Weapons

Robby’s blog, Kasumi’s quitting, and Esprite fixing the ninjaken all have me thinking about weapons, and balance.

I guess we all had a chance to read Kasumi’s treatise on balance, and it was good.. so I’m not going to spend a lot of time enumerating on what it is that makes balance so important to the C:SI structure in general. For those of you who haven’t read it, I’ll just sum up.

Balance makes C:SI unique. Balance is what sets us apart from DCS, CCS, FCS, YMCS (Yo Momma’s Combat System). It makes the system unique in SL, in that balance is considered and built in to All weapons. Having a balanced weapon builds skills that leaning on unbalanced, easy weapons, does not.

That said, there are some terribly skilled people using unbalanced weapons. Not as many as there could be, but the Nagi’s long range kick, the BD’s excessive speed, if you put these in the hands of a skilled fighter who can bring them out, without exposing themselves, the result is devastation. And it’s demoralizing, but not just to beginners, but to experienced players, who find themselves suddenly struggling against their peers, because of either moral or financial objection to new weapons.

What is Balance?

Balance is Equality over Time. That is to say, if you put any two weapons in C:SI in the hands of equally skilled user, once everyone involved knows the weapons timing, quirks, and glitches, there should be a FIFTEY PERCENT life/death rate.

That is to say, if you take two people who are equally skilled, and they kill each other 50% of the time with a sword, that rate SHOULD NOT CHANGE based on the weapon they use, be it Ninjaken, BD, Nagi, or Duals.

Obviously, there’s some difficulties in these measurements. Some weapons lend themselves to styles that some people have a harder time countering. For instance, even if you cut the kick range, the Nagi’s long swing would give me night terrors. I’m just terrible at dealing with it. But that is a personal failure. The weapon imbalance comes from having a kick range the length of its swing, and a Normal kick speed.

The ninjaken will beat you, hands down, in a combo race? Why? It can complete two combos to the price of your one. you know the solution though. We all do. BLOCK, Sukka!. This is not imbalance, because the solution is to simply play well, with a style that counters the ninjaken. Now that the kick is fixed, I feel that the ninjaken is balanced.

But people have been calling the Taketori unbalanced which I find odd, because A) The entire grid is fubarred, it’s impossible to get an accurate behavioural picture when you can’t kick properly, and B) You’re just not USED to it. People have been fighting against, and with, the take for all of what, two weeks now, and that’s just not enough time to learn, fully, its strengths and weaknesses. Unless you’re Masmako, and all your opponents used the Take.

It takes time to adjust and learn a weapon. The Take is fast, yes. The take is smooth from block and back, in part, I think, PRECISELY because it does not have auto comboing, it allows you to break anywhere to slide back into block easily, without breaking up an animation chain.

But is it faster out of block than say, the Musashi? I don’t believe it is. I think people are just unused to the weapon. I think it will take a while for the whole world to adjust, and that time is needed before calling anything unbalanced. Unless you’re Masmako, and fight a billion spars a week. Let’s see, her count today is… 790. I don’t think she sleeps. She probably knows every timing quirk, every slow second kick, fast third slash, every bit of the weapons she fights against. Because she’s put in a LOT of time on the matter.

Weapons selection, and weapons skill, depend on the style of fighter, and the skill level. Beginners will find a rough time of it using a Musashi sword, simply because the timing is different, and jump slashing, which becomes terribly important at an intermediate level, is tough with the musashi. But can it be worth it for a beginner who favours a defensive style to stick with it? Sure. Definitely. The weapon should be chosen based on the comfort of the user, whatever weapon garners you the best results for your style. That said, one should avoid leaning on an unbalanced weapon, because the results you get there are unfair, and there is no honour in that. One day, I have faith that all unbalanced weapons will be fixed and balanced. And in that time, many people will be forced to relearn a weapon where they leaned heavily on a broken system.

I’ve always tried to avoid using just one weapon. For a long time, I’d used the Ashes primarily, but not First. The first time I spar someone, I’d use the dynasty, or an archatek, when I had one, because I was trying to learn the swords. If I only used Ashes, which I knew fairly well, then I’d be losing out. I’d only be learning one sword’s strengths, and it would make me a weaker, more patterned fighter. Much like leaning on the strengths of an unbalanced weapon will build in you habits of fighting that depend on that unfair advantage, the use of a single weapon builds habits around the fair advantages of the sword. If you focus too much on a single weapon, you think too narrowly, and your style suffers.

Days like today, I wish the grid weren’t broken. I’d really like to be sparring, to try to regain the skills I’ve lost, but sadly, I’m too frustrated with the broken kick. Here’s waiting for the next server update.
EA

Auto Stacking and the Taketori

So, just like with all new weapons, the Taketori dropped, and everyone has one.

There’s a lot of talk going on about the speed of the weapon, and the lack of automatic combos. Some people say its too fast, others, too slow. I think this largely depends on your perspective. The spinning slash in the middle will likely seem quite slow if you’re used to the swift combos of Ashes. On the other, hand, the combo in general is likely to feel speedy if you’re a Musashi user. So, given that this comment is subjective, we’ll move on to my favourite, and other people’s least favourite feature.

No AUTO STACKING. Auto stacking is where you type in a command line, and then you can take your fingers off the keys, because it’s doing whatever you just said to do. That is, asd is a full combo, when typed quickly. All swords have it. Ashes get easily stuck in it, because they seem to have the largest buffer for them.

This one does NOT have it. There is no queue, no buffer, no auto combo waiting for you to tap your way into victory. And I love it.

Why? Well, let’s examine that. C:SI is a skill based game, in which timing, strategy, and discipline are rewarded. Timing is always important, whether you’re timing your jump slash, or timing your counter from tanking, you’re always calculating the best timing to take a swing, kick, or block. Various strategies evolve out of the timing of the game, and the strengths and weaknesses of each fighter, and each sword. Discipline is required to master the timing, and the strategies, to stay calm in the fight, to not get locked into ‘health’ or ‘losing’ anxiety, and to advance in C:SI as an art.

And yet, swords allow what we shall call… button mashing. That’s right. I said it. We’ve all been button mashing. Heck, I played Ashes for so long, I know I button mash.

Taketori does not allow Button mashing. Or rather, it does, but it does you no good. No matter how many keys you hit, it only allows the one you hit in its activity window, which begins near the end of the swing. This is different, and new, and I honestly think, it will make a better fighter out of you, to be more aware of what you’re swinging, and when.

I think that this adheres to the Spirit of C:SI and encourages better timing. I think that disabling button mashing should be a step more developers should take, though doubtless I am not popular in this stance.

All in all, I love the Taketori, I love the weapon from the top down to the bottom, starting with a lovely Saya, and working my way up to the block timing being crisp and smooth, with little ‘lag’ between hitting that button, and the response. And I’d like to extend a personal thanks to Robby Raccoon, for being such an awesome dev, working so hard on updates and balance issues as they’re discovered.

Yesterday, I saw him come out to see a reported problem that he could not duplicate from one of his sword users. Very rarely do you see anyone in SL who has that sort of devotion to their product, that they will come and listen to the users in a face to face to see something they can’t verify. It denotes a special kind of person, and I salute you, and your wonderful, wonderful sword.

EA Poe

edit: In post script, I felt I needed to say, This is NOT a jab at people who are having issues and reporting them. I understand that you all have what you view as legitimate issues with the performance of the sword, and that Robby is working with all of you to make sure you’re getting the same great experience I’m having.

I just felt like talking about the lack of auto stacking as a good thing, not as an attack on anyone who may or may not like ti.