My way of making MBII good

[Iris]

Let me start this by talking about the open mode problems, how to fix them and showing you
my 70% sabering system. Keep in mind all of this is based on 1.5. I did not play 1.5.1.
Some sections might be unnecessarily long.
Some of the things may be a complete fantasy.
All of this is my opinion so take it with a grain of salt.

Open Mode
Complaints
Jedi Stuff​

Open mode as it stands now is unfun for me the Jedi main. I don't think any dev has stated what open mode should
focus on. Is it fun, competitive teamwork (MOBA Games) or just individual skill (CS: GO)?
I think that focusing on individual skill will water down the game and Jedi class will definitely need to get removed, because of an almost impossible task to achieve balance in Jedi vs gunner. Competitive teamwork could be done, but it's not what I look for in open so I'll pass on it.
I'd like to have the Open focus on fun and a bit on teamwork. Playing Jedi in 1.5 is painful. I find statements saying that Jedi allows for more mistakes dumb. As Jedi, you have to keep 360-degree watch or you'll get destroyed by a rocket, sniper, grenade or you'll simply get ambushed by a ninja. Add to that having an eye on your gunners so they don't shoot you or leave you to die. You are always in front with a bullseye painted on your head. You can't deflect shots now because they don't have any accuracy so you can be harassed by gunners non-stop and you can't do anything. Deflecting also eats your FP. To kill a gunner you need to get through his death rays, when you finally get to him you don't have more than 50 FP so you can't use grip or lightning. Push and pull aren't useful against good gunners. The only good power is speed. If you don't use any powers there are only two options you have to take gunner down. Try to jump and move like a monkey so he can't hit you and slash him or push/pull him. The second option is playing flinch game since you will always flinch when no matter if your saber is an inch from his head or meter. The game will test your swing block cps.
One of my situations: Wook and another gunner flinching you 6+ times with yellow and doing 2 slashes on Wookie in that time.
This is what Jedi has to get through to kill 1 gunner and that gunner often has a backup. As Jedi, you must play the game from beginning to the end to win. As a gunner, you can skip attacking the Jedi while he is approaching. Your shots at that point will only increase your chance of winning slightly. To win majority of the time you only need to crouch, shoot and not move no matter what happens. You also need a weapon with at least normal fire rate so you don't need to time your shots, but don't spam so you don't run out of ammo. The only way Jedi can win is by playing flinch game or hitting you with lightning and he shouldn't have FP for that.

Flinch​

Workaround to flinch reliability issues is really bad. It makes you flinch at any range, so as Jedi you can't fight Sith and push the enemy back, because all it takes is 1 gunner flinching you during the fight with Sith and you'll get interrupted and dead. At this point why not play only gunners since Jedi are pretty much useless.

Weapon Velocities​

Changing weapon velocities could have been a good thing but other things were not accounted for during that change. Let's take SBD which was buffed by other changes it massacres Jedi harder than before thanks to ridiculous max drain, but it gets massacred by 1 gunner just because it's too slow to have any ability to dodge shots. ARC's that relied on mobility are also handicapped thanks to projectile speed.

Grenades​

Not removing quick throw is bs. You can take out a grenade and slowly walk to Jedi like Vader and he literally can't do anything meaningful about that. No matter what he does he'll get blown away or shot because he threw his saber away. Grenades having explosions as big as thermals is just dumb even if the grenade explosion effect was properly adjusted.
Damage they do is also ridiculous. It places soldiers miles above any class in close combat if they have an ok aim.

Open Changes Preface​

Trying to balance Jedi vs gunner is hard because you are balancing fun people get by playing those classes.
By making Jedi too weak you are severely limiting fun that people get by playing them, same goes for gunners.
I doubt you'll ever find the perfect balance. I have a solution.
Have you ever played Red Orchestra 2? Balance there is determined more by map than how good a weapon is.
There are limits to the classes. They can only be fielded by determined amount of people.
The amount changes based on the population of people in the match. About half of a team can choose to play as:

• Team Leader,
• Squad Leader (up to 4 people),
• Elite Assault (up to 3),
• Assault (often disabled; up to 3),
• Elite Rifleman (up to 2),
• Sniper (up to 2),
• Machine Gunner (up to 4),
• Tank Crew and Tank Commander (often unavailable but critical roles on maps that they are available on; usually one tank),
• Engineer (Demolitions and stuff; up to 3),
• Anti-Tank Rifleman (up to 2).

