"There are already vast differences (on paper) in most weapons -- weight, hit bonus, ac bonus, and parry bonus, to name a few -- factors in what makes combat effective. Since they didn't provide the give-and-take to make people make different weapon choices prior, I tried a different route. It's entirely plausible that few people have done the research involved in discovering what the best weapon fit for their type of play is, so have accepted the default 'common' weapons thus making those weapons even more common. The contention that there isn't a difference between weapons is wrong, and crit amounts is definitely a strong indicator that there is a difference between two weapon types. If the difference simply wasn't stark enough prior to make that discrimination between weapons within a skill type worthwhile we can certainly look at enhancing those differences."

Because, in all your years of Darke, how many have gone anything but the attack/weapon skill route? Furthermore, the help files give NO clue to the various effects of weapons. I only heard about the blade advantage to parry in 2004 or 2005. So, that is a fault of the help files more than anything. had I known, it's at least likely that Dendlai would have spent some time thinking what to use before using knife. As is/was, blade says nothing about it's advantages with regards to parry. So how would one know, except by extreme testing?

"What I'm talking about is the situation in which the base damage route is the best xp route to the point at which armour negates 'base' damage hits, past which the only viable route for experience or PK becomes a single damage type piled high. This is the way it has been for quite some time. The intent is to allow for builds in which multiple damage types are piled to higher levels than a 'base' damage weapon, and lower than a 'pk' weapon in order to allow for viable usage in either situation. It may not have been accomplished in one fell swoop, but that is the direction I am attempting to lead us in."

And for XP it is alreay true and was true before. Honestly, you don't make sense to me, and I have tried more kinds of weapons for XP than anybody. Before the change, there was a *slight* bias towards Singing/cutting&impaling one purpose weapons, but weapon types of a varied type gave close to the same XP. The difference certainly wasnt huge and... Hum... I still don't know how to answer this, since it still seems based not on knowledge, but on hearing people whine. Honestly. I have tried so many combos, and before/after shows a difference in WHAT is the best. And the difference isn't based in "one crity type" only at all.