So, why are Greatswords slower than Greataxes?

[Geonis]

That's the question......

I know, it is also Mauls and Greatclubs, but the question remains..........why?

[llevenbaxx]

Why is any weapon slower than any other would be a better question I think.

[Angelus_dead]

Greatswords are slower because you grip them with both hands close to one end, instead of spaced out on the bar, and the artist who did the animations thought it looked awkward to make them swing at the same rate.

This is a textbook example of an improper prioritization of artwork over gameplay effects. Correct game design would mean the rate of attacks is defined first, and then the artists are instructed to produce corresponding animation- not the other way around.

Notice that Turbine recently repeated this kind of mistake, when the extended two-handed fighting animations were added for BAB 15, because it slowed down the rate of attacks to less than at BAB 14.

[Geonis]

Okay, so we have the explanation (albeit a player's) of why the attack rate was slowed originally.

Now, why isn't it fixed?

[llevenbaxx]

All the artist did was take away everything from combat but the swinging. Thats why in PnP a dagger attacks at the same rate a greatsword does, because opennings are hard to find with a dagger when facing someone with a great sword. This is a good reason artists shouldnt be in on gameplay decisions.

[Sheezgame]

Surely the animation would look fine if it was exactly the same... but faster?

It must look like this when you have haste on etc?

[Angelus_dead]

Surely the animation would look fine if it was exactly the same... but faster?

You'd think so. But the devs claim to have tried it, and say it looked somehow bad. Personally, I'd change it to an equivalent rate regardless of if the weapon-mass seems a bit off.

Note that the artist who originally did this animation is no longer attached to the project, so that's another barrier against adjusting it.

[esoitl]

i've been told GS are faster

[Lifespawn]

i've been told GS are faster

you've been lied to

[honkuimushi]

From what I've gathered from the dev explanations, all the animations were done before release, even the ones we just got. It was also mentioned that the person who did them is no longer with the company. So any fixes would require a redo of all the animations for each weapon / race combination and all animation time is currently booked. I am curious about whether half-elves and half-orcs will also be affected since their animations have to have been done more recently. Finally, there may be a real powergaming reason to play a half-elf.

[steelblade]

GA swings faster....thats why its hard to find vorpal GA nowadays....no wait EVER

[jjflanigan]

Once you get up to BaB 15, the difference between the two attack animations is largely mitigated. At BaB 15/16 a greataxe swings at 1.35 swings per second and a great sword swings at 1.27 swings per second. Over the span of an entire minute, that's a difference of only 5 swings.

BaB 1 - 5 the gap is fairly large, working out to be 15 or so attacks per minute lost when using a great sword versus a greataxe. BaB 5 - 15 it starts out at approximately 8 attacks per minute difference and the gap slowly closes until it gets to the 5 swings / minute difference once you hit BaB 15 and pick up the next attack in the chain.

So, while the difference is there and it obviously doesn't really make sense for them to be different...it's really not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of combat in DDO.

[Knightrose]

Every time I post the very same question as the OP Turbine says: "It's not getting fixed." and I go "***!?"

[Jerevon]

Turbine might be outsourcing the animations or the back-end coding. Or something else.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Okay, so we have the explanation (albeit a player's) of why the attack rate was slowed originally.

Now, why isn't it fixed?

That isn't the players explaination, it was the dev explaination. (go search, huge thread on this a while back).

We were told the original problem was created do to estetics and they were unwilling to fix it because it was too much work.

[tihocan]

It is because they screwed up the animations.
I've been trying to get a follow-up from Codog on this topic but he seems to be too busy now to answer anymore

[totmacher]

the problem isn't the amount of time it would take for them to fix this

the problem is task prioritization. it's not a problem because it's better to get the art team to work on new content rather than patch old bugs. spending that time patching bugs would lead to the perception that they're not doing anything, which producers never want.

so yeah, it sucks and it will probably never be fixed

[jjflanigan]

the problem isn't the amount of time it would take for them to fix this

the problem is task prioritization. it's not a problem because it's better to get the art team to work on new content rather than patch old bugs. spending that time patching bugs would lead to the perception that they're not doing anything, which producers never want.

so yeah, it sucks and it will probably never be fixed

It's not really worth the time to clear up a difference of .08 attacks / second. Even at the LARGEST gap, it's still only 0.25 attacks per second difference, and it gets smaller and smaller as people level up. Honestly, I can see why they aren't willing to spend time to fix it.

[Emili]

It's not really worth the time to clear up a difference of .08 attacks / second. Even at the LARGEST gap, it's still only 0.25 attacks per second difference, and it gets smaller and smaller as people level up. Honestly, I can see why they aren't willing to spend time to fix it.

Is that not what haste does? 25% increase. Just kidding. Really the GA is 5 more swings(81) a minute then a GS(76). One handers also have some differences swords are quicker then Axes due to the blade pivoting around at the swings endpoints.

[Sheezgame]

Hmm.. doesn't haste change the swing speed programatically? Can't you have many different attack speeds based on items/buffs? Surely they don't have a separate animation for each different attack speed?


So taking this into account, can't they programatically adjust the speed of greatswords, even if it means putting a hidden 'attack' speed buff on all greatswords