Saber & other suggetions, bugs, & questions...

[Kyle Kelasheski]

YAY!

 

It looks like LucasForums.com is FINALLY back , but "oh noooo" they might've lost or it'll take time to restore all the posts . I wanted to post this in the "saber balancing" thread, but since it's not here (and may never be) I'm just going to put up a new thread. If Razorace feels like moving it if the old thread ever returns he's more than welcome to do so.

 

Razorace, please note that I added a NEW and VERY nasty bug I'm experiencing to the list below; so said content will be quite different from what I emailed you yesterday. I also fixed some typos!

 

Now this is a LONG but extremely DETAILED thread, so please hang in there, as I hope that I can contribute something meaningful to the discussion about OJP Enhanced's development. We'll see, won't we?

 

 

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Razorace,

 

Hello, it's been TOO long since I've posted anything here, but after trying out the latest beta, I have to say that I really enjoy the direction that you're taking it in.

 

Please note that all of my feedback is based on OFFline playing. I have posted my input on the following topics: Saber stances, Injuries and fatigue, Requests for next release, Bugs, and Questions. I would be VERY grateful for detailed assistance reqarding my queries.

 

 

 

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SABER STANCES

 

In GENERAL, the differing ATTACK speeds of the stances need adjusting. Here's how I imagine stances can be balanced out while maintaining a highly cinematic feel:

 

1. SHORT swings need LESS time to READY, thus the player can get more attacks in, BUT they hit with LESS force, so knockaways, knockdowns and disarmaments are far LESS likely to occur. But since the swing arc is short, it's EASIER to not only get back into the ready position for the next attack, but it's also easier to respond with a PARRY towards an incoming attack. There's less force behind the shorter swing, so it's easier to redirect. The drawback, however, is that THIS kind of parry is less likely to completely STOP the incoming attack, which means that there's a greater chance that a mishap (such as a disarmament) could occur. I feel that it's critical to remember that because the swing is shorter it has less time to build up speed. Sometimes our eye tricks us to think that the blade is travelling faster than a wider swing, but that is an easily demonstrable misinterpretation of what's really going on. The blade may APPEAR to be travelling faster, but that's only because the length of distance between Point A and Point B is shorter than for an attack that has a wider arc.*

 

2. WIDE swings need MORE time to READY, but these wider attacks are delivered with at LEAST the SAME, if not MORE speed than an attack that has a smaller swing arc. By the time the saber has reached the end of its course it has definately picked up tremendous speed. Wider swings have MORE time to travel so it hits with MORE force, increasing the odds that a knockaway, knockdown, and disarmament of the opponent will occur. However, since there's more energy being funneled into this attack, it's more difficult to redirect the saber's trajectory to parry an incoming attack. However, since SO much force is behind the now-redirected saber, it is highly unlikely that an incoming and more lightly delivered saber blow will result in a mishap for the person who is parrying. The quality of a wide swing's parry is also more "solid," reflecting the amount of physical and mental determination that has been invested in this form's more offensively minded approach.*

 

*It's important to note that in the REAL world the longer something has energy put into it the more force it will have when it's stopped. The more energy that is poured into an object the FASTER it'll be. IDEALLY the saber system would work the SAME way. STANCES would ONLY determine the total POTENTIAL energy that could be put behind an attack; it would NOT "guarantee" that the attack would ARRIVE with a specified amount of energy. Thus, in THEORY, if a Red stance attack was parried EARLY (that is, BEFORE too much energy was put into it) an interrupted Red stance might hit with only the same amount of force that the weaker Blue stance would. The flip side to this is that the Blue stance, with its shorter swings, could NEVER deliver the hard-hitting blows that the Red stance has the POTENTIAL of delivering. What would also be AMAZING to see made a reality is the fact that the longer one executes an uninterrupted swing the FASTER the blade gets, because, once again, it has MORE energy in it. Would a person rather be hit by a club EARLY in its swing, or later? The answer to that question is obvious. Style wise, those fighters dedicated to using a stance with a shorter swing would want to stay CLOSE to their opponents while those dedicated to a stance that generates a wider swing would want to stay further away so that their attack has the time it needs to become more energized and thus more devestating.

