The Okina

[(NSW)Caaldow]

Hi, this is my first post here, but I felt I had to say something about the Okina. I live in Okinawa, so I was ecstatic to see Okinawan culture represented in Warframe. However, I was very sad to see what the Okina turned out to be.

To be clear, I am holding a real-life sai in my hands, and it is nothing like the Okina. A sai is not a dagger. It has no blade. It is not sharp. It is a very small club. It should do entirely Impact damage, with some puncture, and zero slash damage. What's more, you do not hold the sai by its handle, you only do this in specific strikes, whereas you actually hold the ''blade'' and sides most of the time and strike with the butt end. Though I understand from a mechanics view why it would use dual dagger art. A more accurate art would be the Fists art.

In addition, the sai is one of few weapons in Okinawa that is actually a thrown melee weapon. We throw it with no spin for a long distance.

 

For this reason, I would really appreciate it if you would consider changing everything about the Okina, or name it something else and make a new Okina. If DE would use Okinawa's name and culture, I would very much like them to do it justice. The idea of a bladed sai feels like something out of an American comic book...

To summarize my suggestion, make it a fist or glaive weapon. Change its damage to Impact, not slash. 

 

[SpicyDinosaur]

There's a skin for swords that is a khopesh, and they handled it similarly, in that they design it where instead of swinging it like an axe, as was supposed to be the case, you swing it more like a scythe.

Below is the appropriate way to swing it, which is the opposite of how it works in game.

 

I'm not Egyptian so have no actual connection to its history, but it's always annoyed me because I love the khopesh. At least one person has brought this up to Steve and he pretty much made it clear they had no intention of changing it.

 

My suspicion is they will treat this the same way, which is sad.

[(NSW)Caaldow]

I see! I haven't seen that weapon yet!

I don't want to say that a single person can't change a game as big as Warframe, but I knew there was little chance that my Feeback would be implemented, but I love Okinawa so much, so I thought I would try to get my feelings to DE!

 

Actually, I'm not so angry as to say they are culturally appropriating Okinawan (Ryukyuan) culture, and I plan to use the Okina anyway just because I have history with them. But please try to imagine what it would be like for you to wake up at the crack of dawn to practice Sai kata on the beach with your Sensei, and having someone walk up to you and say 'nice knife you have there.'

Also, I would be just as happy to get a different weapon that was also based on the sai with my suggestions. I don't want to be a burden on the developers because they made a great product and I am amazed at what I can do with it.

[Andele3025]

2 hours ago, SpicyDinosaur said:

There's a skin for swords that is a khopesh, and they handled it similarly, in that they design it where instead of swinging it like an axe, as was supposed to be the case, you swing it more like a scythe.

Below is the appropriate way to swing it, which is the opposite of how it works in game.

 

I'm not Egyptian so have no actual connection to its history, but it's always annoyed me because I love the khopesh. At least one person has brought this up to Steve and he pretty much made it clear they had no intention of changing it.

 

My suspicion is they will treat this the same way, which is sad.

In very very soft defense in the case of the inaros deluxe, a ok amount of khopeshes (or at least i think thats the plural for it) were bladed on both sides (which in turn became the inspirationw for greek and roman ritual daggers and the shotel), something that combined with art and murals of em held both ways caused quite the confusion for decades on where on the "tool for cutting grain vs weapon to chop people" scale they were.

[Kaotis]

hace 2 horas, (NSW)Caaldow dijo:

Hi, this is my first post here, but I felt I had to say something about the Okina. I live in Okinawa, so I was ecstatic to see Okinawan culture represented in Warframe. However, I was very sad to see what the Okina turned out to be.

To be clear, I am holding a real-life sai in my hands, and it is nothing like the Okina. A sai is not a dagger. It has no blade. It is not sharp. It is a very small club. It should do entirely Impact damage, with some puncture, and zero slash damage. What's more, you do not hold the sai by its handle, you only do this in specific strikes, whereas you actually hold the ''blade'' and sides most of the time and strike with the butt end. Though I understand from a mechanics view why it would use dual dagger art. A more accurate art would be the Fists art.

In addition, the sai is one of few weapons in Okinawa that is actually a thrown melee weapon. We throw it with no spin for a long distance.

 

For this reason, I would really appreciate it if you would consider changing everything about the Okina, or name it something else and make a new Okina. If DE would use Okinawa's name and culture, I would very much like them to do it justice. The idea of a bladed sai feels like something out of an American comic book...

To summarize my suggestion, make it a fist or glaive weapon. Change its damage to Impact, not slash. 

 

It's a breath of fresh air to see some one ask for a rework or rename(in this case) for a weapon because it's actually misused and not coz op or somthing by thous lines.

With that said,if they change the stance mod it could make peopel revisit that weapon family (i'f i'm not mistaken there are a few weps there) that would be nice to see in melee 3.0 if it ever comes out...

hace 2 horas, SpicyDinosaur dijo:

There's a skin for swords that is a khopesh, and they handled it similarly, in that they design it where instead of swinging it like an axe, as was supposed to be the case, you swing it more like a scythe.

