SeV's Saber System Fix

SeV

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Bare with me and try to understand, as I lay bare some of my thoughts on the saber system. Please listen uncritically to a player who's cared for this game and sabering ystem for over 8 years. Btw, this spawned from a reply to the PB post by Apex, but the reply turned into this...

Introduction: Skip to suggestions if you want.

I think the current PB system is good, but as stassin mentioned you can sometimes accidentally PB. Another issue I see with this system is that attacking like a fucking maniac is 90% better than focusing on defensive play because of parries. In the saberclash-systems parrying happened less frequently because of halfswing exchanges. Also, Angling ur saber when both attacking and defending, and countering with proper timing was the old way of playing and I know stassin thinks it was more random than not, and therefore bad and didn't take skill, yet I disagree. The old system was full of depth and took a great deal of skill, just as the current one does. They're just different.

So why is spamming such a viable way of playing, as opposed to focusing on PBs, correct timing and skillful countering etc?
Well, because the fucking attacks PARRY and a parry is better than a PB (ignoring perks for now).

In alot of situations, alot of the time, maybe more than 70 percent of a duel, parrying blocks more hits than PBing. Parrying can block hits at 0 bp. It completely trivializes the current PB system, because at 0 BP you can just go Yoda mode and jump around, swinging and parrying, then jump to reset and repeat. With red u can use the stagger aswell for an added 0 BP bonus defense.

In essence, my gripe is not with the current PB system, but with how it was implemented and what is missing. Tweaks, not revamps or returns to old systems. If skilled veteran players all put their heads together I'm sure we can come up with improvements that'll make the current system as much fun as the old one.



So...

This list of suggestions isn't a take it or leave it whole course, it's a buffet of suggestions to somehow spice up the current rather dull and lifeless system. (it sounds like I'm saying it's bad, but what I'm saying is that it's more boring, not worse or that it takes less skill. Why do you think people left? Because saber system wasn't fun for them anymore, but it's fun for sisi I assume...)




Here are my suggestions for a better saber system.




#1 Non-Trivial Counters:
A successful PB allows the user to Counter. That Counter will 'override' a normal swing (pass through a parry) and deal extra BP damage. Only works on the first swing after a PB.


Comment: Not extra BP by a huge amount, but enough to make countering and counter-countering a desirable tactic for skilled people as compared to mindlessly spamming combos (whether they be 2 hit combos followed by quick resets to get ACM or not... it's still mindless spam that takes little skill. I don't think it's much different from 4 hit combo spamming with yellow, it's just an evolution of the same playstyle.)

On the BP multiplier, I don't know if 1.1 swingblocked and 1.3 unswingblocked will be enough, but the main point of this is not the increased BP damage, though that is a required thing to make counters less trivial and more desirable. The real focus is on the fact that this allows people who can PB+counter to BYPASS 0 bp parry spamming retards.

(Extra note: Check my youtube videos of sisi vs sekundus and you'll see alot of retarded 0 BP jump spam. Sometimse it lasts for 30 seconds spamming at 0 bp before sisi dies to sekundus)

#2 More low bp parry fixes:
Getting hit while running and swinging without swingblock causes the user to lose his lightsaber if he is below 1/2 BP and stagger if he is above 1/2 BP.

Comment: First, the values can be adjusted down to be 1/4 disarm threshold or even lower.

Reason and history: many have suggested that a jedi/sith's movement speed be slowed at low/0 BP in the past. This would interfere with open mode gameplay in a non-trivial way. My suggestion does not harm open mode gameplay, it just makes it slightly more important to be aware of your BP in-case of an enemy jedi/sith. I mean for fucks sake, a 0 BP sith in open can take on a bunch of noob jedi by spamming parries and using red stagger and BP is supposed to be for blocking lightsaber attacks. You shouldn''t be just fine without BP against a jedi/sith... as said before it trivializes PB and the entire MB2 system, returning us to a base-like state of retarded spam. This 0 skill shit has to stop, and suggestion #1 and #2 help solve this problem. There is no good reason not to implement.

#3 Cyan Perk
Yes, the cyan parry perk has to get the fuck out of here. it encourages a retarded, 0 skill noobish playstyle that I've tried to crush with suggestions #1 and 2.


Comments: If cyan has to be removed from the game as a useless style, so be it. But cyan's parry perk opposes all that is good about the current saber system and has to go.