 

ONE HANDED styles would ALWAYS deliver a hit that is weaker than the SAME kind of hit delivered by two hands, although from my experience with swinging around bats and whatnot a one handed swing would be slightly faster, BUT it would also certainly be LESS accurate. Try swinging a bat at a baseball with one hand and then with two hands; any doubts as to which form would be more likely to deliver a solid and well directed hit? It would also be easier for a two handed grip attacker to disarm an opponent who is only holding onto a hilt with just one hand. The ONLY way a one handed opponent could knock his target down would be with a kick, which would intensify the urge to want to use this alternate attack more frequently.

 

Using a DOUBLE BLADED lightsaber would have the advantage of better coverage around the body, BUT it would suffer from having a lack of LEVERAGE. After all, one would have to be VERY careful not to accidently slice off one's own limbs or impale oneself when trying to exert one's center of gravity against an opponent's incoming leverage.

 

And it is LEVERAGE and FORCE that would most likely determine whether or not someone is knocked to the ground from a collision. I honestly can't imagine a one handed attack achieving this, nor an attack that was delivered by a short swing. It would take a two-handed attack with a lot of energy invested in a long uninterrupted swing to do THAT. But such a juicy "bonus" would be TOO tempting not to try!

 

For variety's sake, there should be at least ONE more stance made available to those using two sabers at once. Perhaps where one saber is used almost exclusively for attacking, with the other held back for parrying. Perhaps the offensive properties of this stance would be weaker (since the majority of the attacks would come from one arm) but its defensive properties would be stronger (in which case I'd advise a greater chance of INTERCEPTING an attack, but due to the weaker one handed grip it would still suffer from a higher probability of a stronger attack leading to a mishap for the defender).

 

In regards to physical mechanics, if the above system is utilized, I cannot but help think that the system would HAVE TO BE BALANCED and it would be INTUITIVE to use since it would be grounded in our everyday experiences.

 

I would just hope that it'd be possible to adjust animation speeds according to the system described above.

 

I'm a BIT weary of my next suggestion, but it'd fit the films QUITE well and it would also lend to some cinematic "surprises" in a duel too. Perhaps a new neutral Force power could be created, called something like "SABER FOCUS," in which the user of said power could briefly execute some of the amazing stunts we've seen in the films. I'm thinking especially of two scenes: in Episode I we saw two strong swings from Qui-Gonn and Obi-Wan land simultaneously on the SAME end of Maul's saberstaff, yet Maul's parry of these two hits was not only solid but he smoothly inched forward his weapon's blade towards his attackers, and the second scene I'm picturing is when in Ep. III Dooku HELD a SOLID parry against Anakin's and Obi-Wan's simultaneously delivered hits to his saber, which he was holding with only ONE hand. These kinds of manuevers are certainly ABOVE the norm from the rest of the moves we've seen in the films, and could perhaps be explained by the use of a Force power. How it could work is that whenever the duelist uses this power, his strength goes up so his attacks hit with more energy and speed, his parries are likewise stronger, while his percentage chance of being successful in all attacks and defenses are also increased. Saber Focus could be balanced by the length of time it works (perhaps at most only 5 seconds), its high cost to use (with one point of Force power investment it would nearly completely drain all of one's Force Energy reserves; extra points of investment would decrease the energy demands only moderately), and the player would be "locked" into the lightsaber stance he's using until the power runs out (in other words he couldn't switch from the blue stance to the yellow one while this power is on). This "trump card" could be used decisively, and lead to some interesting scenarios. Imagine the surprise when a player using a stance with a short swing is able to suddenly use his Saber Focus to knock his opponent to the ground, or easily parry a powerful blow! Again, I could see this power upsetting the balance fairly easily, so I feel a LOT of restrictions would have to be placed on it to make it balanced.

