Enhanced WIP: Saber System

[keshire]

I'm thinking that goes without saying. We don't REALLY have "the force". So we can't be expected to block like it.

[BloodRiot]

Razor.. you might have something going there.

 

I support that partial manual / partial auto blocking deal.

[razorace]

It sounds like we might be onto something when we get 3 votes of support within about an hour of me posting it in a month dead thread.

 

7th, yeah, it would include every block grid in whatever direction you press. Well, the best way to think of this is like a rubik cube surrounding the player. With this system, by pressing a direction (left/right/up/down), the player would automatically move to block any attack coming in at any of those blocks on that face of the cube.

 

And, yes, this would only apply to saber combat, blaster blocking will have to be handled differently.

 

Oh, yeah, to be fair, Keshire thinks he might have thought of this first and I had just forgotten about it.

[BloodRiot]

So basically if you defend upwards, you'd be covering the whole 9 top cubes... if you defend left... you'd cover all the left side cubes... and so forth.

 

One question tho.... you'll get 2 blind spots for defense... the forward center cube and the rear center cube.

 

What do you plan for those?

 

By the way.. about the back/rear blocking... i'm not sure what u have in mind for that... but why not make force sight interact with defense on that one? like you have to use at least one point fo force sight to actually being able to back block, and the more points you spend on sight... the more efficiently you back block... something. This would be without force costs or neglegible force costs compared to the fatigue or dodge meter drain you'd get for "being hit" from behind.

[razorace]

Well, we're talking about it online right now. Aren't you on MSN messenger?

 

As for the blindspots they are a problem. The only solution that I can think of is to continuely doing transitional block moves in the hope that something connects.

 

However, it shouldn't really be a problem since all almost all the attacks come from side angles anyway.

 

As for back blocking, I think the easiest solution is to just make it more expensive to do (if you screw up). I'd rather not make it so where are force power requirements since that would mean that so people would just be totally open to attacks from behind.

[Gotaiken]

i told razor about this before, but how about using some of the attack animations as blocking animations, you could cover more area, and you'd have a more precise blocking system.

[razorace]

attack animations have the blade reaching out from the body. I don't think they would make very good block animations. However, if we make dedicated block transition animations, it would probably work.

[TheLiberator34]

would it be possible to "match" a blocking animation to each saber stroke of the same style? I.E. If your opponent makes an attack in yellow you make the "matching" defensive parry to block the blade so it hits about mid blade? Or is that too much animations work to be feasible?

[razorace]

Well, there's two problems with that idea.

 

1. It would require a lot of animation work.

2. the player positions are not set in stone. There's zillion different possible positions for both the defender and attacker(s). Assuming for just one position would result in the blocks either looking weird or just not blocking.

 

Actually this is the system used by KotOR, but unfortunately, it just won't work unless you lock the player position. Which is somewhere I don't think we should go.

[Master_Keralys]

Perfect!! This is exactly the kind of idea I've been waiting for. I wish I'd been on when this was originally posted, because it would have been 4 within an hour. That sounds like the best idea I've heard in ages for the saber combat system. And even at ridiculously high combat speeds it should still work.

 

Maybe with the blaster blocking it could be auto, but you'd get a deflection in direction of attacker bonus if you did manage to do manual blocks (I think this has been suggested before somewhere).

[babywax]

For blaster blocking, maybe you could keep it manual if you added a "force sight" to blaster shots that shows where each bullet will go, so when you shoot you see a little line show up, which shows you the trajectory of the blaster shot.

[ithrien]

I do not know if this is possible, but you could make manual blocking like in Jedi Power Battles where if you hold down the block button, it'll block most of them, and then if you time it right you can deflect a few back at the person who shot them. not sure how good this would be since most people shooting at jedi are on the move.

[Lei Hng Wei]

Originally posted by ithriendusat

if you hold down the block button

 

This was already mentioned and is open to abuse. Why bother clicking when you can bind it to the capslock key.

[Frank1212]

I've played OJP basic and enhanced and one thing that sorta bugs me is the crouch dodge when you get hit by a lightsaber. Is there anyway to incorporate a sniper dodge animation instead?

[razorace]

It already does. It's just that solid hits cause you to go into a Dodge Roll. You can improve the chances of the normal dodgeing to occur by boosting the g_saberDmgDelay_Wound cvar value.

