Summary of the bug: So this bug has been around for a year at least, decided to post it. When charging a shot with westars if you use flame thrower, after that you lose the charge, whereas you used to be able to fire the charge shot right after you stopped using flame thrower.
Steps to duplicating the bug: 1. start charging westar pistols
2. use flame thrower
3. after you release class special 2, try to release the charge shot and you will see that the charge was just lost, if you keep holding alt fire, you will start charging a new charge shot instead of holding the charge you started charging before flaming
For reference to see how it should work, do the westar charge interrupted by launching a rocket, you'll see how smooth it is.
1. start charging pistols
2. fire rocket
3. release charge (notice you can release it any time, even during the rocket launch animation, you don't even need to recover from that)
Also I'll name some other small bugs which are on my mind at the moment.
Pistol 2 charge shoot drains too much ammo. A full charge takes 28 ammo, and it should only take 4 (well used to take that much years ago).
Wallhacks in FA are broken: you can see your allies through the walls, but not the enemies, and when the enemies are in your sight, they glow yellowish instead of red. An example is um_lavaparty TECH class.
Not really a bug AFAIK since using flamethrower basically registers as changing weapons. If it used to work like that then it means it got changed and fixed
It's a shame if that's how it's intended. I checked the 1.4-1.5 patch release threads, nothing is mentioned about westars in those, so this was either a ninja change or unintended side effect of another change.
Only in 1.4 we have:
Change: Wrist Blaster no longer has an initial delay before firing. Reduced ammo before overload from 5 to 3 and decreased its regeneration rate from 1 ammo per 3 seconds to 1 ammo per 5 seconds.
Maybe this caused the change for holding charge. Anyway I forgot to say that wrist blaster resets your charge too, while you could fire wrist shots during your westar charge before. Here's an example @0:53:
(it's not that easy to see, but there's a wrist shot fired before the full charge is released [this isn't possible anymore, this clip is from 1.3 I guess])
Since there's nothing in the change log regarding the charge loss, I'm not convinced that it's not a bug. Also while you're flaming, you can still visually see the charge of your pistol, only for it to disappear when you stop flaming, it doesn't look like something that's intended. You should lose the westar charge at the moment when you start using flame thrower, that would indicate that you can't charge with flame thrower.
Anyway the devs will decide whether it's a bug or not. Imo westars should be able to hold charge both with flame thrower and wrist shots, even then ee3 would still outclass westars by a lot.
Then, in my opinion, the charge should auto-fire when you start using the flamethrower, since that'll make it absolutely clear to the players that they can't charge while flaming. Or we should at least make it so the weapons don't show a charge visual while flamethrower is active, and don't charge at all. So the previous charge would just be killed and not restarted.
Random aside: The way that the wrist blaster used to have a delay between click and fire probably made it more reliable to use in a way, because it put your left arm in a more consistent position before the shot was fired (from your left hand's position). Whereas right now the shot comes from wherever your left hand happens to be at the time.That's just a bit of trivia,I need to push for my dumbed-down version of Wrist Blaster aim mechanics to get tested/patched-in already.
but first I need to add that little "warning beep" noise after the second-to-last-shot is fired, and recharge-beeps, cuz those'll also make Wrist Blaster way more usable without just removing the "overload the weapon to fire one extra shot" mechanic which I think is kind of cool
Then, in my opinion, the charge should auto-fire when you start using the flamethrower, since that'll make it absolutely clear to the players that they can't charge while flaming.
Or we should at least make it so the weapons don't show a charge visual while flamethrower is active, and don't charge at all. So the previous charge would just be killed and not restarted.
If you mean that the weapon shows the charged effect whilst the flamethrower is going, and then just disappears once flamethrower is turned off then what you say is correct. The charge should stop drawing when the flamethrower is used.
I agree. There really was nothing wrong with how it worked before, and that was back when Jedi weren't just gods that could run through any class they pleased.
The idea that it was so game breaking it had to be taken out is staggeringly stupid to me when you consider that it worked that way for over a decade and no one ever complained about it.
The idea that it was so game breaking it had to be taken out is staggeringly stupid to me when you consider that it worked that way for over a decade and no one ever complained about it.
1. I suspect it wasn't taken out on purpose despite the fact that the team claims it was intentional, but as a side effect when they changed the wrist blaster in 1.4. As you said it wasn't game breaking and nobody ever complaind about it on the forums, so then why would the team spend any time on taking this feature out, when we know that the coding manpower of the team is very limited? The idea that the dev team intentionally took this out of the game doesn't make any sense to me, unless it caused some technical errors, like it led to server crashes.
