Basic Gameplay & Core Mechanics

[Magnøs]

This thread is mainly focused on the basic gameplay and the core mechanics which determine the overall characteristics of the game itself, however, it will also touch upon the visual aspect.

All proposed changes aimed at:

• Eliminating existing systemic breaks.
• Lowering barriers to entry the game, bringing it to the classic concept which is known as "easy to learn and difficult to master".
• Shifting players' attention from mechanical inputs to space of tactical decisions.
• Increasing comfort of perception of game situations.
• Improving gaming experience on the whole.

And based on the fundamental principles:

• Simplicity is about freedom from overcomplexity. Highly likely that a simple solution will be the most satisfactory one.
• Plausibility is about designing systems/mechanics/features that specifically feel appropriate to that particular game world/situation/place.
• Consistency is about organizing the game and its mechanics that it all works seamlessly together as logically as possible.

Movement:

Fix: Clone's/Arc's sprint affects walking/crouching speed while pressed.
Note: Uuuuuuuuur Ahhhhrrrrrr Uhrrrr Ahhhhrrrrrr Aaaarhg...​

Fix: Sporadic unexpected drops in movement speed when changing direction (walking/crouching/scoping).
Note: Affected: Soldier (without CC/if armed), Wookiee (without S3/if armed), Clone/ARC, Hero/BH (when scoping with PR/Disruptor).​

Fix: Backward walking animation.
Note: Unreasonably slow walking animation when moving back. However, if you are holding block as a Jedi/Sith, the animation speed changes to more appropriate.​

Change: Use common (the one that soldiers use) animation for quick-getup for all classes except Jedi/Sith.
Note: That magical flip-getup looks extremely bad for most of the classes. It is only about the visual part.​

Change: Movement speed according to movement methods: Run > Walk > Crouch.
Note: In the current build, if you just crouch, you will move faster than if you walk, and if you crouch+walk, you will move with the same speed as if you just walk. Also, crouching is always noiseless. It just doesn't look right.​

Change: Walk button no longer affects movement speed while crouching/blocking.
Note: As this feature does not have a positive effect on the gameplay, it should go away.​

Change: Slightly increase walking speed for all classes.
Note: In order to make walking faster than crouching.​

Change: Give the oppotunity to perform a roll-getup for all classes (expect SBD).
Note: In order to give players more control over their characters, what will positively affect the gameplay on the whole.​

Change: Jumps no longer drain BP, only FP.
Note: It looks that no BP regeneration and increased damage to BP on hit are fairly enough.​

Knockdown abilities:

Change: Can no longer slap during a swing (by analogy with Force powers).
Note: Such slaps negatively affect the gameplay and just look ridiculous.​

Change: Can no longer block saber swings during slap/slapping-getup (by analogy with Force powers).
Note: In order to make Slap require more skill and shift players' attention to other parts of the gameplay.​

Change: Knockdown abilities cause a knockback/stagger even when hitting someone that is blocking/crouching.
Note: Higher risk, higher reward. Fair enough.​

Sabering:

Change: Swings characteristics:

• Full swing: high damage, slow speed.
• Consecutive swing: low damage, high speed.
• Half swing: medium damage, medium speed.
• PB-Counter (Riposte): low damage, high speed, causes a stagger if not PB'ed.

Note: Interdependence between BP damage and speed. Combo breaking on PB-Counter. As for the ACM mechanic, it looks very well when players have to decide what is more important at the moment: to deal more damage in a single point of time, or to gain ACM faster.​

Change: BP Damage multipliers according to the character's state: Underfoot > Jumping/Flying > Running > Walking/Standing/Crouching.
Note: Previously, we have reduced the presence of knockdowns in the game and here we increase their potency. Knocking an opponent of his feet will be more rewarding than before. As for crouching, it needs no additional penalties such as increased damage to BP on hit, as no BP regeneration and reduced damage on attacks are more than enough.​

Change: Move BP drain for attacks from being based on button inputs to being flat drains based on stance.
Note: BP drains should be adjusted to fix the situation when players drain most of their BP by themselves.​

Change: Maximally reduce the difference in speed between swings within a stance.
Note: In order to make all swings within a stance equally useful.​

Change: Reduce the difference in speed between the stances (speed up Red, Purple; slow down Blue, Cyan, possibly White and Green).
Note: If you want to balance the stances according to each other without systemic breaks, this change is actually inevitable. Let's look briefly at the reasons for this state of affairs. The most skill-demanding and, at the same time, rewarding thing in the game is PB. The success of PB depends directly on the speed of an incoming swing. You can make an incredibly slow stance which would drain 90 BP on body hit, however, it would be the weakest one, simply because you would not achieve a single body hit, as all of your swings would be PB'ed even by a sleepy turtle, not to mention interrupts. You may try again and make a stance that would drain only 0.33 BP on body hit but would also be 12 times faster than current Blue. Probably, you already know which stance would be the strongest one. Thus, we have learned that we cannot balance a stance once the speed of its swings has reached a certain value. It can be either overpowered or underpowered. Now let's see what happens if we apply the proposed change and significantly reduce the difference in speed between the stances, so the fastest stance will be only 1.5 times faster than the slowest one. Some of you might say that it will kill the diversity. Oh, I don't thing so. Especially considering that you can find nothing but Yellow when it comes to competitive duels. Try to guess why. Even if we set Yellow's speed for all the stances, it will affect the gameplay only positively.​

Change: Speed up spin-swings to make them comparable with normal swings.
Note: In order to make them useful.​

Change: No movement speed reduction during spin-swings.
Note: In order to make them useful.​

Change: Add the ability to perform an unlimited number of swings in a chain until the first collision with a saber/body, then use regular limitations.
Note: This change will improve the gameplay without any negative consequences.​

Remove: Perfect Parry.
Note: Performing a PP is absolutely random. Moreover, it is completely useless. Nothing will change after it's gone.​

Remove: Instant Counter on successful MBlock.
Note: Unnecessary overcomplicated mechanic.​

Remove: Penalties on unsuccessful MBlock.
Note: MBlock is a skill-demanding technique and needs no additional statistical balancing.​

Change: Parrying with no BP will cause a stagger.
Note: In the current build, players have restrictions on comboing when reaching/having 0 BP. The proposed change is more elegant solution.​

Change: Reintroduce Semi-Perfect Block: decreases BP damage; works only if blocking (as Perfect Block).
Note: In order to reinforce the difference between players who try to PB and those who do not.​

Change: Slow down MBlock aninations.
Note: To make movements smoother in order to increase comfort of perception of a game situation.​

Change: Forbid to start a new MBlock animation until the previous ends.
Note: To prevent distractive visual spam in order to increase comfort of perception of a game situation.​

Change: Successful disarm resets ACM of the target.
Note: In order to increase the relevance of MBlock and Swingblock.​

Change: Swingblock no longer affects BP damage.
Note: Swingblock is a skill-demanding technique and needs no additional statistical balancing.​

Remove: All the saber perks.
Note: Due to significant changes in the core mechanics. New perks to replace the old. Or no perks at all.​

Other:

Change: Force-Lighting causes Flinch when hitting someone.
Note: Just an additional visual effect for Lightning's stun.​

Change: All successful projectile/saber hits cause Flinch.
Note: In fact, Flinch is nothing more but a pain animation. In accordance with the principle of Consistency, the question arises: why does Flinch appear only in a single special situation? If it is possible to make it appear without preventing players from shooting/using melee, it would be highly recommended. Although, having Flinch preventing from shooting/using melee may be interesting, it also might be an issue without a major rework of weapon accuracy.​

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

really makes me think
in the current state of mb2 there is very little difference between winning a round and losing a round
at least on dotf, the republic cruiser is much better (with all these exposions and fade to white sequence for imp victory)
can something be done about this?