#4 Cyan revamp
Cyan's first swing is yellow speed, blue dmg (ish), and with each swing in the combo/chain it increases in speed and damage until it is blue speed, yellow damage at around 4 swings? Upon reset, returns to being Yellow speed, blue dmg.

New perk:
Performing an Mblock (with PB), makes the counter start at blue speed, yellow BP dmg level.

Comments: Cyan is too weak without the derpy, SHITTY parrying perk. Revamping cyan is no small matter. My first suggestion is to make cyan's first swing slower, but each subsequent swing increase in speed within the combo chain. First swing speed starts out around yellow level , with blue dmg, and as we get deeper into the swings, speed and damage increase to reverse, blue speed and yellow dmg. This happens for combos and single swings alike within a given combo-chain (You know, before the reset. So you can combo ur way up to extremely fast halfswings). This would make cyan a unique aggressive style instead of the derpy, half-assed style that it currently is.

The perk requires skill to be good, unlike the disgusting parry perk.

#5 Staff changes
Staff mblocks no longer stagger the opponent. Instead, they get an active verson of the stagger on the currently unused saberthrow button.

Active stagger: Works like the mblock stagger, has a cooldown of 8 seconds, requires a PB+button press to succeed so that it still takes timing and some skill.

Comments: The current staff stagger mechanic is simply too overpowered considering staff's def and off stats. It also slows duels to a crawl. It is simply too overpowered. Yes it takes a little bit of skill to use, but if you practice it you can perform it just as easily as you PB and thus the amount of skill needed to execute it is not in proportion to how good it is.

My suggestion is a nerf to the stagger mechanic. Even if it got removed entirely staff would still be an excellent style because it has good defense and offensive stats. Also, the 8 sec cooldown can be shown like the slap cooldown is currently.

#6 Slap/kick
This one is simple, up the cooldown from 2.5 sec to 4 seconds.

Comments/reasoning: Slap is often spammed. Making the cooldown longer does not impact duels in a negative way, as there's no saberclash facehug anymore, just regular old facehug which doesn't have much of an effect. The second reason for increasing slap cooldown is that it helps guide players towards using the PB+Counter mechanic that I mentioned above. It also helps make revamped cyan playstyle more dangerous. It reinforces proper use of slap, combats spamming it constantly.

#7 Duals changes
Duals stab no longer gives the user an ACC.
You can only parry with the first swing in a combo.
Duals stab can parry+knockback. Main defensive mechanic on duals.
Duals have slightly more BP multiplier than before to compensate for loss of combo-spammed parries as a defensive mechanic.

Comments: It's quite simple really. Duals is a spammy playstyle that can completely ignore PBs. When playing duals, you NEVER EVER focus on PBing, instead only on attacking, parrying, stabbing, gaining ACM and running away to regen BP... Very gay style of play atm.

#8 Red changes
Red loses PB BP drain perk.

New Perk: The parry bypass from PBing+Countering lasts for the entire combo instead of for only 1 swing.

In addition, Red gets a new ability. Pressing the saberthrow button makes reds first swing a halfswing, exactly like the old weaponswitch/twirl trick, but HP damage is decreased to 50 HP. (To balance in open-mode) and movement speed is slowed to 80 percent for 2 sec after pressing the button. Lasts 2 sec before expiring. Takes 0.5 sec before you can attack after you've pressed the button and activated the ability.

Cooldown 8 seconds

Comments: The old red PB perk makes it a very strong stance and without the perk it's perhaps not strong enough. The Parry bypass perk allows reds counter-combo's to be effective and is a more attack oriented perk as it bypasses parry defenses. Also, the counter combo can be slapped making it a more risky perk with less success chance. All this serves to increase the skill it takes to play with and against red while slightly nerfing the defensive power.

The new halfswing ability is needed for red to give it a more attack-based flavour. I don't care what anyone says, red should have this ability. If an 8 sec cooldown proves to be too short, then increase it to 10 seconds, Idc. With such a long cooldown it is trivial in the actual duel itself, but serves to spice things up and keep players on their toes against red, knowing that at any moment the Red user can go brutal offense. It gives red more unique flavour similar to playing against the current stagger staff. If a style has a mechanic you cannot ignore, that gives personality to that style. Red is an iconic aggressive style so why not give it this ability? It is not overpowered at all compared to the 8+ BP drain on PB perk, and if implemented with the HP dmg nerf to swings in that combo it won't make the style OP in open either, though it'll give red users an opportunity to finish off facehugging gunners that they've deflected down to low HP. Another bonus, though not a dueling bonus, still worth noting.

