Teras Kasi Archive

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IVIafioso wrote:

i think a larger variety of weapons is a stupid idea

they dont call it umarmed for nothing

TKA should not even have vibro knucs

if you want a alarger variety of weapons choose a profession that is supposed to use them, duh

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I already posted here, but I feel I must say amen to this....duh (agree totally)

I would like to add to your bugs list:

If you initiate combat with a debuff or status effect, your battle queue forgets the command and you initiate combat without executing the command.

I've noticed this most with Inimidate, Warcry, and Taunt. If you initiate combat with any of these skills, the skill is not executed but you begin combat.

good call dashida...that would be awesome......have a little power-up then attack. It would be cool if it looked like DBZ power-up......but this would be totally non-Star Wars like.

TKA's were in tuned with something or other (force?). They could perhaps 'channel' that energy into fire/electric/stun energy. I dont really care for a graphic, although glowing hands while buffed would be cool.

Ever hear of going to the well one to many times? I really think this is where we are headed if we keep asking for stuff when other melee professions aren't getting as much attention.

Not that I'm a commando who wants to protect his lovely DOT effects... but it seems rather silly that a TKA would be able to meditate FIRE away..... bleeds, poisons, diseases.. fine... but fire?? that's a little more of an external problem than internal no ?

Even more so isn't it entirely likely we'd just as soon burn to death first anyway?? hehe....

Now talk to me a about some sort of "Flame defense" mods and now your talking

Great job Mister!

To sum up my thoughts and feelings on TKA combat:

I believe we should have a hard time catching anythingrunning away from us, but that's just running. Running and shooting isn't easy. IMO when one uses a ranged special attack they should have to stop moving. If we TKA do catch up in PVP we should almost always win... assuming equivalent ham and states etc.

Snare or Root special attack. Just like a scout can make a trap to snare or root an animal, we should get an attack that snares or roots a humanoid. Its not like knockdown because they can still swing and shoot at us to defend themselves... they just cant run away for a few secs. Even if we get rooted next to them @ 1m,I still think it would be worth it.

"We don't need no stinking DoT."

Im a purist in that I hate having to use VK's.+1 AP to Unarmed Hit 3 is probably the best suggestion I've ever heard for our profession.

We need to be able to do at least one other type of damage. My vote: restraint damage... I have no Idea what it is or what other weapon uses it, but its quite uncommon. When Isee restraint I think counter-joint techniques, arm bars, leg locksand Judo pins. My thoughts are get rid of the 2 combos and replace them with 2 attacks that dealthis different damage type. (he he he fire, cold, elecdamage would be cool, but I dont want this to become mortal combat)

Fact: The one thing melee lacks for PvE that ranged has is a (Monty Python and the Holy Grail) "Run Away! Run Away!" move... Warning Shot. IMO we need something that lets us be a sissy and send a giant gackle bat running from us for a second so we can deal with the other 4. (or so we can run away from it)

Animation thoughts:

Eventually make a couple different animations for our moves. When in the grind and spamming UH2 it gets boring watching the same thing over and over.

More kicking in the animations-- Preferably the ability to choose the use of hand dominant animatons, balanced animations, and foot dominant animations. No changes whatsoever other than asthetic... gives a bit of personalized feel to your charicter's fighting style. (If SOE needs someone to model some acrobatic kicks, they can get in touch with me.)

Unique animations for when we string certain special moves together... thats what I see a "combo" as. I'm unsure about whether we should have combos that do different damage and effects, but at least make it look cooler and flow better when chaining specials.

TKA animations should be a bit more TK-like. Lunge 2 should be a flying kick. Knockdowns should be Judo-style throws or fancy scissortakedowns.

Katas? eh, I dunno, there are RL martial arts that don't use them, but an interesting concept none the less. Perhaps something that can tie into dojos (but please don't call them dojos because we all aren't Japanese stylists). Being able to design your own unique kata would be awesome.

Ugh...

I hate using weapons, but since we're stuck with them (VK's) it'd be nice to get a couple more options. And don't forget that the feet are weapons so how about a vibro-heel, spiked toes,or something along those lines?

