DnD teaches Guild Wars 2

A little over a week ago I wrote an article about what Guild Wars 2 could learn from LotR:O. Today, in a similar vein, I would like to discuss something Guild Wars 2 could learn from good ole Dungeons and Dragons. In fact, there are a lot of things I think GW2 could learn from DnD, but today I will look at just one, weapons and even more specifically I want to look at weapon variety. I feel this is one thing DnD does well. Guild Wars 2 weapon set is currently limited and I think by looking at DnD we could spice things up a bit.

Weapons in DnD

In Dungeons and Dragons there are a ton of weapons, nearly everything that you can think of. Some weapons are greatly different from each other and how they are used, for example a Bow vs a Sword, or a Spear vs a Whip. It is obvious that you do not use a bow or a whip in the same manner. There are different rule sets surrounding the things you can do with these weapons. A bow has a range, a sword is used in melee, a spear has reach, and a whip can trip and disarm. 

There are also other weapons that all fall under a certain category, such as Rapier, Sabre, Katana, or Scimitar  All of these are types of swords, and all act similarly, however, they each have something unique about them. A Rapier crits more often, a sabre has a bonus when mounted, a Katana hits harder, and a scimitar has larger crits. This is the primary area I think Guild Wars can learn from.

Guild Wars 2 meets DnD

In Guild Wars 2 we have a number of different kinds of weapons that each have their own rules surrounding them. I do think that GW2 needs more weapons in general, but a nice way to cheat would be to simply add some flavour to the already existing set. Swords could be divided up in the way described above in DnD. Each could have something unique about it, like a stat bonus, or a different attack. The whole weapon does not need to be changed up, it just needs some flavour. 

A Katana.

Take, for example, a thief and a sword in their primary hand. I have three abilities with the third depending what is in my off-hand, so lets just consider the first two for simplicities sake. With my primary attack I do Slice, Slash, and a Crippling Strike. With my secondary attack I do an Inflitrator's Strike. If say I was using a Katana, instead of Inflitrator's Strike, I could instead have a charge attack that deals vulnerability on hit. The ability stays mostly the same, with a different animation. The primary attack does not need to be changed.

A Rapier.

Then, for another example, I could use a Rapier and instead of Slice, Slash, and Crippling Strike I could instead do, Thrust, Lunge, and Parry which would mimic the fighting style of  fencer. The Thrust and Lunge would behave similarly to Slice and Slash, but Parry would give you Aegis for 2-3 seconds. The changes do not need to be huge, just a little something different would add that much more depth. And I could go on with more examples, Axes could be divided into, Tomahawks, Battle Axe, and Handaxe, Mace divided into Club, Flail, and Morning Star, Shield into Rounded, Tower, and Diamond, etc.

Conclusions

Little things like this could add a lot of spice to the game. This is the same conclusion that I came to in my LotR:O article. It seems GW2 has a lot of the big picture things, but is missing a lot of the little things that really add depth to a game. I have always found finding new weapons to be my favourite part of any game. This probably goes back to the days of playing the Legend of Zelda. I loved getting to the new area, figuring out the puzzle, beating the boss, then having this brand new weapon with new abilities. I think this is something GW2 is sadly missing. I think I unlocked all my weapon skills on all the classes I have played within 30 minutes of being in Tyria. I need something more out of this system, and I think this would be an easy way to get there while new weapons are in development.