Future(s) of Sabering [Part 2]

[Tempest]

So, I've continued tweaking my own thoughts for the system, read through everything you guys have posted in Part 1, and even gone back and read through the entire 1.4 Open Beta Feedback thread (among many other threads). Been interesting to see the ideas/feedback everyone had then and I even found some ideas that I think I missed at some point which I've noted down for consideration.

So, that said, here's what I've got for you guys. Given this is basically a copypaste from a text file, things that were added in and haven't been thought through/adjusted will probably retain ? on them.

Color code:
√ = Tested to be working/finalized.
Green = Ready to be tested
Yellow = Work in progress
Orange = Planned but not working on it yet
No color = up in the air/awaiting further discussion

Changes:

Spoiler: Overall

General

• Can now backswing on demand for 10-15 FP (Input = use + back + attack)
• Parry indicator added on crosshair and BP bar. Only Showing indicator for Perfect Parry
• Indicator for successful Mblock (for swingblock stuff)
• Repeated swings adjusted
  
• Flinch now based on rate of fire of weapon as well as the amount of FP that is drained per shot (some kind of table of what does what and when TBA)
• Animation tweaks down the line (to differentiate between cyan and purple more easily)

Experimental:

• Nudge now a toggle
  
• PB angles tweaked slightly for diagonals (also need to make sure pb zones don't overlap at all if it continues to be a problem..)
• Rewording slap change to be less confusing: Slap vs gunners will remain the same. Slap will now cause the current health drain when tapped/held very shortly. If "charged", you will be able to mini-stagger an opponent (for an increased cooldown). If hit while not blocking, they will still fall regardless of short/charged slap. This essentially means that this change will only affect slap vs saberists that are (swing)blocking.
• Reduced damage reduction to 10% instead of 20%? Depends on flinch stuff
  
• If you have ___ ACM advantage and land a body hit on a target (with less than half of your current BP?), target will have a short movement speed reduction and/or you gain a short movement speed increase
  
• Separating some things between duel/open mode?

Saber Drains/Multipliers (not changing, just confirming/listing for people to see; green is confirmed):

• Running, not swingblocking: 1.0x [√]
• Walking, not swingblocking: 1.1x [√]
• Walking, swingblocking: 1.0x [√]
• Hit while running, full swing: 1.2x
• Hit while running, counter swing: 1.2x
• Hit while crouching: 1.5x
  
• Perfect block counter: 1.2x or BP drain of body hit equivalent of defender's style?

Spoiler: Mechanics

Perfect Block (PB)

• No damage from attacker [√]
• Allows for faster counter [√]
• If done against a non-swingblock, target will not be able to continue chaining swingsCombo breaking moved to Mblock
• PB zone adjusted for when opponent isn't facing you

Flinch/Stagger

• No longer applies to special moves
• Saber-out jumping kicks now mini-stagger regardless of blocking

Parrying

• Lack of indicator is basically the indicator that a non-perfect parry happened.
• Perfect Parry (just testing to see how it is with all styles first; if it doesn't work out, it's going back to Cyan)
  
  
  • Blue indicator
    
  • Done by matching the incoming swing (quadrant-wise) with the matching outgoing swing or direct opposite direction and side swing (i.e. incoming top left could be perfect parried by an outgoing backward + left; incoming WA vs outgoing SA)
  • Will stop both saberist's swing chain (unless using Cyan).

Feint

• Changed back to not needing feint for red style hops

Manual Block (Mblock)

• Allows for combo-breaking vs swingblock.
  
• If you successfully Mblock vs a swingblock, you will stop the attacker from being able to continue swinging and deal 6 BP damage to them (except for Red).
  
• If you fail your Mblock (vs any swing), you take BP damage (4 vs Fast styles, 6 vs Medium styles (and Purple), and 8 vs Red).

Counter

• PB counters can no longer have counters performed off of them?

ACC/ACM

• Same rules for drains/gains
• Every +2 of ACM = 1 extra BP damage added to parry drain
  
• Change damage multiplier to be tied to per style?

Nudge

• Now only happens if you get interrupted (aka if you hit at start of swing -> lets you have the chance to do a half swing/counter after being interrupted)

Spoiler: Styles

Wanted to avoid vagueness on offense/defense changes so the values are here as well.

