1.4.5 Open Beta Dueling Feedback

[jewbacca]

The changes to blue I welcome: it should be a defensive style.

No, it shouldn't

BP drains for backwacks are nonsensical.

++

Actually, I realized that there is a quite a lot of thigs I like about this update
- Force Repulse is now disabled in Duel mode
- Slap now causes small knockback even when hitting someone that's blocking
- BP drain for attacks moved from being based on button inputs (holding vs tapping) to being flat drains based on style
- Repeated consecutives can no longer be done
- All combo breaks have visual indication in the form of staggers/flinches
- Parrying with no BP will cause you to drop your saber
- FP drains for special moves have been adjusted
- Special moves now cost BP to activate
- Semi-PB removed pending further changes.

I'm not sure about other changes tho. More testing needs to be done.

 

[AaronAaron]

No, it shouldn't

Yes, it should lol. Blue feels awesome now.

 

[DaloLorn]

Honestly, the BP cost for most special moves (DFAs in particular) kinda bugs me. For example:

- When the hell has anyone managed to use the floor stab for anything except disposing of corpses?

- DFAs were risky (red more so) and admittedly a little too cheap for their potential performance, but now they deal fairly low BP damage and the stagger/knockback still has no offensive value without competent (and most likely gun-wielding) teammates.

- Backslashes/stabs have already been mentioned.

@jewbacca Swing BP costs were standardized back in 1.4.4. I'm not sure why it's in the 1.4.5 patch notes, but it is possible that the costs themselves have changed.

 

[jewbacca]

Yes, it should lol. Blue feels awesome now.

No it shouldn't. And you will soon realize that there's not much depth in coutner & pb based gameplay if there's no other valid strategy within style.

I'm going to write helluva large wallotext bout styles someday later this week. Tlll then tho, 'tis probably best for me to stfu.

 

[agentoo8]

BP drain on at LEAST the red/purp crouch backwack needs to be given some oomph. Currently it only tickles, with 2 hits doing only 1/4 BP damage.

Even a 2hit red transition into a crouched backswing combo doesn't deal anywhere near the BP damage it ought to be, given the ramp-up time/risk.

 

[foggy]

No it shouldn't. And you will soon realize that there's not much depth in coutner & pb based gameplay if there's no other valid strategy within style.

I agree that a style should not be forced with a certain specialization, the player should define it

 

[Liniyka_xddd]

>download the beta, think I can get into sabering with this new update
>go to a duel server
>have to fight agent
>rip

Seriously though, I kinda like the new system. Maybe even enough to get into saberists. Previous one was very slow and tedious (imo), and this one feels very quick and refreshing. I really like it and hope you will stick with it.

 

[DaloLorn]

Well, one thing that irks me about blue is that you cannot chase the bastard down. When the enemy is finally ready to die, he'll start evading, mblocking or whatever else he wants and there's not much you can do about it without either getting mblocked or burning your own BP to hell.

(Tested against agent, who would hunker down early enough for me to get myself mblocked, and my younger brother who has always been and always will be the most cowardly duelist I've seen and cannot be fought defensively, only occupied.)

 

[Eazy E]

You can no longer Pblock counter attacks. Idk if this is a bug or not but it's pretty easily abusable.

 

[Hexodious]

Yaw feels too good for its buck and encourages spam a lot. I'd like to see shorter yaw'd hits do less damage than full swings, its a trade off thing - you do less damage but build ACM and are hard to pblock at the cost of raw damage.

I felt like the conc. swing speeds could be a bit faster. But I loved the damage, making mistakes really shows.

I think you should be able to semi-pblock on returns and staggers. I also don't think there should be low bp staggers (I was playing purple a lot so it was especially noticable when I got someone low, because I could always stagger them), mblock staggers feel like enough of a momentum changer.

Purple kata felt bad (damage vs cost) it always felt better to just swing, I wouldn't mind seeing purple stab back now that special abilities have bp costs associated with them. Or even Sidious dfa.

 

[SeV]

Yaw feels too good for its buck and encourages spam a lot. I'd like to see shorter yaw'd hits do less damage than full swings, its a trade off thing - you do less damage but build ACM and are hard to pblock at the cost of raw damage.

I felt like the conc. swing speeds could be a bit faster. But I loved the damage, making mistakes really shows.

I think you should be able to semi-pblock on returns and staggers. I also don't think there should be low bp staggers (I was playing purple a lot so it was especially noticable when I got someone low, because I could always stagger them), mblock staggers feel like enough of a momentum changer.

Purple kata felt bad (damage vs cost) it always felt better to just swing, I wouldn't mind seeing purple stab back now that special abilities have bp costs associated with them. Or even Sidious dfa.

Yeah. I think the semi-PB stuff and stagger stuff will be changed for sure. For purple I second that it would be better to see smth like stab make a return. As long as it serves a function similar to blue lunge, to break momentum and knock back to reposition. It shouldn't be a super BP drain attack. Perhaps have it scale with ACM and when it reaches a certain number, have it play a short stagger like a red attack. All of this is of course if we assume that the stab costs a decent amount too so you cant just spam it. Incidentally, could also move the purple kata to red. Yohoho. But I agree with hex, it seemed a little weak when we were playing, though it did deal some dmg with ACM.

We talked about tying the BP dmg a swing does to its time in the air before it hits an enemy. This would apply to slower/faster swings within the same style too. Instead of equalizing the speed of all swings, making longer ones deal a it more dmg seems like an interesting option to explore because it gives you a reason to use the slower transitions aswell as the fast ones. I like that kind of thing where you have to be aware of what swings youre dishing out.

