Adjustments to General Gameplay

For the past couple months we have been gathering up ideas and thoughts on how to alter some values to reduce critical breakpoints in the gameplay experience while still staying true to MB2's signature feel. Before even trying them out, we would like to see some discussion on the potential implications and if there are some controversial changes in the mix. None of these changes are final and surely not all of them will ever see the light of day, but many of these ideas attempt to address issues that particularly new players might feel are frustrating.

Note that these changes do not focus on Saber vs Saber mechanics as that is explored elsewhere in Tempest's tweak threads.

General mechanics

• Getup from knockdown activates 0.5-1 second sooner for single life classes
  
• Getup animation from knockdowns changed to a sped up Soldier getup animation while on the ground (mid-air getup is still current coinflip)
• Can't hack objectives while on fire
• All single life classes can sideroll upon knockdown except SBD
  
• Sonic detonator stuns count as assists
• Incendiary Grenade flames stop dealing TK points after being lit for 5 seconds
  
• Assist TKs can be punished
• A primed grenade will tick passively to alert for corner camps

These changes would be focused towards reducing frustration, fixing oversights and small changes to make the game look a bit better. The most significant of these are the changes to how knockdowns look and feel.

Currently the knockdown is a very powerful mechanic that creates tension during a fight and allows for powerful crowd control abilities to be potent. It is one of the big things that sets MB2 apart from everything else. However it can prove very frustrating and can feel unavoidable for the less experienced players. By slightly reducing the time it takes for the getup and giving additional control over your destiny, we hope to alleviate general frustration while slightly reducing the game-ending impact of a knockdown.

All primed grenades will tick similar to Concussion Grenades to allow players to detect corner ambushes more reliably. This will also help players read the battlefield better as they can now determine if a grenade has been primed or not without having to hear the priming beeps.

The Force:

• Pull vulnerability frames changed to match Push
• Push costs changed from 2-2-8 to 2-4-8. Single target knockdown added for Push 2.
  
• Lightning only stuns for the frames that it hits
• FP drains are no longer capped when not blocking

These changes to the way the Force works are slight tweaks to reduce frustrating behaviour in Pull and Lightning. There was a big cool factor in hitting snipes on Jedi/Sith who were playing carelessly, so we would like to bring that back.

Push 3 is generally perceived to be very powerful and easy to use considering its utility. We are thinking of an indirect nerf by making it cost 2 points more to access. Boosting Push 2 would encourage players to save points for other abilities as long as they are comfortable with aiming at their intended targets. People who can do single-target pushing reliably will be able to do so with less points. However, if someone wants to be a crowd control powerhouse, that is still possible, just with an added cost.

Lightsaber

• Passive deflects should never fly behind the deflecter
• Increase Flinch range to match Close IDR for better consistency
• Staff/Duals cost to 0
• Staff/Duals defense arc to match regular stances

These behavioural changes explain themselves for most part. Staff and Duals are made more accessible, but they lose their defensive bonus. Flinch becomes more reliable and both players can expect a specific result when getting shot.

Frag Grenade

• Secondary throw FP drain removed

Knockdown is already punishing enough. It also feels inconsistent as it is the only explosive that does this.

Clone Rifle

• Reduce velocity of both blobs by 15%

The Clone Rifle's blob blasts have become very fast over the course of the years almost sneakily. This has removed a certain feeling of pride and accomplishment from landing air blobs on mandalorians. This also reduces the game ending power the Blob currently holds over Jedi/Sith.

Concussion Grenade

• Direct hits explode on impact dealing extra damage (10-20 HP)

Bring back some of the old Primary Grenade feel to the Soldier class while giving the Double Conc Build a bit more oomph.

