Teras Kasi Archive

Hello,

I just want to comprehensively put down my thoughts and some of my experiences about being a TKA since late July '03. My intent is to ensure that my issues are known to the TKA community and my TKA views are seen by others so that we see ballancecomefromthe combat revamp for PvP,and for PvE in the NEAR future.

I will start out by saying that although I am increasingly unsatisfied with the current state of the game, however I do believe SWG to have enormous potential. Secondly I am long winded while typing and I apologise in advance.

Now then onto my story... (skipthe nextblock of paragraphsif you don't give a darn about me because it has little to do with TKM but please do read my TKM specific list if you are one of us.)

I am one of those (hated) Martial Artists who plays almost religiously as TKM. I know from experience how Martial Art-type tactics can be effectively used against opponents usingweapons--including firearms. Ivolunteer as an advisorto a local law enforcement agency on how to and what to teach in defensive tactics training. i.e. I help instruct the instructors.

As soon as I read the game manual (which is a flamig joke now) I knew Teras Kasi was my way in SWG life. I started out in a nice little place called Doaba Gurfel or however it is spelledwhich sounded pretty nice to me. I spent my first week killing butterflies or I should say trying to kill them before the other animals did. It wasn't untill my fourth day of playing that I actually met another Human Player. On top of that because of the fact that the default color scheme was blue with blue lettering and I who was playing the game off of an S-video connection to my TV, couldn't read a thing and couldn't figure out how to do much either. I had a poor introduction to say the least. (And I decided to get new monitor)

But I pushed ahead, and eventually was coaxed out of the mountains and started interacting with other people. I slowly worked through to unarmed 3 and then OMFG! 70K XP??? Back then we didn't have armor worth a crap, buffs, etc that you see people grinding thru TKM in 2 days with now. So what did I do? I found this nice little Island in Theed where chubbas, butterflies, and nunas spawned and killed them... killed them for a couple weeks at 80-100 points a pop. I could usually get a couple before having sit around while my ham regenerated. Eventually I made it... OH BLOODY HELL! 120K XP??? **edit**!!! Well I wasnt about to sit on that Island for a monthmore so I decided to go out and explore the Naboo countryside and kill whatever came across me (poor me). Eventually I found that kaadu's gave decent xp and that they'd only incap me once before I could kill one. So I spent my days hunting large ducks still unsure if I was going to continue playing.

Then one day it happened, I had just slaughtered my quacking foe when a big red lizard came to sit with meon a rolling green hilltop and rest. We got to talking and became friends. He had a couple other RL friends that he played with as well so soon after we, the fearsome foursome, would go out on hunting expeditions. The game became fun!

TKN came and things became easier. Now the Jedi rumors were around all over the place. Most everyone wouldn't mind being a Jedi, and I wouldn't mind being one either. We were assured by the DEVs that anyone, any professioncould become a Jedi without having to significantly change the way they would play the game. So everyone tried everything.

I myself believed that one would need to live in the spirit of a Jedi. I did my best to be a good person. I wouldn't ever attack an NPC unless it aggro'd on me (creatures were fair game though). Your skill should be used for defense only, never attack. I would always be at peace, or um peaced out, I lived a simple life, never had over 10k credits total and never used a lot. I was a wanderer, seeking nothing, just allowing what happened happen. I tipped the medics in the hospitals and the dancers in the cantians.

Although I really wanted to have my own stormtrooper armor, I remained neutral as running faction missions meant I would have to seek out and kill NPC's who meant me no harm. And I waited... things came and went, nerfs and changes to the game system happened and screwed up more than they usually fixed. I remember the time when armor was bugged and everyone sat around doing nothing for a few days as people were becoming relyant upon it, and I the aspiring Teras Kasi Laughed at them. I eventually got tierd of my practices as it was obvious that there should have been Jedi by now but there weren't any. I went rebel with my buddies, and eventually got myself into a guild. By this time I had almost compleded Teras Kasi, it was now around the end of November. I ground out the last of my Combat XP on stormies in fact and became a Master. Then I entered a new realm of the game. PvP.

PvP as a TKM at the time wasn't bad, as back then buffs were around but armor was still not in widespread use. And VK's made short work of Composite back then. (PvP vs. another TKM was absolutely stupid... who gets the KD/Dizzy first... /sigh... and is still somewhat valid today. Its just who gets more KD/ Dizzies to stick on the other brawler.) I decided that since TKM lacked a DOT I would pursue combat medic, as I saw the use of Ubese armor increasing and I started having a hell of a time taking Ubese players down (TKM was becoming a flavor of the month. God help me, I went from beingsort ofunique to just another TKM.) CM also had nice area healing ability for my friends who wanted to go out and find this new thing... holocrons.

From there the game was utterly destroyed in a couple weeks. For the most part, although I do openly criticise the DEVs, I do still appreciate their work. But the one or few or many who Fscked us all with the hologrind; you should have been fired, drug out into the street, stripped naked andslapped in the face on public television by Lucas himselfbefore sendig them to greenland to melt all the ice with a box of matches for the rest of their natural life. The hologrind was never anywhere close to being in the spirit of Jedi.

And it disrupted everyone, not just those who wanted to do it (or could with their 3 at-st's in the infamous cave). No longer could I walk into the Hospital and get jumped by 6 med-lets trying to get xp by healing my wounds. AFK dancers existed, but were a welcome sight in far-off places, but a nice conversation in the cantina with your local dancer was now no longer what was to be heard.

Although I have the ability to, as my guild has more resources than we know what to do with, I refuse to grind Holocrons. It should not be for the privledged or the ones with alot of spare time on their hands. Jedi was promised to be attainable by anyone without significantly changing theri charicter. WHAT UTTER BULL$HIT. As you can see I am still extremelybitter and will probably never forgive the Dev team for this, as well as probably won't ever try another SOE game. If rumors of SOE outsorcing customer support overseas are true then I will never, ever play SOE again.

