Tempest's Saber Build

[Def!led]

Defiled, some people like pizza with pineapples and others find it disgusting.

We don't even need to debate who likes pineapple pizza and who doesn't. The dueling community already spoke out about pineapple on their pizza with their actions and left the game after the new PB was introduced and mechanics were taken out. The opinion doesn't change the fact - there's no getting around the fact that the community capsized after RC3 and V1. Most of the players leaving were very vocal as to why.

You and people you listed think that NB is the way forward, but not everyone agrees with that and argument that old and experienced players like it so others also must is bad.

Can you please back up your claim that these vets are pointing out that because they liked the older builds so much, everyone MUST like it too? I've read most (but not all) of the older vets opinions and no where have I read a vet claim that SOLELY because they do not personally like the build, others must also dislike it (and vise versa). IF they say they do not like a build, most of the vets give their very specific reasoning as to why - there is no personal, feeling driven agenda being pushed. Quite the contrary I think most veteran players are more open-minded than what you're straw manning them out to be.

Spoiler

There is definitely positive reception from players who did not play pre 1.1 when it comes to dueling today, and there is nothing wrong with that.

There is a stigma to vets because those vets that stayed are often cunts.

So what you are explaining is that because some (most?) vets are perceived a certain way, their objective comments aren't being evaluated equally as everyone else? This isn't how open discussion works in a community feedback thread. Ideas are read and evaluated based off of their content and merit - not by the identity of the poster or how they as a person are arbitrarily viewed by other individuals.

Newer players don't post much on the forum because their opinions are ridiculed as demonstrated many times by those vets. Any new player seeing that happen won't post because his opinion will most likely be shunned in favor of the vet. Thanks to that new players are underrepresented part of the community.

Excluding noel and SeV's latest couple of mutual and exclusive pair of posts on this page, I don't see any serious shunning or ridiculing going on in this 11 page thread. Scattered throughout the 11 pages of this very thread are several, very constructive posts by newer and older players alike that aren't being attacked or shunned as you claim to be. If there's an actual veteran posting, they're generally explaining their valuable years of experience, sharing their own gameplay ideas, and being able to back it up in a mostly respectable manner. No one is lording their "veteran status" over any newer players' heads without being able to give constructive feedback about their opinions. This "shunning and ridiculing" is not part of the reality that you are trying to make it out to be. I respectfully believe that your post is driven more by victimization than the materiality of the thread.

 

[WaceMindu]

I'm personally in favour of making Neutral Block a thing again ( it's one of the features I miss the most ), and I generally like the approach that's more focused on the lightsaber itself - it appears more natural and reliable to me than this new system. While there are players who have mastered the art of non-cocaine-induced perfect blocking, I believe most agree that it's a bit unintuitive albeit skilful.
Personally, I think that we could make the two of them coexist and that would create more diversity in playstyles.

Then again, I'm no expert like a lot of very good players who posted really nice constructive criticism here - although their views have trouble aligning on gameplay matters.
The fact that X or Y veteran that was more or less respected by X or Y clique left after X or Y patch got released doesn't mean much since every radical change to the subtle ( as in barely anyone fully understands it and how it translates in-game, even the coders themselves ) saber system will cause some kind of schism within the duelling community - no matter how good/bad it is, a radical change to gameplay elements such as the one the saber system underwent will always drive some old-time players away.

Also, posts by them take up a large chunk of total posts and they are the most vocal part of the community. Because they are the most vocal they have the biggest influence on the mod. If mod sucks it's partially their fault. Newer players don't post much on the forum because their opinions are ridiculed as demonstrated many times by those vets.

There's some hard truth in this statement.. Something some people who are very confident of their opinion could reflect on.
The truth is that building a reliable system for lightsaber combat that close to everyone ( vets and newcomers alike ) would enjoy is a near-impossible task that goes into very cyclical patterns, as Manyo rightfully observed. I've watched this debate about the sabering system going on for years and years at end, and while the bullet points differ from version to version, the argument essentially looks exactly the same.

