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

 

[Liniyka_xddd]

I dont wanna jumping/running around gunners just to get right moment to saber him

You don't want to use your brain, we get it. Saberists should be able to just run up to people and kill them straight away, right? Just like in vanilla singleplayer.

 

[Smee]

You don't want to use your brain, we get it. Saberists should be able to just run up to people and kill them straight away, right? Just like in vanilla singleplayer.

No but gunners should be able to crouch and kill jedi at close range 9/10 times apparently.

 

[Blazer]

The problem I have with MB2, its so FU**ING complicated now, Like you have to think about millions of things and multiply the diameter of the earth by 4 and divide it by 8 then figure out the radius of that number by subtracting it by a fraction to figure out if can saber a soldier in front of you.

 

[Victoria]

You don't want to use your brain, we get it.

Glad to hear it from the mandolorian sniper, who knows only how to use right and left mouse buttons to scope and snipe.

 

[Liniyka_xddd]

No but gunners should be able to crouch and kill jedi at close range 9/10 times apparently.

And apparently, saberists absolutely cannot: strafe to avoid getting shot; use delfect; use force; swingblock and many more. You make it sound like it's easy to kill a jedi up close, while in reality you only have a slight chance of survival vs a good player.

Glad to hear it from the mandolorian sniper, who knows only how to use right and left mouse buttons to scope and snipe.

Go ahead and try that against a decent jedi, I would like to see how many times you manage to kill them. This new FP damage reduction while blocking made EE-3 snipes almost useless against saberists.

 

[Crusade010]

Saberists are in a very good place atm I feel, it's easy to play but difficult to play well which is good. All that needs doing now is to make the changes to dueling and see how that plays out, it looks like a decent system from what I've read.

The reason why many people get frustrated while playing jedi/sith isn't down to the actual class, it's down to how you play it in terms of positioning and builds, granted some deaths can be kinda bullshit but in mb2 you get that with any class. Also Saberists NEED fp, without fp you're just dead, no matter the circumstance, so weapons shouldn't be able to drain them completely as it's pretty much like being a gunner with no ammo at that point, useless.

I mean I was on BG and had a score of like 13/2 as a jedi within about 4 rounds, it just depends how you play

 

[SeV]

Saberists are in a very good place atm I feel, it's easy to play but difficult to play well which is good. All that needs doing now is to make the changes to dueling and see how that plays out, it looks like a decent system from what I've read.

The reason why many people get frustrated while playing jedi/sith isn't down to the actual class, it's down to how you play it in terms of positioning and builds, granted some deaths can be kinda bullshit but in mb2 you get that with any class. Also Saberists NEED fp, without fp you're just dead, no matter the circumstance, so weapons shouldn't be able to drain them completely as it's pretty much like being a gunner with no ammo at that point, useless.

I mean I was on BG and had a score of like 13/2 as a jedi within about 4 rounds, it just depends how you play

Yup, 1.4.4 open rewards skillful jedi players somewhat, and punishes bad play often. It's not a bad patch for open mode and you can really differentiate between good and bad jedi, which is the whole point. There is nothing fun about playing a game where a guy with 1 hour is equal to a guy with 50 hours, who is equal to a guy with 200 hours and so on.

 

[Victoria]

Typical answer. May be after 1.999.9 updates you will get that here is everyone should be equal

 

[Sammy]

Typical answer. May be after 1.999.9 updates you will get that here is everyone should be equal

Bickering here isn't going to get you anywhere. Maybe once the Open Beta comes out, you can show your ideas to the team, and possibly introduce some balance you want.

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

My experience with open mode boils down to numbers, and class composition, not so much skill.

I am more afraid of 9 Jedi and 1 Gunner than 10 Jedi, I am more afraid of 9 gunners and 1 Jedi than 10 gunners. Killing 2 Jedi is easy for me as a Sith, killing 2 clones is nearly impossible. As a commander, killing 2 enemy gunners is quite possible, but killing 2 Jedi is nearly impossible.

The classes simply aren't balanced around each other, that is all there is to it. The developers care more about a small percentage of players that take the game incredibly seriously, than balancing for all situations which would include casual play. Bottom line, numbers mean a lot more than skill. Which is precisely why open mode games always devolve into proj rifle hallway spam, clone rushes, SBD/Deka camping, or Jedi/Sith rushes.

 

[Alkatjo]

The classes simply aren't balanced around each other, that is all there is to it. The developers care more about a small percentage of players that take the game incredibly seriously, than balancing for all situations which would include casual play. Bottom line, numbers mean a lot more than skill. Which is precisely why open mode games always devolve into proj rifle hallway spam, clone rushes, SBD/Deka camping, or Jedi/Sith rushes.