Those roles can use Semi-Auto Rifle, SMG, Assault Rifle, Scoped Rifle, Anti-Tank Rifle, LMG and they all have a pistol as secondary. The rest of the players can play as a Rifleman and use a bolt action rifle. Some of the specialist roles also have access to a bolt action rifle. Usually not all of them are available at max cap at the same time.

Open Changes​

I want to institute class limit in open mode. Just on Jedi/Sith so it doesn't limit freedom too much. Four or Five should be perfect.
Revert open to 1.4.9. Gunners won't be spammed by Jedi hordes and will have to deal with them using teamwork. Jedi will be fun enough to actually play.
1.4.9 flinch is good, but it needs to get its reliability fixed or more defined ruleset for it to trigger. I also have an alternative. If you get flinched you stagger, block the flinching shot and don't take any health or FP damage. Next time if you were to flinch you'll get knocked back and take damage.
I'd take knockback from March/April beta and reduce it a bit. Adjust it per weapon. The slower rate of fire of a weapon the bigger the knockback, faster rate of fire smaller knockback. Put flinch on a timer. If you get flinched in 1.5 to 2 seconds you can't get flinched and get knocked back instead.
Slap should be unflinchable.
If you crouch you can be pulled but not pushed. Grip from 1.5 might be okay.
Lightning needs a change. Have it as strong as it was in 1.4.9 and change its radius. Two hands Lightning with radius same as it had then. One hand Lightning 1 with its width at the end of the stream as wide as 1 soldier, Lightning 2 with 3 soldiers, Lightning 3 with 5-6 soldiers. Points required to get Lightning 3 are huge so it might need bigger radius. Finally, nerf Speed by making it so if you get hit while using it, it shutdowns for 0.5-1.0 second.
You pay no FP when it reactivates automatically or you can pay 25 FP immediately for its activation. Press power use button twice for that.

Sabering Preface​

The current sabering system is 30% good, 1.4.9 was about the same, 1.3 is slightly better, but they're all bad because they could be so much more. I think a lot of backlash about new sabering is about how it was hailed as best of the best, but it's the same thing as before. There are many games which have worse systems in terms of depth, possibilities, freedom, but they are polished and weave into the rest of the game nicely. Current sabering doesn't do that. It's clunky and badly paced. It is a chase after speed, not tactics or exploiting an opening. 1.4.9 wasn't a lot better at pacing but due to lower damages weaknesses were much more rewarding. Some games: Kenshi, Gothic 2, Mount & Blade Warband.

Sabering System
Slap​

Slap is similar to M&B Warband kick. Short range, hard to hit, but if you do you can outright win the duel. If the enemy is not blocking slap knocks him down. When down he takes 2x damage. If you hit the enemy that's blocking you fall. Same damage multiplier. When you start the slap you take 1.5x damage for how long it takes to do slap + 1.0-2.0 seconds. This way you won't be spamming for fear of heavy price. I'd adjust the animation to correctly show the range.
There is no point in having swing block with this, just remove it.

Interrupt​

In 1.5 there are three phases of swing. In first you can get interrupted. If swings hit each other when they're both in the second phase, parry or perfect parry doesn't trigger and because of that you have abrupt swing cancel of both players and they take damage. Both of them were in 1.4.9 so you couldn't see how bad interrupt was. You had two something happens phases, but now you don't and have a sudden tempo change. Posts on Official Discord by Stassin tell me that the only reason for having interrupt is to prevent trade wars and punish bad swing timing. I have a solution. Make it like in 1.3. Swings don't cancel each other out. To prevent trade wars add damage received increase to the whole swing. I don't know if it's possible to make it so penalty linearly decreases till it gets to phase 3 and then it skyrockets. I can live with the penalty assigned per swing phase. Only 3 numbers in that case. Trader penalty: Should you swing at someone with bad timing and their swing is in front of you on swing timetable you should suffer additional penalty constructed in the same way as previously, but this time also adds to it damage dealt decreased by 10-20%. You can brute force your way through opponent if you wish so, but beware of the heavy price.
Do all of this with 1.4.9 style damages and increase them if need be.

