I am enjoying the beta dueling quite a bit so thanks for the opportunity to test it out prior to any changes/releases of 1.4.
Spent a little time with yellow and red on this system, only thing I would suggest is possibly making the Pblock zones smaller if possible. I feel like they are in the correct spot in beta and it seems that I have to exaggerate cross hair placement much more so than I did in current/live build (this i like). In response to the pblock stopping chains however, seems they should be smaller for more risk:reward if you catch my feels. The upper pblock zones just seem quite large.
I currently like the pblock stopping chains, it almost forces more creativity to trick your opponent or get around their pblocks (including the new swing from feints another aspect I feel is long overdue).
Overall - so far from the time I have spent - dueling I feel is much more enjoyable in the beta.
Blue revolves around buggy nudge spam. It shouldn't be reduced to 2 hits only, as you are forced to (similarly to red) use nudgeattacks. That isn't indicative of a person's skill at all; more, their ability to use nudge and yaw. I knew we'd have nudge back but didn't think it was going to be THAT nudge.
- Buff Overall Damage (Bp Drain) done by all Sabers
- Buff Cyan, needs its stagger back.
- Nerf Staff --- Doing 2 Red Katas and Still Not being able to take down a staff user is STUPID
- Yellow too OP.
- Buff Red BP Drain
- Buff Purple BP drain
its Literally a spam fest.
i would prefer 1.3 Dueling system over this and only add the none Directional Combos WHICH IS AMAZING! and the PB combo Stopper.
My brief experiences with red in the open beta have been a bit different from yours it seems. Similarly when playing against staff. Unfortunately I didn't demo these duels so I can show you guys, but the red duels that I had were generally much faster paced than yellow duels. Red is high-risk high reward style with less room for making mistakes than yellow. Red Vs Red duels are brutal and often quite quick, but if ppl play like 1.3 (agent) then it is quite difficult to deal with someone using skillful nudge timings/slaps and well-timed single hits and combos. I find Red able to get ACM quite well actually. It's a matter of timing and using the 3rd hit stagger (which should be made a bit longer imo).
Anyways, about staff, Alice's concerns about the mblock perk being unviable isn't really valid. I played against a skilled staff user and occasionally found myself staggered, so the problem may be that you're not used to countering nudge with footwork/slaps and the smaller PB zones.
About blue, I actually think it feels pretty good. I played against a very good blue user who was able to attack like a mad man with nudge. It rewards skill and is hard to kill when played defensively. But, when played defensively blue users give up the offense from nudge since they are backpedalling and not initiating. This seems to be a fine balance and the changes to blue so far are one of my favorite things about 1.4
There's 2 changes that are quite possible to make with blue. Either we try 3 hit combos or remove the -2 ACC on bodyhit/yellow PB perk. If you want to return blue's combo's to their former glory we have to severely nerf it in defense/parries or get rid of diagonal swings, or both. Combo's were limited because they are extremely OP with the diagonal swing fix, so either blue has to be made into a weak, spammy 1.3 cyan parry parody of a crapfest, or we have to find a way to make blue spam parries inefficient. This is no good for the saber system, so the 2 hit combo limit seemed like a much better choice. It's possible we can increase it to 3, but not beyond that.
I like agents idea about feint increasing the damage of the following swings in the combo. But my take is a bit different than his. How about if feint enabled two hits to act like the first hit in a combo, and both gain ACM? So if you feint the first hit and come in with a 2 hit combo, both of those hits will do full BP damage and give the user ACC. That way it will be easier for skilled players to initiate attacks on retreating opponents and this will promote skillful offense more. Agent will certainly not have any more problems with his red style being too weak (cause he doesn't nudge much). Style issues aside, I think this is actually a very interesting proposal and I want to try it.
About further decreasing the size of the PB zones. I'm not a fan of this because PB is already hard enough if the opponent is attacking with nudged insta single hits. To PB and Mblock, you rely alot on your player intuition and opponents patterns when you're locked in tight facehug combat. Then when you step back your probability of hitting react-PBs increases dramatically. I don't mind this at all, as it essentially forces people to be aggressive in order to actually deal with their opponent. In 1.3 you could packpedal with red and happy PB your way to victory, not even attacking once. With the new nudge system and ACM changes, it's more crucial than ever that you reply and fight back and don't just packpedal like a fearful turtle cowering before his overlords.
But perhaps overhead zones are too close together. I don't know. I have no visual representation of where they are, only stassin knows this and how close they are to eachother. Another thing you have to keep in mind is that PB zones move when your opponent moves, making it several times harder to PB a guy who burst-strafes while he attacks.