Fast Styles​

Cyan

• Offense value remains unchanged
  
• Defense value lowered from 58->57
• Swing limit lowered to 4

Perk:
- From: 8 BP drain on PB; Removal complete.
- To: Doesn't get stopped from continuing swings after a Perfect Parry

Blue

• Offense value decreased from 8->7
  
• Defense value remains unchanged
• Loses 1 ACC when PB'd

Perk:
- From: 2x faster Force Focus on targets, 2x longer on self (this is being moved to force stuff which will be detailed in another thread); Removal complete.
- To: 6 BP drained from attackers on PB (compared to Cyan's 8 on live) [√]

Medium Styles​

Yellow

• Offense value decreased from 12->11
  
• Defense value unchanged

Perk:
- From: -1 ACM to attackers on PB, -2 vs fast styles Removal complete.
- To: Doesn't suffer from Mblock BP drain on failing. There's an innate cooldown to being able to successfully Mblock so it wouldn't be spammable.

Staff

• Offense value unchanged
  
• Defense value decreased unchanged
  
• Gotta make sure staff trying to mblock on a pblock isn't janky
• Possibly let Staff get saber throw (javelin throws anyone?)

Perk:
- From: Doesn't require PB to successfully Mblock (including correct quadrant...) and staggers on successful Mblock
- To: Doesn't require a PB to be succesful (correct quadrant though still) OR gives +1 ACM if it IS done on a PB OR replace yellow's current perk and give to staff?
- To: Still being looked at (was a typo here for what had been added/moved); Mblock can now be done without a PB if the quadrant for the incoming swing is correct. Stagger functionality remains the same.

Duals

• Offense value remains the same at 10 (keeping this even/slightly lower than yellow because of swing count for now)
• Defense value decreased from 54->53
• Something something upgraded slap/special 2 + use moves?
• Stabs cost 1? ACM to use or __ BP if no ACM built up (in addition to 30 FP)?

Perk:
- From: 8 BP drain on successful special moves. Removal complete
- To: Consecutive hits grant +1 ACM (still reduced damage) if done after a half swing
- To: Consecutive swings are 0.75x damage instead of 0.5x

Heavy Styles​

Red

• Offense value increased from 15->17 (was 20 in 1.3 for the record)
• Defense value remains unchanged
  
• No BP drain from being Mblocked on a swingblock
  
• PB counter = stagger?

Perk:
- From: Third swing causes stagger
- To: Full swing from idle will stagger if not PB'd OR increase duration back to 1.3 duration?
- To: Still readjusting.
Purple

• Offense value remains unchanged
  
• Defense value remains unchanged

Perk
- From: +1 ACC on PB
- To: Leaving it as is for now to see how it plays with the other changes.

So there you have it. I am writing follow-ups to the things I left considered as up in the air but wanted to let people start reading through things before I got through with that. I know some things could possibly (over)complicate some aspects but this isn't an all or nothing with possibilities. To further expand on what's in the air (by section):
Overall
1) Repeated swings
Quite likely going to change these to make it so you can only do one repeated swing in a row or just making it a middle-ground to how it used to be (so that it would be that you have to change what swing you do, wouldn't be locked into combo strings though)
2) Perfect block stuff
- Top-down diagonal zones seem off compared to down-up but I'm going to check and verify on this.
3) Damage reduction..reduction
- Once flinch gets tweaked to not be so binary, I think it might be worth looking at lowering the damage reduction to make up for it being more consistent

Mechanics
1) PB stuff
- I'd like to keep the no damage (as it's always been) and faster counter as the reward for doing it properly
- I think changing the combo stopping to just a non-swingblock would make it less binary
- Other thoughts are just things I picked up from reading back in other threads for people to consider
2) Perfect Parry
- I wanted to implement a more active way of being able to stop combos without it being a solely defensive concept
3) Counters
- I'm not entirely sure about the PB counters being unable to be performed after, but this is mostly in the case that PB stopping combos stays in the system
ACC/ACM
- Just leaving these thoughts out in the air
4) Nudge
- I think it has a purpose but the current way it's done hasn't really been ENJOYED by basically anyone since it was put in

Styles
Mostly just going to wait and see what people think about things for these.

P.S. This doesn't mean saber vs gunner perks aren't going to happen. There just wasn't much said about how to make them more fair (aka not super subtle random bonuses to styles) and getting flinch to be less binary is a good start regardless.

 

[Sammy]

I like a lot of these ideas, keep them coming.

 

[Preston]

I have not finish reading all of it this yet, but like 99% of these sound great. I just got a bit to excited to not comment.
K finished reading, love almost all of it, may discuss later.

 

[SomeGuy]

That emphasis on parrying will probably lead to much more cinematic duels. Sounds cool.

