SeV's Saber System Fix

[SeV]

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.

 

[AgentGibbs]

Alright gonna go a bit off topic here from staggers. But can we please, please just take out the perk system. For red, the pblock drain bp feature is just bad. I can litteraly just pblock like 2 combos and get someone to half bp. It makes no sense, especially since pblock isnt even difficult once you learn it. And the stagger when hit by a 3 hit combo, if you must keep it then fine. But atleast make it where they have to be body hits. It doesnt make sense to get staggerd when you "perfect block" all their swings. Now for cyan. The drain bp on a parry is pretty silly design. It just primotes combo spam. Not much more I can say about cyan other than the perk is just for spam. Ill come back later when I completely learn the other perks and experience them all myself and their balancing issues. The only perk that makes sense somewhat to me is blues btw.

I'll elaborate for Preston and go through each styles perks and their pros (if there are any) and the cons.

Blue - Takes reduced bp damage - This is about the only perk that makes sense because blue has always been the defense oriented style and if you play it defensively less bp damage per hit is a legitimate perk to give to this defensive style.

Yellow - No perks - gG

Red - Perfect block bp drain and stagger - The perfect block bp drain makes no sense for red. Red is the most offensive style dealing large amounts of damage with slower swings, but by giving it the pb perk you can make red a perfectly defensive style. As Preston said above you can easily pb someone to 1/4 - 1/2 bp in one or 2 combos if you follow these pb's with a counter combo the opponent is either dead or at very low bp. This makes no sense for the most offensive style to give it such a powerful defensive perk. As for the stagger in red, it is an ok perk because it is rewarding red for being offensive, however, it should not stagger when someone pblocks the third swing like gamgee mentions. By removing stagger for pblocking the third swing you would reward the opponent against red for successfully defending an offensive style.

Cyan - Parry drain - The parry drain for cyan while I originally disagreed with it entirely I do not disagree with it now. The parry drain for cyan to me is balanced as long as the opponent knows how to duel against cyan. The drain could maybe be less but as long as the opponent knows how to duel "around" cyan they would not even take damage from the parries.

Purple - +1 ACM for pblocking - This perk is honestly completely broken, a good duelist using purple can easily pblock and follow into a parry/body hit combo adding +2 acm to a strong damage style which only needs +4 to obtain full ap.

Staff - Staggering for mblocking a swing blocking opponent + mblocking without pblocking - Staff mblocking causing an opponent to stagger because they swing block is basically punishing someone for doing what they are supposed to do. The only defense a saberist has against mblock is swing block, so by giving a style a way to punish someone for doing what they are supposed to do against an mblocking opponent just is not fair or practical. Also the stagger lasts long enough for the staff user to complete a 3 hit combo successfully draining 1/3 of the opponents bp that can not even slap during the stagger. This perk just just has no place in sabering because it is punishing someone for doing what they are supposed to. Mblocking without pblocking in theory is an ok perfect and is completely balanced until the other day I realized you just have to mblock in the correct direction to be rewarded with essentially a pblock. By mblocking in the correct direction because staff does not require pblocks to mblock it is rewarded with a pblock itself on an ill timed mblock still.

Duals - Slap drains bp - The only issue with duals slap drain is that it drains bp even if the opponent is not knocked over. This once again is punishing someone for doing what they were supposed to because they are losing bp for not getting knocked over.

In general the perk system just needs to be removed, but if that is not the route that is wanted some serious tweaking needs to happen. The heavy styles do not need pblocking perks for one it is rewarding the offensive styles for being defensive. If anything maybe switch the blue and red perks and the purple and cyan perks. Give blue pblock drains and red less bp damage there is already massive damage reduction for red so it would still be along the same lines. This change would reward blue users for being defensive and would compensate red users for being so open to getting hit all the time. Giving cyan +1 acm for pblocks would also still be ok because it is a fast style that is supposed to be played semi defensive with parrying anyway. Giving purple the parry drain means that a slower style is given a parry drain and therefore harming an opponent that had bad timing against the slower swings.

Once again these are just notes and suggestions feedback is always welcome to my ideas

 

[agentoo8]

I'll elaborate for Preston and go through each styles perks and their pros (if there are any) and the cons.

Blue - Takes reduced bp damage - This is about the only perk that makes sense because blue has always been the defense oriented style and if you play it defensively less bp damage per hit is a legitimate perk to give to this defensive style.