Alice's point about making Perfect blocks' cancelling of combos depend on hitting Mblock is interesting to me. The problem I see with this is that it devalues PB to a point where it becomes a trivial thing unless you're constantly using mblocks. This in itself isn't a problem, but the gap between how crap a PB is when it doesn't stop combo's and how powerful it is when it does stop combos, is rather vast.
Perhaps Alice's idea can still be incorporated somehow. If we take the 'PB-reduces remaining swings in combo' idea and combines it with Alice's 'Mblocked PB's stop combos' we can maybe come up with something different and interesting. Seems a bit complicated but I don't mind giving it a try if it's possible. Another idea here would be to make Alice's mblocked PB's flinch instead of stop combos. (like raw PB's did early on in the 1.4 development).
I like agents idea about feint increasing the damage of the following swings in the combo. But my take is a bit different than his. How about if feint enabled two hits to act like the first hit in a combo, and both gain ACM? So if you feint the first hit and come in with a 2 hit combo, both of those hits will do full BP damage and give the user ACC. That way it will be easier for skilled players to initiate attacks on retreating opponents and this will promote skillful offense more. Agent will certainly not have any more problems with his red style being too weak (cause he doesn't nudge much). Style issues aside, I think this is actually a very interesting proposal and I want to try it.
I like this idea, any thing in regards to the feint swings being an integral part of the saber system is going to be a plus. It adds depth and gives creativity to the player, which I feel is something people want.
Red = Nudge, Faint, Swing, Stagger, Repeat. What can cyan do against it? nothing. you cant Pblock it. you try to back off you get face Hugged.
i find the nudge System Terrible, i like the idea in theory, but it doesnt work with duels. Aswell as Slap needs a longer cooldown. High Risk High Reword.
People on ground should get More BP drained.
Although i like the Evolving of the saber System.
The Previous one is still Much Much Better.
All the gameplay changes should stay in as from 1.4 Beta.
Dueling wise i would Leave it as it is in 1.3 over to 1.4
But I would add these changes
New: Yellow style now has a saber vs saber perk. Perfect blocks with yellow drain 1 ACC from attacks.
New: Saberists can now continue the swing chain with a halfswing after performing a swing feint (interrupting a swing by pressing reload).
New: Perfect block is now called full perfect block. Being full perfect blocked now prevents the continuation of swing chains.
New: Semi-perfect block: Similar to full perfect block, but can be performed when attacking, running, walking and rolling (not knocked down or in a getup animation), and only negates BP drain and ACC gain. Does not stop combos nor benefits from any perk such as purple ACC gain on PB or yellow ACC drain on PB. Semi-perfect block triggers yellow flashes on the crosshair and BP bar.
New: Being hit by a non-parried saber swing now always triggers a blocking animation from which a half-swing (called "counter") can be performed.
New: Counters performed off of a full perfect block are instantaneous and deal 1.2 times BP drain regardless of swing blocking, walking or running.
New: Parrying now drains BP depending on which stance is being used with respect to the opponent's. For this feature, Blue/Cyan/Duals count as light styles, Yellow/Staff count as medium styles and Red/Purple count as heavy styles. Parrying against the same weight class or lighter results in 1 BP loss, a weight class one level above 2 BP loss, and a weight class 2 levels above 3 BP loss.
What about buffing offense:
-make combos deal 1.0 bp damage instead of 0.5
-Remove pblock stopping combos
-If 1st/2nd/3rd swing is pblocked then 2nd/3rd/4th deal 0.5
So when you pblock a swing the next ones in the combo deal 0.5 bp damage if not its just normal bp damage.
I couldn't agree more with agentoo8, this update literally promotes; facehugging instead of footwork, spamming 1-2 hit combos with nudge and killing mblock aspect of game where staff gets affected most.
I have always loved to use staff and mained this style, with it improved mblock to have over %90 rate against other styles (Cyan not included) but now with no direction restriction it is mostly luck based to mblock midcombo like it wasn't enough we now have nudges that made it almost impossible to pb(not even mentioning mblocking nudge attacks)
With the pb stopping any combo, staff's perk lost it's meaning therebefore we can't benefit from staff perk anymore while pb does almost same job.
Staff's best option is now to spam 1-2 hit combo with nudges which is very dull if you ask me. Some people also find it way too powerful because the attacks are way too fast for them so what i have to offer is:
To stop combos with pb dueler must mblock as well as pb instead of just lucky pb stopping all aggro.
I believe nudge was removed for a reason and this feature killed footwork when people started to abuse nudge by facehugging, this creates very clunky dueling which feels dull.
