Shattered Kingdoms

I am by no means an expert. I have basic understandings of things, and pretty well less in application. In my time playing, though, I have seen that bash is far, far more effective than trip. Granted, trip has the advantage that has a check for a simple fail that their footwork is no match for yours as well as the prone status failure of tripping over your own feet, but you have to spam it a lot more than you do bash, per success. The more that you have to spam it, the more likely you are to knock yourself out of your own stance. Except against a sprite in defensive stance, bash has a really high success rate. Trip is just too much of a gamble for most people to waste time using when they could be using another skill or command.




There are definite advantages and disadvantages to stances that can be seen immediately using them, not over the course of a long battle. The course of a long battle just amplifies the effects of these stances. In the hands of someone more competent, this can either shorten a fight dramatically in aggressive stance, or prolong a fight much longer than the other person really wanted to happen in defensive. With the exception of a caster, neutral stance didn't really seem to have a lot going for it. You were defensive or aggressive.

How about stance is set to neutral after recovering from prone? Add an increased chance to dodge prone abilities while defensive (maybe a separate stance in the future).

Bash has always been lame since its inception. I don't think changing stances is the problem, before or after Dulrik's change. But I feel that if you are bashed you should be changed to defensive and if you are taunted aggressive. If you are on your butt, you are not worried about fighting back, but defending yourself. Also, if you tried to bash someone already prone, you should fall right over them and become prone yourself. That way timing can become key, and you cannot que 30 bashes into your command to ensure you actually bash the target as soon as they get up.

Trag, you never bash someone that is prone. You wait till you get the message that they stand back up and guess what. BASH. It is a waste of PE to bash them while they are prone. OA is correct that it is more of a buff to aggressive and a nerf to defensive/hedgehog, than a buff to bash itself. The bash cycle is very simple and has been that way for a while.

I understand the game does not let you trip or bash someone who is already prone or resting. I feel that you should be able to bash them and trip them, but bashing someone prone should make you fall over them and tripping someone prone should make you trip on them laying on the ground.

I would rather see bash and trip lag last longer than the victim is prone. Your method is not bad, but easily countered/abused.

How about bash be harder to land however instead of falling on your face, you just get the bash knocks the wind out of you message more? Bash has always been a 9/10 skill it ALMOST NEVER EVER fails.

Balancing game design around low % effectiveness, high reward skills (petrification, charm person come to mind) leads to boring pk and a general feeling of dissatisfaction when you lose to something that takes literally no skill (recite scroll xx, bash xx). So, if you keep bash as super effective as it is right now but just lower then % chance it lands, you aren't doing anybody any favors. You're just making it even worse when the stars align and someone gets bashlocked to death.

Right now, skill in SK comes from preparedness (not being front row) and effectively managing your front row to manipulate formations and time bashes. If you want skill in SK to come from timing bashes, something like what Tragonis suggested is a good step. But before you do that, you probably need to tone down damage across the board to lengthen fights, and that would present a whole slew of other balance issues.

I like the idea of damage reduction to prolong fights, but you need a way to limit the ability to flee so people don't just word out first chance they get.

This is a phenomenal idea. Having timing be a key factor in successfully pinning someone with bashing is an excellent balance to the success rate of the skill.

I don't think damage reduction is the right way to go. Increasing the overall HP pools of PC characters would accomplish the same goal, without adding an unnecessary additional obstacle to high-end pve like damage reduction would.