 

[StarWarsGeek]

Slap changed to a mini-stagger instead of a knockdown

RIP all of my dueling strategies. It's about time this happened though. Constantly knocking people down during duels (and punching them) isn't very movie-like.

 

[Tempest]

RIP all of my dueling strategies. It's about time this happened though. Constantly knocking people down during duels (and punching them) isn't very movie-like.

I think I had some weird copypaste thing when trying to move some stuff around (trying to get bullet points without them copying other formatting is annoying sometimes). I was thinking of making slap a mini-stagger if you "charge" it somehow so that it's a mini-stagger while just tapping it as it currently is would give just the standard HP drain (and ofc keeping knockdown vs runners not needing a charge). Maybe make the cooldown tied to how long you charge it/whatever effect you got out of it to balance it out? Making duals not require the charge up or just keeping that for duals for the people who want to keep going ham with their knockdowns?

 

[kvinto]

Spoiler: Overall

General

• Repeated swings adjusted - No idea what it means

Experimental:

• PB angles tweaked slightly for diagonals (also need to make sure pb zones don't overlap at all if it continues to be a problem..) - Don't know what you mean
• Reduced damage reduction to 10% instead of 20%? - Awesome.
• If you have ___ ACM advantage and land a body hit on a target (with less than half of your current BP?), target will have a short movement speed reduction and/or you gain a short movement speed increase - Cool. Random jedi/sith won't just run away for 2 minutes in open beacuse they lost bp.
  
• Body hit damage now changes in swing chains. Each half swing will increase the damage by ___x while a consecutive swing will decrease it by the same multiplier
  
• Swing limit based on halfswing and consecutive swings performed in one chain? - ?
• Mblock + PB = mini-stagger? - I don't like it.
• Separating some things between duel/open mode - What things?

Spoiler: Mechanics

Perfect Block (PB)

• No damage from attacker - Good
• Allows for faster counter - Good
• If done against a non-swingblock, target will not be able to continue chaining swings? - This is cool. Finally punishing beacuse the opponent didn't do something he was supposed to do but not sure how it will work beacuse you have to let go of block to continue combo.
• PB possibly reduce swing chain ability? - Cool
• Make swing after PB do less damage? - This was my suggestion in 1.4 beta feedback so i obv like it.

Parrying
Perfect Parry:

• Done by matching the incoming swing (quadrant-wise) with the matching outgoing swing or direct opposite direction and side swing (i.e. incoming top left could be perfect parried by an outgoing backward + left; incoming WA vs outgoing SA)?
  
• If executed properly, swing chains will no longer continue - I don't like it. Your combo stopping out of nowhere. It will have the same feeling as pb stopping combos.

Feint

• Could allow for follow up hit & next hit to both get ACM? - If i get it right you will get 2 acm for red combo? That's kinda strong. I really liked feinting with red in 1.3 and it was good back then WITH limited combo directions.

Manual Block (Mblock)

• Drains 1 ACM when successful vs a swingblock and 4 BP - No. Punishing someone for doing what he's supposed to do.
  
• Lose 4(?) BP if executed unsuccessfully vs saber swings - This is cool but only lose bp when you click too early/too late or move in the wrong direction.
• Remove movement requirement and make it based on what quadrant you're looking at currently? Would probably have to readjust staff for this though.. - Wouldn't it make mblock too easy? We'll have to see.

Counter

• PB counters can no longer have counters performed off of them

ACC/ACM

• Increases parry damage? - This. Red without nudge will probably be terrible vs blue/cyan combo spam
• Change damage multiplier to be tied to per style? - I like it the way it is.

Nudge

• Now only happens if you get interrupted (aka if you hit at start of swing -> lets you have the chance to do a half swing/counter after being interrupted) - Why not just remove it completely?

Spoiler: Styles

Wanted to avoid vagueness on offense/defense changes so the values are here as well.

Fast Styles​

Cyan

• Extra damage on swing interrupts
• Offense value remains unchanged
  
• Defense value lowered from 58->57

Perk:
- From: 8 BP drain on PB
- To: +1 ACM on perfect parry OR allowing a half swing on successful perfect parry - This is can be op and im disappoined cyan is not removed. We're getting massive saber changes every update now, can we focus on balancing things and then add new stuff?(well cyan is not new anymore but you know what i mean)

Blue

• Offense value remains unchanged
• Defense value remains unchanged

Perk:
- From: 2x faster Force Focus on targets, 2x longer on self (this is being moved to force stuff which will be detailed in another thread)
- To: 6 BP drained from attackers on PB (compared to Cyan's 8 on live) - No opinion on that for now.

