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

[SeV]

He was coming off of cooldown at best at that situation. This late into the round, assuming Stam3+Blob1 he could also be looking at a no-blobs situation after the first one.


Increasing FP drains on the Clone Rifle is a bad choice as this will easily turn the Level 3 of the weapon into an overpowered monster. The Clone/Sith match-up should revolve around successful Blobs, not FP drain. Homogenizing all weapons to have similar combat properties vs Jedi/Sith is boring design. The more match-ups have a unique kink to them, the better.

I don't think the match-up is nearly as off-balance to warrant these kinds of anti-fun changes as the stagger thing. Gunners fight from a distance for most part and giving Clones a strong spot up close only adds to fun power dynamics and match-up specific strategies emerging, so the Blob should remain a powerhouse. The Sith/Clone match-up has always felt exciting to me.

The Blob damage dropped from 20 to 10. This increases emphasis on a successful follow-up to any knockdown you give. You'll have to land 1 shot more to kill as a result.

Blob amounts adjusted to 2-4-8 to give importance to each use of a Blob and encourage build variety.

Increase Blob cooldown by 2 seconds to add even more weight to using a Blob. You should not be able to fire more than one Blob in a fight. It's either your tool of initiation or last line of defense. Increasing the cooldown will put emphasis on accuracy, timing and strategy.

Right now CR2+Stamina3+Blob1 is the best in the biz followed by CR2+Stam2+Blob2. Running out of blobs is common on the firstly mentioned build, but generally the 3 blobs you have will deal immense hurt. The Stamina 2 build trades off speed sustain during long fights in order to never run out of Blobs. As it stands there is no purpose for Level 3 ever. As a result that should remain strong.

These changes add emphasis for the choice to Blob, landing the Blob and making a successful follow-up to the Blob. All increasing the skill involved.

Stagger on walking targets adds to frustration due to a hard-counter mechanic that can be activated on a split-second's notice. It removes juice from the ability. It muddles the game into boringness. It reduces highs and reduces lows.

Current live version design encourages Sith to play fast and evasive while approaching. This allows us to keep the Clone Rifle 2 FP drains low since Sith will generally run/jump more in the match-up. Clones need to make their blobs count or risk getting lightning or other forms of CC. This is fun gameplay. Balance can be altered, but the gameplay is fun.

Crouch.

 

[Lessen]

He was coming off of cooldown at best at that situation. This late into the round, assuming Stam3+Blob1 he could also be looking at a no-blobs situation after the first one.

What I meant was that he could have saved his blob for your jump, and just spammed you before then.

Also kinda miffed my two suggestions went totally un-addressed:

If there was less of a cooldown between firing a blob and resuming regular fire, he would've at least tagged one or two followup shots on your stagger.

Or if staggering forced you to walk for a second (as "staggering" would), that would also allow a punish.

Could also give blobs some inherent knockback so even a staggering blob at least puts some space between you and the target.

I think public blobs are too much reward for landing one well-aimed shot, and keeping them more-or-less as-is but with a more limited supply would just mean you'd be making them "a limited supply of frustrating deaths." I want to make them not frustrating to fight against.

Crouch.

what did he mean by this? :thinking:

 

[MuscBodypillow]

what did he mean by this? :thinking:

When in doubt: crouch. That's the MB2 way.

But yeah those propositions for blobs would be fine to balance things.

 

[Gargos]

Now that I have played this enough, here is my feedback:

This beta just feels, off. I am not really fan of these changes. I really like flinch since it is a very rewarding system. I like it while playing as a jedi and also while playing as a gunner. It just needs its range improved and one certain bug fixed which seems to nullify flinch. Also the alt. nades are just bad. Even with the bugged knockback making them strong and rewarding the player with occasional insta kills, it is a lot worse than the old alt nade. Right now the only thing I enjoy about this beta are the bugged alt nades because of the lulz effect and I think that pretty much sums this beta up. Fixing the bugged alt nade will render that ability 100 percent useless.

All in all the beta feels like a drag to play, does not keep my interest up. I just have the urge to leave the beta server and go back to normal gameplay.

 

[GoodOl'Ben]

What I meant was that he could have saved his blob for your jump, and just spammed you before then.

I would not jump/run with the knowledge that there is a blob unused if I can just bait out the win by making them panic blob first.

