Teras Kasi Archive
Thread: Balance Issues Post here
Thunderheart, our community relations manager has implemented a new format for sharing info with the devs. Under this new format, our reports to him will be divided up into 3 categories:
- Gameplay Issues
- Bug reports
- Balance Issues
For each category we'll have the familiar top 5 list comprising our most pressing issues.
This is the thread for Balance issues
Post here on things that need to be addressed because they are either not effective enough, or too effective. For instance, I'd post here if I wanted to recommend improving the unarmed combo skills, or if I thought that TKAs needed more accuracy, or whatever.
I know we recently went through this, but many of the top requests in the old thread have been addressed. I'd also liketo cover the followingup front:
- Out of range: While I can't be specific at this time, I want to let you all know that the Devs are aware of the "out of range" issue we're having. They have offered a solution that I believe will satisfy the majority of people on this board. Of course, we won't really know until it hits TC, but I wanted everyone to know that they're working on it.
- Tanking: On TC right now is the Center of Being skill (CoB). This is the skill the devs talked about that increases your defence for a period of time. Honestly, TC is so buggy right now that I have not been able to test it much. However, they are certainly working on a solution here as well.
That's two of our old top 5 list.We can't be 100% sure on these, but we know for sure that the devs are already aware of and working towards resolution on those points.This leaves "Ineffective Styles", "More Weapons", and "Better Social Animations" as legacy items from our old top 5. "Better Social Animations" goes in the Gameplay thread, but I'll start it off here by continuing "Ineffective Styles" and "More weapons" as the beginning of our top 5 Balance issues. If you no-longer think that those items should be on here, please say so.
For reference:
More weapons/damage types: We need to be able to do different types of damage, being limited to only kinetic is a real disadvantage, especially compared to ranged classes. We'd also like to see a bigger variety of weapons like brass knuckles, combat gloves, etc., some of which should be in the unarmed brawler tree to help early xp.
Ineffective styles: Some of our special attacks are never useful. The very idea of the combo attack is counter-productive, as spreading damage between multiple pools is the opposite of what we want to do. Body hit is never useful because of the low damage multiplier, and the fact that evenrandom-pool attacks hit the body pool more often than not. Leg hit is similarly problematic. Spin Hit 2 needs to be buffed to the point that it remains a viable tactic to use against multiple opponents even at Master level.
That being said, let's hear what else is out there.
Something that gives TK's a chance against kiters in PvP. Whether that is the ability to attack while running, a /stick command, slightly faster run speed, whatever. I don't want to win all the time here, but I would like to have a chance if I can catch my target of being able to do something.
My ideal solution here is to have a slightly reduced run speed while attacking with ranged weapons. This is simply a realism solution: if I am running full bore to catch you and you are running looking backwards try to shoot at me, who will run faster? Obviously I will, and the reason is that you have to run slower simply to avoid falling down. This would also have the effect of reducing kiting against normal-speed creatures (which, again, is realistic, but may not be what the devs want).
Meditation got a nice boost recently with the Powerboost skill change. One final tweak that would be loved by all TK, make meditation a tempting branch to pick and would be a modest improvement would be to add the meditation skill level to your Willpower while you are meditating. The numbers are about right and this would allow meditation to slightly reduce the typical TK downtime (which is almost always waiting for mind to recover).
Cool idea about adding your Med score to willpower while meditating.
Also, not sure how I forgot this one, but we'd of course want to include our desired changes to FoW here as well.
Olvenskol wrote:
Meditation got a nice boost recently with the Powerboost skill change. One final tweak that would be loved by all TK, make meditation a tempting branch to pick and would be a modest improvement would be to add the meditation skill level to your Willpower while you are meditating. The numbers are about right and this would allow meditation to slightly reduce the typical TK downtime (which is almost always waiting for mind to recover).
Why stop there? Go throughand add theskill numberto the regen mod for allthe various HAM bars depending on the box learned.Start with mind, since it's easier to calm and quiet the mind while meditating tan say...focus andheal the body.
Example:
Meditation I- Meditate skill added to willpowerwhile activelymeditating.
Meditation II- Meditate skill added to staminawhileactivelymeditating.
Meditation III- Meditate skill added to constitution while activelymeditating.
Addressing your "More Weapons" thing, I can give you a clear cut idea of what our options are in terms of SW Continuity so theres no real debate here. We have 1 of 3 options currently.