Yellow - No perks - gG

Red - Perfect block bp drain and stagger - The perfect block bp drain makes no sense for red. Red is the most offensive style dealing large amounts of damage with slower swings, but by giving it the pb perk you can make red a perfectly defensive style. As Preston said above you can easily pb someone to 1/4 - 1/2 bp in one or 2 combos if you follow these pb's with a counter combo the opponent is either dead or at very low bp. This makes no sense for the most offensive style to give it such a powerful defensive perk. As for the stagger in red, it is an ok perk because it is rewarding red for being offensive, however, it should not stagger when someone pblocks the third swing like gamgee mentions. By removing stagger for pblocking the third swing you would reward the opponent against red for successfully defending an offensive style.

Cyan - Parry drain - The parry drain for cyan while I originally disagreed with it entirely I do not disagree with it now. The parry drain for cyan to me is balanced as long as the opponent knows how to duel against cyan. The drain could maybe be less but as long as the opponent knows how to duel "around" cyan they would not even take damage from the parries.

Purple - +1 ACM for pblocking - This perk is honestly completely broken, a good duelist using purple can easily pblock and follow into a parry/body hit combo adding +2 acm to a strong damage style which only needs +4 to obtain full ap.

Staff - Staggering for mblocking a swing blocking opponent + mblocking without pblocking - Staff mblocking causing an opponent to stagger because they swing block is basically punishing someone for doing what they are supposed to do. The only defense a saberist has against mblock is swing block, so by giving a style a way to punish someone for doing what they are supposed to do against an mblocking opponent just is not fair or practical. Also the stagger lasts long enough for the staff user to complete a 3 hit combo successfully draining 1/3 of the opponents bp that can not even slap during the stagger. This perk just just has no place in sabering because it is punishing someone for doing what they are supposed to. Mblocking without pblocking in theory is an ok perfect and is completely balanced until the other day I realized you just have to mblock in the correct direction to be rewarded with essentially a pblock. By mblocking in the correct direction because staff does not require pblocks to mblock it is rewarded with a pblock itself on an ill timed mblock still.

Duals - Slap drains bp - The only issue with duals slap drain is that it drains bp even if the opponent is not knocked over. This once again is punishing someone for doing what they were supposed to because they are losing bp for not getting knocked over.

In general the perk system just needs to be removed, but if that is not the route that is wanted some serious tweaking needs to happen. The heavy styles do not need pblocking perks for one it is rewarding the offensive styles for being defensive. If anything maybe switch the blue and red perks and the purple and cyan perks. Give blue pblock drains and red less bp damage there is already massive damage reduction for red so it would still be along the same lines. This change would reward blue users for being defensive and would compensate red users for being so open to getting hit all the time. Giving cyan +1 acm for pblocks would also still be ok because it is a fast style that is supposed to be played semi defensive with parrying anyway. Giving purple the parry drain means that a slower style is given a parry drain and therefore harming an opponent that had bad timing against the slower swings.

Once again these are just notes and suggestions feedback is always welcome to my ideas

1) Perks do not need to be removed. They add flavour and zest to an otherwise dull system.
2) Red: yes, the PB BP drain needs to be removed. Stagger should not be removed, regardless of PBing the last hit or not. Though Red is an offensive style, it should have the upper hand when able to execute a three-hit combo successfully and people would no longer be dissuaded from launching a series of attacks at a defensive red user if the BP drain component is removed - balance.
3) Purple: the perk is not broken, and requires - as you said - a good duelist to make optimum use of it. That is what purple was intended to be: an advanced red. If you are good at PBing, and know when to counter, you will be a good purple user. However, it is not overpowered, and if you know how to mask your attacks/confuse, e.g. trick the purple user, and use lots of DFAs etc they will - 8 times out of 10 - not be able to make good use of it.
I'm serious - try and use purple against some of the top duelists who 'major' in yellow/red/blue and you'll have a bad time.
4) Staff: I agree that the BP drain should be toned down a bit. In exchange, the staff stagger component should remain. If you follow the same advice re Purple and masking your attacks (if you want me to show you what I mean by this, I'd be more than happy to ingame), the perk doesn't account for that much. This isn't to say, however, that the perk isn't powerful - it is.