If there was less of a cooldown between firing a blob and resuming regular fire, he would've at least tagged one or two followup shots on your stagger.

Or if staggering forced you to walk for a second (as "staggering" would), that would also allow a punish.

Could also give blobs some inherent knockback so even a staggering blob at least puts some space between you and the target.

Buffing likelihood of a kill on the off-chance you do get lucky and the knockdown as opposed to making it weaker? Doesn't sound good in my books. The follow-up is the second part that differentiates a good and a bad Clone. All these options feel like attempts to justify a weak outcome for a blocking situation (potentially making the point of even making the change moot) while indirectly buffing the knockdown even further.

I think public blobs are too much reward for landing one well-aimed shot, and keeping them more-or-less as-is but with a more limited supply would just mean you'd be making them "a limited supply of frustrating deaths." I want to make them not frustrating to fight against.

10 HP less damage means that you'll need 1 more shot on a knocked down target to kill. This increases skill greatly by itself. In addition there are countless other solutions that keep the ability feeling fun and powerful without killing the fun.

Make knockdowns shorter, reduce damage, increase cooldowns, reduce availability, make post-blob firing cooldown timers longer... There are all these solutions out there that don't involve killing the fun factor and we want to pick the one that does kill the fun?

 

[Lessen]

I want to kill the fun because it's not fun enough from the receiving end, yeah.

Push 3 has counterplay and mindgames. Conc blob is just "don't get hit." It's not participatory enough. Your proposed nerfs do not make it more participatory.

edit: Also, even the current state of the Beta blob has significant usefulness in theory. Just like Push 3, it encourages/forces the enemy to slow down or risk punishment. And forcing them to slow down makes them an easier target (and reduces their ability to claim a positional advantage, of course).

 

[Lessen]

Incidentally your gif got 50 updoots on le gaming

I recognize your point about some of my suggestions making knockdown-blobs stronger. In light of that, my favorite suggestion of the three is the "walk-blobs should have some inherent/fixed knockback." If they shoved the Sith back a bit in addition to staggering, they'd be more worth it as a lower-risk use of a blob.

I also agree that the cooldown between blobs could be made a little longer.

 

[Liniyka_xddd]

Now that I have played this enough, here is my feedback:

This beta just feels, off. I am not really fan of these changes. I really like flinch since it is a very rewarding system. I like it while playing as a jedi and also while playing as a gunner. It just needs its range improved and one certain bug fixed which seems to nullify flinch. Also the alt. nades are just bad. Even with the bugged knockback making them strong and rewarding the player with occasional insta kills, it is a lot worse than the old alt nade. Right now the only thing I enjoy about this beta are the bugged alt nades because of the lulz effect and I think that pretty much sums this beta up. Fixing the bugged alt nade will render that ability 100 percent useless.

All in all the beta feels like a drag to play, does not keep my interest up. I just have the urge to leave the beta server and go back to normal gameplay.

Pretty much this, but I do like the higher damages and projectile speeds.

 

[Lessen]

To summarize what Gargos said, so I can determine what Liniy is agreeing to:
- "it feels off"
- "i like flinch"
- "alt nades are nerfed" (to a point of near uselessness)

..there's not a whole lot there, in terms of actual semantic content. In terms of actually saying anything. Can either of you be more specific?

Cuz "it feels off", "I like flinch," and "alt frags are bad" all easily sound like they could just be a problem of unfamiliarity-with-the-new. You need to be more specific about what issues you perceive.

(If your problem with the removal of flinch is that saberists are able to W+M1 you while being shot, for example, then you'll be glad to know that last I heard saberists are going to take more knockback from shots next beta.)

edit, clarification: I'm not saying there aren't possibly legitimate issues; I'm not saying it is just that you're unfamiliar with the new mechanics. I'm just saying, look at it from the developers' perspectives. Your comments contribute nothing except a vague sense of foreboding.

 

[Crusader]

Half-jump/jump/jump 2 swinging really ought to be penalised with shedding some of the Sith's velocity if they are hit midflight. Ben strafed in the opposite direction briefly after being staggered whilst the clone free ran backwards. All that distance he gained was immediately closed by jump and swingblock.