Swing Speed​

As it is now fast styles have a way too fast starting phase of the swing. Without big experience against them, you're essentially guessing where to PB. Reliable PBing of combos is impossible. Make it so they start slowly and quickly gain in speed. The first phase should be 20-30% slower. Adjust rest of swing's speed making it so that total time to complete the swing is the same as before.

Distance-based Damage​

Damage dealt by all styles shouldn't be constant, but variable on the range you are from your opponent when you hit him with the saber. There are three systems of it I have in mind. Take yellow style and find middle point of the saber. Damage linearly decreases from middle till hilt to punish overly sticking to the enemy. From the middle till the end of saber linearly increases damage. Use yellow's middle point distance from hilt as a middle for other styles. This way heavy, long-reaching styles will have the ability to deal ridiculous damage, but won't be so strong from up close. Fast style spam will deal smaller damage but will have the ability to actually deal damage if the need arises. The second way is done by only taking damage increase from middle till the end of the saber. The third one is done by linearly increasing damage from the hilt till the end.

Stamina Bar​

Stamina bar split into 3 separate ones. Each of them has the same capacity, but regeneration times are different. First one should regenerate quickly. Five seconds seems good enough. Second slower at about 10. Third very slow at 15. The third bar is more of "Oh fuck, I'm gonna lose, I should just defend.".
Replace all timers like slap cooldown and etc. with stamina usage. It'll allow for more freedom. I would add a progressive increase in stamina usage, so if you use slap and use it again within next 1-second stamina cost of it increases by 50% or so. Swings also should use stamina. Different swings, different cost. Stronger costing more, weaker less. Each strike in combo should have a different cost. 2nd and 3rd should cost less or the same amount of stamina. Last swing in combo more than the first.

Swing Damage and Chaining Restrictions​

I'd change combo swing damages for yellow to: 2nd at 0.60x, 3rd at 0.65-70x, fourth should be at 0.80x. There should be no restrictions to swing chaining. I don't have numbers for other styles.

Roll and Dodge​

I'd like to add Dodge and Roll. Both should use the stamina system. Dodge should work the same way it works in The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt and Dark Souls 3. You just take a small step back. Something to use for more defensive playstyles. Make it consume no more than half of the bar. Optimal distance covered should also be tested. Roll working in the same way as in games I wrote about. Big distance covered at the cost of 1.5-2.0 bar. More of a last ditch move. Put them by default on "Z" and "X" buttons. None of the actions should trigger even if you have 99% of stamina needed to use them.

Feint ​

Add feint working in the same way as in M&B Warband. You do feint in M&B by swinging and pressing block button as if you were to cancel it and press attack button again. It requires good timing, especially on fast weapons. Do it too early and you'll fail. If you do it correctly as shown in the GIF you can confuse your opponent and bypass his block. Feint in MBII should be performed same way or by using reload button. This way swing block can be kept if you don't like my slap. The speed of such attack should be at the half swing level and cost at least twice as much in stamina.

imgur album Or8Z8Y9

Feint-Blocking​

Just remove MBlock and MB counter. During a feint, you can perform PB, counter off of it should be at MBC speed level, but always should come from opposing direction to the one you were hit from no matter what button you pressed. Alternatively, if it becomes too easy to do, correct swing direction button must be pressed. Feint-Blocking is in M&B Warband, but I was too lazy to film it.

Utility Styles​

1.3 yellow may be a strange experience for some, but I think vastly different timings of swings are good. It prevents you from overusing the same swing. "A" swing is blazingly fast, but "D" is very slow. If you'll use "A" too much you will have to use "D" or else you'll get PBed every time.

