How much of the Saber system is being changed next update?

[TwiceDead]

I am asking because I don't know if I want to spend hours upon hours learning the current saber-system if the new one is going to do away with what I've learned.

Honestly I am not looking for details here, I am just wondering if I should still spend time learning the current one or if I should wait for the new one and then practice like a madman.

If you can't answer, then that's fine too. At worst, I'll just have to wait.

 

[andrew]

im trying to explain a sentiment, not argue for balance here

also i have no idea why the idea of cheap cost and jack of all trades is even being brought up when considering dueling strength, i dont think point cost or versatility has ever been relevant for that beyond slow/weak blue

 

[agentoo8]

im trying to explain a sentiment, not argue for balance here

also i have no idea why the idea of cheap cost and jack of all trades is even being brought up when considering dueling strength, i dont think point cost or versatility has ever been relevant for that beyond slow/weak blue

I'm fairly sure Stassin mentioned months ago that Yellow was supposed to be inherently weaker than the other styles because of its cost/jack of all trades aspect - in both open and dueling.

 

[andrew]

death to stassin

 

[StarWarsGeek]

also i have no idea why the idea of cheap cost and jack of all trades is even being brought up when considering dueling strength, i dont think point cost or versatility has ever been relevant for that beyond slow/weak blue

One problem here is that dueling doesn't exist in isolation, changes to dueling and styles also affect open gameplay. It doesn't make a lot of sense to have a more expensive ability not be any more useful than a less expensive one. The 2 point difference with yellow may be small, but it makes sense to have it marginally weaker than the other styles that cost 8. Duals and staff cost much more than other styles in open which means you have much fewer points to put into force powers, so it would make very little sense to make them equal in power to yellow.

If all styles costed 8 points (even duals/staff), then there would be no reason not to have them all balanced as equals. I'm not entirely sure why yellow was made only 6 points in the style overhaul anyway.

 

[andrew]

One problem here is that dueling doesn't exist in isolation, changes to dueling and styles also affect open gameplay. It doesn't make a lot of sense to have a more expensive ability not be any more useful than a less expensive one. The 2 point difference with yellow may be small, but it makes sense to have it marginally weaker than the other styles that cost 8. Duals and staff cost much more than other styles in open which means you have much fewer points to put into force powers, so it would make very little sense to make them equal in power to yellow.

If all styles costed 8 points (even duals/staff), then there would be no reason not to have them all balanced as equals. I'm not entirely sure why yellow was made only 6 points in the style overhaul anyway.

this is honestly a pretty wide reaching topic that goes into the current point system for jedi/sith compared to the old one. in the old system you spent 1 point for blue (which was varyingly crippled throughout builds with things like slow or weak blue), a further 7 points for yellow, and then even more for red/staff/duals/fast blue. this created a pretty weird situation that gated red/staff/duals/blue behind a large point cost limiting builds using them for questionable gain.

the old system pre-perks incentivized through natural gameplay (red's 400 damage swings for killing wookiees, but overall weaker gunner killing ability and blues faster/safer swings but 120 damage). staff and duals are largely a novelty with duals being complete garbage and staff having some uses.

the current system is very interesting, but just as in the old system purely through game mechanics you're naturally going to choose yellow unless you are interested in perks. to compensate for no perks, yellow is now 6 points. however, the class itself feels balanced around yellow so i really find it hard to accept any arguments that use yellow being cheaper as justification when it is part of the core identity of jedi, and has no perks

as a side note, i think its pretty ridiculous that duals and staff are so outrageously expensive compared to the other styles without any real benefit befitting that point cost. if anything, if you want to keep that point cost, medium styles points should be 6/8/0

 

[Firestrike]

Agent, Andrew, and hleV are all correct in their own regards. Red used to be a joke of a stance with the old BP drains Red used to take. Red players had to really take advantage of nudges and instaswings and play around the overly high body hit drains to stay on par - it was a very unforgiving stance until it received it's (mildly ridiculous) buffs with stagger and the perk. Andrew and hleV are correct when they say yellow vs yellow is not only the backbone, but the entire basis for dueling for I believe everything B18 and onward.

The misconception is that because yellow is not the best stance currently, that it's the main reason many people have quit playing yellow. This isn't the case. If you truly did experience yellow vs yellow dueling beforehand Agent you will notice just how much intuition and mechanics are gone from it.

Back when I was working on the v0 system my concern was yellow half-swings and how to mitigate them, since at that time they were the big problem.

Timing has been wiped out of yellow vs yellow. Timed halfswings are a waste of BP damage now because combo spam is much more efficient to get through PB, well timed swing interrupts that used to 1/3 drain BP are gone. Nudge/swing resets are gone etc, etc it's been said before. The point is that while red is now in a good spot for once, yellow which was the most refined style for builds has been reduced into a painfully simple stand still, stare at the other person, PB, combo, repeat pattern.

I personally am glad to see Red being used more too - I know how terrible it was before, but it's unfortunate that yellow got destroyed in the same series of changes that made Red viable.

 

[andrew]

timed halfswings were 90% of the fun i had dueling :<

 

[agentoo8]

I can assure you that it was the case for a great number of eu duelists, some of whom still pop onto the dueling servers today with an alias, use yellow - bewildered with the fact that it isn't as easy as it used to be - get beaten, and leave. I agree with what you're saying though. The mechanics were more interesting/yellow vs yellow isn't as complex as it used to be. My counter argument, however, is that 6 other styles have been made viable and overall the saber system has undergone a lot of beneficial change.