Standard Vibroknucklers (We have)
Stun Gauntlets (We don't have)
Czerka Vibroknucklers (We dont have)
Czerka made the best VK in the SW EU. I figure if these were added they could be the one's in the TK Certification. The standard Vibroknucklers could be available at Unarmed 3 or 4. And Stun Gauntlets at Unarmed 1 (Stun Gauntlets only do stun damage, this translates as actual HAM Damage in SWG but in the SW EU Stun damage did just that, stun people, so it wouldn't a powerful weapon really..)
Czerka's can be set up to provide the offset of good damage with lesser ham costs, but perhaps requiring more rare resources to develop. Standard VK's could be left as they are. And Gauntlets could do for Unarmed Brawlers what current VK's do, except they'd have a certification, and (of course lesser damage)
+ to speed + to overall damage (And the stun damage type)
I'm overall satisfied with the current stat-make up. I don't really mind investing in other melee professions to garner the best defenses vs states and such. Though we could use a lil bit of a beefing up in that area.
Meditation is incomplete. FOW And PB are fine but if you read the skill box descriptions they say they aid in being able to hit your opponents. So I assume there should have been an accuracy modifier in there (Even though at TKM you have +205 its not even remotely necessary, I just figured it would be worth mentioning)
Other than that, everythings already being addressed in the loop. As long as those TC Changes do their job, we're good to go in my eyes.
Either lower ham cost on VK's or apply faster speed and dmg to fighting unarmed.
Also, I would like to see the meditation idea with a bonus to willpower/stamina/constitution. I would also want the option of meditating while in combat.
Ok... general question here.
We seem to get frequent requests for two things
- To lower VK HAM costs
- To give us a good alternative for fighting without VKs
To me, these seem to be slightly contradictory. On TC, we now get an unarmed damage bonus of 250. That's pretty huge. That level of damage makes it much easier to fight without VKs, at least against unarmored opponents. VKs give you an additional damage bump, as well as AP1, but there's a tradeoff with the high HAM costs.
So VKs have to have some kind of drawbacks, or else there will be no way that peope will feel that fighting truly unarmed will ever be a viable alternative.
So how would we go about fulfilling both points 1 and 2? There would have to be some alternate disadvantage to VKs I guess. Anyone have any suggestions along those lines? Speed perhaps?
If I had a TKA on TC I would be able to give a better answer, but without one I can't really gauge how much of a difference +250 damage is really making. It does seem like a huge bonus that would trade off for not having AP with barehands...but then again....since there are so few TKA's on TC (and I am not one of them) I can't really answer the below question. I would suggest that if +250 really makesa huge difference then#1 and #2 areappeased(ok Mr. Heavy....if you could give some barehand stats on what damage is like at master with the +250 it would be easier to guage the impact). Getting +250 to unarmed damage plus whatever knucklers give some one could be overpowering....but we need numbers to be able to justify whether it is enough of a mod or not.
My opinion.
Mister_Heavy wrote:
Ok... general question here.
We seem to get frequent requests for two things
- To lower VK HAM costs
- To give us a good alternative for fighting without VKs
To me, these seem to be slightly contradictory. On TC, we now get an unarmed damage bonus of 250. That's pretty huge. That level of damage makes it much easier to fight without VKs, at least against unarmored opponents. VKs give you an additional damage bump, as well as AP1, but there's a tradeoff with the high HAM costs.
So VKs have to have some kind of drawbacks, or else there will be no way that peope will feel that fighting truly unarmed will ever be a viable alternative.
So how would we go about fulfilling both points 1 and 2? There would have to be some alternate disadvantage to VKs I guess. Anyone have any suggestions along those lines? Speed perhaps?
The damage increases on TC may be enough as not got a character on TC, I wont know my opinion untill (if) it hits live.
What I think may bean Ideal comprimise for the VK's and ham costs, is if it was possible to get VK's that have very low hamcosts (or better no ham costs), but in exchange for this do no extra damage or speed, theyjust give you an AR1 rating (you still have decay on them so they wont last forever).
If there was an AR2 version of these VK's then they should have a ham cost associated with them to keep them from being to powerfull. Also if any had poison, disease etc they should also have a ham cost.
we'll have to see how it works out before really making an issue out of it, probably.
anyway, i agree with the list so far!
Mori-Mori wrote:
i'm a little concerned about mounts benefiting ranged players more than melee players. kiting will be long and slow if our opponents can safely stay away. even if they can't do specials, they'll still have the edge.
we'll have to see how it works out before really making an issue out of it, probably.
anyway, i agree with the list so far!
There's no doubt in my mind that mounts will benefit ranged players more. I do seem to remember some dev post about melee classes getting some kind of special attack for use on mounts against other players to unseat them. I'll have to see if I can find it, as mounts are basically non-existent on TC right now.
I'll try to get on TC again tonight to get you guys better info about damage.