 

[AgentGibbs]

1) Perks do not need to be removed. They add flavour and zest to an otherwise dull system.
2) Red: yes, the PB BP drain needs to be removed. Stagger should not be removed, regardless of PBing the last hit or not. Though Red is an offensive style, it should have the upper hand when able to execute a three-hit combo successfully and people would no longer be dissuaded from launching a series of attacks at a defensive red user if the BP drain component is removed - balance.
3) Purple: the perk is not broken, and requires - as you said - a good duelist to make optimum use of it. That is what purple was intended to be: an advanced red. If you are good at PBing, and know when to counter, you will be a good purple user. However, it is not overpowered, and if you know how to mask your attacks/confuse, e.g. trick the purple user, and use lots of DFAs etc they will - 8 times out of 10 - not be able to make good use of it.
I'm serious - try and use purple against some of the top duelists who 'major' in yellow/red/blue and you'll have a bad time.
4) Staff: I agree that the BP drain should be toned down a bit. In exchange, the staff stagger component should remain. If you follow the same advice re Purple and masking your attacks (if you want me to show you what I mean by this, I'd be more than happy to ingame), the perk doesn't account for that much. This isn't to say, however, that the perk isn't powerful - it is.

Just duel sea otter who started in this build and you will understand how broken purple and staff are. You say a yellow user can mask their attacks but with how purple currently works all they need is one pblock in the entire combo + a counter body hit to still allow purple to have +1. In the current system there is a 99% chance that a mediocre duelist gets a lucky pblock within a yellow combo. As for the duelists who 'major' in blue/yellow/red that is me I have always used yellow and either red and/or blue in my dueling setups. The current system would be fine if it wasn't so easy to pblock and parry, as I have mentioned in several post before. Also the staff perk 'not accounting for much' i would say 3 unavoidable body hits is a lot.

 

[agentoo8]

Just duel sea otter who started in this build and you will understand how broken purple and staff are. You say a yellow user can mask their attacks but with how purple currently works all they need is one pblock in the entire combo + a counter body hit to still allow purple to have +1. In the current system there is a 99% chance that a mediocre duelist gets a lucky pblock within a yellow combo. As for the duelists who 'major' in blue/yellow/red that is me I have always used yellow and either red and/or blue in my dueling setups. The current system would be fine if it wasn't so easy to pblock and parry, as I have mentioned in several post before. Also the staff perk 'not accounting for much' i would say 3 unavoidable body hits is a lot.

Sea otter? Who is that? I have used staff extensively too, and it is very powerful - but it can be countered. I implore you to try using purple against someone who can use yellow as well as Dymbesh, and see how long you last.

The staff perk does account for a lot, I agree, but all that is needed is for stave's BP dmg to be reduced and that is it. The stagger is easily avoidable, you can bait a stave user into using it prematurely and then there is a 3 second window in which you can deal some hurt to them without worrying about being staggered.

If you use conventional red/blue/yellow combos against a good stave - or purple, to some degree - then you'll have problems, because staff/purple by their nature are designed to combat conventional and traditional attacking (staggering a predictable attack, PBing easy combos, etc) and follow-up with some offensive counters. If you learn how to utilise yaw combos/mask your attacks a bit/bait them out, then they aren't so hard.

 

[Jiube]

Perks do not need to be removed. They add flavour and zest to an otherwise dull system.

Said it himself! If even you, one of the most anxious supporters of the current dueling system feel the system is dull if the perks are removed, all of the points I tried to prove earlier are pretty much automatically proven .

If done properly, the dueling system can be extremely interesting and fascinating without perks. In fact, we had one such system in RC3, even despite all the bugs. RC3 had no perks, yet it was more compelling to play due to how most basic mechanics and ideas interacted.

In any case, removing all the perks, at least temporarily, will allow to finetune all the more basic mechanics to a far better degree, and perks can be added later into the already created balance.

Ever since the perks were initially implemented I told there were too much extremely major and impactful changes in the very same patch. The chances of keeping properly balanced gameplay were so slim! It was even more disheartening as just before all these changes took place the system had almost been finetuned to be close to some new balance, some interesting internal mechanics and interactions within.

I just hope the new ideas we discuss here right now are to bring some improvement at the end of the day.

No, I do not miss the point. If you bothered to read what I wrote, I specifically mentioned that in Open I can't simply focus on the guy with a saber because there's more going on. However I cannot attack the gunners because the guy with duals beats the shit out of me while I try. He deals too much damage compared to other styles (besides perhaps Red and Purple, but those are slower), especially when, quote, "dodging/jumping/blocking shots is involved".

The issue here is that Duals require much less skill to be efficient in Open.