Tbh Rounds are too short and not impactful to feel good/bad about winning/losing, and matches are waaaaay too long on most servers to feel good about winning/losing. Plus in most cases there is very little impact one might feel from their input in the game, since 99% of the time it is your team that is doing the winning/losing. The game simply isn't intense enough, I feel, it is a lot of gimmicks and random things going on.

A good example of intense-feeling games that I felt good winning were Search and Destroy hardcore games back in CoD4. Super intense, and always felt good/bad.

(Unfortunately there are no good matches of CoD4 on youtube anymore. Miss the good days of CoD, before quickscoping and grenade launchers became order of the day.)

Of course I also feel good about winning games of Smite, or Rising Storm. I guess MB2 just doesn't take itself seriously enough.

 

[k4far]

YT.

I love how they are dying after taking one or two bullets. We could use this kind of difficulty.

 

[GoodOl'Ben]

You may be confusing emotional investment in story-driven games with gameplay. A game doesn't need engineered bad things to make you appreciate good things more, that's just dumb. Winning or losing is the only 'high' or 'low' points you should need.

Look at some of the most simple board games. They have built-in low points.

Take Monopoly for example:

• Jail mechanics (player is cut off from revenue and playing the game unless a lucky dice roll gets him back in the game)
• Random community chest events where player has to pay varying sums of money (some prices scale up the more hotels you have)

These are low points, they add drama and tension. This is the fun of a game. You are not out of the game 100%, but you are dealt a crippling blow.

Many games incorporate low points very similar to ours.

Let's look at Counter-Strike:

• Flash/Smoke grenades blind players and obfuscate information, which is crucial to success. These are player-generated low points. The game allows counter-play through random spray and guesswork (which can be a big skill factor -> an experienced player has a big probability to hit even if blinded).

Let's look at Overwatch:

• Reinhardt's ultimate knocks down everyone within AOE and renders them unable to shoot, move and rotate
  
• Zarya's ultimate locks everyone within AOE to a certain position
• Ana's sleeping dart is essentially a blob with a longer duration
• That hacker chick can silence players with an AOE ultimate or singular targets through other abilities

Let's look at every MOBA:

• Stuns
• Roots
• Silences
• Dislocations which often incorporate a mini-stun

Counter-play for most of these tends to be: "Just don't get into that situation, bruh." or "Make them miss and then capitalize on that mistake."

Winning and losing are the ultimate high/low points that reset the story. After that the story begins a-new.

How boring would a film be if it didn't follow a drama arc. Imagine if Empire Strikes Back ended with the heroes saving Han and Luke defeating Darth Vader. Heck, even Luke's friend in that snowspeeder should survive. Return of the Jedi would have lost so much significance. We would have never seen that our heroes are vulnerable. We'd safely assume that the heroes just steamroll the Empire.

The same applies to a game. How boring would it be if you knew that you're all-powerful and all the other players are just there for you to own. A game like that is only fun for ages 12 and below.

Without low points and high points before the end of the round, we might as well be playing coin toss. Or pressing a button that either tells you won or lost.

Games need to generate investment. This is done by presenting the player challenges and adversities to overcome.

I don't think I've ever had 'joy' from overcoming an alt-frag/blob knockdown, because 9/10 I'm either dead (if I don't have quick-getup/roll), or I'm put into a position where I'm about to be dead. More a mild annoyance.

Kind of why I pointed out it would be great to add quick-roll as an option for all single-life classes as this adds counter-play and takes away moments where players are completely immobile. As for present day: It is worth noting you can abuse the hitboxes of MB2 to survive a knockdown with a high success rate. You are not restricted from rotating your character. This is of course very high level meta that relies on abusing slightly wonky mechanics and can't be accounted as good game design. Character that is sideways relative to the shooter is harder to kill due to hitboxes. Especially upon cointflip.

I just want knockdowns that are skillful to remain, not stupid knockdowns that have no counter play. Also, the more options you give to people after a knockdown, the less impact that a knockdown has on gameplay, you realize.

Just going to refer to my prior posts and underline and bold the important parts.

Knockdowns are a nice tool for creating tension. Good gameplay needs low points as much as it needs high points. The joy you get from a game stems from overcoming these low points. Rather than removing them and making the game more bland, I find it to be a more fun option to give options after the knockdown.

The big advantage would be giving players more movement. This reduces the frustration factor slightly as it reduces the player's lack of control in a knockdown situation. I think it could be a beneficial feature.

 

[Rosh+]

I'd like to point out that a lot of Ben's points about knockdown are broken by instant respawns. Clone's hard to punish when it's so easy to hit blobs, most clones will have more than 3 of them a life, they have a very small cooldown, and even if you do kill them, or they run out of blobs, they respawn with 6 more, full armor, and health.

It's the same thing to a lesser extent with Soldier/ET/CMDR, because they have multiple respawns with frags, the only real differences being is that it's just a teensy bit more difficult to hit somebody with a frag alt, than it is to hit them with a blob, and while getting conc blobbed at close range by a Clone is a death sentence 9/10 times (unless you're a Sith/BH), getting alt fragged is only a death sentence 6/10 times. I personally do not have a problem with knockdowns, but this is why most people cry about it.

Also like to note that Ben's comparisons all share one big thing that sets them apart from MB2:

For most of the game modes in these games, there are infinite respawns. You're not going to be sniped by Hanzo in Overwatch, then forced to sit in spec until the round ends unless you are playing Elimination, and those are very typically games that last less than 2 minutes.

 

[LanceOfLonginus]

That's a good point, one of the balancing factors added to frag secondary was a slight knockback. This served twofold in making it harder for people to lay down a steady stream of fire on them, giving the player at least marginal reaction to the frag, and of course environmental hazard.

Blobs function as original secondaries did in just plopping people straight on their ass.

 

[Magnøs]

First of all, I would like to note that all the proposals belong to the so-called concept design stage, one of the targets of which is to define some basic things, around which the system should be built in the future. It is also assumed that issues related to the balance on the whole should be considered at the detailed design stage. However, everything regarding conceptual relationships between the core mechanics is still relevant to the subject.

Secondly, as you may have noticed, the proposal list does not contain any innovations but only fixes/changes to the mechanics/features that were already implemented into the game. This was done on purpose because the views on the game's future may significantly differ from person to person, depending on their preferences; whereas, in order to demonstrate the superiority of the design approach based on the fundamental principles, which were described earlier, over another one, which is based on abstract ideas about what a person believes to be good, right, and desirable, it is necessary to act within the framework within which the correctness of the design decisions can be assessed relatively unambiguous.

So, figuratively speaking, the main goal is to create the rock out of the sand the gameplay's house had been founded on, not to change the furniture inside or whatever.

