Missing martial arts are missing

[atomicdryad]

With the recent jsonization of martial arts ( https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/pull/3104 ) the submitter didn't want to add all the required json for all martial arts.

...which I understand completely as I'm opening an issue instead of doing it myself >.>

[swwu]

The prevailing sentiment seems to be that not all of them should return, but this is something that's currently being worked on.

[kevingranade]

At least in the short term, we need to do something with them. If you mean taekwondo vs karate, I'd think kicking focus vs punching focus would be sufficient to justify keeping both, or even just having the flavor be slightly different. If we do decide to pull some, saves that include them need to do something besides silently dropping them.

[swwu]

I just mean that right now they have more or less the same playstyle; we don't even have a meaningful distinction between kicks and punches right now, except for what shows up in the message log. If reworked, sure, they could reasonably co-exist, but as it is they feel more or less the same (slight damage buff, slight block buff, stunning technique).

As for replacing missing styles, we could just replace them with the closest analogue, or prompt them for what style they'd like to take as a replacement, or even spec out the style but not have it available through the regular game. The point is more to gate the initially available styles so that people can reasonably weigh the pros and cons of each at character creation.

@kevingranade How far back are we planning on extending savegame compatibility? Something like one stable version?

[kevingranade]

One major version is all we've announced so far, additional extent TBD. Not available except to legacy games would be perfectly fine, though I still don't see why "too similar" styles need to be trimmed in the first place. That they are major arts in the real world is sufficient to me, we're talking the national sport of korea and one of if not the most popular martial art in the world here. Dropping either of them seems bizarre. If you're talking the 5 venoms that's different, I'd be perfectly fine with them being legacy-only and eventually dropped if they aren't different enough.

[NaturesWitness]

I don't really see a reason to drop any of them, it's not like we're going to run out of space, and having the large variety is fun. Instead, I'd just limit what ones can be taken at character creation, and have more esoteric ones (like the venoms) only be findable in game. The main reason I made the extra traits was that ATM, character gen is the only way to get martial arts styles, and we'd never get any feedback on them if people can't use them. Personally, I'd like some of them to be learnable through books, but I don't know how to implement it.

[swwu]

@kevingranade I never suggested dropping either karate or taekwondo, I'm just pointing to the fact that they have almost no play differences in-game as an example of "poor differentiation", which is something we can fix with a rework. I am, however, suggesting dropping the venom mob styles, which as far as I can tell exist in exactly one 70s HK kung fu flick, and moving their mechanical gimmicks into other styles.

[kevingranade]

I'm marking this as a 0.9 release blocker since it technically breaks save compatibility. We need to be able to load working martial arts from 0.8 characters. It's fine if there's no way to get them except by loading them from a save.

[KA101]

Uh, Karate is distinctly offensive (attacks generate additional block/dodge opportunities) whereas TKD is distinctly defensive (extra damage-soak on blocking).

Only ones I'd drop would be some of the Shaolin forms: not sure anyone uses Crane or Leopard.

Oh, and the Amigara Horrors exist in...one bonus-feature of one obscure (to me, at least?) manga, IIRC. Gozu, about the same. Knocking things out of Cata because they're too obscure argues for removing more than a quarter of the MA styles.

"Legacty-only' is a good argument for keeping an old version around for chargen, IMO.

[GlyphGryph]

No one has argued for removing martial arts for reason of obscurity anyway, so not sure what your point is there.

[KA101]

Swwu, 25 Sep: " I am, however, suggesting dropping the venom mob styles, which as far as I can tell exist in exactly one 70s HK kung fu flick, and moving their mechanical gimmicks into other styles."

You were saying, GlyphGryph? Sounds like "remove based on obscurity" to me?

[swwu]

The argument there was more "remove based on not actually a real martial art" than "remove based on obscurity". The fact that they also happen to be obscure is secondary (although they do contribute a little bit to my feeling that way about them); I would probably also suggest removing firebending or Jedi lightsaber styles from the game if they were in there.

[kevingranade]

Thanks to KA101, we have all the styles filled!