 

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INJURIES and FATIGUE

 

The wider the swing the more energy it takes to make it, thus wider swings would result in a greater drain on one's stamina than a shorter swing.

 

While kicks deplete stamina, a full body kick from the surface of the ground (such as after one's been knocked down) depletes a LOT of stamina, and it takes time to fully recover and ready oneself for saber combat.

 

Fatigue should also acrue every time a person has to pick/roll himself up off the ground, and his defenses should be lowered due to being in an awkward position.

 

Non-fatal injuries should drain an EQUAL amount of stamina away from the injured party. I have been on hiking trips where I twisted my ankle (a far less severe injury than being slightly chopped by a searing hot lightsaber), and my injuries definately had a major impact on my ability to function with the same amount of "vigor" had my injury not occured to begin with. It could also lower the odds of delivering non-lethal damage to the target because the attacker is weakened, and it would also increase the odds of having one's defenses fail due to being encumbered/weakened by the injury and pain.

 

 

 

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REQUESTS FOR NEXT RELEASE

 

TEAM SKINS/TEAM SABER BLADE COLORS, ICONS & TEXT

Please oh PLEASE supply a cvar that could toggle off the icons that float above players' heads in a match (this COMPLETELY takes away any sense of cinematic immersion), and it would be great to move/remove the large textual tags that are displayed when spectating/ghosting a character; those annoying letters block what otherwise would be a fantastic view! Team skins and team saber blades are also a REAL killer in regards to making a FFA feel like it's something from one of the films. All that red and blue makes me nauseous!

 

QUICK STARTUP

I can't even begin to calculate how many hours of my life have been spent loading up plain old Jedi Academy and ony then starting up the game I REALLY want to play, OJP Enhanced. Is there any way to create a shortcut that automatically starts up the mod while skipping over all the startup animations?

 

HOTKEY TO SPECIFIC SABER STANCES

Oh it would be WONDERFUL to be able to select a specific stance without having to roll/click through a series of them to get the one you want. One could then QUICKLY and CONFIDENTLY switch between a wide swinging stance and a short swinging one, and it would be a GREAT way to keep your opponent mentally off balance.

 

DODGE SOUND EFFECT

Please alter or remove it. It's not needed to inform the player that an auto-dodge/roll/jump has been executed, as the player can already SEE that happening. The current sound is unlike anything we've ever seen matched up with similar kinds of movements in any of the films. If a sound effect HAS to be played, then perhaps a more cinematic and immersive approach would be to rely on a "grunt" from the model's sound file.

 

DODGE ENERGY ZEROED

Replace the "dodge energy depleted" sound effect with one of a rapidly racing heartbeat?

 

KNOCKBACK ANIMATION-- ITS SEVERITY

Knockback animation looks too severe for a good portion of the hits that are delivered. Sometimes it's too much of a response for the kind of swing that was delivered to the target. Maybe the knockback animation that is currently being used can be assigned to the REALLY big and powerful hits (such as the ones where the player's body does a full body turn before the saber impacts, or when a solid jump attack is landed) and a smaller knockback animation is delivered for hits rendered with less force. This could correlate nicely with my "real physics" approach to sabers described above. Really successful short swings would result in small knockbacks, and really successful wide swings would result in larger knockbacks and knockdowns.

 

ROLLING AWAY FROM OPPONENT

I admire the new dodge mechanics as they're much more realistic looking. I feel that the long rolls away from a swing are still occurring too frequently. To me, if one's attacking and gets a "hit" that drains an opponent's dodge energy reserves, then the attacker should get the "prize" of being able to deliver another attack while he/she knows that the opponent's reserve has been diminished. If the successful attack results in a long roll away, then said opportunity for a follow up attack are completely nullified. Perhaps the long rolls should simply become drastically shorter in length, say the "hit" target gets to make only one roll away instead of several. This way the successful attacker can still have an opportunity to close quickly enough to get another well deserved hit in. And perhaps another approach would be to link the roll to situations where the target's stamina is already severely depleted. This would simulate a sensible retreat.