I think I've exahausted my mind pool for now.

Tong-Fei Kasamatsu | TKA: 2 2 3 2 | Naritus

beautiful work of art Heavy...... i'm in love with it.

Just have one request, ask if we can have HAM regen while meditate at master tka. And master tka meditate cure flames. As it stands meditate is THE best line we have, and making it better will result in a furture nerf i fear, as is evident with ch "dabblers". Besides we really need more incentive at master boxes as it is.

By far this is the best report i've ever read for any profession since the games release. I'd kiss you on the cheek if i ever met ya. Now lets cross our fingers and hope for the best.

oh, and just forgot to mention some things;

The rancor teeth, as far as i can tell, cannot be used for vk. Only vibro motors, the teeth are used in place of adv sord core for swords. The dragon pearl says it's for melee weapons but cannot be used for any melee weapons as well. We all speculate that it's for jedi lightsabers. Which again leaves us with the vibro motor, that from the best that i've seen, are wose than what a normal master weapon smith can make in it's place. If we do not get other "melee" weapons then we should have adv componants that allow smiths to make vk with other damage types, albeit rare drops. Would give us something to farm like the range users farm dragons.

As for those who don't think flame should be cured by meditate.... Do a search for Thich Quang Duc, he's story willmore than convince you of the power of meditation. Although he didn't accually heal the flames, since he was soaked in flamable liquids, i'm sure the effects had no effect on him other than death. Another reason i think it should be at master tka.

And as for vk not effecting kicks. Why not just make vk double for hands and feet. Would be kinda sweet to have the blades on each hands and on the tips of your feet.

And a reason why they "nerfed" fwg5 was becuase of the exploit smiths were using upon making them. The exploit allowed them to use tissues that did not match (lower end tissues) adding them up to the effect of high quality tissues, giving them awesome damage. Ones i've seen are near 400+ after slice, and are becoming common place on most servers. This allowed people to one shot others even with the pvp damage reduction. They placed that reduction to combat the one shot kills.

Hey Mister Heavy,

The list is excellent! Though it's hardly a priority, I'm so glad to see the request to toggle the red ribbons, if not that, at least cut down the width of them by 2/3rd. I can barely see some of the animations because those ribbons are so huge.

Did you mention anything about upping the defense bonuses vs ranged and melee? Every melee class needs that, of course. I would LOVE to be able to truly tank (not Krayt dragons necessarily, but say mutated kamurrahs) and find that a pet is no longer *needed*.

Also, have they determined that getting 1 unarmed experience point for killing such things as a rock beetle, which can take chunks of HAM off my bars before I can kill a couple, is working as intended?

Anyway, thanks for your time and attention

Gurni - TKA Expert, 60K away from Artist, halfway to Warrior. 3,2,4,3
Shadowfire

ok how you gonna fire a flame thrower 60 meters?...

i mean if you wanna get technical here.. a flame thrower should only have about a 30 meter range

I'd like to apologize in advance for the length of this post.

This is the continuing evolution of the Monster SoP post. I'm going to reissue the SoP thread every Friday, adding new issues, removing old ones, and making any other necessary edits. I'm also going to unfloat the other Gameplay, Bugs and Balance posts. If you have a new issue, please post it here and clearly mark that it's an issue for addition to the list. That way I can just look through one thread instead of 4.

At Thunderheart's request, I've added a "wishlist" section. Frankly, I'm kinda struggling with exactly what's supposed to go in the wishlist section as opposed to what's supposed to be in the gameplay section, but for now, I've put gameplay-like issues that won't seriously effect the game and would be relatively hard for the devs to do. As an example, I put the request to be able to select individual attack animations in the wishlist forum. Personally, I'd think that'd be pretty far down on the Dev's to-do list, but hey... as long as we're wishing. I'll ask Thunder to clarify exactly what's supposed to be in there.

I'm also going to have a "summary of changes" section at the top of each SoP update so that people won't have to read through the whole thing to see what's new. I'll list anything that was added or removed in the summary of changes section so you guys don't have to sort through the whole post every time.

