Alright, so I've been messing around with this since last night, mostly in duel servers, getting a basic handle on the mechanics and overall balance. I realize this is not the longest time, but it's about all I can spend on this mod, and I'm going to explain exactly why below.
First off, basic lightsaber combat. It is an absolute slog with artificially inflated fight times and no real technical skill required. You're not vulnerable to other lightsabers when attacking whatsoever. You can hammer at someone's guard and then immediately shift to blocking yourself with no penalty whatsoever, and you're not punished at all for missing an attack either, as your opponent will still collide with your saber when attempting to take advantage of the miss. As such, a lightsaber duel becomes nothing but trying to reduce the opponent's BP until you break through their guard, trying to disarm them with some perfect block mechanics or somesuch that don't actually have any perceivable timings, or trying to knock them down. All of your tactics are based entirely on your own effort without any focus on punishing an opponent for their mistakes. Hell, even whiffing a red jump special, which by the appearance of its animation should be easy to punish, is actually not fatal or even really a mild inconvenience. Just hold the right mouse button and turn towards your opponent and it'll be fine! Any real skill-based combat should be such where any action taken can be taken in error, and that error can be punished, and that simply isn't the case here.
Also one of the core tactics everyone employs is an obvious glitch, which gives me some bad Melee flashbacks, but I suppose swingblocking isn't nearly as bad as wavedashing.
Second, there's some really nonsensical things regarding special moves and even basic movement. Now I get requiring certain combinations of certain abilities to perform certain moves. That's cool, I like that. But the actual act of performing them should not be so obtuse. A simple button+button combination should be sufficient, and trying to add extra steps is just pretending to add depth. And speaking of adding extra steps, why oh why do I suddenly need to jump before being able to roll!? In the base game it's simply crouch while holding w. Simple, easy to figure out. If rolls are being abused too much, the simple answer is to put them on a cooldown like the slap! Adding an additional step to it is needlessly obtuse and adds no real value. In general, these mechanics seem to pay lip-service to the idea of depth without actually adding any.
And that brings me to my third complaint! The community seems to be dead-set on this circlejerk about how this mod has so much more depth than the base game... where is it? Everything is shallow, and senselessly bogged down to give the illusion of depth without actually adding any.
Now I could be wrong! This game could be incredibly deep and have a lot more to see! And if there is, explain it to me! Tell me exactly where and how I'm wrong! Please! But even if I am wrong about that, the fact that there's no immediate feeling that this requires actual skill is an egregious design flaw, and it makes no sense whatsoever that this mod has gone on in a state like this for so long.
First off, basic lightsaber combat. It is an absolute slog with artificially inflated fight times and no real technical skill required. You're not vulnerable to other lightsabers when attacking whatsoever. You can hammer at someone's guard and then immediately shift to blocking yourself with no penalty whatsoever, and you're not punished at all for missing an attack either, as your opponent will still collide with your saber when attempting to take advantage of the miss. As such, a lightsaber duel becomes nothing but trying to reduce the opponent's BP until you break through their guard, trying to disarm them with some perfect block mechanics or somesuch that don't actually have any perceivable timings, or trying to knock them down. All of your tactics are based entirely on your own effort without any focus on punishing an opponent for their mistakes. Hell, even whiffing a red jump special, which by the appearance of its animation should be easy to punish, is actually not fatal or even really a mild inconvenience. Just hold the right mouse button and turn towards your opponent and it'll be fine! Any real skill-based combat should be such where any action taken can be taken in error, and that error can be punished, and that simply isn't the case here.
Also one of the core tactics everyone employs is an obvious glitch, which gives me some bad Melee flashbacks, but I suppose swingblocking isn't nearly as bad as wavedashing.
Second, there's some really nonsensical things regarding special moves and even basic movement. Now I get requiring certain combinations of certain abilities to perform certain moves. That's cool, I like that. But the actual act of performing them should not be so obtuse. A simple button+button combination should be sufficient, and trying to add extra steps is just pretending to add depth. And speaking of adding extra steps, why oh why do I suddenly need to jump before being able to roll!? In the base game it's simply crouch while holding w. Simple, easy to figure out. If rolls are being abused too much, the simple answer is to put them on a cooldown like the slap! Adding an additional step to it is needlessly obtuse and adds no real value. In general, these mechanics seem to pay lip-service to the idea of depth without actually adding any.
And that brings me to my third complaint! The community seems to be dead-set on this circlejerk about how this mod has so much more depth than the base game... where is it? Everything is shallow, and senselessly bogged down to give the illusion of depth without actually adding any.
Now I could be wrong! This game could be incredibly deep and have a lot more to see! And if there is, explain it to me! Tell me exactly where and how I'm wrong! Please! But even if I am wrong about that, the fact that there's no immediate feeling that this requires actual skill is an egregious design flaw, and it makes no sense whatsoever that this mod has gone on in a state like this for so long.
Duel mode has some different factors in play especially with the "no laming" culture having spread to MB2 with it.
