Force ''Push'' nerf / thoughts and questions.

[Sad]

This thread is basically about discussing what is to me the most overpowered ability in the game.

READ IF YOU GIVE A F ABOUT MY BACKGROUND/WHERE MY OPINIONS ORIGINATES FROM

When I first started playing mb2 in 2005, I had previous experience from co-running a JA+ clan.
Mb2 was a fresh and new experience, and the overall feel to it was more realistic, more ''star wars''.
Now, after a few days of playing the game, I quit. Why? Because the learning curve of all the important mechanics is super slow because they are not self explanatory.
Keep in mind, By then I was a 12 yr old kid from a none english speaking country (Denmark, woohoo), but I still knew a bit of english, since I had a 80+ member clan in Academy with a buddy who was around same age, but I had a really hard time figuring out how the game works.
Back then, I didn't think about googling ''How to play mb2'' and youtube didn't exist.
I never played ANY gunner class, cus I would get pushed down all the time and instantly slashed by sabers, and I think even IF I knew that I just had to ''Walk'', I still wouldn't have gotten a hang of it, not very fast at least.

Now, I recently returned to the game, after not playing since 05, and I dunno how much has changed since all I remember is being ganked, but I only knew how to play the game by watching youtube tutorials with people explaining all the mechanics.
I dunno if there was a library/tips back then, but it sure is a plus that it is added now.


READ IF YOU JUST CAME HERE FOR MY WONDERINGS

I think one of the major reasons new players give up on the game is because of force push.
If you just downloaded the game without spending some hours on reading the mechanics/watching tutorials, you'r gonna have a bad time.
As it is of now, force push takes no skill to use, UNLESS you play against an experienced player/veteran, which in my opinion is 15-25% of the players I engage with. That means the rest of the lot is gonna be spending a lot of their time lying on their but while im casually strolling over to them.
I mainly play sith/jedi because I always have a bad connection because of my cheap laptop and my country, so even though I know how to avoid getting pushed down as a gunner, it tends to happen because of my stupid latency.

MY SUGGESTIONS

1: Make push work like pull, so you at least have to AIM it. That would IMO be the best solution.
2: Increase the cost of FP.
3: Add cooldown / increase the time you'r vulnerable after using the power.
4: Make gunner gettup faster.
5: Reduce Radius / Range of Push

(Bare in mind that I dont think all the suggestions should be applied, but I think somehow you could mix and match some of them to a certain degree).

I would love to spend some more time as a gunner, and I think a lot of other players, new as old, would too.
I think nerfing push would be a key factor in contributing to that cause.

As I mentioned above, english is not my native tongue, so I apologize if the post was a ''rough reader'' to get thru.

Tell me what your thoughts are, and thank you for reading Sad

 

[Sad]

I just realised my only question is what your thoughts are, so forget the plural in the title.

 

[SomeGuy]

Something like this has been suggested many times before. It always ends with the Jedi/Sith exclusive players blowing the thread up until it gets locked. Would you want the most versatile and easiest to use thing in the entire game changed if that was the center of your plays tyle? I doubt anything will change.

 

[Jediknight Fou]

Pls push is often the only solution against this spray and pray swingblock crap.
Just suggest saberist should been removed from open and the good players can go FA.

But for real now.
You only talk about new gunners leaving because they are too lazy to walk, what about new saberist players?
When I would play this game now the first time and pick jedi/sith and see this crap, you cant swing properly without your swing canceled after hit by some luckshot, i would probably leave, surviving push is easier, just dont run. Saberists got huge nerfs the past updates, its sometimes a walk in the park game for gunners.
The only thing which makes me still playing the game is because I hope it gets better again and the biggest reason, its the only good star wars game with lightsabers at the moment.

Btw if you would read the Adjustments to General Gameplay Thread, they are thinking about changing push and give gunners sideroll.

@SomeGuy
Like any gunnernerf thread where whiny gunners jump in?^^
Currently big on the news "Snipers in tears - Do they receive nerfs in the future?"

 

[SomeGuy]

@Jediknight Fou I totally agree snipers need a nerf. An accuracy nerf from moving within the last few seconds would work IMO.

I feel the changes to knockdown would likely fix Push issues. The problem right now is Jedi is 10x easier to play than gunner, especially as a new player.

