V1.4.4 Update Released!

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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.
Developer Comments said:
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.
Developer Comments said:
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.
Developer Comments said:
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.
Developer Comments said:
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
Developer Comments said:
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°.
Developer Comments said:
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.
Developer Comments said:
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.
Developer Comments said:
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 )
Code:
--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
 
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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
Uh, no? Let's take dotf for example, the most played map in the universe. If you go main, then sure enough, you are probably gonna get sniped. Because guess what? That's a long, open hallway with little cover. However, if your jedi manage to clear generator and open side doors, you get access to fed through hangar. And in fed/t-junk, snipers are suddenly not useful anymore, and real gunfights start to happen.

My point is, people need to use their heads more and use the strong points of their classes, instead of just applying the same strategy to all situations against all classes. If you know that imps have snipers camping in main, then DON'T GO THERE as a gunner. Or if you do, at least come up with a good plan. Get someone to throw a few sonic nades at them, while at the same time clones move up and spam corners and blob sith.

one lucky shot
boils down to luck
as much skill as luck
Mate, I think you give too much credit to luck. In my eyes, luck barely, if at all, influences the gameplay. Being blown up by a nade is not bad luck, it's you not using your eyes/ears to detect it and hide. Being alt-naded and then sniped is not bad luck, it's you being out of position so much that they can do this combo on you. Being sniped while moving up the corridor is not bad luck, it's you not suppresing the other side, making sure enemies don't peek. Being force pushed is not bad luck, and getting flinched isn't bad luck as well, it's you being so predictable that the gunner can keep up with you. I can go on.

Luck is surviving a superpush because of clunky level geometry. Luck is randomly pushing a nade/rocket exactly where you need it to go with Push 2. Luck is getting kylebug and confusing the hell out of your enemies. Luck is !spin event.

Everything else is aim, situational awareness, level knowledge and teamwork.
 

DaloLorn

Movie Battles II Team Retired
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Uh, no? Let's take dotf for example, the most played map in the universe. If you go main, then sure enough, you are probably gonna get sniped. Because guess what? That's a long, open hallway with little cover. However, if your jedi manage to clear generator and open side doors, you get access to fed through hangar. And in fed/t-junk, snipers are suddenly not useful anymore, and real gunfights start to happen.

One Mando or one droideka are typically enough to completely lock down the secondary objective, and unless the Imperials are already pushing towards the hangar (which they very well might do if your team starts camping the side doors waiting for someone to unlock them) there's no chance they're not going to make it back into fed by the time people back out of main/gen to begin their attack. Suddenly there's a large open area which is only marginally more hospitable than main, and there's still the possibility that people will snipe from the T-Junction door.

Whatever approach you try to take to the throne room after that, it's either another "long open hallway with little cover", or a narrow doorway where a sniper can just pop out and put a bullet between your eyes.

You basically need a good Jedi or two to rush the snipers, and another Jedi or two (or snipers of your own) to prevent any Sith from turning around and chasing the rushing Jedi. (I've actually done relatively well in these scenarios if my team could occupy the enemy Sith long enough.)

My point is, people need to use their heads more and use the strong points of their classes, instead of just applying the same strategy to all situations against all classes. If you know that imps have snipers camping in main, then DON'T GO THERE as a gunner. Or if you do, at least come up with a good plan. Get someone to throw a few sonic nades at them, while at the same time clones move up and spam corners and blob sith.

I typically don't - I either fall back and try to hold the hangar, or if I'm feeling particularly bold or believe there's nobody locking down side, I try to flank them. Unfortunately, this fails miserably because nobody ever listens to "don't go there you'll be slaughtered".

Getting three or more of your (presumably random) allies to go along with your plans typically winds up a lot like herding cats.

Mate, I think you give too much credit to luck. In my eyes, luck barely, if at all, influences the gameplay. Being blown up by a nade is not bad luck, it's you not using your eyes/ears to detect it and hide. Being alt-naded and then sniped is not bad luck, it's you being out of position so much that they can do this combo on you.

I did not once mention grenades. Unless the thrower knows how to trick me into running into the blast radius, they're fairly harmless in my experience. The most dangerous explosives in that respect are undoubtedly rockets, sonic mines and ARC grenade launchers, simply because there's not a lot of room for evasive action - but there's very little room for luck in it, either.

