Feedback Thread: Open Beta (after V1.4.9) - Drop 4

[k4far]

Current Drop feels worse than Public build.

FP drains are weak and not punishing enough go in direction of Drop 1 / Drop 2 here. As much as I dislike flinch I think knockback is useless (you die in 2 hits anyway so why knock you back on body hit?) even sounds useless. I dislike being sent in to a wall it should be exclusive to force users - buff the alt-frag differently.

 

[Starushka]

Why do people think having the normal clone blob is fine? It's too powerful.

What is so fair about having a gun that has the highest rate of fire, pretty good range and damage, and basically shoots alt-fire nades at high velocity out of it's barrel?
The problem with blobs is that there's literally nothing fair about it. Blobs are literally alt-fire nades that cost 5 each, and shoot out without any sound or visual warning.

Any decent gunner that's played the game more than a year can play clone, aim at a sith, blob him, and just absolutely shred through his hp. Not only that, but a clone gets 2-4 blobs per life, so in total, a clone can kill up to 8 sith with one life.

Don't even get me started about clones vs gunners. If you have any brain at all while playing clone, you can blob your enemy and by the time he gets up he's at 0 hp.

What really grinds my gears the most is the people that say "just push the blob away"
Like, I hope you're kidding. Right?

Read what GoodOl'Ben said on that matter. He nailed it.
However, if people really thinks that there should be a direct counter to knockdowns, when, as other said, we could make crouching be that counter.
Though not just pressing crouch button (crouching forever to have knockdown immunity), but pressing it in a specific time window. Just like MBlock. Press right before a knockdown. Pressing earlier will lead to a regular knockdown. Pressing right in time will make you perform a roll back.

 

[Lessen]

Press right before a knockdown. Pressing earlier will lead to a regular knockdown. Pressing right in time will make you perform a roll back.

Correctly timing a blob-ukemi (which is what I'm calling the idea you just suggested) would be about as impossible as correctly timing a blob push. Unless mashing-crouch worked, in which case you'd see a lot of mashing-crouch, and that would look dumb.

edit: Besides, it's not like every class should even have a good getup option, and it's not like every knockdown option is problematic. The problematic getup options are the ones that don't allow enough participation from the target.

Push 3? Participatory. It's got mindgames and vulnerabilities.
Alt-frag? Non-participatory. If the thrower doesn't flat-out fuck up, the target is simply guaranteed to get knocked down.
Conc blob? More participatory than alt-frag, but still not participatory enough. The target can only do so much to avoid knockdown.

 

[MuscBodypillow]

Correctly timing a blob-ukemi (which is what I'm calling the idea you just suggested) would be about as impossible as correctly timing a blob push. Unless mashing-crouch worked, in which case you'd see a lot of mashing-crouch, and that would look dumb.

....wait....you said ukemi, that triggered something in my head. if you press crouch in the blob window, instead of a rollback you could implement a roll forward (a reflex roll) that way that would close the gap for anyone and with the cooldown window the player that evaded would have an advantage.

Also courch spaming is life ( my only sabering skill is turning a slap to a roll-stab), don't crouch shame me!

 

[Lessen]

Getting hit in the face with a blob and turning it into a forward roll would look very strange.

edit: Coming from a Super Smash Bros Melee background, I like the knockdown and ukemi (recovery, get-up) system of MB2, and vaguely like the idea of making it even more interactive. But I don't like these specific ideas at all.

 

[MuscBodypillow]

Getting hit in the face with a blob and turning it into a forward roll would look very strange.

edit: Coming from a Super Smash Bros Melee background, I like the knockdown and ukemi (recovery, get-up) system of MB2, and vaguely like the idea of making it even more interactive. But I don't like these specific ideas at all.

The roll would have to trigger before the hit in order to evade it and close the gap, but the code triggers would probably be too hard to implement.

Otherwise I also agree that FP drains are too low in this version.

 

[Lessen]

Wait, so... do you mean it would be a dive roll that could only be triggered by having a shot coming at you? That sounds very silly.

