Suggestion to shift the attention from overcomplication to creativity.

[UrbanKillerQC]

I think the hardest thing to get so far in duels as a new guy is swingblocking. The concept is very easy to grasp but for some people the button juggling is frustrating to stay polite.

What I'd suggest is allow us to swing while still holding mouse 2. BUT for block to be effective you still have to release then press it again. Just removing the necessity of releasing that button (to start swinging EDIT) would help a lot. The impact on the skill ceiling would be minimal while making it less of an annoyance for new players. After a week I noticed I focus more on this tedium than actual dueling strategy and I believe that it is a thing that is unnecessary. The only thing it would change is those rare case when somehow you kill somebody inbetween his block and swing. Wich are honestly kind of rare as soon as you get a bit of experience. Rarely happens to me and I play a lot since 2 weeks.

I just feel it should be more about creative attacks / combos and less about button juggling. That honestly would be my top complain about how the dueling works. Depth dosen't need overly tedious or complicated controls... In the fact you remove depth. At least for newer players... Swingblock becomes like a huge crater that separate good and new players. But some quirks about controls like I mentionned only enlarge this gap without really adding any depth.

 

[PuNk]

It is not unnecessary. It is not even that hard to do, it just takes practise. Go on the training dummy and try tapping swingblocked combos, 8 clicks in under ... what is it, 3-4 seconds? Sure you will be failing a lot at first but after a while it will be integrated into your muscle memory and you will be doing it all the time. To me this just sounds like you want it simplified because you cannot be arsed to train it.

 

[UrbanKillerQC]

It is not unnecessary. It is not even that hard to do, it just takes practise. Go on the training dummy and try tapping swingblocked combos, 8 clicks in under ... what is it, 3-4 seconds? Sure you will be failing a lot at first but after a while it will be integrated into your muscle memory and you will be doing it all the time. To me this just sounds like you want it simplified because you cannot be arsed to train it.

But does it add any depth? That is the question. Tedium for the sake of tedium ain't something that's usually welcomed in any game.

Sure I'll get used to it. I know that. But I feel this is an unneccesary thing that only contributes to make duels more tedious. Muscle memory is one thing, I get that but then, again, is such a thing even necessary in the first place?

I can make any game harder by adding some key combinations to overcomplicate things. But does that make the game really more challenging? Less accessible yes, but beyond a certain skill gained. The impact of such a thing is so comically low... that the point of having such a thing in the first place is kind of nuts.

 

[PuNk]

Yeah it is. It seperates those who cannot swingblock with those who can. If you make it "simple" anyone can do it immediately. Takes time and patience to practise as it did all these years.

 

[Liniyka_xddd]

If you make it "simple" anyone can do it immediately.

Can you elaborate on why this is bad for the gameplay?

 

[UrbanKillerQC]

Yeah it is. It seperates those who cannot swingblock with those who can. If you make it "simple" anyone can do it immediately. Takes time and patience to practise as it did all these years.

Like for example. PBing I have no beef against. That requires muscle memory and prediction... And is the basis of any melee game. Even thought I suck at it. I totally dig it. Now thats a mechanic worth adding. But being FORCED to pull my finger off to start swinging is just over complicated. Ill still have to let it go and press again to properly swingblock or ill get whacked... Dosent change anything past a certain skillcap. Only thing it does is adding an unnecessary extra button juggling that honestly is not needed.

Noobs will improve faster indeed. But it won't change anything for anybody past their early first hours of gameplay. It wont make me better to the point of beating a whole clan... but it will allow me to focus a bit more on creativity and strategy than button juggling. Especially early on... since once Ill get swingblocks right... that mechanic you seem to consider essential will probably become invisible to me from then.

My point is that it only hurts newer player while being kind of pointless past a certain skillgap. Its excessive tedium for the sake of excessive tedium.

 

[UrbanKillerQC]

Can you elaborate on why this is bad for the gameplay?

I'd like to know too. Swingblocks are like BASICS wich you cannot really do shit without. Usually games tends to avoid overcomplicating basic mechanics. That's exactly the kind of thing that get new players running out of the mod. I would understand if there was a real impact on very experienced duelist.... but fact is I hardly see how it adds anything even for them other than enlarging that gap. Sure I'm new and all and I have no problem admiting that... But I do not see how such a thing adds anything to the game once ill get it right. To me it feels like an unneccary stepping stone for this game that only contributes to make the community even more closed.

