Bullet speeds

[GoodOl'Ben]

Just a small thing on my mind as of late.

We increased bullet speeds two years ago. In the end the speeds were increased in a fairly reserved fashion. Only about 50% increase compared to what they used to be.

I've read some comments here and there where people think it would be better if it was faster than what it is now. It got me thinking whether we should increase them by 15-30%?

Thoughts?

 

[Hexodious]

More weapons for sure, I still say split out the mini-gun and the clone rifle into two separate weapons at a minimum.

 

[SeV]

There's certainly charm in slower bullet speeds and predicting where the bullets will go, but let's be honest, you can't aim it reliably and it ends up being random spam where you think the opponent will walk, esp at further distances.

I would be very interested to see an open mode revamp featuring faster bullet speeds like achilles suggested, coupled with jedi/sith changes to make them feel more free and speed up gameplay. I mean higher FP regen and drains adjusted so they make sense with new bullet speeds. Flinch removed and interrupt+knockback style reinstated or some alternatives looked at. Add force powers like heal, and life drain for sith and make speed universal. Motto should be to have fun and explore the full potential of MBII instead of artificially limiting it, since there is so much fun to be had and kewl stuff to explore in MBII but it just sits idle in FA assets from 10 years ago. Ofc this would include uncapping the timers, especially for duel mode. Some maps should be at 3 mins default, some at 4 or 5 and some maybe even 7 minutes. Depends on the size of the map etc. Could have an official MBII map list and test the maps to see what timer is best. I'm sure bullet speed changes will change the gameplay speed too. Maybe timer should depend on the amount of people in the server? 5 minutes for 10 players and 5 minutes for 32 players is very different after all.

In any case, I say we should be open to testing new things and running open betas with fun ideas more often instead of keeping everything behind the scenes and whipping ourselves whilst chanting 'balance, no radical changes, balance oooooh'.

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

*Slowly pushes manifesto/compendium into everyone's collective face.*

Do it.

 

[Manyo]

Mb2's focus on prediction based weapons is the main reason why i keep coming back to it. Messing with bullets speeds can break the game for me.

I agree that 1v1 gunfights with slow bullet speeds have randomness to them and do look kinda dumb from the outside, but i always loved the way mb2 gunfights play out. While the gunplay of other shooters are mostly all about aiming, Mb2 was always about moving without a pattern, predicting and aiming. Faster bullet speeds will take more and more away from that. (if it goes too far im pretty sure ill prefer cs or quake instead)
In my experience the better player always wins/won in a ratio that is more than enough in his favour, so you shouldn't worry about randomness.

I don't even want to touch on what faster bullet speeds could mean for the overall gameplay with the duelling beeing as it is currently.

I'm voting for it's fine as a compromise for now, but i would be happy to go back to slower bullets speeds too.
And while i'd be open to try faster bullet speeds, i'm very pessimistic about the direction in which this could be going.

On a sidenote: I don't know if it's mb2 nostalgia talking, but i always felt like slow bullet speeds is the way Star Wars should feel like, when i saw other Star Wars shooters/mods with fast bullet speeds, they never managed to charm me in the same way.

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

Well I'm glad you love it, but that doesn't make it good, and quite frankly I'd rather make the game good than worry about offending what you think works.

There is a reason why competitive shooters don't have such obscene levels of randomness in them.

 

[Lessen]

Achilles, that was needlessly inflammatory and obtuse. You basically said "I'd rather make the game my idea of good than worry about offending what you think is good."

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

So then, Lessen, tell me: How do you defeat the mindset of 'But I LIKE IT!'? How do you defeat ingrained traditionalism?

My argument is that MB2 could be better, more consistent, simplified to an extent, and brought in line with a more competitive environment to attract new players. His argument is that he has gotten used to the current system, and thinks it's perfectly fine. How do you defeat that, hmm?

We have established, multiple times, that shooting at a strafing player is the equivalent of rolling dice in this game, yet there are people that think that is fine. How do you deal with those people? People who would rather be playing hearthstone's RNG system, than a skillbased shooter.

You cannot please everyone, and frankly someone who actually wants the blaster bolts in this game to be slower, is not someone that I'm interested in pleasing. I'm sorry if I can't put that in any nicer terms. I have seen the faster projectiles, I have felt the better responsiveness, and I believe that anyone who wants blaster bolts to be slower than they currently are should probably be playing a single player game.

 

[Manyo]

We have established, multiple times, that shooting at a strafing player is the equivalent of rolling dice in this game, yet there are people that think that is fine. How do you deal with those people? People who would rather be playing hearthstone's RNG system, than a skillbased shooter.

Maybe i was just imagining it but years of competitive matches showed me that you're extremely overstating this issue. Why did Quake keep rocket launcher in the game if it's "rolling dice" and should stay far away from competitive games? Not beeing like other games IS my argument. You can disagree with that all you want, but you will alienate people who like how Mb2 plays to attract new players? You might want to focus your "improvements" on saberists to do that.

