Open is finally dead.

[Kitsu-Nesh'Kaa]

Plus, keep in mind that people have a personal life, a main job, and problems. The kitty sneezes, the dog dies, the parents came for the weekend. No one is obliged to figure out and solve a problem in the game at the moment, when there are a WHOLE ass of problems in the IRL.

 

[Leo]

you are taking it too much to your heart mate dont use these excuses on me, i thought i expressed myself clearly enough for you to realize i am not shitting on anyone, i'm simply stating that most of the time i'm talking to a wall no matter how many clips & lists & explanations I post. with today i expect it to be much better though.

 

[Kitsu-Nesh'Kaa]

you are taking it too much to your heart mate dont use these excuses on me, i thought i expressed myself clearly enough for you to realize i am not shitting on anyone, i'm simply stating that most of the time i'm talking to a wall no matter how many clips & lists & explanations I post. with today i expect it to be much better though.

I also sometimes write 2-3 times about the same thing, because the chat can be filled with communication on another topic.
Use @ and pay attention to your problem more.

 

[Leo]

I also sometimes write 2-3 times about the same thing, because the chat can be filled with communication on another topic.
Use @ and pay attention to your problem more.

okay now ur clearly ragebaiting

 

[Biospill]

The only option left is nuclear lets remove legends as god intended and free the shackles satan has placed on the open player.

 

[Sir.Muis]

I think we should just play the mod they way we like! Have some fun!

 

[Teh Evil Cow]

[...]

This is the best take. Also, the extreme pros already scare away new players - they just can't resist racking up 10/1 k/ds on easy targets - and we've all seen the result of the MB2 Team catering to them.

 

[MasterBaiter]

I'm sorry to disappoint but the time for deep and intricate systems has come and passed.

For the past 10 years, MB2 has enjoyed relative stability, being kept afloat by the renewed interest in Star Wars thanks to The Force Awakens, and all other media that came after it (movies, games, shows). People CRAVED for more SW, and so we had new players constantly joining in. Even if most of them left, new blood always rushed in after some big release.

Now, I don't want to be too harsh here, but I think that stability was mostly squandered. We had all the time in the world to come up with new content, and yet... All I can remember is ENDLESS balancing, number changes, adjustments and reworks with a side dish of maps and models. All this time spent for nothing, because duel mains still can't agree on exactly how deeply the lightsaber hilt should go up their asses when they do a PB MB ACC ACM 360 degree swingblock.

What we have NOW is a situation where people don't give a rat's ass about Star Wars anymore. The franchise isn't dead per se, but it is oversaturated and plagued with low effort failures. Your average Joe doesn't want more SW. And that means no more new players for free.

Understand this - the time for playing with numbers is over. If you want this mod to survive, you need to focus whatever effort you can spare on making it as noob friendly as possible. New players are now a luxury, you HAVE to fight for them, fight tooth and nail for them to stay.

I'm sure you can figure out what to do, but let me give you a few pointers:

1) The fucking keybinds - you NEED to minimize the number of buttons and figure out a good default layout ASAP. This shit is horrible, to the point of me not even binding the slap key on SBD because I couldn't be bothered. You think a new player would be?

2) Tutorials - I understand that finishing the in-games ones might be too much to ask, but we need AT LEAST youtube videos to explain how everything works - gamemodes, mechanics, classes. Also, these tutorials need to be FRONT AND CENTER, not buried in the "help" tab of the launcher among other things. Like, put them straight into the main menu so the noob physically cannot miss them.

3) Let go of the idea of making MB2 a competitive e-sport. It WON'T happen. Competitive communities form naturally around casual ones, so focus the game on being as casual-friendly as possible. People want to nadejump? Fucking let them. Casuals LOVE funny things in games. Some peepee poopoo rifle/grenade/ability is too strong? Let it be strong, buff other things instead. Let classes have STRONG things and build around those. Make things FEEL GOOD to use, and worry about exact balance later.

I'm sorry to say it, my good oldies, but balance is no longer a concern. Soon there won't be anyone left to appreciate your amazing balancing ideas. This game needs new blood, and that means accessibility and FUN.

If someone makes a video about this mod and it blows up and brings 10000 new players into MB2, I can guarantee you that 9999 will leave the next day. 1 person will stay and play legends, because at least that part of the mod is just no-brain stupid fun.

So, ya know, think about it. Just my 2 cents.

This guy gets it.

 

[Rajive]

(...)
Let go of the idea of making MB2 a competitive e-sport. It WON'T happen. Competitive communities form naturally around casual ones, so focus the game on being as casual-friendly as possible. People want to nadejump? Fucking let them. Casuals LOVE funny things in games. Some peepee poopoo rifle/grenade/ability is too strong? Let it be strong, buff other things instead. Let classes have STRONG things and build around those. Make things FEEL GOOD to use, and worry about exact balance later.