Of course, just because I add something here (or don't)doesn't make it gospel. I'll try to be as inclusive as I can, but I'm going to leave out requests that are both new and seem like they'd be unpopular. For instance, this time around I didn't include the request to increase the required experience for TKA skills. This doesn't mean that I won't ever put it up, but I think that the community should have some time to discuss it and come to a consensus before I recommend it to the devs.

If you disagree with anything that I've added or left off, please just create a thread on it for the community to discuss. Again, I'm not trying to pick and choose what goes on the list according to personal preference, but according to how I think the community feels about the issue.That being said, yeah, some of this is a judgment call, soif I'm wrong, just let me know.

Of course, it's totally possible that I've just missed something, although I'll try to keep that to a minimum.

One last disclaimer. Many of you know this, and I don't want to sound preachy, but balance changes move slowly in Dev land. The whole process, from idea tolive,can take months. If we, as a community ask for change X, and Thunder takes it straight to the dev's tomorrow as a fantastic idea, it'd probably be in development until early next year. Thankfully, some of this stuff is probably already in the pipeline, as we've been asking for it for a while. We're doing great on these issues, and with time I think the devs will listen to everything we have to say, but patience is going to be the key here.

Ok, on to the changes!

Summary of Changes

Balance

1. Added "Self Buffing" for additional damage types to the recommendations for how to deal with TKA's current restriction to Kinetic damage. Further recommended that the ability to self buff while only truly unarmed may satisfy some people's desire to give no-vk combat some advantage over using VKs.
   
2. Added the request to allow us to meditate in combat, and regardless of any state change applied to us (fire, stun, etc). I did not request that med would healthose states, just that we be allowed to med while those states are active.

Gameplay

1. Moved the request for a Dojobuilding or themepark to the Wishlist section.
   
2. Removed the request to know what combat equilibrium does.
   
3. Added the request to be able to initiate meditation while running.

Bugs

1. Added that attempting a posture change to your current posture (e.g. trying to stand while standing) will cause you to fall over if dizzy.
   
2. Added that if you initiate combat with a debuff or status effect, your battle queue forgets the command and you initiate combat without executing the command.


3. Added that UC1 and UC2 both have a 2.5 damage multiplier.

Wishlist

1. Aded request to be able to choose each individual "per hit" attack animation in combat.
   
2. Added the request that when /if the Dev's implement the combo move combat system, we'd like there to be cool, unique animations for each combo.
   
3. Moved the request for a Dojobuilding or themepark to the Wishlist section.
   
4. Added reques for new animations for some skills.

Overview: State of the Teras Kasi Profession

If I were to sum up the state of TKAs in one word, I'd choose "progress". I think we've seen great progress in the last month or so in terms of getting this class to the point where it's effective for the way the devs intend it to be, and the way we want it to be. For example:

• We're received a number of damage upgrades. The total damage bonus for TKAs is up to 250.
  
• The Devs are actively focusing on making us better tanks. The "Center of Being" tank skill is a huge stride. It's a clear sign that the devs are working towards the resolution of the tanking issue.
  
• The Devs are aware of the out of range issue, and although I can't give specifics, I can tell you that they are offering a solution that I believe will meet the needs of this board.
  
• They're focusing on improving the Med branch. The changes to PB were just what the skill needed, and if we get our way, FoW will be a great skill as well. The med branch was extremely weak before, and it's great to see them giving it attention.

Of course, progress in no way indicates perfection. There are a number of unresolved issues including ineffective specials such as the combo attacks, the pesky out of range issue (although they are working on this), as others ranging from PB occasionally incapping you to the more complex issue of balancing melee professions against ranged professions with pets. Clearly this isn't all the issues, but these points serve to illustrate that while there has certainly been progress, there is clearly more work to be done before the class is truly functioning at 100%.

Even if they do address all of our balance and bug issues, there are other things we'd like such as TKA-only emotes, Katas, VK-alternatives, and a slew of other "fun factor" improvements that take the profession from functional to fantastic. We want the TKA profession to be fully functional, but that's just the beginning; we also want it to be fun, and cool, and immersive, and rewarding.

