Swordsman Archive
Thread: Top Issues Brainstorm
kErosion
Thu Apr 01, 2004 7:16 pm
#41
This was my response to the Low Hanging Fruit thread, but applies equally as well. The Low Hanging Fruit are definately the priorities, with the rest as longer-term goals.
Easy Fix #1: Posture Stacking
(Hitting a kneeling target results in the target returning to their feet.)
Easy Fix #2: Greater Increased Difficulty
(Advanced professions currently do not sufficiently increase ones Difficulty of available missions at a Mission Terminal. In order to obtain suitably difficulty missions, we are forced to group with multiple individuals, or with a Creature Handler.Ramping up the increase in Difficulty to a greater degree as one progresses through an advanced profession would be incredibly useful.)
Easy Fix #3: Return DoT's to Previous Strength
(Swordsman DoT's have been rendered largely unhelpful. ReturnDoT's to their previous strength. Ensure DoT-stacking of Mind Hit I and Mind Hit 2 is eliminated. Ensure there is a PvP reduction in place. Increase accessability of bleed resistance.)
Easy Fix #4: Eliminate Useless Skill-Mods from the Loot Tables
(This is a common request in multiple forums. Great post with details here: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=csystems&message.id=7076)
Easy Fix #5: Area Attack Issue 1
(All Area Attacks I've experimented with from Brawlers Unarmed, One-Hand, Two-Hand, and Polearm linesas well as Swordsman Area Attacks suffer range-issues when fighting some creatures in the game. Specifically BIG ones.
Example: I'veobserved that Two-hand Area 3 will connect witha lairwithin a 15m radius of my character. For the majority of relatively small NPC's I come in contact with, the 15m radius also appears to apply.When I wish to hunt Tortons on Rori however, I will consistantly miss the majority of those inside my attack radius. Tortons attempt to place themselves 9m away from your character in order to attack. This should allow for them to fall inside the attack radius, yet I consistantly observe that I only tend to deal damage to the Torton I'm actively targetting. As I've seen some similar issues while hunting NPC's in uneven terrain, I believe this may be related to the actual target of large NPC's being elevated past a certain point above where the Area Attack is being generated from.)
Easy Fix #6: Area Attack Issue 2
(The timeless damage-multiplied-by-number-of-npc-around-you-directed-onto-one-npc bug from standing on the dead bodies of NPC's needs to be gone. I've heard mention that it may be dealt with, but I haven't had the time to investigate, I know I haven't seen anything in patch notes.)
Medium Fix #1: Increase Complexity of Melee Schematics for Weaponsmith
(Barrels, Power Handlers, Stocks, and Scopes. A wide array of components areavailable for all Firearm schematics, this complexity allows for a wide degree of experimentation to be possible on all aspects of Firearms. In contrast, nearly all Melee schematics consist of a single critical part like a Sword Core, and 2 or3 resources, no options. This limits the degree of experimentation/optional enhancement possible for all Melee weapons. Rehashing Melee schematics for increased complexity would allow for a richer variety of options to the Melee professions.)
Swordsmans Role#1: Redundant Ability
(While it would be nice being the ULTIMATE offense, and ULTIMATE defense, I'm comfortable with Swordsman moving towards a 75% Offense, 25% Defense role. Offense is the best Defense afterall, right?First thing that needs to happen is get rid of our redundant Area Attacks. With Posture Stacking fixed, strip the Posture Down from Area Attack.Leave the Posture Down inTwo Hand Sweep 2, with a 2.0 damage modifier and a slower delay than other Area Attacks. Focus Two Hand Area Attack's on higher, fast area damage.)
Swordsmans Role #2: Nature of Defense
(I view a 75% Offense, 25% Defense character as a berzerker-type front line assault character. A damage delivery machine. As discussed by others, Counterattack should lose the complete damage avoidance it currently offers, and gain an instant attack instead. For Counterattack to damage an enemy, some damage protection needs to be given up, but I would like to see around 50% damage taken avoided. A Swordsman should also receive increased tolerance to special attacks that impede damage delivery through higher Defense vs. Dizzy, possibly Defense vs. Intimidate, and Defense vs. Stun.)