But ok, let's assume it was intentional, then why wasn't it in the change log?
I checked the 1.4-1.5 patch release threads, nothing is mentioned about westars in those, so this was either a ninja change or unintended side effect of another change.
Only in 1.4 we have:
Change: Wrist Blaster no longer has an initial delay before firing. Reduced ammo before overload from 5 to 3 and decreased its regeneration rate from 1 ammo per 3 seconds to 1 ammo per 5 seconds.
I know not everything is documented in the change logs, like ep3 obi wan's taunts change every patch and it's never in the change logs and there's no problem with that, cause it's a minor thing. But there's a big difference between being able to let's say kill 2 soldiers with 2 wrist shots while you charge up your westars to kill a 3rd target and not being able to do that, so this should have been on the change log.
This feature was known and used only by a minority of the playerbase, so it also makes sense that during the beta tests they didn't notice that by changing the wrist blaster, they messed up the westar's ability to hold the charge. Or if they noticed it then they didn't care about it, they could think that nobody used this anyway, so nobody will care, which brings me to my next point.
2. Nobody cares about westars. Nobody cares about it, cause nobody uses it. Granted you play mando, why use westars when you can use ee3? So totally unreasonable changes can be done to it (intentional or accidental, doesn't matter), there won't be much response from the community. 1.4 came out on May 7, 2016, and it's likely the patch which messed up or "fixed" the charge holding ability of westars. I posted this thread about 2 years after that, then 3-4 months pass until 2 more reasonable players show some interest.
Let's pretend for a minute that this change involved the saber system. On the day of the release a complaining thread is made, explaining how this has ruined the game, then the thread explodes and becomes at least 5 pages long where players talk about devs as if they were the lowest form of life, and day 5 newbs explain how this change has ruined their 4 day long experience. Then there would have been 5 changes made already addressing the issue in the following patches. But this is about westars, and nobody cares about westars. If the players don't care then the devs won't care either (not true in all cases of course, but here it applies). The stupidest changes will remain in the game if the players don't really complain about it, this is why we still have so low fp drains on blocking jedi/sith.
It was a very neat little combo that not a lot of people even used to begin with. It gave westars a higher skill ceiling and more opportunities for varied gameplay. I really see absolutely no reason to remove it, considering that EE-3 is way better than westars, yet it hasn't been nerfed at all.
It was a very neat little combo that not a lot of people even used to begin with. It gave westars a higher skill ceiling and more opportunities for varied gameplay. I really see absolutely no reason to remove it, considering that EE-3 is way better than westars, yet it hasn't been nerfed at all.
EE-3 has been nerfed though? Off the top of my head,
- Sniper fp drains were lowered and running fp drains were lowered, so you can't 2-shot running jedi anymore
- Current dodge negates snipes (and blaster-fire in general i guess), and ee3's primary fire can't really compete with p3 or a280 esp. considering mando's size & slow speed
(on the other hand proj fp drain stayed as it was afaik, and p3 fp drain was buffed)
Jeob brought up good points about the lack of transparency in the change log regarding an important feature, and multiple players have voiced why they think that the original functionality of the Westars was better. Instead of explaining your reasoning regarding the in-game change and the lack of a notification in the changelog, and having a positive interaction with players who obviously care about the state of the game, you have instead chosen to passive aggressively re-quote one of your previous posts that barely even addresses the majority of the posts made in this thread.
You are acting as though the usage of the mechanic was entirely unintended behavior when you have multiple posters telling you that it is a feature they miss. If you don't think the feature is balanced, and should removed, that's fine, but at least explain that and engage with your community instead of staying locked in your ivory tower. And, of course, you completely ignored the fact that the change was never addressed or added to the change log. At least own your mistakes. You're a small dev team for a mod, nobody will crucify you for admitting you forgot to add a change to a changelog. Really, Defiant, this shouldn't be so hard.
I don't exactly remember when the change was made, but I remember it being during the beginning of my current activity period in the team. I didn't make the changelogs around this time period so I am not 100% sure. However my educated guess based on the timing of it is this line from 1.4.5.
Fix: Doing specific input combinations with weapon swapping no longer allows for instant attacks.
