Saber system suggestions

[JRHockney*]

1. Basic fakes can be used to decieve your opponent as well as cause very close range DP damage. They also cost no FP to use and so if you use them alot as your opponent swings, your opponent may think you are almost out of FP when your not. If you use them right, you can also use them to block swings.

 

2. Yeah, they can interfere with gun fire especially and cost major DP damage. This needs to change.

 

3. Turtling means playing waaay too defensively doing constant parries and your opponent using up all their DP to try and break through the turtler's parries. It's quite annoying and almost unbeatable if their good at parrying.

[razorace]

Good player? Maybe, but the fact is, they made more mistakes than the other guy and they should be punished. I've caused more mishaps on certain players than I can count, and when they dont die after the tenth time, its really frustrating. And the reason why people complain at the MB site is that the HP drain seems random. If we made causing dodge only do like 15 or maybe 20 HP damage consistantly, it would make sense and there would be little to complain about other than their lack of skill. People who suggust no HP loss in MB are usually laughed off because anyone with experience knows why its there.

The number of dodges might not be related to their skill at fighting, however. What if two opponents have been dueling for 20 mins of intense fighting?

 

I want to again emphasize that during last night's Power Duels, paired duelists were intentionally standing on the single duelist's head. There's no doubt about this on my part, especially when they're standing on top almost no matter what one does, and when they're trying to land some saber hits on one's shoulders. This behavior occured again and again and again.

It's only really the bots that do this since it requires a decent amount of control management to prevent the player from sliding off the player's head (which is the way Raven designed the game to avoid the issue you're describing).

 

2. Yeah, they can interfere with gun fire especially and cost major DP damage. This needs to change.

Wha?

[razorace]

Well, I've implimented the viewlock fix and the DP fix that I recommended earlier. Please come play on the code test server so we can determine if the changes helped or not.

[Kyle Kelasheski]

Razorace & Jon,

 

Thank you for an insanely intense and FUN filled evening. This OJP E stuff's addicting!

 

RA, the most recent spate of changes were quite effective. I really REALLY do LOVE how you swapped out the original saber bounce animations for the saber stance recovery ones. As a result, the animations look a LOT smoother and much more NATURAL. Of course I hope that you'll keep them.

 

It also seemed like I had a much greater degree of control over my saber's positioning, and that's a GOOD thing indeed!

 

I also hope that you'll try the "land1" and/or "jump" sound effects in the place of the painful sound effects we hear whenever an avatar's saber gets bounced. I believe that it'll sound much more "realistic" and thus immersive to you.

 

Man, am I TIRED!!! Thank you for a wonderful evening/morning.

 

Yours,

 

Kyle

March 5, 2006

 

.

[razorace]

Thanks Kyle, I had fun too. I think I've come up with a solution to the sound issue since it appears that all the models come with "pushed" 1-3 sound effects that are used whenever a player is pushed with the force in SP (supposedly). Unfortunatetly, it looks like it's a sound effect that isn't used by players normally in MP. As such, I'm probably gonig to have to move some stuff aroudn to get it to work right.

 

Could some people that use custom models please confirm that their models have pushed 1-3 sounds included with them? I'd hate to make this change and then have everyone with custom models not have the sounds.

[JRHockney*]

Great progress tonight!! Taking away the back parry change alot of things in this system as far as too much parrying. The normal swings are actually somewhat safe to use know! LOL! I might suggest readjusting the side parries a bit though. I've noticed in my testing that they dont seem to work as well especially in higher ping. Does standing still parry the straight up and down chops?

 

A few things need next priority in my opinion in order of importance:

 

1. take stuns completely out of slow bounce conversion and running if their a penalty for it as well. I have a feeling those stupid random stuns I got hit with when I had High DP had something to do with the slow bounce thing and stuns are too big a penalty for it. Only knock down and disarm should be allowed.

 

2. do that suggestion about making the new slow bounce animations happen over 75 with no slow bounce conversion possibility, and make the old slow bounce animations happen under 75 DP and give them the slow bounce conversion because they are more obvious, but harder to hit (and they look cooler when they get disarmed!) I also still like the idea of making the low swung slow bounce only get disarmed and the high only get knocken down.

