Teras Kasi Archive

Transcription of "Balancing for Dummies"

Hello!

I am Amrien Talfrey, of the Radiant Galaxy, and a Teras Kasi.

Recently I've heard so much about the whole new game wide balancing. And I approved of the idea. Or at least I approved of the idea.

Yet sadly, when most of us hear the word "balance" in reference to out proffession we grow defensive and angry. Why? Because typically, when we are told that our proffessions are going to be balanced, it usually means they are going to be "Nerfed". (With Commandos being the rare exception)

And so now, as Teras Kasi are finding themselves in the crosshairs of your balancing act, we grow worried that we are going to be nerfed, after finally having become evenly matched with the obviously more powerful ranged proffessions.

This would really be a bad idea. Those of us who chose melee chose it because we enjoy it, and not because we were worried about balance or power, (this is excpecially true for Pikeman) and it is obvious, as it is immensly difficult to defeat even a novice of a ranged class.

So I propose this, a way of balancing without having to weaken or "nerf" a proffession, based around the arguments about Teras Kasi.

Here's a few examples...

• Teras Kasi have the meditation line, a powerful set of skills which let them buff themselves and heal their own wounds. This is apparently not fair. (I'd disagree, but that's my personal opinion)

Alright. So is the solution to weaken the Teras Kasi meditation line so that is is more in balance with proffession that don't even have an entire tree deticated to the skill? No.

The trick would be to give other proffession minor abilities emulatory of some of the abilities of the meditation tree. Examples?

• Clip Switch: for Carbineers, this ability would temporarily buff their action for 1000, and would be usable mid combat. It would have a timer between uses, and would last only for about 10-15 seconds. at the end of that time, if the Carbineer still was in combat, the buff would disperse and he'd take the full damage from the combat, likely incapping him, if he was out of combat, it would only reduce him to 1 action.
  -See? That'd make Carbineers love you, and it wouldn't make the Teras Kasi hate you.
  
• Shrug it Off: This mighty ability would be shared by both Swordsman and Bounty Hunters. (who both have poor defences and fit the character of this ability) This ability would be gained at lower levels, with 5 second timer, and slowly grow till 15 seconds. It would have a timer, a long one, about 15-30 minutes, but the ability would allow it's user to during it's duration, completely ignore all effects to it. If dizzied, the dizziness would be ignored, posture effects would be ignored, blindness, even damage would be put off till the end of the duration, though damage would appear to apply normally throughought it's duration, the bounty hunter or swordsman would not be incapped until the end of the duration.
  -See? See? "Love makes the world go round"

Now that wasn't so hard, was it?

Let's have another one shall we?

:digs around in his bag

Here we are...

• Teras Kasi recieve huge bonuses to their damage, that no other class recieves, not even other melees.

I can understand what's going on behind this... i used to be a Pikeman...

Let's review, do we lower the damage of the Teras Kasi to match what we want?

No.

Solution? Why, we balance the other classes to match Teras Kasi...

Teras Kasi Pros and Cons:

• Pros
  -Big Damage
  -Good Specials
  -Good Toughness Related Defences
  -Unique Meditation Line
  
• Cons
  -Single Damage Type
  -Meager AP 1
  -Poor and Broken Defences (Defense Acuity)
  -Melee
  -Only Combat Proffession there is without DOTs

I'd actually say the class is pretty balanced... but perhaps if we have to balance it... Let's give each class a niche, a specialization of sorts, which from henceforth they should perhaps be focuses on.

• Teras Kasi
  -One on One
  -Damage Dealer
  
• Fencer
  -One on One
  -Defence
  
• Swordsman
  -Multi Enemy
  -Damage Dealer
  
• Pikeman
  -Multi Enemy
  -Defence

There, they even fit will! Teras Kasi already are damage dealers, fencers are already huge on defence, swordsman with bleeds ang massive AP weapons have damage, pikeman need a lot of work period.

So... What do we do to make them fit these roles?

• Teras Kasi
  -If they are going to be the big damage dealers, they need more types of damage, and perhaps a single other higher Armor Penetration weapon. Or perhaps, they should recieve an automatic +1 AP at Master, for both weapons and true unarmed.
  -They should lose most of their area attacks, or at least have the weakened, and recieve more one on one attacks, which they already have many of, to help them fill their niche.
  
• Fencers
  -A well built Fencer is untouchable, but when the big ranged+melee defences not stacking anymore patch comes out, then Fencer will be touchable again, thus I suggest they recieve a few more points to Dodge and Defence int he future.
  -While unfamiliar with their specials, I suggest they also focus on One on One combat
  
• Swordsman
  -Increase the general power of their weapons, make them hit big and hard. Give them more types as well.
  -Give lots of area attacks
  
• Pikeman
  -Make Block actually stop an attack, then make them block 4 out of 5 times, and 9 out of 10 with COB.
  -They already have a fair amount of multi attacks, but I suggest an increase.

See?

Was all that so hard to just think through? The hard part now will be of course programming it, but with the sheer complexity of the current state of the game, I'm sure you are entirely capable of working through this.

this is most definately well thought out, but their are some things that you have to look at from the other side.

Ranged, do not get a line as well as meditation, for self-buffing, healing poison, bleeds, etc... but we can't do that mid-battle, can we? If they got an additional boost to action or w/e skill tree, then we would like something we can buff in mid-battle, wouldn't we?

