I was at work when all of this got posted initially (I did read through but I couldn't respond). After more discussions, general consensus (both as a result of this as well as stuff that's been in the background for a while) is leading to the following:
- Removal of flinch and restoration of knockback. Already done doing this.
- Removal of any "FP debuff"-esque mechanics. Already done doing this.
- No more super tank blocking saberists (goes with the above). Already done with this. Simplified it to a baseline of 25% reduction in FP damage while blocking. No further increase to those who are running. See one of my other posts elsewhere that explains all of the FP drain math.
- Putting the saber system back into a state similar to how it was prior/up to 1.3 (much simpler, no/non-universal ACM stuff, no perks; Just differing animations, attack/defense ratings). Currently working on this.
Kas said:
1. special attacks should cost fp, not bp indeed
I think that it's better balanced by a lower FP cost with a small BP cost (since it is basically a hyper-attack). This also lets it be balanced in cases such as someone spamming stabs with Duals when they're at low-0 BP and making it extremely difficult or impossible to finish them off.
2. bring back purple stab, give current purple kata move to the red style, red style should have flinch or it should be faster, no staggers
Just for reference, staggers and flinches are exactly the same thing (though most might think of flinching as where it just simply stops the swing like with how it works when you get shot while swingblocking). Less staggers of any sort = better. They're extremely intrusive and generally obnoxious to be on the receiving end of. Already tried Purple stab being back and it was horrible/a good reminder for why it got removed. Specials in beta are good examples of how they should be (providing some protection and decent damage as a baseline without being blenders).
3. remove saber both perks&acm.
Working on it!
4. remove that crappy unreliable flinch thing, restore knockback
5. give more freedom by the force regen changes SeV mentioned - it will benefit both good gunner and good jedi/sith punishing bad ones
Just need to look at the knockback code that's sitting around and make sure whatever cases of super launching people back don't come up again.
6. bring back grip to it's glory and don't f**** nerf lightning as you plan to.
The only bad thing that happened to grip was that it became a lot less cheese. It's actually stronger aside from that (though the timing on it could use tweaking, which is something I'm going to be looking at for my indepth run-through of tweaks to powers). Lightning is still cheese and needs a better baseline but in the long run will actually be stronger/more useful.
7. why dont you allow avaiable force powers to be set in server confing? or at least introduce more powers. (you say: balh balh blah balance etc....)
I don't know if it's ever been discussed but it's not something you can really just snap your fingers and have done. Not terribly difficult but it does require care to make sure nothing unintentional occurs (see the bugged 7 single saber style build I tend to use as a good example of what can happen..). More powers are in the same boat but also require things from scratch (and I do have some powers that I
really want to put in!) as well.
8. There are plenty of unused FA assets which are great. Great maps, great possibilities. Some talented guys spent bunch of time on creating them and now everyone just plays dotf or lunarbase. You guys are really wasting the enormous potential the MB2 project has. This leads me to my last point:
People not playing the maps and whatnot aren't really something we can control without really stepping on toes and I doubt anyone on the team wants to delve into that territory. If the server owners don't want to play on maps, they don't have to. If servers are set up with RTV and people don't play on whatever maps, that's their choice.
9. why do you hardcode max skill points, timer etc.? Why do you impose us how we should play the game? (ok you're devs and I respect it but come on, MB2 can be so much more than this)
The way the points are set up are for balancing purposes. Having a streamlined expectation for Open mode needs some limitations.
I really want to set 30 minute rounds and play RP with my friends.
This is something that's come up on many occasions but I'd rather leave it to
@Viserys or
@Defiant to comment. Also as a side note, you can't really ever have truly unlimited rounds because of technical limitiations/issues that would arise.
I want them to join mid round, and be able to respawn, and use the all the classes.
Similar to the above but in regards to the actual requirements for allowing such things...it requires basically intentionally breaking through a lot of checks and code that try to prevent things from breaking. Just getting midround joining in duel mode was a huge headache (and there's still some buggy behavior that's not even something I can directly fix in the code I put together).
Just think of how many maps could be adapted to mb2 mode? Dozens, thousands. People would come and play, create their own star wars character and write their own history. Be a jedi/mandalorian/bounty hunter, whatever they want.
If you're referring to base JKA maps then a large majority of them aren't suited for MB2. FFA maps aren't suited for objective play.
What they have now is join the game, then learn and stay or get rekt and leave. Not everyone has the time and patience and will to do that.
That's more a personal issue than a game issue. If you aren't willing to put time into learning/improving at something, then why should you be getting the same results as someone who does?