 

DEFENSE ANIMATION FOR AN ATTACK DELIVERED LOW

Perhaps a "hop up" could be better integrated for when a swing that's delivered low on the body is evaded.

 

LIGHTSABER EFFECTS MADE MORE LIKE THE FILMS'

Adjust saber special effects to better reflect what we've seen in the films, which means: 1. Saber trails aren't as long as in the default JA (even the saber trails for the katas are WAY too long, they're HUGE when compared to even the WIDEST swings seen in any of the films), 2. No sparks when sabers collide (however, objects do spark when hit), 3. No "ozone" smoke clouds when sabers collide unless an object or tissue is being struck, 4. The saber's tip is rounder and broader, 5. Saber glows are less "feathered" in appearance (they have a less transparent halo to them and thus have a "harder" edge) and 6. the flash that's created from colliding sabers in the film is a "wide" (rather than "tall") oval; screenshots of this effect can be easily found on the Internet. I think that there is a sound reason for why these kinds of "spark & ozone" special effects are NOT seen in the films: it allows us to see the actors and the action better!

 

NEW SABER STANCES

Check out http://pcgamemods.com/13912/ to see an EXTREMELY promising animations mod. The Real Kain has come up with some captivating idle stances as well as some that are in motion (in my opinion, his idle stances are just a little too "still," but a little bit of breathing motion would make them PERFECT). It'd be great to see something like this or similar integrated into OJP Enhanced. I even like some of the work he did with weapons, as they now look like they're actually trying to aim down the weapon's sights, just as they do MOST of the time in the films.

 

MORE DOCUMENTATION

Please include a detailed Read Me as to what you're intending to achieve with each updated release. I'm speaking about more here than a log of the changes made, but rather something along the lines of "Red Stance is good for this..., but not so good for this...", and "Odds are increased that a parry will fail when this is done...", etc., etc. I only achieved a somewhat clearer picture after reading through a lot of Forum postings. Most people aren't probably going to do this, so if they're frustrated because they can't find the information they need, then the odds are increased that they'd stop playing/pursuing the mod, which in this case would be a TRAGEDY as in my opinion, this is CLEARLY the BEST saber mod out there! Supplying a more robust document explaining things will go FAR in KEEPING them hooked!

 

 

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BUGS

 

When slow death is activated, there is a high probability that a "super slow motion" battle will ensue at some indeterminate moment in time. This "super slow motion" battle lasts till the game is quit altogether.

 

In Power Duel the 1st. individual duelist battling the two opponents never respawns when the second individual duelist loses his match. The game keeps playing, only the second individual duelist keeps fighting match after match while the first individual duelist never respawns when its his turn to fight again.

 

This bug wasn't always seen, but it did crop up a number of times: bots' heads QUICKLY shake between looking at their knocked down saber and whatever else they're looking at.

 

I was having a problem with my single-player game NOT starting, so I ended up completely reinstalling the game, and then spent an hour combing through the mods I had in the base folder, and found the culprit (sadly a really cool map called "ts," a.k.a. "The Sanctuary"). I reinstalled OJP Enhanced, and immediately went into starting up a sp OJP E game. I noticed that the text listing the mod was incomplete, only the "O" was displayed for what should've been read as "OJP Enhanced." What happens once the mod started up is WEIRD. Immediately after the shuttle Jayden and Rosh are on reenters Yavin's atmosphere, the in-game scene "appears," only the entire screen is pitch black, with the two default HUDs being displayed in the lower corners. The scene's dialogue starts, BUT I'm able to hear that I can move my avatar around, light up his saber, and then hear running water sounds that I can splash into. Now, if I'm not mistaken, this is the first mission of the game, the one where the shuttle has been shot down on Yavin, right? How is it that said mission starts and yet the dialogue from the first in-game scene is playing at the same time? I exited the game, tried the default single-player game, and it worked error free. I then tried the newly reinstalled default multiplayer, and that worked fine. So I loaded up OJP Enhanced's multiplayer (it too had the missing text for the mod's listing), the "Jedi Academy" start screen showed, and then the game immediately crashed to the desktop! I'm REALLY befuddled by this. I didn't add any NEW mods to the reinstall that I didn't have before (when OJP worked but single-player didn't), and, in fact, I took several .pk3s out. At this point in time I can't play OJP Enhanced at all, so this is a REALLY nasty conundrum I'm in. PLEASE HELP! I miss my OJP... *sniff-sniff*