I'm sorry to say it, my good oldies, but balance is no longer a concern. Soon there won't be anyone left to appreciate your amazing balancing ideas. This game needs new blood, and that means accessibility and FUN.

If someone makes a video about this mod and it blows up and brings 10000 new players into MB2, I can guarantee you that 9999 will leave the next day. 1 person will stay and play legends, because at least that part of the mod is just no-brain stupid fun.

So, ya know, think about it. Just my 2 cents.

This.

I have been playing MB2 since 2007. I've rarely post here because I don't care about duel/competition or most of thoses thing. If I have played MB2 more than any other game in those 17 years it's because MB2 was the most fun and pleasant Star Wars game to play with a great community ingame.

When the mod was at his top there was a lot of people, some having fun doing silly things --> Remember the time when we could "hug" people while holding the use key? Or when we were doing tower of player in Xmas Dotf with cheat enable, spaming rocket everywere like a fucking turret? Or when one team was spaming the ET/Sold build/clone army build vs sith army, or when a mand was having his suicide rocket moment in the main of dotf? (impossible now)

Some others were playing the objectives, some playing with the same class all the time (who remember Kikili and his A280? He disappeared soon after it was nerfed), some playing with bulshit build just because it amused them.

The issue is, bit by bit the fun was removed, and nerf, and fixed year after year. Update after update the game was made more "balanced" (who asked for the secondary nade to be made like a cheap concusive nade?), bug where fixed (ppl were wasting too much time having fun), the gameplay was made more complicated and less fun.
--> Jedi/sith vs gunner is more boring than ever. Before the nade nerf we could teamwork, one player ambushing with a secondary nade, one blasting/sniping, imposible now. We can't flinch them, we can't hit them when they swing... the only way to beat them is to bust theire FP or have some luck with rocket/nade/melee. Fortunately reb still got clone blob to make it a bit less uniform.

When the last update was released it changed the whole jedi/sith dynamics, it changed the hotkey (there's too many of them). When I saw I had to redo 17 years of bind and settings I wondered if it was still worth it, If MB2 was still fun now.

It's true that the mod is old, people got lives, jobs, family. I too have way less time for MB2 than when I was 15 years old. People who played the mod all thoses years now have to chose what to do with the spare time they still have, and choose what's the mose enjoyable. Does changing the force user gameplay makes the mod more enjoyable? Does changing the ARC scope rate of fire? Or changing the secondary nade? Or changing the weapon sound effects? Or adding new shortkey?

If dev wants the mod to survive then before updating it ask yourself "Will this make the mod fun to play?" "Will it attracted & keep new people?".

You also need to made it easier (way easier) to come in for new people. There is to many shortkey to use, too many information that are not in the library, nor in a tutorial, too many "deep" gameplay (Saber vs saber is completely awful, it's way too complicated). Well that is, if new people ever hear about the mod of course.

 

[Teh Evil Cow]

This.

I have been playing MB2 since 2007. I've rarely post here because I don't care about duel/competition or most of thoses thing. If I have played MB2 more than any other game in those 17 years it's because MB2 was the most fun and pleasant Star Wars game to play with a great community ingame.

When the mod was at his top there was a lot of people, some having fun doing silly things --> Remember the time when we could "hug" people while holding the use key? Or when we were doing tower of player in Xmas Dotf with cheat enable, spaming rocket everywere like a fucking turret? Or when one team was spaming the ET/Sold build/clone army build vs sith army, or when a mand was having his suicide rocket moment in the main of dotf? (impossible now)

Some others were playing the objectives, some playing with the same class all the time (who remember Kikili and his A280? He disappeared soon after it was nerfed), some playing with bulshit build just because it amused them.

The issue is, bit by bit the fun was removed, and nerf, and fixed year after year. Update after update the game was made more "balanced" (who asked for the secondary nade to be made like a cheap concusive nade?), bug where fixed (ppl were wasting too much time having fun), the gameplay was made more complicated and less fun.
--> Jedi/sith vs gunner is more boring than ever. Before the nade nerf we could teamwork, one player ambushing with a secondary nade, one blasting/sniping, imposible now. We can't flinch them, we can't hit them when they swing... the only way to beat them is to bust theire FP or have some luck with rocket/nade/melee. Fortunately reb still got clone blob to make it a bit less uniform.

When the last update was released it changed the whole jedi/sith dynamics, it changed the hotkey (there's too many of them). When I saw I had to redo 17 years of bind and settings I wondered if it was still worth it, If MB2 was still fun now.

It's true that the mod is old, people got lives, jobs, family. I too have way less time for MB2 than when I was 15 years old. People who played the mod all thoses years now have to chose what to do with the spare time they still have, and choose what's the mose enjoyable. Does changing the force user gameplay makes the mod more enjoyable? Does changing the ARC scope rate of fire? Or changing the secondary nade? Or changing the weapon sound effects? Or adding new shortkey?