I would also like to emphasize once again that

All proposed changes aimed at:

• Eliminating existing systemic breaks.
• Lowering barriers to entry the game, bringing it to the classic concept which is know as "easy to learn and difficult to master".
• Shifting players' attention from mechanical inputs to space of tactical decisions.
• Increasing comfort of perception of game situations.
• Improving gaming experience on the whole.

In this way, before assessing the changes, you would be well advised to determine whether you agree with the aims. If you are not, it is necessary to focus on this fact instead of the changes themselves.
The same applies to suggestions if their aims conflict with those described above.

I would note that it would be cool to keep the coinflip animation in place for mid-air getups.

Yes, it looks appropriate. At least because we have no other animation that would look better.

I would note that it would be cool to keep the coinflip animation in place for mid-air getups. Bringing getup rolls to most classes could be nice. I would probably adjust that rule slightly, so that it only encompasses all single life classes except SBD/Deka. Multilifers exist in part to create a power fantasy for other classes such as Jedi. There needs to be cannon fodder.

I would say that the ability to perform a roll-getup should encompass multilifers as well, as there are other ways to achieve the desired effect. For example, we can adjust the time before the ability becomes available and also forbid to perform mid-air getups for certain classes.

Using flinch to indicate damage received without inducing a stun would be very inconsistent.

New: Flinch: Flinches are short directional staggers during which it is possible to use saber melee moves or block blaster fire if not pressing attack.

If I have understood correctly, we can say that Flinch doesn't apply the stun effect itself, it rather interrupts an incoming swing and breaks a combo with a visual effect in the form of a stagger. Thus, given that it's intended to use staggers to indicate combo breaks, it looks like nothing will break the Consistency. It also may be interesting when the gun barrel changes its direction as the result of a stagger, so even without the stun effect, it would be good enough.

Non-swingblocks have to deal more BP damage. Otherwise there's no point to not swingblock, and by the time one learns to always swingblock, blocking during attack becomes redundant/nuisance. It should be risk vs reward, not just reward.

Same goes to Mblock. An attempt to perform it should have a penalty because the opponent can't do anything to prevent such attempt.

The benefits of Swingblock are counterbalanced by the difficulty of its performing.
The benefits of MBlock (disarm) are counterbalanced by the difficulty of its performing and Swingblock.
Also, it makes sense to not swingblock in order to achieve better mobility.
However, if this sounds unconvincing, I would just note that there's no point to not PB, and by the time one learns to always PB, he becomes invulnerable to saber attacks. Should we buff common non-PB blocks on this point?

For me the main thing would be making non-force jumps cost no BP, but I can also dig no BP cost on all jumps to a certain extent even though it will have a few minor and probably neglible effects on gameplay.

It is assumed that no BP cost on jumps will be counterbalanced, at least, by damage miltipliers. So, as there's no much difference between the options, I would prefer to keep all jumps cost no BP for some reasons.

The first one, not being able to slap during a swing, very interesting change. I'd be interested in seeing how that would affect gameplay.

In fact, this one is rather a fix than a change. You cannot use most of the Force powers during a swing, so you shouldn't be able to Slap as well.

Also I wouldn't mind seeing some sort of utility returning to +use kicks since the input is harder. Perhaps same restriction for them as you suggest for slap + a short stagger upon impact? And keep slap as it is currently? That way you distinguish between use kicks and normal slaps and both have a purpose, I suppose.

Not being able to block during a slap, hell no. Bad change. Taking more BP damage might be an option though.
About the stagger, it should be on +use kicks if they have the 'can't be used in swing' restriction. And it should be more of a flinch than a stagger. It would be interesting to see how that will affect the game. TBH though, only thing so far for me is the BP jump change. The slap change is a question mark, a maybe, for me. A 'let's give it a try in testing' kind of suggestion.

You cannot block during Push, Pull, Lighting, Grip, Mind Trick, Speed, why should you be able to block during Slap?
As for the stagger effect, it should be applied everytime a knockdown abillity hits the target but fails to apply the knockdown effect, excluding Force powers, as we can use the Force-Block animation from the base game for them.
It is also implied that SBD's slap should follow the same rules as all other slaps, i.e. should not knockdown the target if was blocked.
However, these changes were omitted from the list in order to exclude unnecessary excessive discussions, as they won't affect the gameplay as much as it seems at first sight.

The idea might seem sensible on the surface. But personally I think that swinging a lightsaber slowly = more damage is an utterly retarded idea. In real life the faster you swing the better that swing is. Gameplay wise it works out better though, but still... Also, having slow starter attacks is very problematic since we still have Mblock combo breaking and fast countering. The first swing needs to be difficult to block, otherwise sabering turns into utter cancer. Nudge was a sort of blanket fix to many issues and this first swing issue is one of them.

I lost sight of the fact that MBlock still breaks combos. Well, nothing surprising, since there's no visual indication at all. It should be removed, as we already have PB-counter to break combos.
As for the damage decrease on faster swings, we should keep it up in order to prevent brainless spam from being the dominant strategy in any cases. At least until a better solution is found.
I also agree that the first swing should not be too easy to PB.

I think we should have normal halfswings in all directions, and fast halfswings (old style) in restricted directions, for poking and weaving in through combos for momentum etc, it works extremely well that way, trust me. It's like nudge but without all the annoying things associated with it (in a sense).

It might be good or might be not. In any event, I would like to put this aside until the rest core mechanics are defined.

I think Jumping and running should be on the same level for simplicity's sake, and walking/standing/crouching aswell.

I would keep jumping and running on the different levels in order to provide the following conceptual relationship:

• Walking counters Running (through better defense).
• Running counters Jumping (through preventive strikes and evasion).
• Jumping counters Walking (through better mobility).

Of course, it's all pretty subtle.

However, flat drains present problems. The biggest one being this. Flat drains based on stance. Say your stance does 10 BP damage but drains 8 per attack. Not only does attacking become a bad idea, it becomes self defeating. It is also problematic with regards to combos dealing less damage. So comboing = raping your own BP. If it's reduced to 10 BP dmg, 5 BP drain. it is still problematic but less so. There is still too much of a risk to attacking. The system where you just tap vs hold is flat out better due to a few things. Number 1 it rewards mechanical skill, number 2 it does away with the problematic dissincentivization of attacking that comes with noticable flat drains. If flat drains are reduced to a point where they don't matter, then it becomes a worse version of the tap/hold. I don't think its possible to strike a balance that is satisfactory here. I say lets not try to fix what isn't broken. Tap hold worked for over 10 years and a better alternative has yet to be found. Only ppl who don't understand sabering can argue vehemently agaisnt this...

BP drains based on mechanical inputs is one of the worst design decisions this game has ever seen. Without going into detail, I will only say that only people, who know nothing about game design, can approve such mechanic. No matter how long it had been "working".
I believe that the only reason it was implemented is the Team didn't know how to realize the flat drains mechanic.
Now let's try to solve the problems of the flat drains you have described above.
Firstly, we can make it being "flat drains based on potencial outgoing BP damage (without considering ACM)". Thus:

• Full swing: 10 BP damage, 5 BP cost.
• Consecutive swing: 6 BP damage, 3 BP cost.
• Half swing: 8 BP damage, 4 BP cost.

