Gunner Jedi Balance in a bad state.

[PizzaTheSlut]

Hello, i have been playing this game since about b17 and enjoyed it thoroughly however the current patch is such a large departure from the previous in terms of the gunner vs jedi dynamic that I have to point out some issues. Now i understand in spirit what the devs were trying to do with this rebalance and removing stance perks. So they gave all jedi more damage reduction, made force drain extremely low for stationary sith/jedi, and in turn gave an occasional stagger that lets you get one or two, massively reduced in damage shots on a jedi or sith occasionally. Because it seemed dramatic at first the prior buffs to jedi/sith seemed justified but on further play and players adapting to the new patch, it has revealed to be a massive over buff. Facing one or even two gunners without perfect aim hitting every shot with a high RoF weapon, a jedi/sith must simply hold walk and block, and the laser shots are ineffectual on the saberist. Now of course there are concs, blobs, and sec nades to knock down saberists however unless someone is using a ridiculously powerful weapon like Cr3 or t21 the damage reduction leads to the brief shots to be only a minor punishment especially when playing with a team. Given the ease of avoiding these knockdown enablers or a gunner shooting the class aiming for the knock down punishment should be harsher.

However the most ridiculous change by far is the swing block at any time to apply q3 to your saber swing against a gunner. Now for absolutely no point investment a sith or jedi can ignore normal gunner restraints and guarantee a safe attack. Given the low damage from lasers thanks to damage reduction a jedi or sith can stagger multiple times, and still manage to make a safe swing block kill despite missing multiple swings. In the past if a gunner was skilled and timed their shots appropriately between the gaps, and the saberist did not invest into q3, or did not disable the gunner, or use acrobatics to trip the gunner up, a gunner could rightfully high damage punish or kill a reckless saberist. Now as long as this swing block mechanic is understood a gunner no longer has a chance to punish reckless saberists besides some measly damage on a stagger. This would be fine if force drain was in a similar state to what it was previously where jedi or sith tanking for long periods of time would leave them forced to use acrobatics and running, but that is no longer the case.

What all this has led to is a balance state in which only a handful of gunner classes, played well have even a chance in hell against a competent saberist, those classes being Clone, Wookie, and SBD. Thanks to the ability to not get pushed they can ignore the stifiling pressure of threat of push + enemy gunners which leads to an inability to even begin to fight the saberist as the q3 swingblock and low force drain negates almost any chance of counterplay. However even these classes struggle, after all one must simply crouch and the knock down that the SBD/Wook must risk life and limb to get into range for is negated. Clone must also hit a high accuracy blob compared to the massive cone of push threatening to happen at any time. One solution would simply to make the classes that counter saberist, actually counter saberist so they must actually rely on team mates to deal with them.

Another solution would be to keep the current high power and defense of saberists and nerfing their utility powers like push, lightning, and grip. Many people complain about grip on this patch, but the problem is not grip's strength but the fact the negligible force drain makes reasonable counterplay impossible on this patch. Adding a large damage bonus to any jedi or sith hit by lasers while using grip, lightning, or in the push cooldown animation would be a sufficient fix as well to punishing reckless jedi and sith. Simply removing the q3 swingblock and adding back into the point system would aslo be acceptable. As now anyone using the very powerful utility powers also has access to q3 safety, which is unprecedented.

As it stands gunners must play extremely well, and the saberist must either not understand the mechanics of the game or swing mindlessly in a straight line to even be threatened. This combined with the games long standing balance where a gunner + push threat opresses any one gunner's play into the ground lead to almost no room to outplay jedi or sith if one is not playing the power classes, Clone, Wook and SBD.

I advocate either a return to a more reasonable balance state that punishes sith/jedi not using utility, acrobatics, or team mates or a buff of the counter classes so there is actually a rock paper scissors element to gunners and saberists. A return to old cortosis and improved wookie charge would be a start.

Thanks and I hope discussion will be constructive.