 

[SeV]

My biggest issue with public as jedi/sith is the way FP works. Gunners drain it too slowly, and it recovers too slowly. Engagements in close range such as the one in the gif from ben, would be won by the blob or another thing like a secondary grenade or a ninja kick, but not by FP drains. Since that footage is from the beta it looks to me like the FP drains are too slow (and possibly the regen aswell).

If we take the gif as an example, it's clear that the sith is playing like a noob and not dodging any bullets or anything, the sith is tanking the full brunt of a blaster in close range to the face for quite awhile and yet he's only at around 45 FP at the end even though he was shot sooooo mannnnnyyy tiiiimmeees.

My suggestion is to increase the FP regen and increase the FP drains of all guns accordingly. Balance obviously needs to be tested, but I would like to see a system with higher FP drains and higher FP regen. So if you dodge some bullets and catch some cover you can quickly (recover ehehe). Also more liberal use of force powers in this game, since they are jedi and sith, not dildo warriors. They should be able to use push and pull and stuff more freely and liberally.

In my opinion the main way a jedi or sith should die is if they get their FP drained to 0. Then there is another significant way they die, which is when they make a mistake and overextend. Secondary grenades, blobs etc should not be a way to cheese past a jedi's FP but more of a way to increase the FP drains. The only reason we are used to having all of those gimmicks like blob in public is that you need them to kill a sith without it taking 3 million years. I am not saying blob etc should go, but just holding walk is too noobish of a way to dodge it. That's why I said crouch, at the very minimum.

Also I do not think they should be uber squishly health wise when they still have FP, like with dmg removal they just get shit on by a soldiers conc nades or a melee attack, it's laughable and uber gay.

The main way an engagement such as the one in bens gif should go, is that the sith would bob and weave as he approaches the clone, and watch for when the clone tries to run and at that moment he should push or pull to close the distance. This push/pull + dodging slowly forward should be the way you play, more than simply tanking the full brunt of blaster fire head on and dispatching the gunner without using any of your force powers. And if you get hit whilst pushing you take damage etc so that's why you jump, and if you jump you take increased FP dmg in the air and if the fp dmg is not shit you are taking a proper risk to get the kill. With low FP drains a jedi feels invulnerable unless you have access to mechanics like blob and secondary nades.

It's not really that fun being locked down to using only your saber in MBII so I think we should find a way to incorporate the use of more force powers into the general gameplay. Could even possibly detach them into force points and blaster blocking points if you want to be crazy. Not seriously suggesting this, but it's something to think about.

I think the above FP dynamic should apply with or without flinch. Ultimately, flinch is just a crutch for gunners against low FP drain jedi/sith. If the drains are properly high (and the regens), then it should not be a problem to not have flinch and if you do have flinch in such a system you'll get arse-cancer from playing sith or jedi due to how it will be almost impossible to kill someone without knocking him down/using force powers.

In public you got a system where it doesn't really take skill to tank for an ungodly amount of time, and you cannot use skill to recover when you are low FP due to the retarded FP regen debuff + slow regen in general. This also prohibits you from seriously using force powers in engagements unless you want to screw yourself over and/or put yourself out of the battle for five years as you regen FP. And it's really easy/forgiving to play jedi/sith in public due to how low the fp damage is as long as you don't overextend on attacks and get flinch-raped.

Imagine instead if you took more FP damage per blaster bolt and your FP went up and down more quickly. As a jedi/sith you'd have to always be watching your FP in engagements and be more careful lest you get destroyed. For example, if we take the ben gif, I think the FP should have been lower than 45 for the way he tanked shots directly like that, perhaps more like at 10-20 and the moment where he wasn't being shot at his FP should go up by more and should be more fluid and not stuck before the regen kicks in... As it stands, lots of shit just stop the regen for awhile doesn't it? Like force push etc. Why not have a running regen that ticks often and goes up at a nice and discernable speed coupled with high damage? That way when you are far away and dodge, you can't be touched, but if you are close range in a corridor you need to be careful lest you get burned through in a couple seconds. If this is the way the dynamic works, there would not be a need for something like flinch. This would also increase the value of teammates focusing their fire on a single jedi. Right now in public it doesn't matter for shit, you can just single tap a jedi with E-11 primary to keep him tied up all by yourself due to the FP regen, but imagine if you could focus fire someone and almost instantly kill him in like 2-3 seconds with a focused effort, assuming the guy stands still/takes all shots. More rewards for skillfully dodging and playing your class actively as a jedi/sith, and more incentive to use force powers due to how they don't lock you down and fuck you over. More teamwork incentive as gunners, aswell as the possibility to solo drain someone if you have good aim + they don't have much space to maneuver.

