Teras Kasi Archive

1) Knockdown: I understand the need for balance, but it seems that the new cost should be reduced at least by a third to allow for misses.

2) Getting a 1281 mind shot still angers me, but I understand the penalty in ranged.

3) More than stick, I'm just having problems getting in range to some attackers. Especially when fighting on terrain.

4) Meditation works well.

5) Specials seem to be doing increased damage, but I've also noticed monsters are stunning and intimidating me much more often, making yellow cons much harder than before.

Good Job Thunderwulf.

Basically i don't think soe knows how to make a game without level system. I mean really being stuck with 1050 hp and fighting monsters that do well over 300damage and having8k -11k hpdoesn't make since. I could see if we had some sort of dodge and block. But we don't!

1. Knockdown Nerf. Ok the HAM cost is way to big. And which is worst, it damages all HAM pools at the same rate. It would have been significantly better if it would just damage one or two HAM bars, but not all. Another thing, without the nerf if you missed knockdown couple times you would be hit hard and could be kill in 2-3 hits from the mob, which I think is more than enough trouble already as it was. I would say increase the knockdown defense on mobs. Higher con, more resistance to our knockdown but dont nerf it.
   
2. Are defensive skills working? No idea.
   
3. /stick command. Well would be nice to have like a /trip command where you can trip the oponnent when he tries to run away...this doesnt necessarily have to work as a knockdown just make him stop and fight in a spot. And would be nice to give humanoids some sort of AI that will tell him that if he has been tripped lets say twice or so, to not run away again and stay put, keep shooting or take a melee weapon out to fight. It makes sense they would behave like that.
   
4. Meditation branch. It doesnt help while fighting so I think thats not the main concern of any TK at this point.
   
5. Specials. Why have specials if we cant use them? I think there shouldnt be HAM cost if you succesfully hit a creature with a special...in any case..if you fail a special then you get damage for missing. In the meditation skill tree you guys could put a modifier for special attacks...like for each level have something like "Special Attack +15". There shouldnt be HAM cost at all for any profession if you succesfully do a special with a certified weapon. If you dont use a cerfified weapon then the HAM damage listed on the weapons should apply for using that weapon, and if you miss the special with a a non-certified weapon then the HAM damage should be greater.


6. And for PVP....just half the damage for everyone...that way the battles will take longer and more fun...instead of just running in and get blasted in one shot. One thingis PVE and another thing is PVP, dont go nerfing stuff all around.

Thunderwulf, I think the list is right on the money, for the most part. (#3)

1. Knockdown - I'll be the first to admit yet, before the patch it was a little over powered, but I think their solution went in the wrong direction. Hell, i dont even mind paying the 657HAM cost of KD using VK, well I do a little, but I really hate losing over 200HAM w/o VK. Maybe if the cost was around 100-120, and even a timer I would be satisfied with that.

2. Defensive Stat Mods- I still haven't really noticed any changes in this area, I only have 2 boxes of defense maybe its only effective at Master, but should that be the case?

3. Stick Command &/OR Hitting while moving - All i have to say is this, Ill be damned if a man can run away from me, turn his head over his shoulder while holding a big ass rifle with one hand, and shoot me accurately, yet I cant swing an empty fist while moving...stick command, I think so. I'm not gonna flame or yell nerf on rifleman, but to me, a rifleman is some one who attacks far away for big damage while standing still, preferable prone.

4. Meditation Branch - If it were any slower at lower levels it would be inert. Suggestion would be at master to help with wounds as well as some minor regeneration of stats, and make lower levels more effective.

5. Specials - I'm not if it was just me or what, but I used Dizzy, Blind, Stun, on a rock mite, and I still seemed to be getting hitjust as much as I was before I used them on it,..again maybe its just me.

Thats it. Keep up the good work TW.

