Future of Sabering [Part 1]

[Tempest]

Wanting to be more transparent about sabering changes, I decided to try something a bit different. Note, this is not a discussion (that's what Part 2 will be). This is to take in people's thoughts and work out some possibilities for down the road.

I'm going to start with some mechanics, problems people have with them, and some brief thoughts on possible directions to go with them:
1) Nudge
2) Perfect Block
3) Feint
4) Parrying
5) Consecutive swings / "Spamming"
6) Imbalances in offense vs defense
7) Perks / style "flavor"
8) Flinch

1) Nudge
Intention: To help with overcoming the current state of perfect block being able to stop continued swinging.
Issue: Can interfere with controls as well as make things visually cluttering.
My thought(s): Most likely removing it to give feinting a more involved place in the system (nudge basically does what feint is intended to do anyway)

2) Perfect Block
Intention: Reward players for precise blocking.
Issue: Control is taken away (even by accidental perfect block) and the reward "scaling" is skewed (stopping a combo AND allowing for a higher damage/instant counter AND having perks that scale off of it, etc)
My thought(s): Making this consistent by not allowing control to be taken away from players by accident. Taking the ability to stop continued swinging and moving it to Mblock as one possibility. Simply removing stopping combos and changing the reward for perfect blocking is another.

3) Feint
Intention: Sacrifice a swing in order to make it harder to defend
Issue: There isn't really any issue with it from what I've seen but that's most likely because it has a very minimal presence in the face of nudge.
My thought(s): Making it more prevalent/actually able to live up to what it's supposed to be used for is the main goal.

4) Parrying
Intention: Currently lets you stop ACM being built in exchange for variable minor drains
Issue: Not really any from what I've seen but I think that's because it's a more subtle factor in things
My thought(s): Making it a less subtle factor (not to a huge degree) and into more of a tool that can be used (think parrying to 1vX in Open as a possibility)

5) Consecutive swings / "Spamming"
Intention: Sacrifice ACM gain in order to add more pressure
Issue: I'm not really sure there's any inherent problem by itself.
My thought(s): As it stands, I think lowering damage for consecutive swings was the right approach but repeating swings is still an issue (both visually and risk-vs-reward-wise)

6) Imbalances in offense vs defense
With how things stand, offense is almost punished by comparison for what defending does for people. It's a fickle thing to balance but the scaling for offense and defense should be similar rather than one being linear (offense) while the other is definitely not linear (defense and all the factors that mix into it).

7) Perks / style "flavor"
Having each style able to stand out in some way is nice. Having them stand out in ways that are so subtle that you'd never know unless you went and looked it up is not. I believe that's why the perks vs guns got removed. I'd be happy to have them back but having an easier way to identify what's doing what would be important. I'm also looking at tweaking how the current perks are so they'd be in line with the considerations to the other mechanics.

8) Flinch
Intention: Allow for gunners to be able to punish sloppy swinging
Issue: It's very binary in how it works
My thought(s): Adjusting it by RoF/FP drained in a window of time or similar trains of thought

Post your thoughts/suggestions and I'll get part 2 of this rolling when it seems appropriate.

 

[Razi.]

Haha, I didn't know that what I described used to be a feature xD Well... back to brainstorming !

 

[Tempest]

Actually, what about the current build makes 1vX harder than old builds ? Surely there is the fact that wild 0 BP spam is no longer viable, and that's a major factor (yeah surely you could feel like you had control over the situation even when you had 0 BP, since all you had to do was avoid being hit and eventually by spamming with 0 BP your opponents would get 0 BP aswell), but besides that, maybe the fact that dueling is more technical and less of a random hopeful gamble ? i.e. you actually have to do more than just swing around with better timing, so of course it's harder. Timing alone is alot easier to control when running away in 1vX than swing directions and PB aim, so in older builds 1vX was easier because timing was basically the only thing you needed in duels, the rest being much less important.

I think part of what changed this is that you don't actually have to hit someone's body to drain their BP anymore (hitting saber at all on a non-PB = BP drain). I believe that is in regards to the passthrough BP drain thing you mentioned to me but I'm fairly sure that if you hit someone's saber in the past, it wouldn't count for that (kind of a variation of how parrying used to just cancel damage). Maybe "Semi-PB" should just be the case where saber hits get while defending and it's not a PB (would make sense for no/less BP drain, no ACC gain/perks/etc). Maybe it's just harder to 1vX than it used to be because it was a long time ago when the gap between the general player and those who dueled more was higher? I agree that there's not need to drastically change things to make 1vX super easy mode (RIP Q3 1vX gunners trololol) and hadn't planned on it.

