Brawler Archive

I posted this on the TKA Board,hopefully it will get the attention of Spaz and Thunderwulf.

As a TKM, Im always at a disadvantage against kiters. The only tiiny chance I have is Unarmedlunge2. I found Unarmedlunge2 to not work properly 100% of the time. During duels, as I get closer to my target (about 14 meters) I hit follow/unarmedlunge2 and he is knockeddown. Then I am 2 meters away (it says so on the target bar next to their name)from him and he is about to get up but I am unable to do default attacks as well as other special moves. It kept saying that "The target is out of range" or something like that. I will post again. Anyway,only lunge2 works at this instance (very close range). On some occasion their body as they are knockdown...moves some meters away! On other times while they are knocked down, I have to guess the spot where they were really knockeddown, sometimes 6 meters away from the body that appears on my screen and at 6 meters or so I could do special moves as well as default attacks which requires to be at very close range.

This always happens on creatures, npcs as well as pcs. I am pretty sure all Master Brawlers have the same problem as I have, or am I alone?

My main issues are:

1. Lack of a stick command. /stick should close you to range zero and keep you there, regardless of where the target moves. /follow slows down as you get close (thats poor), and it will not bring you close enough in some cases to do short range melee attacks. This is really noticable with tka. /follow looks as if it was really designed to form up and follow at a distance a group leader, and not for melee.

2. Difficulty in tabbing to targets- you tab, then you have to agg, and sometimes it seems as if it wont switch no matter what you do. A prime example: You smack a nest, agg pops on you and wont let you peace, and while you are trying to tab over to the add, the game forces you to continue swinging on the nest, generating more adds.

3. Can't attack while moving- this is a huge issue when you get kited by a ranged weapon user who can fire no problem on any target in range while moving.

4. While getting VK's at a low level may make little aesthetic sense to you, you must realize that there is no alternative to VK's for the novice. As case in point, I went from soloing light blues and blues weaponless, to soloing whites and yellows with VK's. If you lobby for higher VK certification, then all of those people trying to get up to TKA are screwed. The big reason here is that unarmed combat has no pool hit until you reach the precision strikes line in TKA, which btw is gained from combat xp...it is very slow. This is not true for fencers, swordsmen, or pikemen who get body, mind, and leg hits early in their trees, and have a range of weapons from which to choose which do real damage. For this reason the unarmed brawler must do 2-3x more damage to a creature as he lacks a targeted pool hit and blind dumb luck is necessary for any pool to drop. At present the big damage step up for VK's helps a great deal- realize that if a VK did 2x more damage/sec than a sword, you would still kill faster with a sword since the VK damage is randomly distributed across 3 pools and the head hits from sword just go after mind. Simply upping the cert level on VK's is going to worsen an already bad unarmed brawler special move line. If you make this move, for unarmed to keep pace with the armed brawler lines you would need to simultaneously either (a) jack way up weaponless damage, or (b) offer other unarmed weapons in the intermediate state. My opinion is (a) is the proper way to go, as the focus of this line should be on weaponless combat, and not the dependence upon objects- by adding more weapons to unarmed, you dilute the focus.

5. Encumberance and HAM- we have a problem Houston. Encumberance values for armor will literally kill you with the HAM costs of many weapons out there, forcing anyone who wishes to wear armor to go through elaborate convoluted tricks such as de-equiping weapons or armors for specials then zerking and donning armor. This is a warning sign that your HAM and Encumberance costs are WAY TOO HIGH. The upper level armors have such a horrible encumberance that even a Wookie, were he able, could not wear the highest levels of armor, and slicing is a random crapshoot for encumberance reduction, and armorsmiths presently have no engineering controls over HAM costs. While there are many instances of fighting without armor in this game, every stormtrooper in star wars runs around in armor and pivotal characacters like Boba Fet also have armor, so armor usage should be a bit more normative than it is presently implemented. At present people have to drug up on intergalactic spice to wear top end armor, and this is garbage.

Bang! Those top five issues are dead-on.

