Appo's Arc Feedback for [CURRENT UPDATE NUMBER HERE]

[CC-1119 'Appo']

I'll be updating this thread as updates continue rolling out, will just keep tweaking this OP/posting replies with updates on the glorious state of balance for ARCs and the priority things I think could do with tweaking.

Archive (Fixed issues)

Spoiler

Westar M5 - AMMO​

Westar M5 desperately needs loving ATM, I’ve already posted a suggestion thread for this but will gather what I’ve proposed there in here too.
The reserve ammunition for the M5 is far too low. As it stands, I find myself running out of ammo constantly, the magazine is fine but the reserve just isn't enough. You can't compete with snipers and you can't compete with soldiers at the moment so the M5's place, with or without a sniper scope, is pretty much nonexistent as other classes do it much better and you can just take the dual pistols which are just flat out better than the m5 in terms of stats.

I'd suggest either:
A) reduce the ammo per shot from 2 to 1, then ammo 2 / 3 would be fair because as it stands, you get 18 sniper shots or 180 normal shots with ammo 2 which, unless you're somehow hitting headshots with every single shot, is not enough to kill more than 6 players and that's with a generous accuracy rating of 50%.

B) Increase the reserve ammo. At least 1.5x times what it is now so, 360 for ammo 1, 540 for ammo 2 and around 720 for ammo 3.

Alternatively, you could beef up damage to compensate for low damage overall but, as it stands, I'd generally just take the pistols over the m5 every time if it wasn't for the goddamn awful deadzone of those pistols, you basically have to deliberately misplace your crosshair to fight in close quarters.

Westar M5 – FP Drain​

So I don’t know which developer ARC players have pissed off or if I’ve just magically started doing less FP damage but it seems like the Westar M5 has had a stealth nerf for FP drain, I’m routinely running out of ammo firing at a saberist, the guys simply don’t go down and I’m having to resort to the old tactic of heroes, let them swing and then fire, because I can’t break through their swingblock or drain their FP fast enough anymore. Can we get this looked at ASAP? I don’t want anything crazy like deka firepower vs saberists but definitely should be doing more than 4 - 5 FP per shot, more like 8 or so would be fair.

Clone Pistols (dual)​

The pistols have some serious issues surrounding them, the same as any other pistols in the game. First of all, the animations are super janky and need a touch up honestly. Secondly and more importantly, the convergence on these guns means that they are so useless at close range without swaying your mouse left/right to compensate for each shot. I'd like to see the alternate firemode on these pistols and in fact all pistols not change from firing both pistols to only one but instead adjust the convergence between close range and long range, so you can specify whether your pistols meet their deadzone at fifteen meters or sixty meters. This should make the pistols more enjoyable to use, balance wise though they are fine. DPS is technically higher on pistols than the M5 and the bounce shot is absolutely brilliant for harassing passive sith players.

Animation freeze​

There's an issue, I'm not sure what to call it other than animation freeze, where if an ARC is shot at during a getup animation and continues to be shot at, every shot seems to reset or delay the recovery of the getup. I dunno if it is intentional, but it is not intuitive and can really punish solid plays by penalizing one bad getup with a death as you are functionally stun-locked so long as you are getting hit.

Pulse Nades​

These things need some work I’d say increase their AOE range and add some health damage to it or failing that just make them cheaper. 4/6/8 points would be more than fair for what they are, they’re a worse frag, conc or sonic grenade that require a follow up as they don’t deal raw damage and weaken an enemy for the rest of the round. The most they do is drain your magazine and most of your armour, which a frag grenade would also have done while dealing health damage as well.

I think with a lower price we’d also start seeing more of these because as it stands, the cost is too high and means you’ll be basically useless as ARC once those nades are gone if you do decide to go for a nade build, unless you only take one but at that point they are practically worthless. If you don't get that follow up by risking yourself, it is more often than not a waste of 10pts.

Pulse Underbarreled Launcher​

Same price for the pulse nades should be applied here, maybe combine the two so you can only have two pulse nades in the launcher and 3 in hand, so instead of 4/6/8 it would be 6/8 for 2 launchable nades? Force the launcher to require M5 rank 1 though, so you can't upgrade your M5 to be laser accurate even while sprinting while also having grenades, give it that choice between either the versatility of a nadelauncher or the accuracy of an upgraded M5.

