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Hello MB2 Developers,
I've been playing MB2 for quite a while now, and I've seen a lot of versions, a lot of weird things, a lot of good things, and a lot of mediocre things. I've had grievances, positives, and things about which I was apathetic. But there is one thing that has always been true of this mod that at this point is getting to be too much, and there needs to be either a backpedal or a slow down: Y'all are overhauling the elements in the mod way too often. Chillax. Let people actually play the version that was released rather than eventually getting to 1.6.9.9.9.9.9.9. No one wants to play something if they have to learn the new way to play well every single month. People are looking for consistency, for stability.
The additional drawback to constantly changing more stuff is the introduction of other, new, more bugs, or the increase of current ones. JKA is a very old game, and for its time, it may have been considered a technological masterpiece among video games. However, it was made in 2003, and despite this being a total conversion mod, it's still based upon that same 2003 infrastructure. That was 17 years ago. I'm no programmer, but I'd have to imagine by that alone that any sort of modding is a really tricky thing when trying to put forth a bug-free product. I've seen more passthroughs, stair push/pull knockdowns despite walking or standing still, extendos, melee bugs (most prominent being the flying kick that just slides off the body rather than kicking it down even though it's facing directly at the target), portal glitches through doors, etc. Please slow it down, the bugs are getting very annoying. I've had to take video clips of some of them just because of how severe they are.
The primary reason for why the changes are so annoying is because it's always something that changes the gameplay drastically. I love to play gunner. It's fun, it's diverse, it'x exciting, and it's what I naturally tend towards. However, I often participate in scrims with my clan, and sometimes I need to play jedi/sith because no one else has that experience. So, I had to dedicate some of my time to at least learning somewhat of how dueling and playing open as jedi/sith works even though I have no desire to do so. It is quite frustrating that I have to keep relearning system after system after system that I don't even want to learn. Every other patch also seems to want to either nerf one class or buff insanely another class, and that's universal amongst both gunners and jedi/sith. Not too many patches ago, soldier got quick getup removed from him. Now all of the sudden, it's back again. Flinch was introduced as a mechanic in 1.4. Then, it was tweaked many times. Then, after all that tweaking, it was finally removed and replaced with knockback similar to how things were in 1.3. That's a good thought, HOWEVER, look at what the constant changing has done. There a jedi/sith now who I can shoot in the face with a T-21, a P3, an E-11, a clone rifle, a wookiee bowcaster, or any other weapon and it's a 50/50 of whether they'll be knocked back or not. I've seen many jedi/sith who somehow, despite getting lit up hard, still manage to just run forward and wave their wands without a care in the world. Knockback was not nearly this inconsistent in 1.3, but all of the sudden after going through numerous pointless changes, it's having consistency issues in 1.6. Ion blobs used to be something that people will actually use. Now, anyone with half a brain cell won't even touch them when arctrooper pulse grenades get that job done much more efficiently and effectively. For some reason in the latest two versions there has been a hatred towards snipers, so much so that you have completely thrown off a sniper class imbalance between imps and rebels. You have nerfed EE-3 and projectile rifle hard, way too hard quite frankly. There was absolutely no reason to so aggressively nerf the projectile rifle, especially when there's no viable other sniper option on rebels. By the way, do not say that the Westar M5 is a suitable replacement, because in order to do any damage output worth the points you'd have already been vaporized by a some BH (most likely me) with his disruptor. Please slow it down, and let versions wait for a while before you release new ones. No one is being kept around by seeing so many changes so rapidly. In fact, there are many people I don't see at all online anymore because of the fact this game is changing so often, and honestly it's what has made me almost quit the mod many times. At this point the only thing that keeps me here is that I have friends who play this, otherwise I'd be too fed up with the changes and just leave.
You guys have to understand that when you change one thing, you change all things. This game is designed around the relationship from one class to the next, and vice versa. By nerfing projectile rifle so hard, you have literally made it so that rebels 9 times out of 10 will be outsniped by the imperials, because EE-3 sniper is still more viable than Westar M5 by a long shot, and the BH has the disruptor available to him anyway so he doesn't have to deal with the projectile rifle nerf. My suggestion would honestly be to give the rebels another sniper rifle to at least give them a more viable option or revert the nerf on projectile rifle, because honestly the nerf is bs and hardly anyone uses the weapon from what I see anymore (unless they're on rebels and have literally no other choice for sniping).
This is not the way to proper balance. All you guys are doing is playing Russian Roulette with classes to see which one gets to be the most powerful/viable this month. That's not how you create balance. That's how you ensure that you will never ever stop doing minor bug and imbalance issue fixes, and thus never get around to releasing actual, new content. The longer that goes on, the sooner people will start leaving because it's just the same old story all over again. Eventually the mod will be filled only with Disney+ subscribers that got all giddy and geeky because "hey look, Star Wars related content!", and then there's no one there to teach them how to play, then you're going to have to overhaul the mod again to cater to their play style, and the cycle will just repeat itself.
Consistency is always a good thing. Focus on actual bug fixes instead of constantly experimenting with new ways of balancing that will ultimately fail or be overturned 4 patches later. Focus on the passthroughs, the melee glitches, and all that stuff first. Then, LEAVE. IT. ALONE. You do not need to constantly change the mod over and over and over again. Let it sit for a bit peeps. People will still play it.
