Perspective from a new player

[{Δ} Achilles]

So I spent a while playing the mod, I haven't played JKJA itself for quite some time, so I was highly interested in it. As a competitive Chivalry MW/DW player, for quite some time, I decided to try and apply what I've known.

(Yes, I know I'm new, however I believe my opinion does make a difference, as I do have significant experience in competitive melee-style games, and I can understand the design choices)

The blaster play, and movement is amazing, the force powers are also amazing (if weirdly imbalanced)... however the saber combat?

Feels absolutely terrible. It is difficult to even see what you're doing, or if you even have had a major effect. I used all of the styles, and it seems like Red is incredibly strong compared to the others. I'll break down the issues in as short as I can

Saber combat feels stale, and feels like a trading match where each player takes turns with a combo, and the one who did the most stamina break, wins. Occasionally winning by way of knockdown. Does not feel fluid or fun at all. Not to mention, I found that I can (using Chivalry footwork) make a Jedi/Sith opponent miss 10, 20, 30 times in a row, but there is literally no way to take advantage of making them swing like fools. If I dodge their attack, and attempt to punish, I am immediately met with them blocking, and if they are using red style, I lose BP. Which recovers incredibly slowly, I might add.

Against multiple opponents, it feels like I'm just trying to trick one into a quick kill, or praying that they kill each other.

For those who haven't played Mount and Blade, or Chivalry: Mount and Blade is incredibly direction based, and Chivalry is incredibly timing based (Unless you have a shield, which uses a similar stamina feature to what MBII was going for, methinks).

I honestly believe the block, should only occur when using the block button, and it should only work for a short time, and if you attack while holding block as the opponent's saber connects, you should be able to stagger them slightly. The BP system should be there to keep people from swinging like idiots, and you should lose BP as you miss attacks, similar to Chivalry. I believe that would work significantly better. Either that, or make attacking expose yourself significantly more, and for longer.

Balance it like a fighting game. If I block your saber, I get +4 frame advantage, and you either block, or you eat a 4 frame faster attack than yours. Blocking and Attacking should be two separate entities in a video game, not simultaneous, and then adding stamina ontop of that. It isn't realistic enough to merit such a system.

Another issue with Saber, is the deflection is flawed in a couple of ways, giving anyone with a blaster a supreme advantage over a single Jedi/Sith target. It takes an incredibly long time for a Jedi/Sith to recover from a failed push. I'd argue 2 competent Commandos are literally impossible to beat as a Sith/Jedi. Bottom line, blasters fire waaaaaay too quickly to be balanced, and this rapid fire lends them to be incredibly strong against melee-type units *EXCEPT* Wookies/SBDs, who appear blatantly overpowered anyway.

On a side note, why is Lightning so bad? If you force push lightning a gunner, and he happened to walk at just the right time, you simply die. You can't recover fast enough to zap him, and I have instances where I manage to land the lightning push, then use the FULL force bar, and still not kill the opponent... Really quite a terrible power.



inb4 git gud u suk u must be bad, as a typical community response.

 

[Supa]

Hmm, so if a Wookie utilizes fury, then you're essentially screwed, as a Jedi/Sith?

No. You can jump, and with enough practice you can get kill them with crouch/swing. If there are a lot of wookiees on the enemy team that have fury it would benefit you to buy red stance.

 

[Chorb]

Wookie first needs to hit people in melle to be able to activate fury so he cant just spam it on demand. If you are facing a raged wookie, dont engage and let it run out. He gets a slow debuff after its over. If you are forced to engage, crouch whit spam swings, best if you have red. He is on a clock to fight you before it runs out.

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

achilles your arrogance is actually astounding

you act as if because you're good at other games, you're somehow a game design genius that can accurately pinpoint every mechanical flaw a game has. ah yes, if daigo started dueling in mb2 he'd be able to fully understand it in 12 hours because hes amazing at fighting games!

even if you're able to accurately comprehend game mechanics its legitimately laughable to think you have the necessary perspective to assess other players ability. you have no frame of reference for how good a player is at the moment, and yet you're basing so much of your conjecture off of what a "competent" player can do. you dont even know what a competent player is

So let's see, I've mastered and become professional at multiple types of fighting/combat games, and therefore I don't know how mechanics in fighting games work, or how a good one should work... interesting. I'm only dropping the experience hammer, because you people are dropping yours.

