Forgive me if this feedback seems a bit amateurish/lacking content/poor, I just got back home for the summer from my college and have experienced 1.4 for the first time in these past several days. Though it'll really only be scratching the surface in terms of what I address, I'd like to give feedback on some different aspects within this new update. So, here we go:
AS REGARDS GUNNERS
Changes that were made
There did not seem to be a whole lot of changes made in this regard, but those changes that were made seem to be good. I think that slap damage for an SBD being reduced is pretty good. The wookiee change seems fine, I never really saw too much of a problem with it. The Mandalorian class change seems somewhat strange. I like that the wrist blaster was changed to not have a delay anymore, this is excellent. It'll help a lot with the ease of aiming the wrist blaster. However, making the ammo capacity 3 instead of 5 and the reducing the recharge rate seems to be too much of a nerf, especially on an aspect of the Mando class that did not seem to be problematic in terms of balance. Most Mandos simply use the flamethrower anyway. Also, with the fact that the wrist blaster explodes upon depletion of ammo, further limiting it with the changes made seems to be drastically limiting the wrist blaster to an ill degree.
Ideas for possible changes in the future
The Mandalorian class's problem wasn't the wrist blaster really, but rather I think the major problem Mando class has is its ridiculously slow get-up time after getting knocked over by anything. The Mando class is the only non-multiple-life, non-tank class that has the get-up speed of a soldier. Allow me to explain why this is a problem. The Mandalorian class is supposed to represent a very powerful warrior, one who has excellence in ranged combat, close-quarters combat, and martial arts. The way the Mando class is configured suggests otherwise though. Now, this doesn't mean much as it is just geeking out really, but I thought it would be worth mentioning just to present that idea. Now, I say this because if a mando is ever pushed by a jedi, and he gets knocked down, it is pretty much certain death for him, as it is for a soldier. Now, unlike the soldier, this is a problem for the mando class. Mandos can only ever have one life, they do not have the option of multiple lives. For them to be as easy to take out as a soldier if confronted by a jedi, therefore, is ridiculous, as the Mando should be able to hold his own in any situation, not overpowered, but also not easily overwhelmed in the blink of an eye. For this reason, I submit that giving the Mando the getup speed of his equivalent, the ARC Trooper, or the same getup as a hero/bountyhunter (the sideways roll) would be a viable option for giving the mando a better chance of matching up to the jedi. This is an issue that has been voiced by many others too, as I have observed over my time of playing MB2. Also, as a side note, I'd suggest restoring the ammo capacity of the wrist blaster, keeping the recharge rate as it currently is, and getting rid of the self-destruct mechanism when it runs out of ammo. As it stands now, it is already harder to use anyway.
I feel that as far as armament goes, the hero class is lacking severely compared to its imperial counterpart, the bounty hunter class. The only sniper rifle hero has is the Projectile rifle, and on that note, as far as the entirety of the Rebels go, the whole faction really only has one sniper rifle. The Westar M5 for the ARC Trooper class in "sniper" mode really just seems to be more of a ranged semi-automatic rifle with a scope than an actual sniper, even the EE-3 Carbine's sniper mode is more of a sniper rifle than that. As far as sniper rifles go, it just seems that the rebel team is severely lacking. I got an idea the other day that could be really cool as regards this aspect: The DC-17m with the Sniper attachment from Star Wars: Republic Commando. This could be made to basically be the same weapon as the Tenloss DX-R 6 Disruptor Rifle (hope I cited that properly), but have a blue beam instead of an orange beam and to have the DC-17m sniper attachment model. This could be applied either to the hero class, as that is the sniper class, or could be added to the ARC Trooper class, as it would be fitting to the elite clones, particularly for the Commando models. I just thought that it would be awesome to have multiple viable options for sniping on the Rebels as there are for the Imperials.
This one is more of just a matter of opinion on visual beauty, for lack of a better term, than balancing per se, but I've always thought the push-back that the Commander class has when shooting the primary of the T-21 was rather ridiculous. One would think that a soldier would have the necessary training and condition to professionally and efficiently use a weapon of that caliber, otherwise he would not use that weapon. Not really an important point or balance issue, just something about which I thought.
