A UC buff idea (in General)

I think UC should work in ranged rounds. That would be a nice buff.

I understand that it makes no sense, as people cannot "throw" punches...but... it would be so cool.

It'll be like Rayman!

I don't necessarily agree with this idea totally. However, as an Unarmed Combatant, it may make sense that you are unnaturally fast, and thus could produce a hit in the last round of ranged combat. I am unsure of whether this would be an advantage or not.

Better idea: the level of UC works as DX (since unarmed combat in itself implies a high degree of dexterity)

i don't really see how that'd work but i'd love it if it gave an endurance effect like the jiggy gets.

Swap out the evasion for an endurance.

Just say instead of blocking the other guy's blows, you're "rolling with" them - which kinda is what happens. From what I've learnt off martial arts, dodging weaponed opponents isn't that good of an idea since they have massively extended reach; close in and block their arms instead. And all the other familiars are just concentrated one-skill minions with some HP, no reason why Jiggy shouldn't.

Double post, but one of the other shortcomings of UC is the x on the fists is linear with skill, while weapon damage goes as square root of the x. It's probably balanced by the really "low" + upgrade curve, but UC hits for relatively less and less as levels go up.

sigh...

I was making fun of the relationship between balanced game mechanics, and an attempt of "realism". Just something I was thinking about... I don't know what possessed me to make this thread however.

I just want to throw out that justification of a mechanic simply because it makes or doesn't make sense if it was somehow recreated in the real world isn't really what we need.

But now that I've got the ball rolling about UC, I say my thoughts about a buff. Personally, I find it difficult to understand Jon's purpose behind UC. Something tells me is that it was simply a little thing he put in for fun, but let us look about what it has done in the past.

First lets look at UC equips:

1. The Combat Gi: No base AC? But nice upgrade curve? This seems to be a full fledged armor for UC, it'll give a decent amount of AC if you put in the money. Boost to Evasion and UC boost, implies that UCs purpose was not to take hits, but to dodge.

2.Helm's Gaunlets: TGs with a solid bonus to UC. All these constant bonus to a skill confuse me. Why does Jon do that? Perhaps UC wasn't meant to have a future, but rather a large start. Perhaps he has constants because he was afraid that UC would be unusable in the beginning of the game, because it takes a while early in the game to add any PTH to UC.

Now lets look at UC. For MPR it give you dodgy and a weapon. It's nice, but the damage seems low. Perhaps the logic was that, since it has the ability to dodge, it should do that much less damage? It makes sense, having a stat that serves both as a offensive and defensive purpose is capable of being overpowered fast! Sounds fair enough right?

Well, as the game grew, big 5 weapons became rampant, and UC became a thing of the past. Guess it's fair, it cost nothing, so why should it keep up? But as evasion started to pass even the largest weapons, UC became an option again.

But now with recent changes, UC can't dodge like it could before, Jon has decided that dodging everything isn't right!

But wait, UC was based on dodging everything! So what should we do to it now...

I think if UC is going to be an option again, it needs to be completely reworked. It needs a new niche, a new purpose.

Damage can't be it, can it? Tanks are supposed to be run by money! Having UC out damage the big 5 would be well...unfair, it could use a boost but what UC really needs is an adjustment in it's purpose

Endurance you say? Why? Cause Jiggy has it? Hmmm...lets thing about it. Endurance would give UC a unique kind of damage reduction, allow it to survive in a way that others can't. Unless of course they start using big 5 weapons with trained UC, but that not a big problem, cause dilution is the last thing tanks need (dex battle!). Since most UC teams are single minions, it'll really give the UC the survival boost to be a single minion bent on melee combat. I kinda like it. I guess that's the point of UC right? To make it to melee rounds.

Hmmm, maybe we should take out the UCs ability to use ranged weapons, and perhaps allow it to be truly a skill based on melee combat. Keep the damage on the low side, but give it a nice big endurance boost...I'm starting to like this. Perhaps it should only functional with relative amounts of dex and str, to prevent abuse...hmmm

anyways, before I let my wander anymore, I really think UC needs a new niche, rather than just trying to be a subpar tank weapon. It needs a purpose!

Just my several cents

oh well, endurance is gone. What niche can a UC fill?

The niche UC can fill:


DEXTROUS, this is what an unarmed fighter *is*.

Simply make the UC level = DX. This reduces the number of stats that need training, gives it the DX = Evasion level to give it full usage of Evasion, and gives it the DX advantage versus a new lineup of weapons that RELY on DX to hit (PTH is going out of style, X is the new big thing!)


My 2 cents, which I submit in place of my other 2 cents in this thread.

but what's to stop people to just train UC instead of evasion for defense?

UC has a steeper upgrade curve. Sure, it's boostable, but only half of that massive boost works as evasion. I essentially had 1.2 mil MPR in Unarmed Combat on Panda Man, with the best boosting items in the game, and still only got about 5mil defensive DX, and somewhere in the low-200 Evasion range, if that. I also think that UC takes precedence over melee weapons (confirm or deny, anyone?), which would make it unusable for any tank with a weapon. For mages, I think it would be a much smaller return on investment than Evasion was previously, even if it would be better than training Evasion and DX equally now. Except for the fact that UC-boosting gear is decidedly non-mage-friendly (my DM was suffering badly when I equipped my Gi).

deny, melee weapons take precedence. I found that out during the tournament where we needed to kill diggles. I had a (11) UC effect and was hitting for ~100 damage a shot because I had my sabre equipped :P

However, I think that OB's idea of granting straight DX equal to the UC level would be going right back to the "double-dipping" effect everyone was complaining about for so long. If the DX level were equal to the level, which would be subject to massive boosts from HG and Gi, then what would be the point for ANYONE to train simple DX? There's no advantage; UC is simply better (unless, of course, they want to use an MH or something).

It can't be full DX, though I would get behind some percentage, like maybe 1/3 trained level as DX, but doesn't increase to 1/2 with Gi equipped like conferred Evasion does. Therefore, to get max Evasion potential, you'd still need to equip a Gi and train natural DX, but it would be well-supplemented even in cases where you were investing 60% of your XP into UC.

Other than that, I would still say something Endurance-like would be a good addition, but I think that removing the Endurance from the jiggy might mean "no" to that idea.

At this time, I have no other suggestions. I expect Jon will pull through with something brilliant and unexpected, though, so I guess every suggestion I make just adds to the list of things he can't implement if he really wants to blow us all away :P. I'll leave it to him, and hold off on calling the waahmbulance until the end of Changemonth if it's not fixed by then.