If my testing sample is flawed, then please assist me in fixing it: find me the best player in the game, so that I can watch him, study him, and use him as a basis for balance. Then find me the most average player you can, so I can gauge balance at that level. Then find me the worst player you can, so I can gauge it at that level.

Believe it or not, it is possible to balance game at *all* levels of play. Which is what a good fighting game does.

 

[FilthyHomelessMan]

Dear Achilles,
After reading this thread i felt obligated to make an account just to type a response. The fact that you have no idea what you're saying and have contradicted yourself countless times is truly making me cringe. You have every right to be mad.. at yourself.. for not understanding the fact that playing any new game can be a challenge and take some time learning, you act as if you're not a total cringe fest and try to defend your false reasoning for the fact that you are indeed terrible. It's not the fact that you have no idea what you're saying that is cringe worthy, it's the fact that you are trying to sound like you do, and try to argue with player that have years of experience under their belt, for the sake of my broken neck, my soul, and the fact that you are making yourself look like a complete fool. Stop.

 

[Preston]

Hmm, so if a Wookie utilizes fury, then you're essentially screwed, as a Jedi/Sith?

jump to a wall and hang on

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

Dear Achilles,
After reading this thread i felt obligated to make an account just to type a response. The fact that you have no idea what you're saying and have contradicted yourself countless times is truly making me cringe. You have every right to be mad.. at yourself.. for not understanding the fact that playing any new game can be a challenge and take some time learning, you act as if you're not a total cringe fest and try to defend your false reasoning for the fact that you are indeed terrible. It's not the fact that you have no idea what you're saying that is cringe worthy, it's the fact that you are trying to sound like you do, and try to argue with player that have years of experience under their belt, for the sake of my broken neck, my soul, and the fact that you are making yourself look like a complete fool. Stop.

And you, dear sir, are about as unhelpful as the Preston fellow. If I am so wrong, tell me why. Show me facts and statistics. Don't just say 'oh, game takes years to master. Come back in 10 years', honestly that is the dumbest, most unhelpful response I've ever seen.

Perhaps the reason why you are having so much trouble with new players, such as myself, is because your mod explains itself horrendously. It took me 5 hours of that play time, just to get someone to tell me what ONE MECHANIC does, without team killing me.

The library, doesn't properly explain things as well. I looked up the saber in the library, and it said 'MBlock', referring to disarming players. It failed to mention how it is done properly.

So the players are unhelpful, and act like magical wizards on a quest to mastery of all things.

The library is unhelpful, and doesn't explain half of the 'in depth' mechanics of the mod.

Finally I'm beginning to get some form of help on the forums, in addressing these issues, yet I'm so damned 'cringe worthy' because I'm questioning the mechanics of a game, based on my vast experience of mechanics on other games? Fan-tastic.

 

[Supa]

Wookie first needs to hit people in melle to be able to activate fury so he cant just spam it on demand.

Actually, that isn't true. You can build fury outside of melee, but melee and getting hit is the most effective way. Bowcaster, pistol and grenades also build fury.

 

[andrew]

this topic is honestly the poster child of why this game is so difficult for new players

even someone who is experienced in other games is going to take months to understand the basic mechanics well enough to be able to separate good players from bad players, and we look like haughty elitists because its literally just the way it is with this game.