Then again, I'm glad that these arguments are still going on and on.. it's a good sign that the mod, contrary to the popular meme of late, is nowhere near dying

 

[2cwldys]

This may be unrelated, a lot.. but I believe I started in the november of 2016.. this video is from that december.

I love how the sabers clash in this video, although me and my lads were new at the time (explains the unaggressive dueling and missed swings, facehugging.. etc) -- looks amazing, this feels about right.

December 2016? Was that 1.3 or something? or a little after?

 

[Iris]

Opinions differ and you can't change that Defiled. You're talking as if only previous community mattered but new one spawned in its place. I shouldn't have used 'people' in my second sentence, because it's only you who thinks that the experience and skill of one person should decide what's good or bad. There's bias involved when evaluating someone else's post. When you don't like that person your evaluation is more critical. Shunning is not present in this thread, but is in others.

 

[2cwldys]

WaceMindu, I totally agree.

Players can join and be totally satisfied as of right now, but then there's people that's had quite enough or lust long and far for the nostalgia of old features or 'engine' feel, so they push the developers who lean to the sabering side of things.. to replicate it to the best of their abilities.. then poke around for something else to complain about and it comes around full circle, as if history would repeat itself. I honestly believe it would be nice to throw all this in together and be done with it, have something great. Shove aside irrelevant shitposts and ego-biased slandering befoolery of individual users that happen to be acclaimed pro duelists, and be done with it. It's better now than ever cause we've had so many saber versions and a lot of players who are still around, or have came and gone, trying out in each and every single one of them. Finding out trial and error and what the cliche is between the playerbase, although polarized by player region and timezone. I don't see as many of the faces as I used to in previous versions, that's for sure.. It would be nice to have something that would bring everyone full circle again, but yet still it's proven hard to satisfy Everyone.

It's like putting on a shirt, it's not going to feel the same every time.. although we know it's a shirt and how they should feel, while it's sort of ignored until we get tired of wearing it, or washing it until it dries up tighter on you (heat, smell ??, uncomfortable.. repetitive reluctant-ness) .. It's sorta exemplified through the title of sabering. Everyone has to have been exposed to it at one point or another. Keep putting on a shirt? Not much to it, That's all you know or care, there aren't many other ways than the few we know, slip on, zip up, cover around, etc.. It happens to be one time you slip it on and it just doesn't feel right, when you didn't think about it before, did it shrink from the wash? I've had it a long time and used it a long time, or maybe I am getting larger in weight? (lol) In sabering it's all sorts of things to the contrary, pblock, movement, furious left and right mouse button clicking; and then a patch comes around and not all.. but a few may dislike a few features that may have been inconvenienced or totally removed, modified, or paved over in the term of sabering. When the 'shirt' shrinked it's almost evident to this analogy that we also redundantly swing (play a long time), and repetitively use features when there's nothing else but to argue or see about changing things or throwing in old features while we have an active development team, moreso in the sabering department. This is likely a bad analogy but I hope you get my meandering point.

Somewhat Irrelevant post-edit content below:

General Scenario:

Amazing/Simple/Average, Respectful Duelist:
(analyzes some features, makes a good playstyle, although out of a rather harshy discussed or popular discussed saber build/patch, really doesn't say much.. visits forum only so often, listens generically and says less, duels continuously and just goes with the developer's flow cause they really can't do anything with ranting tirades or being totally insulted and hilariously embarrased by relevant but manipulated points in threads, people attributing towards meme/shitposting on their thread (if this doesn't happen it's a rarity now a days) (?) ... )

I really love this! I am really good at this, so I'm going to keep doing this/doing what everyone else is doing, what I am being indirectly or directly taught on basis of other's skill and what I should be doing (unless your self learning, but I and among many have had teachers in this complex saber system).
Oh? They are changing this? I'ma sit this out.. yada yarr.

