The current version of moviebattles is the worst balanced iteration since 2008

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I have been playing the game since day 1 of b19 back in 2008 (?). I have played hundreds of matches and thousands of rounds on public servers at various times in the game's lifespan, played with and against the best players in the game so I feel like I have the experience to be able to say that v1.6 is the worst balanced version of MBII that I can remember. There are so many balance issues the game is hardly playable. I'm gonna try to keep this post as brief as possible but it's pretty much going to have to include almost every aspect of the game so strap in.

1. Saber vs gun.
I don't know there's a single person who plays this game and thinks the current saber vs gun balance is good (at least I hope there isn't). Before even getting into any details, the most important thing: fp drains. They're completely out of whack, for some guns they're a little too low (pistol 3, bowcaster, ee3), for others they are so low that there's almost no point shooting a jedi until he's actually swinging his saber at you (e11). Any jedi can strafe in front of any gunner and not lose fp fast enough to outpace passive regen. They can kill your teammate, have 20 fp, get out of IDR and regen their fp while you're continuously shooting them and there's nothing you can do about it. I was told there are some number tweaks for drains that didn't make it into the game from the beta and if that's the case I'm honestly dumbfounded how there wasn't a hotfix already (or, preferably, a year ago when everyone realized this is the situation).

Now, on to flinch vs knockback. I've made my position clear on the discord but I'll repeat it here. When I was on the beta team with M00, Hexodious and GoodOl'Ben we tried to implement a knockback mechanic on bodyshots scored within IDR and decided to scrap it, here's how things played out: if the knockback distance was too short, it wasn't punishing enough as the jedi could just try to swing again. If it was longer, the jedi would be knocked out of IDR and be allowed a free reset since the gunner could no longer drain his fp effectively. These tests resulted in the mechanic we had over the last however many versions, flinch, and I personally think it is a much better solution provided that the fp drains are in a good place. I don't understand the logic of going back to a mechanic that was scrapped in testing, but maybe there's something I'm missing here. In either case I think hotfixing the fp drains should have been a priority months ago when the new values were introduced and everyone instantly knew they were completely retarded.

2. Class balance.
I'm gonna go over some of the most recent changes but also some older ones, this is pretty much gonna include almost every class in the game and how I feel about their current states. I'm not gonna go into how each classes gun also drains too little force because that's a given and also covered above

- soldier and ET: starting off with what I think are the 2 best balanced classes in the game. These dudes should be the gold standard upon which all class design decisions are judged. Simple, high skill cap, low/medium skill floor, easy for new players to pick up but extremely deadly in the hands of a real boy gamer. Some extra flavour added with conc nades, dodge, a different gun for ETs, an amazing teamwork oriented ability in rally/assemble, fun to play and balanced. It's obviously a coincidence that neither soldier nor ET were touched in a meaningful way for at least 2-3 years.

- wookiee: on to what I think is the 2nd biggest offender after jedi, the wookiee bowcaster nerf was completely unwarranted and it ruined an extremely important dynamic of the game. Rebels are the attacking team on almost all maps. Rebels need attacking classes and that was the role the old wookiee bowcaster 2, str/hp 3 build did. You were a run & gun dead simple killing machine - immune to knockdowns, with a large hp pool and a strong gun but a huge hitbox and 0 utility to balance things out. Wookiees used to be strong, yes, but not overpowered, and more importantly they filled an important role in the reb team, being able to push, gain map control with their force-immune presence and deal massive damage at the same time. They were still very susceptible to well positioned bounty hunters, soldiers and especially ETs with t21 (which has since been nerfed for no reason as far as I remember) due to their large hitbox and slow movespeed. Perfect mix of balance, fun and team utility. Well, someone though it would be a good idea to ruin that and turn them into a gimmick class that almost has to use rage (I'm not gonna go into how stupid I think rage is because this post is gonna be too long). The current iteration, which has gained some of the rate of fire back and retained charged shot on bowcaster level 2 is still too weak and most importantly incapable of attacking imperials camping corridors which is what rebels NEED so badly. Charged shot promotes camping. Slow rate of fire promotes camping. Wookiees need to be frontline juggernauts, not sitting around a box charging up their gun. Their gun just doesn't match the rest of their kit and more importantly it doesn't match their role in the team.

