Okay Achilles. I'm tired of your ignorant bullshit. I am going to address it so that you can stop making a fool of yourself.
I can gain 4 ACC with any style in a very short amount of time from a few nudges and halfswings. Saying you drain full ACM from 2 PB's and a counter swing is basically saying that you don't know what you're talking about. 2 PB's and 1 counter with yellow will drain from the opponent -3 ACC which is equal to 1 ACM and 1 ACC, basically what you described drains 1 1/2 ACM, not 9 ACM. It isn't a big deal and you should be receiving a penalty for getting your anus shrekt by 2 PBs and a counter anyways. This isn't 1.3 where anything skillful you do doesn't really matter. When you PB the opponent, it has an impact, and when you counter, it does damage and has an impact. So instead of complaining that you're getting shrekt, you need to learn to use nudges and unpredictable swings to bypass Pblocks. I haven't been PBlocked more than 5 times in the couple of hours I've put into 1.4 so far and I wasn't only fighting noobs. This, like much other so-called feedback from Achilles simply amounts to L2P issues.
Halfswings were also slowed to a degree where they are all equal in speed and completely Pblockable so halfswings aren't demonstrably better than in 1.3 but the fact that they are possible from every direction and the fact that a swing can be repeated, increases the skill it takes to PB any swing, including halfswings and 'slow' swings. In any case, do you think you should be rewarded and hand held and patted on the back when you do slow swings and your opponent skillfully Pblocks you and counters you? Again this is just L2P and what you've said is in no way a negative thing even if it is wrong.
Turtling playstyle is the worst possible way of playing in 1.4. It was much, MUCH stronger in 1.3 than in 1.4 but since you're completely clueless about sabering let me spell it out for you. In 1.4 a skilled player such as myself will be able to gather a few ACMs (1 ACM being 2 ACC being 2 bodyhits), on any player. If said player is turtling, he isn't responding and isn't reducing the amount of ACC that I gain, thus when he finally starts fighting back he will be at a big disadvantage as all of my swings will deal much more damage than his swings. Furthermore, You do not receive any noticable benefits from a passive playstyle. 1.4 is a system which promotes active and skillful interactions where you are constantly swinging and PBing and interacting with your opponent, not just doing a mindless 4 hit combo and slapping automatically afterwards. If you and kael were unable to finish eachother off, it simply means you are both clueless about how to play 1.4 and can't deal with it. This doesn't mean the system is bad, it just means you have to tighten up your stubborn anus and learn to fucking play.
I can sort of understand your trepidation with the new system though, since as a 1.3 cyan user you've had to acquire absolutely no sabering skill whatsoever besides decent swing timings. In 1.4 the timing route would be for you to learn to use nudges efficiently with a style like red. But even so you'll be forced to get good at PBing and using feints and other swings that aren't so predictable and easy to PB.
You're not making much sense here, so I'm not sure what to say other than the fact that semi-perfect blocks can't make turtling stronger, since turtling means you're not attacking and thus incapable of acquiring SPB's.
No. Halfswings being of a consistent speed does not make people facehug more. Nor does the fact that chain paused swings and swings from blocking animations have been equalized in speed contribute to facehugging. The only reason people facehug is because it gives them nudge, which allows them to attack faster and thus avoid getting PB'd as much. You could learn something from that I think. In any case, what you're taking issue with here is a change which would've been very welcome in any system including 1.3, as it simply means that with a style like yellow, you can use ALL halfswings not just left. That opens up many possibilities. The only reason why you would take issue with this change would be if you didn't understand it, which I'm inclined to think is the main reason for many of your objections at this point.
Countering is harder to perform in 1.4 for two reasons. Number one is the reduced PB zones, making it harder to PB. The second reason why counters are harder to perform is that there's only a small timing window in which you can activate it. If you don't activate it within this tiny timing window, you won't perform a fast counter that deals 1.2x damage. Now keep in mind that most swings are dealing 1.1x Damage, so it isn't like counters are super strong. But they are more rewarding in 1.4 than they were in 1.3. It takes more skill to pull off a counter in 1.4, and thus counters have been made impactful.
Do you know the amount of times I've been countered by my opponent in 1.4 so far? 0 times. How many times have I countered my opponnets? Atleast 20 maybe more. And this in only a couple of hours of gameplay, half of it open mode. Countering takes skill and time to learn properly. The fact that you can call it easy is almost as stupid as you saying PB'ing is easier in 1.4 than in 1.3 when the PB zones have been reduced and made to be non-overlapping, effectively removing the easy angle and forcing you to properly PB.
This is a very neglible change and not noticable in most circumstances. It's more of a flavour touch than anything else and all it means is that spammy cyan swings don't have equal weight to a big fat red swing. It makes logical sense for heavy styles vs 'fast' styles and it's not like heavy styles will be parrying much in any case. This change does not in any way make fast styles almost worthless and neither does it affect parrying in any big way. Parrying still prevents you from losing ACC and it still prevents damage in a big way. The only area where this change shines through is when you've got a 0 BP spam situation where someone is spamming vs another guy that has more BP. When parrying on 0 BP you briefly stagger, allowing the opponent to shrek your anus for your impertinence. This is more likely to occur if you're using red vs cyan for example and it makes sense too because it balances out the gap between how many attacks red can spam vs how many attacks cyan can spam.