 

[SeV]

The current systems has what you describe, but also alternatives. When you're running, dodging blaster bolts does matter tremendously, since eating even just one drains alot and reduces your FP regen; and if you can reliably dodge then you benefit from that alot as it allows you to close in quickly on a gunner (and even if you get shot once, the FP regen debuff is quite short). But you also have the safer alternative of blocking it for less risks and less pressure on the gunner. So i don't really see your point, the mechanic you are talking about is already in the game but with even more variety. If anything, the current system could be improved to make the base FP debuff even shorter (0.5s instead of 1s) and make it ramp up even more progressively as you are repeatedly shot, with higher overall drains to compensate.

Absolutely, and I recognize your point about running. Rundrains don't affect me much when I play, so I kind of forgot about it. I suggested the debuff in the first place and the value I wanted it at initially was 0.5sec so you could play more of a dodging game.

 

[Chorb]

What you just described stassin, is what is pretty typical response. What kind of feedback do you think people get in competitive multiplayer games like starcraft 2. Everyone is looking to get buffs on their favorite race and forums end up being the place to cry about it. You cannot make everyone happy at the same time.

What im describing is more of a design issue, im not saying exacly how it shoudl be solved. I tried showing you why flinch is limiting design space and more importantly, it feels like there is no counterplay. In 1.3, i felt i coudl do a lot to outfootsy the gunner and be better whit melle kicks and dancing to get a swing in or lure him to run. Now they will just hold walk forever, i will hold lightening and kill them, or if 2+ gunners they just run over you. And if you fight SBD/Deka/Arc you can forget about making any plays, they are nigh unkillable no matter what you do whit half decent aim.

Im saying you envisioned role for saberists being tanks will not work, due to blobbs, darts and conc nades being easily spammable, cheap, and easy to hit on a walking saberist. And because deflect is weak, you cannot really tank by making them not focus you. So saberist cannot be a good tank, and they cannot be a good evasion tank.

When you read feedback. Remember that gamers are really good at identifying problematic issues in your game. But they are horrible at providing good solutions. So you need to playtest and iterate whit diffrent things, and gather feedback. Ive heard that from a card game designer.

 

[Puppytine]

And a state of the game where every class is extremely effective against every class is boring

No, it's fun.

unvaried gameplay that doesn't rely on teamwork.

Wrong.
Whether it's Rock-Paper-Scissors or not, team which has better teamwork is going to have higher changes to win. Isn't that obvious?

Though balancing classes against each other is extremely difficult task, especially when there are 7 classes per team, especially when those classes aren't symmetrical, especially when some of those classes are very different from some others.
Therefore I can't blame developers for an accidental Rock-Paper-Scissors, but introducing it on purpose is just meh.

It's funny how gunners keep complaining about saberist over the years despite all those efforts for nerfing glowsticks.
Flinch were added exactly for balancing, but now gunners aren't happy about. Just how many nerfs do you want? What would be enough for you?

devs added flich which is extrem bs in my opinion and ppl still complain saberists is op. u fkin srs?
lets take away force and saber, left them 10 hp. then all gun-player will be happy.
or won't?

^THIS

 

[k4far]

Just how many nerfs do you want? What would be enough for you?

When do we replace ammo with water and ban killing for being inhumane?^

 

[Antraxo]

The only thing that triggers me is flinch when I'm playing jedi/sith.
Then again when I play a blaster class I just spam away into the jedi/sith and if they are unlucky like me (when I play jedi/sith) they die anyway.

I'm not complaining though it's just one thing that annoys me sometimes .

 

[Antraxo]

When do we replace ammo with water and ban killing for being inhumane?^

Ahhh waterguns...

 

[MaceMadunusus]

No, it's fun.

Wrong.
Whether it's Rock-Paper-Scissors or not, team which has better teamwork is going to have higher changes to win. Isn't that obvious?

Though balancing classes against each other is extremely difficult task, especially when there are 7 classes per team, especially when those classes aren't symmetrical, especially when some of those classes are very different from some others.
Therefore I can't blame developers for an accidental Rock-Paper-Scissors, but introducing it on purpose is just meh.

Overwatch, TF2, Dota, Battlefield, Planetside, Starcraft, the list goes on. Professional developers do it for a reason. Nuff said.

