Allright, let me explain this properly.

The balance of weapons presumes that weapons of same level have same or nearly same "weight". The "weight" is determined as a summ of weapon's advantages and disadvantages (if any). Thus we have to 1) Define target weights for each weapon level - that is a weight all weapons of that level should have, and 2) Define weight values per each weapon property. A summ of weapon properties will give weapon weight. It is up to us to make every weapon fit the level.

Just for example, we have decided that level 4 weapon should have roughly 40 weight units.
We are taking Fighter's Ripper for balancing.
At first, we calculate the base of its weight using those factor tables (remember, everything is for example only):
Main attack:
Class is : "fast projectile" = 9
Fire rate is "slow" (24 tics) = 2
Single main missile = 1
Area of attack: straight = 1
total = 14
8 extra missiles spawned on hit:
Class is "slow projectile" = 3
Area of attack: spread = 2
total = 5 * 8 = 40
Grand Total = 14 + 40 = 54.

So we have weapon weight 54 and limit 40. Now we still have to set damage so that its weight won't exceed limit (much), but it is already exceeded. So we have to use disadvantages, that is apply large mana cost (I forgot to mention it in the tables); or maybe decrease attack speed/projectile speed to lower down basic weight.
That is the idea.


Its just a template. We may determine roughly standart damage levels, like 10 to 15 of damage, 15 to 25 etc.

OK, this explains it more clear, I've worked on the code just adding property flags (boolean values for representing most of what's included on the table), then I want to create methods that calculate these weights for each weapon according to the rules we have proposed, this way we'll only have to fix the actual values determined by each of the properties if things don't work fine (or if something needs to be modified/added in the future) .

New version of the weapon balance tables, in case anyone is interested on checking them:
http://downloads.orcishweb.com/koraxdev/firebrand/karena/weapon%20table.xls
http://downloads.orcishweb.com/koraxdev/firebrand/karena/weapon%20table.ods

Since I added new sprites for projectiles and other small things to the PK3 files, I think I need to do a new internal release, this one is specially done for weapon balance, so it's renamed to reflect this:
http://downloads.orcishweb.com/koraxdev/KoraxArena/KArena_Weapon_Balance_Test_20090728.zip

Please remember that these new damage values aren't written on stone, they are only propositions, if you think there are weapons that do little damage, feel free to tweak values and reupload the tables or a list of new damage values, I would prefer if only weapon damage and maybe mana usage values are tweaked... but if you think other things need tweaking, go for it, let's test them in game and discuss this properly, IMO it's a benefit to make the game as balanced as possible .

I am afraid I won't be able to give quick feedback, I am rather busy now; maybe I shall test it somewhen closer to end of the week.

As long as you test it, there's no problem .

While testing 1.1 Beta, I played Fighter a bit and noticed that balance seem to be futher screwed up. Fighter's 4th Ripper stays the most useful and effective weapon, while such weapon as 6th Fire Hammer is absolute and total crap: it is terribly weak but it drains mana quickly; also it is useless against ghost monsters. I really can't understand how and why it is ended like that?

When we did the rebalanced weapons using the tables that still can be downloaded, I asked everyone to test them.

Concerns about this were fixed at the time, but apparently not everything was fixed, as I've said before, this is a very difficult thing to do properly, moving a value from a weapon could make the rest to look screwed and weak...

My suggestion is to make a table of the weapons you find weak or screwed and what things you don't like about them, so that we all can work on fixing them for good .

I want to take this moment to comment on the ghosts flag for projectiles, it was added there because without it, the invisibility powerup is useless, it doesn't really makes you invisible, so without that IMHO it's not useful at all, only as a simple effect, lol .