It's been a long time since I played a character with kick. Lately I noticed regardless of the level of my skill, unless there is no big difference in skill levels between me and them, my opponent can kick me real hard. I think defense against kicks could be reworked.
Anyone else feels that way?

It does kinda feel like if you don't have such high kick that you reverse theirs, you have essentially no defense against it. And I'm seeing consistent 16-18 damage kicks from humans. Don't know if anything changed, but the damage feels different. It's common now for kick to do like 75% of the damage in spars. When I can parry literally all of someone's attacks, but he lands every kick on me and they all do so much damage that I have to flee after three, it feels unbalanced. Spars are won with kick nowadays, which is doubly annoying because you learn nothing from being kicked to pieces. It's just a dud sparring match.

Combined with the fact that isn't there at least one class that has a branch off kick? Which encourages its constant use?

If anything down the damage

My only problem with kick is that damage is influenced heavily by strength.

This means that if you didn't prioritize strength the skill often bounces off tough skin even if you do hit. Unsure damage improves overtime beyond just max skill. Maybe make the damage a bit more of a balance between agility and strength so it doesn't feel either too strong or too weak?

Also wish the helpfile was more specific on what doubling over meant. Not sure if this is just a damage threshold or critical?

Finally it should be a front kick people are using, especially with the doubling over and strength is a heavy factor. A circle kick seems odd when a lot of people are using heavy armor.

The best defense against a good kick, is learning how to kick, so you know what to expect and can avoid it...If you know nothing about kicking and you get kicked by someone properly trained, It is going to hurt...Badly. Just as such in real life.

Quote from: Krath on August 05, 2024, 06:21:22 PMThe best defense against a good kick, is learning how to kick, so you know what to expect and can avoid it...If you know nothing about kicking and you get kicked by someone properly trained, It is going to hurt...Badly. Just as such in real life.

This is not the case. It only works if there's a big difference between skill levels. You can still get smashed in three kicks even if you have max kick. It feels like your skill level in kick doesn't do much.

Kick is really strongly strength affected, and unless your skill completely eclipses someone, you're not likely to defend against it as it currently stands. It's the unironic opposite of disarm.

Kick should have defensive aspects of it worked on, to also have less obvious strength connection and probably just be that people with very high kick can mitigate its damage in some way. Maybe inherent racial bonus damage for half-giants, given their immense size, to compensate. I also wouldn't want it to turn into disarm, where similar skill levels render it essentially nonfunctional or turn into a trap for everyone involved either.

Sadly, pretty much every combat skill currently is very 'raw', or super obvious in its workings. It's like this for kick, disarm, and bash.

Active combat skills are some of the biggest jank in Armageddon. I recently lost a really strong character to disarm despite the fact I had disarm to a decent level. This also goes for massive creatures which have bash and will basically always succeed even if you have master bash (which is also something which has happened to me) and seemingly every single humanoid mob in this game knows disarm. Sucks to suck if you're not playing a class with disarm to even attempt to counter it, which is most classes. Also I really don't think any mob that has no weapons should have disarm, because it means it can't even have the disarm reversed or drop it's own weapon.

Kick is honestly the least problematic because it's just a chunk of damage. Disarm and bash can really be 'save or suck' abilities in some circumstances. Also I'd say there's generally a 'sparring etiquette' where you're not really supposed to kick especially if you know you have high kick, but you'll even get people who'll kick even in unarmed sparring because they're really funny and just want to win despite it being a friendly spar.

Quote from: eska on August 05, 2024, 07:09:35 PM

Quote from: Krath on August 05, 2024, 06:21:22 PMThe best defense against a good kick, is learning how to kick, so you know what to expect and can avoid it...If you know nothing about kicking and you get kicked by someone properly trained, It is going to hurt...Badly. Just as such in real life.

This is not the case. It only works if there's a big difference between skill levels. You can still get smashed in three kicks even if you have max kick. It feels like your skill level in kick doesn't do much.

What kind of armor are you wearing? Because damage done to you decreases the stronger your armor.

Quote from: Krath on August 05, 2024, 08:24:55 PMWhat kind of armor are you wearing? Because damage done to you decreases the stronger your armor.

This only applies if the kick fails to do full damage.

I feel like offence and defence has no to negligable effect on kick. Being able to dodge 80% of attacks but failing to dodge all the kicks coming at you makes me think that way.

The best defense against kick is to flee.

Kick is annoying, but it's not OP. It has a delay so that it can't be spammed, and provides opportunity for the opponent to flee. You also can't kick mounted characters.

It would be nice if shields were more effective for kicks, that is my thought for improving kick defense.

