Brawling Rebalance

[Jirato]

It's been pretty obvious lately that brawling is far more powerful of a combat option than what was intended. Brawling should never be more devastating than someone wielding a two handed sword, for example. We want people who focus on brawling to feel competent enough to take on an equally skilled unarmored foe, but at the same time we don't think it should be stronger than using a weapon.

The following changes are now live:
- Brawling combos require the separate "Brawling Focus" general ability.
- You no longer get +1 strike simply for being a member of a brawling-related guild such as Dwaedn Wyr or Brotherhood of the Fist. These will likely be re-introduced to each guild in the form of a guild-specific ability.
- Fury shout and Bloodust now grant +1 strike instead of the +2 that they have been - this was always intended and the comments in the code even mention this, but it got tweaked to 2 somewhere down the line.
- Brawling no longer requires the two_weapon skill and now instead relies only on brawl and gen_combat, however, the formulas still need to be tweaked. Getting maximum number of strikes against an equally skilled opponent should be the equivalent of winning a minor prize in a scratch ticket lottery - maybe a couple times out of a hundred, but no more. Each additional strike is intended to be exponentially more difficult.

Also on the plate to be tweaked, but we're still working out the details:
Two handed blade slap will have greatly reduced or no parry with the off hand
Tumble should not be available in all tactics or while under the effects of certain abilities such as Fury Shout or Bloodlust.

I know these changes feel like a pretty giant nerf to our brawling players, and, well, it is. You should still be able to perform well in combat though, just not be walking war-machines capable of taking on anything thrown at you like you are now.

[Jirato]

Would like to briefly add, that balance is pretty much an ongoing thing here. We're always going to be looking at ways to improve things. We're always looking at changes such as this and asking ourselves if they're right or not, and I also welcome that kind of feedback from the player base.

We've settled our mind already that brawling is too strong as it was, so there's no way getting around that. But if you feel the rebalance should be approached differently, we're more than welcome to hear from you.

Regarding the new ability:
Brawling combos previously required the Melee: Dual Wielding ability to work, since extra combo hits were based directly off of the two-weapon combat skill of the attacker. We felt this didn't mesh well with either the description of the ability or the description of the skill, thus the change to the combo hit formulas and the change to the Brawling Focus ability. The total ability point cost required to fully utilize the brawling combo system has not changed, unless your character pre-dated the ability point system and gained a significant amount of two-weapon combat skill before the ability was made a requirement.

[sona]

I would like to have it checked/verified, with brawling focus, brawlers can now hit upwards of 10 combo, like brofist? but more realistically, will see combos closer to 5 unless they're significantly more skilled than their opponent?

[Jirato]

I would like to have it checked/verified, with brawling focus, brawlers can now hit upwards of 10 combo, like brofist? but more realistically, will see combos closer to 5 unless they're significantly more skilled than their opponent?

Not quite.

Without brawling focus, attacks will be like they were in the "old days" before the brawling combos existed. Up to 3 strikes using your fists only.

With brawling focus and meeting the same encumbrance/armor requirements as always, your unarmed attacks will be passed through the brawling system, which is working much the same way as it always has except some the tweaks mentioned above involving guild affiliation and fury/bloodust:

You start with Max Strikes = 2
+2 Max Strikes if both hands are empty Max Strikes = 4
+1 Max Strikes if your brawling skill is >= 300 Max Strikes = 5
+1 max strikes if your brawling skill is >= 1000 Max Strikes = 6

Brofist only:
+1 strike for the brofist_combo ability Max Strikes = 7
+1 strike for the brofist_combo2 ability Max Strikes = 8
+1 strike for the brofist_combo3 ability Max Strikes = 9

Dwaedn only:
+1 strike for battle fury Max Strikes = 7

Claw only:
+1 strike for bloodust Max Strikes = 7

As I said, I'd like to re-introduce the +1 strike for being in a brawling guild (Dwaedn, Claw, Brofist) as an ability. It did not seem right to have it simply a free "the moment you join this guild, you're a better brawler."

[sona]

sounds cool. I might suggest for Dwaedn/Claw, a claw based ability that has a good chance of armor chinking and tag on the +1 round to that. Just because it's the only ability idea off the top of my head.

[Dakhal]

On that same front, I feel like I already have a lot of abilities sunk into just being a better brawler. Of course, it's been said that we'll more than likely be getting a higher max amount of abilities, so I can't really justify any worry that I have on this. If there were to ever be an ability for Claw/Dwaedn/Brofist that gave them an extra strike as it currently is, I'd be pretty screwed since I don't even have all of my guild abilities and I'm in pain.

When it comes to additional chink chance, you already have a good chance to chink if certain requisites are met.

There also lies the fact that there are some abilities in guilds that you don't need any immediate skill to learn that immediately make you better at things. I've also always figured that whenever you're learning a skill, you're not just magically siphoning the knowledge into your mind and becoming an instant master- instead you're spending time with your instructor and learning it as thoroughly as you can before you can put it to practical use, and at that point you're still not the best with it until you've been out in the world and experienced it in use.

That said, I feel like joining a guild is just the same. While the NPCs don't give you a history lesson or run-down by any means, I've felt like there's at least some measure of time that isn't noted where they address to you and offer the most basic of trainings when it comes to being one of them, so imparting of such knowledge isn't too hard to believe.

[Jirato]

On that same front, I feel like I already have a lot of abilities sunk into just being a better brawler. Of course, it's been said that we'll more than likely be getting a higher max amount of abilities, so I can't really justify any worry that I have on this. If there were to ever be an ability for Claw/Dwaedn/Brofist that gave them an extra strike as it currently is, I'd be pretty screwed since I don't even have all of my guild abilities and I'm in pain.