And secondly, we can allow BP regeneration during swings with lowering its rate (only during a swing).
So, the problems are solved. Aren't they?

Spin swings can gtfo, they look retarded in general.

The proposed changes would partially fix it.

Chaining. Well... I know a certain chaining system of which I approve. Should be in the game. Your suggestion is a bit off the rails though. It should be more like you're earning extra swings in the chain by weaving in halfswings or something to that effect.

I see no reason to limit the quantity of swings in a chain until they don't interact with sabers/bodies.

I like insta counter on Mblock to ensure kills after I mblock someone, esp with heavy stances. Reluctant to remove. However, removing it has merit aswell since it will make first attacks easier cuz less fear of shitty insta counter. I am on the fence. Atm, I wanna keep it for now because its a skill based mechanic.

It is expected that the speed of PB-Counter will be enough. However, it's acceptable to keep Instant Counter on successful disarms.

No BP parries just combo break. I don't want them to stagger and be auto gg. Semi-PB should be in returns only, not while walking, running etc. Only on returns. So I agree with your change. Aka when holding block u can semi PB.

It is intended to indicate combo breaks with staggers. It is about the visual part. We can adjust the stagger's duration in a way it won't be auto gg.
As for Semi-PB, if I have understood correctly, you suggest to make them available during the negative phase of a swing. Well, it may be acceptable, I would only adjust it to be available during the positive phase as well. Neverthless, I would prefer to keep them following the same rules as PB for the first stage.

The thing about Mblock anims and block anims in general is that they lock you out of the game and restrict your inputs. Having them be slow might be good visually, but I question whether it would improve the feeling of the game. Might prove to be fatally crap since you'd be stuck in a slow-ass mblock anim and unable to do anything for its duration. No thanks.

It is intended to make MBlock animations non-instantaneous, not "slow-ass". Anyway, you would still be able to PB and perform a counter out of it.

About ACM. I think how it is currently, is atrociously bad. ACM affecting the global AP multiplier leads to inconsistent and unpredictable BP damages and forces the duelists to play a certain way to optimize ACM and not BP drain. ACM is a mechanic that greatly overcomplicates the system in a bad way. I propose to remove it from the global modifier so that all swings deal the same BP damage baseline and aren't constantly affected by an invisible and everchanging modifier nobody can know or guess at really. The way ACM worked originally was that once you reached say +7 bodyhits more than your opponent, you'd get a substantial damage boost. If you dip below +7 to +6, you lose all the damage boost. Go above again and u gain back the huge dmg boost. This was there to enable skilled players to end onesided duels more quickly and worked decently well. Going back to a system like that, where ACM only starts affecting the global AP after reaching a huge difference, is one option. The other is radical and I love the idea. Here it is.

ACM HP drains. Weave it into every aspect of the game. PBs regenerate small HP, bodyhits drain small HP. All dependant on ACM and ACM diff between players, but nothing radical. If HP drain is introduced this way again like it was in old builds, we can put heal back into the game for jedi and make speed a neutral force power. Alternatively, can keep speed as jedi exclusive and give sith side force drain (strictly HP drains). So we get 2 new forcepowers to do with HP, and a HP dependant ACM momentum system where PBs help you regen HP. Potential for much skill and also serves the purpose of momentum. In addition it would have interesting implications for open mode.

If you're less radically inclined, go for the old ACC ACM style idea instead. Or just have ACM be strictly for special attacks such as blue lunge, but the main thing is having it so ACM does NOT affect global AP. Just raise global AP somewhat to compensate, so we can have quicker duels in general esp in open mode. Big problem with 1.4 and builds after it was slow duels vs noobs. It was hard to quickly kill someone. Back in older builds I could destroy someone very quickly with nudged red for example, and move on. Open mode 1v1 could last like 5 sec and I could move on. And I could have 5 min duels with skilled players. A system with such flexibility in dueling speed is preferable to some obscure ACM dependant phantom ever adjusting BP drain math behind the scenes crap that encourages ppl to hit and run and not fight like (wo)men and try to drain BP as quickly as possible. There is beauty in simplicity here. Clean BP drains, higher BP drains. Less obscure ACM crap ++profit.

ACM HP drains. Without going into details, I should say that I cannot agree with them for plenty of reasons.
As for the old ACM system, with some rework it may be very interesting. Just let's give players the abillity to dicide when the damage boost should be activated. Once you have reached +number bodyhits more that your opponent, you can press the ACM button and get the damage boost. Also, it would be necessary to apply a visual effect whenever someone is under the damage boost.
I also agree that the current ACM system has some negative effects on the gameplay, however, I believe there are ways to deal with them.
Anyway. The current ACM system and the old one are just different concepts. There's no "right or wrong", it is all a matter of taste.

Your suggestions may be interesting. For a flinch rework, I would maybe have flinch only on slower, high damage weapons like pistol 3 and Big bertha (t-21) primary, or e-11 primary and EE-3/Westars/arc pistols etc. But not on smth like CR3 and SBD lazer. Or have things like CR3 take 2 bullets to flinch or smth. In general though I think how flinch works currently is pretty good. My issue is with FP drains and FP regen. (I want higher FP drains and Higher FP regen and removed/adjusted FP debuff on being shot down to 0.5 sec, but pref having it removed)

Flinch is a global feature, it has to be either on every weapon either nowhere at all. However, we can adjust its duration separately for each weapon. We can even give the knockdown effect for some really heavy weapons, I believe it is possible to not make it OP.
I fully agree with the "higher FP drains and higher FP regen" concept.

Or just slow crouch movement speed.

It will make crouching speed unacceptably slow.

NO. I do not want to have to fight against someone spamming their jump button in a fight, or trying to escape through jumps. You have no idea how annoying that is. No.

You have to be able to slap during a swing to be able to match the opponent's swing timing to knock them down. This change would mean there is absolutely no downside to combo-spamming or counter-swing spamming.

No. You want to make SBD even more OP, or Wookiee broken. No, never. Stop it.

PB counter is not returning, ever. Current system of damages is fine, except Half-Swing should be counted towards a consecutive.

How about no? Crouching is the act of an inexperienced saberist, and it should not be any less dangerous than it is. We don't need further BP multipliers on knockdowns, as they can happen way too often in this game.

No. The last thing I want to see is some random swinging at me like a retarded badger having a seizure all the way down a hallway.

No. Never. Stop it. Semi-PB was atrocious, and only served to keep people that couldn't PB properly alive. It will stay dead forever.

No. Never. Swingblock is already too prevalent, and should be nerfed. It has become nearly mandatory for most people, and has caused EU players to not understand how to deal with shadow swinging. Swingblock at high level is almost as brainless as spamming without it at low level. If anything, swingblocking should prevent you from continuing a combo. I got tired of seeing the old swingblock-combo purple spam from 1.3, and would like it to never return.

Your opinion is actually very important.

Spin swings were useful in 1.3, and undesirable at the same time. I could use spin swings to parry attacks from behind me. With swing restrictions in place, spins should be a punishment for trying to do same-sided swings.

I see no reason to punish someone for trying to do same-sided swings. The issue associcated with them has already beed fixed.

