1.4 Open Beta Dueling Feedback

[jewbacca]

Oh god, here goes my "feedback"...

I only spent about 7-8 hours total playing beta, so this is just my initial thoughts and my opinion may quite possibly change later.

So, blue, yeh. As a duelist I had a pretty interesting style. The idea was to swiftly change between two extremely opposite patterns of behavior: mad-agressive and counter-attack based. By doing that I tried my best to confuse opponent and throw him off balance eventually. And blue provided me with diversity needed. Now I can't do more than 2 swings in combo. Goodbye "agressive" part, huh.

I'm not saying blue can't be agressive. And it would be really stupid to say blue became predictable because it lost it's abillity to spam. Quite opposite, with diagonal swings being fixed blue is less predictable when ever. Not to mention counters and nudge.

Blue is just not as agressive as before. Now it feels more like a counter-attack based style. While some people may like it, I.. Uhh... I simply feel sad, because I spent so much time practicing combos and now they are all gone. mb2-syndrome, I guess.

My main problem is that I'm currently not feeling like I can force enemy to leave his comfort zone with my pure offense alone. And thats important,
because there should be a threat for opponent, who thinks losing some bp is not dangerous, because he can always regen it.

l2p issue, I hope.

 

[Razi.]

I was trying to express my disliking of the nudge and flinching, which seem to be shared with a lot of people on this thread. And in the shared video of Obi-Wan vs Anakin I dont see nudges, I see saber twirling.
Nonetheless, I do agree with what SeV says about the sabering system being very in-depth, absolutely no argument there. MB2's sabering is the shit.

 

[hleV]

A: DFA
B: Melee kata
B: Dual stab (blue lunge works too I think?)
A: Ded X(

Do something about this, otherwise DFA loses purpose vs Duals. Maybe increase time before saber attack after melee kata.

 

[foggy]

Do something about this, otherwise DFA loses purpose vs Duals. Maybe increase time before saber attack after melee kata.

ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha--ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
i'm sorri

 

[Rene]

I know that no one will read the following, but still I have to release it somewhere.
I divided my feedback on good features, bad features and suggestions. Lets start.

Good features:
-One directional combos.
This is really nice idea to implement in new patch. This gives players opportunity to play more random and think more about their offense. Definitely approve this thing.
-Katas, except for DFA, don't gain ACC anymore. This is a good thing, indeed, but still I think katas must be nerfed more.
That's all.

Bad features:
-Pb that cancels combos. I don't really know if I should explain why this feature is bad and cancerous? You can argue hard about it's advantages in duels(which I don't see) but I know for sure that it will kill saber class in open. It's hard enough to fight 1v2 in current patch, but with this thing it will be obviously impossible. All these interruptions will make saber fights in open completely useless.
-Decreased combo damage and AC gain. I can't understand why would you do that? Like if defensive game style wasn't boosted enough so you decided to make fighting system more passive(yeah-yeah, you may say that with nudge it's not that passive as I think, but we will talk about it later). Why would anyone use combo now? It's easier and safer to make 1-swingblocking hits and gain fast AP with it.
-Nudge. It kills whole pblock system. Worse than brainless combospam can be only 1-2hit nudge spam. It's impossible to pblock nudge not only because of their speed, but also because of facehugging. There is no way to counter that thing, except if you are the better nudge spammer.
Also nudge makes mblock harder to perform(it sort of interrupt it).

Suggestions:
-Remove pb-combo-cancelings. Don't change it, don't add anything to improve it. Just remove it and forget it as a horrible dream.
-Increase combo damage as it was before. ACC gain is discussable topic.
-Boost mblock. Make it cancel the combo chain. Also in case of successful disarm let it remove AP from the opponent(like it was in previous patch).
-Remove or change nudge drastically if it's possible. In current state nudge is undeveloped. I agree that nudge is vital for styles with slow hits like red and purple, but this is not good enough excuse to give it to all styles(especially blue and cyan).
-Make opponents be vulnerable to hits during use of kata.
-Remove red/cyan pb drain perk from premises. Don't change it. Don't add it to yellow, blue, purple, staff, duals. Just remove it, goddammit.

Other changes are pretty much ok and arguable.

Do something about this, otherwise DFA loses purpose vs Duals. Maybe increase time before saber attack after melee kata.

Melee kata is the only thing that can adequately counter DFA and it's fairly balanced. If you hit your opponent with YDFA he will get stagger, if you miss, well... pray to your gods. Seems fair enough to me, since DFA deals a lot of bp damage and you can't counter it with regular hits(yes you can randomly backside it once in a year but it's impossible to do so on purpose).
Melee kata is not so easily performed as many of you may think. It requires good timing and you are risking your life with that trick.