 

[Sammy]

I think part of what changed this is that you don't actually have to hit someone's body to drain their BP anymore (hitting saber at all on a non-PB = BP drain). I believe that is in regards to the passthrough BP drain thing you mentioned to me but I'm fairly sure that if you hit someone's saber in the past, it wouldn't count for that (kind of a variation of how parrying used to just cancel damage). Maybe "Semi-PB" should just be the case where saber hits get while defending and it's not a PB (would make sense for no/less BP drain, no ACC gain/perks/etc). Maybe it's just harder to 1vX than it used to be because it was a long time ago when the gap between the general player and those who dueled more was higher? I agree that there's not need to drastically change things to make 1vX super easy mode (RIP Q3 1vX gunners trololol) and hadn't planned on it.

Given you cannot pb multiple players at once may be a reason it no longer is as viable. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in previous builds you needed to be bodyhitted to be drained no matter how many people hit you, right?

 

[Magnøs]

Spoiler: Nudge

1) Nudge
My thought(s): Most likely removing it to give feinting a more involved place in the system (nudge basically does what feint is intended to do anyway)

& remove the Blue from the game bring all the stuff to line with non-nudge system.

Spoiler: Perfect Block

2) Perfect Block
My thought(s): Making this consistent by not allowing control to be taken away from players by accident. Taking the ability to stop continued swinging and moving it to Mblock as one possibility. Simply removing stopping combos and changing the reward for perfect blocking is another.

Innovation 2: Being mblocked while swingblocked now triggers a stagger with all styles, but duration of a stager is different for different styles.
(Light < Medium < Heavy)

& bring mblock's cool-down into line with the new feature.
Also, take the ability to stop continued swinging and move it to counters performed off of a full perfect block.
Remove or vary increased BP damage of instant counters for reasons of balance.

Spoiler: Perks / style "flavor"

7) Perks / style "flavor"
Having each style able to stand out in some way is nice. Having them stand out in ways that are so subtle that you'd never know unless you went and looked it up is not. I believe that's why the perks vs guns got removed. I'd be happy to have them back but having an easier way to identify what's doing what would be important. I'm also looking at tweaking how the current perks are so they'd be in line with the considerations to the other mechanics.

Staff also benefits from this saber vs saber perk. Remove “disarming without need to PB” perk from the staff.

Or consider "disarming without need to PB" as a full perk by analogy with a stager of the Red (this perk seems poorly compatible with the proposed changes & highly recommended to be removed).
As one of the possible variants – give BP drain from successful slaps to staff by analogy with dual style (which looks logically enough because slap with staff/dual is a kick & also quite balanced).

Remove BP drain from dual style slapping or give it only for successful slaps.

Has sufficient capacity already.

Red BP drain on PB perk removed and DOESN'T given to cyan.

The perk is poorly compatible with the proposed changes & the style has sufficient capacity already.

As for "style flavor". At first, I prefer to differentiate the concepts of style & stance.
Stance – the styles that offered in the game: Yellow, Red, Blue etc.
Style – depends upon the player: aggressive pressure & savage yaw, feint-parry-riposte, acrobatic mad bantha etc.
Secondly, in the current build you have no much choice. Nudge or be nudged. Yes, you may try to shadowswing but that's all. Acrobatic elements are generally unusable in a duel with a same skilled opponent, to say nothing of 1vX, even if you have the superior skill.

Spoiler: 1vsX

3) Feint
My thought(s): Making it more prevalent/actually able to live up to what it's supposed to be used for is the main goal.

Simple removing nudge is enough to. But there is something more below.

4) Parrying
My thought(s): Making it a less subtle factor (not to a huge degree) and into more of a tool that can be used (think parrying to 1vX in Open as a possibility

Innovation 1: Parry triggers blue flashes on the crosshair and BP bar.

To make parry more transparent for an opportunity to learn and use it better.