It isn't fully random. From outside of face-hug range you can easily use Cyan to PP on reaction any red/purple/yellow/staff swing. It is a useful tool for fighting 1vX, and with slower swings it will be fine.

If you say so. It is still only slightly less random than PBing an instant counter. There are too many reasons to remove it and, at best, only 1 to keep it up.

I believe you misread this, this is a bugfix that has nothing to do with intentional changes in speed when changing weapons/scoping. It's about unintentional speed decreases during direction changes (without scoping or swapping weapons). The notes are a list of classes/abilities the bug occurs with.

It is actually about unintentional speed decreases during direction changes when walking/crouching while scoping with PR/Disruptor and as any class that slower than Mandalorian (except Deka & SBD).

I really like different styles having different properties to different swings, because it means different styles will be weighted towards having certain attack directions in certain contexts, making PB more predictable overall once you get past the learning curve. (For instance, a Red-style first swing is likely to be a WA swing cuz it's so fast)

This state of affairs negatively affects the gameplay, as it makes some swings being useful whereas other absolutely not.

 

[Lessen]

@Magnøs
lolwut variable swing speed doesn't make any swing useless. If you always only use the quickest swings you'll just get PB'd forever, so you have an obligation to mix in some of the other swings, MOREOVER those other swings are usually still pretty fast as half-swings. It just weights styles towards certain initial swing directions which adds a little bit of nice predictability.

i mean i'm not a very good duelist so maybe i'm wrong in that analysis but i don't see how, and i don't see how any swing r/n could be seen as "absolutely not useful"

 

[Helix]

You hammer the same points endlessly while people with more and varied experience disagree with you.
PS: holy cow I didn't know crouch was faster. This opens a new era of battle vs jedis

Lmao.

That's all I wanted to say in this post but it looks like flood. So, on topic.

I like the proposed changes.

Regards,
Helix.

 

[StarWarsGeek]

It is actually about unintentional speed decreases during direction changes while walking/crouching with scoping PR/Disruptor and as any class that slower than Mandalorian (except Deka & SBD).

Poor phrasing on my part, I was referring to the intended drop in speed when initially toggling into scope.

 

[Rosh+]

-snipit-

I agree with proposed changes on all points(EXCEPT THAT ONE KNOCKDOWN THING THAT WOULD BREAK BALANCE), except for sabering, for I did not look at sabering. Sabering is not my area of expertise, so I will not make any attempt to make it seem like I actually know a damn about it, even if I am pretty good at spamming people to death with duals.

Keep in mind, that I can beat 90% of players I fight by grabbing duals, and pb countering into random combos.

I look forward to seeing your proposed changes towards game balance, and the other such intricacies of the game later on, if you even have any.

here u go

Spoiler

edit -

Knockdown abilities:

Change: Knockdown abilities cause a knockback/stagger even when hitting someone that is blocking/crouching.
Note: Higher risk, higher reward. Fair enough.​

NO

 

[Magnøs]

lolwut variable swing speed doesn't make any swing useless. If you always only use the quickest swings you'll just get PB'd forever, so you have an obligation to mix in some of the other swings, MOREOVER those other swings are usually still pretty fast as half-swings. It just weights styles towards certain initial swing directions which adds a little bit of nice predictability.

i mean i'm not a very good duelist so maybe i'm wrong in that analysis but i don't see how, and i don't see how any swing r/n could be seen as "absolutely not useful"

The problem concerns mainly Full swings and can be seen especially clearly when you're trying to duel with Red against any faster stance. At close quarters, the most acceptable option for you is WA-Swing, since all other swings are noticeably slower and, very likely, will be interrupted/PBed if you try them. In the same time, WA-Swing itself is very predictable, since everyone knows that it is the most acceptable option for you, and it will be PBed in most cases. As the result, you have to make every effort to keep the distance from your opponent in order to, at least, survive.
So the point is that

The first swing needs to be difficult to block, otherwise sabering turns into utter cancer.

In this way, if all swings within a stance are equally predictable, it makes each particular swing being less predictable, so you have to rely mostly on your reflexes to PB them.

 

[Lessen]

Aren't there methods for making the first swing more difficult to block? "Shadow swinging" or something?

 

[Eazy E]

Bring back pre 1.0

 

[foggy]

Change: Give the oppotunity to perform a roll-getup for all classes (expect SBD).

And except mandalorians. I can't imagine what nightmare of an opponent a rolling mando would be. Sounds questionable for multilife classes especially clonetroopers.

Change: Jumps no longer drain BP, only FP.

I agree with Achilles, jumping opponents are already a pain to catch and finish. And in general we should not return to base JA game mechanics.

Add the ability to perform an unlimited number of swings in a chain

Red style extremely OP against damage-based objectives.

Perfect Parry.

IMO it's a very nice concept of combo-breaker. Cyan's perk should be shared among other styles.

Instant Counter on successful MBlock.

I personally disliked counters on PBlocks, they could be easily abused by defensive players. They staggered gameplay and made duels dull. The current counter on MBlock serves to finish off people after a successful disarm.

Change: Reintroduce Semi-Perfect Block: decreases BP damage; works only if blocking (as Perfect Block).
Note: In order to reinforce the difference between players who try to PB and those who do not.

Yes. With the current system what i do is spam random 4x-swingblocked combos and almost never bother about pblocking because i know that all my opponent's swings will be parried. This tactic is very effective nowadays.

Swingblock no longer affects BP damage.

Usual swings should have a reward for a substantial risk they have.

I sign under every other point in this post, well done.

 

[Lessen]

Cyan's perk should be shared among other styles.

Meaning that when two swings Perfect Parry each other, both players should always be combo-broken?

 

[foggy]

Meaning that when two swings Perfect Parry each other, both players should always be combo-broken?

the first one who initiated the swing should be affected by stagger, the opponent - should not

 

[Ragequit]

About slaps I can totally agree with you Magns. Like it. Rly cool. In additional increased cooldown for about 10 sec will be better.

Also the difference between walk holding while blocking (speed differences) should be deleted.

Totally agreed but

Change: Jumps no longer drain BP, only FP.
Note: It looks that no BP regeneration and increased damage to BP on hit are fairly enough.

Why? It costs ya some BP, but not so much. It prevents spammy chickens like in classic JK multiplayer. For now it works how it should works: allows you to do acrobatics and doesn't allows to be spammy chicken.

Change: Swings characteristics:

• Full swing: high damage, slow speed.
• Consecutive swing: low damage, high speed.
• Half swing: medium damage, medium speed.
• PB-Counter (Riposte): low damage, high speed, causes a stagger if not PB'ed.

I think no. It will not help.

Change: Maximally reduce the difference in speed between swings within a stance.
Note: In order to make all swings within a stance equally useful.

I think that there should be another changes. Let's discuss. All the swings are slashing type swings. So the differences should be only in animations of swings, but the speed of the animation of hands lifted up should be same for all the styles. It guarantees you the ability to PB all the styles as well as you may predict the swing only by hands up animation (and you may balance/manage it ezly in future).