Edit: In addition, I think you need to read my words more clearly from the previous post.

 

[Mooch]

I guess you guys don't really play gunner all too often because you would really realize how terrible gunner vs saberist system is. Flinch is not the most reliable method of killing jedi/sith at all because it only works when the saberist swings. This combined with low fp drain while blocking, saberists don't even need to swing all they have to is slowly walk up to you and tank all of the gunner's shots and just run up and get a swingblock nudge swing or some shit. Another problem with low fp drain when holding block is also when a saberist is just turtle walking over to you while your playing gunner all they have to do is tank your shots ( unless you have a blob or a nade ) and then a gunner comes around the corner and fucks you up because you can't strafe around when a saberist is just sitting there holding block cause he's just going to either pull or push you. This could be easily fixed by increasing the fp drain when holding block so instead of being forced to walk because of a stationary saberist waiting to push/pull you you can easily take care of him by unloading a clip onto his face.

With this patch anyone can play saberist decently in open mode.

 

[SeV]

I guess you guys don't really play gunner all too often because you would really realize how terrible gunner vs saberist system is. Flinch is not the most reliable method of killing jedi/sith at all because it only works when the saberist swings. This combined with low fp drain while blocking, saberists don't even need to swing all they have to is slowly walk up to you and tank all of the gunner's shots and just run up and get a swingblock nudge swing or some shit. Another problem with low fp drain when holding block is also when a saberist is just turtle walking over to you while your playing gunner all they have to do is tank your shots ( unless you have a blob or a nade ) and then a gunner comes around the corner and fucks you up because you can't strafe around when a saberist is just sitting there holding block cause he's just going to either pull or push you. This could be easily fixed by increasing the fp drain when holding block so instead of being forced to walk because of a stationary saberist waiting to push/pull you you can easily take care of him by unloading a clip onto his face.

At this patch anyone can play saberist decently in open mode.

Actually as a gunner I can very easily kill normal skilled jedi/sith. Even with a slow-ass soldier I can often kill them due to well timed flinching. Play the patient game, shoot and reload often and chip away, when they go in for the kill u just aim at them and shoot and they flinch and flinch. Unless they are skilled and use lightning, jump, nudge etc it's so damn easy to kill jedi/sith with the flinch mechanic. I've often won a 3v1 as gunner vs jedi because they rush me and swing wildly = flinch/die. So I mean... it's pretty good skill-wise. I often feel more gimped as jedi/sith than I do as gunner because of the slow FP regen which is fucking annoying, and the shot debuff which is too long and doesn't allow for dodge Fp regen gameplay. (Should be 0.5sec debuff after each blasterhit).

 

[Mooch]

Actually as a gunner I can very easily kill normal skilled jedi/sith. Even with a slow-ass soldier I can often kill them due to well timed flinching. Play the patient game, shoot and reload often and chip away, when they go in for the kill u just aim at them and shoot and they flinch and flinch. Unless they are skilled and use lightning, jump, nudge etc it's so damn easy to kill jedi/sith with the flinch mechanic. I've often won a 3v1 as gunner vs jedi because they rush me and swing wildly = flinch/die. So I mean... it's pretty good skill-wise. I often feel more gimped as jedi/sith than I do as gunner because of the slow FP regen which is fucking annoying, and the shot debuff which is too long and doesn't allow for dodge Fp regen gameplay. (Should be 0.5sec debuff after each blasterhit).

Yes, any decent gunner can mow down a jedi/sith as long as the saberists aren't holding block and mindlessly swinging everywhere without first getting up close enough by dodging or slowly walking up to the gunner with block. When the saberists are close enough they can either pull off a nudge swing or swing-block and not even get damaged at all.

 

[k4far]

I am playing 3 classes and soldier the most. It is a piece of paper as it should be. Why would a noname with a slingshot catapult be equal to jedi without strategizing first. You rush - You die, and then You complain how to make it all about rushing with no strategy involved.

Stop comparing us to other games, other games are robbing people of money and dying in a life span of few years.

