TO RAVEN- BladeWorks (BWN) opinion on multiplayer gameplay

[Master DarkStar]

This is our well considered opinion on what is currently wrong with JKA's multiplayer gameplay. We have spent many many hours diagnosing / testing JKA gameplay and while we don't see any major problems, we do see a number of small problems that cause wide ranging imbalances.

 

The parry factor for dual/staff sabers should be decreased by about 50%. It is very hard to time an attack and get through a dual / staff defense, let alone a combo attack.

 

The time it takes for dual saber to recover after swing needs to be greatly increased. Right now dual can be spammed in a way where all incoming attacks are blocked and anyone who gets close loses 60HPs or more...

 

Staff recovery time needs to be slightly increased.

 

There is a bug in hit detection that causes either hits to pass through ones enemy without registering a hit at all, or for a hit to be registered but do almost no damage (1-8HP hits when doing a body shot from close range).

 

Single sabers when in ready stance has almost no defensive ability to block incoming attacks. Ready stance "auto block" should be increased for single saber. Dual and staff saber do not have this problem.

 

Damage scales are imbalanced. Single saber damage seems about right (blue could be increased a tad), but dual and staff damage is way to high. My testing shows that a single hit with staff or dual can do as much as 100HP damage (although rare) add to this the fact that these styles are much faster and have a larger hit area makes them way over powered.

 

Single saber katas seem ok.

 

But the dual saber forward special attack needs to have a damage cap set. This move should never do more than 48HP damage, ideally it would be allowed to hit up to 4 times for 12HP each. Dual saber kata damage is perhaps a tad high, but the real problem is that spinning also spins the sabers.. causing them to hit more than they should.

 

Staff "fairy dance" (front and side) attacks do too much damage in general and should not do any damage during the last second of the moves animation.

 

That about sums it up, thanks for your time.

 

Master DarkStar

Master Moria

[ http://www.bladeworks.net ]

[Karn]

good info!

[MuRaSaMuNe]

I believe the saber damage is location based. I've seen yellow style hit anywhere from 10 damage to 100 damage. The red swings undersweep (back+right+fire) is very long range and can do large damage and is nearly unblockable. This is a great counter to the dual saber specials and the staff specials. You really have to play around with the single saber and other stances/stlyes/sabers, they are fairly well balanced. You can hit big damage with almost any stance now... and there are counters for every special attack and kata. It's really not that difficult to defeat a staff/dual saber wielding foe. I normally see single saber wielders top the charts in FFA on my clans server and I fail to see how the staff and dual sabers are over powered at this point.

[Master DarkStar]

Our tests suggest that damage variance is mostly unchanged wether g_locationbaseddamage is on or off..

[StormHammer]

If all of those changes were made, then in my view it would completely unbalance saber combat.

 

For example, you say you want to decrease parries by half, slow the recovery, and nerve the damage of the Dual and Saberstaff, while at the same time increasing these things for the Single Saber.

 

That would lead to an Uber-Single Saber that can take out Dual and Saberstaff wielders at a whim - while they are windmilling around doing half the damage. Basically the opposite of the situation you perceive to exist now.

 

I'm not saying that the sabers are completely balanced as they are, but I think if any tweaks are needed they should be minor.

 

Bugs should obviously be addressed - I too have encountered a few situations where I've landed a direct hit on an opponent, and they've taken little or no damage. So I agree that some of the hit detection needs tweaking.

 

But all I can say is that I've seen skilled Single-saber wielders take down both Dualers and Saberstaffers with ease with a few red stance swings - and take very little damage themselves. And the better players I've seen on Duel servers switch quickly between the different stances to make the most of all the special moves and katas at their disposal, which frankly outnumber the moves a Dual Saber or Saberstaff wielder can perform.

[Master DarkStar]

I am suggesting that staff damage is equal to that of single yellow.. Seeing as staff would be faster and double ended it would still be very powerful. I am suggestig that dual do blue damage, but can obviously double hit.

 

The changes I suggest do make dual and staff less strong that is true. But these changes would in no way make them any weaker than single. Right now the only way to beat a dual or staff users is to use red... swing... hit them and jump away.... repeat... The changes I suggest would allow for a more tactful fighting.

 

I have more or less tested changes I suggested above.. and staff and dual is actully more fun to use not less.

 

If you want to test for yourself try the following

 

d_saberSPStyleDamage 0

g_saberdamagescale .37

d_saberghoul2collision 0

 

Now these settings do not fix all of the problems I outline.. and actully add a couple new ones.. but they do show you how dual / staff can be made more balanced against single while also making them much funner to play..

[StormHammer]

I'll be sure to try it out when I get a chance.

[Luc Solar]

Imho saber damage should always be at least x 2.

 

You're talking solely about duels, right?

[JarJarBinks]

Originally posted by Master DarkStar

Right now the only way to beat a dual or staff users is to use red... swing... hit them and jump away.... repeat... The changes I suggest would allow for a more tactful fighting.