I'm afraid i have to agree. More people play Open than any other gamemode currently listed. I feel like balancing around the idea that there would be multiple classes working in tandem with each other is the best option here. I've been a long time lurker on this game for years (vibroblades anyone? ), and while some of the changes have been for the better and worse, it just feels like actual "balance" isn't being taken seriously. Let's look at this from another point of view. This mod is given the impression that it represents the closest experience to star wars movies and the battles that took place within the star wars universe. The problem lies within the idea that we're just supposed to accept what's thrown at us (gameplay and aesthetic wise) without any question. Clones don't act like clones, and droids don't act like droids. That's a fact. The problem doesn't lie within the balance behind this but the playstyles people make of these changes. In a practical sense, Clones/Infantry wouldn't be seen charging down the hall on dotf, no they're much more tactical than that. The mindset of a clone/any sort of infantry is efficiency in numbers, same as the droids, that's their program. When I play as a clone, i wan't to fire from a cover position. The problem is, there's really not a lot to get behind and shoot safely around your team mates. This is why I personally would suggest bringing back leaning from Vanilla Academy.

I know Saberists are considered more of a support role but i honestly see them more as a commander role, someone to get behind in battle. I wouldn't change much with Saberists, but maybe add a bonus to health/armor other minor units. I would personally merge the commander class with the infantry class, because all in all they're much less the same, with a couple of ability differences.

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

I'm afraid i have to agree. More people play Open than any other gamemode currently listed. I feel like balancing around the idea that there would be multiple classes working in tandem with each other is the best option here. I've been a long time lurker on this game for years (vibroblades anyone? ), and while some of the changes have been for the better and worse, it just feels like actual "balance" isn't being taken seriously. Let's look at this from another point of view. This mod is given the impression that it represents the closest experience to star wars movies and the battles that took place within the star wars universe. The problem lies within the idea that we're just supposed to accept what's thrown at us (gameplay and aesthetic wise) without any question. Clones don't act like clones, and droids don't act like droids. That's a fact. The problem doesn't lie within the balance behind this but the playstyles people make of these changes. In a practical sense, Clones/Infantry wouldn't be seen charging down the hall on dotf, no they're much more tactical than that. The mindset of a clone/any sort of infantry is efficiency in numbers, same as the droids, that's their program. When I play as a clone, i wan't to fire from a cover position. The problem is, there's really not a lot to get behind and shoot safely around your team mates. This is why I personally would suggest bringing back leaning from Vanilla Academy.

I know Saberists are considered more of a support role but i honestly see them more as a commander role, someone to get behind in battle. I wouldn't change much with Saberists, but maybe add a bonus to health/armor other minor units. I would personally merge the commander class with the infantry class, because all in all they're much less the same, with a couple of ability differences.

If only you knew of the billion suggestions I made.

 

[Lessen]

We already do see infantry hide in cover and pop out of cover to fire when there's a good opportunity. Moreover, there's a lot of usage of suppressing fire while charging down corridors, which is reasonable and tactical...

By "classes aren't balanced around each other," I think he means that classes aren't balanced around individual 1-on-1 encounters with each other, but are instead balanced around a particular competitive multi-class team composition, which then creates silly results with a lot of other team compositions. That being said, that doesn't completely match up with what he's saying, so I'm not 100% sure what he's saying.

My own opinion is that "proj rifle hallway spam, clone rushes, SBD/Deka camping, or Jedi/Sith rushes" all only really work because they're strategies that don't require great team coordination, and they're strategies that work well against teams that don't have great coordination, and most people in this mod don't have great coordination.

Which might be Achilles's point, that MB2 is balanced around good team coordination, but people don't have it.

edit: I mean, numbers mean more than individual player skill, but good team coordination means a hell of a lot more than numbers imo, and coordination is still skill. Two soldiers are exponentially more powerful than one soldier, but only if they know how to work together well, and as Achilles said, mixed-class groups are much stronger than homogeneous groups. But they have to work together well.

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

We already do see infantry hide in cover and pop out of cover to fire when there's a good opportunity. Moreover, there's a lot of usage of suppressing fire while charging down corridors, which is reasonable and tactical...

By "classes aren't balanced around each other," I think he means that classes aren't balanced around individual 1-on-1 encounters with each other, but are instead balanced around a particular competitive multi-class team composition, which then creates silly results with a lot of other team compositions. That being said, that doesn't completely match up with what he's saying, so I'm not 100% sure what he's saying.