As for 1vX:

1. Remove BP drain from non-force jumps & low acrobatic jumps which already drain FP but retain BP drain from high jumps to prevent abusive jumping to the ceiling (can be performed by increasing the amount of time before a jump will drain BP)
2. Swings cost the same amount of BP in any position (such as midair). (Increased BP drain by get hit & no regeneration while running/jumping is the sufficient price for mobility.)
3. Remove increased BP drain by get hit while crouching (dealing decreased BP damage & no regeneration is quite enough; it may be used to avoid some aw/dw swings which is especially important in a 1vX situation).
4. Allow to chaining swings in a combo without limitations in amount of swings until the first collision with a target (saber/body), then use the regular limitations. (This Innovation has several appointments, one of them is improve the so-called feint, make it more prevalent/actual.)
5. Change the Force-Sense system:

• Sense activation imposes a limit on amount of available FP instead of draining & allows to regenerate it up to a set limit (speed of the regeneration may be decreased for reasons of balance).
• Activated Sense has no time limit.
• Remove the sound of activation for all except a user or make it the same volume as mindtrick.
• Higher level Sense makes a force-user invisible for lower level Sence while is active (if levels are same, "invisibility" doesn't work).

(This recast is a double-edged sword. On one side, force-sensitives will have the advantage at vision, so it will be difficult to surprise them, like it should be (Ep. 2, Kenobi in the bar); on the other, reduced amount of available FP will make them easier to get shot.
Force Sense "invisibility" will reproduces the so-called Force stealth)​

Spoiler: Other

5) Consecutive swings / "Spamming"
Intention: Sacrifice ACM gain in order to add more pressure
Issue: I'm not really sure there's any inherent problem by itself.
My thought(s): As it stands, I think lowering damage for consecutive swings was the right approach but repeating swings is still an issue (both visually and risk-vs-reward-wise)

Repeated swings by themselves without nudge & with all proposed stuff it won't be an issue but a feature.

8) Flinch
My thought(s): Adjusting it by RoF/FP drained in a window of time or similar trains of thought

& also nesecarry to adjust many other things such as dash (remove and replace with something balanced, with a grappling hook, for example), shield discharge (increase add a cool-down), SBD's cortosis (remove, of course) & slap (the same) & many-many more.

 

[Liniyka_xddd]

& also nesecarry to adjust many other things such as dash (remove and replace with something balanced, with grabber hook, for example), shield discharge (increase add a cool-down), SBD's cortosis (remove, of course) & slap (the same) & many-many more.

So you just want to remove all the things that counter jedi/sith huh? Nice thinking. Btw you forgot to add poison darts to that list.

 

[T r i s t a n]

My suggestion would be to implement a back-block animation, or really any way to counter a back-wack when you are surrounded.

My suggestion would be something similar to slap, you could press the assigned key to back-block, when pressed would instantly block the incoming strike, at the cost of BP of course. Then it would go on a 3 second cool down or something. This would help the single duelist who may very well be a better duelist and could be winning the duel, but there is the hazard of the players who swarm for the back-wack even at the cost of their own life at most times. These kamakazi back-wacks exist. This little suggestion would help counter that.
It would also allow the single duelist to push for a better face to face position with his/her opponents to take advantage of the dueling system, which as it should be, primarily is focused on 1 v 1. I am sure there are back block animations kicking around the Jedi Academy interspace... If not I may very well animate them myself...
If of course this was in fact a decent suggestion.

 

[Sammy]

My suggestion would be to implement a back-block animation, or really any way to counter a back-wack when you are surrounded.

My suggestion would be something similar to slap, you could press the assigned key to back-block, when pressed would instantly block the incoming strike, at the cost of BP of course. Then it would go on a 3 second cool down or something. This would help the single duelist who may very well be a better duelist and could be winning the duel, but there is the hazard of the players who swarm for the back-wack even at the cost of their own life at most times. These kamakazi back-wacks exist. This little suggestion would help counter that.
It would also allow the single duelist to push for a better face to face position with his/her opponents to take advantage of the dueling system, which as it should be, primarily is focused on 1 v 1. I am sure there are back block animations kicking around the Jedi Academy interspace... If not I may very well animate them myself...
If of course this was in fact a decent suggestion.

I really like this idea. A reward for good timing and skill

 

[Razi.]

Pretty cool idea, the back blocking. Something like that would be awesome - 0:39 to 0:41

 

[T r i s t a n]

Pretty cool idea, the back blocking. Something like that would be awesome - 0:39 to 0:41

0:39 - 0:41 EXACTLY

 

[Noob]

Here is a better example. 3:30 to about 3:34

I like the idea, but you better find an animator that wants to do it!

 

[Tempest]

I think I've seen some animations like that. If other devs were fine with it, I'd be fine with having that as the replacement for my idea of allowing the backswing on demand. If it had deflect potential, imagine sense to see a gunner and baiting them into deflecting from your back? Mb2 esports right there.

 

[Noob]

Like that mace windu back deflect at geo arena.

 

[T r i s t a n]

I feel good about myself
All warm and fuzzy inside.