Dxun FA Bugs

[Lessen]

Spoiler: List of all bugs found so far

1. Mandalore is listed as having CR3, but has CR2.

2. G0-T0 can go out of bounds easily.

3. G0-T0 can go through the shields and attack the caches.

4. Trandoshan Mercenary is listed as having "Staff Vibroblade," but has Dual Vibroblades.

5. Skakoan Tech is listed as having ARC Rifle 3, has ARC Rifle 1. (ARC Rifle 3 doesn't exist. afaik.)

6. Skakoan Tech has Stamina 3, which isn't listed.

7. Duros Boss has Stamina and Dexterity 3, which aren't listed.

8. Vibroblades have very short hitboxes. Seemingly the orange/gold part of the sword rather than the blade. Pleaaaaaase fix this, it gimps their range so much. It forces you to facehug and it's unintuitive, although I suppose it at least makes it harder to hit your sword on terrain... but having to worry more about terrain would be more interesting.

9. Skakoan Tech is listed as having Ammo Packs, but doesn't.

10. HK-47 description typo: "Missle Launcher" should be "Missile Launcher", and probably "Rocket Launcher" instead.

11. HK-47 is listed having a level 3 Missile Launcher, but only has one rocket.

12. Water in rivers and waterfalls displays "in front of" lightsabers, always. See S o l d i e r's post below for screenshot.

13. There's a specific spot where you can go out of bounds. This might be where I saw G0-T0 going out of bounds. See S o l d i e r's post below for screenshot.

14. Human Mercenary's pistol 2 doesn't actually fire any projectiles (although it uses ammo). Applies to both Primary and Secondary (charge) fire.

15. This may not be a bug, but, after spending his one rocket, one frag, and two pulse nades, HK is left with only a disruptor. Which would be almost fine, except that that disruptor also has really low ammo.

16. The Exile is listed as having Force Lightning 2, but doesn't have lightning at all.

17. War Droid (Close Quarters Combat) is listed as having "Force Block 2," but even at full FP can be (for example) Force Pushed without needing to be Force Focused. He has 50 FP. Is Force Block defined as being "have X FP less than your maximum" or "have less than specifically 50/85/95 FP"?

18. Hanharr is listed as having 0.5 BP, but actually has no BP at all. Perhaps this is intentional? He still has saber defense enough to block blaster shots, but without any BP he's vulnerable to Kata spam, and with his movespeed he's already vulnerable to blaster spam.

19. Trandoshan Mercenary is listed as having Strength 1, I believe he has Strength 2+ seeing as I couldn't push him even when he was clearly running, or possibly even in midair. Given that he has a knockback weapon to control space around him, he shouldn't also be able to run freely.

20. Visas's auto-sense only senses allies, not enemies. This is also the case on mb2_commtower with the auto-sense characters there. Amusingly: She can't sense Atton, cuz he's sense immune.

21. Ranged Mandalorians are listed as having "Blaster Rifle 2," which suggests an E-11 2. They have a Clone Rifle 2. Maybe add (Clone Rifle) in parentheses the same way the Skakoan Tech has (ARC Rifle) in parentheses?

Spoiler: List of all perceived major balance issues

tl;dr Upon Further Analysis, the balance works out pretty well at higher levels of skill and coordination/planning, but certain things like Flamerifle, Concussion Rifle, and Kreia's Lightning are plenty "op" at lower levels of skill and coordination. Not sure how it feel about it.

1. Concussion Rifle lacks plausible counterplay options for most classes, is especially unfun for newbies, single-handedly makes people dislike the FA. (Update: From using it myself, I'll admit that it seems like an especially poor weapon to use against multiple enemies, thanks to the low fire rate. In 1v1s against most classes it still feels too good, but in 1v2s and 1v3s it starts to feel bad compared to a higher ROF weapon. You fire at one person and while you're in the long endlag the other might kill you. It also just has a long time-to-kill, which doesn't matter as much in 1v1 since you're juggling them around, but matters a lot in 1v2 and 1v3. Direct hits may do a lot more damage and help the TTK, but they also require more skill. Hmm. I have mixed feelings about it now.)

