Gun blades

[Gegenji]

gunguns

 

 

On a more serious note, I don't see it being that had to explain away. We have Cid as a fallback - he (apparently) uses a gunweapon or some sort, and the Ironworks would likely be able to maintain and/or create such a thing. Not to mention the MCH guild, which could likely be another out once we have more information on it.

[Steel Wolf]

I'm one of the few who think that gunblades are pretty badass simply because...well...it's a neat idea, if not a ballistically feasible one.

 

That said, I'm not sure I'll ever see Steel pick one up. I mean, perhaps she'll adjust to using tech if it permeates the game world more (I had her ride the Magitek armor one time because it was funny), but right now it's all about the choppy choppy.

 

...until they come up with swordchucks, yo.

[allgivenover]

My point is that it exists and would be a far less effective weapon than a gunblade on the real world. Availability to characters is a separate issue entirely.

 

Livia's weapon? I don't see how it was lacking in effectiveness. She ascended to a very high rank within the Garlean Military and whilst the Warrior of Light succeeded at beating her that only happened after Limsa, Ul'dah and Gridania were persuaded to make a last ditch effort to fight against the invading Garleans.

 

Applying real world 'realism' to fantasy weapons is a pretty slippery slope though.

 

Yes... that's my point exactly. I brought up Livia's banghnaks as an example of something that would be even less effective than a gunblade IN REAL LIFE being effective in the game world as a response to the criticism that gunblades are dumb. 

 

This gives gunblades a pass in my mind.

[shotgunbadger]

Gunblades are my guilty pleasure. They're so dumb and pointless and anime as hell but I just love them for some reason.

[Altitis Acquired]

Well, we get that gunblade from the Lightning event... So there already is a gunblade in-game.

[Aaron]

Well, we get that gunblade from the Lightningd event... So there already is a gunblade in-game.

Her gunblades not cannonically accurate. It's just a event prop.

 

And I also like gunblades, they're wild as hell but if you saw this baby

 

Would you really resist at least shooting it?

 

Also Edward fr

[Aaron]

Also in AC4 Edward has a pair of gun swords that he uses pretty realistic. After the stab hell pull the trigger and bam.

[Warren Castille]

I know we're discounting science, but wouldn't that design cause damage to your wrists when firing? You've got no real brace for it like you would with an actual pistol.

 

/me doesn't know jack about guns outside of houses full of the dead and also crises involving time.

[Melkire]

I know we're discounting science, but wouldn't that design cause damage to your wrists when firing? You've got no real brace for it like you would with an actual pistol.

 

* Warren Castille doesn't know jack about guns outside of houses full of the dead and also crises involving time.

 

Ride the recoil, Nancy.

 

EDIT:

 

And before someone asks, no, these were not meant to be accurate at range, they were meant to put a bullet in someone at close range. Served as a surprise that could save your life. Best make it count, because in the words of one immortal pirate,

 

"You've got one shot, Jaaaaaaack."

[Aya]

I've never cared for gun blades, and never will I think

[Aaron]

I know we're discounting science, but wouldn't that design cause damage to your wrists when firing? You've got no real brace for it like you would with an actual pistol.

 

* Warren Castille doesn't know jack about guns outside of houses full of the dead and also crises involving time.

Only if it was something stronger than say a badic 9mm. 

 

The wrist can deal with pistol recoil easy so long as you hold it non stupid. How you think cowboys sharp shot stuff so fast? Lol

[Harmonixer]

As far as I'm concerned, Trickweapons already exist in this game to various degrees. A boatload of existing weapons have transforming segments to them. Of course, their uses are nearly as dramatic as they are in this video. I do however firmly believe it to be 'possible'.

 

 

That being said:

 

 

I plan to have one, or something very much like it for my future character. It's purpose is less for me showing off in combat and more to do with my characters willingness to adapt and 'force' his methods into working situations. I've even gone as far as to name it!

 

Get at me

 

[Aaron]

BURIAL BLADE FOR LIFE! BLOODBORNE FOR LIFE!