I belive this comes down to : do we want to make a melee weapon family line or just a one off.  Also i belive there were diferent sized khopeshes and the shorter ones with greather angle where used as hand axes while the longer less angled ones more like tratitional swords. The ingame one i haven't ussed it in years but i recal it was "artisticaly disproportionated" to fit the theme more than the function.

hace 2 horas, SpicyDinosaur dijo:

My suspicion is they will treat this the same way, which is sad.

They can change the melee stance or create a split family but you probably are right on this regard sadly 😞 

hace 1 hora, (NSW)Caaldow dijo:

wake up at the crack of dawn to practice Sai kata on the beach with your Sensei, and having someone walk up to you and say 'nice knife you have there.'

Depending on the contry you have more % of it being somthing like : " Sick knifes bro! wana surf later ? "  xD

[kgabor]

Sai-s need their own stances.

But holding them by the handle would also make sense while blocking.

I could imagine a defensive stance with one Sai held with a reverse grip and one held normally and another more offensive stance with both held reverse grip for fast hits and mobility, from the way i've seen them used by martial artists.

I don't see much chance for that to happen, seeing how DE wanted to put scythes into the heavy blades category though...

[quxier]

Another white weapons fan. Great.

8 hours ago, (NSW)Caaldow said:

entirely Impact damage, with some puncture, and zero slash damage.

While I think I have seen some sharp Sais that potentially could deal slash damage I would say it should deal more puncture than impact damage. However I don't have any experience in real fight so I'm not 100% sure what damage we would have in the Warframe.

6 hours ago, (NSW)Caaldow said:

But please try to imagine what it would be like for you to wake up at the crack of dawn to practice Sai kata on the beach with your Sensei, and having someone walk up to you and say 'nice knife you have there.'

I bet lots of people are not into weapons, at least not into white weapons. I do not think there are many movies with the sais. I am into white weapons and I have watched/seen a lot but I would still say something very wrong from time to time.

8 hours ago, (NSW)Caaldow said:

make it a fist or glaive weapon.

It would not work with glaives because with glaive you swing a lot... and as you said this is not slash weapon.
Making it fist... I have too much experience with it (I have just trying sais) but I would say that the sais are more complex.

 

3 hours ago, kgabor said:

Sai-s need their own stances.

But holding them by the handle would also make sense while blocking.

I could imagine a defensive stance with one Sai held with a reverse grip and one held normally and another more offensive stance with both held reverse grip for fast hits and mobility, from the way i've seen them used by martial artists.

I don't see much chance for that to happen, seeing how DE wanted to put scythes into the heavy blades category though...

Sadly melee system needs rework. As it is now it is just few things that happens but many things are very similar. For example many attacks looks different but they just hit a target, dealing some damage/status. Making new stances would not change too much. Look at the Warfan... it had unusual animation but that animation was doing nothing. That animation could taunt enemies, for example.

[(NSW)Caaldow]

Thank you for all of your thoughts!

To Quixer, I have suggested Impact damage because among all of the strikes you can make with a Sai, even if you were to stab someone with the tip, it would never break skin like a rapier or a bullet. This would be like trying to stab someone with the eraser end of a pencil.

The sai is primarily a defensive weapon used for blocking, trapping, and disarming, but the object of using a sai offensively, whether by jabbing with the butt-end or swinging it like a baton, it to do internal, structural damage, just like you would if you were using a baseball bat.

One 'punch' with a sai will quickly decimate ribcages and many other very graphic things I won't mention. It will never cut, and it will never make holes in a person. That is why I think Impact is more suited than puncture or slash, but I do think some puncture damage does make sense because the punches and stabs are highly concentrated pressures on very small contact surfaces.

[Tiltskillet]

10 hours ago, (NSW)Caaldow said:

A more accurate art would be the Fists art.

Or Sparring maybe?  Not that anything is going to be a perfect fit, but the fist stances feel a little more brutish, emphasizing slams and straight up boxing. Sparring stances seem to have a little more finesse, and have some nice kicks as well

(PS. DE, please add a fourth combo to the sparring stances and others that are missing them.)

As far as a throw goes, without a dedicated sai stance, that seems more likely as something added to the weapon itself.  For an example, see the Wolf Sledge throw.  

[SpicyDinosaur]

11 hours ago, Andele3025 said:

In very very soft defense in the case of the inaros deluxe, a ok amount of khopeshes (or at least i think thats the plural for it) were bladed on both sides (which in turn became the inspirationw for greek and roman ritual daggers and the shotel), something that combined with art and murals of em held both ways caused quite the confusion for decades on where on the "tool for cutting grain vs weapon to chop people" scale they were.

That's really interesting! I didn't know that!

 

Further on in the video he shows a replica of a bronze khopesh and how it has less curve and a longer (I think) blade. The weapon he is reviewing is like he says "a khopesh on steroids." It's steel, much sharper, and much bigger in general, including heavier. A bronze bladed edge, I think, isn't very sharp, So the original ones are hard to determine the actual use of just by looking at them. I do wish DE would do their research when implementing historically based weapons, however.

[RazerXPrime]

You get my vote. Although I do have to note that currently impact is the weakest damage type and slash the strongest. Removing slash and changing it to impact will have a significant impact on the usability vs higher level targets.