1) I don't see the problem with the KD nerf unless I'm wearing my knuckles. I've just come to the conclusion that the VK's are not officially useless so I no longer use them. Once the VK's are off I can spam KD a dozen times with out much HAM costs. (The costs are about the same as I was getting with KD with my VK's on before the NERF).

2) This is a good question. I don't think any of the defensive skills do anything right now.

3) /StickA large majority of the melee classes have in one form or another requested a /stick command. Currently melee classes have 2 choices in battle. Predict the movement of the player/NPC and attempt to get far enough ahead of them so that we can stop wait for the player/NPC to arrive and use a hit then repeat the process. This doesn’t work so well in cities where player lag is huge because everyone and their brother have their large pets out. The second method we have for tracking down our enemies is the /follow command. /follow is a great command however at it’s core it’s meant for following a leader on your way out to do a mission and as such it doesn’t serve us well in combat. The reason is simply that when follow is applied your velocity is set to that of the object you are following until it stops moving in which case you slowly close in. Now I’m sure the engineers on the team can demonstrate how two objects that move at the same velocity with out any outside force will never be able to meet. This is our problem; we do not have a reliable method of taking on enemies that move. Let me describe how the /stick command should work. Once /stick is applied your players velocity should be set to your targets velocity. From that point on your players velocity should increase until your maximum running velocity is reached. This will allow players to “close in” on a creature. Also of note for this command to work propperly all the distances would have to be based on what the server has rather than what you see on your client end. The lag between server and client is often just enough to let something escape our grasp when we are truely with in range.

I see /stick being an absolute MUST HAVE for all brawler derrived professions. It can be done and has been done in other MMO's and would make brawler classes actually useable in PvP.

4) Meditation? Nothings really wrong with this in my opinion it does what it does. I don't see a problem or need to fix anything in the meditation tree.

5)Specials. If we aren't supposed to use more than one or two specials in a brawl that's all fine and dandy but I've now hit Master Power techniques in the TKA tree and if I don't beserk I do an average of 300 dammage each hit. Beserk before the patch got me about an average of 550 dammage. Now I get an average of about 400 dammage. Not worth going beserk IMHO. The developers have stated on multiple occasions that if we TKA's get in on a combatiant they should be dead, well sorry dev's but if all I can do is an average of 300 dammage on NPC's and you've reduced the PvP dammage by 75% that means I can do an average of 75 dammage per hit to any player I take on in PvP. Do the math, to take out a wookiee with a blaster I'd have to attack their 1300 Health aproximately 18 times to kill them. How exactly to I stay in range of someone to attack them that many times with out a stick command? And even with a stick command.....18 hits is just not going to cut it. Now my power moves hit for an average of 550 dammage but that's still not alot of dammage 137 by my calculation. That's a significant increase but we can only do that 2-3 times in a fight and we can't miss. So if lucks on my side and I preform 3 specials I now have done aproximately 411 dammage to the wookiees health and he now has 889 health left. Now it will take me aproximately 12 more hits to kill this wookiee. So at best we need to hit our PvP opponent at least 15 times to take them down while they attempt to kite us. That's not an implementation of "If you get close enough they are dead". How can this be fixed? Well the way I see it is if we are supposed to not use more than one or two specials in a fight then we basically need our base attack power increased. If we are supposed to be able to use more than a 2-3 specials in battle then we need the HAM costs for these reduced. Simple.

TKA's come along way since I started playing SWG. I wonder if any of the sony dev's have attempted to play the class as of late. It's not all powerful as it once was, and although we have been known to do some dammage in the past it's because we NEED to do that ammount of dammage. We don't have the ability to sit off in the distance and shoot things with blasters we go head first into our battles and as we are using our abilities we are taking dammage to our mind/health/action pools. If a fight lasts for too long we'll eventually run out of one and be dead. All the nerfs to our strength and other nerfs to other abilities such as beserk have really taken the class down from being one of the most powerful classes to where we are no longer an effective class. I beg any of the sony dev's to create a new TKA character with all the new stats and other modifications that have gone on. Slap on a pair of decent vibro knuckles and head off into the world to do a few missions solo. I fully understand SWG isn't ment to be played solo, however if you play in a group you'll neverfully understandwhat we are complaining about. And lets face it you can't be grouped 100% of the time. Play a little PvP with some real players not the in house testers. Let some of the more experianced players on some of the servers kite you for a few miles as you attempt to slug it out with them, participate in the glactic battle zones and you will without a doubt see what the entire melee community is upset about. I don't believe our requests are unreasonable, if you can add in gun twirling and other misc jargon for pistoleers than you can fix the problems every melee class has complained about since day 1.

