V1.4.4 Update Released!

V1.4.4 Update​

The sabering changes included in this release are a prelude to the extensive adjusting and tuning that has been done overall. Not all of these changes were completely polished and ready to be put out into the wild so some minimal adjustments that lean the gameplay toward where the rest is heading have been included. These, along with the entirety of the planned and currently being tested features will be available for play within scheduled open beta sessions. More details on when and how to get in on these will be included when they're ironed out.

CHANGELOG (11-12-16)

Classes

• Soldier
  • Change: Close Combat 1 now gives all melee move options, Close Combat 2 (which thus now only gives higher speed at all times and quicker getups) is no longer available in Open Mode.

At this point we felt that fully mobile Soldiers are generally too strong and also removed most of the incentive to use ETs/Commanders.

• SBD
  • Fix: Advanced Targeting crosshair should finally work correctly in all situations.
• ARC
  • Change: Westar M5 Max Ammo increased from 240/360/480 to 360/480/600.

In general ARC is very well rounded and performs its role as a multi-function class, where players are able to be build it to best counter any specific class as required. However the maximum ammo the Westar M5 could carry was causing issues while playing a supporting Sniper role or during high population engagements which required varing degrees of cover fire. This small change puts the weapon in-line with other weapons of its class.

• Droideka
  • Fix: Quick Deploy animation is now correctly smoothed so it no longer jitters upon switching modes.
  • Fix: Instantaneous shield projection upon deploying with Shield Projector level 2 or 3 now properly applies when the Droideka does not have full shields.
  • Fix: Discharge no longer drains FP.

Droideka fills a very strategic niche compared to the other Gun classes, the recent change to power management has put the ability in-line with the likes of Discharge and Quick Deploy - creating more valid build options for Droideka players. We aren't looking to change much of how Droideka plays and are happy with how its performing in games.

• Jedi - Sabering
  • Change: Nudge toggle removed.
  • Fix: Visual clashes on saber/saber collision should no longer be causing massive and/or random FPS drops.
  • Removed: Visual animations on saber/saber collision.
    
  • Change: Nudge now only available for Purple, Red, and Yellow styles.
  • Change: BP drain for attacks moved from being based on button inputs (holding vs tapping) to being flat drains based on style:
    • Blue drains 4 BP per swing.
    • Cyan drains 5 BP per swing.
    • Yellow drains 6 BP per swing.
    • Staff drains 4 BP per swing.
    • Duals drain 4 BP per swing.
    • Purple drains 6 BP per swing
    • Red drains 7 BP per swing.

Currently, the amount of BP you spend is based on whether you're activating attack per frame that's run by the server. This is unintuitive to say the least.

• • Change: Adjusted Parry drains
    • Base drains depend on "weight" of style.
    • 1 additional BP drain added per 2 ACM
    • Parrying vs the same style is 1 BP drain
    • Parrying vs a style 1 level heavier is 2 BP drain
    • Parrying vs a style 2 levels heavier is 3 BP drain
    • Perfect Block counters now increase the base drain of a parry by 2
  • Change/Fix: Red stagger now triggers on the third swing if the second swing was a body hit. Duration of body hit stagger is longer than a perfect blocked Red swing.
  • Perfect Parry
    • Allows for no BP damage between saberists clashing (except Duals)
    • Change: Similar to Mblock inputs (incoming top left swing would be PP'd by doing SA)
    • Applies to all styles by default
    • Cyan's perfect parry now has a visual stagger to go with the combo break

There will be an extensive discussion in a separate thread about the upcoming direction for the rest of the sabering changes post-1.4.4.

• Jedi - Force
  • Fix: Sense 2 shows enemies through walls and not just allies.
  • Change: Sense activation/duration changed to work similar to Speed.
    • Rank 1:
      • 15FP Activation, 5FP Ticks.
    • Rank 2:
      • 10FP Activation, 5FP Ticks.
    • Rank 3:
      • 5FP Activation, 5FP Ticks.
      • Can no longer be activated for free using Meditate.
  • Change: Force Sense level 3 can now dodge ee3/westar M5 snipes.
    
  • Change: Push 3 arc reduced from 180° to 120°.

The previous changes to force sense worked to constrain users from leaving the ability on all the time, but lower levels like Sense 1 could give a poor feeling of control with the rapid deactivation. Changing to a activation + tick model achieves the same effect while remaining intuitive.

The arc on Push 3 has been reduced in order to punish careless usage. 180° was perceived as too forgiving especially with projectiles.