If there is one thing that I learned from my years within the Payday 2 community is that elitism brings nothing to the table. Especially when it concerns such mechanics.

 

[PuNk]

Can you elaborate on why this is bad for the gameplay?

Because it works fine as it is. Don't touch it if it ain't broke. Takes some time and patience to get used to but once learned it's rewarding and fun. There are other elements of saber combat that need looking into.

And I don't think it's tedius at all. When I couldn't do it I enjoyed the challenge and practise it took me to get it right. Took me a few weeks of practise and that's it. Some learn it even faster nowadays.

 

[Liniyka_xddd]

Because it works fine as it is. Don't touch it if it ain't broke. Takes some time and patience to get used to but once learned it's rewarding and fun. There are other elements of saber combat that need looking into.

And I don't think it's tedius at all. When I couldn't do it I enjoyed the challenge and practise it took me to get it right. Took me a few weeks of practise and that's it. Some learn it even faster nowadays.

So you basically cannot provide a single good reason for it to stay this way.

It seems you just want to keep it as it is because you struggled with it, so now you want others to struggle as well.

 

[PuNk]

It's something that always required time and patience to perfect. Worked well so far so changing it now to something easy just because a few players don't like it or find it annoying seems pointless to me. I simply like the technique and I believe that it is balanced as it is. I have also helped many ppl to get the grasp of it as fast as possible so to say I want others to struggle is premature.

 

[Liniyka_xddd]

Do you think making it simpler would really make the gameplay worse?

Swingblocking is essentially an artificial means of raising the skill ceiling. It's almost mandatory to consistently perform it in order to win. So instead of learning to outsmart your opponent, you have to learn to swing. TO SWING. Sounds a bit ridiculous to me.

So hear me out here. Put less emphasis on CONTROLS complexity (because it's simply annoying) and put more emphasis on COMBAT complexity. Why? Because that's how the most successful games roll. They make the gameplay easy to learn but hard to master.

As it stands right now, MB2 sabering is hard to learn and hard to master. Sure, this difficulty probably attracted some people over the years. But I'm sure it scared a LOT more people away. So some changes might be good, just sayin

 

[PuNk]

Don't you think MB2 is succesful though? A mod for a 14 year old video game still going strong having a decently sized community that plays actively on a daily basis. I call that success.

Now, not necessarily worse, but pointless in my opinion. Call me crazy but I don't think complexity is what drives new players away so hard, what drives them away is little means of learning all those techniques, hidden mechanics, tips / tricks. Some will stick around, find a clan / person to teach them but others will go away because there aren't enough provided information about all of those. So a solution for that to me would seem to add a proper official guide that explains all of those things in detail, maybe updated library or a video series that demonstrates sabering techniques in depth not just basics of the basics? I don't know but I assume such ideas were considered before?

Also, are you sure it's that HARD to learn? If we take swingblocking as an example I wouldn't really call it HARD, not easy peasy either, but it's not rocket science really, anyone can learn it if they invest a bit time in it just like everything else. And I swear some new players nowadays learn it fast af. But if they're gonna try it out on dummies a few times, fail, then ragequit and call the system stupid just because they can't get it done within a day then honestly mb2 might not be a game for them. And I've seen a few examples of those.
Lastly I believe controls complexity for this particulat technique indeed adds to the combat complexity overall, but it's not like all the techniques are focused on fast button pressing. Most of it is actually about aim, timing and prediction from my experience so all of it combined balances out.

I'm not saying the current system is perfect, hell no, as I said there are things that need changing or looking into imo, it's just that about this particular thing I strongly disagree.

 

[UrbanKillerQC]

Don't you think MB2 is succesful though? A mod for a 14 year old video game still going strong having a decently sized community that plays actively on a daily basis. I call that success.

Now, not necessarily worse, but pointless in my opinion. Call me crazy but I don't think complexity is what drives new players away so hard, what drives them away is little means of learning all those techniques, hidden mechanics, tips / tricks. Some will stick around, find a clan / person to teach them but others will go away because there aren't enough provided information about all of those. So a solution for that to me would seem to add a proper official guide that explains all of those things in detail, maybe updated library or a video series that demonstrates sabering techniques in depth not just basics of the basics? I don't know but I assume such ideas were considered before?