So let's see, I've mastered and become professional at multiple types of fighting/combat games

the other stuff aside, what name did you use in mk9? when you say professional what do you mean? i follow fighting games and have never heard of you

If my testing sample is flawed, then please assist me in fixing it: find me the best player in the game, so that I can watch him, study him, and use him as a basis for balance. Then find me the most average player you can, so I can gauge balance at that level. Then find me the worst player you can, so I can gauge it at that level.

do you honestly want me to just try and list names and have you find them? the entire point of what i said was that you simply have no basis for gauging player skill level, and without that basis how can you make any claims about game balance besides on purely theoretical grounds? personally ive always felt that wookiee actually is slightly op, especially against jedi/sith! but thats after playing this game for nearly 9 years and thats a biased opinion that people dont share. but im able to hold that opinion because i can recognize without having to be told who is good and who isnt, and you cant

 

[FilthyHomelessMan]

And you, dear sir, are about as unhelpful as the Preston fellow. If I am so wrong, tell me why. Show me facts and statistics. Don't just say 'oh, game takes years to master. Come back in 10 years', honestly that is the dumbest, most unhelpful response I've ever seen.

why would i care if you think the game is "balanced" or not? if you think some aspects of it are bad enough to quit playing, then stop playing. i'm just informing you you're a cringe fest and my neck can't handle anymore, but lord almighty, i love your ignorance.

 

[Noob]

Achilles, many clans host training sessions. Some require you to be a member of said clan, but sometimes they are open to the public. As for asking for help, I find that PMing users that are trying to help works wonders.

 

[Puppytine]

You balance a game on mathematics, and you people seem to have an idea of the balance as some mystical space entity created an infinitely in depth mod, to which no one can master, as it requires wisdom of the gods. That isn't how games work.

I'm not sure neither about math nor mystical stuff.

Balance is statistic. When you see over and over again some class owns all others no matter what, that's imbalance. When you see some class loses and has no chance to win at all, that's imbalance. You are saying jedi are underpowered as hell, but I've seen many times sith/jedi slaugting 4 or more opponents in the row.

I also have seen sbd ripping rebs team apart.
I've seen mandos bringing victory to The Empire.
I've seen clones/arcs/wookies/heroes defeat dark side, and I've seen dekas/ET laughning at the bodies of rebels they've killed.
I've seen droids beating each... no, wait. I haven't seen that. Droids suck. They need to be buffed, really. But that's not the point. The point is that you insists that jedi should be stronger, but gives not enough arguments to prove it.
So tell me, why do think jedi are weak, in the nutshell?

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

this topic is honestly the poster child of why this game is so difficult for new players

even someone who is experienced in other games is going to take months to understand the basic mechanics well enough to be able to separate good players from bad players, and we look like haughty elitists because its literally just the way it is with this game.



the other stuff aside, what name did you use in mk9? when you say professional what do you mean? i follow fighting games and have never heard of you



do you honestly want me to just try and list names and have you find them? the entire point of what i said was that you simply have no basis for gauging player skill level, and without that basis how can you make any claims about game balance besides on purely theoretical grounds? personally ive always felt that wookiee actually is slightly op, especially against jedi/sith! but thats after playing this game for nearly 9 years and thats a biased opinion that people dont share. but im able to hold that opinion because i can recognize without having to be told who is good and who isnt, and you cant

TheChi/ShangBang, I lost against prepatch Cyrax in the very early part of the tourney. Shang Tsung couldn't meter manage against Cyrax's net/bomb game, 1 meter combo could kill me, took 2 meter to break his >BB3>ExFF4>B2 reset. Atleast, I believe that was the notation, haven't played MK9 in a loooong time. Shouldn't have used Shang Tsung, should've used Lao, or Chi.

Yes. I want to be wrong, and I want this mod to be everything you people say it is. However, at the moment, only a couple of people are answering questions/forming counter arguments, and everyone else is 'No those players you fought sucked, and so do you' without even knowing who I fought. So give me people that are good, so I can learn, please. I had to watch Detroitballn before I could rightly call myself a good Shang Tsung.

 

[andrew]

did you make it out of pools? its odd to call yourself a professional

theres really no need to form a counter argument to what you've said, though. i hate to say that but its true. dont you know that if you made these types of posts on srk.com, testyourmight, dustloop etc and then said you played for 12 hours they would just laugh at you and call you a scrub? you cite all this experience but the same situation applied to more professional games like sf4 would be ridiculous

 

[NoSafeSpac]

So let's see, I've mastered and become professional at multiple types of fighting/combat games, and therefore I don't know how mechanics in fighting games work, or how a good one should work... interesting. I'm only dropping the experience hammer, because you people are dropping yours.

