Martial Arts Rebalance for Tai Chi

[Hymore246]

Summary

SUMMARY: Balance "Martial arts rebalance for Tai Chi"

Purpose of change

Partially implements #32422
Update for the martial art: Tai Chi

Describe the solution

Though Tai Chi is often seen as a form of mental and physical exercise, it is a legitimate martial art, focused on self-defense.

Current Buffs, Techniques, and Special Abilities

Name	Level Available	Type	Effect
Arm Block	Unarmed 1
Tai Chi	Unarmed 0	Static Buff	+1 Blocks, Block damage reduced by 50% of Perception
disarm	Unarmed 3	Unarmed Tech	Disarm
precise strike	Unarmed 4	Unarmed Crit Tech	Stun duration: 2 turns

Tai Chi doesn't offer much. It's self-defense focused and can help with blocking but it's limited by only have a few techniques. The fact that disarm isn't useful most of the time doesn't help.

Problems and issues

• The style is bare bones.
  Even if you consider Tai Chi a defensive style, it pales in comparison to every other defensive style just due to the lack of techniques and buffs. There just isn't a reason to use this style when you have something else available.

Rebalance Goal
Tai Chi is by far the hardest style to rebalance because it is increadibly hard to find information on the self-defense aspect of the style. It's clear Tai Chi has martial arts roots but it's most well known for it's medical applications. I tried my hardest in searching for information, videos, descriptions, anything and at best I got was theory stuff. I even asked Kevin himself, who had practiced the Yang style of Tai Chi for 5 years but he didn't know anything about the combat part of Tai Chi. Even other video games couldn't give me a clear picture of how Tai Chi should work. Everything was just too inconsistent. As a result, I am basing Tai Chi's rebalance on educated guesses based off the information I've found.

As for the actual rebalance, Tai Chi will remain a defensive, blocking style. It will use patience and gentleness to fight. Tai Chi is known to use the entire body when fighting, so this is taken into account. The style can be best summed up as a "Get away from me!" martial art.

New Buffs, Techniques, and Special Abilities

Name	Level Available	Type	Effect
Arm Block	Unarmed 0
Tai Chi Stance	Unarmed 0	Static Buff	+1 Blocks, Block damage reduced by 50% of Perception
Cross Hands	Unarmed 1	OnPause Buff	+1.0 Dodge skill, blocked damage reduced by 50% of Perception. Enables "Palm Strike" and "Double Palm Strike" techniques. Lasts 3 turns.
Palm Strike	Unarmed 1	Unarmed Tech	Requires "Cross Hands", +50% bash damage, Knockback distance: 1
Grasp the Sparrow's Tail	Unarmed 2	Unarmed Block Counter	+20% bash damage, Knockdown duration: 1
Repulse the Monkey	Unarmed 3	OnDodge Buff	Accuracy increased by 20% of Perception, gain bash Armor Pentration equal to 50% of Perception. Lasts 2 turns.
Disarm	Unarmed 3	Unarmed Tech	Disarms
Double Palm Strike	Unarmed 4	Unarmed Crit Tech	Requires "Cross Hands", +100% bash damage, knockback distance: 1, stun duration: 1 turn

Important Changes

• Added Cross Hands OnPause Buff.
  The central part of Tai Chi is the Cross Hands buff. Using it gives you some defense bonuses and allows you to use the offensive techniques, Palm Strike and Double Palm Strike. It is very important to keep this buff up in combat as it is the only way you will be able to fight back effectively.

• Added Palm Strike and Double Palm Strike techniques.
  These powerful techniques require the Cross Hands buff to be active. These techniques represent the offensive-defense style of Tai Chi. Both attacks are very strong, representing superior positioning and use of the player's entire body in attack but are also balanced by requiring the Cross Hands buff and always knocking back enemies.

Advantages

• With some planning, you can keep multiple opponents at bay.
• The offensive techniques are very strong.
• Gains a lot of benefit from having a high Perception.

Disadvantages

• Tai Chi is a defensive style that takes longer to kill than other styles. It's not as bad as Aikido but it's still pretty slow.
• You need the Cross Hands buff active to attack.

Describe alternatives you've considered

Of all the styles in CDDA, Tai Chi came the closest to being cut from game due to how hard it was for me to find information for it. In the end, I decided I'd rather have Tai Chi in the game and give it a use than remove it and leave a hole in the martial arts system.

If the style is too strong...

• Reduce the duration of Cross Hands.
• Give Grasp the Sparrow's Tail a -50 damage penalty.

If the style is too weak...

• Increase the duration of Cross Hands.
• Increase the duration of Repulse the Monkey.

Additional context

References:
Tai Chi wikipedia page
Tai Chi Chuan - Chin Na - fight techniques
5 Tai Chi Self Defense Fighting Combat Techniques

[tenmillimaster]

Have you considered adding Tai Chi fire? The practice of finding your Chi and channeling the energy through your hands to make fire. (I jest, though this is something a Tai Chi instructor at Emory very much said to our class)

Since Tai chi
, in my experience, has been more about meditation in motion and breath control/body awareness, is there a way it can help more with stamina regain/cost of moves and morale?

[tenebraslux]

Seems strange you had difficulty finding information on tai chi, but then again my mousepad rests on a tai chi book.
even as the 'old farts in the park' that many people know, the movements (which by the technique names you seem to have found) are slowed down blocks, redirects and strikes.
I was taught tai chi was esentially unarmed self defence and sword form rolled into one working along principles similar to win chun - diffusion and redirection of force to outbalance and provide openings.
perhaps worth looking at some of the tai chi organisation sites (the tai chi australia site atleast describes the unarmed/weapons forms they teach)

[Hymore246]

Have you considered adding Tai Chi fire? The practice of finding your Chi and channeling the energy through your hands to make fire. (I jest, though this is something a Tai Chi instructor at Emory very much said to our class)

Since Tai chi
, in my experience, has been more about meditation in motion and breath control/body awareness, is there a way it can help more with stamina regain/cost of moves and morale?

We have to separate the medical aspect of Tai Chi from the self-defense aspect. While Tai Chi could probably do those things, it wouldn't work fast enough to use them in the heat of combat. Implementing that would have to be done somewhere else outside of the martial arts aspect.

Seems strange you had difficulty finding information on tai chi, but then again my mousepad rests on a tai chi book.
even as the 'old farts in the park' that many people know, the movements (which by the technique names you seem to have found) are slowed down blocks, redirects and strikes.
I was taught tai chi was esentially unarmed self defence and sword form rolled into one working along principles similar to win chun - diffusion and redirection of force to outbalance and provide openings.
perhaps worth looking at some of the tai chi organisation sites (the tai chi australia site atleast describes the unarmed/weapons forms they teach)

I'll give it a look over. My problem is the lack of consistency. All the resources I looked up were vague and didn't match each other. It all seemed like "theory" and it really felt like people were "reverse engineering" the self-defense aspect from the medical aspect.

[cainiaowu]

there are lots of 四两拨千斤(quarter pound push diverts thousand kilo strike) idea in tai chi.

[zakhad]

@Hymore246 I only did Tai chi for about a year yang style as well, so I'm nothing more than an amature. Something I do remember is that when I was learning the basics of yang style was that my friend who introduced me to it was learning a sword form of tai chi. Perhaps you could do something similar to how brawling has both melee and unarmed scaling?