• Jedi - General
  • Change: Restored normal single style run animations to Cyan/Purple.
  • Change: Cyan/Purple/Duals/Staff no longer have their respective gunner perks. Point costs are now 8/0/2 or 8/2/2. Duals/Staff are once again granted the perk of having higher blocking arcs than single blade styles.
  • Change: Blocking FP drains now have a 0.5x multiplier instead of 0.4x, non-blocking FP drains still have a 1.2x multiplier.
  • FP regeneration changes:
    • Change: When the player is unable to block or their saber is off, the FP regen is maximal (1.0x).
    • Change: When the player is able to block, the FP regen is 0.75x, and when switching to a state of being unable to block, there is a cooldown of 3 seconds during which the FP regen gradually increases from 0.75x to 1.0x.
    • Change: Whenever the player deflects projectiles, they enter a state signaled by a darker FP bar where their FP regen is reduced to 0.375x only while holding altattack. 1s after the last time deflecting a single projectile, the player leaves this state; this cooldown slightly ramps up to 2s if deflecting several projectiles in quick succession.
  • Change: FP drains are now capped at 50 at all times when not holding altattack and at 35 when holding altattack.
  • Change: Mblock deflect now works by holding attack while blocking instead of tapping it (even with Saber Defense level 0), FP regen is halted during this. Additionally, level 1 drains 6 FP per second, level 2 3 FP per second and level 3 does not drain FP. For all levels, mblock deflects cannot be accurate within flinch range.
  • Updated Wallgrab Logic:
    • Change: Wall Grab requires at least 1FP to initiate.
    • Change: Wall Grab prevents FP Regeneration until the player is on the ground again.
    • Change: Wall Grab drains 1FP per second.
    • Change: Wall Grab auto-releases upon reaching 0FP.

The changes to wallgrab are intended to keep its utility for setting up short term ambushes while mitigating its viability for time wasting. It makes intuitive sense that sticking to a wall like Spider-Man will use some amount of force power.

• Hero/Commander
  • Change: Dash no longer has stamina points and is a 4s cooldown ability.
  • Change: Dodge now works in any situation for all levels (standing/crouching/walking/running/jumping). Level 1 drains full dodge points (DP) in 1 second, level 2 2 seconds, level 3 3 seconds, and level 3 also significantly reduces the DP drains for dodging at close to very close range. Dodge points are now displayed as a yellow bar on the bottom right HUD.
  • Change: Dodge can now be activated in two different ways. If /dodgetoggle has value 0, dodge is still activated/deactivated via holding/releasing class special 1, if /dodgetoggle has value 1, dodge is toggled on/toggled off via tapping class special 1. /dodgetoggle is 1 by default. Notes: dodge cannot be toggled on while poisoned or while having 0 dodge points (and it will be toggled off automatically in those cases), however it can be toggled on in the other cases where one cannot dodge, namely while scoped, knocked down or dashing with dash level 2 - in these cases, dodge will still be toggled on, and become active and drain DP once the player stops scoping, gets up or finishes their dash move.

The manual dodge change introduced in the previous build was a good starting point, but experience post release led us to believe it was too situational and difficult to use. The ability is now generally stronger and an activation option is available for those who do not have control setups suited to holding another ability key.

Weapons

• Blaster Pistol
  • Fix: Pistol level 3 in combination with Ammo level 2 no longer gives less ammo than Pistol level 2 with Ammo level 2.
  • Change: Pistol Max Ammo has been normalized to 120/240/360.

Models

• Change: Replaced lightsaber hilts Stinger and Luke (episode 6) with higher quality versions made by Rooxon.

Maps

• mb2_tantiveiv_classic
  • New: Added B16 version of Tantive IV.

Full Authentic

• Change: Classflag CFL_FUEL_REGENERATION is now modified by MB_ATT_FUEL. Regeneration will stop at the maximum fuel for each respective level.

Miscellaneous

• Fix: Slight change to allow more useful OpenJK crashlogs.
• Fix: Possibly fixed one source of clients crashing on map change.
  
• Change: Support for "capture stop" command in jaMME.

Servers

• Fix: Tempban now works with long IPs (e.g. 111.111.111.111).
• Fix: Server no longer crashes when completing objective on certain maps (affected mb2_cmp_fdepot).

UI

• New: Added custom mpdefault.cfg to assets. Clicking on Setup > Defaults will now set all important MBII binds and proper network settings. Strongly recommended for new players.
• New: Added Dodge Activation option to Setup > Game Options. Sets state of dodgetoggle.

Changed Files ( Server downloads ) ( Linux OpenJK server lib ) ( ARM OpenJK build )

--MBII
mb2_tantiveIV.pk3
MBAssets3.pk3
MBHilts.pk3
MBII.pk3
MBII_Mac.pk3
cgamei386.so
jampgamei386.so
uii386.so

Changelog Legend
New - New feature or addition to the game.
Change - Changes to the game.
Fix - Bug fix.
Remove - Removed feature.
Feature - New feature name

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

Then why does it specifically specify "Even with Saber Defense 0"? Couldn't you manually deflect shots before with Defense 0 Deflect 3? Is their point, then, that Defense 0 Deflect 3 now CAN'T deflect at all?