My own opinion is that "proj rifle hallway spam, clone rushes, SBD/Deka camping, or Jedi/Sith rushes" all only really work because they're strategies that don't require great team coordination, and they're strategies that work well against teams that don't have great coordination, and most people in this mod don't have great coordination.

Which might be Achilles's point, that MB2 is balanced around good team coordination, but people don't have it.

By "Classes aren't balanced around each other" I mean they aren't balanced, period, for 1v1 or otherwise. MB2 Open mode turns into bouts of class escalation, you start with Jedi/Sith spam, then shift to Clone spam, then SBD spam, then Hero/Clone spam, then BH spam, then Hero spam, then Sold/Commander spam, then Wook/Clone/Jedi spam. Because it feels like a bad game of rock paper scissors, only Clone counts as both paper and rock. Balancing a game around good team coordination is a terrible idea, in any setting, because 90% of the matches taking place in your game won't be coordinated. This is why MOBAs end up being shit after a time, because you get players that don't work well together. You need to balance your games for all levels, as difficult as that may seem, and the easiest way to do that, is to make individual skill shine over teamwork, which some MOBAs are starting to lean towards. I disagree with all classes being the same thing, but they should all be viable on their own.

I also despise gimmicks, like insta-nade, blobs, or proj rifle. They cheapen the experience, and are beyond overused at this point.

 

[Lessen]

Hmm. But there's already enough games out there willing to pat your head and give you a cookiee just for trying. Even if it means it won't succeed in the larger market, it's nice to have a game that actually specifically rewards teamwork so heavily. I'm extremely dubious that it's possible to "balance for all levels" without necessarily removing some of the beauty and some of the creative "focus" from the game.

If you make lone wolfing completely viable then you ruin the game, in my opinion. It is one of the best teamwork games around imo, even if the community doesn't entirely appreciate it as such, and it's remarkably balanced in that teamwork context, which is not a small feat. You propose making teamwork unnecessary, and I think that's terrible.

Also from my experience clone spam loses to soldier spam? I reaaaaally don't mind that public servers with bad teamwork turn to simple strategies like homogeneous spam. It's a reasonable consequence.

That being said I think you've presented some really cool class balance ideas, and sabering contributions?

Edit: Also, the EE-3 and M5 sniper "commando" classes seem designed to be the most lone-wolf-skill-based classes in the game, being able to output a ton of damage and drop a ton of enemies in a short time if your aim can keep up with the fire rate of your weapon, while also being able to escape from bad positions. I imagine a well-coordinated AND individually skilled Jedi-ARC or Sith-Mando duo could go through quite a lot of soldiers/clones with good usage of pop-sniping and Push pressure.

 

[Karus]

My experience with open mode boils down to numbers, and class composition, not so much skill.

I am more afraid of 9 Jedi and 1 Gunner than 10 Jedi, I am more afraid of 9 gunners and 1 Jedi than 10 gunners. Killing 2 Jedi is easy for me as a Sith, killing 2 clones is nearly impossible. As a commander, killing 2 enemy gunners is quite possible, but killing 2 Jedi is nearly impossible.

The classes simply aren't balanced around each other, that is all there is to it. The developers care more about a small percentage of players that take the game incredibly seriously, than balancing for all situations which would include casual play. Bottom line, numbers mean a lot more than skill. Which is precisely why open mode games always devolve into proj rifle hallway spam, clone rushes, SBD/Deka camping, or Jedi/Sith rushes.

This is spot on.
That is all.

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

Hmm. But there's already enough games out there willing to pat your head and give you a cookiee just for trying. Even if it means it won't succeed in the larger market, it's nice to have a game that actually specifically rewards teamwork so heavily. I'm extremely dubious that it's possible to "balance for all levels" without necessarily removing some of the beauty and some of the creative "focus" from the game.

If you make lone wolfing completely viable then you ruin the game, in my opinion. It is one of the best teamwork games around imo, even if the community doesn't entirely appreciate it as such, and it's remarkably balanced in that teamwork context, which is not a small feat. You propose making teamwork unnecessary, and I think that's terrible.

Also from my experience clone spam loses to soldier spam? I reaaaaally don't mind that public servers with bad teamwork turn to simple strategies like homogeneous spam. It's a reasonable consequence.

That being said I think you've presented some really cool class balance ideas, and sabering contributions?