Like I said, I believe we're moving in the right direction, but there's still work to be done.

Balance Issues

1. Ineffective specials:
   
   
   
   1. Combo 1 and 2 are still useless skills. There is no reason that anyone would want to spread their damage over multiple pools. One suggestion is to have these skills apply multiple debuffs to the target in a single attack. Blind/Stun for example. The combo attacks should have a better chance of "sticking" the special than you get with the unarmed brawler skills.
      
   2. Body Hit and Leg hit don't do enough damage to be worth using at the level they are received. They need to have their damage multiplier increased. Another recommendation would be to add a brawler debuff or posture change attack effect to the pool-targeting skills to make them more desireable.
      
   3. Unarmed Hit 3 uses too much HAM for the damage it does. The general consensus is that UH2 is a better skill overall due to the efficiency. Suggest reducing the HAM cost for UH3 or having the skill grant you a +1 bonus to your attack's AP rating.
      
   4. There are reports of our (TKA) knockdowns not working often enough compared to ranged KDs. Melee knockdowns of all types should be more effective in general than ranged KDs.
      
   5. We feel that the SpinAttack skills are not really useful against mobs you fight at TKM level. SpinAttack2 should be useful for fighting multiple end-game mobs. Suggest looking at the damage and HAM costs for balance.
      
   6. FoW as it is on TC is not a satisfactory change. Assuming that FoW is going to stay more or less in it's current form, we have a number of requests for alterations working within the the skill's present format. Our concerns and suggested remedies are presented here in order if importance:
      
      
      
      1. 1 hour timer is too long
         
         
         
         • Concern: This will kill the skill. Many people would prefer to have the skill remain as it is rather than have a 1 hour timer on the skill. This is not to say that people do not want the skill improved. I’m just trying to illustrate how strongly people oppose the 1 hour timer.
           
         • Remedy: Adjust the timer to 15 minutes. A 15 minute timer will get you out of a bad situation once, but you couldn't use it more than once in a regular battle. A compromise here would be to run the timer so a TKA with master med would have a 30 minute timer, while a TKM would have a 15 min timer. This is a deal-killer. Keep the 1 hour timer and the reaction will be highly negative.
         
         
      2. Battle Fatigue is too harsh
         
         
         
         • Concern: The 300 wounds we can deal with, but the way it’s currently set up, you have a 40% chance of incurring BF when using the skill. People feel that it’s an unnecessary and unreasonable penalty. We’d incur more battle fatigue for avoiding death than for actually being killed.
           
         • Remedy: Remove BF as a penalty. Why should you get battle fatigue for avoiding death? This is also an extremely important point. BF=Downtime, and there seems to be no real need to have this in there anyway. At the very least, the BF needs to be drastically reduced. 10-15 BF would be an acceptable annoyance. 100 BF is prohibitive.
         
         
      3. 5 minute HAM penalty is too long
         
         
         
         • Concern: A 600 point HAM penalty for 5 minutes is actually worse than 300 wounds. With master meditation, we have a reasonably expedient way to deal with wounds. In contrast a 600 point penalty for 5 minutes seems overly harsh to most players.
           
         • Remedy: Reduce the HAM penalty timer from 5 minutes to 1 minute. You could leave this unchanged and not face open revolt, but it does seem overly harsh.
         
         
      4. No potential for an exceptional result.
      
      
      
      
      
      
      • Concern: There's no fun upside potential. All those penalties, and no possibility of a superior result.
        
      • Remedy: Add the possibility of a superior success. We'd like there to be a 3%-4% chance that using the skill will heal you up fully, rather than equalizing your stats. This would not heal wounds, just HAM damage, and would be for TKMs only. This is not as important as points 1 and 2, but would not greatly alter the power of the skill, and would make the TKAs happy.
   