On the topic of very silly things, gunners need a way to disarm other gunners. I wanna be a one-man gun thief. Maybe landing a choke grapple on someone should transfer whatever gun they're holding into your inventory....

 

[Blazer]

crouch button, pressing it in a specific time window. Just like MBlock. Press right before a knockdown. Pressing earlier will lead to a regular knockdown. Pressing right in time will make you perform a roll back.

That sounds as ridiculous as the people telling me to force push the blob.
Because yeah, that's really easy.

 

[Starushka]

Just like MBlock

It's not a big deal to press a C button in time, especially when you expect a knockdown. Crouching is instantaneous action compared to push that have a milliseconds delay. If you can reliably MBlock you should not have a trouble to counter knockdowns.

 

[Lessen]

It's not a big deal to press a C button in time, especially when you expect a knockdown. Crouching is instantaneous action compared to push that have a milliseconds delay. If you can reliably MBlock you should not have a trouble to counter knockdowns.

Have you thought this through? I'm picturing a Sith moving towards a Clone while awkwardly mashing crouch. I do not want this.

Alternately, if some amount of timing IS required, if mashing doesn't work, then I'm picturing successful executions to be essentially considered random luck. Blob can not be reacted to, and it takes a hell of a mindgame or lucky guess to anticipate it down to the millisecond.

It is not comparable to MBlock. You get MBlocks by observing the enemy's patterns and/or actually reacting to the sight of their incoming swing. With blobs, it would take multiple rounds to get any idea of the clone's blob patterns, and it's entirely impossible to react to the sight of an incoming blob.

If you can reliably MBlock you should not have a trouble to counter knockdowns.

seriously this ^ is a ludicrous statement. MBlock and reacting-to-blob are in entirely different leagues of difficulty. All you can do against blob is evade spastically like you're evading any other kind of gun, and pray you don't get hit. Or literally don't put yourself in the line of fire, which isn't very good participation. That's just hiding.

 

[Sir Crusher]

It's not a big deal to press a C button in time, especially when you expect a knockdown. Crouching is instantaneous action compared to push that have a milliseconds delay. If you can reliably MBlock you should not have a trouble to counter knockdowns.

Well, when siths have force push equipped, the majority of them don't press f in time, I wonder why?

 

[Sir Crusher]

The difference between a Mblock and this suggested crouch mechanic is the anticipation you see on saber attacks. The Jedi raises the saber before he swings, but the clone doesn't charge his blob.

 

[Lessen]

On that note, reminder of this idea:

What if clone conc-blob firing was basically like rocket firing: you press the button, and then there's an uncancellable fixed-length "wind-up" before the shot. The charge-up would be way shorter than rocket's chargeup and wouldn't inhibit your movement, but it would give everyone around you enough of a cue about the incoming shot to attempt an evade (or a push)... but the shot would still come out quickly enough that it could be reliably used to pop jumping Sith or flying Mandos.

If the timing were tuned just-right, it would still be easy to land on people who have committed to a movement, but it would be considerably harder to land on people who are focusing on evasion. (because they would know exactly when the shot's coming, and would move to evade right at that moment.)

(edit: Average human reaction time is 250ms; my first guess for the timing for the above blob idea would be a 350ms delay between click and fire. It should be reactable, but it should be close. Having it be just borderline reactable could make it very exciting, and still plenty usable.)

( @GoodOl'Ben I'm quite curious about your reaction to this idea, Mr. Gameplay Leader. With this idea, I'd be fine with going back to blobs having guaranteed knockdown strength, and I'd even be fine with, or even want them to have a solid ammo pool and a not-horribly-long cooldown. In my mind it's a plausible balance between the excitement you want blobs to have and the "participation" I want them to have.)

 

[Starushka]

Haven't said anything specifically about blobs. Knockdowns have different sources. Anyway, the point is if majority thinks there should be a counter to knockdowns - there are ways to do it. Mine is just an unpolished example. Personally I say there is no need in such mechanism.


About blobs. Blobs ultimately are too easy to land right now, I agree. I'd personally decrease it's velocity by 10-15%. But that's about it. There is no need in radical changes.