If dev wants the mod to survive then before updating it ask yourself "Will this make the mod fun to play?" "Will it attracted & keep new people?".

You also need to made it easier (way easier) to come in for new people. There is to many shortkey to use, too many information that are not in the library, nor in a tutorial, too many "deep" gameplay (Saber vs saber is completely awful, it's way too complicated). Well that is, if new people ever hear about the mod of course.

Hard agree. The removal of hugging/torso freeze was the beginning of the disappointing turn to "serious"/competitive play. Even @foggy frequently talks about it here.

The community keeps this alive. Many people spend as much time typing as shooting, but this is almost seen as an embarassment by the developers...

 

[Defiant]

1) The fucking keybinds - you NEED to minimize the number of buttons and figure out a good default layout ASAP. This shit is horrible, to the point of me not even binding the slap key on SBD because I couldn't be bothered. You think a new player would be?

I agree. R20 made this much worse, and it speaks to a more general problem where the attitude has been to expect the players to soak up the pain of breaking changes rather than us as developers going out of our way to avoid breaking changes. The config situation is more difficult. There is a default config and it was updated for R20 - but the way the engine works makes it exceedingly unlikely that a player will actually encounter it as it will only be loaded under a specific set of circumstances. How would the community feel about a running a repair of the install resetting the keybinds?

2) Tutorials - I understand that finishing the in-games ones might be too much to ask, but we need AT LEAST youtube videos to explain how everything works - gamemodes, mechanics, classes. Also, these tutorials need to be FRONT AND CENTER, not buried in the "help" tab of the launcher among other things. Like, put them straight into the main menu so the noob physically cannot miss them.

I think this would need someone with time to dedicate to making the content. We do have the ability to add the videos to the game and there are videos demonstrating how abilitys work at a high level. We have looked at doing this and I am keen to be output more media, but finding the right person to stick around and make the content has proven problematic.

3) Let go of the idea of making MB2 a competitive e-sport. It WON'T happen. Competitive communities form naturally around casual ones, so focus the game on being as casual-friendly as possible. People want to nadejump? Fucking let them. Casuals LOVE funny things in games. Some peepee poopoo rifle/grenade/ability is too strong? Let it be strong, buff other things instead. Let classes have STRONG things and build around those. Make things FEEL GOOD to use, and worry about exact balance later.

I certainly dont approach this as trying to make it an e-sport. I think you are right that over time we have become more focused on balance than we have fun. That being said, some of the things that have been removed have been hated by a lot more people than liked them. Its not so much that people want to be ultra competative and too serious, but they derrive fun from the friendly competition rather than having an annoying team mate follow them around trying to hug them. I feel as though more people quit from this than even knew how to do it in the first place. When your new and you die in 30 seconds and then you cant play again because for the next 4 and a half minutes a bunch of people just want to float half way accross the map standing in a tower of bugged force jumpiness - and theres not even any action you can watch for that period. Would you stay or would you find it a tedious waste of time and go and do something slightly more intresting? It's not about removing fun, but to give people the confidence that we take what we do seriously, then the first impression can be that.


Another way of looking at it - If the most fun you can have in this game is standing on each others heads - what does that say about the rest of the gameplay? We have obviously failed there if people are extracting more enjoyment from that than actually playing the game. It is perhaps an intresting metric that could be used for overall how right we are getting it. The more enjoyment that is being extracted how we expect the better we are doing. But we cant force that metric up just be removing the curiositys people have found alone

 

[Leo]

The config situation is more difficult. There is a default config and it was updated for R20 - but the way the engine works makes it exceedingly unlikely that a player will actually encounter it as it will only be loaded under a specific set of circumstances

That seems rather like an odd statement. The mpdefault.cfg responsible for default binds is the same as in 1.10. And it has indeed been activated for me when I moved my openjk.cfg out of the MBII folder. Considering the openjk.cfg isnt generated until the game runs, this does prove that mpdefault does its job. It just isn't updated.

Another way of looking at it - If the most fun you can have in this game is standing on each others heads - what does that say about the rest of the gameplay? We have obviously failed there if people are extracting more enjoyment from that than actually playing the game. It is perhaps an intresting metric that could be used for overall how right we are getting it. The more enjoyment that is being extracted how we expect the better we are doing. But we cant force that metric up just be removing the curiositys people have found alone

I disagree. I do find specific bits of gameplay enjoyable, saying bits because I'm a duel main, but I can go whenever out of my way to just "explore the map", "abuse the bugs" as it is alternative fun compared to tryharding the sabering gameplay. If you look at the bugs people are using because they are fun and consider them as a "proof that we failed in our gameplay" and then you still continue to fix the non gamebreaking bugs, you will fail and only fail.