No. This means that blue lunge and dual stab spam is no longer an ACC accumulation factory. DFA's are the same as in 1.3. Yellow YDFA is very risky and under most circumstances, if you get hit by it you deserve to take the damage. It's very easy to avoid. It's also very easy to just sidestep and uppercut a YDFA in the back. Your complaints here are just L2P regarding YDFA, though I personally also think YDFA damage is a bit on the extreme side. I would prefer if its damage got toned down abit.
1.3 = Trading combos aka trading blows in LONG combo chains.
1.4 = Trading blows with varying lengths, often short fast intervals, sometimes long chains. There's a ton more space for variations between single hit trading, two hit trading and full combos in 1.4 than there was in 1.3
Also, 1.3 cyan is essentially just 'trading blows' as you time your swing to parry the opponent. What the fuck is your complaint about here? 1.4 is far more of diversifying sabering system than the homogenized mindless spam of 1.3
You say 1.4 doesn't feel measured any more, but in that regard 1.3 was the non-measured, spammy braindead approach. I could just go on autopilot and spam at my opponent in 1.3, but in 1.4 I'm never on autopilot but always nudging, PB'ing, countering, swinging, halfswinging, trick-swinging, semi-PBing and using footwork to either get close or get away to prevent a nudge. In 1.3 what I did was 1 thing, but in 1.4 what I do are many, many things. You saying that 1.4 isn't 'measured' anymore implies that you thought sabering in 1.3 was more measured and calculated and thoughtful than in 1.4 when in-fact it is the opposite. This isn't just a matter of opinion. The amount of actions per minute in 1.4 dueling is much higher than the amount of actions in 1.3, not to mention the brain activity required in 1.4 as opposed to just autistically repeating a few combos over and over again in 1.3.
Swingblocking doesn't stop combos and it shouldn't. Keep in mind also, that the swing restrictions have been lifted making it easier to combo in 1 direction. This is a nerf to that as much as anything else, but it isn't as much of a nerf as you think it is. The over all BP damage of swings have been upped to 1.2x so that means that whilst it looks like combo damage have been cut in half, it's really not so bad.
In any case, comboing is actually a strong tool in 1.4 due to the interrupts it allows you to perform. Versus a person in a single hit rhythm, throwing a big fat combo at his face suddenly makes you interrupt his single hit rhythm and hit him during a swing. This not only drains alot of his BP but breaks his rhythm and allows you to take the momentum back from him. While combos in 1.4 have been nerfed to some degree, they still remain a viable tool in any competent duelists arsenal. Right now, single hits, two hit combos and full combos are all viable and have their situational uses whereas before in 1.3 you only ever used combos and not much else at all. 1.4 has brought much more diversity to sabering because of this and many other changes and you simply can't understand these things unless you play the game alot and learn to play (which you seem oddly resistant to).
Staff in 1.4 is a strong style, it just doesn't rely as much on Mblock spam as before but it still has a high base dmg and is harder to PB than many other styles if played skillfully. Purple received a nerf much like red, perhaps even more so. The reason why you might be getting raped by purple more than red is for a couple of reasons. First, since you're incapable of playing around PBs with nudge, feints and halfswing fakes, you're probably getting PB'd quiet alot by purple. Secondly, you're probably allowing purple to build up some ACM by not attacking back as you seem to think turtling is viable and can make you invulnerable when in fact it just makes you more vulnerable. Third, purple scales well with ACM but has a low BP modifier. Fighting purple requires you to constantly work against its ACM gain and keep it under control. Generally in 1.4 you need to be sensitive to the back and forth ACM struggle and it matters more than in 1.3. It is also a fact that Red will be for most people harder to use in 1.4 than purple, because they aren't used to nudge yet. When they become used to nudge, they'll find red just as powerful as purple if not more so due to it's sexy nudges and the flinch.
Another L2P issue achilles. Are we starting to see a pattern here? Perhaps. Perhaps.
--
If you really want to know why we've removed the parry perk and made parrying cost something (albeit a neglible cost), here it is spelled out for even you to understand.
Parrying in 1.3 served only one purpose, it was defensive and dragged out duels that should've ended long ago. Have you ever witnessed a retarded 0 BP 4 hit yellow left right spam, jump spam jump spam jump at 0 BP before? That is one of the things we've fixed by including things like the PB combo stopper and stagger when parried to 0 BP. The reason why the cyan parry perk was removed was simply because it was a boring and noob-friendly playstyle that required little to no skill and no brains to pull off. It was also unimaginative and gave everyone an immense ball ache whenever they faced off against it, so taking such a stupid and pointless anomaly out of an otherwise excellent sabering system is logical. (Unless of course you're Achilles, and relying heavily on a broken mechanic). 1.4 forces people to utilize the many intricate elements of sabering we have available to us, like PBing, countering and halfswinging, whereas in 1.3 a cyan user could completely bypass having to PB or counter or even halfswing. All he had to do was hold WA and tap attack whenever his opponent swung at him.
