Shattered Kingdoms

Bash is awesome because of what it prevents: Which is almost everything. On the other side, bash is a skill that requires the person bashing to be in the front rank and has the most skill lag of any other skill in the game, which are large drawbacks.

Weakening bash could come in one of a few ways: Either nerfing the skill itself, nerfing what it prevents, or creating other skills that can accomplish it's same purpose. Bash is great because it
A) Keeps people from fleeing
B) keeps people from casting
C) keeps any active combat skills from being used
D) prevents quaffing potions

So, by weakening any of those four main areas, you can weaken bash (Although, it's obvious that in doing so you'll also affect almost every other class).

You could also buff other skills to provide those same benefits. Taunt already prevents fleeing and prevents casting to a point, but it doesn't stop quaffing or active combat skills, meaning that a swashbuckler will always lose to a prepped merc or barb just on account of the fact that the merc/barb can quaff heals to full, bash them, and then disarm in the meantime.

You could also just weaken bash so that it doesn't give all four of these options. Perhaps allow some combat skills like disarm or dirt kick to work while prone, for example, or maybe even allow potion quaffing with increased lag.


All that said, it seems like Dulrik is already well on his way to provide alternatives to bash by adding more penalties to fly, thereby increasing the usefulness of trip (adding in other similar skills decreases the strength of bash) Personally, I am not for nerfing bash because it's already so dang hard to actually land kills. I'm also a fan for buffing swashies and adding more complexity into the game.

tl;dr: Dulrik already intends to nerf fly and therefore buff trip, so bash will have alternatives soon enough.

Would be interesting if you couldn't bash a flying PC. With the soon-to-be penalties to fly. Seems like it would balance itself out.

No

Sorcerers and Necromancers suffer the worst from a bash, however non magical fighters can't cast magic (unless they are in a cabal) so complaining that the Hulk beat up Loki on a one on one is rather silly.

Anyone will loose to ANY class if one is not prepared. (I am willing to bet 50% of the time though even a prepped swashbuckler will loose to a merc or barbarian.)

However if you want to fix swashbucklers give them a new skill, call it flip or something. Wherein if they are being tripped of bashed they simply recover instantly.

Bash X
You bash into X sending him sprawling.
However X does a black flip and lands on his feet.

Acctually when I suggested wimping bash I also suggested flee and word be tweaked as well. This will eliminate the "need" to pin someone down and open up more use of other skills instead of bash &1 or o all bash &1.

There are a number of skills that never get used because bash makes them obsolete. Reading logs of people spamming bash repeatedly to pin someone down means there is something wrong in the mechanics of it.

I would also like to add I would be more clear with what I mean if I could. English is sort of one of those skills I am unable to access properly this week, words are really hard to understand.

The problem right now with bash is that it is pretty much one of the most indispensable skills in the game.

There are actually a number of reasons why it has to be so good:

1) Word of recall is too good
2) Fleeing is too easy / almost never fails
3) Chasing an enemy is not desirable in PK because of excessive bounty NPC spawning
4) It is the only thing that actually hits fliers

It does have a number of drawbacks, but the drawbacks are not as severe as people make them out to be. Being in the front row is pretty dangerous, yes, but the classes with access to bash are built to not get completely obliterated once they land a bash. Missing a bash is only a death sentence when the basher is alone, it is otherwise usually a minor inconvenience, and even then it's usually just a "okay, I can get away from these dudes" moment. A hasted and strengthened basher is rarely, if ever, going to miss.

I like bash being powerful. I prefer a swords and sorcery setting where the swords don't suck compared to the sorcery. Someone who is willing to man up on the front row and bash some guy deserves to have a shot at killing them. The fact is that mercs and barbs typically have a higher death ratio than casters because they have to spend time on the front row, unless they're a merc who specifically rolled elf just so that they could spam retreat from the second rank.

There's nothing wrong with swords being really good. That is not what is being said. Your post has nothing to do with the argument. Bash being overpowered doesn't mean swords are weak.

And the idea is that fleeing / getting away ought to be harder than it is all around. Bashing should be used to FINISH a kill, not from start to end during a fight. Let fighters use their other options without having to cover for their options with bash lag. The "bash privilege" concept is... blergh.

Oh come on, any merc played by any reasonably competent player is *very, very hard* to kill. You spammed retreat with Pilnor too. Elf just gives you infinite retreat. I agree with everything though, it's a lot riskier playing in the front row.

My point was that I love the fact that out of all magic spells and abilities in the game, one of the most effective tactics in combat is still just beating the trash out of your opponent by slamming him into the ground. I feel that it throws a worthy bone to people who give up so much utility by not selecting a caster class.

From a gameplay perspective, I don't mind the idea of making fights harder to escape from: But from a logical perspective, it makes sense that landing kills on people focused on running away is difficult. There wouldn't be many tackles in football if all the quarterback had to do was take the snap and run backwards!

I suppose my concern is this: If all we do is make -escaping- from combat harder without giving PCs additional defensive measures, then you just push the game further towards discouraging people from staying logged in against immeasurable odds. Eventually that zerg group will find you and then you won't be able to quaff recall and get away. In other words, I don't want to make fleeing harder without forgetting that sometimes you're just straight-up outnumbered. There should be places that you can feel at least semi-secure besides just cabal HQs.

I think that the group combat code was a step in the right direction: Something that limits the mobility of casters by forcing them to flee just like melee characters are forced to flee. I think that the best next step would be to make city PvP more than the current boring gate-in, look around, gate-out strategy. Honestly, cities are so open to attack that it's ridiculous and it makes so little IC sense as to how there are gates stationed all over the gates but not one single sentry at Jemm. It's one thing to get jumped by eight guys in the middle of nowhere, but when it happens repeatedly inside of your own city, it's a bit frustrating. I have a hard time envisioning exactly how that should work, but I think that making all capitals no-transport, no-recall and removing bounty NPCs completely would make city PvP more engaging. Make those sentry groups mean something, and make wars actually look like wars instead of gate-in, gate-out.