I can't say I tested it from the deliverer's side, I hardly ever use duals myself, but on the occasions I encountered duals in open they were no different from other styles, because they can hardly do anything to you if you make teamwork with your gunners. The opponent simply gets shot to pieces as he tries to attack.

How do you even allow him to come close to you and repeatedly hit you?! I mean, in open, with a mob of gunners to back you!

I'm pretty cretain you are doing something wrong.

 

[hleV]

It's like 4v4 or 5v5 on DOTF main hall. I won't bother explaining this further as you'd already decided that it's somehow my fault, which it's definitely not.

In Duel Mode it's similar: Duals are spammy, harder to PB, deal lots of DPS, can Stab-spam. In 1v1 I can counter this with my dueling experience and the fact I don't have to avoid getting shot/attack gunners (yes I fought the very same guy in duel server), while the nearly-skilless opponent is only able to go so far because Duals are stupidly OP. In Duel Mode it's really bad, but in Open it's fucking ridiculous how much damage Duals do due to more factors coming into play.

I dropped dueling, but it seems I can't even enjoy Open anymore because of this retarded sabering system.

 

[agentoo8]

Said it himself! If even you, one of the most anxious supporters of the current dueling system feel the system is dull if the perks are removed, all of the points I tried to prove earlier are pretty much automatically proven .

If done properly, the dueling system can be extremely interesting and fascinating without perks. In fact, we had one such system in RC3, even despite all the bugs. RC3 had no perks, yet it was more compelling to play due to how most basic mechanics and ideas interacted.

In any case, removing all the perks, at least temporarily, will allow to finetune all the more basic mechanics to a far better degree, and perks can be added later into the already created balance.

Ever since the perks were initially implemented I told there were too much extremely major and impactful changes in the very same patch. The chances of keeping properly balanced gameplay were so slim! It was even more disheartening as just before all these changes took place the system had almost been finetuned to be close to some new balance, some interesting internal mechanics and interactions within.

I just hope the new ideas we discuss here right now are to bring some improvement at the end of the day.



I can't say I tested it from the deliverer's side, I hardly ever use duals myself, but on the occasions I encountered duals in open they were no different from other styles, because they can hardly do anything to you if you make teamwork with your gunners. The opponent simply gets shot to pieces as he tries to attack.

How do you even allow him to come close to you and repeatedly hit you?! I mean, in open, with a mob of gunners to back you!

I'm pretty cretain you are doing something wrong.

The RC3 dueling system was nothing compared to this. Don't confuse my words. I love the perks, and the saber system: but if you removed the perks, then certain styles would just not have much going for them - rendering them dull, boring, and not worth playing. Do you remember the days where staff, red, and purple/cyan were very fun styles to use? No - that's because they either didn't exist, or weren't. Only up until 2 years ago - max - have certain styles been on the same level as the dominant ones. Having perks allows different ways of playing the game, defensively offensively etc, purple is especially fun to play now because of the 3-hits AND the perks.

What is it, exactly, that you would change with the system? Red just needs to be fixed re the bp drain; duals is just an easy-as-fuck overpowered style that needs some adjustment, which is why randoms such as Sunflower can use it and consider themselves 'duelists'; staff needs BP damage toned down a bit - and voila. Yellow is flourishing now, and thanks to that DFA buff has a good offense.

The system IS balanced - that is the funny thing. For the first time ever, ANY STYLE CAN EXCEL! Previous patches were ruled by yellow and blue, red was a gimmick style totally reliant on lucky 3hits/staggers (I remember a time when I was literally the only person EU using it, laughed at by others for not conforming to yellow syndrome), staff and duals? Lol. The current system has balance, and only requires a few touch-ups as per some of SeV's suggestions imo.

ANOTHER DRAMATIC overhaul is not what the system needs. Period. I see people commenting on the system who I never seem to see dueling; vast majority of whom play open 24/7.

I agree with Hlev regarding duals. Whereas most of the other styles are balanced, this one is just broken. Remove/tweak stab as we did with purple stab.

 

[Preston]

But yellow is definetly the most underpowerd style because of the perk system. And im not gonna say that this saber system isnt fun and that the perks arnt fun. Because I do enjoy these perks, but I enjoy using them because they are unbalanced if that makes any sense. I find it amusing that I can just pblock with red and win. Yet its horribly unbalanced if you can just pblock till they get zero bp and then get one body hit to finish them off.