Being sniped while moving up the corridor is not bad luck it's you not suppresing the other side, making sure enemies don't peek.

Unless you're going in something along the lines of an 8v1 (or an effective 8v1 because your team is composed of idiots, I suppose), I'd consider 20-40 (heck, even 80!) HP a fair trade for instantly removing 150+ HP from an opponent and most likely removing him from the game altogether. In my experience, some people do think that way - personally, if I could actually use any MB2 sniper rifle aside from the scoped M5, I would definitely spend any round I played as a sniper just popping out of cover here and there, killing the enemy in exchange for taking a couple of shots from them. (And this is precisely what some of them do in reality.)

Being force pushed is not bad luck

It is if you do it at random intervals, for periods so brief that the Jedi doesn't even realize you're vulnerable. (I have done this, I have pushed people and then wondered how the hell that worked - which echoed their own sentiments.)

and getting flinched isn't bad luck as well, it's you being so predictable that the gunner can keep up with you.

No, it's more that not getting flinched by any half-decent gunner is really good luck. I consider flinching to be the norm, both when I'm a gunner and when I'm a saberist - it's why I rarely do anything other than deflecting and grenade-pushing these days, unless the enemy's already down on the floor.

Luck is !spin event.

I thought we all agreed that was sadism on the part of the RNG? ;)
 
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no guys. this saber system still bs.
u dont pb - u die. who is this for? ppl who are playing 24\7 on duel servers?
and because of this pb prevailing duels looks boring, also widening the gap between nerds and casuals.

in the end - why did u changed system at the 1st place? didn't see anyone complaining about old one.
this one just ain't fun.

imho ofc.
 
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no guys. this saber system still bs.
u dont pb - u die. who is this for? ppl who are playing 24\7 on duel servers?
and because of this pb prevailing duels looks boring, also widening the gap between nerds and casuals.

in the end - why did u changed system at the 1st place? didn't see anyone complaining about old one.
this one just ain't fun.

imho ofc.

Agreed. You should be able to hold mouse1 and kill everyone.

oh wait i forgot there are duals and cyan.
rekt
 

{Δ} Achilles

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Uh, no? Let's take dotf for example, the most played map in the universe. If you go main, then sure enough, you are probably gonna get sniped. Because guess what? That's a long, open hallway with little cover. However, if your jedi manage to clear generator and open side doors, you get access to fed through hangar. And in fed/t-junk, snipers are suddenly not useful anymore, and real gunfights start to happen.

My point is, people need to use their heads more and use the strong points of their classes, instead of just applying the same strategy to all situations against all classes. If you know that imps have snipers camping in main, then DON'T GO THERE as a gunner. Or if you do, at least come up with a good plan. Get someone to throw a few sonic nades at them, while at the same time clones move up and spam corners and blob sith.




Mate, I think you give too much credit to luck. In my eyes, luck barely, if at all, influences the gameplay. Being blown up by a nade is not bad luck, it's you not using your eyes/ears to detect it and hide. Being alt-naded and then sniped is not bad luck, it's you being out of position so much that they can do this combo on you. Being sniped while moving up the corridor is not bad luck, it's you not suppresing the other side, making sure enemies don't peek. Being force pushed is not bad luck, and getting flinched isn't bad luck as well, it's you being so predictable that the gunner can keep up with you. I can go on.

Luck is surviving a superpush because of clunky level geometry. Luck is randomly pushing a nade/rocket exactly where you need it to go with Push 2. Luck is getting kylebug and confusing the hell out of your enemies. Luck is !spin event.

Everything else is aim, situational awareness, level knowledge and teamwork.

I can guarantee you, that if you went against my Jedi/Sith as a Soldier, the entire fight would boil down to you guessing, and would be 80% luck whether you flinch me spraying around or not. The 20% of not-luck is basically just footwork to dodge my swings. There is no skill on the side of a saberist in most of these saber v gunner fights, I just have to hope that you miss while I'm swingblocking, or that you won't guess which direction I move in.

Yesterday I was playing commander against an army of Clone/Hero spam, and do you know what was luck? Guessing which direction a hero will strafe (at Mach II I might add) and shooting in that direction before they even move in it. Anything that involves guessing boils down to mostly luck. Even if you think you're reading an opponent, that is still a form of luck. You're not really aiming, as much as you're having a bout of strafing. The same thing occurs with Proj rifle at long range, how do you know where they will go to lead them? Most Proj rifle matches at long range end up with just quantity of shots, and then someone gets lucky. The only thing you can do, is try to minimize the aspect of luck with strategies/gimmicks.