Medium Styles​

Yellow

• Offense value decreased from 12->11
  
• Defense value decreased from 56->54 - I like these two if we keep yellow perk otherwise - no.

Perk:
- From: -1 ACM to attackers on PB
- To: -2 ACM on PB counter body hit (initial body hit drain rule + bonus -1 drain if landed)? lose 1 ACM when perfect parried? - Or maybe we could give yellow better offense and defense and remove the perk like it was in 1.3 making it the best style to learn things for newbies but also a good style for advanced users? Yellow in 1.3 was bad and maybe just a basic buff will make it balanced instead of giving it perk.

Staff

• Offense value decreased from 11->10 - I think staff is bad in 1.4 so i don't know why nerf but we'll have to see how it is without nudge and with other changes.
  
• Defense value decreased unchanged
  
• Spin moves do mini-stagger if not PB'd? - I don't like this one.
• Gotta make sure staff trying to mblock on a pblock isn't janky

Perk:
- From: Doesn't require PB to successfully Mblock (including correct quadrant...) and staggers on successful Mblock
- To: Doesn't require a PB to be succesful (correct quadrant though still) OR gives +1 ACM if it IS done on a PB OR replace yellow's perk and give to staff? - Staff has 2 perks now so maybe just remove one and leave the other one? Easier mblock or more powerful one.

Duals

• Offense value increased from 10->12
  
• Defense value decreased from 54->53 - Im disappoined duals are not removed. I never took duals seriously 90% of the time they were used it was clueless newbies or repulsing trolls just to parry everything. If i saw someone using duals and he knew what was he doing it was combo + stab, combo + stab, repeat, repeat, repeat.
  
• Something something upgraded slap/special 2 + use moves?
• Spin moves do more damage? - No. What i said about clueless newbies.

Perk:
- From: 8 BP drain on successful special moves
- To: Consecutive hits grant +1 ACM (still reduced damage) if done after a half swing

Heavy Styles​

Red

• Offense value increased from 15->17 (was 20 in 1.3 for the record) - I like it. Red in 1.4 is basically spam nudge or die.(speaking of values can we get list of them or are they somewhere?)
• Defense value remains unchanged
  
• No BP drain from being Mblocked on a swingblock - I don't like the suggestion of mblock draining bp from any style when swingblocked.
  
• PB counter = stagger?

Perk:
- From: Third swing causes stagger
- To: Full swing from idle will stagger if not PB'd OR increase duration back to 1.3 duration? - Increase the duration.
Purple

• Offense value remains unchanged
  
• Defense value remains unchanged

Perk
- From: +1 ACM on PB
- To: Extra damage on perfect parry - I don't like perfect parry and im also disappointed purple is not removed.

The changes you started working on are really cool and a lot of suggestions are good too. Would be cool if you could explain the things i said i don't get.
Hope my opinion/suggestions help you somehow.

 

[Razi.]

Changes sound pretty cool to be honest.Limiting or removing nudge will bring back the beauty to the lightsaber combat. I'm really curious to see how gameplay with a focus on parrying and no knock downs from slaps will turn out to be. The image of real jedi/sith, more movie-like duels pops up in my head. Me likey.

 

[Sammy]

I'm not sure if this was in previous builds, but removing bp drain on parry (red vs cyan/blue) etc would make sense.

 

[Smee]

I think that the purple kata should be changed so that you can move while using it, then it might actually be useful (eg if someone does a jump attack you cut them in half with it)

 

[Tempest]

@Quinto

Spoiler: Overall

General

• Repeated swings adjusted - No idea what it means

Spoiler: Overall response

I'm not entirely sure on what I wanted to do with the repeated swing issue (which is that you can basically just do A A A A, WD WD WD, etc which takes very little effort for lots of gimmicky annoyance & looks silly). My main consideration at the moment is just making you do a different swing each time (TBH repeated swings are gimmicky and don't really make sense from an actual combat sense) or limiting it to 1 repeated swing -> change.

Spoiler: Experimental

Experimental:

• PB angles tweaked slightly for diagonals (also need to make sure pb zones don't overlap at all if it continues to be a problem..) - Don't know what you mean
• Reduced damage reduction to 10% instead of 20%? - Awesome.
• If you have ___ ACM advantage and land a body hit on a target (with less than half of your current BP?), target will have a short movement speed reduction and/or you gain a short movement speed increase - Cool. Random jedi/sith won't just run away for 2 minutes in open beacuse they lost bp.
  
