Quote:Original post by Jiia
Maybe it would have been easier to write a list of things you do like [wink]

Oh, you don't know the half of it! I'm a very picky person. :) But I believe that my strict nitpicking encourages me to foster better game design.

Quote:Original post by Jiia

Quote:Original post by Ranger Meldon
5) How games that use weight-based carrying limits don't offer any recourse to physically wimpy mages. There needs to be some kind of "magic bag of holding" or something, that only mages (or characters beyond a certain level of magic skill) can make and equip that allows them to carry somewhere near the same amount of stuff a warrior can. I also think a packmule and/or wagon are good ideas too.

Later on (#19), you argue that different classes should offer much different gameplay experiences. But here you're saying the opposite; that we should try to make this one skill equal for vastly different character types.

No, I'm not saying the opposite. I'm simply referring to something else than you are thinking. Different classes should offer different gameplay experiences, but not at the expense of fun. Having to worry about being encumbered or having to go back to town to sell things every two minutes really sucks. If a result of greater strength is greater carrying capacity, then wimpier characters (like magic users) need to be able to carry as much loot as strong characters, even if not by virtue of their strength. So in other words, they need to have a way that is based in their own "strength": magic. Either an extradimensional storage bag, or a carrying spell, or an expensive spell that teleports individual items back to your stash in town, etc.

Quote:Original post by Jiia
I believe it already suits the character types, as is. For example, warriors have to carry swords or guns, where mages carry a staff or some paper.

It may suit them in terms of sheer realism based on strength considerations alone, but why should that be the only consideration in a magical world?

Quote:Original post by Jiia
I also doubt most players are going to accept 'magic bag' as the reason. What other choices are there to present, if a designer actually wanted to make his character classes less unique?

Why would players be hesitant to accept the concept of a magic bag of holding if they are playing as a magic-using character? The "physics" of magic are not always what we might consider realistic in this world, but in a virtual world where magic is prevalent, it could be the epitome of normality. All that is necessary for magic to be a Law is consistency of implementation. And I'm not suggesting we make character classes that are less unique. I'm suggesting we don't use character classes at all.

Quote:Original post by Jiia

Quote:Original post by Ranger Meldon
8) How uncustomizable the weapons are in practically every game I've ever played, especially if it's an FPS RPG. I want to be able to forge my own custom sword that has a large chance of looking unique even in an MMORPG setting. This would just be an issue of mixing and matching different weapon subparts, i.e. hafts, handles, blades, blade tips, edges, guards, pommels, runes, effects like glowing or flaming, etc. This would be so extremely cool, and if you coded it right, it wouldn't have to be that much more complex.

Customizable weapons sounds great. But it sounds like you're talking about having the player build the model of the weapon. Isn't that taking it a bit far?

Yes, if that had been what I meant, it would be taking things a bit far. Having to design models is not most people's idea of fun. But that's not what I meant, as indicated by the part I said about "mixing and matching different weapon subparts." Nowhere in my post do I mention creating custom submodels from scratch (i.e. on a vertex level).

Quote:Original post by Jiia
Even if you offered a thousand combination possibilities, most players are going to regard the same look as 'cool', and so most players will be weilding the same identical weapon anyways.

This is your supposition only. It may have no basis in fact. Personally, I would enjoy making different-looking custom weapons just because I could.

Quote:Original post by Jiia
I like the idea of building / designing the weapons, but I don't think it should be based on looks or model parts. The whole purpose of a weapon is to kill.

I can tell you right now that this is a comment worthy of sparking its own separate debate. I say that the purpose of a weapon is what you make it. In addition to cutting, a dagger can block, cut bread, slice apples, threaten people, cut rope, shave, spread butter, etc. Not to mention that a weapon can just as easily save lives as take them.

Quote:Original post by Jiia
Only kings and emperors care about how pretty their weapon is.

All the more reason to have the ability to custom-design the look of a weapon, so that its owner might feel more like a king or emperor, with the luxury to debate over such things. And I wasn't just talking about how pretty a weapon is, but also how distinctive it is.

Quote:Original post by Jiia
Perhaps if it was based on metal types and forging ability. It would also be possible to draw the shape of a blade and handle (this would be mostly unreasonable in any MMO type game). The color and look of the weapon, other than it's shape, should be from the metal types. As well as it's weight, damage, and other little details.

