Feedback Thread: Saber Open Beta - May 4th 2023

Nai

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Hello !

First of all i want to state the fact that i have a medium-average level in mb2.
I understand the key mechanics of the game but nothing about the numbers and the more technical side of things.
Most of what i will say about the beta is more about the "feeling" i have with it rather than the technical aspects.

-Im playing mostly in duel mode and i have a poor knowledge of Open/authentic
-Playing jka since launch somewhere around 2003
-I have a 2-3 years of experience on MB2 and i love it, so much in fact i would never go back to base/ja+
-I played a bit with all styles exept red but i mostly use Cyan, Yellow, Purple
-I love to play on movement and dodges, i run a lot, and use lots of jumping techniques, my favorite is the reverse backflip with an attack loaded before the jump.



To be short, i really enjoy the Beta !
in Fact, me and a friend from our clan (Je'daii Rag Kenobi) we currently prefer to duel on the beta =D

In the current MB2 i admit that i never really pay any attention to my ACM, i feel like its not reliable and maybe because of my style of fighting, i feel like its never full, so really i dont care about it.
But in the beta, it gets full very fast, and its more understandable.

The fights feels maybe a bit too short at first glance, but since im focusing on evading attacks its not so bad.

We uses many styles and we feel encouraged to switch during fights for more variety, the duels are fresh, fun and feels more strategic.


At first with the Cyan, i was very disapointed by the 3 hit combo limit, but then i played a bit with it and i enjoyed it, i had to use more smart moves now, which fit with my playstyle.
I could not really tell how much the parry damage perk was effective, im trying to parry more and it seem to work for me.


The purple, being faster is kinda wierd, and i dont really understand how to play it yet, i have to check further, i was not able to consistently perform the perk to add aditional swings...

For the yellow, i fought almost as usual and like it too.


The Red is now fantastic, maybe a bit OP tho..
I absolutely love the fact that red combos are not restricted anymore
If Red stays like this, it have the potential of becoming an usual first or secondary style choice for duelers since it alter duels a lot and the stagger allow for interesting mixups !

-In some Red combo, it seems that there is a sound/animation glitch somewhere, it sound like some additional swing sounds.

The Staff Perk to perfect block only by Mblocking is working fine and is a good idea however, im not good enough with the staff to use the style properly.


About the DFA/Kata :

The red Crouch DFA
is nice but the hitbox feel clunky.
you can also Chain it right after a 1/2 hits combo which is cool but powerfull since the opponent will probably mistake it for another Swing and try to block it, it makes you hesitate to go on contact with the red style.

The Red crouch DFA is also clunky and its hard to know when and how it is possible to punish it.

You can hit the first swing which had the potential for a stagger and chain the crouch DFA which also cause a Stagger, then start another combo for another potential Stagger.


The cyan poke DFA seems weak in comparaison of the blue DFA, in term of damage theses are pretty useless, they uses 2 tick of bp and when hit does 2 tick of damage to the bp.

Theses moves however can be used to push back the opponent and gain some time to regen (or push people in pits) but the cyan poke DFA push ennemies less than the blue DFA, and, considering the animation, it dosent make sense to me...
in the term of style, it would make more sense for the cyan which have only 3 combo to be able to push back the opponent rather than the blue.
also i think the blue has a better hitbox, since its very easy to punish a player who is jumping toward you and send him flying over the map.
The Cyan poke hitbox feels too clunky and its actually too risky for me too use it safely.

I think the push of the cyan and blue Crouch DFA must be at least balanced or maybe even inverted.



The cyan Jump DFA is still too hard to use and connect properly imo.

The Yellow DFA is still too op and has a hitbox that feels too large.

on theses 2 Jump DFA, when you land you should be punishable, the hit zone should be in air, not at the end during the cooldown when you are holing your saber and doing nothing, during this period (at the cooldown phase of the DFA after the landing, your saber dosent seem to damage an unarmed player, but a player with his saber in hand will get hit and sometime even disarmed as shown in my video..


Purple Kata, i dont really like it, the way it connect multiple hits seems a bit janky.

Purple could really also use a jump DFA since it is now the only style to not have one...

maybe Yellow could also use a small crouch DFA ?



The duel bubble delay when someone is in a bubble dosent really feel usefull and more annoying than anything, sometime we like to chain duels really fast and having this delay seems just annoying.

Same with the respawn timer in duel, i hope this is only active on the Beta server because it is super annoying and frustrating.



Other suggestions for the future :
Carthwheel could freeze the the position of the saber when you do it at the end of a swing, just like the backjump does,
That would allow for more acrobatics and cool looking moves, witout being more OP than the backjump, it would basically add some variety for acrobatic players.

Jumping DFA should not be able to swingblock and also at the ending cooldown of a DFA you can sometimes still disarm, which i think is a bad idea.

The DFA in General could be balanced, jumping DFA for yellow does too much damage and is hard to punish and crouch DFA could do a bit more damage (at least for cyan/blue)
i fact i think any DFA could trigger the slap cooldown to avoid the use of a direct slap after a DFA, a DFA should always be punishable and should be a meaningfull choice, not a cheap/wierd move.


Bugs :
I noted a wierd visual glitch where my saber core light disapeared leaving only the edges of the saber glow... (it maight be a local problem tho)

Ive also encoutered a saber throw glitch, where i was unable to throw my saber but only some clone of my saber hilt while keeping the actual saber in hand...


I will link a video of some of our Duels from the past few days, it include the following chapters

00:00 - Dueling and general feel of the Beta
02:05 - Red Stagger vs Staff DFA Canceling
02:19 - Possible use for the Cartwheel in duels
02:37 - More casual dueling
03:43 - Wierds Red style Sound glitches
04:04 - Red crouch DFA oddities and hitbox problems
04:54 - Other styles Special moves oddities
05:33 - Saber throw glitch
05:44 - Strange saber visual glitch
05:54 - Double Disarm !
06:15 - Interesting Cartwheel combo
06:21 - Blue vs Cyan DFA knockback distrance


To conclude, i can tell you that aside from some oddities, we enjoy the Beta a LOT !

So congratulations for the work you've made and thanks for keeping this awsome game alive ! ❤️
 
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