Long Blades Need a Balance Pass
Carried over from extended XOOC conversation

There was a complaint raised by quite a number of individuals that there's some major combat imbalance in the game currently, and that Long Blades were incredibly over tuned.

My understanding of the complaint is that the inclusion of sever code to Long Blade attacks has created a situation whereby there's a percentage chance that when you get hit by a long blade attack, you effectively or literally instantly lose the fight.

Some examples included:

-Instant win decapitations that are purely RNG

-2H weapons being at a distinct disadvantage because severing an arm or hand means that the weapon can no longer be used, again resulting in a win handed to the LB user.

-Severing of lower limbs preventing escape.

I can't go into details of how the combat engine works, but it would appear to be the case that the greater the skill of the blade user, the better the chance of these procs happening.

I can say that prior to the inclusion of sever mechanics, long blades felt like they were in an advantageous position largely held in check by economic factors moreso than actual combat balance factors. The inclusion of randomly sending body parts flying, while thematically most excellent probably is not in any way balanced and a step in the wrong direction to promoting a fair and balanced combat experience between various flavors of skills and weapons.

I don't know the solution to this issue as it's been laid out, and I would like a conversation to take place in the thread in ways that the combat system can be better balanced.

My current suggestion, and a belief that I've held for a number of years now is that any long blade "past" the wakizashi be made a two-handed weapon. Reason being that while it's possible to swing around a katana one-handed, that is most certainly not the way they were designed to be used, or how almost all schools of swordplay teach people how to wield a blade. The effectiveness of a cutting/slicing sword of any type is almost entirely dependent on the user's ability to strike with, and maintain good cutting angles. The key to doing so is to have excellent control over the rotation of the blade, and holding the sword with two hands greatly aids in that.

I've given up any hope this will ever change though.

"I disagree. Swords are at least slightly better than most other weapons in the majority of circumstances players would care about, but what makes them especially wonky is they also have the strongest defensive features and no downsides. No ammo, no legal restrictions, no jamming, no cleaning, no special sheathes required."

This applies to any weapon aside from a gun and is not specific to long blades.

The best long blade can break if you crit fail, which effectively means losing the weapon and probably dying during combat as you lose combat rounds dropping it and pulling another weapon

Guns do have an upside that blades do not have, in that they can be used from a distance. And the best guns, being used from a distance can impart serious if not one shot one kill damage on a person in a surprise attack.

However learning that only bladed weapons got dismemberment/decapitation rolls, I really don't think that kind of mechanic couldn't be considered a very strong advantage that disrupts the past balancing.

A balance pass to look at everything, with that in mind and now that heavy weapons and several new cyber weapons have been introduced, might be in order when possible.

Not sure when it happened changed, but I thought short blades were the best defensively. Every melee weapon had a distinct advantage over its cousins at one point, yes? Won't go into more detail though. Feels like IC data.

In any case, I like the two handed ideas. I think being one hand gripped reduces the popularity of wakis in the first place. Couple that with certain advance use abilities, and it does starts to look like a no-brainer.

My observation is: if one type of weapon seems to get noticeably more use than others, there's an imbalance issue. Kind of speaks for itself. So the question becomes, "Is that the case?"

To me cyberpunk involves characters being casually armed to the teeth.

Katanas are cyberpunk. It's probably one of the most cyberpunk weapons that isn't cyberware.

There may however be a reinforcing loop in the sense that we put effort into things people use and this katanas get more love than say, hockey sticks. Not sure this is a problem in a resource constrained world though.

Your response comes across as a brush off of all the concerns that have been raised.

Do you understand the concerns that the code of the game itself is being developed and modified in a way that favors(?) one weapon or fighting style over all others?

If that is in fact the reality of the situation, then staff would do the entire game a favor by being transparent about it.

One of the primary risks here is that "everyone" (who cares about "winning") is going to tilt towards that weapon or group of weapons. That (IMHO) is pretty boring and lame. At that point, the game becomes "Sword Fight Simulator" and not Sindome.

I totally get wanting to "put effort into things people use". Just realize that the whole universe of "things people ALSO use" is A Thing.

1. Have the chance to server proc only when a blow drops the target to zero or get HP instead of on every strike. This would mean it is only possible to sever a part from people who would already be dropping from the fight anyways. The chance for an extra punch to the defeat.

2. Have the odds of a server happening scale with one's relevant skill/abilities and not just on the weapon alone. That's assuming this isn't happening already.

Just a thought!