   
2. Limited weapon selection: The primary problem here is that kinetic damage is our only option. We need to be able to deal with a greater variety of creatures/resists. Suggestions include a cold damage weapon, heat damage weapon, stun gauntlets, etc. Another problem created by the lack of weapon choices is that unarmed brawlers working towards TKN have a really rough time. They should get some options like brass knuckles, combat gloves, etc. Another suggestion here would be that TKAs could self-buff to do different damage types. Allowing this only while truly unarmed (no VKs) might also satisfy the gameplay request for a reasonable alternative to VKs.
   
3. Many of us still feel helpless trying to use melee skills in PvP because of Kiting. We recognize that ranged attacks have an inherent advantage, but we would like some way of catching up to a kiter. Suggestion include a "stick" command or a mini-burstrun ability. We don't want it to be easy to catch a kiter, just possible. You could balance the skill with HAM costs/timers/footspeed. Of course, this skill, whatever it may be, should be given to all brawlers.
   
4. Lack of truly high-end VKs: A related problem is the lack of optional, high-end components for VKs. Rancor teath replace as opposed to augment a critical part of the VK. Rancor teeth seem to be the VK version of Kryat tissues, so either rancor teeth need to be seriously buffed in terms of the bonuses they give, or they need to be made an optional component in the VK schematic, instead of a replacement part. Is there any way to get an "uber" VK, similar to the 700 dmg 0.3 speed FWG5 everyone is talking about?
   
5. HAM Regen while Meditating: We would like some modest boost to HAM regen while in meditation. A popular suggestion would be to add our meditation score to our regen stats while meditating. The boost would be modest, but would help the med line be more appealing.


6. Allow us to meditate while in combat, and regardless of any states applied to us. Often times we need to retreat to heal poison or disease, but can't because we can't peace out, even if the mob is targeting another player at the time.

Gameplay Issues

1. We'd like to have the VK combat animations fixed. Right now you hold a VK in one hand, but all your attacks receive the VK bonus. Turning it into a "pair" of VKs and not having kicks be a part of VK attack animations would help some of the immersion problems created by VKs
   
2. Many of us still don't like using VKs at all. We'd like some way to feel that we didn't need to use them to compete damage wise. Something along the lines of bare fists doing stun damage, or some other lateral advantage for being truly unarmed would help.
   
3. We'd like the game to make greater use of the varied combat animations we presently have. Right now we seem to only use a few of our animations unless we're doing a special.
   
4. We'd like the option to toggle off the "red ribbons" for specials
   
5. We'd like the option to toggle off the auto defend AI
   
6. We'd like TKA-specific animations and emotes, like Katas and a martial-arts sound for warcry.
   
7. We'd like the combat system to be more immersive. This is a big request, but a dev mentioned somthing about the possibility of a combo system, where stringing multiple moves together in a particular would become important. We'd like to know the status of that.
   
8. We'd like TKA-Specific quests. Some kind of epic mind/body adventure where you quest for some forgotten lore of the ancient Teras Kasi deep in the hidden mountains. The reward could be something like a schematic for a legendary component that you could place in a VK (instead of the rancor teeth perhaps).
   
9. Please allow us to initiate meditation while running. The "you cannot meditate while running" message is very annoying.

Bugs

1. If you KD an opponent, and then hit him with another KD, he will immediately get right up, even if dizzy.
   
2. Power Boost
   
   
   
   1. PowerBoost can cause an incap when you use it or when it wears off. We recommend that a message be displayed when you try to use PB and don't have enough mind telling you that you don't have enough pool points to do that. We also recommend that the PB downer take you to a minimum of 1 pool point, rather than incapping you.
      
   2. You can super-buff yourself by using PB and getting killed/cloning and then using PB again over and over again.
      
   3. If PowerBoost wears off while you are incapped, you get stat bugs with a lowering of your stats that you can't fix unless you log off for a while.
      
   4. If you apply buffs after you have Powerboosted when the Powerboost wears off, your Health and Action return to their pre-buffed values. They do regen back up to their maximum it's only the current value that drops.
   