I do largely agree here. I hadn't touched on this mainly because it seemed to be a matter of details instead of the general idea. But I do like these ideas. I think the metal type should reflect the color of the weapon, and other details should reflect other aspects of the weapon's appearance. Forging ability should perhaps limit the number of different possible designs that a player is capable of attempting.

Quote:Original post by Jiia
I think all games of any decent length must handle reputation stupidly. What is your suggestion in handling this situation?

Now, this one I have answered in a (rather long) previous post. :)

Quote:Original post by Jiia

Quote:Original post by Ranger Meldon
15) Games (such as Diablo 2) when they give numbers (especially percentages) for an item that don't really tell you any more than you knew to begin with. Example: What does 10% faster hit recovery even mean? 10% faster than what? .. Annoyingly vague.

10% faster means you recover in 90% of the time. Makes sense?

Of course I understand how percentages work. But 90% of how much time? And why do some monsters slow me down more than others, even though I had the same hit recovery against both? I'm not saying that percentages are bad, etiher. I'm just saying they should have done a better job of making it clear what each ability does, and perhaps also done a better job in making the indexing more intuitive.

Quote:Original post by Jiia
Whether it's stackable or not isn't really an issue with displaying percentages, as any type of representation would be just as vague.

And yes, it does matter whether it stacks or not, because 10% of something compounded three times is going to be more than just 30%.

Quote:Original post by Jiia
Perhaps a suggestion on how to improve this as well?

Just make it more intuitive, partially by revealing more information about what's actually happening, either beforehand in documentation, or during the game.

Quote:Original post by Jiia

Quote:Original post by Ranger Meldon
16) How in games like Diablo 2, your skills give you less and less additional benefit each time you put a new level into them. After a while, it's almost like, what's the point? Especially since the monsters don't seem to gain skills in such a diminishing fashion.

That's just life. If you start practicing with a gun right now, next week, you'll most likely double or tripple your ability. A week after, you will not make the same progress. Eventually you will not learn anything new at all.

Not true. You will never meet a Master who does not believe that they could be better at what they do. Only perfect practice makes perfect, and nobody practices perfectly, or they wouldn't actually need to practice in the first place. Yes, you will progress more slowly the longer you practice something, because per unit of time, you're not learning as much. But this doesn't mean, when you reach a certain new level of skill based on having done a certain number of repetitions, that you will have gained half as much benefit (or less) than the last such instant. Having a logarithmic curve describe how much increasingly more experience is required for each new character level AND having each new level grant half the benefit is twice the penalty. It's not realistic, and it doesn't feel right. Why else do you think there aren't many level 80+ characters online in Diablo 2? Because people get tired of playing past a certain level. Because there's no more feeling of progress. And that's just not fun. You can make your game the Diablo 2 way if you want, but I'm not falling into that trap. I'm shooting for much longer term gamer enjoyment.

Quote:Original post by Jiia
Mastering anything requires devotion and obsession.

Agreed.

Quote:Monsters are supposed to be tough. Otherwise, everyone would be a hero [wink]

Tough is one thing. Not fun past a certain point is another thing entirely. [wink]

Quote:Original post by Jiia

Quote:Original post by Ranger Meldon
22) When potions get used up in one drink when the player needed far less health etc than what the potion could optimally provide. Each potion bottle should "remember" how much liquid has already been consumed from it. Preferably, bottles should be able to be mixed, such that one partially-filled bottle can "top off" another partially filled bottle of the same type of potion.

Again, what are you suggesting? That the player choose 1/3 or 1/2 from a selection menu every time they down one? What if 1/8 is more than they need? I don't see much improvement over just having a hundred tiny bottles.

Um, no. I'm suggesting that potion bottles possess an integer descriptor of their remaining healing efficacy, in terms of how many more hit points they can recover. How hard is that? Do it exactly like Dungeon Siege did, if you prefer. If a bottle starts out with 100 HP healing capability, and the player drinks from it once, and only needed 20 HP, don't have the bottle just disappear (what a waste!). Instead have it still contain 80 HP worth of healing. Simple.

~Ranger Meldon~ M.M. .:

Quote:Original post by MSW
My biggest pet pieve is the over reliance on the same cliched Tolkeen/AD&D inspired game setting. Its gotten to the point that I wont even consider playing a RPG game if its got the same old elves, dwarfs, orks, magic, etc. at least the Final Fantasy tries to explore different fantasy settings mixing airships, guns, and such.