I play all classes so I'm not necessarily a gunner only player, but I also don't like to contribute to class spam so I don't usually pick J/S. Couple this with playing this mod for a ludicrous amount of time, over many years, I feel J/S is has shifted from high risk/high reward to low risk/high reward. You can see it in player trends and even the observations of new players, where I've seen some simply state that gunning is way harder so they go back to sabers.

This thread is another example. This guy has fresh eyes, comes in and sees Push is ridiculous compared to everything else. It works in practically every situation to a very high degree. Having Push the center pillar for Jedi/Sith is not good balance either. It should be a tool, not a necessity.

I want the game evenly balanced so all classes are viable. I feel from your statements that you would rather just steamroll through all classes without a saber. That doesn't work well for a multiplayer game.

 

[Manyo]

I think you're right. The problem with changing it lies within features of other classes in Mb2 which are also pretty strong (some too strong) in fighting saberists.
That's why when you propose something like that you will always get the 'how do i deal with x then?' response. And in itself that's a reasonable response, but it makes any balance discussion look like a stalemate on this forum.
But since devs are also thinking about similar changes, there is hope.

 

[kvinto]

the secret is to hold shift but don't tell anyone

 

[Gumba]

Haha did you guys know shift negates push? Because you can always see the enemy force user and they never camp in spots that gunners cant reach.

Haha

 

[Damn Polak]

yeah i remember being a whiny cantwin scrub years ago
then something changed and i started looking for an edge over saberists
after reading an article on wiki explaining IDR my average k/d started increasing slowly
i'd say force wh is more OP in right hands because you usually can't ambush a force sense user even with superior map knowledge

anyway, force push is perfectly balanced, you can counter it by not playing moviebattles playing as a deka

 

[kvinto]

Haha did you guys know shift negates push? Because you can always see the enemy force user and they never camp in spots that gunners cant reach.

Haha

HAHA and these nerfs would change that HAHA they totally cant pull in that situation either HAHA or just slash you HAHA its the sith's fault that you dont check corners HAHA

 

[Luna]

Oh boy, I've been definitely waiting for another thread about push being overpowered, although I wish push 3 wasn't mandatory tbh

 

[Luna]

yeah i remember being a whiny cantwin scrub years ago
then something changed and i started looking for an edge over saberists
after reading an article on wiki explaining IDR my average k/d started increasing slowly
i'd say force wh is more OP in right hands because you usually can't ambush a force sense user even with superior map knowledge

anyway, force push is perfectly balanced, you can counter it by not playing moviebattles playing as a deka

this post should be highlighted

 

[yoinkboink]

No one can reasonably pretend that push is fair, or balanced.
The only problem is that the loud minority of saberist mains (myself included) could never bear to get our "win button" nerfed

 

[Tempest]

Trying to think of a way to comment without having to go into lots of details about stuff...

- Rebalancing FP drains/flinch so that you can actually burn through a saberist's FP again (if they are eating every shot) while still allowing for being able to (reasonably) get in range of a gunner to kill them
- Tweaking flinch so you can't hold m1/m2 vs someone who just jumped down and auto-flinch them (mostly involves just needing to land at least one shot prior for consistency/clarity's sake; also Red/Purple get a little more leeway in the neighborhood of 2-3 shots prior). In a nutshell, low damage/high rate of fire weapons will require a little more work to flinch than higher damage weapons.
- Actually going through all of the Force powers and trying to get out of the situation where 80-90% of your build is always the same as a saberist (saber v gunner, saber v saber, and force focused builds won't all function the same with minor variance anymore). Also making there be actual choices (e.g. you can't have Push 3 and Deflect 3 at the same time) like most classes end up having to make. Additionally, making it so there's actual differences in levels/make it feel like you're actually upgrading a power when you get higher levels of it (the difference between current powers and what's in my proposal can vary from very minor tweaks to large changes; looking at you Push).

Don't quite have things nailed down for the last point but I'm hoping to get a solid rough draft by the end of this week and then some time not too far down the line from there, get a public feedback thread on my thoughts/ideas.

P.S. - Most of the tweaks to Force powers as of late were to get them to better baselines so that they could be more reasonably worked on later (such as for this).

 

[President Bossk]

Please don't let jedi become OP like it was pre-flinch. I beg you. One team would spam jedi and win every time. It sucked. I exclusively played cortosis SBD in those days because it was the only way to win without jedi spamming yourself.