Styles should be resricted on swing directions because combo was something to learn in 1.3, now with one nudge people just spam combo in any way. This also hits mblockers hard because there are way too many combination of attack direction it is mostly luck based (Again makes staff perk useless)
Red is also one of styes that suffered from changes most, because first hits are very slow to execute and easiest to pb red users are forced to abuse nudges which makes red op instead of weak in that aspect, nudge option kills the versatilty on styles and best example to that is the red why? here is an example.
Red user 1 decides to use footwork and not facehug opponent, swings in a direction expecting to chain it after it. Red user 1 gets pbed because any style dueler has eyes to see swing hours before it hits. Red user 1 is dissapointed because she tried to have diffrent technique other than face hugging but sadly she realises it is a must to nudge if she don't want to swing in air.
Yellow and Cyan are the styles that benefit from update most, if we were to compare their perks to let's say staff, because random pbs are common even in altered angles also easy to pb first hits(Unless it is nudge and because of this people are forced to abuse nudge) Yellow and Cyan doesn't only stop opponent from comboing, but also drain their acm/bp which happens pretty much every second while staff benefits from stagger very rarely which is mostly luck based in the beta.
Yellow could use bp damage reduction while cyan should completely get rid of the bp drain perk or make cyan attacks slower.
As for blue I can't suggest much because I didn't use that style on 1.3 or on beta but from what I see it takes very long to duel blues, 2 duel is enough to end the round if you are dueling an average blue user. But it is what I have seen, blue user should express their feelings on new update as well but im sure they will agree to it being very dull and limited style when it comes to techniques.
Purple seems fine as far as I tried but nudge+pb stopping combos make sure purple always overpowers many opponents in many situation.
In brief, new core mechanics limits the freedom of duelers and alters the versatilty when it comes to aggro/defensive techniques.
it's all well going 'I dueled this skillful dude' but when the entire concept of the style has changed (blue is no longer really defensive, yellow/cyan are better at that now) then meh. i just don't think nudge should be 100% necessary for someone to play red/other styles as it is a clusterfuck imo, and was removed for this reason. to be honest you should just do with the system as you deem fit and heed not those of us with 1hour experience (I am pretty bad as of this patch atm, I admit that, as I don't really care much for nudgebased combat and find it monotonous)
my gripe is how certain styles have changed RADICALLY, when the update was purported to only be a finetuning with some mechanical changes. alas! i digress, and bid you all well. This isn't a dig at you btw SeV, and I know how hard it can be to try and make a system that caters to EVERYONE (hint: its impossible). just venting!
Cyan never staggered. Mblock for staff is basically (once bugs are fixed) stagger+combo stop. Still pretty strong. I've found that the pblock spots are roughly where the top of your hilt meets the tip of their saber (as a starting point at mid range). High ones are basically impossible in nudge range.
I suggested something similar to the MB+PB idea as well. Seems like the main points of contention are (mixed/matched + tweaked some):
1) Skillful blocking getting negated by facehugging/nudge spam
2) Yellow too strong (ACM drain on defense as well)
3) Pblock arcs kind of wonky (top-side in particular)
4) Turtling (new mechanics and/or new pblock?)
5) Pblock being more input-based rather than just looking somewhere around in space (trying to get any form of pblock at facehug range comes down to trying to guesstimate between parries, which most people aren't going to be able to do)
6) Saber twirl of course
7) Direction restriction (or lack there of)
8) Nudge in general
9) Feint should be more useful offensively
10) Mix of the non-parried swing -> blocking animation (useful, yes) mixed with nudges = headache
I probably missed one or two things (sorry!). I feel like we are close to getting a really good balance with everything but just need to fix the weird things that have popped up. It feels like whenever there's supposed to be changes to sabering, the ENTIRE system changes rather than things here or there for QOL updates. This seems to be a recurring issue of sorts (feel free to correct me).
5) Pblock being more input-based rather than just looking somewhere around in space (trying to get any form of pblock at facehug range comes down to trying to guesstimate between parries, which most people aren't going to be able to do)
it's all well going 'I dueled this skillful dude' but when the entire concept of the style has changed (blue is no longer really defensive, yellow/cyan are better at that now) then meh. i just don't think nudge should be 100% necessary for someone to play red/other styles as it is a clusterfuck imo, and was removed for this reason. to be honest you should just do with the system as you deem fit and heed not those of us with 1hour experience (I am pretty bad as of this patch atm, I admit that, as I don't really care much for nudgebased combat and find it monotonous)
my gripe is how certain styles have changed RADICALLY, when the update was purported to only be a finetuning with some mechanical changes. alas! i digress, and bid you all well. This isn't a dig at you btw SeV, and I know how hard it can be to try and make a system that caters to EVERYONE (hint: its impossible). just venting!
