1.4.5 Open Beta Dueling Feedback

[Tempest]

Tbh, a lot of the issues with randomness in regards to stuff like PP comes mainly from timing on the swing not actually being a factor. As an example, with the scenario Pujge described, all of his damage was completely negated regardless of if he was catching his opponent off guard and they managed to pull off the correct swing to trigger a perfect parry. Let's compare that to if he was just about to land a hit and they tried a swing, it might count as a PP for him while his opponent gets a non-PP triggered. Seems like it would make a lot more sense, right?

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

I'm not a huge fan of either semi-pb or perfect parry. While semi-pb encouraged better timing on your swings, I personally felt that it just helped to stall duels massively, maybe it was just the many combined elements of mechanics and changes in e.g. 1.4.2 that caused blue vs cyan duels to last 5 minutes, and that semi-pb could function better in Tempest's build. Even then I've felt that one reason Tempest's build can end up flowing better is because semi-pb was removed.

In my opinion, perfect parry has always felt like an luck based mechanic that just causes confusion and adds some luck based elements to dueling that no one ever wanted. One example was when I tried to do some decent damage with red via parrying (I'm a bit shit with red btw), but my opponent managed to luck out with three perfect parries in a row, and with the really high swings drains on red I ended up eating shit due to luck. Another example involved a duel in which I was using cyan and if I remember correctly, my opponent was using yellow. The duel appeared to be an equal match as neither of us seemed to have been picking up a discernible lead against the other... at least it went like that until I managed to chug out three shitty ol' accidental perfect parries in fairly quick succession, which let me build enough acm to stomp him into the ground.

As far as cyan itself goes, I've always really enjoyed using it (probably my favourite saber style overall) but in these most recent patches I've been using it for it's nice combination of speed and damage, along with how it works nicely with default parrying. I couldn't give a shit or two about it's perk however, simply because it's built on such a random mechanic.

Perfect parrying Red isn't really a matter of luck, unless you mean with the combos that currently exist in public version right now, which I agree. However, anything with those insanely fast combo swings ends up being a fairly big luck factor. The thing about Cyan is, you should know better than to combo trade Cyan, there is a big chance you can get PP'd.

PP is no more random than any other mechanic, currently.

Tbh, a lot of the issues with randomness in regards to stuff like PP comes mainly from timing on the swing not actually being a factor. As an example, with the scenario Pujge described, all of his damage was completely negated regardless of if he was catching his opponent off guard and they managed to pull off the correct swing to trigger a perfect parry. Let's compare that to if he was just about to land a hit and they tried a swing, it might count as a PP for him while his opponent gets a non-PP triggered. Seems like it would make a lot more sense, right?

If you're suggesting some form of weird interrupt timing with PP, then I completely disagree. For an ON-PURPOSE perfect parry, you basically *need* to have a fast style, and you need to have some distance between your opponent. Even still, most of your perfect parries will barely be executed in time. If you make it so that perfect parry is a punishment to people that swing late, then it will basically never be done on purpose.

 

[Darth Pujge]

PP is no more random than any other mechanic, currently.

But if any other mechanic is as equally as random as perfect parrying, then that would include default parrying (right?) and you obviously have to first land normal parries in order to even get a chance at getting a perfect parry. So technically it's two random mechanics on top of each other, which means perfect parrying is actually double as random. :O

Okay in all seriousness I can't say too much about perfect parrying since I have no idea how to get them more reliably and I've never tried to improve at actually using perfect parrying rather than just leaving it up to luck. I've also never seen someone else get them reliably which is why I believe it's more random than other mechanics, at least I've seen plenty of people who are good at pblocking.

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

Okay in all seriousness I can't say too much about perfect parrying since I have no idea how to get them more reliably and I've never tried to improve at actually using perfect parrying rather than just leaving it up to luck. I've also never seen someone else get them reliably which is why I believe it's more random than other mechanics, at least I've seen plenty of people who are good at pblocking.

I land them fairly reliably against Yellow, red, and purple. Which is the purpose.

 

[SeV]

I land them fairly reliably on Yellow, red, and purple. Which is the purpose.

