Commando Archive
Thread: Combat Balance
Dayton_Hawken
Sun Jun 13, 2004 5:14 pm
#66
These are my views and opinions. BE WARNED!!!! I tend to think outside the box........a LOT
1) Weapons/damage types - I agree we need a new damage type. My vote goes for Electricity. So far, only Commandos, Bounty Hunters, and Pikemen have it. That would make it 2 melee and 2 ranged professions. Plus the visual of having your hands wreathed in electricity is just plain COOL!!!!!
2) Armor/defenses - I agree that TKA should not wear armor, and instead should have increased defenses and an unarmed toughness mod to act as natural armor. The translation of Teras Kasi is "Steel Hands". Who is not to say the old Teras Kasi Masters didn't learn to train the whole body to be like steel? But cap the toughness mod under 60 percent. Maybe 40 or 45.
3) Meditate/powerboost - I would like to see different types of powerboost: 1) the HAM increase boost. 2) an increased unarmed damage (NO VK!) boost. 3) a defense mod boost (like COB, but this will actually work).
4) Special moves - aside from the already numerous requests to fix combos 1 and 2, i don't see anything else that needs to be fixed there.
Well, these are my opinions. If you agree with them, then you agree with them. If you don't, then you don't, and there isn't anything I can say to change your mind.
DevilsAdvocate
Sun Jun 13, 2004 7:44 pm
#67
I would say diff damage types would be nice although not upping the damage we already do so like gloves that make you inflict a different type of damage.
putting us on one end or the other as far as damage or defense (I think thats most peoples problem with TKA's) is that we are a great blend of def and offense.
If we do get a bettter def dont just make us take less damage or be harder to hit because unless you have a prof. with high resists backing up your template you are on the ground untill they DB you.
i would like to see animation changes so we dont look like street thugs but that is secondary and I would also like armor to be removed from TK as long as we have a viable fall back (TKA's in armor has always bothered me) And I dont mean something inate but rather something a tailor and or a BE can make that is for TKA's only so everyone doesnt buy it instead of armor.
Ramona_Garcia
Mon Jun 14, 2004 6:26 am
#68
I'd prefer to keep unarmed toughness and make it not work when wearing armor. Rather than have every TKA wear robes I would prefer to be able to choose our outfits according to personal taste among the different pieces of clothing.
Latest news from TC2 is that combo moves no longer bypass toughness defense, so they are fixed I guess - took jedis whining 1 week or so, to get rid of it.
Not that much of it matters anymore, since apparently all our jedi whiners will not rest until a mere padawan can kill any number of TKMs with ease, and I fear any non-FS characters will end up cannon fodder after publish 9 and 10.
LordMaxx
Mon Jun 14, 2004 10:36 am
#69
Darkknt wrote:
/Agree with DrArgule
Martial arts masters are harder to hit (coming from experience as a martial artist), so dodge bonus should be increased and I would like to see an extra damage type added. Nothing fancy it could be gained at novice TK ?
Do you get shot at by blasters and constantly rampaged by 20 foot tall dinosaurs very often when using your martial arts? 
I think we should be balanced for damage and defenses, which we are pretty close to being. We dont have the big defenses like fencer, and we dont have the high damage output like swordsmen (well we do have a large amount of damage) but that is trimmed by the fact that it is kinetic only (for now )
I would like to see us get our new damage type, and maybe bump our resitants up as we go down in power (which Im sure all will go down when rebalance comes around) Maybe tie in more of our defenses into meditation...sort of like a self buff (that lasts longer than 10 minutes) where we gain more restances to actual harm to our bodies.
You could almost do a whole suite of meditation abilities, and only one or two can be active at a time...you meditate for 10 minutes to gain +20 vs poison or +20 vs initimidate...you pick which resistance you are meditating for and after a 10 minute ramp up, you get the resistance for 40 minutes...something along those lines.
CloneReject
Mon Jun 14, 2004 12:33 pm
#70
All real-life martial arts (kung fu, especially) have evasion, blocking, and counter-attacks. Perhaps we should be the only profession to have all three types of defense?
