Opinions on dueling/duel mode

[DCM]

This is unorganized

Dueling
Dueling is terrible. It's only now after a small break from MB2 that I see every bit of fun has been sucked out of it and it's been transformed into something horrid.

Perks are horrible and need to be removed. They unbalance the gameplay and give perks that have no right being given. I switch my style to Purple and suddenly I take 35% less FP drains? I switch to red and suddenly I get a 40% resistance? The idea makes no sense. Remove Red and Purple's saber perks. These are not defensive styles, they are strong styles and, if perks are kept, should be given offensive perks. Gaining ACM for a perfect block or reducing the opponent's BP just further discourages offense in dueling, forcing everyone to be cautious.

Remove Kata BP-Drain immunity. Turns dueling into "let me just wait for you to finish that move )) ". Fact is, if I hit someone, they should lose BP. There's nothing special about "special moves" other than them having a pre-made animation, and thats how it should be looked at.

Offense has been ripped out of dueling and instead we now have "let me just stare at you, wait for you to attack and then counter". Nudge had to be removed because it caused lag issues and was never very well defined - it was just a happy accident at the time, but something needs to be made to replace this (OJP had a nice idea with power attacks allowing the direction to change - perhaps this but at the cost of extra BP, or being MBlocked disarming you whether or not you swingblock, or something). Red has lost all potency because its attacks are so easily perfect blocked, making it rely on counter attacking and it's cheap 3-hit combo to be of any use.

Purple and Cyan are horrible styles. It's clear why these were never in the main game and it's due to their attacks being so bad, especially cyan with it not knowing whether it wants to be fast or slow. Staff and Duals are also rubbish styles but these have been in since the beginning, and have a "woah looks cool!" factor, so I guess they are here to stay.

Duel Mode
Duel Mode is the worst thing to happen to dueling imo. I feel partially to blame as it was my implementation and never fully completed, but anyway.. Before Duel Mode, you had one life and if you died, you'd be waiting up to 4 or so minutes again to play. This was annoying, right? And that's what made it great. With one life, you made sure to put 110% into each and every duel because you knew if you didn't you would be spectating everyone. With Duel Mode it's now just 'meh I'm dead who cares' and from being on Duel servers, it's turned into FFA with very few people caring about it.
Suggestion: Remove timer completely. Allow spawning at any time. After death, there is a 1-2 minute timer - this does two things: 1) Encourages you to be careful with your duel. 2) Frees up the areas of duelists running all over the place. 1-2 minutes is long, but not so long that it becomes a nuisance.

Just to be clear - I am not having a go at anyone for this.Many of these were things agreed upon by the team when being developed and seemed to be good at the time. This is just my opinion as a mb2 player, and I think too much has been done, and some steps back are needed in simplifying and removing things that aren't immediately obvious to people in game.

TL;DR:
Remove Purple, Remove Cyan
Blue - Fast, defensive
Yellow - Medium, Medium
Red - Slow, offensive
Remove Perks, or at least make them a little better
Remove BP-drain resistance while in a special move
Remove Duel Mode or implement timer between death

 

[Preston]

Agreed with removal of BP Drain perk for red.
Stagger should stay. Otherwise red becomes a style that is easily countered, does not dissuade opponent from attacking them, etc. In previous patches this is how red was, and it was pretty bad.
Cyan needs removal.
Purple's is not stupid, it promotes a counteroffensive style that - if well executed - is very fun to play.
Stagger's stagger could do with an increased cooldown, and perhaps staff's BP damage should be nerfed. That's about it.

Purples is insane. you get like 5 pblocks, which is very easy. idc how much you yaw or whatever. and then do like 1 combo after a counter and they insta die. but yes you are right, it is fun to play, just cause how op it is.
And staff's perk, has to go. playing with someone who can mblock very good like sea otter in NA vs staff is like trying to hit a brick wall cause you literally, can not do anything.
And red stagger should not make you stagger if you pblock the last swing, thats just stupid. you shouldnt get punished for pblocking. Same with staff, you shouldnt get punished for swingblocking.

 

[agentoo8]

Purple is rekt by any good red/blue/yellow.
Learn to mask your combos. Use faints, etc. All of these things are there for you to use. I'm not saying staff's perk isn't powerful, but to call for it to be removed is stupid. EU duelists have learnt to adapt to staff.
If red's stagger is removed - as well as the BP drain component - you will see what I am talking about when I mentioned how relatively weak it used to be.

Trust me, we discussed stagger for ages years ago among the beta team. After removing it, putting it back in, removing it, we decided to bring it back in its current form after MUCH deliberation.

 

[Preston]

Purple is rekt by any good red/blue/yellow.
Learn to mask your combos. Use faints, etc. All of these things are there for you to use. I'm not saying staff's perk isn't powerful, but to call for it to be removed is stupid. EU duelists have learnt to adapt to staff.
If red's stagger is removed - as well as the BP drain component - you will see what I am talking about when I mentioned how relatively weak it used to be.

