My thoughts on *new* sabers & combat

[delethial]

I played a lot of JK2 muliplayer and I did well. Even if everyone in the world is better than me I still think i've played enough of the old and the new to make an interesting insight I've had more public.

 

I'm playing on Jedi Knight difficulty using NPC spawns in 2 and 3 cpu vs me battles.

 

This is actually quite tough for me because it just "takes" a long time to kill 3 guys and remain evasive enough to their attacks. But from trying all the sabers offered I think I've found a "valid" mid point.

 

Simply, the saber staff makes a average or beginner player "better" at saber duels What or how much better is, is up to the person. But a "skilled" saber duelist will find a single saber (if they let you change styles in-mission, WTH LA??) much more effective for saber dueling.

 

For player vs blasters, storm troopers etc....either the dual sabers or the saber staff...seem to me more flexible. The dual sabers might actually be better on the harder modes because they let you put more damage on a target per swing (using the horizontal sweeping move). The saber staff comes with the advantage of covering more of the sphere-of-damage around your character. However, I still find medium/light to be as effective as I need it for Jedi Master difficulty as long as I don't fight in saber battles.

 

But when the "semi-crafty" AI** gets a saber on jedi master I think that a strong saber style serves you best regardless of how many opponents you have.

 

 

For those of you who can't make strong style "work", in JK2 it was quite a pain to use when vs. storm troopers but it works wonders in saber matches. A simple starter tip would be use the fact that your swing takes 3-4 seconds to complete so that you can "draw" the path your opponent moves along.

 

 

**I say "semi-crafty" because I'd have hoped to get a more "life-like" experince out of the saber battles considering that since they trade new content over a new engine they could have beefed the AI. As it stands I think they gave the AI all the moves the player has and simply added them in to the AI logic. I'm very sympatetic to the fact that good AI is extremly hard to write, especially in a game combining ranger (laser) combat with melee (sabers) but I'd have expected a tad more from Raven.

[MattJedi]

The Reborn are greatly improved man, they work together and kill you very quickly if your not prepared, the gunners however well, il have to wait for the full version to see about that. Right now they are kind of push overs.

[azure79]

I think I agree with you. Though I'm sure I'm not the greatest Jedi Knight player, I have spent many hours in single player and multiplayer(duels only) and I have to say, for the JA demo the saber staff and dual sabers make the game a lot easier then a single saber.

 

Of course I'm not saying that the single saber is ineffective, it just takes a lot more skill to use IMHO. I think that because the saberstaff and the dual saber offer more 'twirly moves' that once initiated don't stop until they've run their course. When playing through with the saberstaff, I found 'crouch+forward+primary' highly effective that in is was fast, hit in different multiple spots in rapid succession thus making it harder to defend against and couldn't really be deflected off course with a well timed saber movement. I would mostly wind that move up and run evasively towards the enemy saberists and I would win 95 percent of the time.

 

Dual sabers are different yet similar in that they offer a rapid succession of attacks and a 'twirly' move that sports the same advantages metioned above.

 

Single sabers on the other hand are frequently deflected and don't really have any moves that offer a rapid succession of hits. I know there is light style, but those movements can be deflected by enemy saberists, leaving you wide open. I guess my point is that single saber movements must be executed with some sort of plan in mind and also with some understanding of what kind of move will result from what combination of keys, thus requiring some amount of skill.

[MattJedi]

Believe me dude you need to have strategy with the others too, there all balanced really well, trying to classify each is fooling yourself, they all work to the same potential, none is better then the other.

 

It's gonna all depend on the player, not the weapon. Right now my situation is I am not very good with the staff or dual sabers, (really suck with dual) but I can kill all the reborn with strong stance, also if you keep pressing attack + strafe right or strafe left you can pretty much repeatedly swing the same attack over and over again. So as far as attacking goes there all even I think.

[StormHammer]

Well, I've tried all three types of Sabers on Medium stance so far, and I did a lot better with Dual and Single sabers. I wasn't so good with the Saberstaff - but then I've never been much of a kicker. The crouch+forward+attack1 move for the staff was cool though.

 

I think I agree with Kidso in that the sabers all seem to be well-balanced at least against the AI opponents. The saberstaff did not appear to be as strong at blocking blaster fire - more shots seemed to get through my defences. Also, you have to be really careful with the butterfly move on narrow ledges, as I discovered several times.

 

How the sabers will compare to each other when up against human players online is something else, of course. I'm sure they've tried to balance them effectively in MP while trying to retain similar moves to SP.

 

One thing I did seem to notice is that when I tried the 'katas' for each saber type, it did not seem to have as great an impact on enemy AI as their katas had on me. Indeed, there were a few times when I had just started a kata, and a single slice from an enemy killed me stone dead, even with some shields intact. That didn't seem quite right, to me. *shrugs*

 

The forward saber thrust seems to do quite a bit of damage. A few of those well-landed, followed up by a finishing swipe, seems to be very effective in taking down most of the AI enemies. The cartwheel down-slice can also be effective at an opportune moment.

 

Overall, I'm impressed by most of the new moves, and I found myself using the whole range of moves at my disposal all of the time, with every saber type. The enemies are definitely challenging, and require more thought and timing to take them down.