Projectile Rifle

• Remove firing delay while scoping
• Introduce focus mechanic: Stand still for 1.5s to fire a 100% accurate shot. Visually decrease crosshair size in the same fashion as EE3 until accuracy achieved
• Adjust ammo available per level 8-12-18

Give the Projectile Rifle back its possibility of quickscoping, but create a requirement of having a setup for making clear shots. Ammo amounts available are also tweaked to make sniping a more conscious decision as it cannot be done wastefully.

Westar M5

• Increase sniper ammo cost so that the clip can fit 1 less sniper shot
• Decrease sniper shot base damage by 3

The M5 is largely where it needs to be, but being able to fire so many shots in succession reduces the feeling of every shot counting. In similar fashion the base damage would be decreased just slightly to emphasize the importance of landing two consecutive shots for the kill.

Bowcaster

• Implement a curved damage increase for the charged shot like with the Disruptor
• Include a sound effect for charging the shot
• Fully charged shots are always accurate

The rapid fire/charged shot swap has made the gun feel more like its own thing. It no longer feels like an overpowered E11, even if only at Level 2. The charged shot is given more emphasis while also slightly reducing its initial damage output, while keeping the maximum charge damage the same. Currently the damage adds up too fast resulting in high damage with very little charging required. These changes just nudge us more towards making the gun feel as punchy as it felt like in Episode 7.

EE3

• Sniper shot damage decreased from 100 to 90

The sniper shot damage is reduced slightly to emphasize shots that land on the chest and head.

Disruptor

• Primary shots pass through targets
• Increase reload time by 20%

The non-scoped mode gets a fun feature that should make it an interesting option in a tight hallway. The Disruptor reloads very fast and this leaves very small timing windows for enemies to relocate and suppress. Increasing reload time should make sniping a more responsible decision.

Melee

• Legsweep no longer knocks down if the target is crouching

This behaviour inconsistent and the legsweep has a very large hitbox, so knocking down players with it is not exactly as thrilling and skillful as it should be. Now players have some counterplay against it.

Poison Dart

• Reduce duration by 33%

Poison can feel like a very frustrating ability when stacked as it forces a player out of the fight. It also grants the Bountyhunter a long timing window for pressure or even securing the kill. This change should increase significance of landing consecutive darts and gives the Bountyhunter less time to capitalize.

That was a lot more than I expected. Please take your time to read and think about these changes. As said above, none of them are set in stone and are more-so starting points rather than final values.

We would love to hear your thoughts. What sounds good? What sounds bad? Why? I am fond of all of these changes and truly believe they make the game more nuanced without feeling too heavy-handed. I am sure we'll disagree on some of the more drastic points, but I would love to see you also highlight which of the changes make the game better even if you feel strongly against some other features.

 

[SomeGuy]

Increasing the cost of Push needlessly breaks most builds, especially force whore builds. It doesn't make much sense, really.

Not the real FW builds without a saber. I usually have 2 to 4 left over points.

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

Not the real FW builds without a saber. I usually have 2 to 4 left over points.

Talk to Rosh about that one.

 

[Pfeffersteak]

All single life classes can sideroll upon knockdown except SBD! Is this a dream? You ve nice ideas and i like to thank you for improving the game. But sometimes i ve the feeling you change it one sided. If you decrease the ee3 sniper dmg and also the m5 sniper dmg you maybe delte the weapon completely! It wont make sense to use this weapons anymore then.

 

[IroTzu]

/respect /love Everyone.
I hope your day is going well !

Lighting
- Use the range of PUSH (lvl 3 has the longest range from where you can hit an opponent).
- After a Sith is done using a lighting, no one can attack for 1 sec (including both Sith and his target).
- Reduce the dmg of Lighting (or make it stronger in combination with PUSH. E.G Lvl 3 PUSH + Lvl 3 LIghting makes Lighting to dish stronger dmg).
- Why does it make sense? The purpose of Lighting is to CLOSE GAP between the gunner and Sith so you can enter a range of lightsaber which is an instant death in two strikes top.


Proj
- If the game is going to be slowed down in general (movement speed, other class abilities that take more time to perform) then 1.5 second preperation for 100% accuracy is fully acceptable.