No one ever said anything about making the game easy, or 'giving awards for just trying'. Lone wolfing should be possible if you have the aptitude for it. In many of my games I have more sabering skill than the entire enemy team combined, yet because they have 2 Clones, I cannot do anything except try to support my teammates, and lose anyway. However, if you want to prevent lone wolfing, then you simply have better players than the lone wolf. I'm not saying a single Sith should be able to slaughter 10 good gunners, or a single commander should kill 10 good Sith, I'm saying a single good Sith should slaughter 10 bad gunners, or a good commander should destroy 10 bad sith. Skill should be linear, and your skill as a player should go up against their combined skill if you want to lone wolf. However that is simply not the case, because you can only get so far before your HP is whittled to nothing as any class. If there was a way to heal after engagements, or out-of-combat HP regeneration, then skill would play a more important role, albeit still not as much, since the classes are so obscenely imbalanced, and there are so many one-shotting gimmicks that can even catch good players off guard.



Edit: The funny thing is, Saber vs Saber is 20% luck. (Well, maybe not in the current patch) but Gunning vs Gunning is like 75% luck (depending on class), and Saber vs Gunning is like 80% luck (depending on class). A factor of slow projectiles, and fast movement speed, plus plenty of incredibly fast one-shotting gimmicks that have no reads. That is why MB2 is a team-only game, because the luck only starts to become lessened the more good players you have on a team, because then lucky kills start to drop in rate, and you end up with more supportive players. It is honestly one of the few games I've ever seen with so much luck involved in minor engagements, that eventually evens out with more competent players.

Think of it with this scenario:
You have two people, one is just a simple average suburban man, and the other is a special forces operator. They both have a gun, the guns are single shot, but have a 40% chance of jamming. In these small engagements, the special forces operator basically has the same chances of killing the untrained man as the untrained man has of killing him. However, if you have a team of 10 special forces operators, and 10 untrained men, then the rates of victory on the SF side start to go higher, because they're typically faster at handling the weapon, and won't miss as often as the untrained men, the jamming frequencies start to even out, and luck becomes less of a factor. What happens then further, is some of those untrained men can pick up sub-machine guns if they want to (Easy/Broken classes) to even their odds against the SF team, and then you end up with a slaughter of both sides going for the biggest and strongest weapons they can get, and luck keeps being a huge factor all the way until they bring out nukes and everyone loses.

This is very much so the case in MB2, and I really don't like it. In all 100% of instances, the special forces operator should cream the untrained man, however in MB2 you have a lot of gimmicks and luck involved. I am personally a terrible gunner, yet I have managed to destroy people much better than myself in gunning, by way of pure luck (Such as guessing which way they are going to strafe, or accidentally lining up a perfect proj shot, or getting a lucky grenade bounce, or a lucky blob, etc.) or abusing cheesy classes (like Clone, or SBD, or Wook)

This is the problem I have with open mode, and MB2 in general, is that there is no real skill in most of these situations, just trying to find ways to minimize luck. None of the classes are balanced against each other, saber vs gunning is basically nothing but numbers and luck... bleh, just annoying.

 

[Lessen]

But by making lone-wolfing possible you have to necessarily make it easier than it is now. If you make it viable then you implicitly encourage everyone to do it even more than they already do, permitting the further destruction of teamwork.

I mean, I appreciate that there's a good amount of nuance to your intent, and that you just want to be able to destroy bad players if you're better than them, but I think going in that direction at all would hurt teamwork too much. And I think at this point a very small squad of individually skilled AND well-coordinated players can chew through much larger groups of unskilled, uncoordinated players, which I suggested with my edit above about ARCs/Mandos. In your case, teaming up with a good EE-3 Mando, T-21 Commander, or, like, a fuckin' Mag Plating SBD would make the clones much less of a problem, even in larger groups.

i have yet to see people take good deliberate squad-work quite that seriously though. I've been meaning to start a little tryhard clan of my own at some point that would focus extremely heavily on that kind of coordination rather than just being a group of decent players that play on the same server.

Also, the team-specific force powers already give you a tremendous capacity for devouring bad players on your own, although all of those powers are defeated by good coordination. But if a bad player has good coordination, are they really a bad player?

edit: ALSO, by creating that kind of extremely high mechanical skill-ceiling (good guy beats 10 baddies), you make the game even less accessible than it already is. I mean, a well-coordinated team of extremely mechanically-skilled lone-wolf-capable people would be absolutely impossible to kill, and I consider that a bad thing, inasmuch as this game is already hard to get into as a newbie. Moreover, the game is already pushing the limits of depth/skill/mindgames that it can pull off as an online game, IMO, and going further in that kind of fighting-game-ish direction would be better for a game that's played locally so lag isn't a major factor.