 

[Noob]

Haha. As usual (except maybe in 1.3 where everyone was somewhat forced to admit jedi was "at least balanced"),

THEN GO BACK TO 1.3 I BEG U

 

[Chaos the Chaotic]

Rc1 was the bestestest best balance!

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

I've always advocated for a more skillful environment between gunners and Jedi. I even have countless ideas of how to do it. Just need a dev to implement them, maybe some day I'll have the time/patience to finish learning code and do it myself.

 

[prejudicedroid]

When do we replace ammo with water (bleh).

inefficient, inefficient, inefficient!

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

Haha. As usual (except maybe in 1.3 where everyone was somewhat forced to admit jedi was "at least balanced"), 45% of people think jedi is OP, 45% think it's too weak, 10% think it's roughly balanced. Really, that gives little motivation to listen to anything but the 10%. That isn't right of course, since everyone does give valid points about some features being too strong or weak; but the overall deduction that it is OP or UP is simplistic and almost all the time very biased.

Anyways, a decent gunner will definitely wreck a running jedi's FP, a decent jedi will definitely find a way to swingblock or attack from an unexpected angle or use a force power at the right time, and secure kills. Git gud, or stop believing that your opponents are trash and that you deserve to win.

There sure are many issues with the current state of jedi vs gun that need improvement or some changes, let's all hope they will be addressed for the better.

I believe Jedi is perfectly balanced for competitive play, actually. However, I believe that it is skillless on both sides, and almost exclusively luck at a certain level of knowledge. I think that it could be so much better and indepth. Bad clones give me more trouble than they should when I'm Sith (without the lightning/grip cheese, anyway), and bad Jedi give me more trouble than they should when I'm soldier. I want a good Jedi to annihilate bad gunners with ease, and a good Soldier to annihilate bad Jedi with ease. Consistently.

 

[Jiube]

Overwatch, TF2, Dota, Battlefield, Planetside, Starcraft, the list goes on. Professional developers do it for a reason. Nuff said.

They don't do it everywhere, and it does not work everywhere. I would argue for a game like MB2 it is actually quite bad philosophy. That is if we talk full classes as hard counters, at least.

Half of the games you listed do not do rock-paper-scissors that much, other half have key gameplay differences that "make rock-paper-scissors great again". Primarily, they allow you affect which "element" you are (rock, paper, or scissors) during the round. MB2 does not allow that for whole classes, by design.

Overwatch and TF2 allow you to respawn as a different class during the match, which creates a field for the player to affect the game, to mindgame opponents, to do tactics.

Dota is far from being strict rock-paper-scissors, and even when it is, that is not often it happens in terms of direct counters for a character, and it is not that deliberate, more like a side-effect of the matchups between different kits of different characters. Also, the key thing is due to dynamics of MOBAs all of these factors (the fact you can buy items and level-up, the fact characters have power spikes at different times) change with time as the game progresses, modifying the initial "strict rock-paper-scissors" to be something different. Venomancer is hard to play early game, there are many carry characters that can counter him, but when he gets Aghanim he has potential to do a penta with one ult and a slight assistance from his team. Depending on the skill of players it may even become a game of "catch veno off-guard before he kills us all" for the other team. And Dota has a lot of actual tools to complement such gameplay as well, many character-independent (wards, smokes, items that reduce different kinds of damage, heals, stuns, etc).

I would argue both Battlefield and Planetside don't have rock-paper-scissors that hard-coded. It seems like the only deliberate one is anti-vehicle classes against vehicles. There rest of classes are usually viable in their own way, and work well against all other classes, and can often even do something about vehicles anyway, due to map-design, or other tools within the classes' kits that can be used, etc. This kind of balancing is much less of a factor for these games. And you can still respawn mid-round even there, so even if it would play larger role, it may have been fine anyway.

Starcraft has direct counters, but this is the perfect genre to do them. The most important thing about what makes it good in Starcraft is that you actually ahve to build your "rock, paper, or scissors", and if your opponent knows what he is doing, he will be scouting, and he will have very good chances of finding what you are up to in time, and he has good chances to counter you by starting producing the correct anti-pick. Production can also be changed mid-game. The whole game becomes partially about outmaneuvering the rock-paper-scissors elements.

