1.4.5 Sabering Open Beta!

TadekRaeod · Apr 8, 2017

Dogshit said:
When this game dies we know who to blame.

Oh, you're one of THOSE guys.
I didn't try the beta, but saying that "the game will die because the saber system will be f'd up" is like saying "Jedi and Sith are the only classes available in Movie Battles 2"(?)

Jameson · Apr 8, 2017

DaloLorn said:
Actually, I meant to say that you are ignorant, not that you're being ignored. Sweet for you, sour for the rest of us.

Wow my quote is so dangerous O.O

Cake' · Apr 8, 2017

TadekRaeod said:
Oh, you're one of THOSE guys.
I didn't try the beta, but saying that "the game will die because the saber system will be f'd up" is like saying "Jedi and Sith are the only classes available in Movie Battles 2"(?)

Jedi and Sith are the only classes that make new players come to this mod. So yea it is important.

DaloLorn · Apr 8, 2017

Cake' said:
Jedi and Sith are the only classes that make new players come to this mod. So yea it is important.

Not necessarily the only classes, but I'd guess they're definitely a major contributor.

{Δ} Achilles · Apr 8, 2017

DaloLorn said:
Not necessarily the only classes, but I'd guess they're definitely a major contributor.

Most people that play MB2 do infact go for Jedi/Sith classes, which is why I want to see them end up as the hardest but most rewarding class to play. That 'wow' factor from seeing a really good Jedi slaughter half a team of Sith/Gunners by himself. Doesn't happen anymore though. MB2's pull seems to be a mish-mosh of "Weird, Funny, Lol" and dueling.

Spaghetti · Apr 8, 2017

Keep the discussion civil and on topic.

Tempest · Apr 8, 2017

Dang, such an accurate opinion. I am definitely the most selfish dev who doesn't consider or care about the community's opinion while changing things solely according to what I think will benefit myself.

I'm also glad people are judging me/decisions based on changelogs that are months old and included mostly experimental things (just to see how they'd work, wasn't really planning to push them into a release).

Clearly the shining example of what keeps the new players around in the community.

DaloLorn · Apr 9, 2017

HE ADMITS IT! BURN HIM AT THE STAKE!

S o l d i e r · Apr 11, 2017

Most of the update was possibly already done since January 8th, when the beta came out. It's been more than three months since then. What's taking so long to fine-tune it and finish it? I also heard somewhere that there will be a second beta, so I'm assuming the update isn't even near releasing, unless the plan has been changed since then.

kvinto · Apr 11, 2017

S o l d i e r said:
Most of the update was possibly already done since January 8th, when the beta came out. It's been more than three months since then. What's taking so long to fine-tune it and finish it? I also heard somewhere that there will be a second beta, so I'm assuming the update isn't even near releasing, unless the plan has been changed since then.

Tempest said:
At this point, there's just a few remaining things.

- Going back over each style with a fine-tooth comb to make sure they aren't too weak or too strong with the shifts in mechanics. Currently, Yellow (getting it to actually be the jack of all trades and master of none style without it feeling bad) and Staff (only taken so long because the majority of tweaks to it are based on the revamps to blocking code which has finally gotten to be working properly/majorly bug free; accursed random and subtle causes of random disarms and such ._.) are the remaining outliers
- Tweaking damage scaling for consecutive swings/comboing. In public, the automatic 50% damage reduction to consecutives in combination with how much of a factor building ACM up is needed for a clean (high amount of BP retained) is kind of finicky. Trying to get comboing to be more present without making it too easy/overbearing. This is mostly just number tweaks though.
- Bug fixing. As mentioned in the first point, there's been quite a few reoccurring bugs (more like a select few bugs caused in multiple, and mostly subtle, ways). That's the main reason why it's taken as long as it has.
- There's a couple new things that are going to shift the depth of sabering (mostly for dueling) and making sure that they work entirely as intended and without bizarre/imbalanced side effects is important. One of these in particular has been frustrating so it may not make it into the next open beta (since I'd rather get OB rolled out and have people trying out all the stable/less fancy and radical things than delay it for the sake of adding fancy schmancy things). I imagine most will be drooling over the changes (both in regards to all the general bug fixing and new stuff), both based on my own pondering over possibilities for depth re-emerging as well as based on the reactions from the handful of players that have either tested them or that I've mentioned to in some private discussions.