2. Flamerifle Jetpack combo (Duros Boss) is also I think waaay too effective when used properly (although I seem to be the only person I've met who knows how to use it properly.) I can just cruise up at high speed and melt people while safely hovering eight feet above them. The aim requirement for counterplaying this is much higher than the skill requirement for using this well. EMP Rockets and lightning could work, though. (Update: Still need to test this more against better players in light of my shifting opinion on concussion rifle, above.)
(Update 2: Having used it against slightly smarter players, I can say that the basic counterplay to flamerifle for rebs is to all stick close to Kreia, and for Kreia to lightning the flamerifleman if he gets close. It still bothers me a bit that flamerifle devours most classes on rebs for free, but a counterplay certainly exists at higher-than-dirt skill/teamplay levels.)
(Update 3: Kreia herself can beat or at least not-lose-to most classes on imps, since while a lot of them have vibroblades to block lightning, none of them have force block, so they can't actually swing at her or be close to her Lightning + Double FP Regen. The counterplay for her is basically to attack her with two people at two different ranges, so that while she's close to one, the other is shooting her. Again: Not fair for 1v1s, but it works out with more players and smarter players, so maybe it's not an issue as long as people are "honorable" in lower pop / lower skill matches. There are a lot of low-pop low-skill matches tho.)
(The Twi'lek Bounty Hunter's probably the best equipped to 1v1 Kreia, thanks to poison blaster (stopping Kreia's ridiculously fast FP regen) and sword (blocking lightning), although I dunno if she can break through a Kreia that's just camping. Ever. But she can also assassinate thanks to Sense immunity.)

3. Hanharr is too slow for a strictly Melee Only class, even with the extra HP. (This is still true, although he may have SOME role with better teamplay. He has Rage 2 and fire grenades. Presumably if he lands a fire grenade he gets a ton of Rage, but with Strength 1 he's still not gonna move that fast with Fury active.)

Spoiler: What I recommend to quick-fix the FA to not actively repel people

1. Just remove G0-T0, he's too weird.
2. Change Trandoshan Concussion Rifle to... uh... a CR1 with concussion blobs, or a level 1 T-21 or Bowcaster.
3. Remove flamerifle from Duros Boss and either buff his armor or give him regenerating armor. Also clearly list his Dex and Stamina levels so it's clear that he's an ARC with a Jetpack, because that's crazy strong by itself.
4. Other inconsistencies are lower priority.

Bug #1: Mandalore is listed as having a CR3, but has a CR2. This possibly is a continuation of a bug that happened on the christmas event map with one of the Power Ranger characters, who was listed as having a cr3 but clearly had a cr2. A dev (possibly Tempest) told me in that case that the character was clearly coded as having a CR3, but still clearly was using a CR2.

Bug #2: G0-T0 can go out of bounds very easily by flying as high as possible and just flying at the top of a wall from up there. Edit: I haven't actually tested this myself so I'm not sure where in all it can be done, I just know I saw Alex and Rosh+ doing it (Alex to troll, and Rosh+ to test, I suppose.)

Bug #3: G0-T0 can get inside the forcefields and destroy the weapons caches before the shield has been disabled. He does this just by flying at the forcefield, possibly at some particular angle.

Bonus Comment: It would be pretty funny if G0-T0 actually behaved like a droideka, like, his "unpacked" mode would be low hover and his "packed" mode would be literally rolling on the ground.

 

[Sno-dog]

Thanks for your help lessen, it is much appreciated!

 

[StarWarsGeek]

Bug #1: Mandalore is listed as having a CR3, but has a CR2. This possibly is a continuation of a bug that happened on the christmas event map with one of the Power Ranger characters, who was listed as having a cr3 but clearly had a cr2. A dev (possibly Tempest) told me in that case that the character was clearly coded as having a CR3, but still clearly was using a CR2.

Just checked the FA files, Mandalore was given MB_ATT_CLONERIFLE,4 (what is 4 even supposed to do lol) instead of MB_ATT_BLASTER,3. For some bizarre reason, MB_ATT_BLASTER,3 is what's required to give characters a clone rifle 3. This is why players with an E-11 3 in open who pick up a pulled CR get a CR3 while everyone else gets a CR1. I imagine the xmas event map is missing the same attribute.

 

[Lessen]

O, another small bug/inaccuracy: Trandoshan Mercenary is listed as having "Staff Vibroblade," but actually has dual Vibroblades.

