There's plenty of cases in the real world where people have weapons that match they dual wield, 2 identical swords. Only in this case they would look the same but each have diffrent stats. There isnt much the devs can do with dual wield right now other then slowly increas the dmg and lower the dely because of the way it functions. My system would remove alot of the devs limitations, If they are desiding what dmg dely is going in both hands they can control how much dps we'd be doing better. With that system it'd be a pain in the but to have to wait for 2 drops to reap the benifites, hence why combining them into 1 item is the way to go. With the case of warriors, they can add AC bonuses to the set, dodge/pary modifyers, midigation boots. All things they cant do right now. rogues can recive improved backstabbing, monks can have improved h2h. This is an old game, with old code. Creating something new removes limitations previously set by the way things are coded.
So it is basically the warrior epic 1.0 concept? but for everyone...i still dont understand the concept of having one weapon extremem damage while the other hitting for weapons we had back at lvl 25. and how exactly that would free up coding, that seems to present the same issue just morphing it around a bit to look different. I will say this though the day you're pigeonholed into just one item you will wish for the day you had the opportunity to wait to get the second. I think too often we want instant gratification but ultimately that just leads to use wanting more rather then being excited about the things we have. I.E. the raid encounters we remember arent the ones that fell over at our mere presence and coughed up loot but ratherthe ones that took weeks to finally master. It is why we had epic quest in the first place. I don't mean to hate and don't get me wrong...theory crafting is always fun just not sure if this would be a direction the majority of the population would go for...i think we would rather just see our weapons slowly continue to scale as they are as long as each class is balanced then i am happy......speaking of which i am not happy *shakes fist* But example in balancing is monks...they did some tweaks and the monk pop seems much happier but they didnt tweak the weapons rather their abilities that react to weapons...weapons being streamlined to similar stats has more to play with how abilities interact with a broad base of weapons...having one new concept could really torque some abilities that would not work with other weapon types.
@Beezelbub I think what he is saying is it will behave like a 2h weapon for equipping, but in battle it will behave like two 1h weapons. I don't know why, but I swear I've seen this before. I want to say either Final Fantasy XIV or Vanguard. Not sure which it was one of those. You equipped one weapon and it behaved like two separate weapons in battle each doing their own damage with chances to miss. However, I do like the idea of keeping things as they are and implementing a weapon linking system. If the primary and secondary weapons are a 'married' pair, then they unlock a damage modifier to the weapons. Like Epic 2.5 passive augment.
I'm still not entirely sure what your goal is here, considering you can do the below with existing mechanics: Increase DPS? Increase ratios. Skew damage toward primary? Favor 2h weapons/AA. Skew damage toward secondary? Secondary only weapons. About the only way I see this making sense is if you wanted to make a right-hand shield + left hand sword setup. Basically you make the S+B with overpowered stats to counteract the loss of triple/flurry, overcap AC and shield block.
In practice this would limit upgrade path, e.g. chest emblems. Here's my Dual Wield idea: Let Warriors Dual Wield Knight Weapons.
Thats basicly what this idea can open up dre. weapons with knight ratios being dual wielded.. You know people in EQ love to find bugs and ways to get around things to maximize their efficiency.. If you just give out weapons with crazy ratios people will use the best 2 they can get, limiting what the devs would make available. By tieing the weapons together in a single item the devs have all the control over what you get out of it...
I think the OP's implementation would be to hard to code properly without bugs. That said, I hate wielding mis-matched weapons with my DW characters; to the point that I use inferior weapons much of the time. I would like to see sets of pri only/sec only weapons drop with complementary graphics
I think what you're missing is that it's your total damage output that matters. Not much point in having a "crazy ratio" weapon in one hand if you have to have a weak one in the other. In the end you're still doing the same damage. And if it's upgrades you're after, they're already possible, as Dre pointed out. That said, "matched pairs", either through a single loot or whatever, is a decent enough idea. Not necessarily as the best option, but an option at least. Same as classes that can already choose between a 2H or 2 separate items.
Or they could take off the lore tag. I could understand a unique weapon being lore, but with the spreadsheet itemization we've had lately it seems silly to force dual wielders to farm a different weapon with the same stats instead of having matching weapons.
Not a bad idea especially for "starter weapons in new expansions" weapons that drop early in the raid encounters perhaps to allow people to efficently gear up. I think the rare uber ones ought to maintaine their lore status for the fact there is only one Excalibur concept.