Overall, everything is very close to being ready...but there has to be an actual successful internal test before anything else >_>..(curse you random disarms!)

Jameson · Apr 11, 2017

S o l d i e r said:
Most of the update was possibly already done since January 8th, when the beta came out. It's been more than three months since then. What's taking so long to fine-tune it and finish it? I also heard somewhere that there will be a second beta, so I'm assuming the update isn't even near releasing, unless the plan has been changed since then.

Do you know how it's hard to make updates? Its not like EA BF where there are lot of people working on the game, dev team is very small and bacsically thats the answer to your question. You act like an asshole at this point and have no patience.

Jameson · Apr 11, 2017

Jameson said:
Do you know how it's hard to make updates? Its not like EA BF where there are lot of people working on the game, dev team is very small and bacsically thats the answer to your question. You act like an asshole at this point and have no patience.

SeV · Apr 11, 2017

S o l d i e r said:
Most of the update was possibly already done since January 8th, when the beta came out. It's been more than three months since then. What's taking so long to fine-tune it and finish it? I also heard somewhere that there will be a second beta, so I'm assuming the update isn't even near releasing, unless the plan has been changed since then.

Utterly wrong. The first open beta was... I dunno. Certainly garbage though. It's very far from the current beta and is almost entirely unrelated to it. Why is it taking so long? Tempest is coding it by himself and before the 2nd open beta comes out, he needs to finish things up, then we need to have an internal test to make sure it's not broken and buggy. Then we can do an open beta gameplay test for feedback and adjust further. I think that is the idea atleast, but in order for it to happen the system needs to be coded, then tested for gamebreaking bugs internally before it can be pushed to open beta. Then after that open beta, there will likely be more fine-tuning tweaks.

This is supposedly the last large overhaul to the saber system, as devs have expressed an understandable desire to stop the constant revamps and settle for something, so it has to be good and well thought out. Hence my desire for open betas. I keep asking about it and trying to push for open betas, and I think ideally there would be atleast 2 more open betas before release. 1 right now, then feedback and finetuning then another one. And then maybe finally a release. Then after release if we find something, can do minor adjustments.

The fact that its taking awhile is annoying, because we're stuck playing utter garbage (1.4.3 and 1.4.4. The base 1.4 was alot better imo, but still flawd. I'd much rather be stuck playing 1.4 than be stuck with the irksome 1.4.4 thing. I personally haven't been in normal MBII since my last video. I can't stand dueling in 1.4.4). So it's a pain, but I hope we'll see some forward movement and progression soon, but as mentioned before the dev team is small and doing it on their own free time, so it's no good to be all inbred about it. I'm sure they're all doing what they can and working towards release. They probably want to release it more than most people, since it would be a load off of their shoulers to finally have a somewhat settled saber system.

{Δ} Achilles · Apr 11, 2017

Oh yeah... 1.4 was so much better... ACM drain on PB from Yellow, 1.4 blue, semi-pb, and pb counter. 10 year long duels.

Sev, I worry about you sometimes.

S o l d i e r said:
Most of the update was possibly already done since January 8th, when the beta came out. It's been more than three months since then. What's taking so long to fine-tune it and finish it? I also heard somewhere that there will be a second beta, so I'm assuming the update isn't even near releasing, unless the plan has been changed since then.

As for the other person: Developing takes time, and Tempest decided to redesign the entire saber system for some unknown reason, which takes more time. Have patience.

The only real thing that bothers me about the wait time, is Tempest tells me shit like 'It's almost ready' or 'Finishing up stuff now' and then never answers my requests to test it. Which worries me.

Regardless, have patience, and it'll be done when it is done. For now, just PB counter everything.

S o l d i e r · Apr 11, 2017

Jameson said:
You act like an asshole at this point and have no patience.

That's from someone who calls me an asshole and then quotes his previous post in his next post.

Chaos the Chaotic · Apr 11, 2017

I've disliked the saber system for 6 years and yet...still here.

It's not make or break save for the hypochondriac duelists, very few, mind you, can actually survive a single round against tatterred noobs going, where do I point to shoot?

Perhaps an exaggeration, but for some, no, not really, not close to really.

And as of yet, any notion that this is the final version of anything, 4 realz, has yet to ever be proven.
If one falls, another will rise.

Maybe time is against us but I believe if one coder fades, another will burn with the desire for change. If anything, the saber system has seen more change in the last 3-4 years than the previous 10 before it.