 

3. Make red and desann DFA do more damage. They are next to impossible to hit with and they do so little damage, that they are hardly worth it. We tested it after you left and got a good laugh at how weak it is for the effort put into it.

 

4. allow running and swing hits when you are hitting at a slow bounce and dont remove slow bounce protection for such a hit (but only during slowbounce)

 

5. Make a person with a saber who's not swinging immune to lightning and maybe grip. Or for grip, if the person gripping gets pushed, make him get knocked over in that awsome new knock down animation. I think these should be easy enough to implement and be an easy fix until we start work on the force powers.

 

6. Create a cvar that disables dodge and lowers the DP/FP threshold for mishaps greatly or just make a cvar that adjusts mishap threholds period. Suggesion 1. will be essential to this as well because stuns = death in such a setting.

 

7.

Make the lunge and other specials cause a mishap if they hit a person attack faking (but the person doing the attack fake has to be commetted to a full swing). The person doing the attack fake can also fake an attack fake (as I just notice) and press a w to parry the lunge (only the lunge because its the easest to hit with).

I just think this idea's cool.

 

8. Add keshire's block animations!! I just want to see what they look like! LOL! Or at least if they work with this system and are worth keeping.

 

9. I liked the idea of a push lock that I think kyle came up with and I think the best and easist way to do it would be during a saber lock. First of all, make a push during a saber lock knockdown the opponent. If they push at almost the exact same time, start a push lock where you have to hold down the push key and tap attack really fast to win. If no one wins after 5 seconds, they both fly back!!!! Just like the movies.

 

In the future, This could also be applied to lightning defense in malee. If you hold push in malee when getting lightninged, you start another lock!

 

I also think we need to test parrying more online and make sure everything works right. I'm especially concerned with why stuns often happen even when you parry right at low DP.

[Maxstate]

Great progress tonight!! Taking away the back parry change alot of things in this system as far as too much parrying. The normal swings are actually somewhat safe to use know! LOL! I might readjust the side side parries a bit though. I've noticed in my testing that they dont seem to work as well especially in higher ping. Does standing still parry the straight up and down chops?

 

A few things need next priority in my opinion in order of importance:

 

1. take stuns completely out of slow bounce conversion and running if their a penalty for it as well. I have a feeling those stupid random stuns I got hit with when I had High DP had something to do with the slow bounce thing and stuns are too big a penalty for it. Only knock down and disarm should be allowed.

 

2. do that suggestion about making the new slow bounce animations happen over 75 with no slow bounce conversion possibility, and make the old slow bounce animations happen under 75 DP and give them the slow bounce conversion because they are more obvious, but harder to hit (and they look cooler when they get disarmed!) I also still like the idea of making the low swung slow bounce only get disarmed and the high only get knocken down.

 

3. Make red and desann DFA do more damage. They are next to impossible to hit with and they do so little damage, that they are hardly worth it. We tested it after you left and got a good laugh at how weak it is for the effort put into it.

 

4. allow running and swing hits when you are hitting at a slow bounce and dont remove slow bounce protection for such a hit (but only during slowbounce)

 

5. Create a cvar that disables dodge and lowers the DP/FP threshold for mishaps greatly or just make a cvar that adjusts mishap threholds period. Suggesion 1. will be essential to this as well because stuns = death in such a setting.

 

 

I also think we need to test parrying more online and make sure everything works right. I'm especially concerned with why stuns often happen even when you parry right at low DP.

 

 

 

Hocks knows what he's talking about.

[Tapela]

I'm not sure making the DFA move very lethal would be the way to go, then people will spam it all over like the release of Jedi Outcast if any of you remember how that played . Mostly it was just DFA , then again because it was so deadly and you can move around a bit I think. I think the spin one is more hard to hit cause of the way it works, but still I still don't quite like the idea of moves being too powerful and thus spammable .

 

Everything else on JRHockney's list seems great , hope to play on that server with you guys some more cause its alot more fun playing with everyone than bots or just one person.