...
I hate to break it to you, but red was an uninteresting pile of garbage with the red perk. It actively worked against the core principle behind the stance. Of course, given the fact that you're a new and clueless player, I'm not surprised to find that you think turtling with red in 1.3 was an interesting playstyle for red. Oh wait, didn't you say before that 1.4 promoted turtling and said that was a negative thing? Yet you like turtling red with a perk that's counterintuitive to its aggressive roots? Make up your mind already. You can be wrong about everything and have no clue about the game, but atleast be consistent.
The PB zones have been made smaller and they no longer overlap. Nudge can initiate very fast swings that are almost impossible to PB. You can halfswing in every direction, combo off of swing faints and swing directions have also been unlocked, allowing you to mindfuck your opponent with more possibilities than ever before.
Yet you find it easier to PB in 1.4 than in 1.3? Okay then.
Nudge to gain ACM. Parry to avoid losing ACM. Isn't parrying one of your things? Why the fuck are you not using it to prevent ACM loss with cyan then? The style can literally chain together a wall of parries and that can prevent anyone from draining your ACM.
The reason why this exception was introduced was because with blue nudge and cyan's fast nigh unblockable swings, those two stances got a vast advantage when it came to accumulating ACM. They could almost accumulate it twice as fast as yellow. Now, it's no longer a sure victory to just spam your way to high ACM and not being able to lose it fast either. Blue and cyan gain and lose ACM faster than other styles so they are a bit volatile in that regard. I think that makes them more interesting, not less.
This change allows blue style to use diagonal combos, which previously would just result in a passthrough. This has made combos faster with blue, which was one of the reasons why the swing limit was changed to be 2. The other reason being the unlocked swing directions (to avoid ye olde blue bug).
You shouldn't accuse us of having no clue how blue works when you yourself aren't even capable of understanding the implications of simple changes like the one above. Every word you write in 1.4 seems to expose your ignorance to anyone who's willing to look.
Lol. ^
Lol, Kael near perfect PB skills? Also, WA WA WA is easy as fuck to PB. Also, combo's have been nerfed to prevent this from being as impactful on gameplay. All the changes we've made have been to accomodate the system as a whole, to fit all the nuts and bolts together in a cohesive way which complements the parts, making the whole more consistent and ultimately resulting in a very well thought out sabering system. You need to learn to play.
Direction restrictions haven't made learning sabering a challenge. It's made learning it easier. One of the hardest things for new players is the combo system. I know this because I've helped many noobs over the years and they consistently struggle to combo. This change makes it easier for them to attack with combos, but also makes such combos weaker and easier to PB, not harder to PB.
Oh wait, weren't you just complaining about how PBing was easier in 1.4 than in 1.3? For fucks sake Achilles. How can you say in the same paragraph that Kael, whose PBing skills are apparently godlike, is incapable of blocking simple combos like WA, WA, WA, while in the next sentence saying that these changes have made it harder to get around an opponents block? Are you braindead?
This assumes that the gunner is a noob that can't aim pistol shots at close range, or T-21 shots. It benefits all weapons, some more than others but it benefits all weapons nonetheless. Of course, it makes it easier to play CR-3 than pistol or Big Bertha(T-21), but that's how it's always been anyway. A spammy mini-gun is always going to be easier to hit with than a powerful single hit weapon like P3.
Purple and Red still deal alot of damage to things like droideka's, SBDs and Wookiees, so they aren't useless at all. I think they're just as useful as in 1.3, if not more so given the addition of nudge, allowing a red user to actually kill gunners if he is skilled enough to get the nudge timing right. Whereas before, you'd have to buy blue/yellow to slay Commanders and BH's/Heroes. 1.4 has made all styles more independant of eachother, so you can choose Red and a bunch of force powers and just rely on your nudge skills to attack gunners. Whereas in 1.3, you pretty much needed to use yellow or blue on gunners.
So what you're saying here is sort of the opposite of reality in 1.4, which doesn't surprise me. It's a consistent theme throughout this ignorance riddled word vomit you've spewed forth.
****Jedi/Sith now have a universal 20% damage reduction in addition to the 0.75x when blocking. Does not apply when swing-blocking.
You forgot to mention the baseline addition of 20% dmg reduction to all lightsaber styles, so think of it not as a removal of DR but as a nerf for Red DR while at the same time being a boon for other styles that didn't previously have any DR.
I do think open perks were interesting to a certain extent, but removing them made it easier to balance out the open mode gameplay. I wouldn't mind open mode perks for lightsaber styles, but at the same time I don't think their removal has drastically altered anything at all. They are a flavour item and not a major contributor to the changes in 1.4 open mode gameplay. Those would be flinch and nudge in case you were wondering.
I wanted to end on a strong note, but I half agree with you here. I would like open mode perks also, but the previous perks weren't working that well and as you said yourself most of them didn't have a noticable impact on gameplay, whereas 20% DR across the board does have an impact. Perhaps open mode perks will be something to look at in future updates. I think clearing the ground was a decent choice for the devs.