ARC Dexterity Getup Animation Cancel​

So I have an obligation not only to propose changes for things I like, but for things that I know are broken to get fixed. The ARC Dexterity getup animation cancel is one of them. Functionally this is when you press the BLOCK/RELOAD key to switch to a blocking animation while in a getup animation as an ARC. Doing this allows you to instantly get up with a very abrupt snap and no obvious indication to an opponent as to what just happened due to being able to cancel the animation and instantly recover. This is blatantly unintentional and needs to be fixed ASAP.

I do have to stress however, it needs to be fixed without impacting the ability of an ARC to cancel lunges and rolls with an uppercut or a block as both of these are crucial feinting maneuvers to bait Sith into an early swing. The dexterity getup animation cancel however removes most possibilities for a Sith to outplay an ARC player outside of very lucky knockdowns using lightning 3 or pull 3.

"""credentials"""

Spoiler

The second video was edited by @Shady

 

[Tylenol]

You should do this so I can show everyone how broken siderolls would be if they were infinite.

Notice how I said "removing/reducing" since I was aware that infinite side rolls would be abused to hell. I simply didn't remember if side rolls use up stamina or not.

Also, people who played the Halo FA mode once will know how ridiculous shotgun is. Even more so when you consider the agility of arc

 

[CC-1119 'Appo']

You should do this so I can show everyone how broken siderolls would be if they were infinite.

ok but i actually remember the shotgun from FA having really bad spread

also if that's a problem just make buying it disable access to the sniper LOL

arc is supposed to be "i have a gun for everything class" but so far it just has dual pistols for shooting at people more down a hallway, a rifle for shooting at people more down a hallway, and a scope for shooting at people more down a bigger hallway, and then rockets which are definitely not getting shot down a hallway because the boresight for these things are his butthole

i want a shotgun

Reduce the cooldown timer on side lunge so it is no longer as delayed as forward/backward lunge, slightly increase the stamina drain by about 1/4th and boost the range on that side roll slightly then it'll be worth doing.

As for infinite rolling - remove the ability to cancel your rolls by blocking or make blocking to cancel your rolls cost a fair amount of stamina and activate the full cooldown so you can't spam it. ARC is a class that requires skill in order to dodge incoming fire, being able to instantly cancel any move you make with zero downtime is too much, and makes you able to instantly get up from saberists pushing you down which basically gives them zero options to outplay a good ARC.

I disagree wholeheartedly, ARC is the mobility class. If you want the 'gun for everything class', you're looking for Bounty Hunter or Hero. Shotguns have zero place in MB2 outside of 'for fun' gamemodes like FA, especially with the mobility of ARC. It will make pushing ARCs extremely difficult and will make corner camping far more rewarding over using your mobility.

The class has utility options like pulse grenades or the PLX, but both of its primary weapons are designed around being used while being as mobile as possible, the M5 at rank 2 is the only rifle in the game that is 100% accurate no matter how fast you're moving or whether you are jumping, rolling or wallrunning, and with dexterity 3 the sniper mode is pinpoint even with a rank 1 m5, meaning you can jump around while sniping accurately. And pistols are pistols, they are always accurate and have significantly higher DPS than the M5.

I want a clone rifle and a re-skinned E-11 to look like a DC-15S on ARC, but I know why both of these would be incredibly overpowered on a class designed around being incredibly mobile. In much the same vein, being able to take a shotgun would hugely devalue other equipment as if any class can get to close range easily, it is an ARC with Dexterity 3 in good hands.

 

[SpeedDemosArch]

I simply didn't remember if side rolls use up stamina or not.

slightly increase the stamina drain by about 1/4th

only frontrolls use stamina

I disagree wholeheartedly, ARC is the mobility class.

arc is the options class. it has options for snipers (westar lv2 general, westar w/scope), soldspam (nades, rockets), ee3/t21/dlt/disruptor (nade), deka(nade), sbd (nade), jedi (either nade or sticky nades+ pistol bounce), clusterfucks (rockets/nades), people abusing cover (pistols, nades/sticky nades) and knockdown(dex3). arc incidentally has an option (dex3) that gives him a soft counter towards jedi + misc movement options, but not taking said option and loading up on grenades, rockets, and ammo is just as much of a choice.

you're looking for Bounty Hunter or Hero

hero has a pistol that kills good on headshot, an e11 (generic), and a sniper rifle (literally everyone else has some form of a long range precision weapon). the only thing he has an arguable level of variety in is how he can shoot a bullet laser in a straight line across a hallway. other than nades he has no real weapon options that don't involve direct line of sight killing dudes.

bounty hunter is only a little better, but all their guns are also still just direct line of sight killing dudes weapons, granted he has a shitton of them and the burst rifle is p. cool. he does have tracking/poison which are legit utility though.