- hero, bounty hunter: these 2 are together because I think the recent change to proj was very poorly thought out in the context of bounty hunters existing on the defending team. Let's compare the 2 big sniper rifles: proj and ruptor. Disruptor has always been much stronger because it's hitscan and because it's on the defending team (broadly speaking) which meant you could hold an angle and not be forced to take fights you don't want to take. Proj has slow bullets but heroes have dodge to balance it out. Well now the balance has been skewed in the imperials favour with the damage nerf for proj, now you've got a 1shot hitscan weapon vs a 2shot projectile weapon. I have around 1 billion hours on these 2 classes and personally think the perfect solution in terms of balancing them against eachother and the rest of the cast would be also nerfing disruptor's damage to something similar to current proj (2shot chest 1shot headshot) but returning the ability to hit into dodge with headshots. Now snipers wouldn't be as much of a threat to other classes unless they can score consistent headshots (near impossible in mb2 due to engine limitations) but at the same time the sniper vs sniper metagame would be balanced in a way where they can take eachother out with relative ease.

- mando, ARC: these 2 also go together for brevity but also because they suffer from similar issues. They are way too easy to kill and offer little power in return. Ever since the bullet speed increase years ago, the speed at which a mandalorian flies is just not enough. Their jetpacks need a major buff in terms of the ability to change direction to stop them being sitting ducks. I don't know what the solution is for ARCs, maybe give them max stamina and dex as baseline, but they definitely need SOMETHING to be able to compete, they've been absolute trash in 1v1 ever since I remember. I don't play them much so I don't have much to offer here but I play against them ARCs are pretty much free frags for almost every imperial class. Yes they have utility which is great and useful in some specific situations, but they're not fun to play in and of themselves because they're just so fucking weak in 1v1s.

3. Imp vs reb balance.
Yeah so if you've read through all that stuff in 2, some key concepts for rebel classes are so gimped right now that the imp vs reb balance is completely fucked. Broadly speaking rebels are the attacking team, imps are the defenders. Rebels need pushing power. They need classes that can get entry frags (used to be hero and wookiee), classes that take map control (used to be wookiee), classes that can flank (should be ARC, but how can you flank when you can't win a 1v1?). Right now they have none of those. Imperial classes are so much stronger in almost every facet of the game it feels worse than ever to play rebels. This is further exacerbated by the fact most maps are very defender biased, and I feel like that should also be taken into account when balancing the game and it really doesn't seem to be. Some of the changes made in recent updates sadly feel like they were decided on in a vacuum by some very poorly informed people and it shows in the game - look at the server list on any given day, how many people do you see that have played this game for more than a year or 2? I don't see any of the good players I used to play with and sure, you can say they just quit organically and it's probably true to some degree, but I know for a fact many people that I know don't play the game anymore because it's so poorly balanced. You may also say 'who cares about old players, we need new players!' and that is also a fair point, but if you wanna keep those new players around you need a well designed game. I really hope the dev team reads this and at least considers some of the things I say because you may or may not like it (and I know the dev team doesn't like my feedback and never did wanna listen to it) but I have more experience and game knowledge than almost anyone and so do my friends who agree with most if not all of the things in the post above. MB2 feels like it's on life support right now and it desperately needs some changes to bring the game back into its former glory.
 
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classes that can flank (should be ARC, but how can you flank when you can't win a 1v1?).
arc isn't even this anymore because with the removal of sanic rolls, other classes are now officially faster than arc, for less effort, and at little to no resource cost whatsoever

you used to be able to haul ass on deathstar from rebel long -> control room in 40~ seconds, meaning arc was within the top 3 fastest classes rebels had at covering distance, but you can't sanic anymore so the question is why even fucking take arc for flanking when jedi/hero are inherently faster and have cooler guns
 
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If you cant reliably land a kill shot, start going for weakening shots instead, aim at the upper chest for example, you'll still do a good chunk of hp, leave the one-shot kills to the situations where you can get them almost guaranteed. You don't always need to be One-shot, one-kill to be an effective sniper. notice if a target has already taken a few shots, you only need to bodyshot him, etc.

thanku for tip
 

SeV

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2) Damage reduction
I don't think saberists should have damage reduction by default as a baseline thing. They should either have to have it as an upkeep (e.g. in the form of Protect) or it should be something they have to give up things like level 3 powers (see old Q3 balancing) to have. I also think that in whatever form that the swingblock-canceling-follow up shots mechanic continues to exist should still cause damage on the shot that's blocked.