And Skakoan Tech is listed as having "ARC Rifle 3", which is mysterious, because as far as I know the Westar M5 doesn't have a level 3. It has two levels and two optional attachments. And the only difference is that Level 2 has running accuracy. Tech's gun doesn't have running accuracy, so it's actually a level 1 M5.

Plus, Skakoan Tech has Stamina 3 (can fire while sprinting without doubled drains), and this is not listed.

Arguably Duros Boss should be listed as having a "Flamerifle" rather than a "Flamethrower," to clarify that it's the weapon version and not the ability version, since this gives him Flaming-While-Jetpacking, which is very very strong. Duros Boss also has Stamina and Dexterity (3) levels that aren't listed.

HK-47 has a "Missle Launcher (3)". There's the typo in Missle, and there's the fact that he actually only has one rocket, whereas a level 3 PLX has 6 rockets. I think if he had at least two rockets he would be a good counterplay to Flamerifle Jetpack, thanks to the ability to airburst EMP rockets.

 

[Lessen]

Double post for extra bug or thing-I'm-pretty-sure-is-a-bug. The collision/hitbox on the Vibroblade weapons seems to be way shorter than the blade itself. (And considerably shorter than lightsaber range, for that matter.) Like, it seriously seems like it's the orange/gold part of the sword, rather than the blade. A player who tested it with me (Dark Vader) described it as "we have to be practically making out for the blades to connect." In fights it absolutely felt like facehugging was mandatory.

Also: To be super clear, this is I'd say easily my favorite Full Authentic map in the game. Lest my buglisting look like a barrage of complaints. I would absolutely play regularly on a 24/7 FA Dxun server.

Other Bonus Comment: Dueling with the two 2-life sword classes is fun, cuz they both have 1.0 attack and 0.5 BP, so it only takes a few hits to kill.

Oh right, almost forgot to mention this big obvious pervasive bug: Most of the characters have a generic "Take that" taunt mixed in with their other, character-specific taunts. For example, the Sentinel Droids (aka War Droids or Military Droids) have some droidish taunts, but also inexplicably have that generic "Take that!" taunt. I think Atton in particular only has "Take that" as a taunt/gloat.

Also, Hanharr might be a bit underpowered. He hits like a truck at close range and has 500 HP, sure, but lacking Strength 3 he is eternally damned to move at a crawl, and the only ranged weapon he has is two fire grenades. I can't imagine any sane person with a gun having any problem killing Hanharr. Although I suppose since he can block blaster fire AND has 500 HP, he can at least move the front line forwards with cover fire from friends. He just seems overly useless on his own, from what I understand of him. Although I certainly prefer a gimped Wookiee over an overpowered Wookiee.

G0-T0 seems like a pain in the ass to fix/balance, so I really think he should be replaced with T3-M4, with force lightning, dual blasters (haha), flamethrower ability, and fast hacking.

 

[Lessen]

Some more issues on the pile:

1. Skakoan Tech is listed as having ammo packs, but he doesn't. Frankly, this is a good thing, because if he did, he could resupply the concussion rifle. Which brings us to point #2:

2. Concussion rifle is OP lol. Huge area of effect, high damage, extremely high projectile speed, no real counterplay except "be on higher ground" and "get him after he runs out of ammo from killing your team." It's not fun to play against, and I've seen it when used well single-handedly drive people to RTV/quit. Trandoshan's 3.0x Swords are already a powerful tool combined with his high movespeed, his gun should be something relatively weak like an E-11 2, or something limited but strong, but with better counterplay available. Like a proj with 5 shots, or something, I dunno.

I'll compile everything I've found so far into a list and put it on the top post in as abbreviated a format as possible.

 

[S o l d i e r]

More bugs (not sure if already reported):

You can go through the wall outside of the map here:

Spoiler

The water on this map overrides lightsabers and any effects like chat bubbles, etc, so that it appears in front of them, although they are actually in front of it from your point of view:

Spoiler

 

[Sno-dog]

Yeah there is something weird with JKA's alpha channeling - apparently it is using the same kind of effect that happens for the lightsaber on the water. In other maps too the lightsaber appears blurry in front of transparent water. It's frustrating but I don't think there is an actual fix for this besides changing how the water looks entirely (not to be transparent), which I don't want haha.