Shotguns have zero place in MB2

Why? Snipers are hardly a Star Wars thing other than EU trying to force them in because "sniper rifles are cool woah" even though that's like... not the idea of star wars. You're literally the guy that made a thread on snipers because people see them as being such a massive problem. I don't see the issue with adding shotguns because both of these weapons softcounter eachother. Shotguns aren't unpushable, in the same way that snipers aren't unpushable. People complain about snipers being strong at range, and it's like, yeah, no shit, that's the range they were meant to be good in. They're gonna be batshit crazy on Deathstar, but making westar and shotgun mutually exclusive fixes this problem.

We're talking about a game where the idea of "power" has become so bumfuck obsessed with sticking a sniper scope on everything to the point that over half the classes have a "super weapon" that involves long range precision killing. It's so bad that the devs were so out of "power point" ideas for the SBD that they just duct taped a fucking scope on his arm for five points. That's the level of sniping obsession we're at here. We need shit in the opposite direction.

 

[CC-1119 'Appo']

arc is the options class. it has options for snipers (westar lv2 general, westar w/scope), soldspam (nades, rockets), ee3/t21/dlt/disruptor (nade), deka(nade), sbd (nade), jedi (either nade or sticky nades+ pistol bounce), clusterfucks (rockets/nades), people abusing cover (pistols, nades/sticky nades) and knockdown(dex3). arc incidentally has an option (dex3) that gives him a soft counter towards jedi + misc movement options, but not taking said option and loading up on grenades, rockets, and ammo is just as much of a choice.

The same is true of almost every class in the mod. ARC's defining trait is the dexterity mechanic, hence a focus on mobility.

hero has a pistol that kills good on headshot, an e11 (generic), and a sniper rifle (literally everyone else has some form of a long range precision weapon). the only thing he has an arguable level of variety in is how he can shoot a bullet laser in a straight line across a hallway. other than nades he has no real weapon options that don't involve direct line of sight killing dudes.

bounty hunter is only a little better, but all their guns are also still just direct line of sight killing dudes weapons, granted he has a shitton of them and the burst rifle is p. cool. he does have tracking/poison which are legit utility though.

The key factor to this though is that their weapons are cheap, both the BH and hero can get three weapons, fairly decently ranked up, in the same build without impacting the rest of their build too harshly, the class is literally defined by being heavily armed with specialist roles such as snipers who stack ammo/armor and just a proj + pistol over a more versatile build as a side option. Meanwhile, an ARC trying to emulate this will spend 1/3rd of his points or more simply on getting both primary weapons, that's not even touching on getting M5 attachments.

Why? Snipers are hardly a Star Wars thing other than EU trying to force them in because "sniper rifles are cool woah" even though that's like... not the idea of star wars. You're literally the guy that made a thread on snipers because people see them as being such a massive problem. I don't see the issue with adding shotguns because both of these weapons softcounter eachother. Shotguns aren't unpushable, in the same way that snipers aren't unpushable. People complain about snipers being strong at range, and it's like, yeah, no shit, that's the range they were meant to be good in. They're gonna be batshit crazy on Deathstar, but making westar and shotgun mutually exclusive fixes this problem.

We're talking about a game where the idea of "power" has become so bumfuck obsessed with sticking a sniper scope on everything to the point that over half the classes have a "super weapon" that involves long range precision killing. It's so bad that the devs were so out of "power point" ideas for the SBD that they just duct taped a fucking scope on his arm for five points. That's the level of sniping obsession we're at here. We need shit in the opposite direction.

The solution to snipers and the sniper meta in MB2 is not to add counters to it, but to remove it. The only reason why snipers are not unpushable is because of their lowered FOV which hard caps situational awareness - without this consideration, it would be literally impossible to ever push a sniper without tanking a hit or outright instadeath with at most, one or two shots returned to the sniper. The issue with snipers mind you isn't necessarily their lethality at range so much as their lethality in general - you can land bodyshots at any distance, even with flickshots at close range, and cripple or kill almost any class.

A shotgun on the other hand has to be incredibly lethal up close to make up for the lack of range, meaning that it functionally becomes a sniper rifle with, likely, a faster cycling rate between shots and more ammo in reserve. You functionally create a weapon that caters to corner hugging and reflex shots which prevents a soldier from pushing an ARC around a corner, as even trading hits will result in the soldier being instantly obliterated if the shotgun is actually viable as a close range weapon.