 

[Lessen]

I... don't think the majority thinks there should be a counter to knockdowns-as-a-whole. From my perspective, knockdowns are a core part of the game, and knockdowns are very diverse mechanically (in terms of both causes-of-knockdowns and different classes' getup capacities), so it seems strange to address knockdowns as a whole.

The reason people (like me) are annoyed at alt-frag and conc-blob is not simply because they're knockdowns.

 

[MuscBodypillow]

On that note, reminder of this idea:

What if clone conc-blob firing was basically like rocket firing: you press the button, and then there's an uncancellable fixed-length "wind-up" before the shot. The charge-up would be way shorter than rocket's chargeup and wouldn't inhibit your movement, but it would give everyone around you enough of a cue about the incoming shot to attempt an evade (or a push)... but the shot would still come out quickly enough that it could be reliably used to pop jumping Sith or flying Mandos.

If the timing were tuned just-right, it would still be easy to land on people who have committed to a movement, but it would be considerably harder to land on people who are focusing on evasion. (because they would know exactly when the shot's coming, and would move to evade right at that moment.)

Oh gawd no,

With rocket the windup is fine, but for attacks that must be accurate and without AoE, having the windup just mean that you have to stay perfectly on target until the blob is shot, this would turn blobs into those silly playground games where you have to inflate the ballon with a stream of water by hitting the target for as long as possible.

The best option would be reducing speed ( meaning that having a slowish thing coming your way would look silly) or giving a clue via charging( that didn't really work well). What could be also done is to have low charged/clicked blobs have the same effect as they have in the beta and the charged one be a knockdown if they hit.

 

[Lessen]

I think you're mistakenly thinking the windup would be anywhere near as long as rocket's windup. In my vision, it would be muuuch shorter. But still long enough to be just barely reactable.

What I'm picturing for the windup would be that it would be a sort of "pre-scheduled flick-shot." I'd really have to see how it feels in practice, and with some tuning to the timing. Wrist Blaster used to work this way, sort of.

Even with a brief windup it would be pretty easy to blob a jumping Sith I think, and it wouldn't be impossible to blob ground targets, especially if they had a reason to commit to a direction (gunner running for cover, saberist moving towards someone for a slash, etc)

There would absolutely need to be a sound cue at the start of the wind-up, so that there would be warning, and so that there would be a consistent audible "rhythm" between the start of the wind-up and the actual delivery of the shot. *beep*-Boom. Everyone would learn to flinch (literally) at the "beep."

edit: Manual charging (with variable timing) felt super gunky to me. "Firing by letting go of the button" feels bad to me in general. Delayed firing could feel fine if the delay was short and consistent.

And slower projectile speed would have to be really fucking slow for it to make blob reactable at anything below long range, and nobody sane uses blobs at long range anyway since it's hard to land.

 

[k4far]

1. Stick with drains and fp regen from 1.4.9,
   
2. Faster bullet speeds should stay,
   
3. Keep the ammo nerf,
   
4. Make crouching a counter to concussive blast (would make you roll backwards if hit with one),
   
5. Reintroduce flinch but make it work only on half swings and keep the knockback,
   
6. Remove alt-frag's secondary fire,
   
7. FP drain on granades - good it's gone,
8. Grip duration limit if it's fixed should be included in this release,
9. Replace qt with abillity to throw the granade farther,
10. Damage reduction for force whores was retarded,
    
11. Increased window for one hand pull should stay.
12. Remove dodge*,

 

[MuscBodypillow]

I don't agree with point 9 of k4, but an interesting alternative would be a faster throw that way the nade would be harder to predict/push and travel farther also.

 

[k4far]

I don't agree with point 9 of k4, but an interesting alternative would be a faster throw that way the nade would be harder to predict/push and travel farther also.

You realize removal of secondary fire on alt-frag is killing qt so might as well go with that idea. Achilles said these ideas are nice, not thrilling, but nice. I wanted to make a list of things that won't affect the gameplay negatively and can be added fairly quickly we have the release just around the corner.