[Verad]

I really don't see the problem with a gun that shoots blades.

[Dogberry]

I really don't see the problem with a gun that shoots blades.

 

This is my reasoning for rocket propelled chainsaws.

[Aaron]

Verad made me snort lol

[Kaniko Niko]

The thing that truly bothers me about the gunblades is the the sheer ridiculousness of their tacked-on "vibrioweapon" explanation. In both Final Fantasy VIII with Squall and in Parasite Eve II with the shotgun variant, they took the time to actually engineer the gunblade so that the muzzle of the firearm terminated about eight to ten inches before the point of the blade in such a manner that should the tip of the blade be in contact with a target, there wouldn't be an explosive compression of gasses that could stovepipe the barrel. They were literally designed so that yes, you can slash something with the blade AND put a .45 ACP round in it at the same time. Hell. The design itself even seems to permit using it firearm-only with the only disadvantage being the weight of the weapon itself. In Parasite Eve II, the gunblade was actually a shotgun that was used for this very purpose. No doubt it was extremely dangerous to use, but we can all guess the results of burying a 12-gauge shotgun-machete into the side of a fleshy target and to top it off—the backside of the blade had a foregrip that allowed you to actually use it like a classic scattergun.

 

But no. That's not cool enough.

 

VIBRIOWEAPON, GAIZ.

 

Edit: Typos.

[Aaron]

At least lightning had a non vibro gunblade lol

[OttoVann]

I think Gunblades are quite possibly the dumbest thing ever. 

 

"In Final Fantasy VIII all forms of gunblade consist of a sword blade with a gun action built into the hilt, the barrel running inside the length of the blade. They are mostly used like normal swords, but triggering a round sends a shock wave through the blade as the weapon passes through an opponent to boost damage." - From this link on the FF Wiki concerning Gunblades.

 

Theoretically possible IC, but you're basically making an extremely awkward weapon with a limited number of "shock waves" unless you've got the unlimited ammo cheat on.

 

Admittedly, there are a number of guns with blades on them which would function as ranged weapons, but if you want to primarily fight at ranged, then you could just have a gun with a bayonet on it.

 

If you really, truly, and absolutely want a gunblade, then it's possible in lore. I just don't know why you'd want to edgelord like that.

 

This is mostly wrong and completely ignores applying the principles of firearms to combat, in regards to their efficacy.

 

A sword, I'm sorry, is just a sword. If youre aether-swinging it around sure its going to slice through stone or whatever else, but gunblades provide an interesting extra - a large bored firearm.

 

Say what you will about your snowflake aether powers that make you bulletproof, catching a .454 sized round, or something above .500 is going to fucking destroy what it comes into contact with.

 

It's not about 'vibrations', are you even familiar with how firearms work? People need to stop being deadset on how FF8's very...silly notion of Gunblades dictates their behavior here. The individual roleplayer here dictates that, not that terrible PS1 game. Bullet comes out, destroys what it can until it's out of energy.

 

People get hung up on pulling the trigger of a gunblade mid slice, well thats how FF8 worked for extra damage on the normal Attack, but if you try to actually RP that you'd likely pull the trigger after you bury that sword into...whatever. Dragon's haunch, something like that. Or you could simply have a limited capacity ranged attack option. Not everyone has infinite naruto throwing knives and chakra magics to sling.

 

Gunblades, in this sort of Fantasy setting, are crazy fucking overpowered if you line them up alongside most, if not all, hand weapons that are melee in nature. People who think their special suit of inherited armor are going to stop a bullet are plot-armoring too much.

[Altitis Acquired]

Well, we get that gunblade from the Lightningd event... So there already is a gunblade in-game.

Her gunblades not cannonically accurate. It's just a event prop.

 

I know, it was a weak attempt at making a funny.

Also, her weapon changes between sword and gun, not being both at the same time, so yeah. I kinda like Yazoo's weapons in FF7: Advent Children which are a pair of handguns with attached blades on them, useful for both ranged and melee fighting.