If you really want a shotgun, learn to use the sniper rifles at close range - but adding an actual shotgun with no FOV drop the way they function in FA is almost certainly never going to happen, simply because of how overpowered said weapons would be in the live game.

 

[Torlo50]

Since someone is shouting shotgun here. I would like to say, "No." and leave it at that, but that is not what we do here. Apollo lined this up quite nicely, @SpeedDemosArch . The whole design of shotguns in FPS games is a close range power house. However, MB2 already has a close-range powerhouse, the saberists. If you want to sit in a corner and instant kill something on reflex, just have a light-saber and some level of sense.

Now, to contribute to the topic at hand, namely ARCs, I recently decided that I really like the mobility afforded by the class. While I have been putting off playing ARC mainly for years, only using it for the rocket meme or EMP throughput, it's mobility is where it's at. Now, it is at the point that if you wanted more mobility, you would need to limit it's DPS in some way, or it's armor. After finding this thread, I realize that the class is only the way it is because of the thread here. So, thank you @CC-1119 "Appo' . My only consideration is that they probably don't need sniper weapons, but I'm all for removing ee-3 sniper mode, projectile weapons, and the like myself. Maybe finding a long-range weapon that is slower but deals the same type of damage (thus easier to dodge) or a weapon just as fast that does half the damage. Then make it so only Hero's and Bounty Hunter's can have the weapon, whatever it is. Honestly, make sure to change the model and the projectile, to make it look less like a modified projectile weapon, and a new weapon completely to help remove the stigma of the old weapon, if the Developers ever do so.

{TL;DR} Honestly, I like the ARC class a lot, but it doesn't need Sniper Mode on the Westar, it's powerful enough without it.

 

[CC-1119 'Appo']

Bumping this thread up. Added some new stuff to the OP, specifically covering the Scoped M5.

 

[DaloLorn]

Sooo… just to be clear, you're fine with ARCs jumping around with the M5 in any direction (I often strafe from one side of a corridor to the other), but special moves should come with an accuracy reduction? I think that's what you said, but it's just ambiguous enough to make me question my interpretation.

 

[CC-1119 'Appo']

Sooo… just to be clear, you're fine with ARCs jumping around with the M5 in any direction (I often strafe from one side of a corridor to the other), but special moves should come with an accuracy reduction? I think that's what you said, but it's just ambiguous enough to make me question my interpretation.

Scoped M5. The standard is fine when used in conjunction with the dex moves as it allows an ARC to actually make use of the moves and remain combat effective. Using them with the scope attachment is another story.

I'm talking about dex moves and sideways movement/jumping. It should only remain accurate when jumping straight up, as jumping sideways with the thing adds a whole other dimension of fuckery to the weapon.

 

[DaloLorn]

Scoped M5. The standard is fine when used in conjunction with the dex moves as it allows an ARC to actually make use of the moves and remain combat effective. Using them with the scope attachment is another story.

Yes, I was asking about the scoped M5, but that's not what wasn't clear to me.

 

[CC-1119 'Appo']

Bumping this thread up again. I've had quite a few people message me on the forums & discord about general ARC advice over the past few days so I thought I'd bring it up here.

There's some general information buried in the pages of this thread for anyone curious to read through and I've got some clips in this thread's OP *(under credentials at the bottom)* which showcase some fancy ARC maneuvers to inspire any new players that might stumble over this thread. Some of the opinions issued by myself earlier in the thread have changed over the years, so it's not all likely to be current information.

As for advice, I'm happy to take people in-game and show them the ropes or give them a crash course in 'ARC theory' via forum PMs/discord, feel free to hit me up on either.

 

[Lessen]

What's your name on Discord? (Wait, dang, you were last seen several weeks ago. Are you still active?)

Larger question: Were you aware that holding crouch mid-roll (even in ARC rolls) makes you immune to Push knockdowns*? I only just today bothered to test this (after suspecting it was true). I would think this is something you'd be aware of as a serious ARC main, and I'm kind of embarrassed that it took me this long to actually notice and confirm this behavior. idk what the (((other))) devs think of it.

(Not that I really wanna call myself a "dev" r/n given how thoroughly inactive I am dev-wise. Although I don't want to say I'm "retired" quite yet either. Just kind of indefinitely dormant. wow gross)

*presumably only while actually grounded. If you launch yourself into the air off a ramp with your roll, don't expect to be push immune ever.