 

[Apelsin]

We have established, multiple times, that shooting at a strafing player is the equivalent of rolling dice in this game, yet there are people that think that is fine.

I think that feeling of randomness in those situations is fine, because this is a neat thing, which controls very specific game design solutions:
- it punishes people for sniping without sniper rifles (which is fine, because most guns are not intended to be used as sniper rifles)...
- ...and encourages initiating close/mid-range fights (which is fine, because those are situations, where those guns are intended to be used at with max efficiency)
- it makes open areas relatively safe and makes mandalorians and snipers your only threat there (which is fine, because that's THEIR niche)...
- it indirectly rewards offence strategies (this is a very cool thing: you could dive into tightly-shelled hallway as a gunner, and, if you succeed and survived, you will change the flow of the battle and your team will succesfully come through. Slow bullet speed grants a viable chance of successful execution of this strats, which is a crucial thing on every map)

Faster bullet speed could theoretically ruin those solutions, it could:
- indirectly rebalance the way some battles flow;
- indirectly makes some choke-points frustrating;
- indirectly buff already cool e-11;
- indirectly nerf niche weapons because e-11 is already better choice in most situations;
- nerf some niche classes for the same reason;
- Make Jakku Great Again Open-area fights were not intended to be a thing in this game, as much as i can judge, and there's no reason to go towards this direction.

If that cool new bullet speed won't meet those expectations, then those people with ingrained traditionalism will be fine about it

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

I think that feeling of randomness in those situations is fine, because this is a neat thing, which controls very specific game design solutions:
- it punishes people for sniping without sniper rifles (which is fine, because most guns are not intended to be used as sniper rifles)...
- ...and encourages initiating close/mid-range fights (which is fine, because those are situations, where those guns are intended to be used at with max efficiency)
- it makes open areas relatively safe and makes mandalorians and snipers your only threat there (which is fine, because that's THEIR niche)...
- it indirectly rewards offence strategies (this is a very cool thing: you could dive into tightly-shelled hallway as a gunner, and, if you succeed and survived, you will change the flow of the battle and your team will succesfully come through. Slow bullet speed grants a viable chance of successful execution of this strats, which is a crucial thing on every map)

Faster bullet speed could theoretically ruin those solutions, it could:
- indirectly rebalance the way some battles flow;
- indirectly makes some choke-points frustrating;
- indirectly buff already cool e-11;
- indirectly nerf niche weapons because e-11 is already better choice in most situations;
- nerf some niche classes for the same reason;
- Make Jakku Great Again Open-area fights were not intended to be a thing in this game, as much as i can judge, and there's no reason to go towards this direction.

If that cool new bullet speed won't meet those expectations, then those people with ingrained traditionalism will be fine about it

I've accounted for all of those factors already in my manifesto/compendium.

 

[Manyo]

I've accounted for all of those factors already in my manifesto/compendium.

Can we see that soon or is your writing style influenced by George R.R. Martin? =)

 

[Lessen]

Can we see that soon or is your writing style influenced by George R.R. Martin? =)

Here's his manifesto.

Here's his compendium.

They're both full of super neato ideas, but they're also pretty dramatic overhauls that'd require a big chunk of coding hours. HmMmMmMmMm. They're such neato ideas that it will be a sad day if Achilles ever just gives up and leaves, but they're such dramatic overhauls that I can't imagine them all ever getting implemented unless some coder becomes seriously obsessed with implementing them. Or unless someone obsessed-and-wealthy starts throwing money at a coder to implement them.

 

[Apelsin]

I've accounted for all of those factors already in my manifesto/compendium.

Is that a manifesto you are talking about: Alt's MB2 Manifesto ?

Didn't know about it until now. It's pretty cool that you spend a lot of your personal time and effort into thinking about all those little balance changes.

But that version of yours has a lot of small changes, which together make a HUGE deviation from current mb2 mod state. I'm convinced that this deviation may lead to a completely new experience, which cannot be the source for my judgements and opinions, because i haven't gain it (this unique experience) yet. Therefore, It may be or may not be a necessary balance change in your version of this mod, because i don't know, i haven't played it yet. But what i do know is that i played current mb2 version and that there is an experience I (and, I hope, other community members) appreciate this mod for, which could be potentially ruined by rough implementation of this small bullet speed change.

I will be very thankful if you could comprehend those two topics ( "bullet speed in current mb2" and "bullet speed in your mb2 rework version") as two separate entities, because I (and some other participants of this topic) found taking into account your thoughts very confusing

 

[Manyo]

Well the manifesto states i can't judge it until i read all of it. Seems like a lot of work has been put into it but it won't see the light of day unless {Δ} Achilles builds up his own dev team which works much much faster than the current one and just takes his ideas as the one truth that can't be questioned. So i can't really see the connection to this thread.