Poleaxes? I like axes, but I don’t like spinning around like… like something that spins around a lot. Having something with a bit more reach and larger AoE would be great. The two-handed axe currently in the game feels legitimately stupid, if not cartoonish. I’d appreciate an alternative.
From Wikipedia: “The poleaxe was usually used by knights and other men-at-arms while fighting on foot. The poleaxe has a sophisticated fighting technique, which is based on quarterstaff fighting. The blade of the poleaxe can be used, not only for simply hacking down the opponent, but also for tripping him, disarming him and blocking his blows. Both the head spike and butt spike can be used for thrusting attacks. The shaft itself is also a central part of the weapon, able to block the enemy’s blows (the langets helping to reinforce the shaft), hit and push with the shaft held in both hands, or trip the opponent.”
I miss when you could do broad strokes with spears with light attacks. This would work as an alternative, though!
Many weapon attack animations feel cartoonish and silly. Wielding a mace makes the bloody Swan Lake start playing in my head with all the leaps and pirouettes involved.This won’t be fixed with just adding a new weapon type.
I think the poleaxe/pollaxe could be introduced as a variant of the two-handed hammer. That is, if the two-handed hammer category was altered into something that wouldn’t be a suicide in actual combat. The kind of mallet we have now is suitable for finishing off an armored knight lying helpless in the muddy soil of Agincourt, not for dueling with said knight.
It would be a little strange if you started fencing with a heavy hammer, or wielding it in close melee combat.
Therefore, two-handed hammers were not the standard weapon of all regular armies of antiquity.
My point exactly. Historically, everything that was intended to be used as a weapon was designed to be wieldable as a weapon (at least everything that saw common use - there were certainly prototypes of weapon ideas that weren’t quite as useful as the designer had thought). You can use a sledgehammer or a spike maul to kill a person, but hardly fight with them. At least the current game animations reflect the unwieldiness of these giant lumps of metal (except the crazy jumping finisher).
Two-handed axe animations (except the spin-to-win move that looks like it was adapted from Wile E. Coyote or something) would be another alternative way to represent a poleaxe’s moveset, perhaps with a thrust added somewhere in the combo.