More to that, all of the games you listed, even when they genuinely have hard counters, are also much more than that. And this kind of balance is far from being the only way to make good assymetrical gameplay.

If applying the same logic for MB2, I don't think rock-paper-scissors works wel for classes in MB2. There are literally no additional layers that can make it good. Where this logic CAN work in MB2 is specific abilities of each different class, that can be countered by other abilities of other classes. Making some ability very good against some type of classes or game styles while leaving options for counterplays is the way MB2 can use this kind of balancing paradigm, I feel. This is where MB2 can shine both as a team game and as a competetive assymetrical shooter, and it suits the team siege objective-based shooter genre much better if done that way.

As to the actual balance, I think the actual sabering part of the matchup is in the good spot (pure saber vs guns), now what has to be done is making force-powers interesting. For example, push as it is right now, is perfect the way it is against grenades, blobs, rockets, but feels slightly cheaty and is far from being interesting when it comes to actual players. It involves little skill from the side of the jedi, it is very useful against most classes, forcing them to constantly walk when within certain range... It is good that it can limit possibilities for both classes, but I don't think the way it is right now it does it in a fun and interesting manner. I have a few ideas on how this can be changed. There is also something to be done against lightening, SBD, and possibly grip and (apparently) blobs. Although, I personally disagree about the last one, but this is one of the directions for further balance improvements, potentially. The ideal spot is when all of these abilities have their uses in most situations, while still allowing for counterplays. I don't have good ideas about those yet, but I haven't really given it too much though either.

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

Well said.

 

[Jediknight Fou]

...and bad Jedi give me more trouble than they should when I'm soldier. I want a good Jedi to annihilate bad gunners with ease, and a good Soldier to annihilate bad Jedi with ease. Consistently.

If you cant kill a "bad" jedi, maybe the jedi isnt that bad.
Also the formerly best saberists of 1.3 are mostly dieing since 1.4, while gunners get easy kills.
In a fight between a saberist and a gunner with the same "skill", in most cases the gunner will win.

For example, push as it is right now, is perfect the way it is against grenades, blobs, rockets, but feels slightly cheaty and is far from being interesting when it comes to actual players. It involves little skill from the side of the jedi, it is very useful against most classes, forcing them to constantly walk when within certain range...

So push is cheaty?
While gunners prevent you from swinging your saber with one luckshot, this is not cheaty? You must be joking...
Without push and pull they could just storm mindless at you which they do at the moment anyways.
Maybe you have ideas which are fair for both sides (i doubt it), but right now they would mess up saber vs gun even more.
Blobs apparently? Of course blobs need a change, if you suggest changing push you should see the problem with blobs.
I guess i know which faction you belong...

I think saberist vs gunner is at the moment heavy luckbased, no skill involved on both sides.
Saberists dont need nerf right now, its the gunners which need to get nerfed or reworked, after that we can talk again about saberists.
Worst thing are 3 live classes, they are a insult to every saberist (and gunner) in this game, after surviving luckspraying, you dont get a kill, this makes kd system actually pointless, which i dont care for anyway, but still it isnt rewarding if you kill a more live class.
Because of this i dont bother with soldiers to much i just push or pull them on any occasion and let my team shoot them.
Since many saberists use forcepowers more than ever since 1.4 to survive overpowered gunners, the solution many gunners suggest is nerfing saberists more.
This is ridiculous!

Maybe its better to revert back to 1.3 and try a new real attempt on 1.4 and do things right this time.
I suggest the devs listen to people like Achilles, hes not affiliated to one side and more open minded than most of the people in this thread.

This thread is just another attempt to nerf saberists and favoring gunners!!!

 

[Noob]

Maybe its better to revert back to 1.3 and try a new real attempt on 1.4 and do things right this time

yes (coming from gunner who sometimes plays jedi)

I suggest the devs listen to people like Achilles

no (coming from guy with common sense)