3) Wookiee
I think the Bowcaster rate of fire nerfs were probably a bit much prior (this, combined with bug fixing the charged damage, was a really big hit to it). This is a decent part of why I want to separate FP drains from damage (so we both don't run into this situation as well as making it so high RoF weapons aren't going to auto kill saberists by default when FP drains aren't stupid). The ideas Ben mentioned would be interesting to try out.

I am down with force protect as a neutral activated force power instead of damage reduction. Imo heal should also be added. Could be lightside power and just add drain back to sith or also keep heal neutral, doesn't really matter. There is no reason to not have heal to counteract heavy poison, flame, conc nade comps if damage reduction is removed, cuz then blaster hots can kill very quickly even if the jedi is full hp. There are so many possible force powers and yet hardly any of them see any use in this game cuz nobody plays FA. It's a damn shame. I mean, sure, blind might be like mt but to me blinding someone directly screams sith FP to me. In any case, I think devs should look at adding more force powers to make open more fun and varied.

With regards to wooks, they aren't much fun to play anymore imo. Wook should be more of a gunner and less of a melee random thing. Have standard bowcaster with red bolts + multishot on charge. Keep the red one low RoF on main fire. Then add a second bowcaster with faster, weaker green shots + a secondary charged green bouncy shot and call it modded bowcaster or smth. Then tone down the retarded frenzy/rage wook gameplay, which has never been fun or taken any skill. And also rebalance the point cost so it is better than currently and maybe give them more ammo since bowcaster is their only real wep. Why do they even have access to a pistol? Pistol should be removed and maybe put in a melee weapon? Why not go wild?
 
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I am down with force protect as a neutral activated force power instead of damage reduction. Imo heal should also be added. Could be lightside power and just add drain back to sith or also keep heal neutral, doesn't really matter. There is no reason to not have heal to counteract heavy poison, flame, conc nade comps if damage reduction is removed, cuz then blaster hots can kill very quickly even if the jedi is full hp.
Sorry, but all of this reeks of artificially extending open gameplay (read: timewasting) even more, when saberists, especially on the attacking side figure it is more beneficial to keep taking shots in, retreat, heal, rince and repeat ad infinitum til round timer ends and have zero initiative to make forward pushes to help gunners advance in key areas. When players who mostly play saberists, aka 14-year old fanboys (slight exaggeration), actually learn that they're supposed to be supporting their gunners and help their team advance toward obj, we should deliver more varied ways to engage/play on open. At the moment, however, on most open servers you rarely even see one saberist on your team that knows how to support the team (aka use the abilities and forcepowers accordingly). And I do not see the current tools and forcepowers in no way limiting the ability to have fun on open, as subjective as 'fun' is.
 

SeV

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Sorry, but all of this reeks of artificially extending open gameplay (read: timewasting) even more, when saberists, especially on the attacking side figure it is more beneficial to keep taking shots in, retreat, heal, rince and repeat ad infinitum til round timer ends and have zero initiative to make forward pushes to help gunners advance in key areas. When players who mostly play saberists, aka 14-year old fanboys (slight exaggeration), actually learn that they're supposed to be supporting their gunners and help their team advance toward obj, we should deliver more varied ways to engage/play on open. At the moment, however, on most open servers you rarely even see one saberist on your team that knows how to support the team (aka use the abilities and forcepowers accordingly). And I do not see the current tools and forcepowers in no way limiting the ability to have fun on open, as subjective as 'fun' is.

That's not how I think it's gonna work with properly tuned fp drain/fp regen parameters and no damage reduction (thus making sec nade into a few shots lethal, among other things. Besides, why would you call it artificial?

The decision to remove heal from open was made over 10 years ago now iirc, and I think gameplay has changed enough to revise it, especially if we make it more viable to go for raw fp drain kills in a very high fp drain, but also high fp regen system. Think how ki-adi mundi or Coleman got raped.