#9 Blue changes
Make blue spins fast so that you can utilize those combos in combat and not be afraid of spinning.

Comments: Blue is already a good, unique, fun style loved by many. Perhaps it's a tad strong but that's to be expected because of the parry shit. With my PB+Counter suggestion bypassing parries for a single swing, it should help balance things out vs spammy styles like blue. The above suggestion makes blue users able to attack in more varied ways, and I know everyone would appreciate it if spinning didn't fuck them over with blue. It helps even the slight nerf that the PB+Counter introduces to blue in a non OP or otherwise annoying or roundabout way.

Extra note: It would be cool if you could slow down blue counters just a tad, and make blue users able to counter with a w swing in a proper manner. Think of a kendo strike, that's the kind of blue counter I'd like to see more of. Make this new blue counter as prevalent about as prevalent as the yellow left swing counter.

#10 Force powers.
Force Speed becomes a neutral force power.

Jedis get Force Heal.

lvl 1 cost 4 - drains 20 fp per sec, heals 5 hp per second. User is immobile (Kneeling heal stance)
lvl 2 cost 6 - drains 10 fp per sec, heals 6 hp per sec. User is immobile (Kneeling heal stance)
lvl 3 cost 8 - drains 10 fp per sec, heals 10 per sec. User can move while healing.

Note: I'd like speed to be implemented regardless of heal. There's an argument for giving Jedis force grip. Sith can use lightning (sith Sorcery), but all force users can use grip to some extent and as Kyle said, the forcepower itself is not evil, it's how you use it. So you can put grip in both jedi and sith if my force heal suggestion is not to your liking.

Comments: Why? Speed is needed in the current dueling system to counter the retarded backslash and with jedi's being the only ones to have speed, it makes sith less versatile in dueling. Also, the many implications in open recommend speed. If sith have speed... there are so many tactical implications. They had it before, they can have it again. It's worth a try. People want it, old vets, newer players, recognized MB2 personalities. So many ppl are asking for this. So give it to them.

The specifics of force heal balancing can be changed to suit the balance. My values are just placeholder suggestions.









 
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Stassin

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Now all there is to do is remove perks all together.. ;D just my opinion no offense meant.
I don't have a problem with that if most people agree, it just feels bad to change the system alot once again, and also to add stuff only to remove it afterwards (well that's my bad)... but if it has to be done for the system to be good again then so be it. I'm not too sure about it though since there's still alot of people who don't dislike the perks.
 

Preston

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I don't have a problem with that if most people agree, it just feels bad to change the system alot once again, and also to add stuff only to remove it afterwards (well that's my bad)... but if it has to be done for the system to be good again then so be it. I'm not too sure about it though since there's still alot of people who don't dislike the perks.
Maybe we could have a post explaining all the perks and their advantages, and then have a straw poll where we vote for keeping them or removing them. Or maybe even more specefic and choose to keep certain perks and remove the others.
 

SeV

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@SeV could you test the new flinch feature we've been talking about in beta ? I'd rather have your feedback, and agent's and Jiube's too if possible, before going through with it. It think it will probably make the gameplay more similar to RC1 again, and at the same time lessen the influence of perks quite alot.

Yeah can do that np ^_^
 
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@SeV could you test the new flinch feature we've been talking about in beta ? I'd rather have your feedback, and agent's and Jiube's too if possible, before going through with it. It think it will probably make the gameplay more similar to RC1 again, and at the same time lessen the influence of perks quite alot.

Blocking animations: it's not easy to get that feature in, but who knows maybe someday i'll manage to, hope.
I hope I can make it to some of the test sessions with it implemented. I'm eager to try it, and very hopeful it is going to work as well as intended.

This is what I was getting at in my original posts. We had a pretty definitive and nearly finished system back in B18-RC1, but we sacrificed a lot of the continuity and original flair for innovative and new ideas in an attempt to bring more viability into the system. Was yellow the prominent style? Yes it was. Did blue and red need tweaks to their BP drains to make them just as viable? Yes. Did yellow need some kind of tweaks to change looking down and halfswinging? Sure. Did PB needed to be looked at to make it more consistent? Yes it did. Was there much else that needed fixing to be the perfect system to finish MBII on? In my opinion, no.