As for the other bugs, thanks for all the input. I honestly appreciate the notices and will make sure these will be addressed in the next patch

 

[Lessen]

On further exploration, I think the concussion rifle character is especially weak to 2v1 and the flamerifle guy is countered specifically by Kreia's lightning (and Visas's blinding combined with supporting blasterfire), and Kreia herself (with her insanely high FP+regen and lightning) is more or less countered by staggered 2v1 and/or poison. So the balance works out pretty well if people are working together intelligently and using the individual classes well, but the balance can be really "unfair" in a lot of different possible 1v1 scenarios. That's typical for FA, tho, so I almost don't mind at all at this point.

If there was a 24/7 Dxun FA server and people played on it regularly enough to get a good understanding of "the meta" for the map, I bet it would be really fun. Teamplay is even more "mandatory" than it is in Open, for better or worse.

Maybe to help people learn the FA design, characters that function as specific counters to other characters could be... labeled as such. Like, Duros Boss could be labelled as "Countered by: Kreia." Strong characters that counter most other characters would be labeled in terms of what counters them, and specialist characters that exist to counter specific other characters would be labeled in terms of what they counter. (For example, Twi'lek Assassin and Human Mercenary are as much of counters as exist for Kreia.) Just to hand-hold the less experienced players a little so they don't give up when they get countered by some strong class. That could add too much clutter to descriptions, tho, I dunno, plus it gives the incorrect impression that things are more clear-cut than they are, when the truth is more subject to creativity.

(Like: Proj Sniper countering Kreia IF played as support to allied swordsmen.)

Edit: Whup, found another bug. Human Mercenary's level 2 pistol shows a firing effect but doesn't actually fire a projectile or anything. Like how certain shotguns on certain maps have E-11 alt-fire that doesn't actually fire any shots or do anything.

Also, this probably isn't a bug, but, Mercenaries don't get a warning when EbonHawk (maybe it's easier to say "Rebs") are on the log bridge. I kind of wish they did, because it would mean Mercs would be free to just watch Main and listen for alarms from West/East, but instead they have to watch Main AND West........ but I haven't actually thought through the balance of this, so it may actually be fine.

 

[Lessen]

Added two more bugs

1. Exile does not have Lightning at all, description says Lightning 2

2. As noted before, HK has one rocket instead of 3 or 6. In addition, after he's spent his frag, pulses, and rocket he's left with just a ruptor, and that ruptor has extremely low ammo. Either buff his ammo or give him a pistol as well.

 

[Lessen]

Also: From playing on the map more, I can say that the Concussion Rifle sure does piss people off on a regular basis, regardless of whether it's balanced or not at a higher skill level. It continues to cause people to regard it as A Shitty FA.

Although to be fair, I also saw a guy (possibly [tR]Fear?) complaining that rebs have all the stronger classes, specifically citing Blind Spam and Lightning Spam as being unfun/op. Should OP-ness on one side be balanced by OP-ness on the other? Personally I would prefer for FA to have "interesting combinations of tools" (like swords+guns) but to NOT have "OP characters." I like Atton in this regard, P3+Sense-2 is fun and fresh without being OP, although I suppose against some characters he can cheese an "obligatory free kill" using his two sec frags. I wonder if those sec frags knockdown the Trandoshan Merc, would make him a plausible counter IF the Trandoshan has a slow getup.

Another bug, I believe:
- The Conc Rifle Trandoshan is listed as having Strength 1, but I'm pretty sure I Push-3'd him several times while he was running and he didn't fall, suggesting that he has Strength 2 or higher. Being vulnerable to Push/Pull 3 would help balance him.

 

[Sno-dog]

Again thanks for all the feedback and bug reports

It’s helpful having a large population test out balancing, it’s something we can’t really do before release that flushed out a lot of issues we can miss in testing.

Question for you though since you seem to play this often... What do you think about the health of the objective in a populated or unpopulated game? We are looking into making the objective have more health/boxes to destroy based on how many people are in the game, but some more input will help me work out the numbers

 

[Lessen]

Hmm, in most matches I've played on it, people don't seem to take the objective very seriously (except me). If EbonHawk players make it to Merc spawn and nobody's there, they DO tend to hack obj and have at the boxes, but at that point I figure the Mercs deserve to lose for not defending their spawn at all.