Swordsman Role #3: Nature of Offense
(Offense of the Swordsman is currently just about perfect. Big hits, slightly slow without speed enhancers, highest Area Attack damage possible, armor busting. Power Hammer is perfect at AP2. The Riflemans T21 really needs to be lowered to AP2 as well, with AP3 reserved for Lightsaber alone, and maybe HIGH explosives. I would like to see the Swordsman given a heavy one-target attack that causes the hit to be delivered at AP+1 the AP of the weapon being used. This works with the Swordsman role as armor-buster. Two-Hand Hit 3 at Master would be perfect for this.)
MrChow_Sai
Fri Apr 02, 2004 2:14 am
#42
/bow4 to kErsoin
very nice post. i really like the Roles part a ton
StGabriel
Sat Apr 03, 2004 7:43 am
#43
More good stuff here. I'll give it a final go-over and compile a list for voting sometime tonight, so if you have anything left to throw in, speak now.
StGabe.
StGabe.
TheVeginator
Sat Apr 03, 2004 11:57 am
#44
I'm cool with not being able to stack bleeds, but I'm not cool with the nerf that went along with the unstacking bleeds patch. Bring back bleeds, full power. Just like they were before the patch. Only don't let us stack them.
Also please please PLEASE do something about mitigation. It cripples us!
Womblebane
Sat Apr 03, 2004 4:50 pm
#45
Something that i have noticed, as i am sure many others have, is that in PvE, we seem to be doing well dmg wise, better than many other classes apart from say, commando and bounty hunter. This is good, we are supposed to be hard hitters right? And we lack in defenses, a master swordsman that gets attacked usually ends up on the ground, intimidated, bleeding and thoroughly weeping, unless he invests in another class with defences. This is great, a class with high dmg shouldnt have high defenses right?
Yay, we are all nice and balanced in PvE!
Now someone duel a TKM. I hit ateras kasi master in the head for less (i do about 40dmg? anyone?) than he hits me with his bloody head slap(about 80-120), thats when im standing up, fully buffed and in composite.This is with an average, sliced power hammer, or a really nice 230-400, 2.6 scythe. If heuses brandy, canapes and moun, i cannot get anywhere near killing him for 10 minutes.Unarmed toughness easily defeats our pvp dmg, and if he even touches that little knockdown/dizzy combination.. im on my ass for the next minute watching him facially rape me. They do about (depending on resists) as much dmg as us in pve with a normal old VK, and take a fraction of the dmg we do. And have the most lethal status effect moves in the game. This is how there are so bloody many of these around. This is not how i understand a profession should work. Quite simply we are redundant in PvP until they balance the melee professions. O yea, theres this other one ive heard about called polearms, i met one once he was nice. I think they might be a leeettle neglected.
StGabriel
Sun Apr 04, 2004 3:15 am
#46
To do this justice I'm just not gonna be able to post a voting thread tonight, so consider the deadline extended at least until tomorrow night.
StGabe.
StGabe.
boodow
Sun Apr 04, 2004 7:48 am
#47
I've always had a problem with the AOE redundancy. More weapons with more varieties of damage is somehting I've always wanted too.
raider7734
Sun Apr 04, 2004 4:40 pm
#48
center of being / counterattack isn't doing much at all. I tanked enough Elders this weekend to nearly wreck an 80% kinetic chest plate and CoB / counter has been absolutely lamethe whole time
also -and this is starting to bug me alot- the redundancy of our moves begins even in Brawler:
at expert two hand, weget sweep 1, a shorter rangeversion oflunge 1 which you get at novice brawler ...weak!
there needs to be something more worthwhile or at least different in the expert two hand box. ideas:
- an intimidating hit (x2 damage and intimidates with a +10 bonus to Intimidation, soit lands more reliablythanthe novice brawler move, andthe bonuswould stack with master brawler toyield a +30 chance). this move would beuseful for2h brawlers, andwould not become obsolete for bothmaster brawlersandthosethat continue withSwordsman. <--- great idea, I think
- some other status effect like stun, dizzy, or blind
- make sweep1 perform two independant posture downs. either onecould be resisted (or not)so they could end up kneeling, prone, or not affected at all
ByygPapa
Mon Apr 05, 2004 4:45 am
#49
1) bleeds....fix em or give us something else...I havent bothered bleeding anything in forever
2) disease...all melee should have a way to get it off like TKA's do, it's EVERYWHERE and it sucks to have to run back to town and spam for a Doctor every time you fight a mob that has it.
3) new specials to replace the sweeps would be nice...