[Frank1212]

Ah, I see. Just that I never see a sniper dodge happen.

[Rad Blackrose]

Origonally, I was one of those people who were against manual blocking in JKII/JA...

 

Then I became a Soul Calibur II junkie and started messing around with the enhanced mod. Thanks for changing my viewpoints.

 

Anyways, as far as blaster blocking is concerned, I agree with the angle Keralys is going: enable auto blocking, but if a person decides to use the autoblocking:

 

1.) the accuracy of deflection back to the origonal shooter should be less than what would occur if you used a manual block.

 

-To elaborate further, if a crosshair is on a gunner (I failed to mention, a person should be able to focus where his deflected gun fire should go through his crosshair. It would be highly unbalanced to have it just return to where it came from), and that gunner is firing AT the jedi, a manual block would have a much higher chance to return the weapons load directly to the crosshair's position rather than an auto block.

 

2.) Enable auto block of weapons fire for all modes of movement, but let there be higher chances for blocking the more stationary you are.

 

- If a person is standing still, technically he should have enough focus to block say... 90% of incoming fire (I'm making up random figures, don't quote me exactly). But as a person begins to speed up, his focus is lost in his movements, and thus his % to block lowers.

 

So thus, in auto block:

 

Stationary > Walking > Running

 

And just to reply to some things...

 

For blaster blocking, maybe you could keep it manual if you added a "force sight" to blaster shots that shows where each bullet will go, so when you shoot you see a little line show up, which shows you the trajectory of the blaster shot.

 

As interesting as that would sound, and it might encourage people to put points in FS (it should only work with force sight, by the way), I don't see how it would help at a long or short range situation.

[razorace]

Sounds good, but how would we handle the manual blocking of saber bolts? I'm not sure people will be able to react fast enough to do it.

[babywax]

Maybe slow down bolts just a little bit?

Maybe you could have any direction of manual blocking block bolts, but if you do it in a certain direction you're gauranteed to return fire to the sender.

[razorace]

It's hard enough to hit people with the bolt speeds as is. Slowing them down would make things impossible for gunners.

[babywax]

Good point.

Maybe you could have any direction of manual blocking block bolts, but if you do it in a certain direction you're gauranteed to return fire to the sender.

Would that work?

[razorace]

I'm not exactly sure what is meant by that?

[Lei Hng Wei]

Why not just bind thereisnospoon to a key and block in bullet-time slow-mo, without wasting Force on Speed?

 

Oh, did someone want a serious answer?

[Rad Blackrose]

Originally posted by razorace

Sounds good, but how would we handle the manual blocking of saber bolts? I'm not sure people will be able to react fast enough to do it.

 

The way I'm thinking is some weapons are going to be easier to block than others. For example, I'll take the extremes: the Bryar and the Imperial Repeater. The bryar is a singe shot, and you can anticipate a charged shot rather easily. The imperial repeater is probably the fastest ROF weapon in the game, able to put out ammunition very fast.

 

A gunner in close range should be just as much a viable threat as a saberist. If a gunner is holding a repeater, he's going to be churning repeater bolts as fast as he can in a low distance situation. That saberist (should he choose to use manual block) shouldn't have enough reaction time to block ALL those bolts, and should be able to take some damage in that close distance provided the gunner's accuracy is true.

 

As for the bryar, it's a single shot charged pistol... Saberists would have an easier time on these targets than AOE/Automatic gunners, depending on range. If a saberist is at the same distance as he was against the repeater, it comes down to if the saberist can deflect the shot just right.

 

One of the biggest problems I had in 1.02/1.03 of JKII was the fact that practically all bullets, including the repeater, were deflected/blocked. Thus the heavy dependance on AOE weapons, such as the Repeater's secondary fire. Personally, I think all modes of fire should be viable, and the person just has to pick a weapon of preference. Of course, now this is just crossing over to other weapons. Sorry

[razorace]

Uh, I meant the actual manual blocking, not the chances of it happening. Anyway, I agree for the most part, but I think it should be related to how often you're blocking instead of the particular weapon used, except for maybe bolt speed.

 

Personally, I think it would be better to just remove the non-blaster weapons, or make them so expensive that only super mercs have them.