 

 

 

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QUESTIONS:

 

I. Through the cvars in the jamp.cfg file, is it possible to...

1. raise/lower the health of the single duelist in a Power Duel match? I adjusted one setting that LOOKED like it could affect the starting health, but I still spawned with the typical 150.

 

2. Activate decapatations? I'm looking to set it at a level whereby a limb is severed at a point where the player WILL die from the hit and/or the blade COMPLETELY passes through the struck limb (as in the films). I believe that there are TWO cvars with the word "dismember" in them, but no matter what variable I put in, nothing new happened. Does one or both of these need to be set to a certain number, and if so, what (please also supply me the DEFAULT settings for these two cvars as I forgot them between matches, lol). By the way, the new collision system is EXTREMELY believable and effective, I'm SO happy that the saber no longer always passes through a target only to see them still standing-- VERY uncinematic! Kudos to fixing this!

 

3. Does OJP Basic need to be installed in order for OJP Enhanced to work properly? I'm pretty sure it doesn't, but I will be MIGHTILY embarrassed if it is required. *my fingers are crossed that it isn't*

 

4. I'd like to try an online match soon, but would like to get some more practice in first against bots so I can at least last for several seconds online instead of just one, lol. Do the servers have the saber animation speed set to a certain number? I started out at .50, then I moved it up to .75, and am now at 1 (this game plays great no matter what the speed). What is the TYPICAL saber animation speed setting for the online servers? Also, could you supply me the addresses to the servers hosting OJP Enhanced duels? I've looked for them, but for some reason can't find them.

 

 

 

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SUMMARY

 

This last beta was a HUGE step in the right direction as far as I'm concerned. It's FAR superior to Raven's default system, and I've played OJP Enhanced now EVERY day since I downloaded it, so that's saying a LOT!

 

The new defenses, mishaps, etc., are superb ideas. I love how if one is airborn one's quite vulnerable to being hit! In Ep. III, Anakin learned that lesson VERY well, lol. The number and frequency of parries looks remarkably like the films, and it doesn't feel sloppy. While the mechanics of it still feel a bit awkward, in practice it works well and is definately something I'd encourage you to keep and polish on. At first I missed not having the "parry button," but I've since grown used to the new system and it IS an improvement.

 

Yours,

 

Kyle

 

July 9, 2005

 

[razorace]

Bugs:

I am aware of the bug involving the SP cutscenes. It's due to there being CoOp versions of those cutscene's camera work. To fix the problem, you can just delete the /scripts folder in the "stuff" .pk3. I guess I'll have to start releasing the CoOp scripts seperately from the main OJP installs to get around that.

 

Questions:

1. I think that's hardcoded.

 

2. "g_dismember 100" - Sets the probability of a death blow by a dismembering weapon (like sabers) on a server. In this case, we're setting the chances to 100%. "cg_dismember 3" - Sets the visual dismemberment on the client. 3 = full dismember enabled. Both settings have to be set for things to dismember properly.

 

3. Nope, every version of OJP is independant (other than the vehicle package, which might not work 100% without Basic or Enhanced).

 

4. Just contact me when you're interested in giving it a shot. I'll set the beta server up for us. Anyway, the basejka saberanimspeed setting is 1. I originally had it set slower for debugging/testing purposes but I recently restored it to 1 because a lot of people complained.