[Maxstate]

Played just today and it seems real fake spam is a bit overpowered, brings in some leeway for my idea of double real fakes with a cooldown timer doesnt it

 

Just kidding, the way to counter it is to move back and do uppercut real fakes.. works sometimes. I like the improvements to dp drain and to parries, i have a request a different parry animation though. So if you would parry someone correctly that has over 80 dp he should go into the overhead slash blocking animation from single player. Its when the saber flings all the way up almost vertically above the head, it shouldnt send you into any kind of freeze or anything but it should just prevent you from attacking for about 2 seconds.

 

Also i would like to ask if fakes help in defending yourself? If not i would also love to see a minimalized dp drain if you were to fake your saber to the right side while you are parrying.

 

I love how the system is coming along, <3 razor

[JRHockney*]

I'm not sure making the DFA move very lethal would be the way to go, then people will spam it all over like the release of Jedi Outcast if any of you remember how that played . Mostly it was just DFA , then again because it was so deadly and you can move around a bit I think. I think the spin one is more hard to hit cause of the way it works, but still I still don't quite like the idea of moves being too powerful and thus spammable .

 

I never said it should be lethal, but I definitely think it should do more damage: maybe one to one-and-a-half full bars of DP or a little more, otherwise, its next to pointless to to use such a difficult move. It was alot easier in base JKA because opponents were always at a distance, but here, there always together.

 

Just kidding, the way to counter it is to move back and do uppercut real fakes.. works sometimes.

 

Another thing that stops Attack fakes is regular swings and basic fakes if you hit their saber. Often, it costs no DP to do it especially if you use a full swing to hit it.

 

Also i would like to ask if fakes help in defending yourself? If not i would also love to see a minimalized dp drain if you were to fake your saber to the right side while you are parrying.

 

They already kind of do that in a way. You have no DP loss if you hit their saber with yours perfectly in a fake. Its very hard to do though. I often use basic fakes to "jam" my opponent's swing up close (kind of like hugging your opponent in a boxing match)

 

I also am adding something very important to my list that I forgot to add and needs attention. Namely, a quick fix for lightning and grip spam that can dominate just about anything in this system. And another idea which is number 9.

 

 

BTW, I think I just figure out one of the randomness problems with low DP stuns. It seems that you can hit a person from just about any angle withan attack fake and cause them to go into a stun. Also, when ever I try to hit their attack faking saber to stop it when I have low DP, it seems to cause me to get stunned!! This badly neds to change or you can just attack fakes spam a person with Low DP to death.

[Maxstate]

A question, are there gonna be more maps added to cooperative?!

Oh my god man! Its so fun to play with this new saber system on single player maps!

 

And another question: Razor i kinda.. well.. ehm tinkered with the ojp animations.cfg yeah? Well with some simple copy and paste work ive got all the theatrics anims in my ojp, even online all of em work. Would this be illegal? If not , may i e-mail you the file so that you can try them too or something?

[razorace]

Alot of the CoOp conversion is really just a matter of finding bugs in the SP maps for me to fix. Beta testing in that reguard would help a lot.

 

As for the animations.cfg. It's not illegal from a OJP pov. However, I'd still like to get direct permission from authors before adding any of their material to OJP for legal reason. I'd be willing to try the file thou. Just email it to me.

[Maxstate]

Alot of the CoOp conversion is really just a matter of finding bugs in the SP maps for me to fix. Beta testing in that reguard would help a lot.

 

As for the animations.cfg. It's not illegal from a OJP pov. However, I'd still like to get direct permission from authors before adding any of their material to OJP for legal reason. I'd be willing to try the file thou. Just email it to me.

 

We discussed the file and it said in his disclaimer that he just scrambled all the JKA animations, he didnt have a copyright on it nor did it say anywhere that we have to ask permission

 

As for the CoOp maps, how may i help?

 

Sorry! That user has specified that they do not wish to receive emails. If you still wish to send an email to this user, please contact the administrator and they may be able to help

 

=((((

[JRHockney*]

We discussed the file and it said in his disclaimer that he just scrambled all the JKA animations, he didnt have a copyright on it nor did it say anywhere that we have to ask permission

=((((

 

 

Quote:

I'd have to have permission before I could even consider using other people's work. If you can get them to give permission, I could consider it.