SeV · Apr 11, 2017

{Δ} Achilles said:
Oh yeah... 1.4 was so much better... ACM drain on PB from Yellow, 1.4 blue, semi-pb, and pb counter. 10 year long duels.

Sev, I worry about you sometimes.

I could write a lengthy post about why 1.4 was better than 1.4.3 and 1.4.4, and I've expressed numerous times why I think that. However, you won't even consider my explanation of why 1.4 was better than 1.4.3 and 1.4.4 and just continue with another random statement without responding to me in any way and we'll be back to square one. This has happened numerous times, so why waste my energy on it? I think there are posts on slack where I explain it in detail or maybe those were on steam. Anyway, if you want to ernestly inquire about it, I'll be happy to talk, but with you it's always a one-way conversation or should I say monologue, that then gets ignored as you redirect your attention somewhere else without responding or considering the reply to your statements. In other words, dealing with you is a waste of my time.

Rosh+ · Apr 12, 2017

SeV said:
-snip-

tfw ur on ur period lolo

rekt

{Δ} Achilles · Apr 12, 2017

SeV said:
I could write a lengthy post about why 1.4 was better than 1.4.3 and 1.4.4, and I've expressed numerous times why I think that. However, you won't even consider my explanation of why 1.4 was better than 1.4.3 and 1.4.4 and just continue with another random statement without responding to me in any way and we'll be back to square one. This has happened numerous times, so why waste my energy on it? I think there are posts on slack where I explain it in detail or maybe those were on steam. Anyway, if you want to ernestly inquire about it, I'll be happy to talk, but with you it's always a one-way conversation or should I say monologue, that then gets ignored as you redirect your attention somewhere else without responding or considering the reply to your statements. In other words, dealing with you is a waste of my time.

Go for it, convince me.

SeV · Apr 12, 2017

{Δ} Achilles said:
Go for it, convince me.

My perspective is quite simple actually. 1.4 had many flaws as I know you will agree with, but it also had its merits. First of all we've got to look at defense vs offense. For defense there was PB combo breaking and fast counters. Those features alone made defensive play very strong and made it difficult to attack. Okay, how to attack? For that there was nudge and facehug. I'm not saying these mechanics are brilliant or even good. My point here is that in 1.4 they all came together to form a cohesive sabering system, which while flawed, had points and counterpoints, weights and counterweights. Now, I could go into detail about how PB combo breaking was a bad idea and so on, but it made sense in the context of 'if we've got nudge, it's hard to PB so reward PB more'. But the base was flawed. A further merit to me was that you could conceivably make comebacks if your opponent fucked up. This promoted competitive play much more than 1.4.3 and 1.4.4. With huge swing cost a comeback like that is alot harder, same with huge parry drains. The point being that in 1.4 you atleast had some freedom to play the game, use parries for defense and make combacks, and an exciting element of the gameplay was the fact that your opponent could always make a comeback if you fucked up. Thus, you had to be vigilant until the very end. This is very important. I do agree though, that it took way too long to kill noobs in 1.4. But the fact that in 1.4.3 and 1.4.4 you can't attack freely and can easily get fucked over by drains or absurd parries is shit to me. Also the fact that yellow parry perk is bugged in 1.4.4 to make the style weaker is annoying and goes to show how much of a thrown-together patchwork hackety smackety thing those two builds were.

The reason why I think 1.4 is alot better than 1.4.3 and 1.4.4 is because of its cohesive gameplay core that fit together. In that very fragile balance built on a shaky foundation, if we remove even one core aspect/dynamic of the system it gets even more messed up than it was previously. However, with 1.4.3 and 1.4.4 the core of 1.4 wasn't just removed, many things were thoughtlessly modified, which prompted the fragile balance of 1.4 to break down into utter chaos and reveal what lay beneath, which isn't so pretty.