 

And some help with the documentation would be GREAT. the ojp_sabersys.txt was originally going to document the system but it's very incomplete. How would you like to handle this? Maybe just ask me the sort of questions to be able to write the docs? Right now I can't really imagine the core saber system concepts changing very much (other than more melee moves, style pros/cons/etc) so I think we can start documenting that.

 

In addition, it might be a good idea to do some demos that actually SHOW the moves that are mentioned in the manual. Plus, they would make great demo material.

[Kyle Kelasheski]

Razorace,

 

Thank you for answering Questions #1, #2 and #3 for me. I adjusted my jamp.cfg file accordingly for #2, but have yet to see if it'll work in the game because I detailed under the "Bugs" section above, I'm now no longer able to get the multiplayer fully functioning.

Question #4 is answered by the "List your OJP Server Listings Here" thread. And it'd be GREAT to be able to play online with you. I just need my own schedule to calm down a bit so I can make a solid commitment to such a scheduled game.

 

And thank you for your response to my bug listing regarding the fouling up of the single-player's cinematics. I'll adjust the "stuff" .pk3 in the near future. But first I want to finish this report and then get a ton of packing accomplished.

 

But I need to correct an erroneous detail in my above Bug report regarding multiplayer crashing. I ASSUMED (something I should NOT have done-sorry) that the default mp worked, when now I know for a CERTAINTY that the default mp does NOT work properly. I'm assuming that whatever's wrong with my default and OJP E versions of the game, they're now RELATED. For the default mp, after I've selected my bots for the match, and set in the Advanced settings the "Pure Server" to "No," then I click to start the match and I'm suddenly taken to the "Play/Controls/Profile/Setup" screen with a big blue box with yellow type stating:

--------------------------------

Error:

 

NPC extensions (*.npc)

are too large

 

OK

 

---------------------------------

 

Now this is an error I've NEVER seen before, so I went back to see which bots I had in the match. They were all ones I've used successfully before in the past for OJP E. I started clicking through the bots to see if there was anything unusual about the listing when I caught something VERY unusual: ALL of the bots that CAME with the game are NOT listed AT ALL. All of these default bots were missing.

 

What's going on here? This is mucho weirdo. Again, ANY advice would be mucho appreciato. At this point in time my ability to play OJP E in mp is completely derailed... and... and... I... uh... need my OHP E "fix"... just uh... don't tell my wife!

 

I'm pleased that you wouldn't mind me writing up a detailed description of OJP E's next release, and I thoroughly endorse your idea of releasing a demo of all the new moves as well. Between the written description and the demos, well, I think you'd HOOK a LOT of people long enough to pursue the mod in a devoted and thoughtful manner.

 

That being said, I've never made a demo before, but I'm more than willing to lend a hand if someone's willing to take the time to teach me a thing or two.

 

The "manual" I'd like to write would include screenshots. If you visit ForceMod 3's screenshots page (http://fm.mt-wudan.com/screens/index.htm), a majority of the screenies you see are ones I made for the site. ALL of the step-by-step "film reel" like images are mine (http://fm.mt-wudan.com/screens/images/fm3_kk_screenshot%20(1)_JPG.jpg and http://fm.mt-wudan.com/screens/images/fm3_kk_screenshot%20(3)_JPG.jpg for examples), and I think they do a strong job of illustrating important concepts while they show off "cool stuff" too; always a good thing I say! I'd use THIS level of care and professionalism in writing up the manual, but please note, due to time constraints I'm going to want to have identified for me stances/moves/animations/etc. that WILL be KEPT in the game. There seems little point in me going through all the trouble of making/compositing screenshots for moves that will probably be removed from the final version of the mod. However, I am willing to WRITE about in detail and in a CLEAR manner about moves that you're NOT sure you're going to keep. After all, for a lot of good reasons readers will need to know about these too! I think that one of the charms that's going to make this mod easier to document visually is that it is EASY to configure the animation speeds to be MUCH slower than in FM 3, thus it won't be as challenging to get screenshots that aren't only amazing looking, but also do a great job of communicating important information.

 

So, if you could begin generating a concise and detailed list of things that ARE going to stay in future versions of the mod, I can start working on the manual now.

