Shattered Kingdoms

Your assessment of what this does for swashes is flawed. For one, bash is still way better than trip for causing prone. Which means the swash is going to be knocked prone and any stance effects they had are moot anyways. Mercs and barbs are still going to DPS in aggressive stance, and still going to land 95% of all opening bashes and swashes are still going to die horribly. More so, actually, since they can't even count on defensive stance aiding them anymore. And the new stance? Yeah, just as pointless. Swashes will start and end fights in neutral stance, and they're going to get body bagged just as frequently.

The magical flight acc debuff became even less impactful than it already was (and that's saying something since it really wasn't a serious reason not to fly anyways), because now not only is the swash going to be prevented from using their only prone-causing skill, but their defensive bonuses are wiped in one command. Or, body bagging them even faster, enemy merc/barb goes "I'm on a horse" and it's game over. And let's not forget about darkie swashes. Griffon barb, anyone? They don't even have to take an acc debuff to remove a swash's ability to render them prone. I'm all for buffing griffons, but it should be done in a balanced manner. Not like this.

This change does nothing but buff bash, which swashes don't have access to. The choice is not more complicated now over choosing swash vs merc/barb, it's easier.

EDIT: Oh, and any arguments that kip prevents the swash from being a victim of being locked into neutral stance needs to remember that both kip and stance shift have lag...which will probably just end with them getting bashed back into neutral stance before they can do anything other than kip and stance shift.

I know it's off topic, but can you guys start saying killed or died instead of "body bagged"? It wasn't that cool the first time it got used and it hasn't gotten any cooler.

OA. I really am having a hard time countering your argument. You make good points all around. I hope that hedgehog stance improves a swashies probability to dodge a bash/trip. The swash can still kip and change back to hedgehog rather quickly, hopefully evading the second bash.

Not as big an issue as PK game balance, but wow is it irritating. Especially given that NPCs spam skills at the rate they do.

I don't think that Dulrik realizes how much of a difference defensive stance vs. neutral stance was for tanking PCs, especially in PK. Making it so that bashing your opponent puts them in neutral stance just gave a ridiculous buff to the bash skill.

Observation: A lot of people seem to be reacting negatively to recent changes in the code update.

Question: How did playtesters find these new changes affected their gameplay when they were being developed?

Grep let me do some speculating they play tested all the stances when they where implemented (accept for the new one) they know how often they get spam bashed before the change. They conclude the use of bash will stay the same or increase having already run the numbers on what happens in different stances and how good it is to knock someone out of defensive stance when they are tanking.

As I understand it the only time spam bash is not just better than it was before is when your enemy is doing something stupid like trying to take a fight 1 v 2 and is in aggressive stance. Because the shift to neutral stance will be better than being in aggressive stance due to the reduction of the defense decrease.

My gut reaction is that hedgehog stance is the only one that needs to be effected by the stance change due to prone. Even just making hedgehog stance drain PE per dodge parry/riposte might be more viable drawback.

Id love to see something get added to make bash/trip not to go to skills in every fight where they found and usable.

If kip up restored the last stance you were in, don't think anyone would complain about the code update. Seriously, what does a merc/barb do during the fight except bash/quaff/quaff (think it is 2 before bashee stands up again)/bash? This is excluding any fleeing (all varieties of combat extraction) and/or early buffs (fury).

How is this going to make bash spam more???

I disagree. All characters need put in body bags.

No, I think we would still be complaining because that only addresses one class.

The only valid stance now is aggressive. You just have to be quick enough to get in the initial bash and then go on auto pilot as you deny your enemy the bonuses from any stance they had.

There's some parts about the update I like, like parry checking first, and glance showing off what stance a person is, but the prone thing has made the game less interesting.