The two most obvious reasons why 1.4 is superior to 1.4.3 and 1.4.4 is the huge parry drains of 1.4.3 and the huge swing cost of 1.4.4 that basically fucked up the feel of sabering in MBII big time. But beyond that, the subtle balance of the 1.4 mechanics was broken and 1.4.3 and 1.4.4 were updates which really fucked up the high skilled players. The most simple indicator of this in 1.4.4 is that someone far superior to the other player has to end the duel on nearly the same BP as the weaker player even though he dominated him, due to the huge swingdrains. And if you want to avoid this, you HAVE to inhibit yourself and play a gay passive style and rarely attack. I want to be able to attack like a beast, but if I do so in 1.4.4 I drain my own BP nearly as much as I drain that of my opponent. This is by far the hugest flaw of 1.4.4 and an extremely large demerit for me, kind of ruining the game for me. When you were low BP you can't attack to get yourself out of the bind and make a comeback like in 1.4. Instead you're forced into a passive PB counter playstyle. Your options are so limited that it stultifies the game and suffocates potential. In 1.4.3 it wasn't as bad because the drains were tied to parries, however, it was still a problem. When I first brought up the idea of parry drains to stassin in 1.4 beta, it wasn't meant as an extreme feature but more of a flavour item. My original suggestion was the 1,2,3 fixed BP drain on parries thing. With fast styles vs heavy styles getting drained more than the heavy style. The idea was in its infancy, but if it had remained like that there wouldn't be such a big problem with 1.4.3. Instead, the parry drains ended up becoming 50% of bodyhit dmg or something absurd like that. Completely ridiculous. Parrying is a skillful part of the game. The only problem is 0 BP parrying, which would've been solved by a subtle implementation of parry drains similar to my original 1,2,3 BP idea but slightly modified, perhaps to take ACM into account without going overboard. Instead what happened was that parry drains shot through the roof and you could no longer attack freely without engaging in mutual destruction, forcing a similar situation as in 1.4.4 where the super skilled player trying to kill a noob has to take an enormous BP hit to do so (quite often). But the parry idea is atleast a little better because you hae some control over your parry timing. It's still horrendous though, don't get me wrong. The reason why its bad to force ppl to take a bunch of BP damage from themselves essentially, is that not only does it feel like you're killing yourself by attacking and playing the game actively, it also enables a noob to get lucky kills far too frequently on you, precisely BECAUSE you have to go to low BP to kill them. This is utter bullshit. Comparing that to how it was in 1.4, we find that you had to work hard to kill the opponent, but you were never limited by yourself and you never drained your own BP like that. It was always up to the opponent to make a comeback and defend himself with PBs and so on. If he was low, you could continue your attack with a high BP advantage without worrying about a random PB counter raping your BP and suddenly bringing you down lower on BP than he is. In 1.4 the comeback was based around slowly grinding down the ACM advantage. It was alot more competitive and focused on real dueling, whereas in 1.4.3 and 1.4.4 (especially 1.4.4), you get the retarded mutual destruction if you want to play the game properly. If not, you have to inhibit yourself and prevent yourself from playing the game in a fun way. In order to finish off an opponent in 1.4.4 you take huge risks, and in 1.4.3 parry drain spam for mutual destruction, otherwise you're at a disadvantage because if you try to avoid parrying your opponent can attack freely while you suffer under self-imposed limitations. 1.4.3 forced you to play mutual destruction style alot of the time, very bad to force someone into a specific playstyle. An additional merit of 1.4 was that it did not do this. You could use single hit style, or mix that style with 2 hit combo, 3 hit combos or 4 hit combos. You were free to attack and parry and use timing all you wanted. In 1.4.3 this freedom was limited and in 1.4.4 it took another great hit and you were forced to do single hit spam exclusively unless you want to drain your own BP and put yourself at risk.

Yes, nuances exist. But the overall point is that 1.4 simply felt alot better to play than 1.4.3 and 1.4.4. Not only that, but it was easier for a skilled player to exhibit his skill in 1.4 than in 1.4.3 and 1.4.4 and harder for him to die to noobs and luck because in 1.4 there was always this aspect of a comeback, slow and steady and so on. The retardedly huge parry drains and stupid swing cost completely fucked up the dynamic of 1.4 and I argue that while the intention may have been good, those mechanics ultimately ruined the saber system of 1.4.3 and 1.4.4. Haven't covered all the small nuances and details because that would take forever, but the above should suffice for now.

What is there to disagree with? I'm curious.

1.4.5 Sabering Open Beta!

TadekRaeod

Jameson

Cake'

DaloLorn

{Δ} Achilles

Nerd

Spaghetti

Floating in the void

Tempest

Gameplay Design

DaloLorn

S o l d i e r

kvinto

Jameson

Jameson

SeV

Nerd

{Δ} Achilles

Nerd

S o l d i e r

Chaos the Chaotic

Nerd

SeV

Nerd

Rosh+

{Δ} Achilles

Nerd

SeV

Nerd