Comboing speed should be with the same speed for all styles (yellow style speed or red) but between hits in combo there may be different speed (because of animation). Also animations are weird. May you place some delays before hits? Look at the BDO the game - there is time freeze feature when hit comes. So cause of that human's eye can catch the picture and then react. And even in real life You can't launch smoothy swings everytime. The combo will look like clear 1, 2, 3, 4 with fast hits but with slow hands charging movement right in moment when "#1 hit" ends and "#2 hit" starts. Or you may separate and place my version into regular attacks and leave it how it is now for swingblocks. Because swingblocks are (in common) kind of swings that uses for blocks or parry.

For the next part of my discussion you need to remember swing's state:

1. Hands up animation
2. Mid-air (slashing) animation
3. Turn back animation
4. Back to stance animation

In step 3 there shouldn't be any damage for the enemy. As far as I may see now there is damage in some sort of situatuions.

Swing's state rule. Now, between state#2 and state#3 there is longed time window. Animation will some sort of freeze or slow (better huge slowmotion) while state#2 ends and state#3 starts. Reload key now works in state #1 and state #2 immediately (but with the same speed like in 1.4.5) with saber (but in first 0.3 sec of state#1 it doesn't work). Reload key shouldn't work in state#3 and state#4.

Rule#0. You can gain ACM only with regular hits and only when they are succesfull. Same conditions to lose it. You gain 1 acm for every 1 succesfull hit (even in combo). Everytime You drops your saber (or throw) your ACM will be refreshed to 0. ACM should goes down by 1 for each 5 seconds. If you'll be staggered or knocked down or mblocked You'll lose a half of all Your ACM immediately (rounded to the top value, example: if your ACM is 9 it goes to 4 (3.5 to 4). Now You may keep an endless number of your ACM. Every kill will gain you +9 ACM.

You can't gain ACM if enemy is doing PB, Semi-PB, succesfull Mblock, swingblock

There is no more reducing multiplier for combo swings.

Rule#1. You can't launch a combo after swingblock. You only may do is launch a consecutive swing, and only then (if it is not swingblock) you may launch a combo. Now, we don't need fixed numbers of hits in combo. You can manage combo with consecutive swings while swingblocking and consecutive swings with comboing while doing regular attacks.
Swingblocks should do lesser damage (about 0.5) if enemy is blocking. And in launching and doing heavy attacks (regular attacks) should be some sort of 'penalty', not only with mblock but should be in advantage in other sutiations. in swingblock vs regular attack sutiation, when status #2 (see above) comes, the combo should stop and comboing enemy will launch a consecutive swing next time instead of combo if he is keeping hold LMB.
Also, regular attack receive full swing damage against swingblock but swingblocker recieve only half damage from the enemy's regular attacks.

If both players are swingblocking it counts like perfect parry (pls change color for less eyes-broke, for example - frozen blue) for both players now but you don't need to hit in the same direction for it and just do the well timed swingblock. It should works like perfect parry when nobody recieve damage. Also while perfect parry comes it is combo-breaker and only you may do is a kind of consecutive swing (it is swing when you just hold left mouse button and hold direction while slashing the air, not body) - see the Rule#1.

Rule#2. PB now requires swingblock + standart aiming at the PB zone. Pefrect block grants you ability to do half-swing.

If there is no swingblock but PB zone is hited - it is semi-pb. Semi-PB cancels incoming damage and allows you to do halfswing. Works only while right mouse is active and you are not in attacks.

Perfect block, semi-pb and succesfull mblock (without disarming) allows you to launch a half-swing counter (like old insta-hit counter). That allows you (even if you do swingblock counter) launch a combo after counter. Counter-hit deals full damage nevermind what kind of swing enemy is launching next against your counter (if it isn't perfect block or mblock) and 0.7 damage if you are using swingblocking counter. Counter can't be parried and canceled, but you can disarm counter's user or just do perfect block. Literally - you are invulnerable while you are using counter-swing (but don't forget about disarm or consecutive perfect block from the enemy). After the counter-hit if enemy isn't PBed it or MBed he can't continue or launch a combo - only he may do is consecutive swing. You may protect yourself from being disarmed using swingblock-counter.

Counter doesn't supply criteria below:

While hands up animation comes (swingblock or regular - nevermind), if there will be regular hit (or comboing regular hit) against it so there will be a stagger (with animation 'Block crash' while melee). Player should recieve not only BP damage but plus HP damage (formula: ((current BP+current HP)*10)/current BP). The enemy can't launch or continue a combo, only he may do is consecutive swing against that kind of victims. The victim only can do is walk while animation of 'Block crash' works. Also there should be visual effect of slashing with lightsaber on body and "Umf !" shout of character and saber's sound of slashing. Perfect bodyhit works only if enemy's saber hits hitboxes of body (but stagger works always). You'll knockdown enemy if he is jumping/flying with HP damage and slashing body sound (see above).
Why? Because now swing interruption is some sort of confusing shit and while that happens it is "WTF?!" only reaction and newbies are still trying to hit you and lose all their BP.

If both players did perfect block while swingblocking (both) it counts like perfect parry anyway.

Rule#3. New Mblock mechanics. The keys to do mblock will be the same, but conditions to do mblock (not succesfull, I mean as we launch spammy mblock today) will be changed. You may launch the mblock only when your saber is in #2 or #3 state, duration for succesfull PB/disarm is the time that we use now in 1.4.5 and directions are still the same too. That kind of mblock grants you PB if enemy is swingblocking (you don't need to aim to PB zones) and disarm if enemy is using regular attacks. The animation (and speed of it) of mblock is the same like now in 1.4.5 (cause if it will be different it will not be able to mblock anything) and succesfull mblock with disarming allows you to launch an insta-swing with wtf kill.

Rule#4. Regular attacks VS Regular attacks. That situation happenns often when both newbie duelers are trying to spam each other. So I think there should be some fun for newbies which don't wanna go deep in game mechanics and only want to relax with holding LMB and run Now it is the time!
With swing's state#1 we can meet above. But what about #2, #3, #4 with regular attacks?

State #4: if right mouse is pressed it counts like ordinary blocking and non-blocking if it isn't pressed.
State #3: While enemy isn't swingblocking (it is regular hit) and if he'll recieve the hit (regular) he will be disarmed (that state works like you are just hold saber in your hands without RMB pressed and somebody is trying to hit your saber with his saber to drop it off).
State #2: Now, when sabers clashes in mid-air with regular attacks there is full damage for both players like they've recieved bodyhit but without ACM multiplier. Every hit will gain +1 ACM for both players. If there will be same directions (like perfect parry worked in 1.4.4) it'll launch a SaberLock situation. mid-air clash of regular hits doesn't affect on comboing - you may continue your attacks with combo (and emeny may do the same).

Rule#5. SaberLock. 2 saberists are trying to continue their swing directions. For example: for WA swing it is SD direction to complete the swing, but it was interrupted by enemy with his swing which is mirrored to yours so you should try to beat him (armwrestling principle). The BP is locked for SaberLock duration time. Saberlock duration time is 3 sec. If it is possible - catch the players on current animation of their swings when SaberLock happens and from that moment SaberLock starts. Both players should hold LMB (not tap) and hold the movement keys (sa a wa wd d sd) depends of what kind of PB zone is the nearest. You may press different direction key to slow down drastically (or even accelerate enemy's movement) and try to quench inertia or just release LMB and let only intertia works (more accurate). So there should be importang things: keys power gradient, intertia, SaberLock finisher zone, out of circle accidient. First 1 you may imagine like this: the closer to PB zone key you pessed is the more power it has. For example, on border with 'A' and WA PB zones it will be 50% of power for both keys and the closer WA pb zone is the more powerfull WA keys are and less power has A key (but still got power cause "A" is an adjacent key for that zone) and in total the circle where saber moves is like multiple gradient.