#1 and 5 canbe fixed by changing the skill tree into something that relates more to real life martial arts. Let me explain:

Martial arts consists of both offensive moves and defensive moves. Defensive moves are locks, flips, and disarming.... Knockdown would be a defensive move. Yes, we should be able to keep an opponent in the prone position but, in the intrest of game play, wethe knockdown move should do very little if any damage. Offensive moves,like combos and spin attacks, should be our primary damage dealers and should be usable at a low HAM cost. Lower HAM cost is countered by doing somewhat less damage per attack but with higher wound damage (breaks, sprains, rupturing nerve clusters). This would mean that a TKA would take longer to drop a MOB than a swordsman or gun user. The only way this will be viable is to raise our defenses.

#2 Defense

A martial artist does not become tougher (able to absorb more damage)-- especially in the world of blasters and lightsabers. Martial artists make it a point to AVOID damage! They patiently defend until an opportunity to strike presents itself. We are NOT beserkers by any stretch of the imagination. Dodges and blocks should be our primary defense... not 1000 health, chiton, and a good medic behind us.

#4 Meditation

Meditation in real life improves your focus and allows you to block out distractions. In the game it can do pretty much the same thing. After meditating, focus and willpower can be buffed a set amount for a limited amount of time thus reducing HAM costs and increasing mental replentishment. It could possibly have a very small affect on reducing BF, stopping bleeding (which it does now), and regenerating damage (not wounds.... I've never meditated to fix a broken arm before... have you?). Can't really make it use any other experience BUT unarmed or it would take you no time to get to level for as you AFK meditated.

#3 /stick

Works in DAOC, server desynchs and all... why not here?

Sorry if this seems a little rushed, as I am writing this at work.

Ciao',

Patina

Issue 1.
Understanding martial arts:

Teras Kasi is a martial art is it not? I think of a TKA Master as an elite martial artist. Ones of legendary pruportion like Wong Fei-Hong(kung Fu master), Tamo (and other Shaolin Monks), Hong Hi Choi (Tae Kwon Do), Jigoro Kano (founder of modern Judo), Morihei Ueshiba (aka O Sensei, founder of Aikido), and the ever popular Bruce Lee.

The thing is that all of these men were masters in their type of martial arts, but the one thing they had in common is that they believe that martial arts should not be a display of brute force or strength. Rather, by using techniques that put an emphasis on precision, strategy, and the ever important efficiancy of striking, or throwing (depending on what martial art you are looking at), mental discipline, and continuous action.


Issue 2.
The First Flaw:
The first flaw in TKA is that there is not enough specials, say what you will but if you have ever tried to learn more than 1 kind of martial art, you will know that they all have moves unique to that type of martial art.


The Second Flaw:
From punches and kicks to throws and blocks, each has their own style, and ways of movement. But defense is always the key. Efficiancy in movement and physical energy are also major rolls in ALL martial arts. If your mind is not in focus you will not be able to strike as efficiantly or accurately.

The Third Flaw:
MEDITATION!!!
Meditation is the key to mastering almost any martial art. Think of it as clearing your mind, the putting 100% of your focus into your surroundings and body. Some masters have been reported to be so focused that they could see the Chi of others. Some may call this the Force, and therefore TKA would have an unfair advantage into the FS slot bla bla bla.