EE3
- Make it eat less FP.
- Give it 100 more ammo.
- Have it be able to 1-shot Jedi (back to the same old / basics).

Melee
- Sweep is essential when a gunner is playing against DEF 3 Jedi / Sith. I hope you have considered it.

Jedi
- Bring back stagger , please.
(Jedi swing sabers madly when after the gunenrs as if they are on Angel Dust (PCP). No matter how much time you shoot them , it feels that the drug they are on does not seem to allow them to feel pain at all. Hence the suggestion for stagger.)
- Cooldown after force powers of 1.5 seconds, please.
(People spam and spam. No skill in spamming. Not to mention that successful PULL + Slice equals Death. Not much of requirements to perform hence it is not skill-demanding yet it is instant death).
- If all of this seems to make Jedi to be eliminated quite easily then reduce FP drain by 1/3 or 2/3.
- Gunners should not be able to whitstand lightsaber in any style (except SBD because of cortosis armor) . This makes sense ONLY if you apply what is written above in-game.

Headshots
- Instant death no matter what weapon. (You have armor for body not for the head. Because of the game balance, Clones and Arcs armor should be overlooked. Or you can apply it by giving them more armor that can whitstand 1 head-shot, but the next regular shot equals death).
- Increase damage from guns so people can begin playing more strategically (using covers, teamwork, timing etc). If you are not to decrease Movement Speed (below) then reduce the travel time of lasers by 0.3-0.5.

Movement Speed
- Reduce it by 10%. People will use cover more often.

I have always been under an impression that MB2 game-mechanics rewards:
1) Read out (your opponents, situations, positioning)
2) Timing
3) Precision

It got to the point that game.-mechanics rewards spammers / one-click winners the most.

P.S Respect and Love for developers and all of their investment. I am sharing my in-game experience (which includes a lot of conversations I have had with people who play MB2 for over a couple of years).


Happy Gaming, Everyone!

 

[Bybo4ka]

- Cooldown after force powers of 1.5 seconds, please.
(People spam and spam. No skill in spamming.

If we are talking about push, I think 20 FP loss is enough. If they spam, then they will waste their FP quickly. For a gunner who press shift properly its not a big deal, even easier to kill.

 

[SomeGuy]

I don't think I saw this question asked, but with a change to Push 2 knocking down on target only would that also work with Super Push combo?

 

[President Bossk]

I think it should work with lightning and super push. Now these powers will have increased cost and no extra power.

 

[thebiggerboat3]

I hope this is a joke. First you nerfed grip so it's completely useless and now lightning. What the hell are you devs doing? Why don't you remove all forcepowers already from Sith and leave him only Push and Pull while you're at it. Ridiculous.

Honestly, yeah. The one thing Sith has is damage and aggression. Ever since grip's been nerfed it's been very hard to use, and the last thing we need is lightning being nerfed. Leave that as it is- As a matter of fact, it could use a re-work. here's an idea or two:

-Jedi/Sith who no longer have their lightsabers out/have their lightsabers disarmed lose their force defense, that way being disarmed is actually dangerous in a 1v1 and doesn't just mean time to jump as high as you can or run away until you pull the saber back. It's very irritating when you feel like you've just beaten your opponent and then see them just j3 away from you or just act super slippery until they pull their lightsaber back.

-Shorten the time it takes for grip to actually grip someone.

-Increase lightning 3's range so that when you push people back with it, they won't be pushed out of range for the actual lightning to damage them while they're down. (had it happen to me a million times where I jump out at a clone, zap them and then they get thrown out of my range, they get up, then shoot me as I slowly try to move up and put them in range.)