If my testing sample is flawed, then please assist me in fixing it: find me the best player in the game, so that I can watch him, study him, and use him as a basis for balance. Then find me the most average player you can, so I can gauge balance at that level. Then find me the worst player you can, so I can gauge it at that level.

Believe it or not, it is possible to balance game at *all* levels of play. Which is what a good fighting game does.

How are you so good at Chivalry/M&B yet having your red swing be out maneuvered by a tall wookie? Seriously think about that for a second. If you were good at judging distance and timing, you wouldn't be whiffing swings. Droidekas suck at turning, hry behind them, gg. Wookies can't knock you down if your crouching, and you can hit an average wookie 2-3 times starting from the tip of the lightsaber before he gets close enough to do anything.Gunners need to have great aim, I dunno how your having such an issue with them. You can pull their weapon straight from their hand, push them down on the floor for hours, redirect explosives, use mindtrick...
I guess all the issues your having dealing with gunners is proof they've been balanced pretty well.

 

[Supa]

Alright, everyone take a step back. This thread was made intending to ask questions, from the perspective of a new player (although you also criticized it without fully understanding how the game is meant to be played). If you, Achilles, have a question, post it. If the response from anyone is anything but helpful I'll delete the post. If the thread gets derailed again, I'm closing it. I left it open to assist a new player in trying to understand the game, not devolve into an argument about who knows game balance and who doesn't.

And Achilles, with all due respect this is Movie Battles 2, not Chivalry. You can compare them as games, but you can't compare their balance schemes. They are entirely different games.

 

[Chorb]

Well in class based shooters or any class based game like tf2, you will be at an advantage / disadvantage due to your class/loadout settings. You can still win bad matchups. And the fact is that there are so many mechanics that are not explained in tutorials. I was getting wrecked by heroes dash spam in the open untill i started including pull 3 in my builds, and attempt to pull right as i predict he will jump. Since dash has a timing to be weak to force after its used. And theres many examples of that. So called combos, chain attacks are a lot faster when you hit an enemy so SBD and wookies die quite fast to it compared to single swings. Saber system is quite complex, read Sevs dueling compendium on these forums to learn about it.

I assume his red is getting dodged because he is not using 3x combo whit red, and because red has a lot of slow swings. Try using aw swing whit red, or hold attack and do aw w aw swings.

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

How are you so good at Chivalry/M&B yet having your red swing be out maneuvered by a tall wookie? Seriously think about that for a second. If you were good at judging distance and timing, you wouldn't be whiffing swings. Droidekas suck at turning, hry behind them, gg. Wookies can't knock you down if your crouching, and you can hit an average wookie 2-3 times starting from the tip of the lightsaber before he gets close enough to do anything.Gunners need to have great aim, I dunno how your having such an issue with them. You can pull their weapon straight from their hand, push them down on the floor for hours, redirect explosives, use mindtrick...
I guess all the issues your having dealing with gunners is proof they've been balanced pretty well.

I wasn't using red swing. I was using blue, that is all I have been using. The wookie merely hit-traded and won, every time.

Yes, I have absolutely no issue killing Droidekas myself, because jump is quite effective, and I can disable their shields with one swing, then deflect their fire back into them to kill them at point blank. It took me about an hour or two to discover that, after someone managed to tell me that 'You can only deflect back at them by attacking whilst blocking'.

Presuming you get in range of the gunner, and the gunner is dumb enough to sprint. Otherwise, you're walking forward, and he's walking back, draining your force. Not to mention, it doesn't require great aim when your weapon fires fully automatic, again, I really feel as though blaster fire-rate needs to be reduced to movie-values, save for miniguns/sbds/droidekas.

It isn't *my* issue with gunners, it is the fact that I watched a good Sith get canned by 2 commandos, and the resounding opinion was that 2 semi-competent commandos are impossible to kill by a Sith, unless you manage to sneak up on one of them.