And it currently does you fuck all good, since the opponent gains the same benefits as you from perfect parries. -> Trivial nearly useless mechanic. Revamp or remove. Tempest talked about timings, so that PP could trigger for one person but not the other. I still don't get why such trouble should be braved to attempt to perform this insignificant mechanic that has like no actual impact on a duel.

 

[Hexodious]

I'd remove perfect parry from all stances except Cyan (providing the current benefits it does), I'd also recolour the FX to be Cyan coloured rather than Blue to represent the Stance/Perk. Cyan is the only stance it actually matters for.

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

And it currently does you F**k all good, since the opponent gains the same benefits as you from perfect parries. -> Trivial nearly useless mechanic. Revamp or remove. Tempest talked about timings, so that PP could trigger for one person but not the other. I still don't get why such trouble should be braved to attempt to perform this insignificant mechanic that has like no actual impact on a duel.

It's actually fairly useful for surviving with blue, and grants yellow more defensive options against Red/Purple at a distance. It isn't at all useless, but another layer of defenses weighted *against* slower styles. With Semi-PB, you can actively use your combos to stop 1 or 2 swings an opponent could use with PP, while semi-PBIng at the same time for other things they might do, which isn't 'useless'.

In the beta, with the removal of Semi-PB, PP was basically the best way for me to defend with the weird PB angles, which worked super well with the slower combos.

No, if anything is trivial, it is semi-PB, which was a stupid idea from the beginning.

 

[SeV]

In the beta, with the removal of Semi-PB, PP was basically the best way for me to defend with the weird PB angles, which worked super well with the slower combos.

No, if anything is trivial, it is semi-PB, which was a stupid idea from the beginning.

Words cannot describe how utterly retarded this is, but I guess you will always view reality through that weird and backwards, distorted prism of yours x.x
It's hard for me to understand, let alone take you seriously when you utter things like the above. Sorry x.x

 

[Hexodious]

No Semi Pblock means counters are impossible to defend against in open beta though. So attacking first is always a bad thing.

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

No Semi Pblock means counters are impossible to defend against in open beta though. So attacking first is always a bad thing.

No, you can defend against counters in the open beta. I've done so a number of times.

 

[Sammy]

This is going to turn into a never-ending argument, I don't see why it's worth debating haha...

 

[DaloLorn]

No, you can defend against counters in the open beta. I've done so a number of times.

Yeah, they're no longer instantaneous (except blue) - so long as you're not continuing a combo, they should be perfectly PBable.

This is going to turn into a never-ending argument, I don't see why it's worth debating haha...

Well, they all have vastly differing opinions on how the saber system should work, and this has been stated to be the final sabering revamp, so they're trying to get their idea implemented. It makes sense.

 

[Hexodious]

No you just yaw your counter and its essentially instant, hitting them in their return animation.

 

[Tempest]

To kind of derail the back and forth that's not really going to get anywhere (at least I'm pretty sure it's not); I'm curious about everyone's opinion on having more/bringing back things related to timing (like the old halfswing for the purpose of interrupts).

Thoughts, go.

P.S. - The update to the blocking logic is almost in a testable state so I'm hyped up for that!

 

[Savage (Ranar)]

Imo the whole yawing thing is really annoying and makes it significantly hard to defend against due to faster attacks (almost instant attacks if you ask me), I would like to have halfswing return but only for A swing attacks like it was in the past in replacement for the yawing.

 

[Tempest]

I've put a system into place for addressing the instant hit yaw stuff (if you see me referring to damage clamping with yawing it'll be in regards to the hitbox interactions that cause that). I'm also looking at re-integrating the old style of halfswings in some manner but haven't figured anything concrete out yet.

 

[Savage (Ranar)]

I've put a system into place for addressing the instant hit yaw stuff (if you see me referring to damage clamping with yawing it'll be in regards to the hitbox interactions that cause that). I'm also looking at re-integrating the old style of halfswings in some manner but haven't figured anything concrete out yet.

Ah, well that's good. I just found yawing to be increasingly annoying and abused by almost everyone. lol Old style halfswings were pretty alright back then so i'll be looking forward to that.

 

[Lessen]

*raises hand*

I don't know what "damage clamping" means

 

[Tempest]

*raises hand*

I don't know what "damage clamping" means

Clamping as in putting a hard limitation onto it. For the moment, the damage is very low but you're still eligible to get ACM from your hits.