 

[Stassin]

just how much intuition and mechanics are gone from it.

Lol. Intuition and mechanics, i.e. reflexes acquired because of practicing a system for a long time. Means nothing about that system being "good" in whatever sense, only means being used to it and suffering the loss of this practice time. New duelists who have only ever experienced the current system will tell you there's a great deal of "intuition and mechanics" about it too.

Timed halfswings are a waste of BP damage now because combo spam is much more efficient to get through PB, well timed swing interrupts that used to 1/3 drain BP are gone.

That is indeed the main concern and reason why the current public system could be called "deprecated", other than poor visuals. It is fortunately being addressed with the next patch, since its main direction could be summarized as "nerfing spam". Timed halfswings will once again have great importance and fast chains less so. One of the main reasons for spam being too effective in recent builds is the removal of the BP drain cooldown, and even though that won't be reintroduced, 0.5x BP drain on 2d, 3rd etc. swings of a chain (only 1.0x on the 1st hit) will be introduced to replicate it. And other things, too many things to tell.

 

[andrew]

interesting

but don't timed halfswings get that reduced drain as well under that system? i wonder how it actually plays out

 

[Preston]

Just my 2 cents. Imo basically every style except yellow is very broken. Blue is okay actually. But besides yellow and blue, every other style is just broken and op in their own way. And im just talking about dueling.
(They are broken in open aswell but thats not for here)
But I still use yellow after all this time of playing in this saver system even though it is grossly under powerd vs the otger styles. And why is this? Becayse I find yellow to be much more fun to use. Not because "oh back in v0 yellow was the only good style lel".
And I believe many people are in the same boat as me. They just dont find the other styles fun, or they dont use them because of how broken they are.

 

[SeV]

Just mentioning 0.5x without the other supporting mechanics will confuse people.

*No, halfswings count as seperate now. You can now gain 4 ACC with 4 halfswings. A combo is only a sequence of fast attacks. The pauses in between ie, halfswings, count as combo resets.

The main direction is as Stassin said to reduce spam, but it's not that simple.

A big point I talked with Stassin about was how it should feel more active. Basically, How many Actions per minute you perform while dueling. Currently, you just hit your long, pre-meditated combos, sit back and PB, rinse and repeat. I wanted to up the pace but not the spam. I wanted more Actions per minute. More act and react cycles. I also got many of my other wishes fulfilled, but again I hesitate to explain what these are since I don't know how much I should reveal... I only mention the above thing because stassin already brought it up ^^

So yeah, the philosophy for the new system would be something like that: More actions per minute (more to do) while reducing boring, monotonous spam.

 

[Chaos the Chaotic]

Yellow was the most balanced style once upon a time as well as being the perfect middle ground between blue(weak attacks) and red(strong attacks).

Red has gone through ups and downs. It had shit defense which along with shitty saber detection upon swings made it a chore to use as a standalone style.
Most duelists tended to use combinations of all 3. In b17 I remember red was one of those lamer styles for slap and spam them while knocked down, whatever.

My, how things have changed

And beyond all this, the number one reason yellow was used...because each of the swings was clean and clear cut. It's not a mess of animations, of twirls and spins. You more or less had full control over it.

Counters used to matter. Timing used to matter. Other crap used to matter. This new arcade saber system holds little interest for me. Knocking off imaginatry checkboxes to pb is annoying and breaks immersion.

Intuition isn't this twisted viewpoint:

Lol. Intuition and mechanics, i.e. reflexes acquired because of practicing a system for a long time.

No, I adapted intuitively to the saber system the first time I played. You know how? Because it made sense to me that if I visually see my saber block anothers, it'd block perfectly! Or mitigate more than just having my saber do whatever.
Last thing I want to be doing is checking my crosshaird in a saberfight but hey, thats just me.

Not of a fan of the pb system. The spam rewarding mechanics and perks. Some of them are just __________________.

And wasn't the cooldown timer reduced or removed so spamming 4 swings in a row can net you ap or something. I remember someone saying something.

The actual values would be nice. In one build you could pb up to a point before ap started getting accrued again. Once they achieved ap on you, though u pbed everything, itd break through any new pbs and etc.

I assume that changed but when? Never any real in-dept changelogs

 

[Stassin]

It intuitively makes sense to many new players to look at the incoming swing with their camera in order to PB it. You just think too much of your own experience :/

 

[andrew]

*No, halfswings count as seperate now. You can now gain 4 ACC with 4 halfswings. A combo is only a sequence of fast attacks. The pauses in between ie, halfswings, count as combo resets.

im excited! can you say anything about interrupts?

 

[Stassin]

im excited! can you say anything about interrupts?

xD well it's not like the release is far off anyways. Getting hit by a swing will cause BLOCKING ANIMATIONS LIKE IN RC1 from which you get counters in any direction.

 

[andrew]

xD well it's not like the release is far off anyways. Getting hit by a swing will cause BLOCKING ANIMATIONS LIKE IN RC1 from which you get counters in any direction.

no increased drains?

 

[Stassin]

Well, i'm going to stop, because as sev said there's a load of other changes that go together so it makes no sense to leak parts like this.

 

[andrew]

off with ur head

 

[Preston]

Stop im dying of a mix of fear and hype over here