• Body hit damage now changes in swing chains. Each half swing will increase the damage by ___x while a consecutive swing will decrease it by the same multiplier
  
• Swing limit based on halfswing and consecutive swings performed in one chain? - ?
• Mblock + PB = mini-stagger? - I don't like it.
• Separating some things between duel/open mode - What things?

Spoiler: Experimental response

1) Currently, there are some spots that the perfect block zones can overlap, making it so you don't have to actually adjust your aim as you should be doing. Aside from that, diagonals seem kind of inconsistent and I'd just like to make sure they're behaving properly/iron out their zones. Once I get that done I'll see if I can get some screenshots/videos of where the zones are for everyone's reference.
2) I know you didn't have a question about the damage reduction (since it was pretty straightforward I'd assume, heh) but I'd like to add a comment for everyone. I don't want gunners facerolling saberists. I don't want saberists going back to pre-flinch lawnmowing either. I believe we can get a happy medium where the intentions of changes like flinch meet the actual implementation (or at least slightly better if they're not too far off). Once flinch is tuned down, I think saberists won't need the extra damage reduction (and this is also coming from someone who mainly prefers support saberist in Open).
3) This idea is 100% aimed at the "oh I just took a big chunk of BP so let me dance around for 3 minutes while trying to regen 1 tick every 20s" that we all love so much. It's also aimed at helping keep momentum in the favor of those who are deftly winning their duels (there may need to be some adjustments per style so that fast styles don't get shafted in the event that ACM drain is too quick) but (hopefully) not making it too difficult to recover.
4) For body hit damage changing in swings, it would be similar to how the current swing damage changes based on consecutive swings or half swings but letting you do more damage for landing more precise/controlled swings.
5) This is a pretty complicated idea that I had thought of (mostly in regards to PB combo stopping). It closely relates to the point before it with the body hit damage increasing in chain swings. The idea would basically be this:
Let's say you're using yellow and have a swing limit of 4 by default (using 1.4.2's current limit of course). Your first swing that you land puts you at a count of 3 total swings that you can continue to do. Now let's say you do two consecutive swings in a row. That puts you at 1 swing left. My idea would come into having it so that if you then did 2 (as just a random starting number) half swings instead of another consecutive swing, that would then either keep your swing limit at 1 until you do another consecutive swing or even raise the limit to 2 (maybe a rate of 2 more precise swings to kind of "catch your breath" amidst all the other swings before you can start doing more, if that makes sense?). I'm mainly trying to avoid complexity while also adding depth but that would definitely make things a bit more complicated.
6) This was mainly just a thought I picked up from a thread and thought would be worth for people to look at.
7) Mainly just giving servers the option of turning some things off like the swing limit idea to avoid making Open less convoluted for sabers (though I think if I do it right, there won't be much/any conflict for Open saber play).

Spoiler: Mechanics

Perfect Block (PB)

• No damage from attacker - Good
• Allows for faster counter - Good
• If done against a non-swingblock, target will not be able to continue chaining swings? - This is cool. Finally punishing beacuse the opponent didn't do something he was supposed to do but not sure how it will work beacuse you have to let go of block to continue combo.
• PB possibly reduce swing chain ability? - Cool
• Make swing after PB do less damage? - This was my suggestion in 1.4 beta feedback so i obv like it.

Parrying
Perfect Parry:

• Done by matching the incoming swing (quadrant-wise) with the matching outgoing swing or direct opposite direction and side swing (i.e. incoming top left could be perfect parried by an outgoing backward + left; incoming WA vs outgoing SA)?
  
• If executed properly, swing chains will no longer continue - I don't like it. Your combo stopping out of nowhere. It will have the same feeling as pb stopping combos.

Feint

• Could allow for follow up hit & next hit to both get ACM? - If i get it right you will get 2 acm for red combo? That's kinda strong. I really liked feinting with red in 1.3 and it was good back then WITH limited combo directions.

Manual Block (Mblock)

• Drains 1 ACM when successful vs a swingblock and 4 BP - No. Punishing someone for doing what he's supposed to do.
  
• Lose 4(?) BP if executed unsuccessfully vs saber swings - This is cool but only lose bp when you click too early/too late or move in the wrong direction.
• Remove movement requirement and make it based on what quadrant you're looking at currently? Would probably have to readjust staff for this though.. - Wouldn't it make mblock too easy? We'll have to see.