Other, but not all Duelist(s):
(12010210210 -- obviously exaggerated duels later, rants and tirades on the forum until it is.. well, fixed/nerfed/buffed to their liking? This attributes to that one person's post, about vets or people that are good public speakers, claiming the audience and swaying what is done/does not need to be done potentially through developers, controlling the community media.)

I can't beat so or so, this and this is happening, let's assign labels to what they are doing or just complain to the developers constantly while blaming the modification (patch sux bro -- IM NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE, the ridiculous and un-required and un-necessary gas stassin remarks, wtf tempest-stuff) and the developer's progress.. cause one (can be multiple) person(s) is really good and is basically undefeatable, and I think things should go X (this and that) way.

The centre basis of saber politics, until.. as stated above, that we get some sort of balanced threshold for all of us. It is also quite evident that saber politics can be the catalyst to many asserted development changes, because of course.. developers wouldn't be around for making a game or mod if they didn't have players.. so thus politics come from the players attributed to the developers, so there always is going to be uneven ground somewhat.

Between the people that know what's what, and what can be done, line by line.. reverting, perhaps overwriting, and pushing work because people aren't satisfied or they are providing simple fixes that need to be done, or simply moving forward. Telling people their worst fears, news, and slapping sense into people = Developers

Between the people who stick around -- way too much (?), yet act entitled and will bastardly complain on the forum if they don't get their way in any single change or aspect of development or released/upcoming patches, influence a lot of people on our backend facility/swamp of the internet = Some players, evidently around us - but not characterizing all of us. Not listing names

Between the people that just hang around, do whatever, and respectfully play what the Developers work hard for us for after all these years = Your most average player.

I myself am a personal fan of a lot of things the developers do, of course -- as common sense. I also don't like a few changes but I keep it to myself. I just don't feel openly sure about stating them anywhere on discord or the forum.. other than personal or private messages with Tempest, Altroll, or Jaik for instance. For simple and already apparent reasons here, people will likely shoot them down or try to 'prove their point' with verbal slander and aggressiveness, even in game servers .. yet there is almost no proven middle ground yet that at least I know of to exist in this competitive of a scale for a game. People know me in-game very well I am sure, and I have dueled a long time rather consistently and redundantly; but here's a little irrelevant, many edits, and my few cents on the matter. For other arbitrary notes, I probably won't respond to your post if I am quoted.

 

[WaceMindu]

WaceMindu, I totally agree.

Players can join and be totally satisfied as of right now, but then there's people that's had quite enough or lust long and far for the nostalgia of old features or 'engine' feel, so they push the developers who lean to the sabering side of things.. to replicate it to the best of their abilities.. then poke around for something else to complain about and it comes around full circle, as if history would repeat itself. I honestly believe it would be nice to throw all this in together and be done with it, have something great. Be done with it. It's better now than ever cause we've had so many saber versions and a lot of players who are still around, or have came and gone, trying out in each and every single one of them. I don't see as many of the faces as I used to in previous versions, that's for sure.. It would be nice to have something that would bring everyone full circle again, but yet still it's proven hard to satisfy Everyone.

It's like putting on a shirt, it's not going to feel the same every time.. although we know it's a shirt and how they should feel.. It's sorta exemplified through the title of sabering. Everyone has to have been exposed to it at one point or another. This is likely a bad analogy but I hope you get my meandering point.

Ahah, it's a fine analogy ! And a very fitting one for this subject, really. No matter how convoluted the arguments can get, that's basically the gist of it.

Nevertheless, I do agree that the current system doesn't encourage different playstyles much, and that's certainly damageable.
Then again, it seems like both of our saber-focused developers agree on that matter, so I'll trust them to find something that's the middle ground I was talking about in my previous post.

 

[Hessu]

This may be unrelated, a lot.. but I believe I started in the november of 2016.. this video is from that december.

