Red has been rendered useless vs competent yellow/blue. Who is actually on the team testing this?
Revert it/improve this dogshit please.
The developmental process for the saber system changes has been extremely bad after 1.4, atleast from my perspective. I can't' say what goes on behind the devs closed doors, but for a year I have attempted to offer myself up as a beta tester, given opinions on the saber system and tried to steer devs towards a better place.
This seemed to have absolutely no effect on the outcome of the system so far though, since in the time that I've been a beta tester I've seen grotesque abominations like 1.4.4 and 1.4.5 just being pulled from thin air when we weren't even testing it at all. And I myself am at a loss as to where, how and why this has happened.
I also have to mention 1.4.3, since that was also an abomination in its own right. Yellows perk bugged + 50 % bodyhit parries. Abomination. 1.4.4 -> Huge, retarded swingdrains, PB counters dominating the meta. Abomination. 1.4.5 - lots of minor bugs, boring one dimensional ACM dominated meta with no chance for true skill to shine through, and disfigured, crippled styles (blue prime example, red aswell. I think red needs nudge to be fun and functional. Any very slow style needs that otherwise its just pure shit to play with).
So I don't know what is going on?
I hope that big changes to the developmental process will take place.
Namely, first of all, test the damn saber system some more in the beta team. Our tests in recent months feel inconsequential to me. Like I'm wasting my time, basically. Why are we testing FA balance on maps no one plays when the saber system is crap, tempest has a work in progress and we have 15 ppl we can deploy to polish it?
So step 1 is to get internal beta tests in order.
Step 2 for me is to run public beta test cycles.
Example, internal beta team tests a system for bugs. Then it is pushed out for public testing for a week. A feedback thread is made, looked through by devs and people like me. We all come together to gather up the most important feedback on 'tempests' system.
Then tempest and whoever else is developming, make adjustments to the system whether it be public open mode or dueling mode related, then the internal beta team tests this for bugs and suggest minor changes. We do one last polishing bug testing test to make sure servers arent crashing and that shit is playable etc. Then we push it into another public test cycle so we can actually play and duel to our hearts content.
For the love of stuffed rolled meat, you then just repeat this cycle until we have a saber system that isn't an untested emergency fix, but a well thought out, thorougly tested and 'feedbacked' saber system. A system thats fun to play, and that doesn't artificially restrict players playstyles and choices, but allows for deep levels of skill and mindgames instead of a plain, dry, boring ACM grind.
TL;DR Dev process seems broken. Fix it for profit.