 

I find Squall's gunblade to be the weaker form of the gunblades, because as you say, it doesn't actually shoot, it just gives the sword attacks some kind of strength boost. And though that's also cool, I'd rather have it like Devil May Cry 4, Nero's sword which has an accelerator handle, like on a motorcycle. Giving it a few wringes to boost up the sword's power.

 

With the Machinist and the progressive technology in Eorzea, all these things could become reality though... that is if Squeenix wants it.

[OttoVann]

I know we're discounting science, but wouldn't that design cause damage to your wrists when firing? You've got no real brace for it like you would with an actual pistol.

 

* Warren Castille doesn't know jack about guns outside of houses full of the dead and also crises involving time.

 

Recoil is mostly determined by mass and the size of the firearm, as well as caliber of the cartridge. If say, squalls prototypical gunblade was chambered in .454 there would be recoil there is no doubt, but it wouldn't go flying out of your hand or something. Pocket pistols can hurt people who limp-wrist them when they shoot due to having nothing to absorb the shock of the bullet firing except the wrist.

 

I can imagine if someone swings a heavy sword around for a while, they've got the fortitude in their arm needed to fire a 'gun' with an awkward handle and stock to hold onto.

[Marisa]

Well they did actually exist and were used to kill things like wounded boar. 

 

I honestly think they were abandoned because in the end, why fight with a gunblades when you got a M16? Rather than it being inefficient. In war time today not many people are gonna go swordfight over having a machine gun.

 

Actually, hand-to-hand combat happens far more today than it has any other time in the last few centuries. Because today's conflicts are almost entirely urban, soldiers tend to get up close and personal with enemies. However, where the gun-sword was quickly determined to be stupid, the gun-spear is one of the most effective weapons ever created. 

 

Also known as the bayonet, this weapon is so effective that it will probably stick around long enough to be used in wars on other planets.

by last few centuries, how far back are you going? cause I am fairly certain Hand to Hand was far more prevalent in the Napoleonic wars, and that was only 200ish years ago.

Napoleonic warfare is kind of a passion of mine. Now, you're sort of right. When soldiers committed to hand-to-hand, they did so in mass, and it was pretty glorious. However, a bayonet skirmish was very rare, is the thing. It was hard to get men to commit to steel (having your soldiers straight up just walk off the battlefield was a huge problem back then so commanders had to know their limits) and when they did, the opposing army would typically just fall back until you stopped chasing them. Events where you'd charge and they'd stand to fight you were pretty rare compared to today. The reason you see it happening every single battle in movies and whatnot is because those battles were the ones everyone remembers (because a proper steel-on-steel battle is crazy epic) 

 

What's funny is that typically whichever army decided to charge first was the army that won, but rallying your troops to do so was damn near-impossible. Stranger still, you'd actually have fewer casualties fighting steel on steel. Stab-wounds are relatively easy to recover from. Musket balls are almost always a death sentence. Still, the psychological effect of being inches away from your enemy was too great for most. 

 

So yeah, modern combat has fewer people doing the stabbing, but it happens way more often.

[Khadan]

There's a few points I want to address here and yes I'm going to engage in the whole 'Basing my fantasy off of RL concepts' thought crime (which I might also address if I can be arsed).

 

The first thing is "Do gun blades exist and are they functional in FF14", obviously yes, the Garlean Empire is the go-to for this in general. On that topic, though, I'd point out that the development of such things as well as all their magitek advances have come about as a direct result of not having ready access to Aether; i.e. they needed to level the playing field since Aether is kind of a big deal. It literally allows one person to act as a walking artillery emplacement, field surgeon, bulwark, building demolishing with fists person, or leaping direct strike attacker. It is crazy powerful and crazy advantageous, hence why the Garleans conscript as many Eorzeans as they can.

 

On the point of technology, you develop technology to make up for societal problems such as sanitation, medicine, construction, and so on. When those societal problems don't exist because you have 'magic' to take care of many problems for you then technological advancement almost by definition would take a backseat; why would you wish to solve a problem that no one has? Garleans have no magic but through 'magitek' they can solve most of their problems.

