Subscribe to download
Sensible Martial Arts - A Martial Arts Overhaul

This mod aims to increase the strength and ease-of-use of Martial Arts at early levels, while decreasing its ridiculous performance and damage output at high levels. At the same time, the mod tries to avoid straying far from vanilla. The many aspects of Martial Arts have not been entirely reworked and rebalanced; simply tweaked to nudge the balance in the direction that I think needs to go. Martial Arts remains a powerful skill once fully trained, one that can still match max-level heavy weapons, but it will no longer surpass it in many cases.


Dodge speeds have been increased, increasing survivability for Martial Artists and somewhat reducing the occurrence of "Dodge Dancing" when fighting multiple opponents.


Attacks have been made faster but weaker, causing you to train faster (from more attacks landing) and allowing you to potentially stagger your opponent more often, but all attacks deal a bit less damage in the long run. Essential techniques are unlocked earlier, the weak "Bad Punch" is dropped quicker, and the most powerful techniques require further training to acquire and deal less overly-powered blows. The purpose of it all is to smooth out the power curve of Martial Arts, so that it is less of "the skill that sucks to train but makes you god if you stick with it". Overall, when compared to before, Martial Arts can now have more power at early levels, and less power at higher levels.

• Faster Dodging: The Back Step dodge is 36% faster (1.1x > 1.5x) to help reduce "dodge dancing" and to increase overall survivability. The Fall Back (aka Matrix) dodge is 100% faster (1.1x > 2.2x), removing its annoyance while keeping its style.
  
• No Deadzone: There were no Martial Arts attacks assigned when 7-9 units from your enemy. The range of the Jump Kick, unlocked at Level 30, has been changed from 10 units to 7-10 units to fill this gap.
  
• Faster Attacks: All Martial Arts attacks are 20% faster (except for the Jump Kick, which is 10% faster). This visually speeds up the attacks and allows you to attack more frequently, helping to alleviate the issue of Martial Arts feeling slow, and allowing you to train slightly faster through combat.
  
• Lower Damage: All Martial Arts attacks (excluding the beginner "Bad Punch") deal 25% less damage. The high-damage Flying Knee Strike and Mega Kick attacks are further reduced by 10%, dealing 35% less damage. After the speed increase, this only results in up to a potential ~13% DPS loss. This is partly a necessary change after the speed increase since you can hit more often, but is additionally a nerf that I feel is needed considering the absurd damage output of high-level Martial Arts.
  
• Better Scaling: The beginner "Bad Punch" has been excluded from the damage nerf, effectively making it 33% stronger, while remaining the weakest move. You now stop using the Bad Punch at level 15 instead of 20, being replaced by the level 15 Shotei entirely, and the Double Strike is now unlocked at level 20 instead of 25. On the opposite end of things, the Double Punch (Chudan) unlock level is up to 40 from 35, the Mega Kick is up to 55 from 45, and the Flying Knee Strike is up to 70 from 55. The Jump Kick is unchanged, unlocking at level 30. All of this, along with more frequent attacks, results in Martial Arts being easier to pick up and train, while also taking longer to master and to become very powerful.

These changes were made based on my own experiences with Martial Arts, and on perceived design intent from changes that have been made to Martial Arts in the past, such as the damage reduction in 0.95.11. That update's changelog even states that "it was getting powerful too quickly"; an issue that is still present once you get through the early level slog. Based on the fact that the balance of Martial Arts was still questionable then, and never received any balancing afterward, I believe that the skill remains slightly too powerful when high and too weak when low. That is the basis of the issue that this mod helps to remedy, using the changes that are most sensible and appealing to me.