As stated multiple times in this thread, severing is NOT limited to long blades in the slightest. Any sharp weapon can do it.

My understanding, and please correct me if I am wrong, there is only one weapon (or class of weapon) that can sever in combat.

There's a very real 'Fear Of Missing Out' (FOMO) undercurrent among many players, it's often jokingly mentioned on XOOC.

Then there's the simple fact of the matter which is, since we have a hard no OOC rule, and outside special plots run by staff, there also is ZERO allowance of OOC coordination to do RP events (I.E. Let's have this gang war next Saturday, 1-3p, can everyone make it?) So rather than FOMO being this sort of mental fallacy that is a 'gotcha!' in some games, there is the reality that you just do get to experience more content, chances to make more money or to advance your character based on how much more time you log on the game.

This isn't specifically a criticism of the game, it's a problem endemic to many of the games in this genre that have strong rules about OOC planning and coordination (even sometimes when it's allowed and moderated.)

That's part of the feeling of disrespect of player's time. The other one, the elephant in the room, as it were, is the advancement system itself. Three years is a lot of fucking time in contemporary times. And it's three years if you are a consistent player who logs a hefty chunk of hours per week. If you're someone who logs in once a day for a hour or two, and then like 4-5 hours on weekends, well, good luck to you.

How's this related to LB and SB being OP? Well, exactly as you stated, @hek. It's a fuck around and find out sort of game when it comes to making characters, but the find out period is like twelve to eighteen months for someone wanting to do combat shit that has the ability to target a wide swathe of the game's population and settings.

Is your character sheet dogshit because someone ICly manipulated your character for their own gain? (Which let's be real here, happens all the time.) Well, you might get a respec and be able to fix it. Or maybe you won't. Respec requests are literally entirely at the discretion of staff and requires their review and approval. Is your character solid, but not great, and you're overly paranoid and self-conscious about it? You think you can do better, squeeze another 10-15% performance boost out? Roll the dice. Staff might tell you to get fucked after reviewing your request on a 2+ year old character. I know this happens because I got the hard no red rubber stamp on my last @respec request, despite spending over six fucking months RPing and UEing the character moving into a different direction. Hop on the perm express and better luck next time, see you in a few years.

The waters start getting very muddy and morally questionable when you bring membership's very real, very tangible in-game benefit to the fact that a reroll because you lacked game knowledge might be a multi-year turnaround endeavor.

Yes we all play the game for the RP. That's not up for debate.

Yes you can RP without a single UE on your character sheet, and even do quite well for yourself. Simply factual.

Also extremely true? People play role-playing games with leveling and stat scaling and character improvement and gear upgrades with the reasonable expectation that their character progression matters and is important, and isn't going to get randomly overpowered or nerfed into the gutter with zero community discussion or advance notice of this happening.

Yeah, okay, when big changes happen, people can get UE resets. Sometimes. But what happens if you wanted to play a character that uses big fuck-off buck knives and gut people like John Rambo, and suddenly your comically large knife is hot trash, or everyone is being pissy at you for using it because it's overly buffed? Okay, knife sucks, we know it sucks and you were UEed into it, here's your UE back you can go be a sword ninja or rocket launcher man now. Go forth.

But I didn't make a character who used a big fuck you knife because I wanted to win. I wanted to do it because I like John Rambo the character and play make believe that I was cyberpunk John Rambo. I don't want my John Rambo make-believe man to use swords and be a ninja after I just spent X playing them how I liked.[/b]

I know rulings regarding those things that are up to staff discretion vary based on who the staff reviewing the thing is and probably (because we're human) how they feel at that given time. This doesn't just hold true to respecs. I have faced similar problems with other aspects of the game experience. There are a good number of rules/concepts/features that are just too open to interpretation to be consistent between one ruling body to the next, and that in itself is a point of much frustration sometimes.

Maybe what needs to happen here is that one respec is GUARANTEED after the first year. And the REASON it's granted determines how and what can be adjusted.

This won't fix everything, but it's a start, I think.

And maybe staff can host a poll asking the player base if they think sever is considered a major enough change to warrant a respec? I can't really tell at this moment if staff does or not, and while it seems major to a few players, we're only a few of many.

I've done several respecs, they're very limited and mostly there as a token mechanism to make players feel better about being stuck with their UE expenditures.

In any case I kind of reject this idea that this system was added and now we're just stuck with it as is so other solutions should be found. It can literally be changed at any time, disabled for weapons, added to other weapons, removed completely.