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.

[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