When it comes to additional chink chance, you already have a good chance to chink if certain requisites are met.

The ability point cost is actually the same if you give up dual weapon combat. Since this change was kinda sudden and a lot of brawlers already have dual weapon combat, I put in a temporary free reset for that one ability, if you unlearn it, it'll be instant. I'll keep that in for a week to let people make up their mind if they want to be a brawler or use two weapons.

[Jirato]

Regarding armor chink: Previously, the only two people who had access to this were theives and assassins. Thieves are a non-combat guild and we felt assassins were far deadly enough as is without it.

I can't really see a tie-in to brawling combos and armor chink either, since brawling is all bludgeon damage and wouldn't be directly compatible with armor chink.

[sona]

I meant as a Dwaedn specific thing- since you were looking for ideas to get a +1 attack into an ability. and an ability that is just +1 attack seems a bit underwhelming with the rework IMO. If the claw is already too beastly to get a chink ability, that's understandable. I don't know a thing about assassins, so I'll defer to others there.

[Solaje]

Armor chink did seem compatible with katars. Will katars remain brawling weapons?

[Jirato]

Katars, bear paws, and cestuses (cesti?) Will remain as is, they do not utilize the brawling combo system.

[Kunren]

Katars, bear paws, and cestuses (cesti?) Will remain as is, they do not utilize the brawling combo system.

so those who wish to use these, need the dual wielding ability then yes?

[sona]

can we maybe consider rebalancing energy drain for brawling? Each round drains -5 energy, the same as if you were swinging a weapon. I'm wondering if brawlers, without the overreaching strength of a sherman tank, might end up suffering unintentionally from severe energy loss, incomparable to what is lost from someone using a weapon (who finishes fights faster as a result). The counter to this argument is that guild abilities allow brawlers to finish up fights quicker, but that brawling can't really stand on it's own as a reliable combat method without the use of guild abilities. Other fighting styles do not need to rely upon guild abilities to survive, but they do supplement quite well anyways, in a number of situations.

[Acarin]

My only concern is whether brofist abilities like headbutt will still proc as before with the same frequency. I assume they probably will, but just wanted to make sure. Does the 9th strike for a brofist also do a little bit of extra damage like the 10th did before?

I'd also like to voice my concern over nerfing blade slap. This is already a severely reduced roll (quite a bit lower than one's offensive roll). Since this is the case, I think that lowering it further on the offhand (or removing the second parry entirely) will make it not very useful against like level/challenging opponents. It also doesn't make sense to me logically to not have a parry for each hand that is equivalent (honestly, I'd rather just see both rolls lowered a little bit more if you feel that this needs to be nerfed).

Also, can brofist combo abilities be re-evaluated for different tactics and maybe condensed to replace each other like has been mentioned for other guilds? I'm still not sure why going into tactic offense should reduce our number of strikes.

[Acarin]

So brawling focus now grants the ability to use disarm when unarmed. Are we going to get disarm back as a brofist guild skill or will we be required to learn melee focus in addition to brawling focus to learn disarm?

Any chance of getting a weapon spec:brawling skill as well?

[Acarin]

I just tried brawling on some approximately like skill critters for the first time since the changes (their dodge is actually about 30% weaker than my off) and in tactics none where I should be getting up to 9 strikes, I'm getting long strings of only a single strike (I've seen up to 11). This is very concerning as the first strike rarely does any real damage. I'm also not getting the message that I'm unable to find an opening for my offhand strikes when single strikes occur.

Can this be looked at? Can a minimum number of attempted strikes (at half our maximum) be instituted? I understand full combos being rare, but the number of strikes seems exceedingly random and variable right now (weighted towards very few strikes). I have all my ability points invested in being able to brawl well right now (and defend) and it seems like my one method of attack is no longer effective against challenging opponents.

[Jaster]

I have this same issue with dual wielding daggers. I've not been able to get any additional strikes as of yet.

[Sneaky]

Jaster, if youy're wielding two daggers and are in tactics dodge or parry you won't get the off hand attacks. Only in offence and none.

[Jaster]

It'd help if that was mentioned somewhere.

[Vinz]

http://clok.contrarium.net/index.php?ti ... cs#Tactics

We can update the in game ones soon as well.

[Laroremas]

"Tactics parry" is the only tactic at present that is reducing the number of melee attacks with the off-hand, courtesy of: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=5006&p=27144&hilit ... rry#p27144

I tested this and I am receiving full brawling combos in tactics dodge (granted, not very often, but that is a product of the brawling system in general).

Maybe it is just brawling not receiving the removal of off-hand attacks in "Tactics dodge"? (or in this case, limiting the combo to 4 strikes)

The Wiki should probably be updated to reflect that. (I'd love to edit it)

edit: disregard the wiki editing suggestion if it turns out tactics dodge is intended to remove off-hand strikes.

[Sneaky]

I'm fairly certain that at present with melee weapons save for brawling, you do not get off hand attacks. Maybe it's a bug, but it's been that way since about 2 or 3 days after the change to tactics parry, I submitted a bug, but never got a response, and it hasn't been addressed yet, so I just assumed it was a change and not a bug.

[Jirato]

The second strike in brawling combos is now MUCH more common, and will also show a message when it fails.

Strikes three through ten now each perform a combo attack roll versus a combo defense roll, and compare the results to a table with exponentially increasing values based on the current strike count. What this means, overall, is that against an equally skilled opponent, you will be seeing on average 4 strikes per round.

There is currently an unidentified bug that will cause combat to end prematurely, I'm looking into fixing this now.