I like the idea of making a custom, completely original universe, but you have to keep in mind that one of the biggest reasons that Tolkien's Middle Earth is so successful is because it has its basis in a lot of real-world history and historical concepts. Even the division of the races into Elves, Men, Dwarves and Halflings, is merely a covert description of the various facets of human personality and essence. We like the Elves because the higher part of ourselves resonates with their concept of purity, spirituality, and nature conservation. We like the Dwarves for their earthy qualities, like growing thick beards, chugging beer, dominating in a fight despite their short stature, and their gruff, Scottish-sounding voices. In short, these "races" are actually archetypal subdivisions of our own psyches. On the other hand, there is the issue of vampires, werewolves, etc. How do you reinvent these icons of evil and still get the point across that they are, in fact, evil? A vampire is especially potent in our minds as being evil, even if we know nothing more about the person than that they are a vampire. I know of no other word, title, or concept that would serve as a ready replacement. As far as creating a different style of universe, Arcanum did a good job of mixing in technological elements with magic.

Quote:Original post by MSW
Second, I don't get this drive for "more realisam" in some of the postings here...seems there is a overal lack on creativity and imagination.

If you understood the importance of having realism in games, then you might also come to understand why realism is not mutually exclusive with creativity or imagination.

Quote:Original post by MSW
I mean here we have RPGs where magic users routinely shoot fireballs from thier finger tips and exotic monsters run around attacking people. And instead of haveing fun with such worlds, people are complaining about simplistic reputation systems!?

Who says we're not having fun with the concept of magic? And simplistic (i.e. ineptly handled) reputation systems are not all we are complaining about here. This is also hopefully not "empty" complaining we are doing. We are trying to put together a list of areas we feel need improvement. As far as magic itself is concerned, when you cast a fireball in a game, you don't feel it sizzle out from your fingertips or feel the heat wave as it flies forward from your hand. You don't feel whatever it would feel like to be drained of the magical energy it cost you to cast it. So in short, you are really just using the spell like you would any other ranged weapon effect. Such effects cannot be savored, because they are only being visually and auditorily simulated. As such, they are all kind of getting old. Let the gamers have fun with "such worlds" once we have created them. But we, as developers, need to focus more on things such as reputation.

Quote:Original post by MSW
Come on folks, you have wizards that can teleport and cast invisablly spells. That makes for near perfect "information brokers" whom secretly spy on the player, or other things of intrest...If anything, developers arn't fully exploreing the possabilities with the systems they have.

That idea only works if the player is worth spying on. It's utterly ridiculous to think that someone spied on me while I was out slaying the group of diseased dire rats for the little starving village. Nobody cares but me and the village. But often in such games, you could get back to the small impoverished village and they would already know about the fact that you did the deed, as well as knowing about any other heroic deeds you did along the way. It's stupid. Now, I can see where it could be used as an element of distinctive coolness to find out indirectly that some king must have hired an invisible, teleporting agent to watch your progress.

~Ranger Meldon~ M.M. .:

Quote:Original post by Jiia
I find myself generalizing my game object components like this all the time. So I really do build models in my game editor in the manner which you're describing. I'm just not sure how it could be realistically tied into the game. Do you find handles? Find handle designs? Or are they all available from the get-go? And what difference does the handle make on the weapon? IRL, it's just a gripping device. But some allow you to slide your hand while other provide extreme friction. Way too much detail for most game combat systems. So your handle just ends up being a cosmetic thingo.

Okay, once again I find myself needing to have been more explicit. When I said "creating custom submodels from scratch", I meant that I did not say anything at all about the player doing this creating. Of course we, as developers, would have to make them! That seemed to go without saying. As far as finding handles or handle designs, what would be the appreciable difference between those two possibilities? As far as whether they should be available from the get-go, like I said in that post, "Forging ability should perhaps limit the number of different possible (weapon subpart) designs that a player is capable of attempting(/selecting)." And depending on the nature of the handle, it could be either purely aesthetic or serve some bonus function. A better grip could translate into a higher dexterity bonus (since the added precision of not slipping would add to accuracy) or a higher attack speed (as being able to slide your hand allows you to change attacks more easily). In addition, the handle could have runes carved or etched into it, giving it additional arbitrary magical powers, and it could have magical gems encrusted into it. It could be made of some mythical magic metal that empowers it. In other words, a handle should never be considered "just a handle."