 

[Defiant]

That seems rather like an odd statement. The mpdefault.cfg responsible for default binds is the same as in 1.10. And it has indeed been activated for me when I moved my openjk.cfg out of the MBII folder. Considering the openjk.cfg isnt generated until the game runs, this does prove that mpdefault does its job. It just isn't updated.

It is certainly updated on the public github. You would only get that config if it was the first time you launched the game. If you previously launched base or another mod, you would end up with that config. I'll look into if the updated default config isn't being picked up.

 

[2cwldys]

One thing I want to point out is the point buy for open, the default builds don't give any decent templates and maybe something can be done about this? It seems something they forgot when they completely redid how open builds work.

 

[Defiant]

They do need updating. The problem we have not found a solution for is getting them into existing users hands. People modify the default builds and we don't want to overwrite their change. It was a major complaint about the old launcher.

 

[2cwldys]

They do need updating. The problem we have not found a solution for is getting them into existing users hands. People modify the default builds and we don't want to overwrite their change. It was a major complaint about the old launcher.

If discussions are about making this game easier to get into for new players, banking on the fact new users will adjust as needed is a short handed expectation to have. New players have to go through setting up all these binds, and then have no template builds to use in Open. I think players should be instructed to make new builds to save than overwriting the default ones. That's a small price to pay of us existing and veteran users VS having new players without having to play Open completely clueless, and let's be honest most new players are the ones wanting to swing glowsticks around so they won't have any clue how the new point system works. Good luck getting explanations from players in game for actual helpful information, they'd more likely get trolled before that point. I remember my first time playing, lol... With the tutorial and library out of date combined with all these other problems they definitely need fixing.

 

[Leo]

It is certainly updated on the public github. You would only get that config if it was the first time you launched the game. If you previously launched base or another mod, you would end up with that config. I'll look into if the updated default config isn't being picked up.

The file isn't updated in MBassets3 which is what matters. And your statement is also incorrect, which is what is honestly pissing me off at this point because it's probably the tenth time I am mentioning the need of normal default binds config. I've just removed my config entirely and redownloaded MBAssets3. Launched JKA.

Then I launched MBII.

Oh wow. What a surprise. It is +forward, just as stated in mpdefaults.cfg instead of my base jka config.
I still don't get what is it that I'm apparently not getting? But all the config files are stored inside the mod folder. That means it's impossible to run the config from other mod/base??

 

[Liniyka_xddd]

If the most fun you can have in this game is standing on each others heads - what does that say about the rest of the gameplay?

Feels a bit weird telling that to the lead dev, but surely you realize that your game thrived exactly BECAUSE it gave players the option of goofing around as well as just shooting everyone?

You ever played Team Fortress 2? The exact same concept. The combination of very deep, skill-based gameplay AND goofy taunts & social features. Not focusing on just one, but supporting both.

You know why it worked in TF2? Because Valve was smart enough to give us OPTIONS, and let the community decide what they want. And it paid off tenfold.

TF2 has casual servers, trade servers, prop hunt, competitive servers, leagues, events, tournaments, EVERYTHING. The community hosts and plays the way it wants to.

See what I'm getting at? You are making a fundamental mistake in your development process - you are trying to do the jobs of server admins for them. Don't.

Let server owners & their teams do that. A competitive server? Sure thing, ban all the trolls/timewasters/chatters. A casual server? Sure, anything goes!

Hosts and admins know exactly what kind of gameplay they want on their servers. Let them figure it out and enforce it. You just give them tools & options.

So basically, don't treat social/silly aspects of MB2 as a problem. They absolutely aren't. They are a STRENGTH of this mod, TOGETHER with great gameplay. And if someone disagrees, they can host their own server and ban anyone who looks at them the wrong way. That's FINE. Variety is GOOD.

 

[Defiant]

The file isn't updated in MBassets3 which is what matters. And your statement is also incorrect, which is what is honestly pissing me off at this point because it's probably the tenth time I am mentioning the need of normal default binds config. I've just removed my config entirely and redownloaded MBAssets3. Launched JKA.
View attachment 8450
Then I launched MBII.
View attachment 8452

Oh wow. What a surprise. It is +forward, just as stated in mpdefaults.cfg instead of my base jka config.
I still don't get what is it that I'm apparently not getting? But all the config files are stored inside the mod folder. That means it's impossible to run the config from other mod/base??

Your using differnt engines there. Jamp certainly will copy jampconfig from base to mod if it exists in base and not. I'd. I didn't think that behaviour was differnt in open jk - except for the config file name.

 

[Leo]

Your using differnt engines there. Jamp certainly will copy jampconfig from base to mod if it exists in base and not. I'd. I didn't think that behaviour was differnt in open jk - except for the config file name.

JAMP

MBII JAMP (first time)

Surely that is enough???