Teras Kasi Archive
Thread: A TKA Master's informed letter/plea to the developers concerning the lack of melee viability in pvp
I usually don't post here, but the recent changes to my class have frustrated me(an understatement) to the point of posting this is desperation that the Devs will read it and do something for us. I know that the devs will never read this, that this post will lost in the millions of other posts complaining about this or that, but I need to get my frustration out. I have been playing a TKA since beta. Please, developers, if you read this, take this plea post to heart. We need something done, and soon.
My class: Master TKA, Master Brawler, Master Footwork(fencing line), expert exploration(scouting line)
Here are a list of the major tka changes in the last major patch:
***A massive increase in damage, basically 50% more damage per hit
-A step in the right direction. We needed the extra damage to compensate for the PvP damage reduction. Still not enough though. Most players wear amour now. Using your best tka specials at master level, our damage per hit is only 150-300, depending on what type of amour they wear. In order to do ANY damage at all, we need to be close and have a ranged person stay still long enough to land them--difficult as you all know. A ranged profession does just as much damage, if not more, than a master tka, and can shoot while running. Eyeshot for example. My fights in PvP typically go like this:
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Me:
/lunge2
[..try to get close to prone body, stand over body, get *TARGET OUT OF RANGE*]
[Run around the body spamming /unarmedknockdown2 in a fruitless attempt to get a hit in]
*Ranged person gets up and spams eyeshot/bleed*
Get hit for 300 damage, 250 damage. 350 damage, 280 damage. 300 damage. I get incaped
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So the extra damage, while it helps, means nothing when we can't actually get a hit in. All the damage in the world means nothing when we never have a chance to use it.
Next major change:
**KD TIMER
When talking only about Knockdown, this change is livable. Currently, the dizzy aspect of /unarmedknockdown2 DOES NOT WORK. You land a knockdown in and they get up 3 seconds later with a Kite-You-for-30seconds card. To make dizzy stick, you have to dizzy them first THEN use /unarmedknockdown1 or /unarmedknockdown2. Livable, except isn't the point of /unarmedknockdown2 the dizzy + KD? Landing a dizzy first just means its harder to pin a ranged down long enough to land any hits in. Dizzy itself is borked. Previously, you could use dizzy to keep a person prone for about a minute, but since the patch, a person who is dizzy and knocked down gets up in about 10 seconds(if your lucky and it sticks).
Now on the other hand, consistent spamming of ranged knockdowns has been eliminated--a good thing. I think the developers overcompensated on this nerf however. the KD nerf was aimed at ranged yet hit the melee the hardest.
**LUNGE TIMER
This is by far my biggest complaint. Lunge was our only defense against ranged classes. Any ranged profession can shoot us from 64m. On the other hand, melee have to be standing still and less than 5m to hit a person. Lunge was the move that gave us a fighting change against ranged classes. If we managed to get within 15m, we could spam it enough to pin them down--long enough for us to inch close enough to kill them. usually, you had to spam it 4 or five times to compensate for latency between server and client. You often found that body of the person you standing beneath your feet was indeed 10m away. Lunge could be used enough to get a fix on the actual location of the person. The ability to *root* a person with Lunge by spamming it was fair tradeoff considering large ham requirements of lunge and the paltry 1 damage it does.
Since the lunge timers, melee has been pure hell as a TKA Master. It has pretty much destroyed my PvP viability against any ranged profession. It used to be that at 15m, I could pin a ranged opponent down long enough to compensate for *Out of Range* lag error that smack all melee classes in the head. Yesterday, I chased a novice pistoleer for 3 minutes around bestine city before he killed me. I ran 4m behind him the entire time. Every time I managed to get a /lunge2 in, I could not hit his body, as I got a *TARGET OUT OF RANGE* error, although I was standing on him when it said this--this happens 95% of the time when I lunge
To exacerbate matters, Lunge is on the same timer as KD, meaning that if by some act of God you use /lunge2 and the server updates your opponent’s knocked-down position correctly, you cannot use /unarmedknockdown2 to keep them down long enough to get a hit in. You lunge them and then they get up in few seconds and run away—without you even getting a hit in, then they have 30 second immunity to any posture changes.
Our only defense against ranged professions(other than becoming a ranged class yourself) is to lunge. Lunge 1 does one posture change. If you successfully use it, it forces a ranged class to kneel two seconds, before giving them a Kite-You-Free card for 30 seconds. Combine this with our inability to hit classes while we move(yes I know you can get in a couple paltry swings if you run in front of a person when chasing them).
Lunge 1 is completely worthless now. Lunge 2 on the other hand does a full KD, not just a posture change. The problem is that when you Lunge2 someone, they are NEVER in the spot that you knocked them down at. Before the lunge timer, you could use lunge 1 or lunge 2 to pin a person down, long enough to compensate for the delay between server and client position--in other words you could root them in one spot long enough to actually start hitting them.
***WARCRY BROKEN!
One of our best PvP tools, Warcry, has been broken since the KD timer patch. It was a vital melee skill, especially when chasing a ranged person. For the uninformed, Warcry used to delay your opponent’s next attack for about 20 seconds, giving you a bit more breathing space to try and catch your opponent, without eating laser. Warcry does nothing now.