Protect would essentially just be active damage reduction (at the price of fp, so easy fp kill if misused), just means that they pay fp and active use to have a chance of surviving an aggressive play/ambush, but of course since their fp will be low after using a forcepower + taking some shots, they would be easy to finish off for the gunners teammates. They could go for a protection+heal build and be ambushers, but have to trade in force push or other things like saber defense depending on the pt costs.

The case can even be made that having a low hp jedi unwilling to engage for fear of a poison dart kill or sec nade/conc/flamethrower, is more conducive to time-wasting behaviour than having him heal up and then go try to win. I honestly think the "uh heal is timewaste bruv" logic is way past its expiration date at this point and needs to be reconsidered, esp when we are already balancing the knockback/fp stuff.

I am sure we can easily manage to balance the game so that going for an FP drain kill makes the most sense in most circumstances and if damage reduction is removed, then this becomes even more viable as it would only take a few shots to finish them off. Honestly, a high fp drain, high fp regen approach with lots of force powers in play to individualize jedi builds more, seems like a way better option than low fp drain, low fp regen and high damage reduction making it a pain in the ass to finish off a jedi.

In such a volatile system with no dmg redux + high fp drain, it also makes playing the map more important for both sides. If you're a gunner, you will want to take up positions where there isn't a lot of places for a jedi to hide and regen. Likewise, a jedi that is in danger of being killed by normal gunner shots will respect positions more and try to help his team and maneuver more strategically. That would come naturally since under high fp drain and no dmg redux conditions a jedi would just get absolutely raped if they rushed in unprepared. But in such a system, I think it is also important to provide the tools for a reaper playstyle where the jedis goal is to get close, risk his life to kill someone and then maybe escape using protect/heal to rinse and repeat. Also, I am not really sure what people are talking about when they go on about oh le time-waste. A round of MBII is 5 minutes long and on a server with 30 ppl, some with multiple respawn classes, we can expect fairly long rounds on most maps other than smuggler. I hardly think jedis are the sole cause of this and they would definitely not be the cause of it if a skilled gunner was able to take out a jedi like jango took out coleman trebor.

It is a question of balancing the numbers. I think it's very illogical and antideluvian to dismiss adding forcepowers because of time-wasting fears when such problems can be solved with numbers tweaking.
 
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Why do they even have access to a pistol? Pistol should be removed and maybe put in a melee weapon? Why not go wild?
every class is forced to have a pistol because they'd get cheesed out by jedis and mandos sitting on a slightly tall bookcase if they didn't.

They could go for a protection+heal build and be ambushers,
I'm only okay for heal being a power at all if, and literally only if it shits on your point distribution so hard dropping push3 or higher levels in defense is required. Make those fuckers pay for it.

I mean, sure, blind might be like mt but to me blinding someone directly screams sith FP to me.
We already have lightning as the "You literally did nothing wrong whatsoever but I'm going to kill you now anyways" power. Lightning 3 will kill 100/100s at full health in one go.

we are already balancing the knockback/fp stuff.
question

why does knockback work on that sold that just jumpkicked at you but for some fucking reason the same mechanic isn't working on jedi
 
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I agree with Sev, I think once jedi damage reduction gets nerfed/removed, FP drains get jacked up and knockback starts working jedi will be very unlikely to take more than a single 1v1 per round. I think heal is something to be considered, I don't like the sound of something like force protect which would essentially be active damage reduction. I think in general more MBII classes that don't have reinforcements need some way to regain health between fights for the reason Sev pointed out above - I am also of the opinion that it would actually make the game faster and more dynamic if you could take a short (keyword) timeout to heal up instead of taking a headshot 30 seconds into the round and being forced to play very passively for the next 3 minutes. People are well aware how fragile their healthpools are playing classes like hero, wookiee, mando, bh and it makes them much less willing to take risks and make plays knowing that even if they don't die they'll be left with low hp. Jedi used to be much the same way in the past when they had no damage reduction and if they are that way again after the hopefully upcoming nerfs then it could be a good idea to test something like force heal out.

It is important to note that this isn't a problem that is unique to jedi. I think that just adding a healing force power to jedi/sith would be a mistake, I would much rather see a wider approach that does not increase the effective health pools of people during fights (so not something like an instant use stim pack that just gives you some amount of health) but does allow them to regenerate some amount of HP, armour or both while they are not fighting. It might be a cool thought to encourage teamwork (as so few abilities do in MBII) by making it something like an AOE stimpack that some select classes have, but it only works on teammates that haven't taken damage in X seconds.