 

[agentoo8]

Yellow is now an advanced style, and given its cost it should be harder to use effectively. However, there is NOTHING wrong with yellow now; in fact, some of the best duelists use it against red/purple/blue with relative ease.

Anyone letting you win via red pblocking does not equate to being semi-competent as a duelist. No offence, but most people will wait for the red to attack them/counter them quickly. Rule of thumb is you don't go guns blarring against a good red user, because that is just playing into their strengths.

I do agree, however, that red needs that component removed, and given to another style.

 

[Preston]

Yellow is now an advanced style, and given its cost it should be harder to use effectively. However, there is NOTHING wrong with yellow now; in fact, some of the best duelists use it against red/purple/blue with relative ease.

Anyone letting you win via red pblocking does not equate to being semi-competent as a duelist. No offence, but most people will wait for the red to attack them/counter them quickly. Rule of thumb is you don't go guns blarring against a good red user, because that is just playing into their strengths.

I do agree, however, that red needs that component removed, and given to another style.

Im saying that the perk as a whole is horrible. If the "good duelists" know to wait till a red user attacks then the fight will go nowhere. The red user will not attack to get counterd and the yellow user wont attack to get pblocked and then counterd. The thing is, yellow is inheriantly a worse style than all the others because of the perk system. If all the perks were removed the styles would once again be on an equal or close to equal playing field. That perk especially has no place in the saber system.

 

[agentoo8]

Im saying that the perk as a whole is horrible. If the "good duelists" know to wait till a red user attacks then the fight will go nowhere. The red user will not attack to get counterd and the yellow user wont attack to get pblocked and then counterd. The thing is, yellow is inheriantly a worse style than all the others because of the perk system. If all the perks were removed the styles would once again be on an equal or close to equal playing field. That perk especially has no place in the saber system.

Learn how to make use of yellow yaw combos, combined with dfas, and you'll see how powerful it is. It's hard to use, but its just as effective as any other style if played well. If you want to see someone use yellow well, ask Dymbesh or Sisi.

A good duelist will not rush into a good red using predictable and easily-PBable attacks, that's just fact. If you do, you must use confusing attacks so they don't PB, and you must learn to kite, i.e. hit them with a combo, and move out of the way of red counters. A good red, on the other hand, can either play defensively or offensively - it doesn't really make a difference.

 

[hleV]

"Best duelists can do X, so the perks and saber system is perfectly balanced for players of any skill level".

 

[Stassin]

"Best duelists can do X, so the perks and saber system is perfectly balanced for players of any skill level".

That's just idiotic. Of course in any game or any sport or any activity, there will be some point where doing X works against anyone who doesn't know how to do Y, and suddenly when you face someone who can do Y it doesn't work anymore, but Z will. That's nothing more than skill plateaux it obviously also applies to your beloved previous saber systems, but oh damn, X, Y, Z aren't the same thing anymore so suddenly you're thrown into low skill realms, that can't be fun.

 

[Preston]

Learn how to make use of yellow yaw combos, combined with dfas, and you'll see how powerful it is. It's hard to use, but its just as effective as any other style if played well. If you want to see someone use yellow well, ask Dymbesh or Sisi.

A good duelist will not rush into a good red using predictable and easily-PBable attacks, that's just fact. If you do, you must use confusing attacks so they don't PB, and you must learn to kite, i.e. hit them with a combo, and move out of the way of red counters. A good red, on the other hand, can either play defensively or offensively - it doesn't really make a difference.

I don't use the other styles often other than yellow and red, a much better test to see how powerful other styles are would be for you or the other duelists you mentioned to duel someone like Sea Otter, da pblock mastah. Then we could see how "balanced yellow is" compared to many of the other styles that have pblock perks

 

[agentoo8]

Would be more than happy to, although I must admit I have never heard of him. If he is a decent duelist like Kael (who I believe to be the best in NA), then it could be interesting. What server does he play on/times?

My yellow is only slightly better than average as I specialise primarily in red/staff/blue, but could organise something with myself and Dymbesh/Sisi if you want an accurate display of how yellow can be used to its most optimum level.

 

[Preston]

Would be more than happy to, although I must admit I have never heard of him. If he is a decent duelist like Kael (who I believe to be the best in NA), then it could be interesting. What server does he play on/times?

AOD_Honor duels. His name is AOD_Sea Otter. Im sure he will be on sometime today

 

[agentoo8]

I'm online tomorrow for most of the day, so just let him know =)

 

[AgentGibbs]

Would be more than happy to, although I must admit I have never heard of him. If he is a decent duelist like Kael (who I believe to be the best in NA), then it could be interesting. What server does he play on/times?