 

[Liniyka_xddd]

Have to disagree with you there, Achilles. Gunfights are not 75% luck, and gunner vs saberist engagements are not 80% luck. Slow projectiles and fast movement require you to have more skill, not less. Have you ever used rocket/grenade launchers in TF2? Used rocket launcher in Quake3? Used spinfusor in Tribes? These are all weapons that shoot slow projectiles, in a game where everyone has very high movement speed. Yet, they are considered to take the most skill to use effectively. And it's not just aim either. It's reading your opponent's movement, predicting his behaviour and knowing the map and your weapon.

And it gets even worse when you face a saberist. You can make a few mistakes in a gunfight and survive, but that's not the case here. Let go of the walk button at the wrong moment - get pushed/pulled and die. Reload at the wrong moment - die. Miss a shot when he swings at you - die. Panic when they use speed/mt/lightning/grip - die. When fighting sith/jedi as a gunner, you have to give it all you got, otherwise you just get killed in a second. I don't know how is this "80% luck".

And while some classes are indeed too forgiving (clone, wookerino, deka), gunning is definitely not "75% luck". Maybe you got this idea because, as you said, you are a bad gunner. Also, how come you still complain about proj as a saberist? It's close to useless against you this patch.

 

[DaloLorn]

Have to disagree with you there, Achilles. Gunfights are not 75% luck, and gunner vs saberist engagements are not 80% luck. Slow projectiles and fast movement require you to have more skill, not less. Have you ever used rocket/grenade launchers in TF2? Used rocket launcher in Quake3? Used spinfusor in Tribes? These are all weapons that shoot slow projectiles, in a game where everyone has very high movement speed. Yet, they are considered to take the most skill to use effectively. And it's not just aim either. It's reading your opponent's movement, predicting his behaviour and knowing the map and your weapon.

Projectiles aren't half as slow as one might assume from reading these last couple of posts. To be perfectly honest, half of the time I'm struggling more with the speed/accuracy tradeoff (a BH with all his guns maxed out is a pretty fun build in this regard, it has a gun for literally every situation) than with projectile speed - except when I miscalculate an M5 sniper shot by going too far or too close to the enemy's starting position, without them changing course at all. (Flying Mandalorians are particularly likely to cause this.)

And it gets even worse when you face a saberist. You can make a few mistakes in a gunfight and survive, but that's not the case here.

In an alarming proportion of maps, there is no gunfight to begin with unless it's an FA. Projectile snipers, EE-3 snipers - M5 snipers, even, though those are a fair bit tamer than the rest because they only deal P3 levels of damage, but still - all it takes is one mistake or one lucky shot, and you're sitting in spectator mode for the rest of the round.

Let go of the walk button at the wrong moment - get pushed/pulled and die.

I know from experience that this often boils down to luck too. I've sometimes caught people because they walked for less than a fraction of a second, faster than I could possibly react - and other times they seem to be running around the whole time and I hit the precise moment when they walk.

Reload at the wrong moment - die.

M5 ARCs and snipers aside, the favored solution in these situations seems to be to reload after every shot unless it's an emergency.

Miss a shot when he swings at you - die.

This can be just as much skill as luck.

Panic when they use speed/mt/lightning/grip - die.

There is no 'panic when they use lightning/grip' scenario, though. Unless they screw up, there is nothing you can do that will save you; all you can possibly accomplish by 'panicking' is to get caught by a follow-up push/pull and thus reduce the impact of their screw-up. (Similarly, there's not a lot of room for panicking against speed - particularly lunges - or mind tricks. Against speed, either you manage to maintain accuracy/sidestep out of the way, or you don't. Against mind tricks, there's nothing you can do if he manages to get at your flank before your spray locates him, because it is not humanly possible to make a 90+ degree turn and still reliably hit the attacker.)

And while some classes are indeed too forgiving (clone, wookerino, deka), gunning is definitely not "75% luck". Maybe you got this idea because, as you said, you are a bad gunner.

Some weapons like the EE-3 (if properly used) or M5 are a lot more predictable, but I can see where he's coming from when dealing with long-range combat on a clone, an E-11 or a T-21. If you want to maximize your accuracy, you have to pray to the RNG gods that the enemy doesn't score a few good hits (assuming he doesn't know about maximizing his own accuracy) while you're immobilized. If you want to maximize the chance that you're not going to get hit, you have to pray to the RNG gods that you score a few good hits.

Also, how come you still complain about proj as a saberist? It's close to useless against you this patch.

Not quite so useless if there's a saberist (or a competent grenadier, I suppose) being backed up by the sniper - one misstep and your corpse is tossed away by a bullet. Besides which, there's still the impact it has on gunner-vs-gunner combat.