In addition to changing FP like I've described above, all knockdown slaps/kicks etc should be reduced to dealing 1 hp. Like all wookiee barrage/slaps and SBD slaps = 1 hp dmg.
Blobs stagger instead of knocking down on crouching, not walking.

With that, the beta should feel better to play I think?

 

[Lessen]

My suggestion is to increase the FP regen and increase the FP drains of all guns accordingly. Balance obviously needs to be tested, but I would like to see a system with higher FP drains and higher FP regen. So if you dodge some bullets and catch some cover you can quickly (recover ehehe).

This is a direction I'm really interested in as well, and it's the direction the earlier beta drops were headed in, except then Tempest concluded that FP regens were evidently simply TOO high, so he toned them back down. I'm still curious to see what would've happened if he'd kept regens at full speed or even made them higher, and made drains however much higher they had to be to compensate.

That's why I said crouch, at the very minimum.

Ohhhhhhh, the "Crouch." statement was a callback to a post you made on page 8. I understand now.

In public you got a system where it doesn't really take skill to tank for an ungodly amount of time, and you cannot use skill to recover when you are low FP due to the retarded FP regen debuff + slow regen in general.

This isn't entirely true. Technically in public, you hit your highest (non-meditating) FP regen rate if you're in a state where you can't automatically block shots (saber off or standing stationary with saber on). So if you turn off your saber and then pull some wizardy evasions you can "use skill to recover FP."

Could even possibly detach them into force points and blaster blocking points if you want to be crazy. Not seriously suggesting this, but it's something to think about.

As a gunner, I like the fact that I can drain a saberist down to a point where they can't use particular force powers. Like draining a Sith below 50 so he can't lightning, or when I'm sure that a saberist is below 20 I can start running chasing them. Buuuuut these could just be my ways of coping with a flawed system; I'm sure a redesign that separated FP from blaster-blocking could be enjoyable too. I like being able to dent their force usage tho.

the moment where he wasn't being shot at his FP should go up by more and should be more fluid and not stuck before the regen kicks in

His FP regen only pauses at one moment in that gif, and it's when he jumps. And it pauses cuz he jumps. It's constantly regenerating at "full speed" otherwise. At present, only force power usage (including Force Jump ) stops FP regen. The FP regen debuff of Public is gone.

That way when you are far away and dodge, you can't be touched, but if you are close range in a corridor you need to be careful lest you get burned through in a couple seconds. If this is the way the dynamic works, there would not be a need for something like flinch. This would also increase the value of teammates focusing their fire on a single jedi. Right now in public it doesn't matter for shit, you can just single tap a jedi with E-11 primary to keep him tied up all by yourself due to the FP regen, but imagine if you could focus fire someone and almost instantly kill him in like 2-3 seconds with a focused effort, assuming the guy stands still/takes all shots.

This parallels my own thinking on this topic. Tho I never said it.

 

[Lessen]

TL;DR of above two posts for anyone skimming:
increase fp regen a bunch and then increase drains a bunch (enough that a single gunner can get through the regen in a few seconds of close range accurate fire)

yeah cmon try it

 

[SeV]

TL;DR of above two posts for anyone skimming:
increase fp regen a bunch and then increase drains a bunch (enough that a single gunner can get through the regen in a few seconds of close range accurate fire)

yeah cmon try it

Since you mentioned the first beta, you reminded me. I think I played drop 1 and drop 4? Or something like that.

In the first drop of the beta, the FP drains and regen felt alot better due to them being more in line with what I wanted and had been pushing for for about a year on beta tests. The problem with drop 1 was that HP damage was too high on stuff without dmg reduction, so you had wookiees 1 shotting sith and soldier conc nades dealing huge damage, and knockdowns = death.

Drop 4 or whatever it was that I played recently, had a more public feel to its FP stuff, gimmicks to deal with such FP drains was nerfed (lmao 2ndary nades wtf?), and flinch was removed. I remember on lunarbase 15v15 I was consistently killing around 8 ppl every round as a sith (part of that was noob jedi spam that I could easily kill, but I was dispatching gunners quite easily without them being much of a threat).