My yellow is only slightly better than average as I specialise primarily in red/staff/blue, but could organise something with myself and Dymbesh/Sisi if you want an accurate display of how yellow can be used to its most optimum level.

Sea otter beat kael 10-1 just saying. But back to the thread, the perks are not what has made this system fun or interesting sabering has always been that by itself to those that duel intensively. And please do not get me wrong I am not asking for all perks to be removed just the ones that are not fair to the other saberist, such as a high damage style getting ap for pblocks or draining bp for the like. Also under no circumstances should someone be punished for swingblocking (ie. Staff stagger and bp drain still happening despite not being slapped over) its just not fair since it is the only defense to slap/mblock. Actually you are already punished for swingblocking becuase you do less bp damage per body hit so.... yea. But as i said earlier maybe its the perks are just on teh wrong style put +1acm for pblocks on cyan and purple has parry drains both of which seem more fair and make more sense in the concepts of the sabering.

 

[Derek Jeter]

I think if you want to sacrifice balance, which is what we had, for special saber style perks that affect every aspect of the game, especially open, and feel gimmicky, and put new styles in that are extremely unbalanced, passthrough way too much, and make your jaw drop, that perhaps we need to go back to the drawing board.

 

[Jiube]

It's like 4v4 or 5v5 on DOTF main hall. I won't bother explaining this further as you'd already decided that it's somehow my fault, which it's definitely not.

In Duel Mode it's similar: Duals are spammy, harder to PB, deal lots of DPS, can Stab-spam. In 1v1 I can counter this with my dueling experience and the fact I don't have to avoid getting shot/attack gunners (yes I fought the very same guy in duel server), while the nearly-skilless opponent is only able to go so far because Duals are stupidly OP. In Duel Mode it's really bad, but in Open it's fucking ridiculous how much damage Duals do due to more factors coming into play.

I dropped dueling, but it seems I can't even enjoy Open anymore because of this retarded sabering system.

I can see why you would be upset about it in Duel mode. I still can't see why would you be upset about it in open. Dual users die just as fast from shots of your teammates to the side. So it is either you are doing something wrong, or you simply get very unlucky with your teammates.

The RC3 dueling system was nothing compared to this. Don't confuse my words. I love the perks, and the saber system: but if you removed the perks, then certain styles would just not have much going for them - rendering them dull, boring, and not worth playing. Do you remember the days where staff, red, and purple/cyan were very fun styles to use? No - that's because they either didn't exist, or weren't. Only up until 2 years ago - max - have certain styles been on the same level as the dominant ones. Having perks allows different ways of playing the game, defensively offensively etc, purple is especially fun to play now because of the 3-hits AND the perks.

What is it, exactly, that you would change with the system? Red just needs to be fixed re the bp drain; duals is just an easy-as-fuck overpowered style that needs some adjustment, which is why randoms such as Sunflower can use it and consider themselves 'duelists'; staff needs BP damage toned down a bit - and voila. Yellow is flourishing now, and thanks to that DFA buff has a good offense.

The system IS balanced - that is the funny thing. For the first time ever, ANY STYLE CAN EXCEL! Previous patches were ruled by yellow and blue, red was a gimmick style totally reliant on lucky 3hits/staggers (I remember a time when I was literally the only person EU using it, laughed at by others for not conforming to yellow syndrome), staff and duals? Lol. The current system has balance, and only requires a few touch-ups as per some of SeV's suggestions imo.

I'm pretty certain there was little to no effort put into actually making duals and staff viable options back in the day. At least not in comparison to the amount of effort dedicated to fiddleing with some ideas on modifying more core dual mechanics and ideas related to that (remember all discussions about nudge?). And I'm even more certain it is possible to differentiate styles from each other without any perks. As a last resort, maybe add certain perk-like features to specific styles.

Even then, I have nothing against the very idea of perks, it is just that perks being a very major change were implemented at the same time with a number of other major changes, which blurs the picture of whether the said changes fit into duels at all. So, the issue I have with perks is not that they are bad as an idea, the issue is the simultaneous removal or significant change of old most basic mechanics (like PB, nudge, or halfswinged counters) makes it impossible to see the result good enough to start work on restoration or re-invention of all those interesting micro-interactions on the most basic level that made old systems so compelling and fascinating to explore.