What about the 'chasing ranged mobs' problem where we can't catch anything? Make mobs that are running while shooting move at a slower pace, and give them a real penalty to hit!

Spaz, great job. Stick to your guns. These are precisely the issues that need addressing.

I started out working my up to Pistol Specialist, and have been working on my Unarmed Brawling abilities for a while now. My time adventuring as a Brawler has easily been twice as hard as a Marksman.
Until a couple of days ago, I didn't even know Vibro-Knucklers existed. My 40-60 points of unarmed damage was a joke, and I couldn't figure out why every fight I got into left me a hair's breadth from death. Then I realized how much juice those "special attacks" were sucking out of me. Not too "special", if using them kills you faster.
The class is definitely unbalanced. When my brother is pumping out 1000+ damage headshots with his rifle, and I have trouble breaking 200 damage on a good day, there's a game balance issue.
I truly hope they take you seriously. Any two character classes that are strictly designed for combat should be "different, but equal."

Good luck.

Excellent work Spaz I for one appreciate the time and energy it takes for you to gather and present these issues to the developer, especially since you do it for free!

Tyluria Rulexi - Flurry server

I agree with everything spaz and ejr wrote here... and not simply because ejr writes a lot. I too have grouped with multiple marksmen of lesser or similar advancement level, and THEY get the exp while I get beaten likea red-horned stepchild. They do significantly more damage than I do as a TK Novice. After just a few of these hunting parties, I realized that I was getting almost no experience compared to them--I'd do better fightingblue cons solo. I suppose I need to get in Brawler-only parties, so I can /peace and run away, let someone else take the punishment while I heal, and jump back in.

i think you have nailed all the top issues but it seems that we now will have to deal with another nerf to beserk. i am a master brawler and have berserk 2 but i never use it because it lasts too long. sure intimidate2 lasts 2 mins but so does berserk2. the main reason i can sololikei can is cause i do intimitate2 till it sticks >warcry2 till it sticks > berserk1. whats so great is that warcry2 lasts as long as berserk1 so i only tend to get hit 1-3 times before i can reapply warcry2 and berserk1 again. also to be noted after doing a intimidate2, warcry2 and a berserk kills 1/4 of my 1200 HAM let alone when i miss one.

sure i have the options of useing my special attacks but then i will kill myself 2-3 times faster than the mob does. i would say there any number of things that can fix this like makeing berserk2 have a muh shorter time like 40 seconds would but it in line. also as stated HAM costs must be looked at because useing specials is not feasible in a long battle because of the extreme costs.

Brawlers are currently outclassed by ANY ranged attacker, especially in PvP. With lag issues and the extremely small atack window for unarmed/melee fighters, an opponent only need to run away and keep weaving and changing directions to win any fight. If you try to run away, they just auto-follow you and shoot until you are dead.

Personally, I will be missing a signficant portion of the game if they don't do something to balance this inequity.

I have 2 suggestions:

/stick command that auto-follows a target at a melee attackable range.

&

Aslightly faster base movement speed that increases based upon skill levels (maybe in the elite professions?) since melees always have to close with an opponent.

Right now as it stands, all a ranged attacker has to do is snipe you from a distance and then run away if you give chase and auto-follow if you run away. Does it sound reasonable for ranged attackers to effectively be immune to melees unless surprised or AFK?

This is especially pertinent since ranged attackers can currently shoot THROUGH buildings, trees, houses, terrain and even small mountains! Even if they couldn't however, there shouldn't be this much disparity.

If the argument is going to be that its this way because ranged attackers should always have the advantage, thenit is highly adviseable that melee classes avoid any and all PvP or that you avoid melee classes if you want to PvP since they are inherently disadvantaged. Why shouldn't there be an expectation of some degree of balance between combat classes?

- Kalen

P.S. I am certain the lag issues are NOT on my end:

Athlon XP 2700 on nForce 2 motherboard

1024MB PC3200 RAM

ATI Radeon 9700 Pro

100GB Western Digital Special Edition hard drive.

48x Sony CDR/RW

Soundblaster Audigy 2

Cable modem internet access