Quote:Original post by Jiia
It's not an assumption. Check out any game world where billions of weapons and armor exist. You'll find the only people not wearing the "clone-gear" are the people who can't afford it. So you think that by splitting the weapon into several parts, this will stop?

I think we're talking about different things here. You're talking about having more weapons that still don't do as much (aren't as cool) as a few well-known weapons. I'm talking about allowing the player to completely design his or her own weapons, without regard to "epic" or "unique" weapons. Certainly, unique weapons might have a stronger benefit in one category than could be found in any custom-made weapon, or a unique weapon might have some special ability that is not available for selection when making a custom weapon. But there would only be certain limited situations where that unique weapon (or armor) would be more valuable than your custom weapon(s). "Clone-gear" is basically a cookie cutter mentality, and I will avoid that at all costs. Players will be able to imbue a certain limited number and magnitude of spells, abilities, and effects into each item they make, and no more than that limit. That way, they can't have a super kill-all weapon that will always work in all situations. Like in real life, it might work most of the time, but sometimes it will be better to use something else. Requiring true versatility from the player is a must.

Quote:Original post by Jiia
If a monster whacks you in the head, and you recover in 1.4 seconds, then a 10% reduction has you recovering in 1.4 minus 0.14 seconds. Or am I missing something?

The only thing you're missing is that I'm trying to say that no games I've seen tell you what a monster's "hit stun" time is. You just have to kind of guess, or figure it out, which can be deadly against some bosses. More information is better than less information. And according to your formula, regardless of how long an enemy's hit is supposed to slow you down, if you have 100% or better hit recovery, then you won't get affected at all. But this doesn't play out. I've had better than 100% hit recovery before, and I would still get stunned, at least slightly. It wasn't noticeable unless I got surrounded by multiple enemies, at which point it became extremely obvious. I felt cheated, or lied to, or something. It made me enjoy the game less, because I felt like I didn't really understand what the numbers were referring to, or at the least, that the game wasn't telling me everything I needed to know. Try explaining to me some time how you think percent chance to find magic items works. It's bizarre and obscurely complex.

Quote:Original post by Jiia
You don't think different mosters or even different attacks should take longer to recover from?

It makes sense that some monsters might hit harder than others, but if so, you'd think the heaviest hitters would be one of the three prime evils, but no. I got hit harder in some cases by individual minions. It made very little sense. I can suspend disbelief if I look at it like maybe Baal's biggest power IS his minions. But it would be nice if the game would at least tell you what a monster's base "stun-duration-on-hitting-you" is.

Quote:Original post by Jiia
Most games are going to make three stackable 10% effects have a 30% effect. Or at least I hope so.

Well, I hope so, too. But then you have cases where the item says "half freeze duration" but that doesn't stack. Two "halfs" equals one-quarter the original freeze duration. There's no apparent consistency, if only because they don't specifically state anywhere whether the effects stack or take effect successively.

Quote:Original post by Jiia
I'm talking about week-long training here. Because that was what was suggested. That training should always result in the same progression, regardless of how good you get. If you meet a master who believes they can get much better in a week at what they do, I'm not sure why they consider themselves a master. They would most likely be training for years to get any noticeable improvement.

I think they would disagree with you. You can't look at things only in terms of per week. I think they would tell you that they notice at least slight improvement every day, no matter how good they get. It's all subjective, but then so is gameplay. Everything's relative. What does master even mean? It means better than almost everyone else. It never means perfect. What makes you think that a person couldn't learn something every week and not still be a master? They're only masterful compared to something else, something lesser.

Quote:Original post by Jiia
I've yet to play any role playing game where traversing from level 79 to 80 is anywhere near as easy as stumbling from level 1 to 2. That design is there for a reason. It would be less work to do the opposite.

I'm not saying I think the transit from 79 to 80 should be anywhere near as easy as from 1 to 2. I know that design is there for a reason. But I'm not talking about the transition time going from 79 to 80 versus 1 to 2. I'm talking about the dramatically lower additional skill benefit yield you receive for your troubles. This is especially true considering how it was obvious that the monsters you were fighting were levelling up too, and yet didn't seem to have the same waning skill benefits at each of their level-ups. This wasn't always the case in Diablo 2, but with many skills it was. You could level up once around level 30, let's say, and get more benefit from that one level-up in terms of skill improvement than you could by leveling up five times between 75 and 80. To me, that's just stupid. If I'm going to take three days (or three weeks) to level up again, I want to receive the same benefit for the new level-up that I did for the previous level-up. It's already taking me twice as long to get to the next level as it did to get to my current level from the previous level, so why should I also get half the benefit when I do finally level-up again? Even if I agree with you for the sake of argument, it still means that the "realistic" way in this case would not be as fun as some other way. That makes it deserving of being scrapped. But I don't think it's a realistic way to begin with.