 

Thats not true, I can easily kill average skilled dual/staff users using the single yellow stance, and sometimes even blue. You just have to wait for them to mess up or get them from an angle. Doing a roll stab tends to be a fatal error for dual/staff users, because I simply move to the side then do an overhead/diagonal slash and they take about 30-40 damage. Also using the dual/staff katas is a very bad idea unless the person you are doing them to is about halfway through their own kata. If someone with dual sabers does a kata I just either roll stab, or I wait untill their sabers are done spinning and just begin to return to them, then I do a kata and that usually kills them instantly, however I get killed alot if they're very close to me and start doing their kata. And for a staff I just do the same thing, I roll stab or as soon as he is done spinning I do a kata and he's toast.

 

The only changes to the dual/staff that I think need done are lower staff defense (not much), duals should do blue damage like you already mentioned, when you do a kata with the dual sabers you should be prevented from turning like in singleplayer, because again as you said spinning when your doing the kata does even more damage, and possibly higher single saber defense, depending on whether or not that would make single sabers too powerful.

[Kurgan]

See, as a veteran of the JK1 and MotS communities I always thought that sabers should kill in 1-2 hits.

 

So for me, g_Saberdamagescale 2 is closer to the "real thing."

 

And I leave g_sabertracesaberfirst OFF (that's increased blocking if you don't know what it does).

 

Raven says use Saberdamagescale 2 for non Duels, 1 for Duels, to make the duels last longer. Though personally I use 2 in duels as well, I've grown to really like it. Fast and furious, and everything feels much more balanced.

 

 

Location based damage is in JA (it wasn't in JK2). Head shots do the most damage, followed by body hits and limb hits do the least.

 

You can turn OFF location based damage so its just like JK2, meaning all hits anywhere on the body do the same damage.

[Luc Solar]

Is there a way to switch on the old JO hitbox so that I'm able to hit **** with GUNS (not sabers)?

 

I remember running around in JO with my ph34rsome charged up Bryar and killing Jedi's right and left. Now it seems that every damn shot goes between the legs or something.. not that I'm a great gunner, but.. man.. I can't hit anything in JA!

[MuRaSaMuNe]

Originally posted by Kurgan

See, as a veteran of the JK1 and MotS communities I always thought that sabers should kill in 1-2 hits.

 

I agree, I love fast FFAs and easy killn' . Fights tend to get boring if they extend forever and if the saber damage is lowered people can easily kill someone you spent so long weakening up and it gets annoying.

[Doctor Shaft]

I agree with the 1-2 hits theory.

 

Promod always had this method, and some people that played vanilla style had their settings this way as well.

 

The reason why these settings are good is because you have less things to worry about.

 

For instance, even if the staff and the dual sabers can parry alot or whatever, when you only gotta tap then 1-2 times, it doesn't really matter. Just so long as you are diligent about getting precise hits in with your single saber, you'll win the fight.

 

 

The problem with 'duelers' in general is that too many of them enjoy these 5-6 hit kill games. Of course, these 5-6 hits can always easily be "Drained" back before they become lethal if you have the full force going. You could theoretically make matches last forever, unless you're willing to commit yourself to the fight. 1-2 hits you don't have that much of a problem. 5-6 hits, you have to make sure that the blocking for all the stances is as tight and as neat as possible. With high damage, the blocking should be neat and predictable, but you don't need it to be as tight, because... as i said, what does it matter if so and so has a staff that parries a lot. I just have to get my hit in twice. Or once.

 

So yes, I am a supporter of duels and games where the sword fighting is 'semi' realistic. I.e. - if i know how to break your defenses, you're going to die, quickly, like it would work in the 'real world'. The farther away it gets from that '4-6 hits' or even just '3-4' hits is just too blech for me.

 

This has nothing to do with the guys thread though. Actually... it does. My solution to you, dear sir, is just jack up the saber damage to x2. Trust me, a lot of your dislike for certain things will disappear... because now you have a solution to your problem. Guy likes to kata alot? no problem, tap him twice, game over.

 

Promod for life by the way. Just had to say it. Best saber mod ever! Of course, it's not available for Jedi Academy, nor will it ever be.

[Enjoi9187]

What makes me mad, is that single saber is essentially 1 against 2. Two, being the staff or duel, making it an unfair advantage. Try this in regular mode: Take a staff, and go NUTS, left, right, left right, and have a person using yellow TRY to hit you. At least one of the two blades blocks EVERYTHING. You need to get around to their back, where as they can just just make you block with one of the sides of their staff, then slice back across with the other side, damaging you. You should not have to try to get around TWO sabers in order to damage someone, where as they only have to hit your saber with one side, then come across with the other, hurting you.

[DarthCobra]

Well I'm going to avoid a long reply by simply saying that the new sabers are BROKE! The radom damage and super blocking from these new sabers makes using single that much more work. If people remember jk2 in 1.02 there was a problem with the red saber style that would cause ppl too loose insane amounts of health from "BUMPING" into the saber at all. I think we have the same kinda problem with both of these new sabers. And they certinanly seem to block entirely too much I find my saber going right thru ppl alot more than i find acceptable. All I can say is i do hope this will be addressed in a patch soon.

[JaredSyn]

The gameplay is bad.Period.Raven ruined what could have been a good game.

[SpaceButler14]

I agree about the single-saber damage. You can win with red against the new sabers pretty well, but aside from yellow against a staff sometimes, the same red standoff tactics apply but even more so to JA.