Teras Kasi Archive
Thread: Some proposals for TKA
Well Holo, if you've read any of our crazy forum you know that I've been a pretty outspoken optimist, much to the flames of many other people. But this is a fact:
We may not be drastically underpoweed - maybe -- but we are absolutely NOT OVERPOWERED by any stretch of the imagination. In PvP it is no contest - we're not only non overpowered, but we can hardly compete. In PvE - all I can say is, if you turn this into a game where I can't fight anything but stupid durnies to get 50 XP per kill and that's how I'm supposed to make the millions of XP it takes to be master -- then I guess I'm done here. I'll hang in there RIGHT to the point when that happens. Tonight I had a major blast -- I was running all over LOK getting in crazy fights, sometimes I would get killed, sometimes I would win, the fights were always close, it and the experience gain was REASONABLE AND HUMANE - not a grind.
Most of the stuff I was fighting was yellow and red. Now, I don't give a crap what the cons are supposed to mean. What I care about was that a fight that I lost one time and won a seocnd time that gave me 1500-3000 XP at a level (becuse the fights were long and I was dying occaisionally, 30,000 experience took a long time, but was an acceptable pace) where I have to make 400,000 to get my next skill -- I consider that a reasonable pace. You make it so that I don't have exciting encouters like that - BY MYSELF -- because while I like grouping, I also like soloing - then there's no reason to play anymore.
I'm not going back to hunting night spider lairs all day and all night long for experience like I did to get to TK. Please balance out the fact that TK's are at a DISADVANTAGE in PvP by keeping us with an ADVANTAGE in PvE - that would be fine with me.
Laur
"In PvE - all I can say is, if you turn this into a game where I can't fight anything but stupid durnies to get 50 XP per kill and that's how I'm supposed to make the millions of XP it takes to be master -- then I guess I'm done here. "
Excellent post Selwynn. We don't always see eye to eye, and I guess I never stated it as clearly as you did - but I saw the KD nerf as the first step towards exactly what you outline above. It's a slippery slope and that first step has been taken.
They nerf KD so we can't take reds (or yellows or sometimes whites) then they nerf the workarounds and the workarounds that follow that... until one day we find ourselves doing EXACTLY what you said above - fighting stupid durnies for 50 xp per kill to master level...
I wouldn't wish this fate on my worst enemy!
Instead of decreasing action costs for specials...
Increase the damage of our moves.
That or...
Someone else had a suggestion I liked a lot earlier, can't remember who it was...
Remove the 1 second attack speed cap for TKAs... then the knockdown costs wouldn't hurt us so much.
Holocron I doubt you will ever see this message in this huge long post, but I just want to say thanks, as this is the first time in a long time I've felt that the problems with TKA were actually being addressed.
I would like to state the one deciding issue over all for me as TKA (Played since release, master on Bria)
Dizzy
In pvp I always always always get hit by a dizzy shot from a marksmen and am then knocked down. After this I cannot stand up for minutes.
I understand nerfing knockdown, I took it hard but I really believe we were definately OVERpowered with it. But if you are going to nerf knockdown for TKA then please address how easy it is for amarksmen type to hit you with two specials which cost less than knockdown put together and keep you on the ground for minutes.
How is it balanced or fair that our only "knockdown" skill is highly costly and must be executed within 5m of t he opponent, when they can "knockdown" anyone with dizzy + posture down for minutes at 100m away with negligable cost?
Thanks, addressing this is all that I ask for.
Holo,ill make it short and simple.
Fix us where we can hit while moving and bring back old
pre nerf tk stats.Then discuss how to fix tk's to make thembetter
and balance the game.Crippling a class then trying to balance
it causes too much headaches for you and all of us who wanted
fun from playing swg.
A marksmen can dizzy and supression fire you, you can dizzy and lunge them. Both classes have an ability:
one is ranged.
Not being able to kill a ranged player in PvP is something you have to deal with. You can do to them what they can do to you, they are just ranged.
Holo: You want us to compare to PvE pistoleers and carbineers, etc?
Well heres an example: Bounty hunters with eyeshot do 3x as much as a normal hit is for us, attacks almost as fast, targets one pool, adds blind, and is RANGED.
