I like the idea of bane weapons, implementation didnt thrill me. Making people not use their shinies isnt the best solution (same with all those shitty vehicle quests in WoW or overkill on bundle events in GW2 ... that stuff is fun if it is uncommon but not every other quest/heart).
I think itemization should be handcrafted but still have something like augments from EQ that offers substantial itemization depth (WoW gems are a bit shallow). TOR and Wildstar have a good system in that regard, too. Anyway the point is the bane-effect and for armor the environment protection could come from a specific aug slot so you can use your best weapon but adjusted (losing whatever was in the slot instead) instead of essentially downgrading to a vanilla must-have because of immunity.
Bane weapons, as in the silver bullet? Are essentially the same type of Mcguffin (IE lazy design) in horizontal game systems as they are in stories. There are so many options for good horizontal systems out there. The key to a horizontal system is changing the way a player defeats an encounter, NOT giving the player the
bestway to defeat an encounter. That difference is SO subtle that a lot of designers miss it, and not because they are bad designers--but because horizontal systems can be very, very difficult to do. Even the best horizontal systems, like MTG, end up just having some hard counters. But yeah, "bane weapons" to horizontal itemization, is essentially to horizontal systems what "everyone move out of the fire in this precise fashion" is to vertical systems. It's the developers designing something with a
specifictactic in mind to defeat it. (While good systems, like MTG have a billion tactics to defeat certain other strategies, and those tactics change depending on the composition of card (Items) you have)
I personally always liked thematic weaknesses. So lets say you have an Ice Guy. He's vulnerable to fire, check. But he's also more vulnerable during the day time. If we were in a single player game, you could even make it so he was more vulnerable during summer. You could also say his ice powers require access to water--so someone with earth magic could seal up the river by him and weaken him. Ect. (These are kind of dumb but it's off the top of my head.) The point being that access to fire isn't really the only, or even the main, advantage. There are subtle, thematic ones built in that allow a wide variety of skills to be used in different ways against him.
Having these weaknesses also allows for a very important part of games to be viable again--scouting. This was a major part of table tops, a rogue getting information on a boss? That's like classic adventuring. Giving enemies a TON of weaknesses that don't all work together, or provide different handicaps depending on how they are exploited? Gives scouting classes a whole new province with which to be balanced and useful without combat. (The downside is eventually this stuff winds up on wikis--so you kind of need to randomize these weaknesses.)
That is the epitome of good horizontal design. One problem, many paths to the solution. Really good stealth games explore that well. A bad stealth game has one possible formula for solution. A good one has many and the "best" ones to use change based on your enemies weaknesses, your tools available and the environment (So every variable creates a no possible solution). If you could translate that into an MMO? It makes all kinds of things possible. The most notable being that players would get stronger by acquiring more tools and experience in how those tools affect the environment, and NOT by getting more power.
Anyway, yeah, I agree. Horizontal counter systems are awesome, but they have a high chance of being implemented poorly. This weather system, as others have pointed out, you can already see the number of ways it can just be stupid. Making it not be a chore, or trivial, or annoying is the key to a good horizontal system.