 

[Jediknight Fou]

also Red/Purple get a little more leeway in the neighborhood of 2-3 shots prior). In a nutshell, low damage/high rate of fire weapons will require a little more work to flinch than higher damage weapons.

Finally some love for red/purple? DEW IT!

Actually going through all of the Force powers and trying to get out of the situation where 80-90% of your build is always the same as a saberist (saber v gunner, saber v saber, and force focused builds won't all function the same with minor variance anymore). Also making there be actual choices (e.g. you can't have Push 3 and Deflect 3 at the same time) like most classes end up having to make. Additionally, making it so there's actual differences in levels/make it feel like you're actually upgrading a power when you get higher levels of it (the difference between current powers and what's in my proposal can vary from very minor tweaks to large changes; looking at you Push).

This doesnt sound wise, but if the gunner classes gets properly nerfed, im open to this.
In my opinion forcepowers for saberist are already too expensive, there is no reason to raise the points again.
At least the costs for saberstyles could be lowered.

Please don't let jedi become OP like it was pre-flinch. I beg you. One team would spam jedi and win every time. It sucked. I exclusively played cortosis SBD in those days because it was the only way to win without jedi spamming yourself.

They were not really op, stop wetting the thread.

 

[Deleted member 1872]

I still can't understand why so many folks have an issue with force push.
I see the logic in why it is that some find it overpowered but once you understand how force push can be countered (such as by walking), this becomes a non-issue in my opinion.
As with most things in MBII, I think that skill makes all the difference when it comes down to how players use force push - as well as how other players (who know better) punish those who use the ability recklessly.

 

[SomeGuy]

I still can't understand why so many folks have an issue with force push.
I see the logic in why it is that some find it overpowered but once you understand how force push can be countered (such as by walking), this becomes a non-issue in my opinion.
As with most things in MBII, I think that skill makes all the difference when it comes down to how players use force push - as well as how other players (who know better) punish those who use the ability recklessly.

Skill is the issue I have. Push requires the least amount of skill out of anything in the game. Yes, it is easily countered. Just because you can walk doesn't mean you will win. The Jedi has every single advantage over a gunner. If the Jedi doesn't Push recklessly they will win 80% of the time. For me, I hate how every single person relies on Push like a crutch. No other ability is as universal in application. I'd love to see it toned down and other powers brought in line with it so they all are just as useful.

That's just my feeling on it, can't say for others though.

 

[Crusader]

Skill is the issue I have. Push requires the least amount of skill out of anything in the game. Yes, it is easily countered. Just because you can walk doesn't mean you will win. The Jedi has every single advantage over a gunner. If the Jedi doesn't Push recklessly they will win 80% of the time. For me, I hate how every single person relies on Push like a crutch. No other ability is as universal in application. I'd love to see it toned down and other powers brought in line with it so they all are just as useful.

That's just my feeling on it, can't say for others though.

I think you are going along the right tracks. I don't think push would be as oppressive if there weren't so many things wrong in the Jedi/Sith's kit. I personally wouldn't change push besides narrowing its cone slightly so those occasions where the Jedi/Sith clearly wasn't aiming for you when he pushed, but you some how get caught up in it don't occur. What I mean to say is that I don't believe push is directly the problem, but when you consider it somewhere among flinch not working, swing blocks going through blaster fire, fast stances hitting and blocking at the same time, duals/staff instaswinging, deflect, being able to hold block nearly endlessly, and finally damage reduction, yes: then being pushed down and killed would be pretty annoying. Once these inconsistencies are ironed out I don't think Jedi/Sith will be as problematic as it currently is. Adding a cooldown to push, or raising its FP cost would only harm support Jedi.

Some people want to remove some of push's potency to bring the class away from a push-centric meta. I think this is subjective, and while I can see the appeal in varied gameplay, I like the push tradition. People will have to form their own opinion on that.

Telling someone to just hold shift is petty and derisive. It implies a situation where a need to run does not exist.

 

[yoinkboink]

I still can't understand why so many folks have an issue with force push.
I see the logic in why it is that some find it overpowered but once you understand how force push can be countered (such as by walking), this becomes a non-issue in my opinion.
As with most things in MBII, I think that skill makes all the difference when it comes down to how players use force push - as well as how other players (who know better) punish those who use the ability recklessly.

The thing is, if you're trying to get away from a jedi, you're not going to think "the most efficient way to escape is walking."