Some Observations:
If Mercs defend their spawn as they should, watching the panel from multiple angles, then EbonHawk have to either wipe the Mercs or head to sec obj first and then focus on taking down the caches from a distance. At this level of play, Mercs have to split their forces to keep an eye on sec obj...

Once shields go down, the caches are cleverly positioned so that an EbonHawk player can't snipe all the caches from any one route, which I like...

Conclusion currently:
So far, I think it's pretty good right now, but I need to see more serious obj-focused matches between smart players. Sec obj tends to be underexploited (unless I'm on EbonHawk) so far. I suspect at a higher level of play the obj is a bit weighted towards EbonHawk, if they play tactical and rush sec obj and then snipe the caches from both routes. (Which doesn't even require splitting up their forces, if they all move as a mass from route to route.)

Changing the cache size/hp depending on server population is a neat idea either way tho. Kinda conflicted on it. If the cache is extra weak with low pop then that could be too easy for the attackers: split up to secure the hack and then just chuck some nades at the caches. If the cache is extra strong with high pop then that could be too difficult for the attackers? If the defenders dig in on both panels then by the time the attackers have gotten the shields down they might've lost a lot of people/ammo and have trouble destroying the caches. Right now I think high pop means defenders have an easier time watching both panels, while low pop means it takes longer to kill the caches once they're down, so it already seems to "balance" in both cases. Not sure if the balance is perfect tho.

The underground route still sorta needs a more compelling reason to exist than just "you fell, so here's a super slow route back to the surface," although that in itself is interesting, an environmental hazard that lets you stagger the enemy's forces relatively easily without killing them. It can feel a little timewastey.

Wacky idea: What if the generator underground powered electrification of the platforms under the caches? So that once the shields are down, caches can be shot freely but can't all be sabered unless the generator is disabled. Saber is much faster than blaster for taking down the caches, since you can hit all the caches at once. Adding electrification would also reduce the EbonHawk's ability to hide behind the boxes while attacking them. But keep the part where both EbonHawk and Mercs can toggle the generator... maybe, since it's so out-of-the-way. The generator could also power the lights in the cave, making for spooky darkness when it's disabled, although "darkness" is hard to balance gameplay-wise. :^I

(Also, dream idea: flesh out the interior of Ebon Hawk and make the FA classes each spawn in their actual respective parts of the ship :>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> )

(Other excessive, excessively dreamy dream ideas:
After G0-T0 is removed for being too wack to live, add one of these:
- Handmaiden as a 150 HP 100 Armor Dex 3 ARC with either a Staff or Strength 3. If staff, fix hitboxes so it's not useless the way Rey's starkiller_base staff is.
- Mira with Proj and Vibroblade and no mid-range gun. Also tracker darts and sonic nades, and/or Pull 2, if she'd be able to take people's guns and then actually use them herself.
- Bao Dur with melee-with-electric-stun, if possible, and of course a Seeker Drone. Not sure what else. Deployable turret... regenerating armor... and a "disruptor pistol.")

 

[Lessen]

Rather major balance-related bug:
War Droid (Close Quarters Combat) is listed as having "Force Block 2," but even at full FP can be Force Pushed without needing to be Force Focused.

It's the only character on Mercs who has Force Block, making it the only character spec'd to be able to outright defy Lightning and Blind, which makes it an important bit of counterplay imo. But it doesn't work, so...

Also, Hanharr's listed as having 0.5 blocking power but actually has no BP at all, while the corresponding dual blade (supposed to be staff) Trandoshan on the other team has BP just fine. Hanharr's already kind of a big slow piñata, and without any BP he's basically killable with just flurry kata spam.

The new katas (seemingly referencing flurry, power attack, and critical strike?) are hella neato btw, tho I'm not sure if they work out balance-wise. Kata spam can be hard to get through. But hey, the corresponding moves were spammed in the actual games, lol.

edit: Bonus, smol "bug" that doesn't deserve its own post. Ranged Mandalorians are listed as having "Blaster Rifle (2)", which for-all-the-world sounds like it would be an E-11 2, which makes them sound kinda shitty compared to their corresponding A280 3 class on Mercs. But it's actually a Clone Rifle 2, which is better and more reasonable. So the description should be clearer.