Quote:Original post by Jiia
If one attached the potion to a quick key, they could down a batch every time they get a scrape. It would remove a bit of strategic planning. Besides, most people would have no idea how many tea-spoons of health potion it takes to regenerate an arm :)

You're missing the point. You could design things the way I'm suggesting and still make the game so that the character cannot drink more than one potion every x number of seconds. And maybe even have a delay while you animate their character model's arm and hand, showing them taking out the potion, uncorking it, taking a drink, and putting the bottle back (if you're worried enough about strategic timing). Problem solved. As far as people determining how much potion would be required to regenerate a limb, they wouldn't need to know. They could just keep drinking until their arm came back. Or didn't come back, depending on the nature of the wound. It would be kind of cool if the game represented a growing expertise concerning drinking from potion bottles. That is, over time, the character learns to conserve potion by drinking more slowly or steadily, and also gets a better idea of how much potion will heal what size of wound. This could be reflected in a potion bottle giving a range of effectiveness in HPs, like 50-75, and over time, that range becomes more precise, saying 72-75. But that's just an idea.

~Ranger Meldon~ M.M. .:

More things I don't like:

1. No weapon sheathing. Games that don't show you unsheathing your weapon before using it. Games that don't show you resheathing your weapon when putting it away or switching to a different weapon. Games that don't show a sheath at all. Where do I stow that longsword? Ouch.

2. Games that don't show a bowstring on your bow. That just annoys the crap out of me. Oh, hey, look ma, I'm propelling arrows with thin air! Will you send me to Jedi school now?

3. Games that don't have a very long view distance. Come on, fog and/or haze are really not THAT common in real life. I really like the new view distance I see in screenshots for Elder Scrolls IV.

4. Games that don't keep dead things dead. If I kill something, I want to know that if I go back later to that same cave it was in, that it won't be up and crawling around again, like nothing ever happened. Stuff like that makes me feel ineffectual as a player and less inclined to keep playing. I understand the supposed importance in some games of respawning an endless supply of monsters for level-up and quest purposes (especially in MMOs), but I'm not making an MMO. Games can get away with it when it's just some random horde of monsters. But when bosses come back to life for no apparent gameworld reason, that's annoying. Besides, it's just cool to go into a cave again after a month and see all these dead monster skeletons, and to know that it was your bad ass that saw to their current disposition.

5. The lack of extra-planetary exploration, even in a medieval fantasy setting. I want to be able to visit mage cities on those moons circling my planet.

6. The lack of developer experimentation with ideas like psionics and inner essence, soul fire, etc.

7. Games that don't let me learn to fight with my body, like a martial artist. This means kicks, punches, flips, kneeing, elbowing, blocking, fall recovery, etc.

8. Games that handle learning languages poorly. I want to be able to learn a new language slowly and have my slow progress be reflected in the amount of translated text or speech that appears or is heard. The rest would look or sound garbled or nonsensical, as you might expect.

9. Games that don't allow you to customize a piece or set of armor or a weapon with your character's name. I would love to see "Meldon's ass-whuppin mace of +3 annihilation" or whatever. For that matter, it would be cool to be able to make a custom set of items marked with your name, and then give them special properties when worn in conjunction. All of this would cost a LOT of money, and/or require completion of special quests, and/or collection of special components, not to mention a high crafting skill.

10. Games that treat armor as one solid unit instead of as a collection of pieces that can degrade individually. I also don't like the concept of generalized damage. If I shoot a monster in the foot, it should limp around unless it's really tough. The same should go for me. I shouldn't be able to take 200 HP of damage in my arm and still be able to use it, when I've only got 250 HP total. I would like to see games keep track of different body regions separately. Implementing stuff like this will make the player feel more effectual and actual. But then again, depending on how it's implemented, the body areas thing could be a pisser and detract from the fun of the game. I'll have to see how it works out when I get there. For now, it seems like a good idea.

11. Games that handle water effects badly.What I would like to see: A water surface should be semi-transparent and allow ripples (and refraction! ooh), and water should include bubbles, light distortion, and possibly even shafts of shifting light. I know that to implement all of these would be a little grandiose, but hey, why not aim high? I'm a water effects nut.