4)bleeds...I mean really if anybody is causing heavy bleeding shouldnt it be the guy with the sword?
5) did I mention bleeds?
ThaWhiteKnight
Mon Apr 05, 2004 10:24 am
#50
StGabriel wrote:
Hi you all,
So, you might notice that we do not really have an up to date "Top 5". With combat balance looming over us, I felt that it wasn't going to be that productive to get a current top 5 (as everything could well be changing anyway).
However as time drags on and the balance gets pushed back I've begun to reconsider that choice. I can't help but think that it would be good just to get a current top 5 to head into the combat rebalance with. That way when asked, "is this a top issue?", I can say, "Yup, it's #3." I suspect that a lot of issues haven't changed although we'll see some new contenders sneaking onto the list (like bleeds).
So start things off I just want to brainstorm concerns. I'm going to write up some of the things I've noticed players are really concerned with and I ask for comments on these and additions. Once we have that I can create a big list of issues and we can vote as to which of those seem most important.
Sound good?
To help me do this please try to format your replies as succinctly as possible. List your suggestions for changes or additions to the list FIRST and then provide any discussion you want.
Here's my list so far:
- Bleeds are no longer effective enough.
- There is not enough variation in our specials. We need more specials that do more things. (Note: dev answer to the old Top 5 indicates that this will be helped in the combat rebalance)
- HAM costs are too high. (although we already know that the combat rebalance will revamp HAM usage)
- For "heavy" combatants we have far too much difficulty penetrating armor.
- Difficulties obtaining Scythe schematics.
- Lack of specific role/utility in combat.
- Damage mitigation penalizes Swordsmen greatly.
- Bleeds are no longer effective at all in anyway. Not even in PvE.
- Heavy Sword specials are basically only different Animations for same move.
- Extreme limited access to our only decent weapon.
- No role / utility in GCW
- Damage mitigation renders most of our weapons useless in PvP
- Low Damage
- Low Defense
- Worst ability to inflict and resist state changes Dizzy ect. Which is actually our only state change. Yet it is almost impossible to stick it on anyone, even other horrifically supceptable to dizzy swordsmen.
kErosion
Mon Apr 05, 2004 10:47 am
#51
Problem: Lack of variety in our specials.
Just another thought to add to the ones I posted earlier. I really feel Two-Hand Hit3 we get from Master should get some increased ability beyond just high damage.
Two-Hand Hit 3, Option 1: As I mentioned earlier, having each swing of it function as AP+1 would be nice. (Two-Hand Hit 3 with an AP2 Power Hammer would land as if it were AP3.)
Two-Hand Hit 3, Option 2: A second possibility that would function well with the armor-buster thought would be to cause Two-Hand Hit 3 to reduce armor effectiveness by about .5%-1% for each cumulative hit, slowly wearing down a highly armored opponent to something more easily dealt with.
Ex: Nightsister Elder has 100% effectiveness in its armor in various spots. Swordsman starts pounding the Elder with Two-Hand Hit 3, each hit lowers the effectiveness by .5%, increasing the damage of the rest of the group.
ruehs
Mon Apr 05, 2004 3:36 pm
#52
Well, Well, Well. I've read everyones post in this thread, has it seem to any of you at all that you basicly want to be a god. I mean come on, you already hit as fast as a fencer and do more then twice as much damage. You ever think that the dev's thought of you as tanks(that should be surrounded by many mobs). The dev's gave you area attacks so you could take care of more then one mob at a time. Fencers get area attacks to, but we do MUCH LESS damage then you do. Fencers are suppose to be fast and not hit for as much damage as Heavy Swordsman, that is fine with me, but when you hit as fast as a fencer then I have a problem with it. You want stun, you ever think that fencers recieved it so that we might be able to come close to your lowest damage weapon? and even then we can't do many specials with it because of the ham cost.
you say your ham costs are high, everyone thinks thier's are high, fencers get the worst one to be high in...MIND...which need I remind you is the hardest thing to heal. Even with food healing our mind...we get full...
. well I just wanted to point out some things that I noticed in this thread.
I do not mean you any harms, and wish no nerf on you. I do hope they fix your counter attack the way you want it...I know I would want a counter attack that does just that... Oh, and another thing, you want variety in weapons? you guys got something new...every other melee didn't...just remember that...be thankfull you got it.
Macross Starchaser, Eclipse, Phoenix Reborn