Changes to PB System​

I don't remember the reason for inventing this. Arrows tell you what zone you are holding your mouse on protects. If a protected zone is hit the damage dealt to you is reduced. PB Zones Zones should be as big as in 1.4.9, square/rectangle, shouldn't overlap and have similar positioning.

imgur album mX7Qkd6

imgur album 7iwMOEo

​

Animations
I'd like 1.3 animations of yellow. They were so smooth.
Style Charging​

Cool concept to curb style switching power. When you switch style you don't get full offensive and defensive capabilities of a style. They come to normal over time. Perks shouldn't be affected by this.

Style Customization​

Ability to switch styles during a swing. The moment that swing ends style is switched and if you were to continue a combo or something you do that with current style. I'd add an option to change between the next and last style or design complex system for style customization so you can take attacks from other styles and they switch automatically, making a new style. Don't attempt this without style charging.

Perks
Make them.
Thrust​

Performed by pressing "WAD" or "SAD" at the same time. Take one or both. Thrust should be powerful thanks to new damage model, but easy to PB by making it's hitbox from knees up to the head.

 

[FrenzY]

Thank you for your feedback. I appreciate the work you have put into this.
Stassin or Tempest can comment more on the sabering side of things (as that is their area) if they want.

I personally do not think Jedi/Sith should be buffed or nerf much at their current state - they are the most versatile class, and while a bit vulnerable in certain areas, usually hold their own practically anywhere if played right. Watch some of the better players use this class and you can see why it shouldn't be buffed any more - a lot of those folks can roll through teams on a good run. I've done it enough myself and I don't even really consider myself a good duelist, but someone who can be tricky and dodge / play the map to my advantage and cheese/misdirect gunners. A big issue I have with Jedi/Sith is more with Lightning/Grip and Force Focus being a bit imbalanced, especially against solds or low hp classes. You get a group of Sith spamming Lightning / Grip 3 as a group and it's a real problem.

The key to being a good Jedi in open is knowing where in the map to plant yourself / a lot of the niche moves to keep you unpredictable to gunners. A lot of the best saberists I see in open don't focus on dueling, but getting to good positions and not attacking gunners unless they have a good map advantage in one way or another. Being sneaky, being agile and staying alert are what set you apart. The beauty of this game is that it is more of a rock / paper / scissors style game and that one class should should struggle against certain other classes (Sith vs. Wook for example) and have an advantage over others (Jedi vs. Sold). It can suck because you may be dealt a bad hand of teammates who don't care to listen or help, but that's life. Good communication is key! It really is a chaotic game, and full of b.s. moments for sure, but that's part of the fun...perhaps at your expense! While we seek to balance things, we don't want to remove the fun factor. That fear of rocket/proj/random death is part of what makes this game so great and enjoyable and re-playable!

 

[Tylenol]

You know what, sorry I overestimated what I was gonna say. Ignore this post

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

Okay, firstly, I do partially agree with you, but there are many flaws with your logic, one of which is attempting to push Mount and Blade feinting/other mechanics. Which I have to say "No." to.

MB2's sabering functionality is mostly fine, they just need to bring back 1.3 with some basic tweaks and add interrupting to it. The only buff Feint should have is the ability to chain into another slow swing, or PB off of it. The idea of rolling Mblock counter into it, or even retaining the instant Mblock counter swing, is stupid. Mblock counter is an excessively powerful swing for something that does not take much skill, and rewards defense too much.

As for open mode: There is no real Jedi vs Gunner mechanic, and that is a problem, sure. However I don't know why you would want to avoid balancing the game on skill, because that won't water it down. Making something balanced and skill based isn't akin to watering it down, unless you think that rock-paper-scissors is far too in depth to get rid of.

Flinch is broken because of two reasons: 1) Aiming isn't consistent in MB2, you'll never consistently hit a dodging target based on your aim, you have to guess what direction they will dodge. If flinch was based on aiming skill, then Jedi would stand absolutely 0 chance against a decent gunner.

2) There is no real counter play to said flinch for a Jedi. There is also no infrastructure around flinch to make it more balanced. If flinch was based on aiming skill, there, again, would be no chance for a Jedi to win a fight against a gunner, and that is because the Jedi would have no tools available to kill a gunner reliably in that case.