TKA-only armor would be cool, but so would new weapons. I don't know much about the Expanded Universe, so I've never heard of a vibroknuckler before this game (or a vibroblade before KOTOR by Bioware), but surely there's more?
Or... how about some special TKA-only armor that *acts* as a weapon (picture curved blades protruding from your bracers and shin guards... I know I saw that in a movie somewhere). Vibro Claws... lol. Except Trandoshans can't wear gloves, so they'd be SOOL. *frown*
Combining TKA with Fencer is sorta like being a space-ninja. *ponders*
yoda1791
Mon Jun 14, 2004 7:15 pm
#72
It has always seemed odd to me that tka has not had a form of dodge or block. I know that as a martial artist I don't just let someone punch me as much as a i want and be 100% offensive. It would be nice to be able to block attacks
can-i-car
Mon Jun 14, 2004 7:43 pm
#73
definately some sort of clothing or belts for each category OR
.
..
...
.... new weapons knuckle dusters boxing gloves lol
Taepoong
Tue Jun 15, 2004 4:54 am
#74
I like everyone's responses, and I would like to see almost all of them make it. Of course, out of all these things we would be lucky to get one of them. Anyways, I just have two things I would like to add to everything that has already been said.
1) - Different fighting stance, not really important... but it would be nice if Teras Kasi Masters stand-out from the crowds..
2) - Meditation should have it's own experience type. Why should we get experience for meditation from fighting? we should get meditation from doing skills while meditating, and maybe every 10 minutes of meditation we could get a small ammount of experience. We don't get experience for crafting when we fight, so it would make sense to have meditation with it's own thing. This isn't that big of a change, but it would be easier for teras kasi to concentrate on either their passive skills or their offensive skills if they want.
Ramona_Garcia
Tue Jun 15, 2004 5:06 am
#75
yoda1791 wrote:
It has always seemed odd to me that tka has not had a form of dodge or block. I know that as a martial artist I don't just let someone punch me as much as a i want and be 100% offensive. It would be nice to be able to block attacks
Defense Acuity is supposed to randomly choose a block, counterattack or dodge when it kicks in - but since it only has a 5 to 10 percent rate (and this with center of being running) you barely notice it. But, technically, we have both dodge and block.
tiberian_death
Tue Jun 15, 2004 11:38 am
#76
I've been a TKM since Dec and have always loved it, and recently I've decided to check out the other Brawler professions and get a total feeling for all melee professions.
Now after going through fencer, which I might had felt very dry and boring in my opinion, I came to the realization that their defense ablities are what are defense ablitlies should be, and our damage out put should be their damage output. I mean a one handed weapon should always do more damage then someone who is unarmed but should be easier to hit since they are in theory moving slower because of the weapon.
The devs need to really think this one out because as it stands right now, TKM can hit harder then a Master Fencer but a TKM's defenses against KD and Dizzy is terrible and we are unable to dodge or block attacks while a Master Fencer can stand there and dodge nearly 70% of all attacks with COB and is almost impossible to Dizzy or KD. I feel we shouldn't be able to take such a beating but rather avoid most hits because we are moving at a faster rate and so with COB we should avoid most attacks or at least block and Fencer should hit a hell of a lot harder.
The best example of this is Kill Bill 2, where she uses the sword and the Master is able to dodge or block every move she throws at him because he just moves so much faster.
Oh and in addition they need to fix speed caps for all classes, we should always be faster then everyone else, followed by Fencer, and then either Polearm or Swordsman, depends on who the Devs feels should take longer to attack.
DInDenver
Wed Jun 16, 2004 9:46 am
#77
What is your vision for TKA?
In the Stgar Wars universe, TK is an art designed to defend against Jedi. I imagine that THAT martial art would be different from Karate, Kung Fu, Tae Kwon Do or anything else for that matter. Let's look at what problems a theoretical martial artist must face in this art:
- Ranged attack - How does the Martial Artist plan to survive ranged attak long enough to get to melee range? I imagine lots of training on doging. Not based on the noise sight of the gun being fired, but the posture or hand hold on the blaster they are carrying
- Melee weapons - How does the martial artist fight so that vibroswords and light sabers aren't hacking their limbs off. Obviosuly some toughness training wold be involved. Again dodging would be a heavy emphasis. Naturally a REL martial artist would concentrate on disarming their foes.
