Dual weapon usage & future changes, was Re: [CF-Devel] WHAT?!?!

[Mark Wedel]

 I'll try to avoid getting into the specifics of this change.  But I'll try to
put in some general notes that perhaps go beyond this specific proposal.

 For any significant project, the gains have to be weighed against the work to
get there and support work after it.  And I think at least in terms of dual
weapon usage, people are seeing that a lot of work needs to be done to get
there, and even more work (ever ongoing) will need to get done afterwards for
balance.  And to that extent, I agree - what has been suggested is that most all
the weapons weights might need to get adjusted, all the shields may need to get
adjusted (to still keep them worthwhile).

 From past projects, those that have worked on crossfire for a long time know
that there is no such thing as one person making it all work.  At best, the
sponsor of the code may get it 75% right, but that last 25% could be the hardest
part to get right (especially for balance, as changing one thing may shift the
balance someplace else, etc).

 This was/is certainly true even with the partial resistance code.  I basically
did the code, and others had previously agreed (and have assisted) in fixing up
objects and so forth.

 I don't really like the argument that shields are currently useful so something
that doesn't address that but instead does something completely different
doesn't seem to be the right approach.  But more on that, one could argue that
many objects are pretty much useless (lets face it, except for artifact
versions, basically boots, helms, cloaks, and gloves are also useless.) 

 I would certainly say it is bigger for these points to be brought up now than 6
months (or whatever from now) when you've done all the code and what not and it
is deemed unacepptable.

 And that sort of makes this change more difficult.  If all the code was done,
then obviously the issue of balance could be better investigated.  But that
requires a lot of code to be changed.

 I would say it probably doesn't make a lot of sense to re-do all that code if
the only thing that is going to benefit from it is Quetzolcoutls.

 To counter some points, it wouldn't be hard to make it so that a player can not
equipped two improved weapons.  But trying to deal with artifacts is very
difficult..

 So at this point, I think discussion is still good.  I don't have a big problem
with people not using shields - I've played some games where you can use two
weapons (and not a shield), and it was certainly a choice on whether I wanted to
do that or not.

 But as Peter and Andreas has brought up, given enough details, you may be able
to change their mind.

 For example, a flag could certainly be added that limits a weapon to only be in
the primary hand for example, with that being set on most/all artifacts.  So
that then fixes that play balance problem, but if all you can use is a mediocre
weapon in your off hand which people probably will not do, then there is lots of
code which once again no one may use.

 Just as a general note, long term projects are actually more difficult because
the longer it takes to get a project done, the more likely the source you are
based from changes in incompatible ways, and at some point, you may spend more
of your time resolving those conflicts than actually generating/fixing code.