You'll have to ask the Devs about that one. I just work here, and I'm working with Tempizzle to make sabering not cancer.

 

[Karapuz]

Jesus, You've made it even worse. I thought it is impossible, really.
Why? For what? What for? Who made This?
Gosh.
And I will play this shit anyway, though. Like always. With hope, that SOMETHING WILL CHANGE ONE DAY. Next patch. Next time. Next month.

But at the moment duel-aspect of this game is empty.
And You don't know how sad I am because of that.

 

[SK5]

Jesus, You've made it even worse. I thought it is impossible, really.
Why? For what? What for? Who made This?
Gosh.
And I will play this shit anyway, though. Like always. With hope, that SOMETHING WILL CHANGE ONE DAY. Next patch. Next time. Next month.

But at the moment duel-aspect of this game is empty.
And You don't know how sad I am because of that.

Why is it worse? Explain your opinion rather than just bash the update. Putting parry drains back in place helps to prevent the op spam, which was too noob friendly.

And also, what was the idea to make swings have raw bp drains rather than based on the amount of time you hold attack? It required skill to be good at tap comboing but it seems to be useless now, or am i wrong?

 

[Liniyka_xddd]

Why is it worse? Explain your opinion rather than just bash the update. Putting parry drains back in place helps to prevent the op spam, which was too noob friendly.

And also, what was the idea to make swings have raw bp drains rather than based on the amount of time you hold attack? It required skill to be good at tap comboing but it seems to be useless now, or am i wrong?

Let me guess, because it's a weird mechanic in the first place? Your character does the same set of movements, yet for some reason it drains more if you hold the button down. It is not intuitive at all. It's like if E11's secondary fire consumed less ammo when you tapped mouse2 real quick, instead of holding it down.

It added more complexity to already complex sabering system, which wasn't good imo.

 

[DaloLorn]

This sounds... interesting.

Lot of smallish changes across the board (at least some of them clearly favorable), but as they add up they turn into something I can't easily assess yet. This will shift things around...

 

[SK5]

Let me guess, because it's a weird mechanic in the first place? Your character does the same set of movements, yet for some reason it drains more if your hold the button down. It is not intuitive at all. It's like if E11's secondary fire consumed less ammo when you tapped mouse2 real quick, instead of holding it down.

It added more complexity to already complex sabering system, which wasn't good imo.

Good point but it required a good amount of practice to get it right with swingblock, and the reward was a bit less bp drain from your swings. I dont see a reason not to reward attacking "well"

 

[Damn Polak]

Close Combat 2 (...) is no longer available in Open Mode.

inb4 polak on suicide watch

 

[Karapuz]

Why is it worse? Explain your opinion rather than just bash the update. Putting parry drains back in place helps to prevent the op spam, which was too noob friendly.

And also, what was the idea to make swings have raw bp drains rather than based on the amount of time you hold attack? It required skill to be good at tap comboing but it seems to be useless now, or am i wrong?

I would like to meet you in server, so I could explain my opinion about all those changes with a good example, rather than writting posts here, where there is no chance, that we can agree on something.

Only reason I wrote this thing down - I am absolutely dissapointed with the changes. And I am kinda too emotional because of that.
Dueling goes in the wrong direction. It becomes boring, easy & faded, due to the fact, that most of the playstyles become meaningless. There is only 1 way to win a duel. The RIGHT way. You don't need to have patterns, you don't need to change the way you act. Just increase your reaction, think less and act, as system told You to Act.
As an example, my playstyle is even more useless, than it was.

Rotating combos, shadowswinging, jumping combos, distraction with running, patterns(waht iz dat lulz?), False-swinging, transaction-distraction... and I can continue this list to eternity. All those skills are useless now. More or less, mostly totally.

Ironically. 1 year ago there were bunch of people, who complained about the gameplay process. That was a day I came to MovieBattles.
I feel sorry for their loss, though. And I can't judge previous patches.
But before it was about adaptation: you adapt or not. System gave something Instead and I know that, because I've seen that. Now it does not.
I mean, I hope you understand, that I am not just complaining about the old times. I am kinda sad, that game itself becomes Empty.
And I would be happy, if someone will proof me I am wrong, so I could nerd duels from beginning. Literally, because duel-nerding is simillar to drug-using.

Which takes us back to my proposition: I would like to meet you in server, so I could explain my opinion about all those changes with a good example.