Cons
-Single Damage Type
-Meager AP 1
-Poor and Broken Defences (Defense Acuity)
-Melee
-Only Combat Proffession there is without DOTs

I have to agree, the single damage type is pretty lame, but we attack at the 1.0 mark w/o a weapon equipped, so our HAM costs are reduced dramaticaly. Also, though we have a "meager" AP1, it's better than no AP, right? like i said, we deal a great amount of damage that compensates for the AP1, in my opinion.

Melee.. well, we can't fix that what about fencers? Swordsmen? Pikeman? they're all melee too

it would be nice to have DOT's, but we have specials that place pretty much every other state besides bleeds. We can pretty much reduce damage down a tremendous amount, and do it really quick too ALso, we make up in lack of DOT's with surplus of damage

Teras Kasi
-If they are going to be the big damage dealers, they need more types of damage, and perhaps a single other higher Armor Penetration weapon.

though i find more types of damages useful, and it would be nice, i do not think a higher AP is necesary if we had different weapons, or raised damage of knucklers.

-A well built Fencer is untouchable, but when the big ranged+melee defences not stacking anymore patch comes out, then Fencer will be touchable again, thus I suggest they recieve a few more points to Dodge and Defence int he future.

they can't use specials while they got CoB, and when the dodge stack will be removed (hopefully), they will still have huge dodge and with no specials on CoB, i would think that's pretty balanced.

-Increase the general power of their weapons, make them hit big and hard. Give them more types as well.
-Give lots of area attacks

i think this is already done with a AP2 weapon with tremendous power and blast attack...
if they were to get better AoE attacks, why not pretty much switch the pikeman tree over? save the bleed types

-Make Block actually stop an attack, then make them block 4 out of 5 times, and 9 out of 10 with COB.
-They already have a fair amount of multi attacks, but I suggest an increase. IN DAMAGE!

i agree

---

agerg wrote:

this is most definately well thought out, but their are some things that you have to look at from the other side.

Ranged, do not get a line as well as meditation, for self-buffing, healing poison, bleeds, etc... but we can't do that mid-battle, can we? If they got an additional boost to action or w/e skill tree, then we would like something we can buff in mid-battle, wouldn't we?

Cons
-Single Damage Type
-Meager AP 1
-Poor and Broken Defences (Defense Acuity)
-Melee
-Only Combat Proffession there is without DOTs

I have to agree, the single damage type is pretty lame, but we attack at the 1.0 mark w/o a weapon equipped, so our HAM costs are reduced dramaticaly. Also, though we have a "meager" AP1, it's better than no AP, right? like i said, we deal a great amount of damage that compensates for the AP1, in my opinion.

Melee.. well, we can't fix that what about fencers? Swordsmen? Pikeman? they're all melee too

it would be nice to have DOT's, but we have specials that place pretty much every other state besides bleeds. We can pretty much reduce damage down a tremendous amount, and do it really quick too ALso, we make up in lack of DOT's with surplus of damage

Teras Kasi
-If they are going to be the big damage dealers, they need more types of damage, and perhaps a single other higher Armor Penetration weapon.

though i find more types of damages useful, and it would be nice, i do not think a higher AP is necesary if we had different weapons, or raised damage of knucklers.

Fencer
-A well built Fencer is untouchable, but when the big ranged+melee defences not stacking anymore patch comes out, then Fencer will be touchable again, thus I suggest they recieve a few more points to Dodge and Defence int he future.

they can't use specials while they got CoB, and when the dodge stack will be removed (hopefully), they will still have huge dodge and with no specials on CoB, i would think that's pretty balanced.

Swordsmen
-Increase the general power of their weapons, make them hit big and hard. Give them more types as well.
-Give lots of area attacks

i think this is already done with a AP2 weapon with tremendous power and blast attack...
if they were to get better AoE attacks, why not pretty much switch the pikeman tree over? save the bleed types

Pikeman
-Make Block actually stop an attack, then make them block 4 out of 5 times, and 9 out of 10 with COB.
-They already have a fair amount of multi attacks, but I suggest an increase. IN DAMAGE!

i agree

---

sorry, lack of edit button

I'm really growing tired of this TKA nerfing paranoia. Wake up guys we are not getting nerfed.

Neither did I...

People that complain and want to nerf tka are just not looking at th ebigg picture. TKA arent ubber and if nerfed will be nothing more than brawlers. The biggest diference we probably have is the meditation line. Not that big a deal when every profesion can get it and still not be or concentrate on tka.

For example any melee class can use the meditate branch. Now they are not only masters of theu profesion butr have meditation. This makes them better than a TKA as it is. Peeps will say that tka can use the defenses of other melee and have the same advantage. Truth, if the next patch is as promised defences from diferent clases wont stack. So no tka wont have an advantage. We will only have 4 branches to climb to master while others will be able to use their 4 plus meditation.

In oder word tka is not that unique. We would be special or unique if meditation was a master level technique. Im not even going to get into the fact we only deal one type of dmg (which IMHO is fine), or the fact that we dont do bleeds, and others which have already been mentioned.

Dont nerf us just fix the others. Give them something to be happy about. The moment they start nerfing tka will be the moment that ill ask that the meditation branch only belongs to tka. So dont nerf and let things be.

it don't say anywhere that tk should be nerfed...

to counter-balance tk's, all melle's get balanced... durf

/ditto

Only stating a point.

All profesions should be balanced. It should be that only someone who really knows how to use his/hers profesion win a duel. This w/out paying attention to which profesion it is.