Counter

• PB counters can no longer have counters performed off of them

ACC/ACM

• Increases parry damage? - This. Red without nudge will probably be terrible vs blue/cyan combo spam
• Change damage multiplier to be tied to per style? - I like it the way it is.

Nudge

• Now only happens if you get interrupted (aka if you hit at start of swing -> lets you have the chance to do a half swing/counter after being interrupted) - Why not just remove it completely?

Spoiler: Mechanics response

PB
1) I think this is the best middle-ground for letting PB stop sloppy or to punish reckless] play vs someone that's practiced their defense. I definitely don't want people feeling punished for doing what they're supposed to (i.e. swingblock to avoid Mblock) but also not making it too easy/passive for the reward (current PB).
2) Perfect Parry
This won't be on just any parry. However, I was testing this with Cyan and it was hard to do on purpose (for matching the swings). I think the idea is good but I do plan to iron out anything like this 150% before letting it become a thing. An alternative to making it stop combos could be that it just makes you have to do a half swing if you want to continue (basically same condition for current countering).
3) Feint
You understood correctly that if you were using Red and feinted your first swing (assuming 3 swing limit) and then hit that swing -> and the follow up (assuming body hits as well), you would get +2 ACM. Could make it so that it's only on half swings for red or something. I just want to see feinting become a more prominent part of offense.
4) Mblock
- I know that I said I didn't want to punish people for doing correct things vs mechanics (swingblock vs Mblock) but I'd like to add that most people have difficulty doing Mblocks. If someone takes the time to practice it and get it down enough to be able to do it so consistently that a 4 BP drain per Mblock is successful and is causing a problem, I think they'd be pretty good and should get rewarded. However, I do agree that a BP drain on it as well as an ACM drain could end up being too much. If it is, then I will keep it to -1 ACM.
- Those would qualify as doing it unsuccessfully
- You're right that it might make it too easy, but it's also pretty janky currently. Definitely an experimental thing that will be closely looked at.
5) ACM
- The parry damage increase is probably the first change I thought up that Stassin and I both agreed would probably be a good addition to the system .
- The multiplier per style is just something to look at like a few other things. Probably won't end up being a thing.
6) Nudge
- I know nudge is a pain and most people hate it but I think moving it to what happens if you get interrupted would actually be a good thing. As it stands currently, if you get interrupted, your inputs basically get borked with it trying to register between "oh you can counter now?", "oh hi let's nudge you if you're too close", and a few other minor things. This would take you from getting your controls flopped from it trying to reset stuff and you trying to continue to -> swing got interrupted, give the person a chance to do something or be able to stop if they want to, more or less. Note, it'd be more along the lines of what flinch does to saberists, just to clarify.

Spoiler: Styles

Wanted to avoid vagueness on offense/defense changes so the values are here as well.

Fast Styles​

Cyan

• Extra damage on swing interrupts
• Offense value remains unchanged
  
• Defense value lowered from 58->57

Perk:
- From: 8 BP drain on PB
- To: +1 ACM on perfect parry OR allowing a half swing on successful perfect parry - This is can be op and im disappoined cyan is not removed. We're getting massive saber changes every update now, can we focus on balancing things and then add new stuff?(well cyan is not new anymore but you know what i mean)

Blue

• Offense value remains unchanged
• Defense value remains unchanged

Perk:
- From: 2x faster Force Focus on targets, 2x longer on self (this is being moved to force stuff which will be detailed in another thread)
- To: 6 BP drained from attackers on PB (compared to Cyan's 8 on live) - No opinion on that for now.

Medium Styles​

Yellow

• Offense value decreased from 12->11
  
• Defense value decreased from 56->54 - I like these two if we keep yellow perk otherwise - no.

Perk:
- From: -1 ACM to attackers on PB
- To: -2 ACM on PB counter body hit (initial body hit drain rule + bonus -1 drain if landed)? lose 1 ACM when perfect parried? - Or maybe we could give yellow better offense and defense and remove the perk like it was in 1.3 making it the best style to learn things for newbies but also a good style for advanced users? Yellow in 1.3 was bad and maybe just a basic buff will make it balanced instead of giving it perk.

Staff

• Offense value decreased from 11->10 - I think staff is bad in 1.4 so i don't know why nerf but we'll have to see how it is without nudge and with other changes.
  