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

Or, a better idea, just fix what issues there are in 1.3, and go from there?

 

[Rene]

Or, a better idea, just fix what issues there are in 1.3, and go from there?

There is only 1 issue in 1.3.2 and it's called perks. It would be too easy to remove them. We are hardcore.

 

[Rene]

- How is spamming 1-2 hit combos with or without nudge (yes it also works if you are unpredictable enough) worse than spamming 4 hit combos all the time (resulting exclusively in parry i.e. cancel-out spam all the time) because it's the most powerful thing ?

You can swingblock 1-2hits with minimum effort, while 4-hit combo is hard to swingblock and easy to take advantage of with mblock and slap(also you drain your bp with 4-hit combo spam while with 1-2instaswings your bp staying still).

So what conclusion can we make? 1-2 instaswings impossible to mblock and impossible to slap. What other options do we have? Run... umh... sorry... I mean FOOTWORK YOURSELF FAR-FAR AWAY from that nudge spammer? Become a better nudge spammer?

 

[Stassin]

You can swingblock 1-2hits with minimum effort, while 4-hit combo is hard to swingblock and easy to take advantage of with mblock and slap(also you drain your bp with 4-hit combo spam while with 1-2instaswings your bp staying still).

So what conclusion can we make? 1-2 instaswings impossible to mblock and impossible to slap. What other options do we have? Run... umh... sorry... I mean FOOTWORK YOURSELF FAR-FAR AWAY from that nudge spammer? Become a better nudge spammer?

You aren't understanding what i said at all.

I meant, is a system where 4swing combos (or more generally spam) are quite considerably the most powerful thing and everyone does 4swing combos including to counter 4swing combos (because there is no other way to counter it) etc., better than a system where 1-2 swing combos are also viable ? Yes, 4swing combos are still viable in v1.4 even after being nerfed hard, because they were also buffed indirectly due to attacks interrupting enemies.

Other than that:

The reason why we implemented PB combo-break is because that gives an alternative defense against 4swing combos, precisely. Because otherwise, AGAIN, the only defense against 4swing combos is 4swing combos, and that would even be the case in v1.4 due to the interrupt spam it causes. Maybe you're going to tell me that slap is a good defense against 4swing combos, yeah sorry, but not when the opponent knows how to swingblock each hit or even simpler, times his combos properly to avoid your slaps.

As i already said, do you actually believe that mblock combo-break will be something useful ? You speak of mblocking combos, but that is just as hard as mblocking nudge hits i'm afraid, i.e. as you said it is pretty much impossible to do reliably. It will be nothing more than a gimmick and it will certainly not stop 4swing combo spam, as a result again the only defense against 4swing spam will be 4swing spam.

Nudge isn't a problem for defense. Of course if you try to only PB it, you will die. But the point is, if your opponent rushes in to get nudge, then he'll get close to you; miracle, nudge is also available for you so he's taking a huge risk after all if you capitalize on that. In any case, nudge being reintroduced is as you said to help slower styles and also because it generally makes sense to have dangerous high-speed combat at very close range, and also to get rid of sabers being visually idle into people. It wasn't directly reintroduced to address 1.3's problems i suppose, but it does offer nice flow nonetheless, as a more risky but more powerful offense alternative instead of only having slow full swings all the time as offense.

 

[Rene]

As i already said, do you actually believe that mblock combo-break will be something useful ?

Yes. But only without nudge. First hit isn't that hard to anticipate so it can be fairly mblocked if it's not a super-duper hurr-derrp instaswing.

I have nothing against instaswings on slow styles so that they could initiate first attack, but with current nudge it has a negative effect with that facehugging abuse and instaswings on fast styles. Is it possible to give red and purple instaswing perk for first attack? For instance, you could give red and purple saber hilt spin for making instaswing like it was in previous patch.

 

[hleV]

Melee kata is the only thing that can adequately counter DFA and it's fairly balanced. If you hit your opponent with YDFA he will get stagger, if you miss, well... pray to your gods. Seems fair enough to me, since DFA deals a lot of bp damage and you can't counter it with regular hits(yes you can randomly backside it once in a year but it's impossible to do so on purpose).
Melee kata is not so easily performed as many of you may think. It requires good timing and you are risking your life with that trick.

You have no idea what you're talking about do you.

 

[Rene]

You have no idea what you're talking about do you.

Nice argument. 10/10. Can I steal it from you and use it in my next upcoming debates?

 

[Chaos the Chaotic]

Even going up against yourself in a mirror, you'd lose

Still, now I have this urge to egg it on. New idea!!!
Melee Katas with your saber out! Or hilt.