 

 

Actually, the author already gave permission for anyone to use the animations as long as we cite his work:

 

Quote:

If you'd like to try it for another mod or basejka, or simply alter it to make it work for another means, by all means, do so. But if you keep any of the animations I spliced together uniquely, namely the things like the saber attacks, please give credit. Those took pretty much a week of all-nighters to do.

 

+

 

THEATRICS saber mod:

I agree with others' assessments in regards to using some of the author's materials: as it states in his Read Me, as long as credit is given where it is due then it's perfectly OK to use them in OJP.

 

=

 

It's fine to use them also long as we put the author's name in the readme. Look at other mods, this is how they do it in order to increase productivity.

 

Anyways, Maxstate, I'd like a copy of the cfg if it's ready to be put in the enhanced folder and used. I'll PM you my Email address.

 

Oops, time for work.

[razorace]

=((((

Sorry about that. I pmed you my contact info.

 

Anyway, as for the permission issue, the reason why I'm being picky is because it's very difficult to pull things back out of the OJP source files after it's been commited, especially if it;s something complicated or important. I'd rather be sure before I do anything.

[JRHockney*]

Just a quite post because I'm still at work. Razor, what did you think of my new priority list?

[razorace]

I'm still working thru the list. I'll post when I've finished responding to them.

[JRHockney*]

I have the beginning of an idea that I would like to post to balance turtling vs attacking and shorten the fights a bit. Its not complete yet, but maybe you can fill in the gaps:

 

Make regular hits do double DP damage on a person moving backwards and make attack fakes do double damage on a person moving forwards. This would allow for a lot more faking action and bigger hits. Parrying to the sides would still do the same thing it does right now.

 

What do you think so far?

[razorace]

It doesn't sound realistic to me. I think we just need to limit the number of ways that mishaps can happen.

[JRHockney*]

I don't think its that unrealistic if the inbetweens are logical, I just dont have time to think of them right now. Mishaps arent what I'm worried about for this suggestion, I'm more worried about the fact that I've already seen turtling win pretty easily even with having parries still take DP damage, so I'm trying to hypothesize way of making more damage on turtling balanced.

 

Another idea: I was also thinking that missed parries (back "blocks" dont count)where they didn't swing or basic fake should freeze the player long enough to get hit twice. This might be another way to help break through turtling without spaming a attck fake move or something.

 

or: just think of a logical time or instance for both regular and attack fake to do more damage on a turtler or attacker that doesn't involve spamming something.

 

Honestly, I just think more damage needs to be done in general and that would help enough for now unless you really want to get complex. Considering that even if you do get one hit in on a turtler, they will probably pary the next one and and run away for the one after that, which is just long enough for them to lose a total very little DP because of regain (and you losing alot of FP swinging), I don't think increasing the overall damage is such a bad idea. Everyone I've played against has agreed for the most part.

 

I also think your idea about making backup even slower might be a good idea as well.

 

As far as slow bounce mishaps are concerned I still like this idea:

 

Suggestion for the hitting slow bounce mishaps: Low and side swings in slow bounce should get disarmed (it looks really cool when it happens like this!) High swings in slowbounce get knocked down, and hitting it with power fake stuns and disarms! Also, back hits should cost more DP so people can't turn away in slow bounce (I already mentioned this, but Its a good idea and just reminding).

 

hitting them with a special move should probably cause a stun aswell. I'm just not a fan of the roll when it comes to these.

 

btw, I played a little today and I actually got parried at least once when I had well over 75DP even after it. This is not suppose to happen after last nights changes, right?

[razorace]

Well, my point was that making the parries cost more for certain parry directions doesn't realistic. I know that it's pretty easy to parry a lot of moves due to the certain parrying system but we can fix that with parry code improvement and encouraging people to use attack fakes to strike at the lower parts of a player's body.

 

As for the DP damage, swings currently do 10 DP per swing, which translates to 1 FP -> 10 DP damage. DP regens every second or so for 6 DP for every 1 FP. mmm, I suppose we could increase the swing damage a bit.