Things happened, stuff changed, flavors of the month came and went, oversights and bugs were continually introduced into the game, and we eventually ended up with wht we have now.

TERAS KASI SPECIFIC:

1) Defensive Acuity neecs to be fixed or replaced. As it doesn't work, Center of Being doesn't work either. I put on +25 worth of Dodge Skill Mod clothing and some Dodge food, Ubese armor, and headed out to find a Nightsister Elder last night. I threw poison and disease on her and just sat there for 40 mins. I had a CoB loop macro going and not once did I evade, dodge, counter attack, or block one of her hits. I understand that there is some kind of modifyer in the game that makes her much more accurate than a gnort, but I have a fencer buddy who can tank her naked as she dodges most everything.

2) Absolutely NOTING should be 100% resistant to any damage type. Teras Kasi's disadvantages are: one damage type, and only AP1. If you gave all riflemen only energy damage but allowed the tokeep AP3 T-21's they'd all be screaming. With almost all high end (ROFL) 'content' being Medium or heavy armor with 80-100% kinetic resistances, its a slap in the face.

3) Our ability to hit any pool is worthless with 90% sliced armor and the above mentioned weakness.

4) Our unique ability, meditate, is dabbled in way too much as there are no bonuses to it at Master... slightly faster healing doesn't cut it. Why should a stacker get every bonus (stop bleed, poison, disease, powerboost, force of will, wound healing) that I get at TKM when they only spent 20 skillpoints on it? Move wound healing and FoW to master.

5) Stacking defenses makes it way too easy to kite us TKM. On an alt, who is capped at 125 to almost everything, can kite my TKMall day. I can only land intimidate to slow down my death and make lunge hit every once in awahile. Our state effects are too weak.

6) Someone (in 900 encumberance armor with a huge ass gun out) can run away from me (unarmed and naked), just as fast as I run toward them... and all the while manage to, while running and shooting over their shoulder or with one hand backward while not looking at where they ar going, shoot me in the head, with the biggun, 8 out of 10 times. Because they spent millions on armor attatchments.

IN GENERAL: (rants and raves)

STOP PUSHING BACK THE COMBAT REVAMP.

CONTENT IS NOT MAKING TOUGHER THINGS TO KILL!!!!!!!!!! or making tons of them spawn in a tiny little lag-fest.

DWB is a Joke. Battle droids were brought down by gungans and a single shot from a pistol in the movies I saw. High damage is fine, but making it like a robo-Krayt is just dumb. Stay truer to the movies.I'd love to walk into a room where a whole squad of 40 battle droids unfolds, stands up and starts shooting after my group gets thru a door, but the waybattle droidsare nowshows aserious lack of vision. Super Battle Droids, Tough to kill? Fine, but not spawning all over the freaking place constantly and getting dragged to me by an idiot who came running in and died.

The corvette is so damn buggy that very few people have legitimately finished it. (though I know there are skilled and rich people who have done it) Fix it! I don't want to be able to solo it, but Lag, lack of insurance terminals creating 5% item decay, spawn killing, useless map, aggro and shooting thru walls (which look horrible graphically btw), and LAG make it no fun.

I don't give a flying fork about new chat channels so that scammers and already rich people can continue their monopoly on rare looted items. I don't care about squill death animations, or the location of badges (I dont need no stinkin badges).

I still warp 50-150m usually when I get off of my bike because I refues to wave to myself. GCW is screwed, PvP is suverely unballanced. Jedi are running about unchecked. NS and such are still a joke in Ubese armor because they only deal kinetic damage, and no longer use Force. Krayt Dragons are soloable by pretty much any brawler. Stormtroopers are a joke, rebel troops seem to be preteen children with paintball guns.Faction armor is useless. AT-ST's should not be pets. As an Imp officer you can be demoted by a stormtrooper for not stopping for an inspection because of buggy game mechanics like bike warping. Invisible mobs appear in faction bases and things shoot through walls. Area Poison goes through buildings like military installations and hospitals, which should have air filtration systems. DoT tripple incaps decay items and are routinely used as a greifing tactic. People run around with 317 minimum damage/317 maximum damage stun batons on my server. People sit outside coronet all day spamming useless messages and made macros to turn off their AKF status so I can still hear them. Ever tried to have a large battle? The servers are inadiquate for the complexity of the game. Customer service is sometimes great, sometimes non-existant. Content is non existant. They removed the /open command's ability to check other players so that we can find out who is using banned/ exploited weapons. We live in a c+ travel society, yet still cant make houses on a hill, and can't make paint that stays on a car. Squad Leaders are useless in general (but way too useful in certain situations). Poor smugglers still can't smuggle anything. Rangers have few uses as areatrack cannot be performed while mounted and cant find anything whin its inside a structure, traps suck. Grenades still suck as do most heavy weapons and the Heavy acid rifle, and in PvP even the mighty flamer is a joke. Doctor Buffs are overpowered, Entertainer Buffs are Underpowered. Have you dev's done the math on how long it actually takes to master ID now? The majority of weapons are useless, as is the majority of armor types. BioE's role is way too specific, they are in high demadn for only Food enhancements and a couple clothing enhancements. CH is dead. DE is in th same boat as BioE they're only useful for a couple very specific purposes. Ebay is filled with auctions, and I don't see SOE going in and banning accounts.

Lack of apparent communication between SOE and players is on the rise again.

I'm just getting tierd of it all.

I'm sticking it out, hoping for improvements, but they are too few and far between anymore. I find my lack of faith disturbing.

Tong-Fei Kasamatsu -- TKM for Life

I'm gonna light you up like

I'm gonna light you up like