 

[Onysfx]

I haven't read the whole thread yet, and will give more feedback later but:
@GoodOl'Ben
"All single life classes can sideroll upon knockdown except SBD"

Then what's the point of being BH instead of mando? If mandos get a sideroll, they can easily escape jedi. They already have a jetpack for escape so I don't think they need a sideroll as well. Way too OP. Plus the mando armor is heavy anyway. Arcs don't have a jetpack, so they could use it by default though, especially considering they are slower by default when not using sprint.

 

[Garth]

Hello, this is not gameplay related, but more of a overall improvement for the administration side of MB2.

Adding chat for player to admin
New Smod Commands Suggestion For Duel Mode
Improve administrating a server
(Pick the ideas you like, and make some of them real)

And also, modify the 99 limit of rounds when using /smod tempban.
8h of tempban forces us (owner of server) to add so much IPs into our banlist.txt, that we spend more time adding/removing them than actually playing or improving things.

Thanks alot, and keep up the good work I can never thanks you enough for the time and effort you guys spend into this.

 

[Rosh+]

Not the real FW builds without a saber. I usually have 2 to 4 left over points.

That's wrong, though.

If the change were to be made, it would force the most basic forcewhore build, the Lightning Whore to sacrifice either repulse, or Lightning 3. The Forcewhore would have to trade one ability for another, and on the current playing field, that is a MASSIVE disadvantage. The same problem applies to anybody using a Grip Whore build.

If a change like this went through, playing saberless Forcewhore would be next to impossible, as your primary offensive power can no longer be supplemented by ambushes in key locations around the map, and if you chose to actually use the third level of your chosen offensive power, you'd have to get rid of some core powers to compensate, unless you sacrifice Force Block(tantamount to suicide).

This means, if I were to choose Lightning 3 in my build, the smartest thing to do with this change in effect would be to sacrifice Push+Pull 3 in favor of level 2 for both powers. This takes away not only my ability to repulse, but my ability to superpush. I would not sacrifice Sense 1, as walking into an area blindly is suicide, and I would not sacrifice Force Block 3, as getting thrown around after losing 25 FP is kind of a massive glaring disadvantage.

At that point, it would no longer be viable to play Forcewhore, as too many essential tools are absent, and I'd probably end up getting a saber or playing gunner, and that is how Forcewhore would die for me with this change.

Again, as someone who plays Forcewhore almost exclusively when I hop on, I disagree with this change.

TL;DR

Spoiler

GET AWAY FROM MY FUCKING NICHE SITH MAIN NORMIE REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

 

[Blazer]

I'm sorry I don't understand the side roll thing. Do mandos get to immediatly do a sideroll like BH's do when they get pushed? Literally to me the counter for mandalorian is a Jedi, because they are so stacked in their arsenals that they should be easily killed with a push. Now you want to give an already extremely easy and semi-overpowered class even more ways to get away?

 

[President Bossk]

I'm sorry I don't understand the side roll thing. Do mandos get to immediatly do a sideroll like BH's do when they get pushed? Literally to me the counter for mandalorian is a Jedi, because they are so stacked in their arsenals that they should be easily killed with a push. Now you want to give an already extremely easy and semi-overpowered class even more ways to get away?

I don't understand either.

 

[Onysfx]

I'm sorry I don't understand the side roll thing. Do mandos get to immediatly do a sideroll like BH's do when they get pushed? Literally to me the counter for mandalorian is a Jedi, because they are so stacked in their arsenals that they should be easily killed with a push. Now you want to give an already extremely easy and semi-overpowered class even more ways to get away?

Exactly what I'm saying. By giving the mando a side roll, you're basically taking away his biggest disadvantage. At this point, why bother playing Bounty Hunter when mando is far better against jedi with the side roll?

 

[Chocorope]

Mandalorian are the best warrior around so I guess it kinda make sense in some ways.

Mandalorians have always been depicted as fearsome warriors, specially melee wise, an quite a good challenge against Force Users in Lores, Movie and Series, so yet again it does make sense for me that I'd need to use more clever tactics to get them, than the ones I'd use against others class like little Soldiers.