There is many legendary stories of artists having extraordinary amounts of strength and speed. Being able to heal ones wounds with using only thier minds.



Suggestions:
1. Do not hit up the action pool when a TKA is fighting, instead tax their minds.
2. Having said that Meditation should be much more efficiant, and should heal mind wounds, action wounds, and battle fatigue.
3. Meditation should improve with practice. It is very hard to become a master of your mind
4. Meditation/Mind should have a direct correlation with how much damage is done, how much damage is recieved from other objects, and how much damage is done to self.
5. TKA should be very hard to master and take a long time, needing much xp, but when it is mastered a TKA should take little action damage when performing moves, and meditation should work with almost medic proportions.


I know I will be flamed for saying this, but it just shows how little those people know about martial arts, but here it goes...

TKA is not not, nor should it be a "tank class"
TKA is not for everyone, in fact the way TKA should be would turn a lot of people away.

TKA should be almost as hard, if not equal to master as is Jedi. If I remember correctly I think I read somewhere that the TKA were trained to take on Jedi, therefore they should have the ability to defend from force manuvers, and the skill of a Jedi. Just about anyone can be a grate shot, but it take nearly a lifetime to learn how to truely master ones self, and one cannot truely master a martial art without truely mastering themselves.

TKA Master should be the 2nd greatest skill (right below Jedi) in the game, and should be mastered accordingly. TKA Master should be able to be fully self reliant.

This is my opinonion. TKA should appeal to a certain kind of person. To truely appriciate what TKA has to offer I think that skill and knowlege of real life martial arts is a must. Many people would not be willing to be TKA if the amount of work to get there was proportionate to how it is in real life.


PS
Please ignor the large amounts of spelling erors

There is not much I can say that hasn't been said before.

I just want to add my name to the ever growing list that is NOW eagerly awaiting WoW and FFXI

I myself spoke to a lot of TKA masters that are now going down the Bounty Hunter path. Is this what they wanted? A game with nothing but ranged, dirty players? Why did they even add TKA?

I used to love coming home from a long day of work ad beating the crap out of some creatures. Now I find it hard to log in.

I give them a couple weeks and then if even half our concerns are not addressed, I am done. Maybe toss KOTOR again for a second try. I do not feel like we are being heard.

Hi there,

Basically the problem in terms of balance isnt as much the knockdown as it is the dizzy effect.

Remove dizzy from the game, and put knockdown on a 3 second timer.

Remove vibroknucklers from the game and add 50% more dammage to all unarmed hits.

Add +5,+10+15+20 to range defense in the 4 meditation boxes, and +5,+5,+10, +10 to md in the balance tree.

Yes we are crippled a bit in our offensive parts, but knockdown2 was way way overpowered.

I am not kidding when i say that at 0-4-4-4 i could solo the whole tusken bunker. (3 wars,3 snipers,6 savages,6 guards, 5 elite guards and 1 king. king killed me 50% of the time though)

Thiswas way overpowered and needed to get fixed. Tka does not need to own anyone bigtime, but on the other hand we must not be at a severe disadvantage against almost all range classes.

And those range classes will also be more moderate with the no dizzy/knockdown timer solution.

as for the defenses the other melee classes probly need something similar.

Or at least they need to get fixed their line defenses (dodge,block and counterattack) because they are surely not working as intended.

flame away

/Frank

- ALL of my specials now take WAY too much HAM for the dmg they do. The dmg was fine the way it was. Don't mess with the dmg. Leave it alone. What needs to be fixed is the HAM cost. Put it back. It's rediculous now.

- Knockdown, Not even something I can use now. I do more harm to myself than to my opponent. I end up killing myself! How fun or effective is that?

I did a test today after the patch. Had a friend let me duel him. He's a marksman but unequiped his gun so we could fight hand to hand. Hey has NO unarmed skill what so ever. I died before he did. Nuff said!

The HAMS are being taxed WAY too hard! Please address this ASAP!