 

That is IF I can get my multiplayer to start working again. This is one IMPORTANT bug I need fixed!

 

Needless to say, I'll be checking back here as often as I can.

 

Yours!

 

[razorace]

First off, your bug is probably due to you having too many .npc files or a .npc file that's too big. I'm not sure how this would affect the MP bots but it might all be related to the same problem.

 

Secondly, Just IM me whenever you're available to play. I'm PM my IM info after I finish this message.

 

Thirdly, screenshots with the manual are fine, but you're going to have to make sure that the manual is in a format that compresses all that stuff down to a reasonable level. I'd rather not have the manual be larger than the mod.

 

As for additional screenshots, we have a section on our website if you just happen to get some good ones.

 

Finally, I don't really forsee removing any of the moves from now on, with the possible exception of the faking/feinting ability (I'm not sure it's really useable at "normal" saber speeds.

[Kyle Kelasheski]

Alright, thanks for the tip regarding checking out whether I have too many NPCs or a NPC file that is named with too many letter characters in it. I guess that narrows my search, but I hate the thought of having to open up and examine one .pk3 after another.

 

I completely understand your position on the manual, lol.

 

In my opinion, the faking/feinting move may still have its uses. I like the fact that it can be done at all. It may not always be effective, but I wonder if it's one of those things that may well be worth keeping even if it's just for those few times where it works as an exception. Hmm... Something to dwell on.

 

I'll let you know when I get mp working again.

 

Yours,

 

Kyle

 

July 9, 2005

[Alesh]

I don't have much experience in the OJP sabering, so don't take this too seriously, but from my experience with bots it seems disarms and knockdowns are VERY common, too much in my opinion. Perhaps while force/stamina is still high duelers could get it drained, and once it's lower they'll start to get disarmed/knocked down?

 

That said i like the systen overall (but as i said on the MB forums, i'm not too happy with the dodge thing while sabering , perhaps it'd be better if it was harder to land that swing, but it wasn't dodged when it did land...)-

[razorace]

As I mentioned in the previous saber system thread that got zapped, I think the knockdown/disarm chances are way too high as well. I plan on dastically decreasing them in the next release.

[Kurgan]

About this part (sorry, just skimmed your postings):

 

REQUESTS FOR NEXT RELEASE

 

TEAM SKINS/TEAM SABER BLADE COLORS, ICONS & TEXT

Please oh PLEASE supply a cvar that could toggle off the icons that float above players' heads in a match (this COMPLETELY takes away any sense of cinematic immersion), and it would be great to move/remove the large textual tags that are displayed when spectating/ghosting a character; those annoying letters block what otherwise would be a fantastic view! Team skins and team saber blades are also a REAL killer in regards to making a FFA feel like it's something from one of the films. All that red and blue makes me nauseous!

 

You can already toggle OFF the "icons" floating over people's heads. That's the "team beacon." Just go into setup and you'll see the option. There's also a console command, but I don't know it off hand because I consider it so useful to have it on all the time.

 

Maybe it's cg_drawteam or cg_drawfriendly or cg_drawally something like that. The Team Overlay is something else (the upper right corner shows location of teammates in Siege and a little less info in CTF).

 

The text that shows their name when you highlight them with your crosshair I don't know if that can be turned off, but again, see the options/cvars there may be a way already built in...

 

If you hate the red & blue of team games, I suggest you try Siege.

 

However, the purpose of all those team colors is to prevent confusion in games (especially when there's friendly fire on). You have to somehow differentiate the teams. Siege does this by forcing you to use one skin per class and then making each set of classes on a team all one "kind" (ie: Imperials, Rebels, Mercs, Dark Jedi, etc). I suppose you could make a mod that takes the team colors for skin and replaces them with the default colors for you, but it would be super confusing I'd think. Then you'd have to redesign the maps because they're color coded for bases (how do you know where your base is if it's not something differentiated? most CTF maps are mostly symetrical).