I love how the sabers clash in this video, although me and my lads were new at the time (explains the unaggressive dueling and missed swings, facehugging.. etc) -- looks amazing, this feels about right.

December 2016? Was that 1.3 or something? or a little after?

this was one of the early 1.4 builds 1.4.1 or something like that

 

[2cwldys]

Thanks for replying Hessu! Your reply was helpful!

 

[noel]

You might think this is petty but the removal of mbcounter really stopped me wanting to play for two reasons:

1) There was a huge voice in the community asking for it to remain in the build. I made several polls on the active clan Discords and the results were overwhelmingly in favour of keeping it, of which I provided evidence of, it then disappeared in 1.5.1 with little to no explanation. I think at the time the only real vocal person asking for its removal was Achilles (rip). To me this was kind of a kick in the teeth because of how clearly the active community had agreed upon something, and then we were ignored.

2) It was one of the best, most skillful and most difficult mechanics in the game. To be honest, I'm absolutely awful at Mbcounter, but fighting players like Ronin or Shilling who are really, really good at it made me aspire to improve at it. It's really a mechanic that seperated the men from the boys. It also just felt good, that energy, speed and power behind the fast swing has not been achieved in any other mechanic as it was in 1.4.9 and prior.

For me there's no other mechanic in the game like this, that can really make the difference at top level play. I know NB is supposed to do this but I've already stated my opinion on that. All I can say is that I hope that even if NB gets readded, mblock counter can also make a return, since I still don't know why it was removed.

 

[Tempest]

The problem I have with MBC with the past public builds is that the timing for mblock has been super lax and that it promotes passive play (although this may have been more in part due to the damage multipliers + how ACM worked at the time, hard to tell). So much to the point that you can get them when just trying to do normal counters and messing up the timing. It's a lot crisper in my beta build currently so maybe once the dust settles, that and other things can be could be looked at being put back into the mix (to see if they are as annoying as before).

 

[Deleted member 5707]

You might think this is petty but the removal of mbcounter really stopped me wanting to play for two reasons:

1) There was a huge voice in the community asking for it to remain in the build. I made several polls on the active clan Discords and the results were overwhelmingly in favour of keeping it, of which I provided evidence of, it then disappeared in 1.5.1 with little to no explanation. I think at the time the only real vocal person asking for its removal was Achilles (rip). To me this was kind of a kick in the teeth because of how clearly the active community had agreed upon something, and then we were ignored.

2) It was one of the best, most skillful and most difficult mechanics in the game. To be honest, I'm absolutely awful at Mbcounter, but fighting players like Ronin or Shilling who are really, really good at it made me aspire to improve at it. It's really a mechanic that seperated the men from the boys. It also just felt good, that energy, speed and power behind the fast swing has not been achieved in any other mechanic as it was in 1.4.9 and prior.

For me there's no other mechanic in the game like this, that can really make the difference at top level play. I know NB is supposed to do this but I've already stated my opinion on that. All I can say is that I hope that even if NB gets readded, mblock counter can also make a return, since I still don't know why it was removed.

Alright to counter point 1, just because everyone wants the mechanic doesn't mean it should be added into the game especially when it really isn't a good mechanic in the first place.

The counter for point 2, SKILLFUL and DIFFICULT are not terms that should be used for the old mblock counter. Yeah, it takes some time to learn but honestly it becomes instinct if you practice it enough. It was so overpowered that you could do it once in that build and instantly flip the odds in a fight from completely losing to equal or even winning. It's one swing, it shouldn't have that much value. Also, mblock counter is unavoidable, there is nothing you can do to avoid that, as long as they pblock it and mblock and swing they were going to do it.

I remember specifically facing people and doing it myself in duels, like if I or the my opponent would be low you could just go into S key and walk backwards mode and just fish for the mblock counter. It really isn't a good feature, believe me.