So for the beta direction, I'd rather go back to something like drop 1/2 FP-wise, and fix the instagib damage and stuff and take it from there. I haven't followed the details and the numbers precisely as I do in dueling, so that's why I give my general impression here, aswell as general thoughts on how it should feel rather than going into specifics.

 

[Lessen]

Regarding "instagib damage", it's worth noting that this is just what 100 HP is actually like, without the constant 20% damage reduction of Public.

Tempest has made very clear to me that "125 HP" and "100 HP with 20% damage reduction" are evidently two different things, in MB2's code. Nevertheless, I think Jedi/Sith HP should be increased to 125 instead of giving them unstated damage reduction. It would be much more intuitive for people while still being approximately the same effect.

@SeV @Tempest beep beep

(And I do agree with your line of thought that HighRegen/HighDrains should be paired with higher effective-HP.)

Ah, another reason why it should be 125 HP instead of 100 HP 20% DR: Damage reduction has a side effect of reducing the knockback dealt (since knockback is damage-based), and currently I'm still on board with the knockback concept over the flinch concept. Higher HP would allow for beefier forcers who receive high knockback the way they oughta.

 

[Liniyka_xddd]

125 HP instead of 100 HP 20% DR

You mean 120 hp?

 

[Lessen]

You mean 120 hp?

125 * (1.0-0.2) = 100
125 is the amount of damage necessary to deal 100 damage to someone with 20% damage resistance.

For a more extreme example, observe that it'd take 200 damage to kill someone who had 50% damage resist. Not 150.

 

[Starushka]

FP drains:
I don't really like current values, they're too soft. To have a proper values we need more tests so if we want to have a release in near feature, for the best result leave FP drains as they're in public. Don't rush with implementation. New bullet velocity and removal of damage reduction should be okay for now.

Flinch:
I am still against of complete flinch removal. When I sabered 8 ppl in beta I don't feel like I have deserved a half of these kills. The interruption after getting shot in mid-swing in some form should be present and I don't think knockback is a good alternative. The knockback will cause more frustration than from 'unreliable' flinch.

Alt-frags:
I must admit I like the thrill when you face a commander with sec.nade fully charged. I'd like that component be saved after fixing super-push bug. Additional damage maybe? Or maybe no damage at all but keep super-push effect?

Deka:
I like that unshielded dekas can survive 2 yellow hits, bug it or not. I also think FP drains should be increased farther.
Remove quick deploy, decrease deploying/undeploying time by 15 - 25%. Quick deploy is too strong, you can roll and shoot all day without worrying much. Normal deploy however is too slow, no room for a mistake.

 

[Blazer]

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?

 

[ez.HTD]

FP drains:
I don't really like current values, they're too soft. To have a proper values we need more tests so if we want to have a release in near feature, for the best result leave FP drains as they're in public. Don't rush with implementation. New bullet velocity and removal of damage reduction should be okay for now.

Flinch:
I am still against of complete flinch removal. When I sabered 8 ppl in beta I don't feel like I have deserved a half of these kills. The interruption after getting shot in mid-swing in some form should be present and I don't think knockback is a good alternative. The knockback will cause more frustration than from 'unreliable' flinch.

Alt-frags:
I must admit I like the thrill when you face a commander with sec.nade fully charged. I'd like that component be saved after fixing super-push bug. Additional damage maybe? Or maybe no damage at all but keep super-push effect?

Deka:
I like that unshielded dekas can survive 2 yellow hits, bug it or not. I also think FP drains should be increased farther.
Remove quick deploy, decrease deploying/undeploying time by 15 - 25%. Quick deploy is too strong, you can roll and shoot all day without worrying much. Normal deploy however is too slow, no room for a mistake.

That deka bug actually gave deka a chance against jedi. Drains are too low even with FP3 you are lucky if you can drain a decent jedi to 30 FP before running out of ammo. With FP2 forget about even draining the jedi to 50 fp. Ammo drain to 0 in 5 secs. He can just jump on top of you and cheese you. I mean at this state why even give deka hard counters like EMP arc and ion blobs. Considering half of the team is jedi ( if you are lucky. its usually %70 ofthe team is jedi) and it HARD COUNTERS deka. It's basically just a rolling meme class at this point.