1. Knockdown Nerf

- I've been playing for months, and was in the beta. For a long time, the only special move I ever used was Berserk, because the HAM costs for everything else just weren't worth it. Then I discovered Knockdown and was very pleased. Finally a Special Move that was worth it! It allowed me to actually be dangerous. I could take out fairly tough critters, and even handle two 'whites'at a time. Sure, I was still no match for a Tusken Captain or Warlord, but at least I could face a (single) Dragonet and live to tell about it. Well, not anymore. I'm quite bummed. I don't think Knockdown needed nerfing, quite honestly. All it did before was allow me to play solo when I wanted to. Is there really anything wrong with that? I'd suggest putting the HAM costs back the way they were. At least that way my friend might play again.

2. Defensive skills

- What defensive skills? We have defensive skills?

4. Meditation Branch

- I think meditation isn't broken, per se, but it's certainly the last branch I considered climbing. I think there should be more perqs/skills in the branch. I think you should be able to heal BF if you're good enough. I think progression towards wound healing shouldn't be so slow (e.g. allow very slow wound healing at mod 30). And I think Force of Will should allow Res'ing once in a while. Oh, and meditation masters should float 1m off the ground when meditating.

Ssmilak, TK Expert on Ahazi

Alright here's how I feel about the top five:

1, Knockdown nerf: There has to be some kind of change made. The HAM costs would be alright with me, if I could notice a significant increase in damage for a period after the creature is knocked down. As it goes right now, I notice a damage increase for the first couple of hits and then no more. Other possible solution for this is to have dizzy+lunge work on creatures. I have been experimenting with it, and I know that combo works on humaniods but not on creatures. If I am wrong on that one, someone let me know. I do like the thought of kd costing less ham the higher level of balance you are. As TKs, you can almost see a belt progression as in martial arts. A lower level belt in teh real world can pull off techniques a black belt can, but are not as effective.

2. Are defensive skills working? Not to my knowledge. Ever see Bruce Lee just stand there and take punishment w/o doging? You ever see a boxer not throw up his arms to fend a blow? Something to think about. It might be hard to implement right now, but definitely something to work on down the road.

3. /stick command: I personally think that melee fighters should be able to run faster than our ranged brothers. Melee fighters depend upon their body. Sure they can use weapons also, a five year old can hold a sword. Am I scared of the five year old with a sword, or the guy who has conditioned his body to use that sword. Am I scared of a five year old with a gun. You can flame me but yes, if that five year old knows how to pull the trigger and has the gun pointed at me. Range fighters should not be able to run circles around any melee fighter. Another thing about that, is the fact that they should not be able to use specials on the run. I am in the military. I am a marksman shooter, but I would of never been able to get a good score if I ran in circles around my target.

4. Meditation Branch: Don't see a problem with it. TKs in the EU were able to draw upon the force from the inside. The fact that it takes master to get the perks of meditation is something I can live with. The only problem, that I can see with it, is the power boost. I've used it only once, didn't like it and moved on. Its really not my style to use something like that, so I am not the best one to talk about it.

5. Specials: They are cool to look at. I disagree with what the devs said about specials(not stringing them together and such). We shouldn't be able to spam our entire box, but we should be able to string together some attacks that make sense. If a real life fighter used combo after combo, they would indeed get tired. KD should be very accurate if you were able to string the leg hit with it. I haven't seen a major damage jump in specials that makes me jump out and want to use them. Its just a natural progession of fighting that would allow us to chain 2-3 attacks together with the end result of target on its back for a few seconds.

Anyway that's my thoughts and feelings. Nothing radical or anything that hasn't been said. Just wanted to give my support Thunder. I know that you are doing the best you can. Keep up the good work Thunder; it will pay off for us all sometime down the road.

WHY CAN'T WE ATTACK WHILE MOVING ?

sorry just had to scream that.. come on a rifleman fires backwards while he runs at full speed and I can't attack ?