This might be a cool idea, but could produce balancing issues. What if the SBD were given a mini-wrist rocket that did minimal focused damage? Not as powerful as the normal rockets, but one that just does some damage upon impact, but not able to instantaneously kill someone at full health. Perhaps if it did like, 50 minimal to 75 maximum when a direct hit, and then to have a very small radius that has a maximum of 30 damage when an indirect hit? I got this idea basically from the old battlefront games and the Republic Commando game where the SBD's had wrist rockets. Could be cool. Of course, the rocket would be able to knockback someone in a direct hit, but not in an indirect hit. Also, since it doesn't do much damage, maybe it could be faster than a normal rocket, or not able to be pushed back? Firing the rocket could also have a hefty cost on the SBD's energy reserve. Just an idea to pitch.
Feel like I've spent long enough on this section, onto the next!
GUNNERS VS. JEDI/SITH
While reading all that I say in this section, keep in mind that I am saying this as primarily a gunner, so even though a lot of what I say may seem to reflect a defense of the jedi/sith, it is from the standpoint of a gunner.
Changes that were made
Flinch. In my completely honest opinion, this is the worst thing I've seen about this update. I do not like flinch at all, both as a gunner and as a saberist. I believe it's not an answer to balancing the gunner/saberist relationship, but rather causes more trouble than it solves. Gunners do need some balanced relation with the jedi/sith classes, but not a crutch to walk on. Flinch makes it way too easy for a spray-and-pray gunner to kill an approaching jedi and does not foster any skill development whatsoever with the gunner class. It is also inconsistent and unreliable, as the distance for when it activates seems difficult to locate with precision. And from the perspective of the jedi/sith, I can't think of anything that would be more irritating than something that basically hands the gunner a kill. Not only does it disrupt attacks or deflections for a short time, but it also pushes the saberist back, giving him ground to make back up. It's not the answer to balancing gunner and saberist. In the ideas proposed section, I will offer a possibly better solution.
If the point of this part of the update was to make it so that gunners were not so easily overwhelmed vs. jedi/sith, why make it easier to a) tank some shots with the 20% damage reduction, and b) increase the saber deflection arc? Seems counter-intuitive from my standpoint, but perhaps they are internally working with other changes that validate these.
Ideas for possible changes in the future
Make melee against jedi/sith have a stronger effect than normal, or have more of a chance of a successful hit that will knock the jedi/sith off balance in any way, as far as kicking and the uppercut go. This would promote more skill in gunners, demanding that they must learn how to fight in close quarters in order to survive against a saber. Ways to go about this would be to increase the area of effect for kicks, reduce the recharge time for used special moves, increase the physical damage done to jedi/sith by melee by some factor, configure melee so that all kicks knock jedi/sith down when they are standing, and the uppercut and kicks simply knock a jedi/sith off-balance when they are crouching, in other words throws them off in the same manner that the uppercut breaks through the melee block with the forearms initiated by the reload key when in melee. Then, if possible, give the gunners a quick-draw ability or reduced weapon draw time so that they could switch between melee and guns swiftly. I think this would be adequate to fix the balance between the two types of classes, and then gunners would simply need to learn how to properly melee. This might be a problem if the boosts transfer over to the wookiee, in which case you could simply reduce the stats of the wookiee enough to counteract the effect, or somehow restrict the bonus from carrying over to the wookiee.
Vibroblade perhaps? Maybe one gunner class from each faction could have the option to take on something like a Vibroblade, but would be limited to only two saber styles (perhaps yellow and cyan, or yellow and blue, or yellow and red), and restrict from those classes the ability to deflect blaster bolts? It's a hard thing to achieve I imagine, but again, just an idea to pitch that might be cool if able to be done effectively.
