Feedback Thread: Open Beta (after V1.4.9) - Drop 3

[Defiant]

This is for community feedback from the Open Beta currently running on the Official Open Beta Servers.

Details are here: The next steps forward

You can also join our Discord discussion: Discord - Free voice and text chat for gamers

Previous feedback thread: Feedback Thread: Open Beta (after V1.4.9) - Drop 2

Please limit feedback and discussion to the gameplay changes only.

This change log is changes from the 1.4.9 Official Release not from the last open beta drop unless the changes are listed in the "Open Beta" section.

Change Log
Open Beta:

• Fix: Erroneous Extra knockback removed
• Removed: Scoped weapons no longer descope upon taking damage.

General:

• arcs/clones can now toggle stamina off with special 1 (comes with a 500ms timer cooldown between inputs to prevent accidentally turning it off when activating)
  • Walk no longer deactivates sprint
  • Stamina is always drained whilst moving with sprint active
  • Can now be activate whilst holding an unloaded PLX
• Holding use no longer drains resources while doing the short jump

Saber vs Gunner changes

• FP Debuff removed
• Flinch removed
• FP Regen normalized to always be 1.0x regardless of blocking, walking, or saber state.
• FP drain is now only capped in two circumstances.
  • If block is held down, FP drains can't exceed more than 50 FP.
  • If a shot comes from outside IDR (long range) and would have drained more than 40 FP, it's capped at draining 40 FP.
• Running FP drain multiplier changed from 1.2x to 0.95x
• Adjustments to knockback to make it more consistent/effective against saberists.
• Universal damage reduction removed from saberists. Force-only (as in, does not have a saber whatsoever; not just stowed away) Jedi/Sith still retain 20% innate damage reduction. Poison adjusted to still apply damage at the same rate it did regardless.
• Jedi/Sith (saber or not) have a 20% damage reduction multiplier while in rolling getup animations.
• Jedi/Sith (saber or not) have a 20% damage reduction multiplier from friendly fire.
• IDR calculations are now one linear scaling instead of a mix of linear scaling and static multipliers depending on what range you're at.
• Blocking and non-blocking IDR multipliers/calculations are now identical.
• Threshhold distance for long range (outside IDR) FP drains changed from 410 to 325. If a target is past the threshhold, max value for distance is set to 325 (to avoid super minimal FP drains)
• Blocking FP drains are now calculated based on how close the defender is aiming to the source of the shot. Starts at a 0.60x multiplier and increases based on the angle difference. Caps at 0.95x (equivalent to non-blocking FP multiplier).

Further gameplay changes

• Clone Rifle
  • Blob velocity does not get the velocity increase of all other shots.
  • Blob base damage reduced from 20 to 5.
  • Concussion blobs now use charging functionality with a minimum damage of 5.
  • Concussion blob will only knockdown if someone is running, in the air, or completely stationary. Will cause stagger otherwise.
  • Ion Blob ammo count reduced from 2/4/6 to 2/3/4.
• Poison Dart
  • Dosage count reduced from 10 to 8 (6 less damage in total)
  • Poison force regeneration reduction changed to 50% down from 100%
• Grenades
  • FP drain removed (20 from frags, 10 from sonics)
• Alt frags
  • No longer detonate on first impact. Uses same physics as primary functionality. Will detonate if it comes into contact with another player (doesn't matter if it's off of a bounce or a direct hit).
  • Time between being thrown and exploding is reduced the longer its primed/charged. Auto-throws after 5 seconds of charging and will always have a short distance before exploding after doing so.
• Pistol
  • Charge scaling adjustment
    • Minimum base damage of charged shots increased from 26 to 28
    • Maximum base damage increased from 60 to 75
    • Damage increase per charge tick increased from 6.8 to 9.4
    • FP drain multiplier for charged shots increased from 1.1x to 1.5x
• Bowcaster
  • charge scaling adjustment
    • No longer hits full charge damage (90 base damage) in 1 second of charging
    • Charge ticks changed from 200ms to 250ms
    • Max total charge ticks increased from 5 to 20
    • Damage increases 6 per charge tick with a cap of 150 base damage.
• T21
  • FP drain multiplier for alt fire raised from 1.15x to 1.25x
  • Base damage lowered from 28 to 26
• TK System
  • forgiving someone applies no TK points
• SBD
  • base damage changed from 18 + (battery / 10) to a flat 26 damage at all times
• Projectile Rifle
  • Ammo adjusted from 7/15/24 to 8/10/15
• Dodge
  • Duration for each level reduced
    • Level 1 - 0.66 Seconds
    • Level 2 - 1.33 Seconds
    • Level 3 - 2 Seconds
• Deka
  • FP multiplier increased from 1.0 to 1.05

Damage modifier:​

• Torso locational modifier raised from 1.3x to 1.5x​

TK system (additional):

• Players on the spectator team will no longer be able to deal any damage.

 

[Lessen]

These changelogs continue to be confusingly arranged. According to the explanation at the top ("This change log is changes from the 1.4.9 Official Release not from the last open beta drop unless the changes are listed in the "Open Beta" section.") the only changes from Drop 2 would be the reduction of Extra Knockback (on saberists?) and the removal of the unscope-when-hit.

