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.

 

[Insane]

I'm really trying to understand where some of you are coming at with your arguments. If your dying to a group of gunners as a jedi/sith then you shouldn't be playing alone, I mean this is a team based game after all ^_^. Also some of the comments such as: lets nerf blobs, wookies and SBDs just make no sense, since these classes and abilities are the number one way of stopping jedi/sith spam.

 

[k4far]

I'm really trying to understand where some of you are coming at with your arguments. If your dying to a group of gunners as a jedi/sith then you shouldn't be playing alone, I mean this is a team based game after all ^_^. Also some of the comments such as: lets nerf blobs, wookies and SBDs just make no sense, since these classes and abilities are the number one way of stopping jedi/sith spam.

You see, it has come to personal tastes over sanity.
"How would be better/easier for me if classes were to be changed". Lol.

 

[LoU]

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.

This.

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.

Well, there is a reason why feedback is so divided.

Vets do not leave feedback very often (I haven't seen top players [gunners] leaving any feedback).
New players however like to share ideas coz they are new, and they like this game.

Now the problem is, game is changing based on internal ideas and based on given feedback. Since only new players are giving feedback, game changes a lot, and old players are sitting quite.

Vets do see big difference between b14,b17,b19,rc3,0.1, 1.0, 1.4
New players often don't have that experience, so when they give feedback, they don't compare it at all to previous version of the mod.

45% - Jedi is OP - mostly gunners
45% - Jedi is weak - mostly new players who learn how to play, or came to the mod in 1.4 and haven't played b19 so they HAVE NO IDEA how it was back then. If there is nothing to compare to, feedback is just poor - "it's weak, omg, so weak"
10% - Probably vets, or those who can accept the changes

My personal thoughts about balance over jedi vs gunner?
It sucks badly, but purely because I've been in a lot of situations when I should be a dead man (playing jedi). I made a lot of mistakes and yet killed the enemy and survived. Count lightinig and im superior.

The gunner on the other hand, can't make any mistakes.
- missed? - dead
- pushed walk-key too late? - dead

Jedi?
- swing...block
- push - jump
- lowfp - run - its not like gunner will push you over to the ground

I've always seen Jedi/Sith as support class, now it's one man army with unlimted fp.

Saberist for his actions agaisnt gunners is not punished at all (if he makes mistake).

 

[Rosh+]

My personal thoughts about balance over jedi vs gunner?
It sucks badly, but purely because I've been in a lot of situations when I should be a dead man (playing jedi). I made a lot of mistakes and yet killed the enemy and survived. Count lightinig and im superior.

The gunner on the other hand, can't make any mistakes.
- missed? - dead
- pushed walk-key too late? - dead

Jedi?
- swing...block
- push - jump
- lowfp - run - its not like gunner will push you over to the ground

I've always seen Jedi/Sith as support class, now it's one man army with unlimted fp.

Saberist for his actions agaisnt gunners is not punished at all (if he makes mistake).

Any halfway decent gunner won't make those mistakes, and when they do, it usually comes down to luck whether they actually get pushed or not. While I do agree that Lightning can make most fights against pub players, or any gunner in a tight hallway ridiculously easy, and that Deflect 3 has the unreasonable fp meme on the go, I do not think these observations are accurate when it comes to higher level play. The observations you have made here are more consistent with sporadic, perhaps weekly play against pubbies on AoD or BG.

Most notable gunners will not make these mistakes. The timing for push is so easy predictable that you can bait it out most of the time, easily, and get shots in. Sure, a good gunner won't be able to push you down like a Jedi/Sith can, but they can still chase you, shooting all the while, and since they know you're lowfp, they'll follow while shooting, attempting to bait a desperate push so they can finally get close and finish you off. They'll take advantage of stuff like higher fp drain for being shot in the air. If you deflect, they'll get close if they can, and bait swings, or even switch to melee and sweep kick you, or even just be basic, and use grenades.

It gets worse as you get to having more gunners fighting one Jedi/Sith. If you have two good gunners shooting at you, they'll keep firing at you non-stop, until you're out of FP, if you deflect, the same tactics mentioned above work quite well, or hell, one might just circle around you if you try to turtle.

Yes, we understand that. Jedi/Sith is a support role in this game. We're not denying that. Yes, Jedi/Sith is relatively balanced for competitive play. What we're arguing about, is the fact that it *is* a support role, and that gunner vs lightsaber isn't consistently skill-based. The engagement of a 1v1 with a Jedi against a Soldier isn't really skillful on either side.