 

[Stassin]

It's a lot crisper in my beta build

Crisper ? That's nowhere in your changelog, yet at least. You're probably gonna protest that you didn't mean making it "harder" when saying this, but either way MBlocking is already a difficult and obscure thing to do from a general player's point of view, it shouldn't be made even harder just for the sake of reducing issues about getting it unintendedly (which isn't an issue with MBlock itself as much as it is an issue with offense not having enough options/tools to bypass defense), or issues about some trained players getting it too easily vs certain other players which creates too large a skillgap because of the strong rewards it gives. On the contrary the way to go about this is making mblocking a little bit easier and more visible, so it's more accessible to the general community, while reducing the rewards you get for successfully doing it, so that you only get really high rewards for landing several of them (so the "unintended" part gets reduced to almost 0). The same reasoning should be applied with special moves, less reward than currently but easier/more accessible to do more often.

 

[noel]

Alright to counter point 1, just because everyone wants the mechanic doesn't mean it should be added into the game especially when it really isn't a good mechanic in the first place.

The counter for point 2, SKILLFUL and DIFFICULT are not terms that should be used for the old mblock counter. Yeah, it takes some time to learn but honestly it becomes instinct if you practice it enough. It was so overpowered that you could do it once in that build and instantly flip the odds in a fight from completely losing to equal or even winning. It's one swing, it shouldn't have that much value. Also, mblock counter is unavoidable, there is nothing you can do to avoid that, as long as they pblock it and mblock and swing they were going to do it.

I remember specifically facing people and doing it myself in duels, like if I or the my opponent would be low you could just go into S key and walk backwards mode and just fish for the mblock counter. It really isn't a good feature, believe me.

'counter argument 1: don't give the small playerbase what they want!'

'counter argument 2: putting work into getting quicker reaction speeds does not equal skill!'

tell that to a csgo or league player dude. I'm going to fish out the polls and post them later, the results were ridiculously in favour of keeping it. What stassin is saying is promising!!!

 

[Tempest]

Crisper ? That's nowhere in your changelog, yet at least. You're probably gonna protest that you didn't mean making it "harder" when saying this, but either way MBlocking is already a difficult and obscure thing to do from a general player's point of view, it shouldn't be made even harder just for the sake of reducing issues about getting it unintendedly

It wasn't something explicitly changed. Just observations (there's other things that are noticably crisper as well but that's just one example). I get lots of mblocks in the public build without even trying just by nature of the counter timing while that is basically a non-occurence in the beta build. It didn't become any more difficult than it is in public in regards to the timing required to do it successfully.

 

[Def!led]

@Tempest Does mblocking (holding it in) help with NB in your beta build? Isn't that the main reason EU used to use mblock stance b19-RCs? That's the only thing it should be used for IMO, maybe giving it a tad bit less incoming damage compared to NB would be acceptable if people really want to see it come back. Not sure how that would hold up balance wise, that's for you to decide.

 

[Deleted member 5707]

'counter argument 1: don't give the small playerbase what they want!'

'counter argument 2: putting work into getting quicker reaction speeds does not equal skill!'

tell that to a csgo or league player dude. I'm going to fish out the polls and post them later, the results were ridiculously in favour of keeping it. What stassin is saying is promising!!!

Counter to your counter argument 1: yeah, cause the mechanic isn’t fucking good thats why.

Counter to your counter argument 2: yeah, reaction times are definitely skillful. But thats not what i said wasnt skillful i said that just because you do ONE damn mblock counter and it just turns the odds in your favor is stupid. I remember people abusing it when they were low and it was a cheap way to throw the opponent’s momentum off and deal like half bp in one swing.

 

[noel]

Counter to your counter argument 1: yeah, cause the mechanic isn’t fucking good thats why.

Counter to your counter argument 2: yeah, reaction times are definitely skillful. But thats not what i said wasnt skillful i said that just because you do ONE damn mblock counter and it just turns the odds in your favor is stupid.