Anywho, I didn't realize that this game was a moba. That if someone was hiding around a corner with an insta nade, it is MY fault for clearly not expecting it. Can we get wards then?
 

{Δ} Achilles

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Agreed. You should be able to hold mouse1 and kill everyone.

oh wait i forgot there are duals and cyan.

Cyan is actually underpowered in this patch, alongside yellow. The BP drain on swinging with Cyan/Yellow is incredibly high, and you end up doing more damage to yourself than the opponent. Cyan is in a slightly better place than yellow though, because in order to use those two styles you have to rely heavily on shadow swinging, which cyan is better at. Blue/Duals are obscenely strong, followed by red/purple.
 

AaronAaron

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Cyan is actually underpowered in this patch, alongside yellow. The BP drain on swinging with Cyan/Yellow is incredibly high, and you end up doing more damage to yourself than the opponent. Cyan is in a slightly better place than yellow though, because in order to use those two styles you have to rely heavily on shadow swinging, which cyan is better at. Blue/Duals are obscenely strong, followed by red/purple.
Nah, I think Cyan is still up there with Blue and Staff. Even with its BP cost, you can literally just hit and evade before they even get a chance to react. I wouldnt say Cyan is OP, but it is very strong compared to other styles. (Based on how ive been using it)
 

{Δ} Achilles

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Nah, I think Cyan is still up there with Blue and Staff. Even with its BP cost, you can literally just hit and evade before they even get a chance to react. I wouldnt say Cyan is OP, but it is very strong compared to other styles. (Based on how ive been using it)

You can also do that with yellow, though. Shadow Swinging is strong on every style, but Cyan/Yellow are still rather crappy compared to the other styles. I think Staff is probably the most balanced style in the current patch, not too OP, not too weak.
 

AaronAaron

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You can also do that with yellow, though. Shadow Swinging is strong on every style, but Cyan/Yellow are still rather crappy compared to the other styles. I think Staff is probably the most balanced style in the current patch, not too OP, not too weak.
But at least Yellow users still have a chance of getting hit when they try to shadowswing. With Cyan, you can literally attack and get out of there before they even have a chance to touch their keys. Also, Staff is not balanced imo. Its a medium style and costs 4BP with each swing. It also is pretty fast, which doesnt really even anything out with its damage.
 

{Δ} Achilles

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But at least Yellow users still have a chance of getting hit when they try to shadowswing. With Cyan, you can literally attack and get out of there before they even have a chance to touch their keys. Also, Staff is not balanced imo. Its a medium style and costs 4BP with each swing. It also is pretty fast, which doesnt really even anything out with its damage.

You can kill a cyan shadow swinger, it isn't that difficult. Remember, you can run forward as fast as they can run sideways, so you simply need to time around their swings. The things that make Cyan slightly better at shadow swinging than yellow, are speed, and reach. However, cyan also has next to no damage compared to yellow, so it mostly evens out. Staff is weaker than Red/Purple/Duals/Blue, but stronger than Yellow/Cyan, so I use it as the measurement of balanced. It is a functional style, that doesn't punish the user, nor does it require more skill to beat than to use.
 
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I can guarantee you, that if you went against my Jedi/Sith as a Soldier, the entire fight would boil down to you guessing, and would be 80% luck whether you flinch me spraying around or not. The 20% of not-luck is basically just footwork to dodge my swings. There is no skill on the side of a saberist in most of these saber v gunner fights, I just have to hope that you miss while I'm swingblocking, or that you won't guess which direction I move in.

Yesterday I was playing commander against an army of Clone/Hero spam, and do you know what was luck? Guessing which direction a hero will strafe (at Mach II I might add) and shooting in that direction before they even move in it. Anything that involves guessing boils down to mostly luck. Even if you think you're reading an opponent, that is still a form of luck. You're not really aiming, as much as you're having a bout of strafing. The same thing occurs with Proj rifle at long range, how do you know where they will go to lead them? Most Proj rifle matches at long range end up with just quantity of shots, and then someone gets lucky. The only thing you can do, is try to minimize the aspect of luck with strategies/gimmicks.