Trust me, we discussed stagger for ages years ago among the beta team. After removing it, putting it back in, removing it, we decided to bring it back in its current form after MUCH deliberation.

You can mask your swings all you want, Good players can still easily pblock 1/2 to 3/4th of all swings. And as I said two time already, I don't want red's stagger to be removed. I want it to not stagger on if you pblock the last swing of the combo. At least make it here if you pblock all three of the hits in a combo you don't stagger. It's ridiculous that you get punished for pblocking. As well as swingblocking on a staff. Adjust the bp drains of staff, not giving it an unbalanced perk that punishes players that are doing the correct thing.

 

[agentoo8]

zzzzz I'd love to show you how to mask swings. I had a few duels against Sea Otter and managed to get him down several times, even with my latency, using red. Have yet to face his staff.

 

[Preston]

zzzzz I'd love to show you how to mask swings. I had a few duels against Sea Otter and managed to get him down several times, even with my latency, using red. Have yet to face his staff.

I know how to mask swings perfectly fine.

 

[Preston]

You cant honestly think yellow is on par with the other styles

 

[Noob]

My only response to red is by shadowswinging and slapping ... alot. Red definitely needs a bit more polishing

 

[agentoo8]

I know how to mask swings perfectly fine.

then no disrespect, but you should know what I am talking about. A classic is W+A twirl into A, and then S+D with red. Fakes are very effective with red.
i didn't say yellow is on par with other styles? However, if well played it's just as powerful.

 

[Stassin]

I will have to obviously agree with agent on masking swings; agent is pretty much the best mblocker around, but when i fight him with yellow i still manage to bypass his staff mblocks most of the time due to attacking at close range and faking swings in the air, also yawing with my camera view so that the swings hit as fast as possible, and obviously, being completely unpredictable as to what swing direction i'll be using. Of course doing this is much less effective with high latency because you get the impression that you're close while you actually aren't as close as you'd like. Red is also easier to PB than yellow for example.

Sea Otter is really good considering how new he is to the mod, but he is still new (less than a year ?); if he PBs your swings 3/4th of the time there is just one answer, you need to improve your offense; there is no way he (or anyone - it's just not humanly possible, diverse swings at close range just come too quickly) would be able to do that against me for example.

Yellow is without a doubt slightly underpowered but that is being addressed anyways.

 

[andrew]

red isnt dueling atm

 

[Preston]

I will have to obviously agree with agent on masking swings; agent is pretty much the best mblocker around, but when i fight him with yellow i still manage to bypass his staff mblocks most of the time due to attacking at close range and faking swings in the air, also yawing with my camera view so that the swings hit as fast as possible, and obviously, being completely unpredictable as to what swing direction i'll be using. Of course doing this is much less effective with high latency because you get the impression that you're close while you actually aren't as close as you'd like. Red is also easier to PB than yellow for example.

Sea Otter is really good considering how new he is to the mod, but he is still new (less than a year ?); if he PBs your swings 3/4th of the time there is just one answer, you need to improve your offense; there is no way he (or anyone - it's just not humanly possible, diverse swings at close range just come too quickly) would be able to do that against me for example.

Yellow is without a doubt slightly underpowered but that is being addressed anyways.

Many, Many players, atleast in NA can pblock atleast 3/4ths of swings. I'd include myself in that. Especially if oyu have somethign like purple where you don't have to even attack, and only focus on blocking.

 

[andrew]

his natural response to that will be "well then NA aren't good enough at masking their swings"

but masking your swings can only go so far when the pblocking system is so simple imo

if you do a very small amount of prediction even yaw'd hits can be pblocked

 

[agentoo8]

I'm yet to see anyone NA yaw their hits like bawz/sisi can. Like she said, she manages to bypass the majority of my staggers via such attacks. Yellow seems to be the best at it, too.

 

[andrew]

I'm yet to see anyone NA yaw their hits like bawz/sisi can. Like she said, she manages to bypass the majority of my staggers via such attacks. Yellow seems to be the best at it, too.

you have to be the #1 yawer in the entire mod to duel red?

 

[agentoo8]

We're talking about bypassing staff's stagger. If you know how to yaw with yellow, you can pretty much make minced meat of most staff users.

 

[Preston]

We're talking about bypassing staff's stagger. If you know how to yaw with yellow, you can pretty much make minced meat of most staff users.

yeh no

 

[agentoo8]

And yes, yellow is at a disadvantage vs red. That will be addressed next patch I believe.

 

[andrew]

sry i was eating popcorn and posting w/ low effort

anyway, im curious as to how yawing with yellow somehow makes staff useless just because they cant stagger you? yellow doesnt have a perk either so its just staff vs yellow normally lol

 

[agentoo8]

If you can bypass staff's perk, then yellow has: more range over staff; a DFA which can be very effective. Good yellow is one of staff's hardest duels, along with blue.

 

[Preston]

If you can bypass staff's perk, then yellow has: more range over staff; a DFA which can be very effective. Good yellow is one of staff's hardest duels, along with blue.

dfa= just move out of the way