But in actuality, there's a shitload of things further down in the changelog that were changed relative to Drop 2.

The really big ones: Torso damage increased, alt-frag entirely redesigned, conc blobs are now chargeup, and only stagger rather than knockdown against stabilized enemies, fewer ion blobs can be bought.

Also: Deka FP drain increased, and, uh, dead people can't gain TK points (like from a fire nade, I guess.) Why is that a good idea? Doesn't that mean that if I time it carefully I can throw a TD at my team and spec before it goes off? (Would require hitting the spec button before I throw the nade, thanks to the delay.)

Nerfs to conc/alt-frag are very welcome though.

Oh, almost missed another really big change: IDR is now linear instead of any other complication, and blocking now certifiably does not reduce FP drains relative to just running (or even walking).

And!!!!! Aiming at the source of the incoming shot reduces your FP drains from shots. That's another huge one.

These "huge ones" should really be separated out into the Open Beta section.

 

[Defiant]

Yes. But they are noted as changes from 1.4.9 not from the Open Beta.

The top sections notes things that either were bugged in the last open beta, or things that were never in the live game but were in open beta that have subsequently been removed.

 

[Lessen]

Yes. But they are noted as changes from 1.4.9 not from the Open Beta.

The top sections notes things that either were bugged in the last open beta, or things that were never in the live game but were in open beta that have subsequently been removed.

Uhh, all those things I just listed are changed from the previous Open Beta. Someone who's played the second open beta has to go through the hassle of sorting through and remembering which things were already in and which things are new in this drop.

Things that are "new in Drop 3, relative to Drop 2" ought to be noted, for the sanity of anyone who actually played Drop 2. It seriously first looked to me like Drop 3 only had those two tiny changes, I had to superstitiously double check to see if you'd again made the layout confusing and strange, which you had.

So, here, for the benefit of any other testers, here's the big key changes listed out:

• Torso damage increased (1.3x -> 1.5x)
• Alt-frag redesigned. Now bounces instead of detonating on ground, but detonates on contact with people. Can also be partially primed, but always has some minimum amount of time before it blows up.
  
• Concussion Blob requires charge-up to fire.. I think? Either that or it has charge levels. It also now merely staggers people who are walking, but knocks down people who are running/jumping. It also knocks down people who are standing still, for some reason. No idea what it does for crouching people.
• Scoped weapons don't descope when hit anymore.
• Bonus Knockback to Jedi/Sith has been reduced, but is presumably still present. Either that or they're just only-now announcing the fix to the silly Flamethrower/Lightning knockback. Not sure.
  
• Blocking no longer reduces FP drains at all. Wait no...
• Blocking FP drain reduction is better the more you're aiming towards the person who's shooting you. (Does that mean you have to be looking at them at the moment that the shot hits you, even if they've moved substantially since firing the shot? Kind of an edge case. Do you look at the shot, or the person? Edit: I think Tempest said you look at where the shot was fired from, not where the person is now.)
• IDR is now linear. IDR refers to the way shots do more damage as you get closer. This increase now occurs linearly rather than there being a sudden increase in damage within a particular range. So it's simpler and more reasonable. (Edit: This is mostly a code cleanup, as while the previous implementation did allow for "sudden increases in damage within a particular range," they'd been tuned to not have any actual sudden increases. Code's simpler, concept's cleaner, result is about the same.)
  
• Deka got a slight buff to FP drains. Deka has really low FP drains overall.
• (there was something else here but it was untrue)

 

[Gumba]

Force-only (as in, does not have a saber whatsoever; not just stowed away) Jedi/Sith still retain 20% innate damage reduction

No fucking stop trying to make fw's viable. They are horrible to play with and against

 

[Garth]

I'm still waiting for that force attunement thing we saw in a thread i can't remember when ...

 

[Defiant]

Dead/Spec players can no longer gain TK points. All hail TD suicide bombing, just gotta switch to spec with the right timing. [citation needed]

Entirely untrue.

 

[Lessen]

O, maybe I interpreted it backwards. Here's what you said:

TK system (additional):

• Spectators or players no longer active in a round will no longer deal any outdoing damage.

I interpreted it as "not gaining TK points" but I guess now it's more like... if you die after throwing a fire grenade, your fire becomes harmless? So it's more like a counter to the problem of TD > disconnect. It's gonna be a little weird seeing those occasional cases of "harmless grenades," but alright.

 

[Defiant]

I interpreted it as "not gaining TK points" but I guess now it's more like... if you die after throwing a fire grenade, your fire becomes harmless?

Players on the spectator team will no longer be able to deal any damage.

Reworded it.​

 

[Lessen]

Soooo..... a guy who throws a grenade and then dies will still have a damaging grenade, but a guy who throws a grenade and then goes Spec OR disconnects from the server will NOT deal damage, right? So people can still rage nade TK on their way out of a server, but they can't do it without gaining TK points.

 

[Defiant]

That is how it is designed to work. Being open beta it hasn't been tested to do so yet.