   
3. Unarmed Combo 2 is registering 1 point of damage done to the target.
   
4. No accuracy bonus for being at Optimum range. At 1M we should have a bonus to hit, but it seems like we're still getting negative modifiers.
   
5. It seems that the scout "creature to hit bonuses" apply only to ranged attackers. Want to make sure they apply to melee as well.
   
6. Berserk Does not show up in the combat queue.
   
7. We have reports of people being stuck in the meditate state upon logging in if they logout while meditating
   
8. Dizzy only works on creatures with 2 legs. Need to know if this is as intended.
   
9. Dizzy, stun, intimidate, blind, etc. prevent meditation. Need to know if this is as intended.
   
10. HAM bars do not display properly when using power boost. If you take damage, your HAM bar won't go down until you dip below your pre-boost levels. Wearing armor may exacerbate this problem.
    
11. Attempting a posture change to your current posture (e.g. trying to stand while standing) will cause you to fall over if dizzy.
    
12. If you initiate combat with a debuff or status effect, your combat queue may forget the command and you initiate combat without executing the command. Noticed most with Inimidate, Warcry, and Taunt. If you initiate combat with any of these skills, the skill is not executed but you begin combat.
    
13. Power Boost buffs (on TC) decrease when you use any specials.


14. UC1 and UC2 both have a 2.5 damage multiplier. Is this intended? Is there some other thing that UC2 does better than UC1 which justifies the two skills doing the same damage?

Wishlist

1. Many of us would like a Dojo, either as a player owned building or as a class-specific theme park type of thing (combat the rival Dojo).
   
2. It'd be cool if we could choose each individual "per hit" attack animation wile attacking.
   
3. When /if the Dev's implement the combo move combat system, we'd like there to be cool, unique animations for each combo.
   
4. We'd like some new animations for some skills. Perhaps a flying kick for lunge 2, and throws or flips for the knockdown moves.

Whew!

Great post Mr. H

When it comes to VKs - I don't like having anything in my hand at all! Or maybe i would - But i think the design of VKs are booring!

Iwould suggest, in new additions to the VKs:

- A pair of gloves... They could be made of Iron! Being wearable as handwear but work as weapon too! Would be cool.... U could also add some small spikes to the edges of the gloves..... Wolverine style

- There should be a set of VKs in each hand! What about small knifes, the TKA holds in each hand?

Other Requests i have:

- As it is now, i love to do the things i relate to TKA. This is a proffesion i think, is just as cool as jedi! But i think it's limited to how much diffrent Role Playing freedom, and uniqe look we are getting from, stuff like emotes and clothes. When it comes to emotes, i love to use /Bow2 and /Meditate! When it comes to clothes, i wear stuff like Pantaloons, A skirt, Sandals, no shirt and the likes. Maybe some jewels! I would like to see more content, in any form added to TKA! Emotes, clothes, items!

- When i first got to TKA novice, i thought sinse, we are using unarmed combat to get here - We shouldn't have any weapons to use! But i gotta admit. I see Teras Kasi Artist as an martial Arts, an order or something! I think it would be great if you guys would help add, maybe an uniqe looking weapon to the tree somewhere!Maybe somehow an advanced bow, really diffrent and visualy diffrent looking VKs or maybe some kind Mace or something! The TKAs could even get certs for craft themselfs, for showing their honor and respect to the order of the TKA!

- Im one of does who love the red blur the TKAs have with their specials! Do you think it would be possible to add a feature so we could pick other colors, for greater visual freedom? Så the blur/riboonns could be blue instead?

- As an TKA, im really lost when i need to buy some clothes! Cause it just ain't looking right with some Hotpants and a heavy reinforced jacket! Have u guys ever thought about creating a head band? Maybe something in the lines of a decoration vest? Or some armor too..... Samurai kind of like!

- When you are going into combat, your character makes some animations, while he waits for the enemy to come near him, and attack him. It looks like when a boxer is warming up! A boxer like mike tyson, but IMO shouldn't TKA feel like that. I think it would be cool if you guys added some more bruce lee, fast moving kind of animations, with hands moving around in diffrent karate positions!

And i