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.

 

[BrainSpawn]

No, I didn't make it out of pools, as I went up against Mustard, and he ate my Shang Tsung alive. I couldn't meter manage against him.

The issue wasn't being new, the issue became 'Why doesn't this 10 year old mod have properly defined, and listed mechanics, with an offline practice mode?'

This was the interesting part of the question. " ..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?"

In regards to properly defined, listed mechanics, and offline practice mode, it's a mod with a relatively very small community, I think you're expecting too much out of such a small community and development team. Join an empty server with a friend to practice?

 

[andrew]

No, I didn't make it out of pools, as I went up against Mustard, and he ate my Shang Tsung alive. I couldn't meter manage against him.

The issue wasn't being new, the issue became 'Why doesn't this 10 year old mod have properly defined, and listed mechanics, with an offline practice mode?'

I didn't answer his post, because it was following an Ad Hominem path, to attempt to discredit me, rather than attack my argument. Which is exactly what he did a few posts ago by going 'Oh, he only knows MK9 and Soul Calibur'

who do you think is going to code a bot that can duel for a small, fan created mod for mildly popular game that came out in 2004

 

[BigBossBigTeef]

Cant you just /devmap and spawn reborn npcs?

 

[andrew]

theres no mb2 based ai

 

[Preston]

Want Guides?
Here You Go!



My first Day in MBII
My First Day in MBII | Movie Battles II Community

How To MB2
How to MB2: Tutorial series | Movie Battles II Community

The Dueling Compendium
[Guide] The Dueling Compendium | Movie Battles II Community

Movie Battles 2
Introduction​

​

Movie Battles 2
How To Duel​

Movie Battles 2
Dueling Basics​

​

Library
Which is not empty like many think. You have to click on the words for them to like show up sometimes. It's weird like that! But it does have tons of info that is helpful for new and old players.​

 

[BigBossBigTeef]

theres no mb2 based ai

Well if they were set to lukes settings, there be trouble.

And finally the Library: Which is not empty like many think. you have to click on the words for them to like show up sometimes. Its weird like that!

I lost my library card.

 

[Tempest]

The combos in fighting games don't require precise timing to just continue a string, generally, unless you're referring to just inputs from, say, the Soul Cal series. Juggles require timing, but there is no way for your opponent to interrupt them. Dash cancels may require timing. However, again, usually don't rely on that much timing.

This doesn't really require precise timing either.

Yeah, I could hold down the button, but for whatever unknown reason that drains BP.

Then start clicking. If you asked/mentioned it, anyone could have commented about it and why there's a difference.

Also, I saw a video on youtube showing 'upcoming changes' to the saber system from 3 years ago, which included 'staggering' on body hits... why isn't that still in?

The staggering on body hits was one of the worst things ever put into the game. Even after devs tried to tone it down, it was still terrible.

I get almost nothing but body hits, but then still lose just because I can't combo as well as my opponent can.

I've watched you duel. You don't combo at all. You almost always stand still and swing once or move side to side occasionally trying to make something happen (still 1 swing chains).

I was going to add some stuff to your other statements but they've already been addressed.

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

like how you attacked him?

I called him an ass in response to his comments. Just like I called you one.

 

[Chaos the Chaotic]

I must report you sir, for being an ass!

There are plenty of guides, plenty of posts, plenty of players that have and are helping you. The fact that you still haven't mastered the basic tenants of combo'ing tells me you are not earnest in your endeavors young man.
Or lying your pants off.

Practice in-game until one day, you too, can be the best that you can be in whatever you wish to be!

I salute you for your fraud.

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

I actually just found out, that you don't have to insta-tap, and you can just tap-hold for a fraction of a moment, which makes comboing with Cyan much easier.

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

This doesn't really require precise timing either.


Then start clicking. If you asked/mentioned it, anyone could have commented about it and why there's a difference.


The staggering on body hits was one of the worst things ever put into the game. Even after devs tried to tone it down, it was still terrible.


I've watched you duel. You don't combo at all. You almost always stand still and swing once or move side to side occasionally trying to make something happen (still 1 swing chains).

I don't recall ever fighting you, also, maybe body hits should deal minor damage, then, so you could whittle away at an opponent, like 15-20 damage per?

 

[Phelps]

The issue wasn't being new, the issue became 'Why doesn't this 10 year old mod have properly defined, and listed mechanics, with an offline practice mode?'

Mod was in "community stall" for many years, with base of players up to 100. With TFA release we expected a bit of a spike, but not that much. Library was not on "to-do" list, because it wasn't needed. Also there are many threads that help new players, by Hexodious for example, or Sev. You only need to look.

And this has been answered by three people already, I guess. I think, the problem is not unhelpful community, but it is your behavior. You only have excuses, that others fucked up, not you. You are totally arrogant and ignorant, you do not ask, how this or that particular thing works. You basically waltz in and say something along the lines of:

"Why this works like that, it shouldn't, it suck, Chivalry has it better, take a hint from Chivalry."