I do think yawing close range will be helped alot by the collision PB though. I can't wait to try a tweaked version of this. Loving the potential for both speedy duels and longer ones.

 

[Karus]

In 1.4.4 blue was odd to say the least. It was able to chainsaw and interrupt like a madman, and it just was unbalanced for some reason. Sure,it took skill, but it also could be abused.

I think Aaron was joking

 

[----Kas----]

Yeah. I think the semi-PB stuff and stagger stuff will be changed for sure. For purple I second that it would be better to see smth like stab make a return. As long as it serves a function similar to blue lunge, to break momentum and knock back to reposition. It shouldn't be a super BP drain attack. Perhaps have it scale with ACM and when it reaches a certain number, have it play a short stagger like a red attack. All of this is of course if we assume that the stab costs a decent amount too so you cant just spam it. Incidentally, could also move the purple kata to red. Yohoho. But I agree with hex, it seemed a little weak when we were playing, though it did deal some dmg with ACM.

We talked about tying the BP dmg a swing does to its time in the air before it hits an enemy. This would apply to slower/faster swings within the same style too. Instead of equalizing the speed of all swings, making longer ones deal a it more dmg seems like an interesting option to explore because it gives you a reason to use the slower transitions aswell as the fast ones. I like that kind of thing where you have to be aware of what swings youre dishing out.

I do think yawing close range will be helped alot by the collision PB though. I can't wait to try a tweaked version of this. Loving the potential for both speedy duels and longer ones.

I would love to see that happen. I have always been against 'close range yaw spam' or yaw spam in general and I would like to see it gone or at least nerfed much.

 

[TheOmelettePrince]

Strongly feel PB zones ought to be readjusted to how they were.

Worth noting that without nudge, red's defensive playstyles are no longer viable, which means you MUST be the one attacking. While this isn't a problem, per se, when you face a good opponent it is hard to be unpredictable all the time and, thus, your offensive power is rendered null (if they can pb/kite/exploit your slow swing time).

If red is to be kept as it is, then I would propose allowing aerial moves to cost no FP while using red: if you want to be unpredictable, you need to utilise acrobatics and it doesn't help when they drain your BP immensely. If red is all about kinetic power, then let us use kinetics =D

Agent

 

[DaloLorn]

According to Tempest, the PB zone thing was a bug and will be fixed in the next patch.

 

[kvinto]

If red is to be kept as it is, then I would propose allowing aerial moves to cost no FP while using red: if you want to be unpredictable, you need to utilise acrobatics and it doesn't help when they drain your BP immensely. If red is all about kinetic power, then let us use kinetics =D

#Makeredjumpsgreatagain

 

[jewbacca]

Okay, the biggest problem I have with blue so far is the PB perk and the playstyle it implies. I'm gonna try express my thoughts about how, in my opinion, this perk is actually worsens gameplay.

Before getting to the point I'll spew some nonsense about my vision on how dueling really works.

For example, take yellow - there is no implied way to use it. People often describe yellow as "jack of all trades", "medium style", "most balanced", "easiest to learn" etc etc. But that doesn't actually tells you how to play with it. Because there is no dominating strategy players forced to adapt and develop their own style. And as the result duels often take much more than just fast reflexes and refined technique, a player have to quickly change his behavior through duel, ba unpredictable and most importantly be able to read his opponent... For me, these "mindgames" are the key to fun duels. This incredible depth of duels is the main reason why some of us still play this game for many years.

"Specialist" styles, on the other hand, do the same thing as yellow, but they built in a slightly different manner. Specialists have both significant advantages as well as disadvantages, and their gameplay greatly revolves around that fact. To be even with other styles a specialist should always consider weaknesses of his style and adapt his strategy accordingly. Even if in many cases that means that you should avoid such situations.

This is where new blue sux.
It's focus around only one strategy makes it quite predictable. No style should be specialized around some gameplay idea or mechanics, because that inherently makes it predictable. And that means less room for mindgames and less fun.

Secondly, because of it's super-weak attack blue is also unable to adapt to many situations, in which pb and counter would not work. And at the same time other styles have such ability. Huh. As it is now style became inferior and dull.

I don't even talk about open, cause not my area of expertise, but I suppose blue is no good there either

Fixing blue

• Offense rating (7) +3
• Defense rating (59) - 4
• Remove pb perk
• A bit slower inital swing

New perk
Base swing count of 1, but each bodyhit adds +1 to swing count up to 3

P.S.
Perk is just a placeholder for your idea. I thought my idea was nice, but idk.

 

[SK5]

Okay, the biggest problem I have...

If you want to have blue as an aggressive style, it will always be op because of its interrupting potential and fast spam. If you had the mindset in 1.4.4 "I main blue, it takes skill))))" it was wrong as it didnt. It was super strong because you could just spam and win because the opponent couldnt attack. Sure you could have made some flashy plays with it but the fact is that its op in 1.4.4

 

[jewbacca]

I'm not talking about agressive blue here. I mean... slower swing speed is fine. Its more like no style should be "defensive" in such way as blue now, because that sux.

It was super strong because you could just spam and win because the opponent couldnt attack

And this is just L2P issue, man... no offense

 

[SK5]

And this is just L2P issue, man... no offense

I dont really see how is its my fault that a blue user could just stand follow me and completely annihilate me without much effort. There was literally no good counters to it. So i think we can conclude here that the only L2P issue here is blue.