Also, are you sure it's that HARD to learn? If we take swingblocking as an example I wouldn't really call it HARD, not easy peasy either, but it's not rocket science really, anyone can learn it if they invest a bit time in it just like everything else. And I swear some new players nowadays learn it fast af. But if they're gonna try it out on dummies a few times, fail, then ragequit and call the system stupid just because they can't get it done within a day then honestly mb2 might not be a game for them. And I've seen a few examples of those.
Lastly I believe controls complexity for this particulat technique indeed adds to the combat complexity overall, but it's not like all the techniques are focused on fast button pressing. Most of it is actually about aim, timing and prediction from my experience so all of it combined balances out.

I'm not saying the current system is perfect, hell no, as I said there are things that need changing or looking into imo, it's just that about this particular thing I strongly disagree.

This greatly sidetracked. I'd need to recenter this toward the actual suggestion. I ain't saying to remove swingblock alltogether. But to remove one of its quirks that makes it tedious at an unneeded level.

All I suggest is letting us swing when holding block. But then I'd still have to release and press it again for blocking to work. All it would do is remove 1 layer of button juggling wich by all mean is a purely artificial way to raise the skillgap. I'm starting to get it and im getting decent at unleashing 4 hits SB combos now. Did it felt anything close to rewarding? No it didnt. If anything it reduced the game to snail pace for me during a whole week as I was fighting for that damn hand to memorize that pattern.

I do not feel "skillful" at all. If anything I felt burned out of being constantly killed by an opponent that needed no more tactics than straight up bumrush just because of a very very annoying BASIC technique that takes days to get used to.

Do I need to remind that doing so, doing PROPER swingblocks would still be the way to go to? It's not destroying a mechanic at all... It's removing one of its quirks that makes it overcomplicated for no reasons.

 

[PuNk]

Well "tedius", "annoying" and "burned out" is very subjective here. I don't feel annoyed by it at all, I don't find it tedious and I'm definitely not burned out and I duel like that few hours a day. And yeah I feel it being rewarding because it took time and focus to train it.

Also, have you thought how that would impact actual dueling? From what it sounds to me swingblocking combos would be easy and basically everyone would be encouraged to spam them even more so than now. If you want more tactics usage I don't think this is the way to go.
Also it would fuck up that small gap which good players aim to slap their opponents at when they release mouse2 to swing with mouse1. By giving you option to swing while still holding block that gap is even harder to find and swingblocking becomes foulproof, which is not right now and that's why it's so good and balanced. Comes with great reward, but still a small risk of not working at certain given moments if opponent has good slap timing.
Or maybe I'm understanding you wrong and this isn't an issue? If so feel free to correct me.

I don't know your suggestion seems like way too much bother to change the control system for this technique that's really not that big of a deal to get a handle of. Once you start doing 4-hit SBed combos every single time you won't even bother thinking how "annoying" it is it will be a part of your routine. And so it is with all new players who So I'd suggest maybe give it some more time to rethink it? If not, well let's just accept we disagree.

 

[UrbanKillerQC]

Well "tedius", "annoying" and "burned out" is very subjective here. I don't feel annoyed by it at all, I don't find it tedious and I'm definitely not burned out and I duel like that few hours a day. And yeah I feel it being rewarding because it took time and focus to train it.

Also, have you thought how that would impact actual dueling? From what it sounds to me swingblocking combos would be easy and basically everyone would be encouraged to spam them even more so than now. If you want more tactics usage I don't think this is the way to go.
Also it would fuck up that small gap which good players aim to slap their opponents at when they release mouse2 to swing with mouse1. By giving you option to swing while still holding block that gap is even harder to find and swingblocking becomes foulproof, which is not right now and that's why it's so good and balanced. Comes with great reward, but still a small risk of not working at certain given moments if opponent has good slap timing.
Or maybe I'm understanding you wrong and this isn't an issue? If so feel free to correct me.

I don't know your suggestion seems like way too much bother to change the control system for this technique that's really not that big of a deal to get a handle of. Once you start doing 4-hit SBed combos every single time you won't even bother thinking how "annoying" it is it will be a part of your routine. And so it is with all new players who So I'd suggest maybe give it some more time to rethink it? If not, well let's just accept we disagree.