That is the problem we're talking about.

Very well.

I find that consistently, a lot of Jedi v Gunner is just a game of jukes, numbers, or luck. You either have a good Gunner, and a good Jedi trying to juke eachother into taking damage or getting pushed, etc, you have a large number of one fighting a few less and the lesser number getting stomped, or you have two idiots fighting it out and whichever one gets a lucky flinch or push in wins. Lightning of course simplifies this in pub play, but using lightning 2 without push 3 or pull 3 in any game against a decent gunner that knows when to run is a death sentence. and then, if you did grab push/pull 3 you're basically condemned to death against any Jedi/Gunner combo, as you either had to sacrifice defense, or block for both lightning, and push/pull 3(ayy prepare 4 push spam), or you were foolish enough to sacrifice jump 2, and now you have little to no mobility(aka Darth Vader RP).

So,

1.) I disagree that JedivGunner isn't skill based. Depending on the players, it can take a bit of skill, a bit of luck, and a bit of bullshit. Doesn't everything in a hypothetical situation really depend on the players in question being 'good' or 'decent', though?

2.) I do agree that maybe Jedi/Sith doesn't really feel like it should be mainly support, it just happens to fit that. It has a lot of powers that fit with the Star Wars skin. Unless we get a new class to replace it as the main support role(face it there isn't one aside from Jedi/Sith), I can't see it really changing unless your definition of 'support' is cover fire and too much dakka, in which case we need to stop looking at Jedi/Sith, and start looking at Deka, move on to how we can make another class work as a support role, or start mashing ideas for a new class together.

BH/Hero(soldier with an ipod that contains a linkin park album) isn't a support role, as they are mainly the same thing as a Soldier, but with faster movement, and a point and click gun.
-
Soldier isn't a support role for obvious reasons. Cmdr/ET(a soldier but stronger) could count if literally anybody actually used rally.
-
SBD/Wook(robosold/hypertrichosis soldier) is a bullet sponge with good guns on both sides, though nobody ever uses Wook seriously much anymore(aside from the good ol fists).
-
Deka(soldier with no legs and a minigun, and a crushed pelvis from rolling around too much) is yet another bullet sponge that is easily countered after the enemy team realizes what an ion nade is. Clone is basically a Deka with more survivability because it can actually move.
-
ARC/Mando are just upgraded Soldiers with more armor, and more point and click capability. Actually, I take it back, they're not Soldiers, Mando is a flying BH(soldier), and ARC is a Soldier that got too pumped up on Imperial propaganda and heroin one day.
-
I feel like the only real way to fix what you perceive as a problem(I like the game as it is, but then again I don't really get involved that much anyways) is to perhaps rework how Jedi/Sith work in Open from the ground up, and maybe add another Soldier reskin with lay on hands or something.

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

I would like to see Commander/ET being reworked into a versatile combat/support role. Commanders/ETs could get sticky-throwable sensors that act as a permanent-motion sensor, that way you don't really *need* a Jedi with their wallhacks. I'd like to see tracking darts receive a bit of a buff (and Poison be nerfed, on a side note), and I think Arc could also play a stronger support role.

The potential is there, just not the implementation. As I've stated on here, I have so many ideas of how to achieve all of this, I just need someone willing to work with me on it.

Rework some skill trees, rework the weapons, add a mechanic for saber vs gunning, rework some force powers, most of it isn't even that complicated. A lot of it would just be cleaning things up that don't make much sense and compartmentalizing things so you have more variety in making skill builds.

 

[Jediknight Fou]

Vets do see big difference between b14,b17,b19,rc3,0.1, 1.0, 1.4
New players often don't have that experience, so when they give feedback, they don't compare it at all to previous version of the mod.

45% - Jedi is OP - mostly gunners
45% - Jedi is weak - mostly new players who learn how to play, or came to the mod in 1.4 and haven't played b19 so they HAVE NO IDEA how it was back then. If there is nothing to compare to, feedback is just poor - "it's weak, omg, so weak"
10% - Probably vets, or those who can accept the changes

Even b19 was better than the current mess.
45% newbies...this comment is a bit silly, these 45% are many sabering vets who despise these changes, we can ask them...oh wait majority of them left already after being unheard for over a year and the rest gave up on this forum.
Newbies actually would adapt better, because they dont know how great it was some updates before, or they would just leave annoyed.

I've always seen Jedi/Sith as support class, now it's one man army with unlimted fp.
Saberist for his actions agaisnt gunners is not punished at all (if he makes mistake).