[JRHockney*]

Well, my point was that making the parries cost more for certain parry directions doesn't realistic. I know that it's pretty easy to parry a lot of moves due to the certain parrying system but we can fix that with parry code improvement and encouraging people to use attack fakes to strike at the lower parts of a player's body.

 

Encouraging people to strike at lower parts of the body with attack fakes? Hmm, you mean like making it do a bit more DP damage if you strike lower with attack fakes or something? I'm assuming striking lower helps hit detection or something,right? Anyways, yeah we nice to test again whether or not back hits parry because it looked like you were getting parried in our little experiement.

 

As for the DP damage, swings currently do 10 DP per swing, which translates to 1 FP -> 10 DP damage. DP regens every second or so for 6 DP for every 1 FP. mmm, I suppose we could increase the swing damage a bit.

 

Yeah totally. 3 seconds of no substantial hits goes by really quickly in these duels. Making any damage done almost non existant. Raising the damage would greatly help the fights in general and help balance turtling vs attacking.

 

I would also like to have some way to cause a freeze or something on a person who is playing completely defensively as well.

[razorace]

Encouraging people to strike at lower parts of the body with attack fakes? Hmm, you mean like making it do a bit more DP damage if you strike lower with attack fakes or something? I'm assuming striking lower helps hit detection or something,right? Anyways, yeah we nice to test again whether or not back hits parry because it looked like you were getting parried in our little experiement.

Actually, I meant we'd want to encourage that so that players can get around the easy of parrying by moving backwards.

Striking lower doesn't help the hit detection as far as I know.

And, yes, we need to test the parrying a bit more when we're both available.

 

Yeah totally. 3 seconds of no substantial hits goes by really quickly in these duels. Making any damage done almost non existant. Raising the damage would greatly help the fights in general and help balance turtling vs attacking.

I've increased the DP block cost on the server from 10 to 15. It appears to have helped a lot without making it too much. Plus, I've slowed down the back walk speed and that makes the battles much closer now.

 

I would also like to have some way to cause a freeze or something on a person who is playing completely defensively as well.

Unfortunately, that was what the role of mishaps until we scaled them back. I'm not sure what we can do without boning the defender again. As you suggesting some sort of mishap where the player just can't move around very fast? Maybe you shouldn't be able to move as fast during slow bounces or something.

[Kyle Kelasheski]

Just finished extensively trying out the latest build with Tapela, and I have to say that I'm enjoying the changes. Most of the time it feels like both of us are neck and neck on our energy reserves, so the duels are close, which is a good thing. I have to admit though, that Tapela kept the heads rolling... my head that is.

 

This is the first time that I'm having difficulty in coming up with a "solid" conclusion as to what it is I'm experiencing. I don't know if that's good or bad. A little extra thinking never hurt anybody right?

 

I'm looking forward to trying it out some more tomorrow.

 

Until then, keep up the solid work, and good night!

 

Kyle

March 7, 2006

 

SNORE!

.

[JRHockney*]

I've increased the DP block cost on the server from 10 to 15. It appears to have helped a lot without making it too much. Plus, I've slowed down the back walk speed and that makes the battles much closer now.

 

Excellent, I look forward to trying it out.

 

As you suggesting some sort of mishap where the player just can't move around very fast? Maybe you shouldn't be able to move as fast during slow bounces or something.

 

Perhaps. Make a hit on a person who parries the wrong way gets their movment slowed and swing restricted for a split second. Their slower movement could probably last a bit longer than their restricted swing.

 

BTW Razor, It might be a good idea to make a thread that documents the latest changes to the test server so people can stay up to date.

 

Just finished extensively trying out the latest build with Tapela, and I have to say that I'm enjoying the changes. Most of the time it feels like both of us are neck and neck on our energy reserves, so the duels are close, which is a good thing. I have to admit though, that Tapela kept the heads rolling... my head that is.

 

Don't feel bad, man. Tapela is one of the best OJP E players at the moment and has played alot of even the past builds. Beating him more will take time.

 

Oh yeah, and great job finding that bug, Maxstate (paddy)!