But you can swingblock easily and ur fine. If the damage values arent like 50x then it wont turn the tide of the duel. It's also a dope mechanic and actually makes MBlock useful. As of right now its way too easy to run away as soon as you get disarmed.

Also 90% of people disagree with you about the mechanic being bad

 

[Deleted member 5707]

But you can swingblock easily and ur fine. If the damage values arent like 50x then it wont turn the tide of the duel. It's also a dope mechanic and actually makes MBlock useful. As of right now its way too easy to run away as soon as you get disarmed.

Also 90% of people disagree with you about the mechanic being bad

That’s not how it worked bro lol. Even if you swingblock, you still get hit with that ridiculously high damage, obviously with no disarm.

Yeah, I agree with you on that it’s easy for people to just run away when they get mblocked. But, I still don’t agree that it should be implemented back into the game so if it isnt added back hf with people running after mblocked.

Alright, where the hell are you pulling these statistics from? Do you have any pictures or proof at all? If you do then what is it 90% of the EU duelists? I’ve heard plenty of duelists complain about the mechanic in NA so I don’t even think that percentage should even be close to 90%.

 

[noel]

That’s not how it worked bro lol. Even if you swingblock, you still get hit with that ridiculously high damage, obviously with no disarm.

Yeah, I agree with you on that it’s easy for people to just run away when they get mblocked. But, I still don’t agree that it should be implemented back into the game so if it isnt added back hf with people running after mblocked.

Alright, where the hell are you pulling these statistics from? Do you have any pictures or proof at all? If you do then what is it 90% of the EU duelists? I’ve heard plenty of duelists complain about the mechanic in NA so I don’t even think that percentage should even be close to 90%.

I would show you the screenshots of the polls we made across 3 of the active EU dueling clans about 6 months ago or something, all of which were overwhelmingly in favour of keeping it. Unfortunately I'm not at home so I only have my laptop, which doesn't have the screens. I could trawl through my posts on the forums and find it but i cba, you'll just have to take my word for it for now.

 

[SeV]

It wasn't something explicitly changed. Just observations (there's other things that are noticably crisper as well but that's just one example). I get lots of mblocks in the public build without even trying just by nature of the counter timing while that is basically a non-occurence in the beta build. It didn't become any more difficult than it is in public in regards to the timing required to do it successfully.

The Mblock issue is quite easy to solve. We've discovered that having it stagger or break combos is incredibly shit, but we've also learned that making it nearly impossible to do, or giving it a high penalty for failing, also does not work well. I do not know what the big fuss is about. Simply make Mblock something that skilled people do and have it be a spectrum of improvement and reward it accordingly. Maybe if it's free, we don't even need a reward because mblocking just means attempting a disarm, but if you do want a reward have it be a better version of a PB by giving BP regen or doing something with regards to ACM like the old yellow perk that drained AC when you PB'd. Personally I like the idea that defensive mechanics boost your defense if you're good at them and likewise with the offensive mechanics such as yawing, halfswinging, timings, slaps, counters etc.

The issue with the PB counter in the past was that it was so powerful that it discouraged attacking completely. I think in 1.4 we had nudge to balance out the defensive benefits of yellow draining ACM on PBs, for example. So what then happened in patches like 1.4.4 was that nudge was removed and all attacks suddenly had a flat but significant BP drain AND PB counters were fast and powerful and so you ended up with a system where attacking was super risky and could easily get you killed vs an equally skilled opponent, so if you really wanted to win you'd play passively.

Now in teh past we had builds where you couldn't reliably PB, and so attacking and parrying was the way forward. I think having a too extreme offensive or defensive skew is bad, and we should have it so that attacking is about 60-70% and defense is about 40-30% in terms of reward and skill and risk and so on. The fast heavy hitting PB counter is a very nice mechanic and I love it, but it cannot exist without things to bypass defense such as nudge, in my humble opinion.