The amount of HAM lost chaining Eyeshot is about equivalent to an entire fight for us with 2 Unarmed Hits.
A BH will kill MUCH faster than us and has a lower risk. Besides, if the mob closes in on them, knockdown, then run away and keep spamming eyeshot.
Teras Kasi is probably the most sensible class with plusses and minuses. It was the most reasonable creation. However, all of the ranged elite classes are EXTREMELY UNREASONABLY STRONG. Both styles of professions should have their plusses and minuses. Teras Kasi's and other melees have theirs, ranged players only have pluses.
Either take away our minuses, or give some to the ranged fighters. I'm pro-nerf. Balance means that you have to take something out of one end of the scale, or put something on the other end, whatever you have to do to make the end result even.
In comparison to ranged classes, Teras Kasis are NOT balanced, meaning, the effort required to kill a mob in PvE or in PvP is significantly less. For the same effort, a ranged fighter will reap a much better reward.
Knockdown is not the only place to put in all the balancing. For Christ's sake, it's like we completely forgot all the high level TKA skills, which are useless. COMBOS LOOK AWESOME! I want to use them more 
Vibro knuckler certification should also be lowered from TKA Novice to Master Unarmedto bring their damage more in line with other combat professions.
Brawlers are very frustrated when they reach Master Unarmed and need 125,000 xp to get to TKA Novice but their base hits only does 80 points of damage. Brawling damage atMaster Unarmedlevel just does not scale right.
Not sure if the devs realise that gimping melees ruins the game not just for melees, but anyone participating in PvP. Melee brings another element to PvP combat, forcing people to re-evaluate or develop new strategies. This isn't a FPS where a persons mouse aiming skills and reaction time play the major part in deciding an outcome of a fight, its an RPG.
If melee is gimped to the point everyone goes ranged, everything that makes up what is enjoyable for PvP gets thrown out the window. Variety is what makes an RPG, and is the primary ingredient for fun in PvP. With the wide variety on career choices one encounter will very rarely be like another. The alternative is basically a galaxy full of Bounty Hunters orRanged/Medics with the odd Creature Handler thrown in.
I never expected to be able to "pwn" ranged opponents out in the open and thats theprimary reason I've also taken pistoleer. I've always agreed with the "don't bring a knife to a blaster fight" statement in regards to open areas, but once I've closed that ground (through strategy and/or skill), if the opponent has no melee skills then I expect to be able to "pwn" them. Remember, targetting someone and pressing attack requires no skill (this isn't CounterStrike). If you're a ranged specialist (i.e. taken no melee profession) part of your strategy should be staying out of melee range, you let that slide, prepare to die.
I hope the devs do look at Knockdown, its cost is retardely high. Knockdown from any profession should be balanced against others. Its rediculous that amasterteras kasi'sunarmed cost for knockdown is vastly different that that of a pistoleer using his pistol as an "improvised" melee weapon to knock his opponent down. BHers have already found a way to get around their KD nerf (by equipping a low HAM cost CDEF carbine), but TKs can't do this as the high cost of our knockdown is while we're unarmed (not even going into the knockdown with the VB equipped, yeesh).
I agree KD is far too overpowered as it was (prepatch) for PvP, but theres no pointgimping it inone class while leaving it fully intact in several other classes, espeacially ranged. Devs ever thought of adding some sort of quick-stand skill? Something that was reasonably high on HAMcost but allowed a character to quickly stand from a knock-down and briefly give them a large boost to their Posture-Change and Knockdown resists (if these are even working /shrug). That would help to lower the power of Knockdown while not completely removing its effectiveness.
The running speed of ranged was another item I was concerned with. I don't expect a ranged persons running speed to be nerfed, but there is no way they should be able to run at full speed while still unloading on an opponent. The - to hit while running don't seem to have any impact what-so-ever, getting hit almost as much while they're at full speed as when they're standing still. Even a 5% decrease in speed would probably be acceptable. If they decide to stop shooting, then sure, they get their full speed back. Even looking at it from a "realistic" standpoint, why do you think most military forces use a cover & retreat method? Because2 people laying down effective covering fire is far better than6 running away shooting.
