Belegod (just kidding)
As one example of this you can fight with a tower shield and a flail. For some people that's not an extremely uncommon practice. The tower shield gives you a ton of coverage which protects you from most swings. The flail means you don't have to know how to wrap to go around blocks/guards/shields so most of your swings will connect assuming you can get close enough to throw them. But this setup isn't without its drawbacks. The size of the tower shield means that if someone does actually get around it it's going to be very difficult to move a shield that size to block at a new angle. Additionally since the tower shield is heavy it's going to discourage you from using proper footwork to the point where, at least for most people, proper footwork disintegrates completely. Having a heavy shield also means that you're less likely to run since you'll have that extra weight. A flail is also not without it's downsides. While a flail is good at going around guards it doesn't throw swings very quickly and in order to actually throw a shot that will land you need to reach your hand out from behind your shield. This means that a person who knows how to block your swing will have a few shots to try and pick the arm you threw with. It also means that if someone gets up in your grill and you haven't immediately killed them with a wrap shot you're going to get ruined. Finally a flail isn't good at counterblows because if you've got it in a blocking position it's going to take you too long to throw a full shot before your opponents next shot comes in.
If it looks stupid but works... (it isn't)
On the other extreme side of things you can have a person wielding two daggers which seems like a ridiculous thing to do. A person wielding dual daggers relies on getting a shot to the torso to kill someone and is going to have a much tougher time with armor. Since they're using daggers they have 0 reach, which means that anyone with any kind of range is going to get a bunch of free swings on them before they get to even attack once. Archers, reds, spears will all eat them on the line, and anyone who can work an angle is going to have a field day with all the openings their lack of gear provides. However. A person who uses only 2 daggers is going to have ridiculous hand speed. Since both weapons weigh next to nothing they'll be able to block incoming shots faster then most eyes can track. If they've fought with short weapons their whole career it means they'll also have to be able to close on their opponents who have more reach then they do. This tends to mean they have excellent footwork in order to accomplish that. Their defense/blocks also have to be on point since the only thing they have going for them is their reflexes to block with. Additionally if they ever manage to close on an opponent they'll be able to throw shots much MUCH faster then their opponent and probably take them apart piece at a time until they can land a shot on torso. Finally, most people will underestimate a person with two daggers and underestimate their foot and hand speed.
Goldilocks
Most people who wind up fighting choose to be somewhere in the middle, although I've actually known a guy who only fought dual daggers and I've seen plenty of people fight big board and flail. Most people favor a sword of varying lengths which gives them neither absurd hand speed nor slow swings. Most people favor a medium sized shield which gives them protection from arrows and spears but can also be moved around quickly. This sort of middle ground gives you the greatest flexibility when you have no idea what you're going to be fighting against since the gear you may want to pick up will be highly dependent on the context (IE, what kind of battle? bridge battle, open field, 10 man) of the field. You'll want a bunch of boards/reds in an enclosed space like a bridge battle whereas you'd want more archers and mobile fighters on an open field. In the end it's up to everyone to figure out what works best for them. To that end, part of this discussion won't be force profile (light vs heavy weapons/swings). You can go look at what I've already written on that here.
Short and fast
The shorter the weapon you have to work with the faster you can make it go. This is comprised of 2 pieces of information. The first being that the less material your weapon is made up of the less it will weigh which will make it faster, the second piece of which is that a weapon with less material has less air resistance making it easier not only to move but to change directions with. The faster your weapon can go the more actions you can take with the weapon, whether those are swings or blocks. I've found personally that switching from 33" bats to 24" clubs has allowed me to go from about 1 action per second per hand to about 3 actions per second per hand. It means that I go from a volley of 4 swings in about 2 seconds to a volley of about 12 swings and 4 blocks in that same space of time. If you don't believe me I have some people you can talk to but this is why I sound like a machinegun out on the field. In any case enough about me. Moving from my long set to the short set means that I have to get much closer to my opponent which requires me to spend more of my actions blocking swings, but because I get so many more actions per second I'm actually still at an advantage relative to my longer sticks.
The other advantage I have using shorter weapons is that I can now cross my body without getting tangled up in my own weapons. The advantage doesn't just end with my own gear though. Having smaller weapons also means I can more easily work them past an opponents defense, by either reaching over or around whatever defensive gear they have. Punch blocking also becomes more effective as crossing becomes less of an issue and hand speed increases compared to a longer set where crossing means getting tangled and slower hand speed means greatly limiting my offense to block. Having short weapons tends to make me more of a "brawler" (see, rock,paper,scissors) because I can become really comfortable being right up in someone's face, since I don't have to worry about getting bound and losing my ability to swing.
Fighting with a short weapon is also, honestly, just harder. If you have to close with your opponent you need much better footwork. If you can't just swing back and forth at range it means you'll also have to spend some time learning to have better blocks so you live long enough to get the engage that you want.
Long
Long weapons are most favored by "snipers" (see, rock,paper,scissors) because those weapons allow them to take shots without retaliation. Being able to throw at range, especially if you can be deceptive with exactly how far you can throw, will often get you free kills. Longer weapons are the reverse of short weapons so they're strengths and weaknesses are flipped. Long weapons relative to short weapons are slower moving because they have more material and catch more air resistance. Longer weapons are also more likely to get bound in your gear or your opponents gear meaning that it's harder for you to land shots if you can't get a clean opening. Longer weapons however do have more reach which means that not only can you potentially snipe the person in front of you safely, but on a line you may get the opportunity to take out the person to your left or right not just the person in front of you. A longer weapon is more favorably in a line whereas a shorter weapon is going to be better in a duel or at the edges of the field. Having a longer weapon means you're much more vulnerable to being rushed, as once a person is up in your face, having a weapon that gets bound in gear makes striking your opponent much harder. Fighting with a longer weapon is also easier at first because that extra reach means you'll always get to throw at least one swing before getting mowed down.
Skill floor, skill cap
As long as I'm here... There's an idea of a skill floor and a skill cap relative to the gear that you're using. A skill floor is basically the minimum amount of skill that you need in order to be efficient with a particular weapon set. Skill cap is the limit of how good you can be with a given weapon set. So, to reference my previous extreme examples, tower shield and flail has an extremely low skill floor since it does most of the work for you, but the skill cap of these weapons is also very minimal; besides their inherent advantages of high defense and wraps they don't offer much else because you can't really improve as a fighter while using them. Dual daggers has an extremely high skill floor because in order to actually do anything with them you must first develop good enough footwork to close with your opponent and good enough blocks to be able to not die in the process. However, since the weapons give you a crazy amount of mobility and hand speed your skill cap with this weapon set is very high. Something like sword and board generally has a low skill floor but a high skill cap as you can almost always improve. A spear has a slightly higher skill floor then sword and board but also a much lower skill cap because the weapon isn't terribly flexible. Florentine has a brutally high skill floor, since until you learn to block shots using an active defense you just get murdered, but an even higher skill cap then using a shield because with two weapons you can aggress with you have even fewer restrictions on what you can do.
Design Decisions
Eventually everything comes down to design decisions. Long weapons aren't inherently superior to short weapons though in a given situation they may be more advantageous. Similarly short weapons aren't inherently superior to long weapons but depending on context can be the better choice. It all just depends on context. I've found that it's best to carry a few weapons with me on the field if I'm fighting with a shield. If I think I'll need to do up close work I'll use a short stick, if I'm on a line I'll use a longer stick as my primary weapon. As a florentine fighter I prefer two sticks of the same length so that they're interchangeable which means that weapon diversity stops being a thing. With a polearm it's a good idea to carry an in close weapon since your primary weapon already has reach.
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