LIGHTSABER VS. LIGHTSABER COMBAT
Forgive me as I talk about this section, for I don't really have any positive criticism on this section, only negative criticism. I don't want to sound like I'm just talking a whole bunch of garbage about this mod, but with all that I have to say, it may very well seem like that. If it does, I apologize. Without further delay...
Changes that were made
In general, the saber system, as it seems to me, is completely messed up, things just don't seem to fit right. While I will say that perhaps things/moves are not as random as they were in 1.3, I still think that 1.4's saber system is far inferior to 1.3's. Even though it is more consistent, the thing in which it is consistent in is favoring one specific style way too much, the yellow style. The yellow style seems to be the only viable option if one wants to actually do well in duels and survive for a while, all other styles, except for perhaps duals, staff, and purple style in some special cases, have just taken a beating in effectiveness. While I agree that red needed to be nerfed a very little bit, I disagree that it needed as huge of a nerfing as it got. The thing about red is that it was a high risk/high reward kind of style, one would need to sacrifice a lot of BP just to do attacks and combos with it, however, if hits were successful, one could absolutely demolish the BP meter in his opponent. It was a good compromise, it only seemed overpowered because if done successfully, it was very quick in getting results. But that's because that's the nature of that style, is to finish the fight quickly by means of overwhelming strength. It's not meant to keep up in a long, drawn-out duel. If one uses red and the duel takes too long, or he gets hit/pblocked too many times, then his BP meter takes an absolute beating, and he's soon in a sticky situation. Once one gets into that situation, unless he is REALLY proficient with red, then he is pretty much dead at that point. Purple definitely should not be nerfed less than red, red should not be as nerfed as it was. Purple was more OP than red in 1.3 because it sustained its BP better, but had a similar proficiency in combos, and even had a pretty impressive likelihood of Pblocks. Purple needed to be nerfed way more than red. Red should not have been so nerfed because now the nature of its style is high risk / little to no reward. Red still has a proclivity to losing BP quickly based on use, but the amount of BP it drains from the opponent now has been reduced and red's ability to do effective combos has also been reduced. None of the combos that I practiced or made or learned in 1.3 work now in 1.4, and any combos that do simply don't do any damage. Red uses to much energy in order to do a sub-par job against an opponent. It's completely weak and absolutely useless now. Even those who are not as experienced in saber combat are able to easily counter red simply because it drains so much to do so little. It went from being slightly OP to being completely underpowered. Cyan/blue have also taken a negative turn, though not as drastic. They risk little BP usage in order to do multiple mini-series's of attacks that do little, but constant damage. However, when they block against attacks, they both seem to now lose much more BP than ever before. Because of their nature, this causes an alarming loss of BP with no ability to effectively counter that BP loss, as it will lose the BP faster than it can sustain it. In turn, all the changes that were made in 1.4 with the saber system seem to basically rule yellow as the supreme head over all the saber styles, with duals and staff right behind it simply because they are so belligerent in nature, whacking the crap out of any opponent with multiple hits. Nudge also doesn't seem to work too well. It is really buggy and in saber duels, it becomes a real hassle that messes up all sorts of combos. It just doesn't seem like a very good feature.
Ideas for possible changes in the future
I honestly think the saber system in 1.3, though at times sporadic, made much more sense than the system in 1.4 overall. Each of style had its strong suit and its weakness, either which can be utilized or vulnerable to any other style used in a particular way. No one style was simply dominant over all simply because it was that style. It made for a gameplay much more fun and exciting, as you didn't know what to expect. But now, with 1.4, everything seems to be very one-sided, and somewhat dull, as has been my experience. I would suggest restoring the saber system from 1.3, but to keep all the other changes in 1.4, and then of course to consider the changes/criticisms listed above in earlier sections.
Thank you for taking the time to read this feedback. If at any point during my feedback I seemed rude, crude, overstepping bounds, disrespectful, amateurish, or simply not providing a good set of arguments/proof, I do apologize. It is not my intent to say anything disparaging about the mod itself or its developers. This is an excellent mod with a lot of work put into it. My only goal in writing this feedback is to perhaps give another perspective on things which can be used to perhaps further improve the mod in a later update.