All in all I think healing would probably be difficult but not impossible to balance in a way that doesn't slow the game down - if X is 45 seconds then it definitely will encourage camping. If you have to stand still for 10 seconds while an animation plays to heal your team then that would also slow the game down. If it's instant use, but the regeneration itself takes a while I think that people would be much more likely to take risks knowing they can heal themselves, then keep moving as the heal ticks.
 
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Give ARCs and BHs medkits for points they can use on others. You know, like those items in FA modes that you use by enter or whatever.
OR just give them to Elite Troopers from both teams, with appropriate balancing
 

GoodOl'Ben

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I think heal is something to be considered
Healing is a very interesting question. It's also something that can be viewed from many perspectives.

Jedi technically have a healing in FP/BP recovery. Albeit it does not negate damage from every source, it does allow players to be more in control of when they take permanent damage. Using regenerating resources to take the brunt of any attack could be considered a healing of sorts. This makes Jedi a very compelling design in MB2.

Hero has similar compelling mechanics in the shape of Heal and Dodge. I'd argue that the older Dodge was more in line with being a healing mechanic, as it was a passive regeneration that allowed you to soak more damage from certain forms of attack. This does also bring up the point that the old design had a lot of overlap with Heal.

Droidekas have recharging shields, which also presents the same logic of regenerative health. The safety net underneath that regenerative health however is brittle and the shield itself can't mitigate all damage nor can it be always on.

These kinds of designs to me bring out the best form of healing in a game. To me MB2 is meant to provide somewhat similar intensity and tension as Counter-Strike, where you are not able to replenish health. Granted, there are some detractors that make this type of game design more challenging for MB2. Most prominently the large maps bring the worst out in a game with no regeneration. Players will be less inclined to attack choke points that present low odds of survival and combat will focus on very cautious strategies being prominent. This leads to very passive play based on preying for enemy mistakes. This is most likely part why snipers are a popular pick.

Rally for me presents a perfect example of a good "healing" mechanic. It presents the player with a strong power spike that is wasted if not utilized immediately. There is a limited supply of these spikes presented to you and requires a good player with balls to make the most out of it. Similar mechanics would be more interesting options than a straight-up Heal.

An example of borrowing this idea over to something else:

Wookiee Fury
I think it's the shittiest coolest idea I've been a part of penning. Initially it was trading health for a powerspike, which led to very ugly behaviour where players would "self-harm" and it felt very counter-intuitive. Then it was changed to be a damage for more damage type mechanic. Spiritually similar to Call of Duty's Killstreak rewards. The problem with that obviously is that it is a positive feedback loop. These ought to not be in MB2.

What if instead it gave you a Health+Melee Dmg boost that expires over-time just like Rally? Allow it to be used in conjunction with the Bowcaster. Allow it to be used mid-movement. Prevent Fury regen while the Fury buff is active ofc. The idea would be that it gives you more sustain in fights. You're out there dealing damage and doing good, you are rewarded a small perk that gives you a temporary spike in lasting power.
 
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Instead of healing that saberists could use for themselves, I would rather advocate team assisting force abilities, which are not necessarily healing. Could be anything from AOE damage reduction for your mates so they can advance with you while providing them some protection at the expense of fp regenning. Maybe something like a slight movement speed boost aura. I'm still against straight out healing mechanics for a fps/tps game with a timed objective, since there are multiple more interesting ways to offer incentive for teamwork, some of which Ben has mentioned (rally is an excellent example). The problem with jedi really is, there is little incentive to go full support, unless you know the benefits. With something like active auras giving your teammates a boost, you really get a better idea of the roles that are set in stone better via the abilities given to the class. Chokepoints will become less of a thing with more pressure that attackers can put on it with more properly orchestrated attacks and protection.
 
