Hello.
In this blogpost we'd like to share some news about weapons and combat system of both HWR: Reforged and HWR: Downfall.
In our opinion, the original Heads Will Roll both had a pretty respectable arsenal of weapons and did a decent job highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of different weapon types. In Reforged and Downfall we decided to expand the overall arsenal while, at the same time, increasing and preserving the uniqueness of each weapon.
At this point in development there're 56 different melee weapons in the game including several ones that fall into completely new categories like 'curved swords' and 'throwing spears' that were not present in the original game. Both of these are an interesting addition mainly because they allow us to introduce new attacks and mechanics that, in turn, enable the player to create more unique playstyles.
So, for example, curved swords have a new attack that increases the damage dealt to target by a portion of attacker's agility, but only if the blow lands clean (i.e. not fully or partially blocked by armor). What this means is that now there's a weapon, damage output of which scales with agility rather than only weapons skill or strength. Coupled with the addition of all kinds of new trinkets this allows for completely new playstyles that do not rely on brute force or heavy weapons for high damage output but rather on agility and precision.
The introduction of throwing spears and javelins too aims at diversifying the approaches to combat that are available to the player. The 'Spear Throw' attack makes use of both agility (to hit the target) and strength (for damage modifier) for an absolutely devastating effect. Even at the start of the game, with a relatively weak character, this attack is capable of doing damage in the realm of high 20s and one-shotting shields. And since all throwing spears have at least one melee attack, your options with them are never limited to just throwing so you can hold your own in melee combat. Thus you can both throw your spear at the beginning of the battle and then instantly switch to the second weapon. Or wait until there's an opportune moment or a proper target and then throw it.
Another thing we did was buffing the one-handed longswords. In the original game they were widely considered to be one of the worst weapon types. And this, by itself, is not a very bad thing as, contrary to the popular belief, in the real medieval combat the longswords were never considered to be that amazing of a weapon. Depending on the situation, a poleaxe, a spear, a mace, a flail or an axe would pretty much always be a better option that a sword, while circumstances where a longsword would be better than any of the above were very rare.
But, at the same time, longswords were indeed used very widely and were by all means an iconic weapon of that era. Thus, searching for a way to buff them in the game, we came up with an idea of another attack — a fencing move. Dubbed 'Counter Strike' this attack increases the hit chance if the target has missed their previous attack or has a 'feinted' debuff applied to them. The idea should be pretty obvious: deceive your enemy with feints, make them miss — make them pay. Obviously, this playstyle too can hugely benefit from a variety of new trinkets that can improve your feinting skills, dmage output, chance to inflict a bleeding or an injury or break enemy's armor.
On top of that a lot of weapons (both old and new) received unique attack effects: rusty swords and axes can inflict a small poisoning; messers, gross-messers and curved swords have a higher chance to inflict bleedings etc.
And even that's not entirely it as there're actually two more new attacks - Helmbreaker (for Horseman's axe) and Coup de Grace (for several swords). But in the interest of time we'll leave them for another occasion.
If you liked the news then rejoice as Downfall is just a couple of months away. And, hopefully, it will not disappoint you.