The problem with Fencing Sword

[Townkill]

Its great having a tool that can rotate fences, the problem is because of its placement on the Weapons crafting tab and its cost, that to new players it *looks* like a straight upgrade to spear, while its actually an inferior weapon because it does the same damage but has a slower attack speed. Nearly every game i join with a new player in it, i see them running around using fencing sword instead of just using a spear,

It should either be removed from the Weapons crafting tab and located only in Tools or it should have its attack speed increased to be faster than the spear so that it actually is a slightly better weapon 

[Edible Coal]

yup

[gaymime]

eeeh, i dunno, it is pretty funny when a new player finds out about the "fence" part of the fencing sword X''D

[Anis5240]

36 minutes ago, Townkill said:

its actually an inferior weapon

So what's the matter about it having slower speed? You don't say anything about Lucy having such inferior attack damage (13) despite it could use as a weapon too now do you? Or an axe doing 27.2 damage? Besides, learning IS part of the game. An item being a noob trap is bad? Wow, shocking because this game sure ain't a competitive survival game.

[Echsrick]

i use it sometimes to "repair" a spear, and if you move after the attack you can attack faster

[Mike23Ua]

This thing is pretty worthless on Xbox as a Weapon.. its attack speed is soooo slow, and Klei could put in a little more effort to make it viable as a Weapon by either giving it extended attack range (go ahead try to find such a thing on Xbox..)

OR they can increase the damage it deals to make it feel like an Upgrade to a Spear (literally needs one to craft anyway)

Instead it’s treated as a joke as a weapon, (I’d honestly rather fight with a common axe if I had choice between that or this)

Please do look into buffing or changing this thing. 

[DegenerateFurry]

I don't think anyone would ever use this thing as a weapon for very long if the game was just better about giving players information. Damage numbers, health bars, that sort of thing. Right now, the only way to know in-game how much damage a weapon does is using a punching bag. 

I feel like, if Klei wants to make the game more accessible for new players, they need to give them more information the same way most games do: with health bars at the bare minimum, and preferably with attack area indicators (which'd make it more obvious that kiting is an option) too. Depriving players of information out of some sense of obligation to a long-abandoned "uncompromising" design philosophy is only hurting the potential of DST's playerbase for growth. 

[Townkill]

12 hours ago, Anis5240 said:

So what's the matter about it having slower speed? You don't say anything about Lucy having such inferior attack damage (13) despite it could use as a weapon too now do you? Or an axe doing 27.2 damage? Besides, learning IS part of the game. An item being a noob trap is bad? Wow, shocking because this game sure ain't a competitive survival game.

Yes, it's bad game design having something look like a better version of something else but being worse. Axes are classified as Tools and actually a better weapon than fencing sword, because fencing sword cant stunlock some mobs, such as werepigs. Last i checked Axes and Lucy aren't under the Weapons craft tab. The game promotes fencing sword as  weapon by putting it in the Weapons tab, and the cost IMPLIES that its better than spear. Whats worse is its not bad in an obvious way, so players are unlikely to learn that using it isn't a good idea since attack speed is much harder to notice than damage unless youre seeing the comparison side by side

 

5 hours ago, DegenerateFurry said:

I don't think anyone would ever use this thing as a weapon for very long if the game was just better about giving players information. Damage numbers, health bars, that sort of thing. Right now, the only way to know in-game how much damage a weapon does is using a punching bag. 

I feel like, if Klei wants to make the game more accessible for new players, they need to give them more information the same way most games do: with health bars at the bare minimum, and preferably with attack area indicators (which'd make it more obvious that kiting is an option) too. Depriving players of information out of some sense of obligation to a long-abandoned "uncompromising" design philosophy is only hurting the potential of DST's playerbase for growth. 

Scrapbook seemed like an attempt to address this but i find most new players don't use it, probably because it barrages them with unactionable information, which inturn just teaches them to ignore it. I feel like it'd be utilized more if the first time you saw a scrapbook popup was when crafting a tool/weapon/armor or examining a point of interest, since that would teach a player "hey theres useful information here" instead the first few popups players get are like twig or grass etc, which contains nothing useful.

[Anis5240]

4 hours ago, Townkill said:

cant stunlock some mobs

So you're using the game program to take advantage of the game AI. Invalid criticism. You don't see console players ever use stunlock as a way to kill mobs now do you.

4 hours ago, Townkill said:

attack speed is much harder to notice than damage unless youre seeing the comparison side by side

And? So what? There's plenty of items in the game that serves little to no purpose. I have yet to see people actually do stuffed mooncap despite its benefit. Because that item is so bad. Fencing sword has much better applications than that thing.