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SeV

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Instead of healing that saberists could use for themselves, I would rather advocate team assisting force abilities, which are not necessarily healing. Could be anything from AOE damage reduction for your mates so they can advance with you while providing them some protection at the expense of fp regenning. Maybe something like a slight movement speed boost aura. I'm still against straight out healing mechanics for a fps/tps game with a timed objective, since there are multiple more interesting ways to offer incentive for teamwork, some of which Ben has mentioned (rally is an excellent example). The problem with jedi really is, there is little incentive to go full support, unless you know the benefits. With something like active auras giving your teammates a boost, you really get a better idea of the roles that are set in stone better via the abilities given to the class. Chokepoints will become less of a thing with more pressure that attackers can put on it with more properly orchestrated attacks and protection.

Something like battle meditation for jedi would be a cool support ability. Could work like a passive aura that boosts movement speed of those near the jedi. Such a thing should probably be a neutral force power.

When it comes to the hp problem in a system where a single conc nade will really chunk a jedis hp, we threw around some ideas on the beta when this was being tested. (I quite liked what we played, high fp drain and regen but also very squishy jedi/sith). In fact, without the damage reduction, jedi were so squishy that taking a single conc was about 45 hp damage iirc. They would get splattered so easily hp wise. Tempest was thinking that to combat this, give them more hp. He suggested 125. I think that is fine. Why should a jedi have the exact same 100 hp as other classes when they are so different from gunners? My number was 150 cuz it looks better, but I fear ppl will cry OP outrage at that number even if it was balanced properly.

My own idea I've had on this back in around 2018 was passive healing up to a threshhold for jedi and sith. Imagine something that works like the hero heal ability but only up to, say, 30-50 hp, whatever is the relevant damage for those secondary abilities. You'd still be able to conc a jedi and shoot it down for a kill, but the conc itself would not kill him. A poison dart would still be powerful and bring them near death, but would not kill. If they have passive hp regen up to a point where their health pool still makes them super squishy but not squishy enough to just die like dogs when someone looks at them, then we've solved most of the complaints from both sides. From mine and qwerts side, the complaint about taking dmg and then having to play super passively for the rest o the round, and the anti-healing crowd that keep arguing the old thing about it slowing gameplay down. IF we do passive healing up to a point like 50 hp, with jedi having 125 hp but no damage reduction and fp drains/regen is fixed, we're looking at a decent base for saber vs gunner gameplay. Btw another point I should bring up is that I think perks were very good. They at least provided a reason to pick other saber styles. Think about it, how often do you see anything other than yellow in open? Anyway, that's an entirely different thing but I thought I would throw the idea out there.
 

GoodOl'Ben

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(I quite liked what we played, high fp drain and regen but also very squishy jedi/sith)
I think that would make the fights a lot more moment-to-moment. With the current drain/regen rates Jedi is more of a macro beast. It's all about what kind of design we want to go for. I would largely agree that this would be a better line of thought. RC1 had something like this going for it. It was balanced with us doing 1v1s against each class on an open field with a big focus on being able to drain someone with poor evasion and timing to 0 right before a strike. I think a key oversight back in the day was not giving significant tools for recovery. This made fighting multiple opponents very hard. Obviously still possible, but hard. High regen would offset this issue. Adding some moderate HP regen would also improve on the situation. I'd probably keep the Jedi at 100HP but grant a passive heal that takes you to the nearest third of health like Heal 3. I think it would be enough with no need to add more to the HP pool. A squishy Jedi can work and ought to be a fair approach since the class itself primarily can kill with a single hit.

Passive heals tend to always end up with players waiting until they've recharged (look at every cover shooter with regenerating health for reference). This is already somewhat present with FP regens, where players will lurk behind corners until they are back in the game. Leading to whacky cat-and-mouse behaviour at times.

Optionally and more interestingly healing could be tied to other gameplay mechanics. Think the modern Doom games. They promote active play through rewarding players with healing items and ammo by performing glory kills up close and personal in the form of glory kills. Obviously it's a singleplayer game with a clear aim towards making the player a juggernaut that can't be stopped, but it does promote very active playstyle.

Design-wise, I'd also love to see the Jedi and Sith be separated in play style further.

Sith are depicted as these unstoppable juggernauts of hate that thrive in conflict, use their anger as fuel and think only of themselves. With Sith it could be something as simple as Force Drain. Perhaps tie it in with Lightning and Grip to make them more attractive options in combat for more than just their stuns.

The Jedi's core fantasy of selflessness conflicts with being able to straight up heal yourself. Perhaps there could be a mechanic tied to assists granting health. Help your teammate score a frag and you gain health back.