But I understand your concerns, tho personally, I love a challenge and to push myself further to accomplish my goals, the harder, the better!

It feels so much more rewarding when you get stuff done.



The problem here is not these changes, but that if one class become so good, then it simply make the others kind of useless.

If there had a player limit per class, then it'll make far more sense... But then, i'd basicaly be like FA and yet again... I feel like cuting the freedom to play with what you want would slowly make it boring and annoying.

Like.. Why would you pick a Soldier ( To the exception of doing the despised, pesky Grenadier/Suicide Spam ) If you can actually pick such a more Viable/Versatile class to Gun around with, which yes, also got Rocket Launcher, Sniper Rifle beside all the other Stuff/Gadgets avalable.



If we give them this extra Mobility/Survivability on Knockdown, my guess is we could also cut some of it via changes to either the Jetpack and or its Max Fuel Quantity.

It would force Mandos to carefully choose the way they use that precious Fuel more strategically, but I don't like it much though... But that's all I can think about right now.



On a personal note...

I think Mandos were super fine the way they are right now and that it didn't feel like requiring much changes... but that's me.

I'm also still waiting for that Mandalorian Iron Armor Gadget :/...

Heck it could be even made that when you equip the Mando Armor, the extra weight make you travel slower with the Jetpack!

So basicaly trading Extra Survivability in exchange of some Mobility, which also indirectly have an impact on the Fuel and the way you approach Build since you actually need more of it to travel longer distances for the fact that you are being slowed down by the extra weight of the armor.


Anyway... Wait and See... Maybe these changes wont have that much of an impact, gotta wait to test it before we argue too hard on it.

 

[Onysfx]

My feedback:

-Faster getup will have some serious gameplay changing effects, don't change too much, if at all.
-A new getup animation besides the coinflip is something I definitely agree with.
-Don't touch proj, it's fine.
-Don't give mandos a side roll, they have a jetpack god dammit.
-Increase speed between primary shots of disruptor.
-Don't nerf legsweep.
-Don't nerf ee3.
-I guess you could try reducing poison time by 20 percent, but give it a slight fp drain.
-Have tracker darts display HP and FP above target. Would give more reason to buy trackers over poison.

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

-Don't touch proj, it's fine.

-Don't nerf ee3.

There is a reason why every decent gunner in the universe uses Hero/BH and Mando. Sniper rifles are incredibly overpowered in MB2, and makes certain maps (like Jakku) unplayable. Clones and SBDs are even worse, but that's a topic for another time.

 

[Onysfx]

There is a reason why every decent gunner in the universe uses Hero/BH and Mando. Sniper rifles are incredibly overpowered in MB2, and makes certain maps (like Jakku) unplayable. Clones and SBDs are even worse, but that's a topic for another time.

I would agree with giving the proj less ammo, you get way too much that is never even used.

Also, I remember the times when the blaster shot movement speeds were much slower, if that was slowed down for all weapons again (not too much of course), it would seriously help with the proj being OP.

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

I would agree with giving the proj less ammo, you get way too much that is never even used.

Also, I remember the times when the blaster shot movement speeds were much slower, if that was slowed down for all weapons again (not too much of course), it would seriously help with the proj being OP.

Lowering ammo counts doesn't solve bad balance. Even if it only had 1 shot, that 1 shot is potentially more powerful than any other weapon in the game. If you want to solve the problem, then you either need to balance around it, or balance it around other things.

Slowing blaster bolt speeds is a terrible idea. They're too slow as it is, and cause aiming to be based upon luck more so than skill. No.

 

[MaceMadunusus]

Lowering ammo counts doesn't solve bad balance.

It doesn't fix every problem but it certainly is a method to balance proj. You have to be more precise with your shots rather than dumb firing at corners as much. It makes it much less deadly over the course of the round because you have less opportunities to kill people. Even if killing people is easy, you can still potentially kill less and you have to be more careful with your shots otherwise you will run out.