- Punching/Kicking - This is where I think their toughness training would come in. A TK artist would mostly train with other TK artists, meaning they would have been punched, kicked and who knows what else to bring their physical toughness up. Also, this is the only legitimate attack that wou would want to practice a block unarmred.
Other possible techniques might be:
- Feinting - Putting your foe off balance so that a simple punch/kick can land. Remember that blocking with your arm or leg in Star Wars is suicide, blocking with a sword or spear is smart. So a TK would have to develop techniques to draw that attacker or defender out od postition to use their weapons effectively
- Jump attacks - This is the bread and buter of martial arts games. And the most likely technique employed by fantasy martial arts for closing the range quickly.
- Blade stop - One of the classic fantasy martial arts moves involves catching the blade/hilt of an attacking melee weapon in your hands. I do not know if you would call this a block in the game mechanic, but it would be a great way to defend against a light saber, catching teh hilt that is
- Circular atttacks - Like the spin move, TK Artist should be able to manage doing damage to groups. Further a low spinning kick might manage to trip groups of people
- Situational attacks - Being attacked by two enemies, grapple one enemy and throw them into the other. Also, many martial arts have special techniques that tehy employ against different foes. For instance if your enemy is armed with a long sword or pole arm or likes to kick, you can get in real close, o close that you are always touching the. The idea being that tehy cannot maneuver their weapon in that area. Once tyou start thinking like this, you can imagine other moves.
- Grappling - Throws, locks, take downs, these are all the bread and butter of real martal arts.
- Pressure points - This is a fantasy martial arts technique that allows a martial artist to produce certain effects by using points in the opponenets body. Usually only one finger is required to activarte these points. Traditiona affects are paralysis, stunning, unconsciousness and healing
- Improvised weapons - We have all seen this in a martial arts movie. The idea that throwing a chair at the guy with teh gun is better then running up and punching them. Can we integrate something liek that. Even rocks and dirt can be a weapon in a desperate situation
Ultimately the point of any martial arts is to defend yourself and your community without baring arms against a hoistile foe. It makes sense that teh TK artist would be the so called tank or meat shield of the professions. Of all the professions TK must have teh best defensive skills. It also makes sense that a TK artist would do less damage then any other combat technique. However, I think this should be augmented by having more special effects. The only way to fight effectively hand to hand against an armed opponenet is to knock them down, throw them off balance and otherwise reduce the enemies offensive capability. Finally I think that it is vital that the TK artist have the ability to draw enemy fire. You can't protect teh helpless if you do not make a good target.
What would you like to see? The combat balance is going to bring a foundation for tweaking and polishing, what do you want to say to the devs about our profession?
I agree that every professions should have strengths or weaknesses
Proposed strengths
Defense - No sci fi martial arts would develop without taking blasters and vibroblades into account
Special move - Every special move should be aimed at leveling the playing field between armed and unarmed
Taunt - For PvE, every more should entice the AI to want to attack the TK artist. In PvE, the special moves have to be dangerous enough to force the players to consider the TK artist a seriosu threat.
Versatility - The knucklers are small and you only need small area to be excited by a spcial field. The potential for Energy, electricity, heat and cold in knucklers is a no-brainer.
Proposed weaknesses
DPS - I think TK artists should have the least DPS. I think the trick of TK is using tactics specific to your foe. continue to give us the ability to target specific bars and give us sepcial moves that allow us to compensate for the low DPS
New moves?
Jump attacks
Circular knockdown
Counterattacks - (Jeet Kun Do can be translated as way of the counter atack)
Grappling
Feints
Old ones fixed? (like combo 1&2)
I dunno the issues with any of the existing moves...
I do know that in rel life creatures can get dizzy and have a hard time changing position
Species specific moves?
I do not think you should employ species specific moves. If you have the ability to do something liek this. I think encorporating different style/stances would benefit teh game more. For instance, Crane or offense style or a Tortoise roo defense style.
Content?
Absolutely having a theme park or any TK quests would be great. Also, we are getting shafted in teh loot department.
What about armor?