That was the best joke i heard today.

I would like to see Commander/ET being reworked into a versatile combat/support role. Commanders/ETs could get sticky-throwable sensors that act as a permanent-motion sensor, that way you don't really *need* a Jedi with their wallhacks. I'd like to see tracking darts receive a bit of a buff (and Poison be nerfed, on a side note), and I think Arc could also play a stronger support role.

The potential is there, just not the implementation. As I've stated on here, I have so many ideas of how to achieve all of this, I just need someone willing to work with me on it.

Rework some skill trees, rework the weapons, add a mechanic for saber vs gunning, rework some force powers, most of it isn't even that complicated. A lot of it would just be cleaning things up that don't make much sense and compartmentalizing things so you have more variety in making skill builds.

Put Achilles in charge, his ideas sound reasonable and it cant get any worse.

 

[LoU]

Even b19 was better than the current mess.
[...]45% are many sabering vets who despise these changes, we can ask them...oh wait majority of them left already after being unheard for over a year and the rest gave up on this forum.

This is exactly what im talking about

Can't comment on second part.

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

Put Achilles in charge, his ideas sound reasonable and it cant get any worse.

The world would be a lot simpler if people listened to me more often.

 

[prejudicedroid]

If majority uv veturns hav lef wy wod u revurt 4 tem. Tink uv playurs dat r fien nao nd hao 2 impruv teir expurense.

Vuri seflish iof u.

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

I would only revert to 1.3 as a solid base for improving upon, since it was the last patch that actually worked.

 

[Jediknight Fou]

The good old Lou, hes sitting on his high horse and denying the truth.
After reading many of his posts over the past years i shouldnt really wonder.

 

[vasya]

{Δ} Achilles

Make MBII great again.

 

[Tempest]

1) I'm on mobile so I'm not going to try and quote+respond to all the points I see that I want to address specifically. However, for those that say only newer/largely vocal players' feedback is being considered..that's definitely not the case. I take all feedback/suggestions/ideas/etc with a grain of salt. I know I'm not a "true" vet by some people's standards (most would consider qualifying for that as b17 or earlier, not that there's really many from before b17 around anymore lol) but I have been around/seen what has and hasn't worked since late b17-early b18. This includes both gunner v gunner, gunner v saber, and saber v saber gameplay. I'm not saying I have unsurpassed knowledge/expertise on everything in MB2 by any means but the point that some players gunning for certain changes and not understanding the consequences/impact of those changes is always going to be something I can easily see/will be largely aware of. I also do talk to members of the community from pretty much all stages of the game regarding larger possible adjustments.

2) That said, I think that a large part of what's thrown balance off so badly over time is that many features/gameplay mechanics have been put in to deal with X in Y patch that was considered OP or facerolling and then gotten left in because either devs were too afraid to admit something was dumb/didn't work properly, devs didn't want to deal with actually going back into the code and sorting through stuff, or the community just accepted the state of things and time passed. Fast forward some years and those things are still around (one example being sec nade 20 FP draining on an almost guaranteed knockdown with basically no counterplay except to guess when it's going to be thrown (assuming you are both aware and able to do something about it). Blobs and any other number of things can fall under this category).

3) I've been trying to shift MB2 development away from this type of changing and more to undoing the bandaid fixing/trying to throw stuff in to deal with whatever that's seen as bad for the game. This means examining everything and seeing how gameplay is affected (especially in regards to differences in pub play and stuff like inhouses/scrims).

4) Just for clarity's sake (for any that were wondering): When I'm looking at possible tweaks/balance adjustments to things, I'm generally thinking in terms of a mix of what I've seen in actual organized/competitive play (in-house scrims/public play where I know some of the players are coordinating and can see the difference between non-coordinating people) and the general gameplay that happens in decently populated pub-play (10v10+ average). I don't think it's wise or possible to balance MB2 properly around one or the other exclusively, which is what I see from some people's trains of thought.

5) Also, I do know that the things I've suggested/noted are likely to happen for saberists are basically flat nerfs. Touching back on #3 for a moment..getting everything to a more reasonable baseline is basically going to require revamps of things and the easiest way to do that is to knock things down a notch or three. That doesn't mean that's how it's going to remain later on though! It's just easier/more consistent to get classes/mechanics/etc into solid states if they aren't in a mass flux of bandaid patch induced states from over the years.

Hopefully that was more cohesive/fluid than it looks in hindsight but I felt it was necessary to get these things stated clearly/openly.