The Jedi, and Gunner, both have to rely on guessing what his opponent will do. The Jedi gets a few more mistakes than the Gunner does, but it is still guessing. The Jedi effectively dodging and hoping the gunner doesn't hit him, while the gunner uses footwork and hoping that the Jedi doesn't push/pull the moment he releases walk.

Push/Pull being instantaneous abilities, there is very little skill in using them. The only real skill being pull's aim, and that being quite minimal. It is a guess 90% of the time to use push/pull against a competent gunner. You're guessing when the gunner will run, and the gunner is guessing when you'll push/pull. Some people will argue this is 'reading', to which I will call them idiots who have never played a competitive fighter. There is no 'reading' when your fight with an opponent lasts a grand total of 10 seconds, and you have no way of baiting them into doing something.

The only real 'baiting' that can happen in one of these fights, is the gunner purposefully making himself an easier target to bait a swing, and that really doesn't accomplish anything. Alternatively the Jedi can try to bait the gunner into shooting him, and deflecting, but once again, that doesn't accomplish anything, especially since most competent gunners know how to easily bypass deflect.

And the classes of MB2 are really poorly balanced, especially in regards to each other. Most top tier gunners all use the same classes because they are, of course, the stronget classes. Hero and BH are spammed most often because they get the best of everything, with faster movement speed than Jedi/Sith, projectile rifle, P3/E-11 3, and amazing abilities like dash/poison. Then you have Mando which has huge armor and the EE-3 sniper rifle. SBD which is mind-bogglingly OP and the devs have proven to me with the tiny nerf they gave to it that they have no idea how to balance it properly. Or Clone with its insane Ion blobs and decent armor/movement speed.

What is also amusing to me, is that the best counter to all of these classes, is playing the other OP class. Best counter to SBD is Hero or Clone. Best counter to Clone is BH or Mando. It's a rock paper scissors if half the classes are countered by rock. Extremely bad balance in that regard, and this is mostly due to certain classes just getting everything that can deal with anything.



In regards to Jedi/Sith, there needs to be an actual mechanic that allows gunners and Jedi to engage each other and win consistently via skill. That is entirely possible to do, just requires mechanic changes with a sort of depth included with saber vs saber. In saber vs saber, the better duelist (barring 1.5/1.5.1) typically wins the majority of the time, and in a consistent fashion. This sort of system, though simplified, needs to be put in place for saber vs gunner. There are many ways to do that, but personally I would suggest centering it around timing/reading and deflect, where the Jedi's goal is less about strafing around hoping to dodge shots, and more about baiting shots or training the gunner to react to something and then punishing. The gunner's goal should first and foremost be about aim, and timing. Punishing the Jedi for making mistakes with high damage shots.

In order to get this sort of skill based system, force powers would need an overhaul, and would need to become:
1) Stronger - So that abilities like push/pull wouldn't be based on guesses, but actually be a formidable threat that forces gunners to respond to them.
2) Expensive - So that they take some form of commitment and are not spammable, or mindlessly abused.
3) Counterable - So that they are not instantaneous, and have counter play to them.

The better method to balancing a Jedi is to make it more like a fighting or melee game against gunners, where the prime method of killing an opponent is involved in act->reaction and then punishing the incorrect reactions that the gunner could make based on your baiting. Dodging should remain, but it should be a more conscious decision, than a mandatory one.

The other things that would need an overhaul for a skill-based Saber vs Gunner system would be movement, and deflect/swingblock.

Movement would need to be overhauled so that the gunner's aim is consistent on a Jedi. So the Jedi cannot strafe at Mach II, or jump 30 feet into the air without any force usage. The strafing can simply be fixed by reducing movement speed slightly, and removing some movement friction so that you cannot reverse directions extremely fast. Jumping can be fixed by just reducing non-FP jump height to FJ 1 or FJ 2 levels.

Deflect would need to be buffed, and be more meaningful. Where the Jedi could do serious damage, or potentially flinch a gunner, opening up a window to swing. This means that deflect would also need to be punishable with how powerful it becomes, so a failed deflect, or a baited deflect, would result in the Jedi being hittable for a split second.