Anywho, I didn't realize that this game was a moba. That if someone was hiding around a corner with an insta nade, it is MY fault for clearly not expecting it. Can we get wards then?
So by your logic, almost everything comes down to "luck". If that was the case, then new players would be as effective as veterans. However, when you join a server, what you see is skilled guys consistently getting to the top of the scoreboard, while noobs struggle to have a positive k/d ratio.

And yes, not expecting an enemy behind a corner is your fault. You could have put a few shots into this corner to scare the potential ambusher, you could have asked jedi to use sense, you could have just brought a teammate with you. But you decided to just run into it blindly. It's your fault, and yours only.
 

DaloLorn

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So by your logic, almost everything comes down to "luck". If that was the case, then new players would be as effective as veterans. However, when you join a server, what you see is skilled guys consistently getting to the top of the scoreboard, while noobs struggle to have a positive k/d ratio.

Achilles' 80% figure starts to drop the more capable the players involved are (more drastically so if one side has a skill advantage), but I'd still give it at least a 40% relevance when both sides are equally skilled. (Let's not forget, yesterday I seemed to do fairly well in most of our encounters - at least, when I wasn't being sniped in the back, sneaky Mando. :p)
 

{Δ} Achilles

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So by your logic, almost everything comes down to "luck". If that was the case, then new players would be as effective as veterans. However, when you join a server, what you see is skilled guys consistently getting to the top of the scoreboard, while noobs struggle to have a positive k/d ratio.

In my experience, K/D in open mode means almost nothing. Comex ends up getting high K/Ds by just sitting in the back and letting his team do most of the work, then mopping up easy kills. Hell, I've seen some really crappy players get really high K/Ds, actually. Just look at some of the AI players. I myself have even gone 30-1 a few times as BH, just spamming Proj rifle, and I'm a shit-tier gunner.

And yes, not expecting an enemy behind a corner is your fault. You could have put a few shots into this corner to scare the potential ambusher, you could have asked jedi to use sense, you could have just brought a teammate with you. But you decided to just run into it blindly. It's your fault, and yours only.

Lol, scare a potential ambusher by wasting ammo shooting around a corner. So, I need to have a teammate with me to deal with a single POTENTIAL person behind a corner? This is now a requirement? Because even if I'm incredibly careful, it doesn't matter, because if I'm anywhere within 20 feet of the corner, I'm in insta/conc nade range, Wookiee guaranteed death range, or ion blob range. I'd prefer Sith/Jedi were behind every corner because atleast I can react to that, and interrupt them.
 

StarWarsGeek

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Yesterday I was playing commander against an army of Clone/Hero spam, and do you know what was luck? Guessing which direction a hero will strafe (at Mach II I might add) and shooting in that direction before they even move in it. Anything that involves guessing boils down to mostly luck. Even if you think you're reading an opponent, that is still a form of luck. You're not really aiming, as much as you're having a bout of strafing. The same thing occurs with Proj rifle at long range, how do you know where they will go to lead them? Most Proj rifle matches at long range end up with just quantity of shots, and then someone gets lucky. The only thing you can do, is try to minimize the aspect of luck with strategies/gimmicks.

"Reading an opponent" is a skill. Just because you just randomly guess doesn't mean that's what other people are doing. Identifying people's patterns and predicting their movement is a key part of gunning (and sabering too) in MB2. If this is a skill you don't have, that might explain why you're "a shit-tier gunner." :p

Lol, scare a potential ambusher by wasting ammo shooting around a corner.

Pre-fire is also a very important part of gunning in a game where shots have travel time. Goes with the above point of predicting (not guessing) what people will do.
 
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Tempest

Gameplay Design
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IMO, Staff is probably the best match for Blue in public (Purple can be if you're really good with it but it's an uphill battle now compared to before where it was flipped for which style was likely to win). It has the same cost for swings, nearly the same defensive values, more damage, more swings (thus you can always parry and then get an extra hit in on a Blue user if you're smart about your swings), and counters better/more cleanly. Staff also generally wants people swinging at the range that Blue likes to hover at so there's that as well. Main issue with the swing drains and Blue is that it can get instant consecutives in without actually burning its own ACM (and thus negating the whole point of wanting to build ACM up and making it so that Blue can't just parry people without worry).
 
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