THE MELEE CONUDRUM
The crux of the melee problem is not the damage we do, but our inability to close the gap of distance between a ranged person and a melee. Giving TKAs more damage means NOTHING at all if you rarely have the opportunity to even hit your opponent. Giving us more defense means nothing at all(in PvP that is). It just means that ranged classes will kite you longer. I do like the idea of a /tank skill, but I think its usefulness lies more in the area of pve than PvP. TKAs need a ROOT special. We need something that holds our opponent down long enough to actually get close. Our inability to attack while moving has been in the game since beta. At this point, I think its endemic to the game code, and the devs won't be able to fix it. Lunge functioned as a ROOT skill of sorts--before the KD timer. Give us a skill that root a person down for say 30 seconds. The skill doesn't have be as debilitating as KD was--the person can shoot back but can't move for example. I know that people will say TKA must be mixed with a ranged profession--and I agree to a point. But melee SHOULD be able to compete with ranged in some way, without having to master another profession. Especially up close. Currently, we are completely inept when fighting ranged, even up close--which is supposed to be our specialty.
SUGGESTIONS to DEVS:
-Fix dizzy on /unarmedknockdown2. Please! Please! Please! If the dizzy sticks, and the person stays down, it gives us more PvP viability.
-Fix Dizzy: It used to keep a posture changed person down for a while.
-Give us some way to attack while moving. Our inability to do so, practically handicaps us, especially with our lunge specials worthless since the timer.
-Give melee classes a Root or Stun skill, something that can replace our recently emasculated Lunge moves. As a whole, we relied on that skill, and its absence has left us terribly debilitated. More damage is good, more defense is good, more specials are good, but these are minor when compared to the lunge issue. Or at the very last take /lunge off the 30 second timer!
-For the love of God, FIX WARCRY ASPA!
It's nice to not be one of the few demanding that things be changed. Say it like it is Brother Tyral.
Liriel Baenre
Hmm.. how about giving the leg-hit the "rooting" ability, kinda like using pressure points - mess em up enough so that they can hardly move. I'm all for that. Of course if you cant catch them to get it on them, well, here we go again.
I've ranted this subject over and over and all I can come up with is... "what were they thinking?"
A simple "we're sorry, we screwed up, we'll fix it in a week" would be great to hear.
If this ever gets fixed I encourage an OPEN DIALOGUE with the players before you implement it, because quite simply put, I no longer trust thegame designersto come up with a solution that will make any sense at all. They've proven that several times over to me.
As an experienced MMORPGplayer, I'm disappointed in the direction SWG is taking to address melee verse ranged combat PvP.
Beyond the terms of balancingdamage, special moves, combinations, etc ... the fact that melee can not /stick to opponents as well as fight while chasing an opponent delivers what appears to be an archaiccombat systems that is behind the curve compared to most other games of the same genre.
Considering client/server design, a /stick system should be in place to adjust forlatency factors and not expect the human at the controls to compensate for code and Internet traffic. Expecting the players to accomodate for game latency seems an odd way in delivering a game system that can be enjoyed by everyone.
The fact that ranged players can constantly run aroundpullling melee characterswith very little risk of being stationary but for more of a few seconds seems to dictate that the SWG combat environment is about running scared with a laser in your hand. If this is not the case, please educate us on how we as melee professionsare supposed to participate in PvP outside of a building. Or is the thought that we should only PvP in very small surroundings?
As a developer, what pride can be taken in amelee verse randed PvP combat system that has beendeveloped where the majority of ranged players kite melee characters around in PvP? Take a minute and step back from the game and look at what has been delivered. If you have not already done so, take a view of what other game systems like DAoC and Asheron's call have done regarding these issues.
Not everyone wants to shoot a weapon as a way to enjoy PvP. With many options out in the market for MMORPGs and many more on the way, our comments and complaints which currently sit as electronic bits on a web site with no real impact, translate into real impact down the road when the "new" of SWG wears off and playersstart searching for another game very much like SWG but with a balanced design in PvP for all classes.
Please deliver something more than laser tag.
Oh guyz you are RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT.
Devs pls read this thread andlisten to that suggestions!
A Commando chases a TERAS KASI ARTIST into an ELEVATOR? LOL!That's what they get! ~J
that is an interesting twist and a good idea reguarding fixing ranged fighters.
I do not think that our damage vs players wearing no armor is to small atm, but i have a growing concern as I start to see more and more people wearing armor, finding ways to reduce the penalities of using armor. Players with armor on we do 150 dmg with mind shot, and incure 150 damage to ourselfs to do that. that means as long as that player is shooting us , even standing in one spot we potentialy will lose.
I dueled a master bounty hunter in full composite armor toe to toe 3m away, we aggreed to not use knock downs or posture changes, I am a wookie, and thusI am unable to ever wear armor, and he was a human master bounty hunter in full composite. The outcum was mixed. I won 2 duels he won 1. both duels I won, i finished with less then 100 points in all three categories of mind action health. If I did not use styles I would have died every time.
The part about this duel that worries me, is it was fitted to my best possible senario. somone not kiting me, but letting me hit them. If he was kiting me with his no penalites to shooting me, I would never ever have a chance to survive unless God himself came down and unpluged his computer and unequipted his weapon.
I agree that ranged fighters should have the same disadvantage that pistol has while moving, a big acuracy penality, only makes sense. Armor hopfully will not get too populare, but if it does because of people using armor power ups and ham 35% reducing tricks, then perhaps it needs to be looked at to keep in line with wookies not being able to use the stuff.
Really the only thing that i see that needs to be changed about TKM/TKA atm is due to lag we are always 10m behind our target, while lunge works, nothing else does, range on TKA should be around 10m 8m, not 3m its current state. Our defense should have an increase to meet the demands of tank who doesn't wear armor, but absorbs like wearing full composite ++. we get kited right now, id ether like to see them fix this issue, or simply change our professions name to somthing more fitting. Teras Kite Master.
Also side note* with the timer put on knock downs, it made it so our best knock down is no better then our first one. What i mean is that the knock down +dizzy doesn't work now. If i dont dizzy them on the first try, I Can't dizzy a mob or a player for 30 seconds, so basicly i need to load my actual dizzy style, making the point of having a better knock down mute.