Lastly swingblock would need to be removed in saber vs gunner. You either commit to your swing, or you feint. Feinting should allow the Jedi to immediately go into deflect/block blaster shots, so that you could bait a gunner into firing on you. Again, act->reaction->punish.

The final issue I will talk about here, is that I believe the FP drainage system for gunner vs saber is clumsy, and makes it impossible to balance 1vX or 1v1, especially when taking into account class disparity. You cannot beat a decent Bounty Hunter/Anything else combo in a 1v2 as a Jedi, without them being incredibly incompetent, it just isn't possible. The FP system makes it so that either the Jedi cannot be defeated in a 1v1, or the Jedi has no chance in a 1vX. Flinch only exacerbates this.

 

[Iris]

I should've stated my intentions of why wrote this. It was to show what the dev team would have to do to satisfy me. I didn't touch things like gunner vs gunner balance, because I can live with how things were in 1.4.9 in open mode.
I see now that I haven't explained what a feint-blocking is in M&B. Enemy swings at you and you swing at him with good timing and the moment you're gonna get hit by his swing you cancel your swing into the block, but you still get feint animation. If you succeed you can continue your attack. It's very hard to do deliberately because if your timing isn't perfect you'll get hit or may even die.

 

[2cwldys]

Imagine MBII if everyone was satisfied.. ahh yeah..

That would be a Utopia, but not likely to ever happen since human nature exists.

EDIT: I like your idea relating about Red Orchestra 2 though!

I've wanted to see a 'territory' kinda gamemode that is demonstrated in RO2, including what you mentioned.. now that'd be interesting.

EDIT 2: Regarding the 'perks' .. 1.3 had perks did it not? For each style? then they were removed?
I think the context of that in your post as well Iris was for gunners and basically all classes too?

 

[Iris]

I meant perks for styles.

 

[Iris]

PB Zone for Slaps​

Put it below the head, so that it covers the torso. Remove swing block. Add 15-20 BP penalty for mistiming MB. As long as you keep looking on your opponent you can't be slapped. In my sabering slap might be too op so I would move thrust zone below the belt, maybe making them overlap.

 

[SomeGuy]

Reading your complaints about Saber vs Gunner, sorry but you're just wrong. You're using the wrong tactics to engage. This isn't like the Clone Wars show where a Jedi can take out 20 droid soldiers effortlessly. Stop trying to play as a vanguard attacker that rushes enemy lines. In your situation you described, of course you lost, the enemy used teamwork.

Jedi/Sith are support classes, not assault. You need to work with allies, such as providing cover for your gunners while advancing and trying to draw fire so they can get clean shots. Push/pull down enemies and let the gunners riddle them. If you don't have support you should be using your supremely better mobility to the greatest advantage with hit and run tactics and trying to lure enemies alone into close quarters.

If anything, Jedi/Sith is still too easy versus a gunner in a 1 on 1. Gunner makes one mistake and is instantly dead by one swing. Jedi can disengage easily to recoup if a mistake is made, or even just power through and tank a couple of shots to get that one swing that lands.

In my opinion this is most definitely a teamwork oriented game.

 

[Tylenol]

Jedi/Sith are support classes, not assault.

As much as I agree with the rest of your post, there's a good number of frag compilations that state otherwise.

 

[Stassin]

This isn't like the Clone Wars show where a Jedi can take out 20 droid soldiers effortlessly.

But it is. Just, the droids in The Clone Wars are like "/npc spawn rebel" that shoot 1 primary fire e11 shot every second and have old Deka's turning rate lvl 1. Well, i guess i should also add randomized non-accurate firing at the very least.

 

[SomeGuy]

As much as I agree with the rest of your post, there's a good number of frag compilations that state otherwise.

I mean it regards to this being a teamwork oriented game hat Jedi/Sith are most effective as support classes and go very complimentary to the rest. Of course you're going to have crazy frag compilations (for any class) but I guarantee the majority of those enemies didn't try actually working together. Just saying teamwork is the best strategy in this game and each class has a role somewhere and that's when MB2 really shines.