon with the right blade and shaft mat, I'm personally searching for the right grip and counter weight mats to increase the speed or other stats of the weapon, and Dzao and Yana aren't the answer. Those two mats on swords offer mediocre enhancements at best.

[parisg]

I didn't bring up the 16 landmarks thing, although that is a pain in the ass.

Brain goes sqish... need sleep
Yeah, I was thinking about that all the time. How am I gonna sell the weapon if no one can see more than a couple of properties (unimportant ones such as damage

Dodging and parrying as well as adversary dodging and parrying would be nice to see. To the devs: Pleeeassse? Shouldn't that be "just" displaying known properties of the weapons?

[phoenyx]

Negative, Yana wood is not the best counter weight, Tansy is better. Yana makes an very good mat for making Hammers though. Though, I must admit that I am not all that impressed with Tansy either, nor am I impressed with Dzao. However, I've yet to find any grip or counter weight mats that match what I'm looking for in those two fields. Given that you can create a max damage weapon with the right blade and shaft mat, I'm personally searching for the right grip and counter weight mats to increase the speed or other stats of the weapon, and Dzao and Yana aren't the answer. Those two mats on swords offer mediocre enhancements at best.

Counterweight / Hammer

Tansy: lightness / lightness
Yana: dodge / damage


Clothes / Grip

Dzao: pierce / adversary dodge
Buo: lightness / lightness
Anete: smash / dodge


From the above stats, I feel that Yana Wood nodes are the best counterweight, because it adds dodge to your weapon. For hammers, Yana Wood is the only choice - it's the "big shell" equivalent for hammers.

I also feel that Anete fiber is the best grip material for any weapon, because again, it adds dodge. On the weaps with four mats, such as swords, you can max the damage out with point/blade and shaft mats (big shell and oath bark, respectively) and you can max the dodge out with yana wood for the counterweight and anete fiber for the grip.

[jesder]

I also feel that Anete fiber is the best grip material for any weapon, because again, it adds dodge.

Umm .. I would rather have a weapon that could hit something .. Dzao is better as a grip. You should put dodge on your armour.

[thurgond]

I feel that Yana Wood nodes are the best counterweight, because it adds dodge to your weapon. [snip]
I also feel that Anete fiber is the best grip material for any weapon, because again, it adds dodge.

Dodge only does the user good it his/her dodge/parry toggle is set to dodge and if that person is the main tank. Adversary dodge is better all round because it should help reduce the number of "...has dodged your attack" events.

[indyp]

Dodge only does the user good it his/her dodge/parry toggle is set to dodge and if that person is the main tank. Adversary dodge is better all round because it should help reduce the number of "...has dodged your attack" events.

Sorry if this is a silly n00b question, but...what is this 'dodge/parry toggle'? I've read somewhere that it's on the 'p' window, but I've checked there and cannot find it. I've asked twice in-game (tho not to a GM--I'm not going to bother them about this...: ) and no one's responded.

How do I check that? Thanks.