What we had at that time was an almost finalized product. After RC1, the above changes and suggestions went unacknowledged. Instead the active coders at the time went in a new direction and injected their own changes into the saber system coding - removing nudge, adding stagger, reduced damage on swingblock, more damage on running attacks, removing the BP drain cooldown, changing AP values entirely, adding a cooldown to how fast you can change saber stances (used to be doable mid swing), massively increased BP damage on katas, addition of perks, and the new PB.

I agree that PB needed to be more consistent but I think the price of removing the relevance of the weighted saber hitbox and saber positioning during idle blocking was too much. No more active saber placement interaction during the ongoing duel. By proxy, no more swing resets or combo cancels either. Cyan and purple shouldn't have been added until blue / red / duals got tweaked to where they were actually in a good spot, not band-aid fixed with perks. Staff was still very viable due to it's saber hitbox size and the things you could do with it.



Has anyone else noticed that we've devolved from players having their own saber style to how well they can use the given stances (specializing in cyan / red etc) and how well you can PB. When all the original tools of nudging / swing resetting / idle blocking got removed, coupled with the new PB, no one has their own trademark playstyles anymore, being good now is determined by how well you can use the perks of this system.

I remember Euopean duelists like K)illin(G going so far as mastering holding mblock down and not letting go, using the saber hitbox to actively PB and nudge/instaswing hits off the enemy's saber. While it looked ridiculous and not healthy visually, that was one example of the raw mechanical power of keeping the saber hitbox intact in the dueling system - that one mechanic alone went so far as to create it's own subset style of dueling that was perfectly viable with pros and cons. When the saber hitbox vanished I'm surprised no one tried to bring it back or realized the sheer importance of it. It bothers me how much core value was lost in the march towards progress.

If you have some of the older builds Stassin, you should try playing around with them and taking what you like from them. I would really be curious to see what some of the older systems would be like with all the refined mechanics of today's system supporting them.
OMG, :_( So true. I'll even make additional +1 in this post for you, you couldn't be more correct, it is the very feeling I get.

I would only correct one thing: not RC1, RC3. RC3 was still good.

Although, I never played RC1 :D, and I'd love to, but according to the feedback, they both were pretty good dueling systems.

Now all there is to do is remove perks all together.. ;D just my opinion no offense meant.
I'm fine with the perks idea, I already pretty much said on many occasions why I think implementing them when they were implemented was a bad idea. It is not a good thing to put too much major changes in the same patch - creates issues with troubleshooting them and deciding which of them turned out to be good at the end of the day.

I would suggest removing them temporarily, test the system without them for some time, trying to find ways to differenciate the styles wihtout using perks, or using them in unique cases, and then perhaps reintroduce them.
 
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I like the perks, but the system should be solid before you add them in... I don't like how if you are hit in the middle of an attack, your only punishment is more BP, then you can then throw a counter-swing off the animation! That took a lot of effort for you to do, countering off of it is just stupid in my opinion. This one little thing could make a huge difference in how duels play out, and make red not so op. I don't know if it is intentional for any reason, because the fix really isn't hard... I think it would make the system a lot more clear.
 

Preston

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I like the perks, but the system should be solid before you add them in... I don't like how if you are hit in the middle of an attack, your only punishment is more BP, then you can then throw a counter-swing off the animation! That took a lot of effort for you to do, countering off of it is just stupid in my opinion. This one little thing could make a huge difference in how duels play out, and make red not so op. I don't know if it is intentional for any reason, because the fix really isn't hard... I think it would make the system a lot more clear.
More than red needs to be fixed tho
 
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Something is missing...

Backing Firestrike on the specific issue of individualism in dueling; Developing dueling from the root of the saber system, not just the cherry on top (perks) would help allow a player to create a style different from any other player. There was a time when two players could join a server as Padawan, and Padawan[1] and duel. Spectating the duel it would not take long to determine which player in our community was Padawan, and which was Padawan[1].

The idea of picking out an alias is not important, but the individual style choices of previous builds ( specifically before cyan and purple) was a great time in the history of this game. After RC3 P3-P4 we experienced some heavy changes to the system that slowly started eating away at individualism in dueling. I have always been more of an observer when it comes to dueling so I must defer to the masters when it comes down to the fine details of the system, but looking back there is a noticeable amount of creativity allowed to duelists that we now lack.

Getting back to the roots of what make this saber system great should be a concern moving forward.
 
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Newer player here. All I have done since I bought this game on the steam sale has involved a saber.

The first thing I want to say, is the relationship between skill and ego can not be denied, a lot of changes being recommended are straight out of a salt mine and should be treated with disdain.

