Weapons & Warfare of the MMO

In this installment, Jonathan Steinhauer takes a look at the weapons of fantasy MMOs and how they have all become identical.

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Sadly, this is true. All weapons are basically the same in the MMOs I've played. I wish that it was implemented better and, to a point, more realistically. I'd love an interesting combat system where certain weapons had certain advantages, but to become so precise, detailed, and different with every weapon would make the combat system extremely complicated, difficult to program, very reliant on twitch mechanics, and so on.

Unless, however, you decided to simplify it to the point where weapons, say, have two or three attacks, doing different damage and causing different effects. Like in Savage 2 (Not an MMO, I know), swordsman have mana-costing abilities to double-swing for an instant powerful attack, and another ability that's a quick stab which causes bleed damage, while axemen have an area-of-effect whirlwind-like attack and a cleave. It works in a game like that because ti's not an MMO.

In any MMO, the inevitable "min-maxxing" will occur, and people will find a perfect weapon for a certain situation, and have an optimal weapon for PvP against a certain class, and another for another class, and they'll end up picking a "best overall," or simply swap for a certain encounter, boss, trash mob, or opponent.

I find it impossible to balance weaponry in such a fashion, even though it would be interesting.