I think that a sci fi martial arts would be designed to work while wearing armor. I mean who wants to relive the boxer rebellion. In real life many martial arts work just as wel in armor or out. Kenjustus is a verey acrobatic martial art designed to work armored or unarmored. And many Chinese Generals were martial arts masters and none of them would enter battle without puttting their armor on. Admittedly, it would be awesome to have enough defensive skills to stand toe to toe without armor, but I don't think this game mechanic can support that.
If at any moment during the game you were using TK and thought "You know what would be cool? If they...(add great idea here.)
The three things that really seems to be missing fom the Martial Arts in this game are jump attack (even rename unarmedlunge to Jump kick and use the exact same mechanic with a different animation), grappling (again unarmed knockdown could be a throw) and having different style or stances so that you can customize your tactics to your foe.
Well, I know this was long, but I hope it helps, let me know
Dave M
aka Sparks
Rodian TKM/Doctor
Swords of State
Corbantis
In the Stgar Wars universe, TK is an art designed to defend against Jedi. I imagine that THAT martial art would be different from Karate, Kung Fu, Tae Kwon Do or anything else for that matter. Let's look at what problems a theoretical martial artist must face in this art:
- Ranged attack - How does the Martial Artist plan to survive ranged attak long enough to get to melee range? I imagine lots of training on doging. Not based on the noise sight of the gun being fired, but the posture or hand hold on the blaster they are carrying
- Melee weapons - How does the martial artist fight so that vibroswords and light sabers aren't hacking their limbs off. Obviosuly some toughness training wold be involved. Again dodging would be a heavy emphasis. Naturally a REL martial artist would concentrate on disarming their foes.
- Punching/Kicking - This is where I think their toughness training would come in. A TK artist would mostly train with other TK artists, meaning they would have been punched, kicked and who knows what else to bring their physical toughness up. Also, this is the only legitimate attack that wou would want to practice a block unarmred.
Other possible techniques might be:
- Feinting - Putting your foe off balance so that a simple punch/kick can land. Remember that blocking with your arm or leg in Star Wars is suicide, blocking with a sword or spear is smart. So a TK would have to develop techniques to draw that attacker or defender out od postition to use their weapons effectively
- Jump attacks - This is the bread and buter of martial arts games. And the most likely technique employed by fantasy martial arts for closing the range quickly.
- Blade stop - One of the classic fantasy martial arts moves involves catching the blade/hilt of an attacking melee weapon in your hands. I do not know if you would call this a block in the game mechanic, but it would be a great way to defend against a light saber, catching teh hilt that is
- Circular atttacks - Like the spin move, TK Artist should be able to manage doing damage to groups. Further a low spinning kick might manage to trip groups of people
- Situational attacks - Being attacked by two enemies, grapple one enemy and throw them into the other. Also, many martial arts have special techniques that tehy employ against different foes. For instance if your enemy is armed with a long sword or pole arm or likes to kick, you can get in real close, o close that you are always touching the. The idea being that tehy cannot maneuver their weapon in that area. Once tyou start thinking like this, you can imagine other moves.
- Grappling - Throws, locks, take downs, these are all the bread and butter of real martal arts.
- Pressure points - This is a fantasy martial arts technique that allows a martial artist to produce certain effects by using points in the opponenets body. Usually only one finger is required to activarte these points. Traditiona affects are paralysis, stunning, unconsciousness and healing
- Improvised weapons - We have all seen this in a martial arts movie. The idea that throwing a chair at the guy with teh gun is better then running up and punching them. Can we integrate something liek that. Even rocks and dirt can be a weapon in a desperate situation
Ultimately the point of any martial arts is to defend yourself and your community without baring arms against a hoistile foe. It makes sense that teh TK artist would be the so called tank or meat shield of the professions. Of all the professions TK must have teh best defensive skills. It also makes sense that a TK artist would do less damage then any other combat technique. However, I think this should be augmented by having more special effects. The only way to fight effectively hand to hand against an armed opponenet is to knock them down, throw them off balance and otherwise reduce the enemies offensive capability. Finally I think that it is vital that the TK artist have the ability to draw enemy fire. You can't protect teh helpless if you do not make a good target.