12. Games that have unrealistic flame effects that look obviously like sprites.

13. Games that flash red or some other color across the entire screen when I get hurt so that I can't see a damn thing and couldn't defend myself if my life depended on it.

I have stuff to do now. More later as I can. I highly encourage you all to evaluate these critically, as always.

~Ranger Meldon~ M.M. .:

Quote:Original post by Ranger Meldon

Quote:Original post by MSW
Come on folks, you have wizards that can teleport and cast invisablly spells. That makes for near perfect "information brokers" whom secretly spy on the player, or other things of intrest...If anything, developers arn't fully exploreing the possabilities with the systems they have.

That idea only works if the player is worth spying on. It's utterly ridiculous to think that someone spied on me while I was out slaying the group of diseased dire rats for the little starving village. Nobody cares but me and the village. But often in such games, you could get back to the small impoverished village and they would already know about the fact that you did the deed, as well as knowing about any other heroic deeds you did along the way. It's stupid. Now, I can see where it could be used as an element of distinctive coolness to find out indirectly that some king must have hired an invisible, teleporting agent to watch your progress.

It's stupid? Hardly, in fact its entirely plauseable. I think its pathetic that some enterpriseing guild of wizards haven't thought of information brokering before.

Players spend much of a CRPG out gathering information, talking to NPCs, exploreing and mapping the landscape...It would be expected that some enterpriseing groups of wizards, spies, and such would be gathering and selling information...from general maps, the real secrets of that spooky cave outside of town, to gossip of whom is sleeping with the prince...and in a game world where the practice of magic is as common as cell phones and the internet: its not like spyware cares if you are a nobody or not...just step outside the box and think about it for 2 seconds and you could come up with all sorts of gameplay possabilities.

Maybe the player is employeed by one of these information brokering guilds. Maybe one of these guilds is attempting to spread misinformation about the player. Maybe there is a hidden war between two or more of these guilds. Maybe one or more members of such a guild are corrupt, useing the info for thier own gains. Maybe such a guild is secretly giveing bad info inorder to start a war between opposeing kingdoms.

You already have a means (use of magic to spy) and a motive (need to explore, discover, gather info) ... and hell publishers are already makeing $$$ on selling game guides in addition to the game itself ... so exactly why is it stupid?

Quote:Original post by MSW
You already have a means (use of magic to spy) and a motive (need to explore, discover, gather info) ... and hell publishers are already makeing $$$ on selling game guides in addition to the game itself ... so exactly why is it stupid?

It's not a matter of not thinking outside the box. Magic should be special. If it's not, then it's not really very magical, is it? I can understand having guild wars over magical misinformation, or whatever. But having everyone (every NPC), no matter how poor or remote, be able to have access to that information seems like a very bad, very unrealistic idea. If you want to have a gameworld where everyone in it knows so much about you before you even meet them that they might as well be omniscient, then you go ahead and do that. Think outside that box! And think outside my wallet.

~Ranger Meldon~ M.M. .:

Quote:Origional post by Jiia
It's not an assumption. Check out any game world where billions of weapons and armor exist. You'll find the only people not wearing the "clone-gear" are the people who can't afford it.

Gemstone IV has hundreds of different weapons types and rearly does any two people use the same weapon unless they can afford better. The trick with Gemstone is the "clone-gear" weapons and armor are the cheap ones. The cheap weapons are avalable by the millions if you want but the real good expensive weapons are only available at special events and for the 10,000 players, there are only maybe 50 of each real nice type of weapon and 5 of the really spectacular weapons.

I personally don't even swing the best weapon I can get ahold of. I use a weapon that is about mid level as far as strength because it fits my character. Also the difference between the absolute best weapon (worth about 5,000,000 credits which takes me over a year to make that much) and the mid level weapon (worth about 250,000 credits which takes me about a month to make) is about 20 hit points when I'm usually doing 50-150 hit points of damage. The cheapest weapon is only 15 hitpoints weaker than that. This means the difference between the best and weakest weapon is about 5 swings for a kill vs 7 swings for a kill.

I think too much emphasis is put on the uberstrong kill all weapons in games vs the I use this weapon because it looks neat and works about as good as anything else. In my text based RPG I'm working on, it wont really matter which weapon of a specific type you use because the damage difference wont be that significant. Also in text based RPGs you can make significant differences in the appearence of weapons...