• Defense value decreased unchanged
  
• Spin moves do mini-stagger if not PB'd? - I don't like this one.
• Gotta make sure staff trying to mblock on a pblock isn't janky

Perk:
- From: Doesn't require PB to successfully Mblock (including correct quadrant...) and staggers on successful Mblock
- To: Doesn't require a PB to be succesful (correct quadrant though still) OR gives +1 ACM if it IS done on a PB OR replace yellow's perk and give to staff? - Staff has 2 perks now so maybe just remove one and leave the other one? Easier mblock or more powerful one.

Duals

• Offense value increased from 10->12
  
• Defense value decreased from 54->53 - Im disappoined duals are not removed. I never took duals seriously 90% of the time they were used it was clueless newbies or repulsing trolls just to parry everything. If i saw someone using duals and he knew what was he doing it was combo + stab, combo + stab, repeat, repeat, repeat.
  
• Something something upgraded slap/special 2 + use moves?
• Spin moves do more damage? - No. What i said about clueless newbies.

Perk:
- From: 8 BP drain on successful special moves
- To: Consecutive hits grant +1 ACM (still reduced damage) if done after a half swing

Heavy Styles​

Red

• Offense value increased from 15->17 (was 20 in 1.3 for the record) - I like it. Red in 1.4 is basically spam nudge or die.(speaking of values can we get list of them or are they somewhere?)
• Defense value remains unchanged
  
• No BP drain from being Mblocked on a swingblock - I don't like the suggestion of mblock draining bp from any style when swingblocked.
  
• PB counter = stagger?

Perk:
- From: Third swing causes stagger
- To: Full swing from idle will stagger if not PB'd OR increase duration back to 1.3 duration? - Increase the duration.
Purple

• Offense value remains unchanged
  
• Defense value remains unchanged

Perk
- From: +1 ACM on PB
- To: Extra damage on perfect parry - I don't like perfect parry and im also disappointed purple is not removed.

Spoiler: Styles response

1) Cyan
- I agree that it has potential to be too strong (same as extra interrupt damage). I'm likely going to look at changing Cyan's swing limit to 3 or 4 in addition to the other things. The goal for Cyan is to make it a more offensive, albeit precise version of what it is currently. The idea with having it able to do a half swing (or at least a faster than full swing) is that if you time your swing to parry properly (aka fencing stuff), then you could have the chance to do it again (mostly in consideration for 1vX) to a lesser degree. This could also be limited to chain swings or have a downside of some sort included (without going too overboard of course). I'd be happy if there were pros/cons to each style without breaking them or making them feel unfun or just plain silly.
2) Yellow
- If it turns out to be too strong, then I will definitely consider removing the perk and re-upping it's values in exchange.
3) Staff
- I think maybe removing Yellow's perk and just giving it to Staff instead might be what happens. You can technically get +2 ACM on the Mblock stagger currently if you half swing the second but adding more ACM would probably be too strong..
4) Duals
- TBH good users of Duals very rarely spam stabs (and given how strong Duals were is why the reason why the damage on them got nerfed). I've seen maybe 1-2 truly good Duals users and they are probably the scariest of anything. I'm trying to make them slightly less overwhelming just by mashing buttons and move it to rewarding controlled and precise aggression.
- The spin moves are a pretty minor thing that are low on the list of possibilities.
5) Red
- Well I basically just listed the values for each style. I'll get the actual math out later too (I still have to actually find it buried in the saber code >_>) so people can understand what happens and when.
6) Purple
- There's not really a reason to remove 3/7 of the styles because of bad association or personal dislike of them.

The changes you started working on are really cool and a lot of suggestions are good too. Would be cool if you could explain the things i said i don't get.
Hope my opinion/suggestions help you somehow.

Glad you (and everyone else are liking my ideas so far).

I'm not sure if this was in previous builds, but removing bp drain on parry (red vs cyan/blue) etc would make sense.

Oops, misread this initally. There used to be no BP damage with parries in prior patches. I think having scaled parry damage is actually good to counter how many swings that fast styles (aptly named) can output without much effort. Gives heavy styles more of a chance to fight back.

I do want to give props to Stassin for the work he did. I know a lot of people aren't too fond of some of the changes he put in but I still believe that the ideas behind pretty much all of them were with good/correct intentions (albeit some stuff like nudge is pretty finicky to deal with but that's the nature of the beast). The saber code is also a big mess so anyone who manage(d)/(s) to get through it with their sanity anywhere near intact is pretty cool IMO.