Simply. It should work like scroll bar with inertia

Inertia: there is a kind of a force that allows you to continue the saber's movement without any additional force. The faster your saber moves the more inertia it has.
SaberLock finishing zone: it is the zone which is located at the finish point of the launched swing which causes Saberlock. Finisher zone allows you to launch stylish disarm. Do do it you need press mblock with mirrored direction of swing (for example: if finisher zone is for D swing and I've achieve it I can press A+mblock keys to do disarm movement). 1 importand condition - swing should be perfectly mirrored. Then, when enemy is disarmed you may launch a finisher with left mouse button click or see how enemy is flee after the animation of disarming ends.
Out of circle accidient: if you are tryharding to reach finisher zone so intensively you may go out of circle (or cause of inertia).
(#1) Then, if LMB was pressed right in moment saberlock ends it causes a stagger for you and enemy. Both of players will recieve similar damage for their BP and will be staggered.
(#2) If LMB wasn't pressed right in moment saberlock ends there will be a stagger (or stylish spinning for both players to launch a consecutive swing) for both players but looser will recieve full damage for his BP and winner will recieve only half of that damage.

If BP<=0 after accidient, it is not only stagger but saber drops in adds. Works for both players in both situations.

Saberlock doesn't happens for W swing. It starts a situation ( #1).

If Saberlock timer was done - nothing happens (or stylish spinning for both players to launch a consecutive swing).

Rule#6. BP. BP regeneration stops while you do attacks (for all their duration till #4 state) or any kind of active movements (instead of walking). Swingblocking drains only half of BP per hit consume (it counts right in moment hit happens). The more BP is required for hit the more damage will recieve the enemy. For running attacks (instead of swingblock cause you can't count swingblock if you are running not holding RMB) there is penalty - additional incoming damage. If you are out of BP but still attacking - bonus of BP consume doesn't works. Running/jumping/crouching enemy doesn't recieve any additional incoming damage.

Rule#7. Punushment for lying. W+action+LMB now works faster and now does instakill. Slapped enemy (jedi/sith) can't roll side so fast as they can do now - animation of falling still working but it interrutps with roll side animation. Only you may insta do is press space for quick get up. Also, if you are jumping forward (w+space), to enemy's face and he's attacking you - it counts like quick get up (space). Safety get up are roll side and roll back (and only if you are escaped the w+action+LMB finisher). To prevent w+action+LMB finisher you may use w+space to prevent it (instead of enemy is blocking or not), the enemy after that nonsense should fly some distance away.

Rule#8. Saber drops. Saber drops should be more stylish. It shouldn't be just drops where the enemy stand. It should fly far away if enemy is swinging (or cause of Saberlock disarm). You may pick up your saber immediately if you can find it with crouch or roll where your saber is (not just standing) or you should use force to pickup ur saber only after 20 secs you've lose it cause of disarm or BP=0 or saber throwing.

Rule#9. Anim-breaker. Switching weapon (to melee especially) doesn't prevent any kind of animations more and it will be the slowest animation ever.

Rule#10. You can ezly implement a huge variation of style perks that really will help.

Additional rule#1. All kata's and flying/moving flashy specials. The enemy can't regulate the speed now - its always counts like swingblocking with regular running movement speed. You can't now hold RMB while kata and etc to prevent force uses and Force block works in kata like RMB isn't hold always. Also, while doing the kata's and flyin/moving flashy specials you'll reflect blasters fires in random direction and destroy classic sniper riffle shoots and darts. You can't block slaps or another kind of melee slaping hits. All kata's and flying/moving flashy specials are destroyable with that kind of melee slaping hits (block crash animation is working if slapped while special on the ground or knocked down if touch enemy is in special while he is jumping/flying).
You can only use consecutive swings (even with regular attacks) against enemies in specials. If you'll hit the enemy not at saber hitbox but body hitbox you'll cause a perfect bodyhit which will works like in Rule#2. And if you'll hit this sort of enemy at the saber hitbox bot the body hitbox you'll be staggered.


And other changes for jedi/sith:

1. Force Lighting now affects the enemies if you fired them out of block arc. And same with other forces - if enemy shows his back to you they are in the force focus imediately. Works only with the enemies which are in force focus. Force focus distance (start focusing) is like it is now in 1.4.5. The hodling time of force focus is longed for about 0.5s when Your xhair goes out of enemy. You may force focus only 1 enemy.
2. Current saber defence BP points should be reduced by Saber 0 defence value. Saber 0 should give you BP only to block 2 swings from the most powerful style. The regen of Saber defence 0 is very-very slowly.
3. You may now deflect blasters with swingblocks. Deflected blasters with swingblocks will reflect in random direction, but if you set mblock in any direction but with good timing (with conditions for disarming) it'll reflect to the place it was shoot. Works even with saber deflect 0. You will not recieve a BP damage if you've swingblocked blaster.
4. Blasters now drains not FP but BP.
5. Poison Darts now negates FP and BP regen.
6. New ability: manual evade. Use: ability1 key + "A" or "D" key to do evade (your character only tips his body, not movement/dashing). Only 2 sides. 1 sec CD after release. Jedi/Sith can't protect himself while manual evade is active, bp/fp regen stops - it's risky.
7. Slap radius should be the same for duals/single/staff.
8. Force power now stops reget while you are in any kind of stagger or knock down status, whille you are laying or in any kind of control.
9. Force power now regen with half speed (it is like in block in 1.4.5) while using any kind of force include jumping and acrobatics and special moves and even if animation is still in work like with force push.

Change for every shooter: You can only reload full clip now. You can't fire if your clip is empty. If you'll reload your clip, it takes time for reloading till full. You can't prevent reloading with switching or another animation.

Additional rule#2. Blasters. Now, saberists takes damage from e-11 blasters (secondary fire) for 9% of their current BP if it isn't swingblocked. You may negate the damage by saber deflect option ( 1/2/4% for each level). Saberists takes an additional fixed BP damage (+6% of their BP) from blasters if saberist is in run or jump. If you are swingblocking while running or jumping - it cause 0 DMG for swingblocked blaster fire. Cause of that rule you may set the saberist to 0 BP with 5 secs of rapid fire with e-11 (100% acc). To kill the saberist you need to spend 2 clips. If you'll bodyhit the saberist while he is in force using or jumping/running with blaster it cause the perfect bodyhit with staggering or knockdown (see the additional rule#1) (works only with primary fire).

Saber Deflect #0: Newbie. You can't delfect fires with RMB. You may delfect it only with swingblocks and mblocks. The animation of deflecting doesn't even works. If enemy is shooting your saber it cause the damage for BP (and it will reflect to 360 degrees random direction from the dot on the saber was shoot and even may hurt you) , but if he is shooting to your body - you'll recieve a prefect bodyhit (see above).
Price: Cheap&Durty (0 points).