 

[FRANK LAMPART]

CHANGELOG (11-12-16)

Classes

• Soldier
  • Change: Close Combat 1 now gives all melee move options, Close Combat 2 (which thus now only gives higher speed at all times and quicker getups) is no longer available in Open Mode.

AT LAST

 

[S o l d i e r]

Soldier

• Change: Close Combat 1 now gives all melee move options, Close Combat 2 (which thus now only gives higher speed at all times and quicker getups) is no longer available in Open Mode.

Damn Soldiers started eating too much fast food and stopped exercising.

Change: BP drain for attacks moved from being based on button inputs (holding vs tapping) to being flat drains based on style:

This is like the best sabering system change ever FOR ME. This was the only reason I didn't play saberists before - because you had to be a complete autist AND break your mouse in order to saber well. I am glad that devs are working on dumbing down the game, because, unlike some other games that were dumbed down, MB2 IS too complicated to play and too newbie-unfriendly.

 

[SK5]

This is like the best sabering system change ever FOR ME. This was the only reason I didn't play saberists before - because you had to be a complete autist AND break your mouse in order to saber well.

lol

 

[Sammy]

There's always some who complain each update, but then come to understand the system and stop right in their tracks. Just give it time then complain about the system if you still dislike it; it's only been a day.

 

[Gumba]

I get you. Shotgunning people felt damn good, but 50 fp under this system is already quite alot of FP when you're engaged in battle. With the FP regen debuff kicking in and all that.

Just played a bit and i will say that 50 fp for this buffed regen is NOT okay.

 

[Eazy E]

The E approves.

 

[RG4]

The change to sabers is something I like because no we won't have purple or cyan rushes abusing the saber perks anymore.

 

[DaloLorn]

All in all, between the sudden return of my sabering skills (well, what skills I had to begin with ) a few days before the patch, and the patch itself... this Jedi feels unstoppable. (Until he invariably gets stopped by Kas or Jaden, or winds up the sole survivor against half the enemy team.)

Amusingly, I haven't done quite so well as ARC lately, nor have I played the class as much as before - even though it's had nothing but buffs. Does not compute.

 

[Lessen]

I was lying in bed last night trying to arrange an intuitive understanding of the new FP mechanics in my mind, because that's just the kind of person I am. I still haven't really got it straightened out. You can advance with your block up, and if you don't get shot, you'll still have decent regen. If you get shot, your FP will slow down.

Run blocking (or reflex blocking) is 1.2x vs 0.75x (1.6 "ratio"), guard blocking is 0.5x vs 0.375x (1.33 "ratio") meaning, if you're getting shot as much in both states, your FP regenerates back to where it was "faster" in the guarded state, right? Sort of? Though of course, the point of run blocking is to mostly dodge shots.

But there's more to it than that. If you guard block a single shot, your regen is "reduced to 0.375x only while holding altattack," which implies that if you instantly drop your guard after the shot, your regen instantly goes back up to 0.75. Is this true? (If you're under heavy fire, it is likely that dropping your block will lead you to take some 1.2x drains though.)

Just played a bit and i will say that 50 fp for this buffed regen is NOT okay.

It certainly makes snipers more reliant on support from faster firing gunners.. just by making them less of a one-man FP-depleting machine. You can still execute someone who's low on FP, at least, like the "push spammers" people are always whining about in-game. Though, you can also just shoot those guys after they push. Point being, I guess, you're still useful but you're less polarizing. It's certainly a straight nerf.

I thought they were bringing shotgun snipes back. Not complaining though. I'm glad snipers are being made less of just a "theoretically optimal gunner," and more of a "support fire."

@devs Should I be able to Deflect shots when I have saber defense 0? I don't seem to be able to, but the OP implied that I should be able to.

 

[DaloLorn]

@Oddlewad Your regeneration might go up, but if you start blocking again while in the debuffed state, you'll still go down to 0.375... at least that's what it sounds like.

It's basically like 1.4.3, only with adjusted numbers and no block penalty until you're actively being shot at.

 

[Lessen]

Certainly it's based on, and trying to improve on, the direction 1.4.3 went in, but the particular details of that "no block penalty until you're actively being shot at" are important to grasp. Good point that if you block again within a second your regen drops again. It still suggests that the "optimal" blocking strategy is to always only guardblock right before a shot hits you, and otherwise scamper around in reflex block. (but don't bother turning off your saber in a firefight, since the increase to full regen happens over a long time.)

edit: I guess that's always been the optimal blocking strategy though, across all versions. i'm just kind of mulling over implications here.

 

[Stassin]

@devs Should I be able to Deflect shots when I have saber defense 0? I don't seem to be able to, but the OP implied that I should be able to.

You should, if it doesn't work then it's a bug, will fix soon. Deflecting shots with defense 0 drains alot of FP so it shouldn't be OP.