I imagine some of you are also probably wondering when/how long it'll be before if/any of the changes get put in. I'm aiming to have nudge addressed, perks changed/adjusted, and at least some of the PB related stuff (like the quadrants while turned around) worked out before releasing them. I'm still trying to figure out a simple way of making it so everyone that wants to will be able to test the changes as I go along.

 

[kvinto]

I don't want purple/cyan removed beacuse i don't like them. What i meant is it's harder to balance more stuff. Just look how broken 1.1 was. Not just mechanics(Unlimitaaad aaacmmmmm!) but purple stab, it's damage, cyan's perk, duals, combo spam etc. and it was getting better and better and so many people waited for 1.4 to finally fix cyan and purple. Most of people(if not everyone) expected nerfs to things(i remember one of the devs calling 1.4 a nerf update beacuse everything gets nerfed) What did we get? System rework. We're getting new rework again so it may take a lot of time to fix things again.

 

[Stassin]

On this note i want to say that if we really want a clean system, without even the need for perks and complications, then we have to remove cyan/purple/duals/staff, simply because their animations are poorly made compared to blue/yellow/red's. That would be really clean and cool. But, too late to do that now i guess, should have been done 10 years ago.

 

[Starushka]

Separating some things between duel/open mode

Hope nothing what will lead to "separate" experience.

- I have a feeling, some things there for the sake of change.

- While changing some stuff, like "Slap" for duels, take into consideration the open mode. For example, Slap = Knockdown is a great teamplay element, why change that?

One gets the feeling that you have no one to co-operate in the team. The changes what were made in the past have their reasoning (ask Stassin/DCM). You can't just simply revert something only under public pressure. (They rarely see the whole picture, there are many things that need to be taken into account they don't know/think about.)

 

[Tempest]

Again, to clarify on the slap thing...there was an error with formatting/copypaste. Slap will remain the same as far as knockdowns. It's only possibly changing in regards to people (swing)blocking (to help with facehugging a bit). Also, I am definitely thinking about Open mode as well. I duel and play Open both quite a bit (there have been times where it was almost only one but that's not important).

As far as talking with Stassin, I have made it clear that I'm open to his input/discussions about stuff. I'm also keeping in mind how things have been in the past (both from my perspective and others). This is by no means just mean going off the rails and making the sabering how I think it should be (tbh I do understand/value nudge for its merits but I think it's in a state that needs to be changed before being present). I also know I'm not too familiar with/well known by much of the EU community (I have been trying to make an effort to at least get more familiar with the EU dueling community since v0; excluding my break ofc) but I have been talking to a lot of people individually as well about the possible changes and their input. There's been quite a few ideas/thoughts that either never made it into this thread or got completely changed because of conversations I've had with people about them .

p.s. I probably shoulda asked about stuff before I broke pistol but we'll keep that between us Star

 

[vasya]

so what about A-halfswing animation as it was before 1.4?
and i didnt get flich tweak. based on fire rate, how will it work ingame?

 

[Tempest]

I'm pretty sure the A-halfswing animation was just a tad faster than it is currently but I'm working through everything to find out right now. As far as flinch, there's no set numbers yet, but in a nutshell higher ROF/lower FP drain per shot = lower contribution to flinching a saberist.

 

[Megatron (The Shredder)]

These changes sound great, even though I have no idea what they mean.

Do we know if the changes to the slap from a knock down to a mini stagger will affect gunners that jump kick jedis/sith from doing the mini-stagger instead of the knock down?

 

[Stassin]

These changes sound great, even though I have no idea what they mean.

XD. I love that you said this because it represents the majority of the sabering feedback here and more generally on forums. And this applies if you take the sentence literally, i.e. how the mechanics work, but if you take it as "what they mean = what will be their consequences in shifting the gameplay" then it's the very large majority.

 

[T r i s t a n]

XD. I love that you said this because it represents the majority of the feedback here and more generally on forums. And this applies if you take the sentence literally, i.e. how the mechanics work, but if you take it as "what they mean = what will be their consequences in shifting the gameplay" then it's the very large majority.

I stand by my earlier suggestion, if thought of in a wider scope. It could solve many problems the current dueling system faces, without having to tinker with any further intricate statistical values. Simply give the duelist one more tool at his/her disposal, it has a wide variety of uses if implemented correctly.
What are your thoughts on a Back-Block animation/function, would you say it is possible? or would you say it is best left out of MBII? if so, your thoughts would be appreciated even more.
I ask you as if I recall correctly you are the primary duels Dev. I may be wrong here tho. Much respect for you even in these 1.4 shadowy days...