Saber Deflect #1: Your fist steps. You can deflect blasters but only in random directions. The fires can't accidiently hurts you but be carefull because you may hurt your allies. Slighty negates shooting BP damage (for fixed 1%). Reflecting angle - 270 degrees.
Price: 6 points.

Saber Deflect #2: Oh, better now. You can deflect blasters more than usual and they will fly at the random direction still but if you'll use swingblocks you may deflect it to the area your crosshair is (like fire with e-11 spreading but x1.5 wider). Also, negates the BP damage more than usual (fixed 2%).
Price: 10 points

Saber Deflect #3: Great. You can deflect fires well. Now reflected blasters while standing still will reflect with spread like fire with e-11 spreading, when you are walking the spread will be like fire with e-11 spreading but x1.5 wider (see deflect #2) and if you are jumping-running it will be like saber deflect #1 spread. You may change ur mblock to swingblock now cause with your every swingblock the fires will be reflected to the nearest enemy in 270 degrees (but only to parts that you may see, not behind Z-buffer). But with mblock it will be reflected ordinary to the shooter. Negates the BP damage up to fixed 4%.
Price: 14 points

All swingblock reflecting works only when saber is in state#2


Additional rule #3. Safety landing. Cause the more force jump you have the more higher you may safejump or fall, now your FP will burns to negates the falling damage if you are falling right in moment in any kind of knockdown or staggering animation. You can't now use any kind of rolling/quick get up right in the moment you are falling in knockdown/stagger animation - you can only use quick get up in the air (space button) only after 20 FP was burned cause of safty landing. Quick get up (space button) will costs you 10 FP (total 30).

Now formula of falling damage (FD) is: 'FD'=(base falling damage >it is HP<)*K - (FP consumed for safety falling)
K - it is a multiplier cause of falling result. K=0.8 if you are holding C for succesfull rolling and only after a quick get up, K=1 if you are landed with just quick getup and x1.5 if you are landed on your ass (in knockdown animation.

'K' may be different due to consist the conditions under:

Now you may use standart JK acrobatic mechanics after a quick get up in the air and if there is wall near.

Base falling damage is increased for x1.5 for all the classes ingame.

In total, you should safety fall from the heaven of 2 sec with using quick get up and rolling with C but your FP should be burned from 100 to 0. If you are landing on ur ass (in knockdown animation) the damage should be so huge so it isn't enough to escape the death even after all the calculations. The death point with 100 hp and 100 fp by landing on your ass should be 3 sec.

Last one hint: If 'FD'<0 then 'FD'=0.

Best regards,
[D]Evil

 

[Rene]

Change: Jumps no longer drain BP, only FP.
Note: It looks that no BP regeneration and increased damage to BP on hit are fairly enough.

Disagree. I remember we had such thing in previous patches, didn't work so well. It just gives more benefits to runners without any punishment. DO NOT WANT!

Change: Can no longer slap during a swing (by analogy with Force powers).
Note: Such slaps negatively affect the gameplay and just look ridiculous.

Disagree. Slap is unique and underrated skill only because it can immediately interrupt your swings. For me it definitely gives a positive affect on gameplay, because I like the idea, that if you're quick enough to realize that something went wrong and you made horrible mistake there is a chance for you to undo what shouldn't be done. Moreover with that feature you can trick your opponent and it can turn into a mind games, or SLAP GAMES. DO NOT WANT!

Change: Knockdown abilities cause a knockback/stagger even when hitting someone that is blocking/crouching.
Note: Higher risk, higher reward. Fair enough.

Didn't get that. Are you implying that slap must cause knockback/stagger? If so what's that for? There is no risk at all in using slap with such feature.

Change: Swings characteristics:

• Full swing: high damage, slow speed.
• Consecutive swing: low damage, high speed.
• Half swing: medium damage, medium speed.
• PB-Counter (Riposte): low damage, high speed, causes a stagger if not PB'ed.

Note: Interdependence between BP damage and speed. Combo breaking on PB-Counter. As for the ACM mechanic, it looks very well when players have to decide what is more important at the moment: to deal more damage in a single point of time, or to gain ACM faster.

Agree except for pb-counter stagger. It sounds very dangerous and unbalanced. Also, it can drastically change gameplay, with this thing you basically encouraging everyone to stay still and wait until opponent lands a hit on you so that you could pb-counter it with stagger and start your own combo-wombo.

Change: BP Damage multipliers according to the character's state: Underfoot > Jumping/Flying > Running > Walking/Standing/Crouching.
Note: Previously, we have reduced the presence of knockdowns in the game and here we increase their potency. Knocking an opponent of his feet will be more rewarding than before. As for crouching, it needs no additional penalties such as increased damage to BP on hit, as no BP regeneration and reduced damage on attacks are more than enough.

Absolutely agree. Especially jumping/flying enemies must take A LOT MORE DAMAGE since it's harder to hit them.

Change: Move BP drain for attacks from being based on button inputs to being flat drains based on stance.
Note: BP drains should be adjusted to fix the situation when players drain most of their BP by themselves.

Sounds reasonable.

Change: Reduce the difference in speed between the stances (speed up Red, Purple; slow down Blue, Cyan, possibly White and Green).
Note: If you want to balance the stances according to each other without systemic breaks, this change is actually inevitable. Let's look briefly at the reasons for this state of affairs. The most skill-demanding and, at the same time, rewarding thing in the game is PB. The success of PB depends directly on the speed of an incoming swing. You can make an incredibly slow stance which would drain 90 BP on body hit, however, it would be the weakest one, simply because you would not achieve a single body hit, as all of your swings would be PB'ed even by a sleepy turtle, not to mention interrupts. You may try again and make a stance that would drain only 0.33 BP on body hit but would also be 12 times faster than current Blue. Probably, you already know which stance would be the strongest one. Thus, we have learned that we cannot balance a stance once the speed of its swings has reached a certain value. It can be either overpowered or underpowered. Now let's see what happens if we apply the proposed change and significantly reduce the difference in speed between the stances, so the fastest stance will be only 1.5 times faster than the slowest one. Some of you might say that it will kill the diversity. Oh, I don't thing so. Especially considering that you can find nothing but Yellow when it comes to competitive duels. Try to guess why. Even if we set Yellow's speed for all the stances, it will affect the gameplay only positively.

Absolutely agree.

Change: Parrying with no BP will cause a stagger.
Note: In the current build, players have restrictions on comboing when reaching/having 0 BP. The proposed change is more elegant solution.

Disagree. This feature will kill comeback idea at all. The parrying is the only thing that gives hope on surviving being low on BP. Why would you want give more benefits to the winning side if he already has THE HIGH GROUND?

Change: Successful disarm resets ACM of the target.
Note: In order to increase the relevance of MBlock and Swingblock.

YES YES AND YES! Make it real again!

Change: Swingblock no longer affects BP damage.
Note: Swingblock is a skill-demanding technique and needs no additional statistical balancing.

I agree with Hlev. Non-swingblock swings must deal more damage, either way everyone will be just spamming swingblocks, because there will be no point in using regular swings. It also killing the mblock system. Let the spammers risk more and whine about being disarmed later.

 

[Vizino]

can we get new devs with new ideas too?

 

[Deleted member 2572]

can we get new devs with new ideas too?

Only if you have a great fantasy.