"From what it sounds to me swingblocking combos would be easy and basically everyone would be encouraged to spam them even more so than now."
As you said yourself... training muscle memory... Past a certain time people WILL spam swingblocks anyway.

"Also it would fuck up that small gap which good players aim to slap their opponents at when they release mouse2 to swing with mouse1."
By what? A millisecond? Also it would make slapping less of an easy feat and having to time it on your opponent's swing instead of using that knowledge of swingblock being a bitch sounds way more skillful to me.

"By giving you option to swing while still holding block that gap is even harder to find and swingblocking becomes foulproof, which is not right now and that's why it's so good and balanced."
For the start of this one, see the previous quote. For the "balanced" argument. That's purely suggestive given, again, the previous quote.

"I don't know your suggestion seems like way too much bother to change the control system for this technique that's really not that big of a deal to get a handle of."
Except the average joe wouldnt feel like practicing for days just to swing a lightsaber correctly. And maybe it wasnt such a big deal when you started playing but right now the community is really closed and a good part of it is openly toxic. Overcomplicated controls for the sake of artificial difficulty is the last thing a game in such a situation would need. The fighting system is build around a fast, reactive and precise system. It only turns it into a slog for anybody who's joining the party while having a minimal impact on higher tier players.

"Once you start doing 4-hit SBed combos every single time you won't even bother thinking how "annoying" it is it will be a part of your routine."
You seem to be stuck on the concept that I can't be arsed to learn it. Wich is actually the opposite. I -am- learning it. But heres the difference, I'm thinking about the next guy joining too. Not myself only.

 

[Kryst]

Overcomplicated controls for the sake of artificial difficulty is the last thing a game in such a situation would need

You are just letting go of the block so you can attack. You need to see it as a sequence of actions rather than a complicated input required to make one attack. It's not an arcade fighter where you have slap buttons in a specific order just to go on the offense.

You said it best yourself:

The concept is very easy to grasp but for some people the button juggling is frustrating to stay polite.

If anything makes the MB2 saber combat worthwhile, it's the simplicity of it. The dueling is based in a few simple core mechanics, but your skill level is determined by how well you can apply these core mechanics in an actual duel.

You have to practice the same thing over and over again. You learn by doing. Just like every other skill in life ever.

 

[PuNk]

"By what? A millisecond? Also it would make slapping less of an easy feat and having to time it on your opponent's swing instead of using that knowledge of swingblock being a bitch sounds way more skillful to me."

The current gap is not easy to hit and it takes a lot of focus to time it right, it's fine as it is. And with slaps getting an increased cooldown in the next patch with your idea it would be more of a luck getting a proper slap than it being "skillful".

"Except the average joe wouldnt feel like practicing for days just to swing a lightsaber correctly."

Average joes have been coming and going for a long time now, it's just how it is, the mod's still going strong and tbh it was never really built around attracting average joes to begin with. It's not it's selling point and this game is not for everyone. So it's only natural many casual players will be driven away, they have Battlefront instead. And like I said in one of the previous posts, in order for them to stick around a more comprehensive explanations of the system are needed, not unnecessary changes to make it appear more simple/suitable for casuals.

"You seem to be stuck on the concept that I can't be arsed to learn it. Wich is actually the opposite. I -am- learning it. But heres the difference, I'm thinking about the next guy joining too. Not myself only."

No that's not what I wanted to say. My point was, ONCE you perfect it, you might have a different perspective on it and see how in the long run it works and is balanced as it is. If not, then there's not much more I can say, we must wait and see what devs think about it.

 

[Tempest]

In beta, swingblock is basically just the difference between whether you want mobility vs safety/BP regen. There's no free/unlimited swinging just because you can tap+swingblock anymore. There's no disparity in damage. In general, I think mobility vs BP regen should really be the only difference between swingblocking or not. Anything else is just overcomplicated stuff for the sake of trying to stick nuances wherever possible.

 

[Remalus]

Swingblocking adds depth in the same way PB does. It takes skill to learn, and the better you are at it, the better you perform. Can't the same be said for PB, which you already said you thought was good? If we removed things like these then people who have put more time into the game would be able to lose easily to people who have picked it up for 5 minutes. No depth = no longterm playerbase.

 

[Eazy E]

people who have put more time into the game would be able to lose easily to people who have picked it up for 5 minutes. No depth = no longterm playerbase.

How I felt when 1.1 came out.