Shields should be the defensive king of fighting styles in all respects. Currently they help a little bit to defend kicks, but not much.

Quote from: roughneck on August 06, 2024, 07:08:44 AMShields should be the defensive king of fighting styles in all respects. Currently they help a little bit to defend kicks, but not much.

It's funny that a shield can completely block an axe or a dujat worm, but a kick will go through it and still hit you for 15 damage.

Armor works well, the heavier the better, shield help a lot, the heavier the better.


That said, I just think the combat skills that are using stats just need to be brought in line with the rest of the combat overhaul balancing out agility and strength for damage. It doesn't mater how strong you are  if the kick is slow as sludge, and it should lose some damage. With appropriate bonuses given to size and mass for half-giants.

That said unless you know the skill, it should be much harder to defend, block or even mitigate damage. However, performing the skill should be worthwhile, that does mean damage should be in the 10-20hp range against unskilled opponent, making it a really good single hit. If and when successful though, that damage should be going down to the 5 to 10 range depending on armor, kick skill and combat experience.

Non-heavy combat classes should not be winning straight fights against heavy combat classes. Subclass level combat skills should be nice to have but should not be outperforming the max skill class versions especially against opponents with higher combat experience or even nearly equal experience.

Quote from: roughneck on August 06, 2024, 07:08:44 AMKick is annoying, but it's not OP. It has a delay so that it can't be spammed, and provides opportunity for the opponent to flee.

You got a contract on a city-based person. You corner him and attack to kill and he starts kicking you even though he cannot fight as good as you. So you just bail out?   (jk)

My question is not about the damroll of kicks, it is about the hitroll.

I am not asking about why the damage is high or how we decrease it. A dwarf could hit 20 hp damage with a kick, a mul 30, a hg 40. A shield can block it, a piece of armor can block it.  But a dwarf is not as agile as a human or an elf. What is the point of strength if you cannot hit someone?

I think the defense check (or hitroll) against kick could be something like this:
Kicker's (offense + kick skill + agility bonus) against kickee's (defense + kick skill + agility bonus).

Quote from: eska on August 06, 2024, 09:19:58 AMStuff

From my experience, it does seem like offense and defense skills do have an impact on success/failure(reversal) of kick. Most people's offense or defense skills are probably not as high as they might think, in the case of defense this is especially true if your are resorting to parrying attacks or with offense if you are working to acquire high level of weapon skills.

Quote from: Dresan on August 06, 2024, 09:53:35 AM

Quote from: eska on August 06, 2024, 09:19:58 AMStuff

Offense and defense skills do have an impact on success/failure(reversal) of kick. Most people's offense or defense skills are probably not as high as they might think, in the case of defense this is especially true if your are resorting to parrying attacks.

I am pretty sure that offense and defense skill have -no- or very little impact. The example I gave mentioned dodging 80% of attacks and taking 100% of kicks with maxed kick.

Quote from: eska on August 06, 2024, 09:58:44 AMvery little impact.

How much of an impact I am not sure and you might be right.

I have noticed a bit of a difference over time, less skilled opponents getting tripped or dodged, but the gap seems to be fairly high.

Who the hell spam kicks in a sparring match against someone who can't reverse them?

They need a sergeant to correct their behavior with lashes before they piss of someone with backstab. 

Anyway, speculation aside, when I played a long lived human scout I rarely used kick because I was always mounted because I was a long lived scout. As a 10 day delf raider, I got more use out of bash than kick, and kick sucked up dangerous amounts of stam.

So I think the issue is restricted to fights where neither riding nor stamina is a factor, which to me seems to be working as intended. It's good in a very limited scope.

Of course if it is actually mostly dependent on strength, then yeah it should get the same consideration Halaster gave  styles in the combat overhaul.

Kick just doesn't seem to work as intended and from experience, heavy armor and mastery in kick doesn't stop someone from kicking you down to nothing while never being able to hit you with weapons. 

Just doesn't figure in at all. 

Wow! I can't believe I saw this:

A crimson-striped sand raptor hammers you with a brutal circle kick - you see stars.
This is what I'm talking about.

When I don't have kick, I like to kick things that are already mortally wounded.. kick em right into drov.

Makes me feel Tuffffforgottopickaclasswithkick

Defending kicks in real life is hard enough bare-handed let alone holding weapons. Exception being a shield that should really do wonders at defending kicks.

Actually it is not that hard IRL. If you know how to kick properly and agility and enough fighting experience, it is pretty easy to dodge and knock your opponent with one good punch to the chin. On the other hand we shouldn't compare the combat in arm with real life.