Though I have found a couple problems, that I fully believe are problems and not stemmed from my cracked in game pride.

The first are Katas, there is not a single argument someone could give on why these are not completely stupid. Unless I have been misinformed, these drain tons of bp, and cant be drained from while being performed, as well as being easy as hell to employ and immune to almost all saber attacks for its whole duration. This in my short time playing, feels completely counter-intuitive to a game being hailed as skill-based. The worst part is how the best counter is simply waiting, for a mod called "movie battles" this mechanic is as far from cinematic as possible.

My second problem, and this is a biggie, is the explanation of your mechanics. They are bad, super bad.
The amount of fishing I had to do to find out the simplest things, like where to pblock an attack should not be expected of any player of any game, it is still silly. And I still cant tell half the time whether an attack is purely horizontal or angled, it feels more like a memory test on the animations. The info given on a mod with mechanics this deep, is undeniably not adequate, and HUGE reason new players quit.

My third is saber-throw, why does this not do any damage, and why can you not force pull it back to you?
 
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The first are Katas, there is not a single argument someone could give on why these are not completely stupid.
It's not clear if all special moves are katas, or it's just some sertain special moves are katas, and others are not. So it feels kinda misleading, and I'm not really sure which special moves you meant by saying "katas". Ehh..

Overall, I dislike only forward staff butterfly, other special moves seems on their places. Not sure about purple "kata" though, but who cares about purple anyway. Heueueu

My third is saber-throw, why does this not do any damage, and why can you not force pull it back to you?
As far as I remember saberthrow does around 20-30dmg. Well, it's not much, but if you combine it with 3 level seeing you can use saberthrow to kill wounded enemies. It's completely useless in duels, though.

Btw, you can pull saber back by pressing class special 2 button.
 
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It's not clear if all special moves are katas, or it's just some sertain special moves are katas, and others are not. So it feels kinda misleading, and I'm not really sure which special moves you meant by saying "katas". Ehh..

Overall, I dislike only forward staff butterfly, other special moves seems on their places. Not sure about purple "kata" though, but who cares about purple anyway. Heueueu


As far as I remember saberthrow does around 20-30dmg. Well, it's not much, but if you combine it with 3 level seeing you can use saberthrow to kill wounded enemies. It's completely useless in duels, though.

Btw, you can pull saber back by pressing class special 2 button.

I know you can pull it back, I mean it would be nice for something that takes a fair amount of skill to have a reward. I also mean that if you throw and aim at the saber and pull you should pull it back.

I was talking mostly about Dual kata, and I don't have a problem with any DFAs if thats what you meant by "other specials".

Staff and dual kata seem, to me, way off when it comes to risk versus reward, maybe I'm missing something, but asking experienced players comes up with the answer "wait for it to end", which I find unacceptable.
 
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I was talking mostly about Dual kata, and I don't have a problem with any DFAs if thats what you meant by "other specials".
You mean crouching kata aka twirl? But it's fairly easy to punish! As soon as it starts rush just a bit backwards to avoid spinning blade(s), circle around the opponent and slice him in the back.

Actually, because of that dual and staff twirls are kinda considered risky.
 
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agentoo8

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Something is missing...

Backing Firestrike on the specific issue of individualism in dueling; Developing dueling from the root of the saber system, not just the cherry on top (perks) would help allow a player to create a style different from any other player. There was a time when two players could join a server as Padawan, and Padawan[1] and duel. Spectating the duel it would not take long to determine which player in our community was Padawan, and which was Padawan[1].

The idea of picking out an alias is not important, but the individual style choices of previous builds ( specifically before cyan and purple) was a great time in the history of this game. After RC3 P3-P4 we experienced some heavy changes to the system that slowly started eating away at individualism in dueling. I have always been more of an observer when it comes to dueling so I must defer to the masters when it comes down to the fine details of the system, but looking back there is a noticeable amount of creativity allowed to duelists that we now lack.

Getting back to the roots of what make this saber system great should be a concern moving forward.

That is still very much the case. People do have individual styles, and I can at least tell who the proper duelists are - just after 10 seconds or so of dueling them.
Individualism has not been lost. Creativity? Slightly, but hopefully the next patch will address this :)
 
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Check his ip!

Also, katas. If you don't want to wait, slap or flying kick ftw.
Or dfa, buh bye now.

Though I will agree that pb camera is bad.

Though...am I the only one that prefers kata spammers? They typically are easy to beat. You just have to be...gooder than bad. :)
 
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