So, just a fault of not properly communicating what was changed. We don't intentionally leave things out of the changelogs. I also remember the conversation involving fixing it as a whole mod-wide even though flamethrower + westar was a decent chunk of the conversation and the main place people would notice it. And that is what we did, and hence the changelog wording being about the mod as a whole, rather than something specific to just mando.
Either way as it stands currently. It is not a bug as it currently functions, and is intentional. If you disagree with that and want it to be an exception to the rule then you are free to voice your opinion towards that.
Is what Defiant stated the consensus of the development team?
When did the development team come to the conclusion that the use of any wrist attachment and the Westar pistols should be mutually exclusive? Where and how was this expressed? Was it in a manner that could be disseminated easily?
What I suspect is that many people who are against its removal are like me in that they were clueless that this was the vision the developers had. They played the game, realised that this synergy was possible and incorporated it into their game-play. It allowed them to bait a Jedi to push/swing with the flame thrower into a charged Westar shot, or it allowed them to burst with the charged Westar shot and wrist laser. The combination was interesting to experiment with, added another layer of possibility to the class and was fun to use.
Whether this was game-breaking or not is another matter, but to add to the pile of anecdotes: no, I don't believe it was overpowered and I also did not see it being complained about.
The frustrating part is that this combination had been allowed for so long that I think many people just accepted it as a part of the game. Now we are discovering this is not the case. We are being told that this technique of charging the Westars then using the flame thrower/wrist laser is a crutch for misplaying. A mistake. Defiant's response hasn't been addressed appropriately because the opinion's of the players in this thread and the vision of the development team are two completely different images.
When I first read the line that he likes to quote repeatedly as though we are thick and do not understand the letters manifesting on the page, I wanted to reply with something less savoury.
To be explicit, Defiant's reasoning is getting a bad reaction because he states that this change is to prevent players benefiting from a 'misplay'. However, this 'misplay' was the actual 'play' to begin with. This reasoning is backed up by a seemingly (to us) off the cuff decision that the wrist attachments and Westars should not be used at the same time.
Consider the analogy: I am now the lead developer of the MBII team. It has been my belief for a very long time that only one force power should be active at any time as this will emphasise the importance of using the right force power at the right time. Myself and my colleagues have discussed this internally for a while. In the next patch of MBII the player-base is hit with a change that means mind trick and speed can no longer be used together. The first thing they will do is scream at you that you have removed a portion of their game-play. A silver-tongued persuader, I attempt to quieten the din by suggesting that all this time they were misplaying by using speed and mind trick and it was something grotesquely unfair/not in alignment with the developer's vision.
I will succumb to being the petulant child for a moment. I have played this game for a long time. Over the last few patches my interest and optimism for this game has waned. Whether I am very bad, or very good, I feel like I am always seeing something completely different to the development team. My eyes disagree with a lot of the changes that have been made, or the decisions you announce to make. Especially those concerning Jedi/Sith. At this point I don't really think my saying is going to have an impact on the course of Movie Battles II. I think it is best that I don't either. I feel so disconnected from the ethos of MBII balance and it is just physically impossible for me to appreciate gutting the bowcaster whilst simultaneously letting a wookiee with strength 3 be affected by lightning (that, or the sounds are bugged and I cannot hear it shoot). Or why it is OK for insta-swings to occur off of blaster-fire.
So do what you do, I don't really care whether this will be reintroduced or not. Perhaps it is me at fault and this combination was obnoxiously overpowered, deadly, whatever epithet.
My question to the development team is why you thought this combination was so negative to the experience of every player that its removal was justified?
When I first read the line that he likes to quote repeatedly as though we are thick and do not understand the letters manifesting on the page, I wanted to reply with something less savoury.
This type of behavior is what most of us have come to expect from the dev team as a whole. In this thread we have multiple community members making long and thought out posts voicing their concerns about the change of a gameplay mechanic, and instead of engaging in a dialogue and explaining his reasons for the change, he spams the same quote over and over again as if it is somehow relevant to the conversation. People have told Defiant multiple times that it was intended behavior, and asked why he felt that this intended behavior was unbalanced and needed to be removed from the game, and again, all he does is spam some shitty quote from his own post isn't even relevant.
Despite all of this, I'm sure Defiant still has himself convinced that this commmunity's slow death isn't directly related to action after action from the Dev team that highlights both their arrogance and incompetence. At least Mace is here trying to fan the flames and actually explain some of the issues at hand to the community, such as the perceived lack of a note in the changelog. That being said, you know it's bad news when a self-admitted autistic person is showing more social grace than the head of the dev team.