My biggest concern is the same as MarcusAlarics. Are the defensive values actually working? Are my + to ranged and + to melee defenses actually helping me? And more importantly are the + to Posture-Change and + Knockdown resistances actually doing anything. I don't think I've resisted one knockdown or lunge from a player or mob that I can recall.
Anyway, thanks for responding to the TKAs Holocron, that at least is appreciated.
I would like a little clarification: why should knockdown costs between classes be at all different in cost? Why is knockdown balance not just achieved with a timer?
The reality for me is this: I percieve knockdown as completely useless now. So much so that I'm not training the line until last. Maybe this is a mistake, but I'm not gonna take the chance wasting my experience on a skill I can't use. UA experience is too hard to get as it is. Seriously, I only ever do one thing, intimdate, warcry, blind, berzerk, repeat. Anything else seems suicidal.
Also, how is lunge supposed to close 30-40m? Why do ranged weapons do 3x damage, are they 3x slower? Oh well, it's irrelevant, since everyone, including mobs kite you. In effect, negating a ranged attack speed altogether.
I went from int unarmed to novice tka in 2 days no prob, after patch when vks went to tka novice. If I can do it, so can everybody else.
Holo, from what all I have read it doesn't sound like your dropping the HAM costs of KD for the TKA, why is this? (Long post BTW)
A martial arts master can KD an opponent a heck of a lot easier than someone who slaps another person with a pistol (or tries to), or shoots for their nads, etc. Our KD is at close range only and costs more than any other special move there is. Why when a master of the martial arts is trained to KD their opponents (in several ways) does it cost so much? We TKA's are not overpowered!! I know all the ranged people cry about getting killed by us, but I will tell you this. If I gave my TKA Master to another player and I took their marksman, I would beat them every time! If marksman are so dumb as to stand in our face, that's their own fault.
As far as PvE, I can solo a Nightsister Initiate (or could) with my TKA Master when I was able to pull just one of them, that's about as good as it gets. Explain why a TKA master is not supposed to be able to do this? In hand-to-hand combat a TKA Master should be able to whoop on an Initiate. We are not just a street bralwer, or a common thug, we are martial arts masters!!!! We may be able to do a lot of damage in close (that's the way it should be) and we certainly should be able to KD or try to KD our opponents (sometimes it takes 4 tries) without raping ourselves of our life essence! So what if an Initiate is a red con, why is itsuch an unbalanced and horrible thing that I could kill an Initiate (most of the time)? This is laughable that we are expected to be no better than a 'kinda good fighter' type 'ELITE' profession just so the ranged people stop whining!!
You know, the funny thing is... Just how happy anyone I grouped with was that I was there to help them beat tougher opponents (which I couldn't have done without their help either). I had people who knew me that wanted to group with me because they had a lot more fun with a TKA Master in their group. After the nerf, and a few tries, that doesn't happen anymore. Now I have NO fun (and believe me I have tried!!), I just get out of the game irritated at my fighting ability that does nothing more than hinder me rather than help me. Many of the people I grouped with aren't even on much any more and when they are and we actually group.. well, lets just say that adventuring is not nearly as fun any more, for any of us.
So you see Holo, we TKA Masters can bring a lot more enjoyment to other players as well as we can increase their effectiveness greatly! This is something you never saw, I bet. Well, I experienced it first hand and those players who I grouped with never complained about me being too overpowered! They were too busy having fun!! Oh well, I guess it's better to gimp us so the PvP players can be pleased rather than let the masses have their fun together! For every TKA you gimped and fun you took away from, there are 2-10 othernon-TKA people in this game that suffer also. As it stands, I don't try to group any more, and I rarely try much of anything to be honest. The best part is, I use pistol now instead of my TKA Master's abilities, now isn't something wrong with that, especially since I WAS so excited to play a TKA!?!?
To all you PvPers who are doing all that whining to gimp other classes than you have, here is a giant block of cheese to go with the whine!! 
Hmmm. What about making Novice TKA grant fists AR1 armor piercing, as a damage enhancer? (You know exactly where to hit to bypass the armor)
Giving TKA Masters AR2 would probably be a bit much, though. 
Why is it no DEV or CSR ever respond with an answer about melee and attacking while moving
they know it makes sense