What would you like to see? The combat balance is going to bring a foundation for tweaking and polishing, what do you want to say to the devs about our profession?
I agree that every professions should have strengths or weaknesses
Proposed strengths
Defense - No sci fi martial arts would develop without taking blasters and vibroblades into account
Special move - Every special move should be aimed at leveling the playing field between armed and unarmed
Taunt - For PvE, every more should entice the AI to want to attack the TK artist. In PvE, the special moves have to be dangerous enough to force the players to consider the TK artist a seriosu threat.
Versatility - The knucklers are small and you only need small area to be excited by a spcial field. The potential for Energy, electricity, heat and cold in knucklers is a no-brainer.
Proposed weaknesses
DPS - I think TK artists should have the least DPS. I think the trick of TK is using tactics specific to your foe. continue to give us the ability to target specific bars and give us sepcial moves that allow us to compensate for the low DPS
New moves?
Jump attacks
Circular knockdown
Counterattacks - (Jeet Kun Do can be translated as way of the counter atack)
Grappling
Feints
Old ones fixed? (like combo 1&2)
I dunno the issues with any of the existing moves...
I do know that in rel life creatures can get dizzy and have a hard time changing position
Species specific moves?
I do not think you should employ species specific moves. If you have the ability to do something liek this. I think encorporating different style/stances would benefit teh game more. For instance, Crane or offense style or a Tortoise roo defense style.
Content?
Absolutely having a theme park or any TK quests would be great. Also, we are getting shafted in teh loot department.
What about armor?
I think that a sci fi martial arts would be designed to work while wearing armor. I mean who wants to relive the boxer rebellion. In real life many martial arts work just as wel in armor or out. Kenjustus is a verey acrobatic martial art designed to work armored or unarmored. And many Chinese Generals were martial arts masters and none of them would enter battle without puttting their armor on. Admittedly, it would be awesome to have enough defensive skills to stand toe to toe without armor, but I don't think this game mechanic can support that.
If at any moment during the game you were using TK and thought "You know what would be cool? If they...(add great idea here.)
The three things that really seems to be missing fom the Martial Arts in this game are jump attack (even rename unarmedlunge to Jump kick and use the exact same mechanic with a different animation), grappling (again unarmed knockdown could be a throw) and having different style or stances so that you can customize your tactics to your foe.
Well, I know this was long, but I hope it helps, let me know
Dave M
aka Sparks
Rodian TKM/Doctor
Swords of State
Corbantis
Zubzai
Wed Jun 16, 2004 10:49 am
#78
Armor
Dindenver you have a point; but what type of armor are we talking about? mostly leather and comparatively lightweight armors. Now composite as it is is way too heavy to be doing complex martial art moves in. Bone is also unsuitable. If ya tried it wearing chain mail or steel/iron armor you would just die!
so if we are to wear armor, it needs to be light weight and therefore limited in its effectiveness to certain types of damage/attack. Sure we could have purpose built armor..that would be cool...designed to deflect and slide attacks away from the body. This is more realistic...and could produce some funky designs. Oddly enough composite materials exists because they are both lightweight and very strong...hence there use in aircraft. However the composite armor in this game is considered heavy and bulky. We need a new type of lightweight very low encumbrance, composite armor, or else a variation of padded armor, also with very low encumbrance. As i see it, this armor would be highly effective against other melee forms of attack, and very limited in its effectiveness against ranged energy/electric/blast type damages.
Damage Types and New Weapons
We need one more damage type. Since a large part of our art is associated with friction, heat seems to be the most appropriate; also possibly stun damage, but for other types we need new weapon types, and that is a major problem, as all of our conventional weapon types are designed to do kinetic damage. So something new and original would be called for.
Also hows about a limited range capability. We could throw darts....we could get CMs to dip the tips in poison...seriously limited damage potential but with a toxin they could reduce the accuracy of a ranged attacker while in pvp possibly!
Content
The theme park is a nice idea...but not overly likely in the near future. The combat balance is not primarily about the addition of new content, but about equalising the pve and pvp potential of all combat professions; soI dont think that content is really relevant for this thread beyond the addition /subtraction of combat specific equipment.