Fair and Balanced. It's somewhere in my name. Like Law and Order.

 

[Havoc]

You aren't understanding what i said at all.

I meant, is a system where 4swing combos (or more generally spam) are quite considerably the most powerful thing and everyone does 4swing combos including to counter 4swing combos (because there is no other way to counter it) etc., better than a system where 1-2 swing combos are also viable ? Yes, 4swing combos are still viable in v1.4 even after being nerfed hard, because they were also buffed indirectly due to attacks interrupting enemies.

Other than that:

The reason why we implemented PB combo-break is because that gives an alternative defense against 4swing combos, precisely. Because otherwise, AGAIN, the only defense against 4swing combos is 4swing combos, and that would even be the case in v1.4 due to the interrupt spam it causes. Maybe you're going to tell me that slap is a good defense against 4swing combos, yeah sorry, but not when the opponent knows how to swingblock each hit or even simpler, times his combos properly to avoid your slaps.

This is why I liked the 1.4 system; it made it less bland than the 4 hit combo trading. After playing 1.4 and going back to 1.3 it made me realize how much back and forth nonsense occurred in 1.3, in yellow v yellow especially. All it is is 4 hit combo, 4 hit parry, slap, 4 hit combo, 4 hit parry, slap, repeat. 1.3 had much more variance to the fighting which was just more fun, at least for me. Attack, feint, two hits, your combo gets stopped, step back, defend for a few swings, pblock one, go for the counter, slap, etc. It had much more variance in how the duels played out and required you to think on your toes.

That's at least what I liked about 1.4.

 

[Coul]

I agree with havoc's post, when i was helping flooven get a hang of the new system our duels felt way more dynamic we fought in the gen room of dotf and in 1.3 the duel would take place on a single platform before one of us dies but in 1.4 it was different, we ended up all over the room sometimes on the middle platform sometimes on the lowest level using slaps/dfas/lunges our duels felt more smooth and dynamic and it was really surprising where we ended up after every fight.

 

[Preston]

So I like how the new system plays, but am I the only person who thinks the beta looked messy? To me with the weird useless halfswing animation change, added onto nudge coming back (which useful also just looks weird). And the new blocking animations, and the still weird cyan and purple swinging animations together all add up to a sloppy looking not playing but looking saber system. Atleast imo

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

So it is back and forth sabering, only slower? Spamming is still a thing in 1.4. Yes, I agree, spamming is annoying in 1.3, but there are better ways of fixing it, and keeping the variety/feel of unique saber styles.

 

[Coul]

but there are better ways of fixing it, and keeping the variety/feel of unique saber styles.

saber styles are still unique and if you have any ideas of fixing 1.3 spamming(without changing damages by percentages seriously this is a game not a cfg file) then feel free to share it

 

[SeV]

So it is back and forth sabering, only slower? Spamming is still a thing in 1.4. Yes, I agree, spamming is annoying in 1.3, but there are better ways of fixing it, and keeping the variety/feel of unique saber styles.

I'm not sure what you mean by spamming in this context. If you 'spam' (i.e, repeat the same thing over and over again) in 1.4 then you are dead meat sonny boy. But in 1.3 you can safely go about brainlessly throwing the same few combos at your opponent until one of you gets slapped and and you can get past the parry wall.

1.4, you can still 'spam' (repeat the same thing over and over again), but it will get you killed vs a skilled opponent. So 1.4 hasn't limited anyones freedom to play how they want. It has just limited the efficiency of certain brainless playing styles to encourage ppl to vary their attacks. Yes, you can still use 4 hit combos effectively in 1.4, but if u 'spam' 4 hit combos then you're gonna lose the duel. This is how we've killed 'spam' in 1.4, by giving ppl incentives to PB+counter and to vary their combos and single swings and to add nudged insta swings to the mix.

Also, everything is 'back and forth' sabering. What alternative is there? Both ppl ignoring what the opponent is doing and just going lalalal holding down mouse1 and adad? Act, react, act react, that is the essence of sabering. If what your opponent is doing is useless, then there's no need to react to him and you can just keep doing your thing brainlessly. (We reduced this aspect significantly in 1.4 compared to 1.3). We made what your opponent is doing more significant (PB's, counters, swing-interrupts, nudges..), so tht we could avoid a system that felt boring and stale, and where people didn't duel eachother, but instead just dueled themselves in a 'combo' simulator.

 

[Gumba]

Excuse me for being a noob but can you still do the backwards melee kata to instantly win any duel in 1.4?

I mean the slap ->switch to melee ->backwards kata and the other guy doesn't stand up fast enough and you just kill him.

Just came to my mind cos its the most annoying thing ever.