Every style should have its own feel, and they really don't. With the exception of Red/Yellow, they all feel pretty much the same. Cyan plays like blue, defensive nonsense. Purple plays like a slower Cyan. Staff plays like a weaker yellow. Duals play like a 5 year old having a temper tantrum. I've used the word many times, but boring keeps coming to mind.
Either I use Cyan defensively and try to time the ridiculously hard Pblock-Counter system, or I just walk up to my opponent and nudge spam them to death, and have a slap fight inbetween. Which seems less like Star Wars? Both? That is pretty much how all the styles feel, as well.
Think about giving each style their own unique feel. Keep Blue as the turtle style, make Cyan a fencing style about footwork/precision/parrying, make staff an aggressive hard hitting style, duals a semi-defensive style with a lot of utility, yellow the basic defend/attack style, red the hard hitting gorilla style, purple the balanced kill-over-time style.
Let's look at Nudge logically by the by. Realistically, at point blank, full length swords would be pretty much useless, including Lightsabers. The closer you get, the less effective you would become, depending on your style.
A defensive style, or a fencing style, should be focused on keeping someone from getting into nudge distance, but that is pretty much impossible to do. Which is a huge issue. There is no real way to zone people out with styles. They either are out of nudge distance, or into nudge distance, instantly. Which is really annoying, and absolutely untrue to swordsmanship, which DOES APPLY TO STAR WARS.
The problem is that saber impacts have no weight to them, and there is no punishment to trying to get within nudge distance of someone good at fencing you out, with the exception of maybe blue lunge, not that it does that much. So all saber fights either turn into a turtling match, or a screaming banshee Jedi running at your face spamming AW SA WA SA WA SA while you panic trying to figure out where to try and pblock. Then you DO get a pblock, and you missed the 0.00001 nanosecond timing to counter swing (something that wasn't an issue in 1.3) and he just continues to spam you to death with nudge swings. Or it devolves into a swingblock slap fight.
Every style should have its own feel, and they really don't. With the exception of Red/Yellow, they all feel pretty much the same. Cyan plays like blue, defensive nonsense. Purple plays like a slower Cyan. Staff plays like a weaker yellow. Duals play like a 5 year old having a temper tantrum. I've used the word many times, but boring keeps coming to mind.
Most of the things were said. I agree with Cat lady, Achilles, Agentoo8 and Alice. What you guys should do, are minor fixes in red, cyan and duals. Instead you re-introduced the nudging system which kills all the fun and forces us to play the way you invented. The duels lack flexibility and are simply boring as hell. Expect the player base to shrink, because I don't believe people will like the new system, I personaly do not.
The Devs should Consider The Viewpoint from Achilles, Agento, Alice and Cat lady.
Also Magno de La Forto Has a Good idea for The Dueling Changes aswell as gameplay changes.
#BuffLightningMorePls
Remove the ability that prevents the continuation of swing chains.
New: Half-swings performed from nudges, chain pauses and blocking animations are now of similar speed in all directions and spinning moves no longer occur in these cases. Swings chained in the air are unchanged.
Change: Red BP drain on PB perk removed and given to cyan; cyan BP drain on parry removed. Red stagger on 3rd hit is now a shorter stagger (i.e. the player still cannot block blasterfire or PB swings during the stagger, unlike the flinch feature versus gunners).
Red BP drain on PB perk removed and DOESN'T given to cyan.
Reintroduce 1.3.2 duration of a stagger on 3'rd hit. *
Change: Walking non-swing blocked saber swings now only deal 1.1 times more BP drain (down from 1.2 times), and running swings only deal 1.0 times more BP drain (down from 1.2 times).
I'm sorry to be the harbinger of bad news, since I wanted to continue developing the system and bringing it further and further, adding many interesting mechanics and adjustments. Unfortunately it seems that major changes to the 1.4 system will not occur. Tweaks like making red stagger last slightly longer and perhaps increasing overall bp damage to 1.3x instead of 1.2x for more speedy duels, will possibly be implemented, but any major changes that requires coding a bunch of complicated stuff won't be considered it seems. This is unfortunate, as I get the feeling we could make it even better if we continued trying, but it just isn't gonna happen right now.
So small tweaks and value changes can occur, like 1.3x drain being implemented, but nothing more than that it seems.
