Ok i’m not a huge talker, but i am a lurker and why i don’t have much time to play other hacks( making my own, playing other games and looking at pics of my favs chara consumes too much of my time) i have notice not a lot of hacks have actually use 1-2 range swords like wind edges from rd to give sword users the same playing field as axes and lances, its been clouding my judgement on adding them, but that also makes me think, what do you all think about what would be good swords ideas a hack could have in the way of not having the standard 1-2 range for them( please i need ideas to kill of the 3 blades sitting in my item menu, i need them dead, replaced and flourishing as a new cuter sword)
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Unless the idea is to have “magic swords” that cast rocks to fall form the sky to deal phyical damage, most sword animations just aren’t really built for 1-2 range physical swords. Most animations just have the character thrust their swords in the air and cast a bright light to signify a spell cast. Since that was the norm with vanilla animations, it appears most custom animation creators followed in their footsteps.
However, there has been one vanilla class I have seen to allow for 1-2 range swords, and that is the humble rogue. While the vanilla rogue uses normal swords and 1-2 range magic swords, there are edits that switch up the magic swords for knife throws. I’ve actually implemented 1-2 range knives in my own hack.
There are probably a few more animations with unique sword animations but most of them do appear to be magic based. Unless animators think of unique and fun ways to animate sword throwing, I think we may be stuck with magic swords.
So, ignoring the animations issue, this is an interesting point of discussion and the answer to “why do most hacks not do it” is a similar one to why hack designers these days tend to view 1-2 Short Bows negatively. On paper, sure, there’s nothing “wrong” with giving swords a 1-2 option similar to the other melee weapon types. But then, well, that’s exactly what you’re doing: making swords more similar to the other melee weapon types. The lack of physical 1-2 is one of the things that sets swords and sword-users apart from lance and axe-users and makes the weapon type feel distinct. It’s distinctly negative in vanilla, sure, but the ideal way to correct for this is by giving swords and sword-users unique and meaningful strengths over other weapon types, rather than just removing defining weaknesses that set weapon types apart and making them all play the same. (Plus, if you’ve got a sandbox where the most important thing a unit can have is access to is constant 1-2 above all else and not being able to use 1-2 for enemy phase is a death sentence, you might have other issues lol.) Of course, there are other ways swords can and have filled similar roles to physical 1-2 without giving up their unique identity – things like uncounterable weapons and brave weapons can allow you to stil chip or kill things without taking counterattacks, magic swords exist as a more unique form of 1-2 with advantages and tradeoffs depending on your implementation, etc.
Also, before you write off blades entirely, I’d urge you to take a look at ArcherBias’s post on weapon weight and why it’s awesome, and consider that, when swords’ primary strength is usually that their light weight and fast users allow you to double reliably even with higher-tier weapons and their big statistical weak point is low raw might, having the heavy but hard-hitting blades around as a way to trade off that excess speed into better power is pretty useful and cool if you just make the numbers on them a bit better than vanilla’s. (This is also why “blades” with the same statlines for other weapon types don’t usually work as well – lances and axes don’t need to trade off speed for power, but would rather have tradeoffs like accuracy for speed (without sacrificing power) or power for accuracy respectively.)
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Ok i get it, well at least with steel swords, blade just have never been useful for me ngl, i feel like most hacks can implement just fine, but usually all hacks also have the tiny little detail of also having the high con mercenary who makes use of them in the early game, dieck, raven and gerrik,
In my divine wisdom in making a whole cast of people, i kinda ignored most fe staples to just make a cast that feels right to me, that also involved making the high con male merc probable be super endgame, silver blade might be some what useful lategame, but i’ve never been of fan of it, which is why i’ve been looking for other stuff, might turn them into the miracle, barrier and defense swords from fe4 ngl