 

Do guns exist in Eorzea? Of course. You see rifle racks all over in Limsa Lominsa as well as people in the Marauder's guild practicing with what look like black powder pistols (despite the rifles looking like bolt action magazine-loaded rifles...). As was as Merlwyb who uses a pair of double-barreled pistols that she can apparently rapid fire.

 

So why are gunblades not more prevalent in both the Garlean ranks (you only ever see a few people actually using them and even their robots barely use guns) and in Eorzea because if it's such an obvious advantage it would overtake modern 'fantasy' weaponry just as it did in the real world; the advent of black powder and cannons/rifles completely changed how war was fought. Well that's a pretty easy explanation, believe it or not. The answer is still -Aether-. This stuff allows Eorzeans to be on par with guns and artillery which, while still devestating, barely puts them on even ground with your average Eorzean fighter who can run faster, hit harder, heal quicker, shrug of damage better, and do any number of things better than their Garlean opponents. 

 

I did state that I engage in the thought crime of basing my fantasy off of reality and so I have but I'll go further. Medieval armor, for example, was actually really poor at stopping black powder weaponry. It was great at stopping hand weapons, yes, save for specific weapons meant to mess up someone in armor (like a warhammer or mace) yet somehow Eorzeans still manage to stand up against their weapons. IRL a gun would make short work of someone in a suit of plate, in Eorzea through various quest text and so on you see blurbs of Paladins using aether to augment their strikes as well as their defenses which seems to indicate that the aforementioned 'plot armor' being able to stop bullets is now a reality. 

 

Also quick note: you only see Garleans of 'rank' using any kind of projectile weaponry which might indicate the gun blade to be a symbol of rank or status while other forms of projectile weaponry are modified for the individual, also of suitable rank. Normally though you wouldn't attach a gun to a blade, you would just carry a sword and a gun as they serve two entirely different roles and are made in two entirely different ways with entirely different processes. 

 

tl;dr if guns exist it stands to reason that they would dominate the battlefield unless something else were being used that was just as effective if not more effective: i.e. Aether-enhanced soldiers.

 

Probably have more on this later as really the advent of firearms when confronted with something as ambiguously powerful as 'magic' is practically an entire anthropological and sociological essay by itself. Such are the things I think of, though. lol

[Kyrrae L'minia]

I had a thought while keeping up with this thread. First point, someone pointed out that Garlemald developed their technology out of pressure to level the playing field between themselves and other nations, as they had no ability to use Aether. And someone else pointed out that we have only seen officers within the Garlean military use personal projectile weapons, questioning whether it's really a common weapon used within the Garlean military.

 

But haven't almost all of the soldiers we've seen so far been conscripts? We know this due the magical nature of their abilities, as well as their physiological makeup. So then it stands to reason that it is possible that the reason we haven't seen common firearm use by Garlean soldiers is simply because those soldiers didn't need them. Think about it, if you have a conscript with naturally powerful talents, equal or surpassing to the military strength of your technology, why would you waste the time and resources to teach them to use your advanced technology? I think of it as if I was training recruits who were X-mutants. Why would I teach them to fire an expensive M-16 when they can naturally use 'magic'.

 

Because of this theory, I suspect that when/if we get an expansion that takes us against the main Garlean force (remember, we've only seen a fraction of their military) we will see firearms used by the homeland pure blooded Garlean soldiers.

 

Thoughts?

[Chris Ganale]

expensive

M-16

 

 

Sorry, Kyrrae, didn't mean to cut the legs out from under you, just that was my immediate reaction.

 

That aside, the logic there is valid, but I would also posit that they at least train their conscripts in the use of guns/gunblades. Even Chao, for all her prodigious magical and physical talent, is well aware that sometimes it pays to be able to quick-draw and put a .50 SAP-HE in somebody (not that I'm implying Garlemald has calibers and special ammunition like that).

 

Me, I would love to see that prevalence of guns when we go to kick over Garlemald. I'd rather be on the other side of the guns imbalance, but you get what you've got. Hell, Ghost would feel right at home.