I've been playing MB2 for quite a while now, and I've seen a lot of versions, a lot of weird things, a lot of good things, and a lot of mediocre things. I've had grievances, positives, and things about which I was apathetic. But there is one thing that has always been true of this mod that at this point is getting to be too much, and there needs to be either a backpedal or a slow down: Y'all are overhauling the elements in the mod way too often. Chillax. Let people actually play the version that was released rather than eventually getting to 1.6.9.9.9.9.9.9. No one wants to play something if they have to learn the new way to play well every single month. People are looking for consistency, for stability.
The additional drawback to constantly changing more stuff is the introduction of other, new, more bugs, or the increase of current ones. JKA is a very old game, and for its time, it may have been considered a technological masterpiece among video games. However, it was made in 2003, and despite this being a total conversion mod, it's still based upon that same 2003 infrastructure. That was 17 years ago. I'm no programmer, but I'd have to imagine by that alone that any sort of modding is a really tricky thing when trying to put forth a bug-free product. I've seen more passthroughs, stair push/pull knockdowns despite walking or standing still, extendos, melee bugs (most prominent being the flying kick that just slides off the body rather than kicking it down even though it's facing directly at the target), portal glitches through doors, etc. Please slow it down, the bugs are getting very annoying. I've had to take video clips of some of them just because of how severe they are.
The primary reason for why the changes are so annoying is because it's always something that changes the gameplay drastically. I love to play gunner. It's fun, it's diverse, it'x exciting, and it's what I naturally tend towards. However, I often participate in scrims with my clan, and sometimes I need to play jedi/sith because no one else has that experience. So, I had to dedicate some of my time to at least learning somewhat of how dueling and playing open as jedi/sith works even though I have no desire to do so. It is quite frustrating that I have to keep relearning system after system after system that I don't even want to learn. Every other patch also seems to want to either nerf one class or buff insanely another class, and that's universal amongst both gunners and jedi/sith. Not too many patches ago, soldier got quick getup removed from him. Now all of the sudden, it's back again. Flinch was introduced as a mechanic in 1.4. Then, it was tweaked many times. Then, after all that tweaking, it was finally removed and replaced with knockback similar to how things were in 1.3. That's a good thought, HOWEVER, look at what the constant changing has done. There a jedi/sith now who I can shoot in the face with a T-21, a P3, an E-11, a clone rifle, a wookiee bowcaster, or any other weapon and it's a 50/50 of whether they'll be knocked back or not. I've seen many jedi/sith who somehow, despite getting lit up hard, still manage to just run forward and wave their wands without a care in the world. Knockback was not nearly this inconsistent in 1.3, but all of the sudden after going through numerous pointless changes, it's having consistency issues in 1.6. Ion blobs used to be something that people will actually use. Now, anyone with half a brain cell won't even touch them when arctrooper pulse grenades get that job done much more efficiently and effectively. For some reason in the latest two versions there has been a hatred towards snipers, so much so that you have completely thrown off a sniper class imbalance between imps and rebels. You have nerfed EE-3 and projectile rifle hard, way too hard quite frankly. There was absolutely no reason to so aggressively nerf the projectile rifle, especially when there's no viable other sniper option on rebels. By the way, do not say that the Westar M5 is a suitable replacement, because in order to do any damage output worth the points you'd have already been vaporized by a some BH (most likely me) with his disruptor. Please slow it down, and let versions wait for a while before you release new ones. No one is being kept around by seeing so many changes so rapidly. In fact, there are many people I don't see at all online anymore because of the fact this game is changing so often, and honestly it's what has made me almost quit the mod many times. At this point the only thing that keeps me here is that I have friends who play this, otherwise I'd be too fed up with the changes and just leave.
You guys have to understand that when you change one thing, you change all things. This game is designed around the relationship from one class to the next, and vice versa. By nerfing projectile rifle so hard, you have literally made it so that rebels 9 times out of 10 will be outsniped by the imperials, because EE-3 sniper is still more viable than Westar M5 by a long shot, and the BH has the disruptor available to him anyway so he doesn't have to deal with the projectile rifle nerf. My suggestion would honestly be to give the rebels another sniper rifle to at least give them a more viable option or revert the nerf on projectile rifle, because honestly the nerf is bs and hardly anyone uses the weapon from what I see anymore (unless they're on rebels and have literally no other choice for sniping).
This is not the way to proper balance. All you guys are doing is playing Russian Roulette with classes to see which one gets to be the most powerful/viable this month. That's not how you create balance. That's how you ensure that you will never ever stop doing minor bug and imbalance issue fixes, and thus never get around to releasing actual, new content. The longer that goes on, the sooner people will start leaving because it's just the same old story all over again. Eventually the mod will be filled only with Disney+ subscribers that got all giddy and geeky because "hey look, Star Wars related content!", and then there's no one there to teach them how to play, then you're going to have to overhaul the mod again to cater to their play style, and the cycle will just repeat itself.
Consistency is always a good thing. Focus on actual bug fixes instead of constantly experimenting with new ways of balancing that will ultimately fail or be overturned 4 patches later. Focus on the passthroughs, the melee glitches, and all that stuff first. Then, LEAVE. IT. ALONE. You do not need to constantly change the mod over and over and over again. Let it sit for a bit peeps. People will still play it.