You think with that attitude people will be glad to help you? That behavior is a huge middle finger to development team that do this for us for free.

It took me a deal of time to calm enough to make at least "nice" response towards your online persona. You might be cool guy IRL, but here, you act like arrogant troll. Maybe take a hint of what you do wrong, that you get almost zero help in the game.

I see it in this thread and somebody here confirmed you are like that even in the game. I don't blame the guys.

I can't talk for the US side, but when I am on EU Duel Server (not official), other than sometimes annoying lamers, people actually help new guys there.

 

[NERO]

body hits should deal minor damage, then, so you could whittle away at an opponent, like 15-20 damage per?

Dueling is pretty fast unless it turns into a runfest or two players just accidentally PB each other all the time. BP goes down very fast with body hits. Back when I started around B18-B19 days, duels took 2 minutes every time and everyone frowned if a jedi and a sith were the last players on the team. Heck, I remember having my PSP next to me so I could play some JRPG while waiting for jedi and sith to finish their duel. Although, back then Mblock was also easier, so anyone who didn't know about swingblock died in a second.

A single three hit red combo will instantly kill anyone as long as all three hits are bodyhits. At least from my experience.

Comboing doesn't require that strict a timing. I guess you may have figured it out already, but you can press and hold attack for the next swing around the time the previous swing is about to end, and it doesn't drain more BP than tapping at the exact moment. It's one of those things you just grow a feel for after doing it for a while, and it becomes automatic.

 

[Preston]

I don't recall ever fighting you, also, maybe body hits should deal minor damage, then, so you could whittle away at an opponent, like 15-20 damage per?

It doesnt take someone to duel you to see that you don't know how to combo. You can tell someone cant combo just by watching them either in spec ir while they are dueling someone else. Its pretty obvious when someone cant combo and when they can. And body hits do lots of damage, but sabering isnt just about body hits, pblocka and combos like you seem to think. There is alot more to dueling than that. If you atleast look at the like 7 guides I linked you would know this and alot more. But you seem to think you're too good for guides I guess and all you want to do is have a straight answer because you dont have the time to actually read any or watch any of the guides.

 

[Eazy E]

Achilles is an obvious troll, and is not worth 12 pages of writing to try and explain this game to him.

if he is gonna be a bitch let him.

 

[Catlord Meow!]

Achilles is an obvious troll, and is not worth 12 pages of writing to try and explain this game to him.

if he is gonna be a bitch let him.

I saw some new guys that got that kind of attitude it's horrible lol. IF this mod sucks in your opinion go play CoD and buy the same bullshit every year with other textures and maps.

 

[Preston]

I saw some new guys that got that kind of attitude it's horrible lol. IF this mod sucks in your opinion go play CoD and buy the same bullshit every year with other textures and maps.

I think it would be wise for the devs to close threads like this for now on, because it's just gonna give new players the idea that the reason they aren't good at MBII is the games and developers fault. And not their own lack of practice and patience to learn the games mechanics.

 

[Chaos the Chaotic]

Outside of this guy you see anything else like this?

He's not new. He's some aliasing troll. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it. Even posting imaginary chat logs. That behavior, manner of posting, syntax reeks of a serial abuser.

If he wants to start organizing tournaments. Run.

 

[Obeon]

I wasn't going to answer this, but to address the issue of the gunner vs jedi thing that i read, it just seems that achiles wanted that the jedi have an absolute advantage against any shooter. Although it is true to the movies, it isn't in the game. Jedi is a class as any other in the game, and thus must be balanced even on 1v1, with the natural advantage they have with force powers and deflection, if you can use it.
People already said that about the "pro" players, but i wanted to give this the view of the average player. I'm a scrub, a completely average players, since i started playing like 3 weeks from now. One day, me and my brother were recreating the "obi vs jango" stage, a shooter vs jedi. I'm sightly better than him. The outcome of the match was obvious: when i was as jango, i''d kill him more, but he killed me sometimes also. When we inverted and i went as obi wan, I would also kill him more, but he would kill me sometimes also.
Thing is, i thought the 1v1 there balanced, since i really was better than him, and independent of what class i used, i could gain the upper hand most of the times. But I wasn't extremely better as to be impossible for him to kill me.
You have to realize that jedi/sith aren't butchers in here. They generally have an advantage if you play well, but they will be outmatched by other players that play gunners well. As I said, they are a class as any other.
Btw, about the fire rate, i think the fire rate, specailly if you are with even gunners on both sides, make the game feel like the movies, where we see lasers flying everywhere, but at the same time, it doesn't kill as easily as you say it does (at least not from my brief experience).
And to end, about the guide to dueling mechanics, along with someone that taught me in game, i learned a lot from this:
[Guide] The Dueling Compendium | Movie Battles II Community

And I believe it was here way before when you started playing.

 

[Obeon]

I can't talk for the US side, but when I am on EU Duel Server (not official), other than sometimes annoying lamers, people actually help new guys there.

Even in brazilian servers people help new guys (i'm a new guy). And we're known for being trolls in every fu*** thing on the internet.