Now everyone, keep in mind, even if I am completely and entirely wrong on every basis, the library is still terrible, and needs far more information.

 

[andrew]

Presuming you get in range of the gunner, and the gunner is dumb enough to sprint. Otherwise, you're walking forward, and he's walking back, draining your force. Not to mention, it doesn't require great aim when your weapon fires fully automatic, again, I really feel as though blaster fire-rate needs to be reduced to movie-values, save for miniguns/sbds/droidekas.

it's necessary to consider location

theres no need to walk towards gunners as a jedi, and they are forced to walk to not get knocked down, so you very steadily advance on them. your movement should be such that you force them into a corner to the point where you can easily close in on them

how you approach is important as you have to trade your force for closing the distance

It isn't *my* issue with gunners, it is the fact that I watched a good Sith get canned by 2 commandos, and the resounding opinion was that 2 semi-competent commandos are impossible to kill by a Sith, unless you manage to sneak up on one of them.

the general opinion of balance in mb2 doesn't disagree with that. jedi are an extremely flexible class, so them not being able to easily 2v1 (note that its 2 humans vs 1 human, and 2>1) is well within the expected result. some classes like SBD are extremely inflexible, but perform certain roles very well. because of this you might expect them to be able to do so

 

[Supa]

I wasn't using red swing. I was using blue, that is all I have been using. The wookie merely hit-traded and won, every time.

Blue is good against low health targets like soldiers, not wookiees. It's fast, but does low damage, and because swings bounce off a wookiee it isn't efficient to use against them.

Presuming you get in range of the gunner, and the gunner is dumb enough to sprint. Otherwise, you're walking forward, and he's walking back, draining your force. Not to mention, it doesn't require great aim when your weapon fires fully automatic, again, I really feel as though blaster fire-rate needs to be reduced to movie-values, save for miniguns/sbds/droidekas.

You can strafe side to side and avoid a good amount of unnecessary FP damage. It should come as no surprise that if you run straight at a gunner and the gunner is actually hitting that they'll effectively drain your FP faster.

Additionally, lower rate of fire weapons deal more FP damage than higher rate of fire weapons. For example pistol 3, EE-3 (although higher rate of fire has high spread so is within the same concept of weapon), T-21 primary, A-280 and E-11 primary deal more force damage than clone rifle and E-11 secondary fire. If you're losing a good deal of FP against a single gunner than you need to really question whether you want to commit to the kill or not.

It isn't *my* issue with gunners, it is the fact that I watched a good Sith get canned by 2 commandos, and the resounding opinion was that 2 semi-competent commandos are impossible to kill by a Sith, unless you manage to sneak up on one of them.

We aren't going to balance a class against 1 vs many. The numbers advantage is always dictated by the side that has more on it, not less.

Now everyone, keep in mind, even if I am completely and entirely wrong on every basis, the library is still terrible, and needs far more information.

Agreed, but unfortunately it isn't that well laid out at the moment for additional editing. We're looking at other options and I've started to compile all of the information on the library to look through and edit as best as I can, but it'll take time.

 

[Chorb]

Droidekas discharge knockdowns any jedi mid jump. and at that point you are a free kill. Vs gunners, try running around them untill they have to reload. Or you can use flying kick by holding use button + special 2. Or deflect if you are feeling fancy. In a 2v1 scenario you have to pressure one of them, or retreat and fight them from behind a wall or whit an ally.

My rule for fighting gunners is. If he walks and stands still, try a jump kick. If hes crouching go for a swing kill. If he runs, you have force. Alternative for walking can be lightening or grip.

Blue and cyan have the weakest damage output due to fast swings. Id not like to fight a wookie whit it.

Since im jumping offline ill just edit this in here :
Jedi and Sith are probably the hardest class to learn in open. And they are most usefull when supporting gunners. If you make a mistake when outnumbered you will die fast. If you rush hard and block your team fire by standing in the middle of corridor, you will get focused and die. Jedi / Sith in this game are not gods like in base jkja, they can be killed quite easily.