 

[Tempest]

dead people can't gain TK points (like from a fire nade, I guess.) Why is that a good idea? Doesn't that mean that if I time it carefully I can throw a TD at my team and spec before it goes off? (Would require hitting the spec button before I throw the nade, thanks to the delay.)

It's not that they can't get TK points (that's actually the problem it's addressing). It's that being in spec or not being in the game (such as through reconnecting) doesn't cause damage to trigger from stuff you have still flying around. I was looking at just having stuff being deleted in the same circumstances but that's a lot more finicky/prone to breaking things.

I'm still waiting for that force attunement thing we saw in a thread i can't remember when ...

Getting that rolling out is what I'm going to be working on after this and the saber system stuff are settled.

 

[Liniyka_xddd]

Blocking FP drains are now calculated based on how close the defender is aiming to the source of the shot. Starts at a 0.60x multiplier and increases based on the angle difference. Caps at 0.95x (equivalent to non-blocking FP multiplier).

This is, uhhh, concerning.

So you remove flinch, nerf sec nades, nerf blobs, nerf poison and add this huge 40% FP damage reduction on top?
I think you are stacking the odds in saberists' favour a bit too much.

 

[Crusader]

Really don't like the stamina toggle changes. Can you at least make which mode of deactivation optional?

Also, get rid of DR completely. Swingblock is a ridiculously good mechanic for the class' longevity. It doesn't need to be compensated with DR for being knocked down or running into friendly fire.

Having any form of conditional blanket DR is just going to make the game more inconsistent. You will never guarantee the situation DR intends to circumvent occurs. Consider the difference between a stray FF shot at main chipping a Jedi's back, versus a Jedi panic retreating and running into a gunner's already established fire-line.

It's not healthy to have players performing contextual mental calculations amidst the thick of a fight. Everyone will eventually learn what 100 hp of damage with their weapons/combination of weapons (in Xv1 situations) looks like. When you add these conditions it betrays this intuition, and I feel it will lead to a lot of double guessing: was it a teammate who shot the Jedi? Does this portion of the Jedi's get-up count as knockdown?

Just please keep it simple. If you want damage reduction, add it in the form of a big glowing green aura known as Force Protect. If you want Jedi to be more robust, just give them flat HP.

 

[Liniyka_xddd]

 

[MuscBodypillow]

Everyone can follow their dream and become a deka,neat!

 

[Lessen]

This is, uhhh, concerning.

So you remove flinch, nerf sec nades, nerf blobs, nerf poison and add this huge 40% FP damage reduction on top?
I think you are stacking the odds in saberists' favour a bit too much.

To summarize Tempest's counterargument as I understand it:
Because of other simplifications to the blocking code internally, the strength of blocking-when-looking-at-someone in this beta is only slightly stronger than the strength-of-blocking in the previous beta (i.e. even though the blocking multiplier shown in the last beta was like 0.85x or w/e, after some other math in the code it was more like 0.6x I guess? This math has been greatly simplified/removed.)

There's a very slight buff, in that "looking head on" context, and overall it's a big nerf to 1vX tanking since now if someone's shooting you in the side it'll drain as heavily as if you were running. Again: Overall, more of a nerf than a buff, and what buff there is is very slight in light of other code tweaks.

Previously, the multipliers were misleading (I suppose the 0.5x multiplier in the Live build is actually even lower than 0.5 in reality), but from now on with the simpler code, the multipliers will be more accurate.


My notes on the beta so far:
1. Fall damage is evidently non-functional (see Liniyka's video). What kinda spaghetti-Os code resulted in fall damage code even being changed :0
2. Blob charging is underimplemented. All it does is increase damage from 5 to 20 while making aim more unwieldy, so there's no real reason to do it. May as well remove the charge, OR make it more worthwhile. Add extra knockback or an area effect to a full charge, or something.
3. "Standing" being worse than "walking" against blobs is contrary to every other Standing vs Walking mechanic in the game (although there may only be two such mechanics: BP regen, and Force Push/Pull resist). It's also just counterintuitive. It's also unclear from the changelog what effect a blob has on someone crouching in-place.
4. If people are correct that alt-frag is useless now, good riddance I say.

 

[Padawan[1]]

fp drains completely fuckd up. it actually would be fine if there was no knockback
but with knockback, when you get close to gunners with high fp drain weapons, you lose all or almost all fp trying to get close.
and then you're getting knockback
gg wp
also arc is sbd tier against sith now
m5 drain all fp long before you get close to arc. and when you get close he just roll away leaving you with 0 fp

 

[Lessen]

@Liniyka_xddd ^ see, if anything, FP drains are too HIGH in this build.

@Padawan[1]
Removing knockback would make ambush saberists overly effective imo (combined with high drains it would skew saber tactics very heavily towards "start the engagement from close range via ambush"). Keep knockback I say, and if FP drains ARE too high now, bring em back down. No comment on whether or not the aim-blocking should stay. I certainly like the idea, it's more intuitive for saberists to be worse at blocking shots from the side.

 

[Padawan[1]]

i didnt say knockback is bad, but these two things (high fp drain + knockback) making jedi way too easy to kill