Mechanics like these could introduce more action and promote moments that are core to both of the classes' fantasies all the while providing more sustain.

Instead of healing that saberists could use for themselves, I would rather advocate team assisting force abilities, which are not necessarily healing. Could be anything from AOE damage reduction for your mates so they can advance with you while providing them some protection at the expense of fp regenning. Maybe something like a slight movement speed boost aura
Battle Meditation would be exciting to toy around with. There are so many avenues you could explore not to mention interesting ability synergies.

One interesting aspect would be to make it complex. It needs to be combined with Force Block, Force Seeing or Force Speed. Use Force Speed and Battle Meditation at the same time to grant a speed boost. Use Force Seeing to grant your allies with the same level of seeing. Use by itself to grant temporary Force Block.

Another class that I think could benefit from something like this is the ARC. It's called an Advanced RECON Commando, yet there is nothing related to reconnaissance in his kit. Perhaps a simple ability that flags enemies that the ARC sees on the team's minimap. If too strong as something always on, turn it into an item that can be used once for a reasonable timeframe.

Heroes could also have something along the lines of INSPIRE which could be gained through HEROISM POINTS or something equally fucked up, where you gain those resources through. Moving Rally over to Hero from Elitetrooper would be the first step and then have some kind method that allows heroes to grant the Rally boost without the need for a respawn. It should be something that is borderline one-shot though.

As for the bad guys? SBDs could share their vision through Advanced Radar. Dekas could expand the size of their shield on demand to provide more cover for teams. You get the point. :D

Nobody said:
Get back on topic about healing for 1-lifers, bitch
So wooks could get pseudo-healed with Fury. Hypothetically fueling a never-ending rampage through meticulous aggression.

Similar temporary pseudo-heals could be introduced to classes that we feel should be actively fighting in the frontlines. I would be weary of giving it to a class that is mainly featured as a backline character, such as the Bountyhunter.

Overall there could be very imaginative mechanics that reward active play. I'd raise a word of warning to avoid using too strong positive feedback loops though.
 
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Optionally and more interestingly healing could be tied to other gameplay mechanics. Think the modern Doom games. They promote active play through rewarding players with healing items and ammo by performing glory kills up close and personal in the form of glory kills. Obviously it's a singleplayer game with a clear aim towards making the player a juggernaut that can't be stopped, but it does promote very active playstyle.

this is it dude, this would be an amazing way to kill many birds with one stone. Some form of fast health regen for getting kills/assists/teamwork kills or some combination of those would be fucking amazing. Think current fury but instead of being at best a gimmicky melee ability, at worst a map-breaking close quarters tank you charge up your rage bar and spend it to regen HP. Hero heal could be a 20/30/40 HP regen over a few seconds that you have 1 max stored use, but once you use it and then kill someone you can use it again and again. ARCs could get stimpacks with a similar functionality, Sith could get some force power similar to force drain but instead of it leeching HP from damage dealt it puts a 5 second effect on an enemy - when they die, they grant X amount of hp to all the enemies that got an assist for killing them. A special dart for BH that marks an enemy for a few seconds and they grant HP to whoever kills them, or also all those that assisted. You could do so much with this to promote aggressive gameplay and teamwork, it could actually be incredibly fun and add so much spice to mb2.
 

Tempest

Gameplay Design
Movie Battles II Team
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Some interesting ideas and a lot of them fall in line with what I've been talking to various players and @Hexodious about. One potential solution to the "healing can be a timewaster" thing is an alternative of having armor regenerate instead. I'm not a huge lore nerd but I'm fairly sure personal shield generators (basically how it was modeled in Outcast/Academy) are standard pieces of equipment and it wouldn't be too outlandish to have them be able to regenerate after not being hit/being out of combat for a short time. This lets there be more distinguishment between classes with differing armor pools (whereas right now it's just basically 1 shot or less worth of value for 100/100 vs 100/80). After you go to 0 armor, it could stop regenerating for the round or something and boom, we have some kind of buffer room that also doesn't reward super sloppy play. This could go in line with Wook's having some temporary healing/extra healing mechanic through Rage and saberists having something circumstantial as well to prevent encouraging overly passive recovery.
 
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