[Edible Coal]

18 hours ago, Anis5240 said:

So what's the matter about it having slower speed? You don't say anything about Lucy having such inferior attack damage (13) despite it could use as a weapon too now do you? Or an axe doing 27.2 damage? Besides, learning IS part of the game. An item being a noob trap is bad? Wow, shocking because this game sure ain't a competitive survival game.

im pretty sure the problem here is the fact the fencing sword is label as a "weapon" in crafting tab

[Anis5240]

7 minutes ago, Edible Coal said:

im pretty sure the problem here is the fact the fencing sword is label as a "weapon" in crafting tab

So what? It's still usable as a decent weapon, right? Why should semantics matter about this?

[HellHeater]

@Anis5240 Did you know, the people you are texting here are sentient and real human beings.

[Anis5240]

8 minutes ago, HellHeater said:

Did you know, the people you are texting here are sentient and real human beings.

Again, why should people making such a mountain over molehills, especially with this such small matter.  Not liking the fencing sword for the slow attack speed? Ok? There's still plenty other weapons as options? It does the job well enough for a small upgrade. I too had used fencing sword back in the early days. What's the matter?

[HellHeater]

11 hours ago, Anis5240 said:

Again, why should people making such a mountain over molehills, especially with this such small matter.  Not liking the fencing sword for the slow attack speed? Ok? There's still plenty other weapons as options? It does the job well enough for a small upgrade. I too had used fencing sword back in the early days. What's the matter?

If it's such a trivial matter, why did you bother sending 3 aggressive messages over it? I mean, if it doesn't matter for anyone that should include you right?

[Well-met]

I forgot this thing existed

[JoeW]

Please be sure to always follow community guidelines.

Keep posts polite, on-topic and without personal attacks. 

 

[Violet Desiree]

Ama go poke ancient guardian with a fencing sword because of funny

[Waywarbler]

14 hours ago, Anis5240 said:

Again, why should people making such a mountain over molehills, especially with this such small matter.  Not liking the fencing sword for the slow attack speed? Ok? There's still plenty other weapons as options? It does the job well enough for a small upgrade. I too had used fencing sword back in the early days. What's the matter?

People just think it shouldn't be in the weapons tab, since its main purpose is to rotate furniture. Having it in the weapons tab might mislead newer players into thinking it's some kind of level 2 spear.

Nobody's saying it's unusable as a weapon. An axe can be used as a weapon too, but it's not in the weapons tab, as that's not its primary purpose.

[Echsrick]

19 minutes ago, Waywarbler said:

People just think it shouldn't be in the weapons tab, since its main purpose is to rotate furniture. Having it in the weapons tab might mislead newer players into thinking it's some kind of level 2 spear.

Nobody's saying it's unusable as a weapon. An axe can be used as a weapon too, but it's not in the weapons tab, as that's not its primary purpose.

maybe the fencing sword primary purpose is to be used as a weapon and its secondary is being able to rotate fence

[Waywarbler]

21 hours ago, Echsrick said:

maybe the fencing sword primary purpose is to be used as a weapon and its secondary is being able to rotate fence

IIRC, the fencing sword was added after they patched a bug that rotated everyone's fences. So I think the fencing sword was specifically added for people to easily fix their fences without destroying and rebuilding them all.

[gaymime]

1 hour ago, Waywarbler said:

IIRC, the fencing sword was added after they patched a bug that rotated everyone's fences. So I think the fencing sword was specifically added for people to easily fix their fences without destroying and rebuilding them all.

correct!

[Violet Desiree]

so like ive tried the fencing sworda and it isnt as bad as i thought as willow i can stunlock certain enemies so its good damage weapon for spiders

[Edible Coal]

7 hours ago, Violet Desiree said:

so like ive tried the fencing sworda and it isnt as bad as i thought as willow i can stunlock certain enemies so its good damage weapon for spiders

u literally stun lock spider with any attack

[Falkenpelz]

Its puns are way too funny, I love it simply for that. Other than this, best use imo is for Fugu Hutch. Put a spear inside, once it's on its last durability, turn it into a fencing sword. Cheaper than a new spear and Hutch doesn't care about the speed.

 

And the noob argument is kinda... Well they also wear garlands and build thermal measurers xD

[Arepantera]

Sometimes I invite friends to try out this game and for some reason a lof of them naturally make a fencing sword and try to use it as a weapon and I struggle to find a way to tell them to not use it in a way that doesn't sound snobbish or elitist

I wish that it didn't even let you attack or that it just had the regular attack speed