Saber system suggestions

[JRHockney*]

I think the following things should get accomplished before 0.0.9 is released:

 

1. Fixed the bug where saber deflect makes the blaster bolt hit the gunner and then bounce INSIDE him, thus draining his DP and killing him! Making the basic blaster bolt do more damage might be preferable as well since I hear non-stop complaints about how ineffective it is against saberists. Or maybe just make it do more damage when saberists are running.

 

2. Make kicking as a straight malee person knock down any one. No backflip protection for the person getting kicked. Since straight malee battles are still pretty popular, it would be good not to frustrate fans of it by making kicks next to useless.

 

3. And most importantly, Make it so that NO ONE, not even rocket shooters can interfere with personal duals. THis has been one of the most annoying things ever that I always forget to mention.

 

4. maybe make it so that you run much slower when you have red zone DP. This should make it much easier to kill runners.

 

5. If you have time, create the no dodge cvar. Remember that you may have to lower the general thresholds for this to work right, but they are already pretty low.

 

Non-priority suggestion: I still like the idea of specific hits on slow bounces (hitting formerly low swings in slowbounce causing disarms, high causing knockdowns, and hitting with specials causing stuns). It just seems more orderly than a random roll.

 

Thats all I can think off at the moment. The saber system is now amazing and incredibly well balance. You can't even imagine my joy when I lost a ton of DP because of someone lunging me while I was backing up! LOL! No more swing spam and no more turtling = BALANCE!!!

 

I'll try to finish that saber manual tonight. Just bare in mind that its only a saber manual at the moment. Since this is being made for my technical writing class, feel free to change anything you want once you get it.

[Lathain Valtiel]

I thought this mod was going for movie realism. Last I checked the Jedi are not teleported to an alternate reality where you are invincible to rocket launchers when they saber duel.

[JRHockney*]

I thought this mod was going for movie realism. Last I checked the Jedi are not teleported to an alternate reality where you are invincible to rocket launchers when they saber duel.

 

Um, yeah. Thats not the point of the "private" dual. In the movies most of the duals take place without being rocketed to death and I see no problem with two people wanting to dual without such annoyances from other rocket happy players. If its seige, I have no problem with restricting private duals. But in FFA, its not fair to the people who want to test their saber skills against eachother when someone (or many people including bots) with ADHD keeps interfering.

[razorace]

I'm with Hocky on this one. The private duels are an intentional gameplay accommidation made so that players can safely saber duel without getting rocket whored when low on health. It's competely controllable with the private duels cvar.

 

1. Fixed the bug where saber deflect makes the blaster bolt hit the gunner and then bounce INSIDE him, thus draining his DP and killing him! Making the basic blaster bolt do more damage might be preferable as well since I hear non-stop complaints about how ineffective it is against saberists. Or maybe just make it do more damage when saberists are running.

Yeah, that bug is buggin me too. I'm not sure what's causing it yet.

 

By basic blaster do you mean the e11 blaster rifle or the pistol? I think people are just having a hard time adjusting to inherent advantage Jedi have over gunners. You're not going to down a Jedi Master in a couple of shots, period.

 

However, we could do some tweaking to help things out....like make it so that back shots cost double DP like the saber attacks do.

 

2. Make kicking as a straight malee person knock down any one. No backflip protection for the person getting kicked. Since straight malee battles are still pretty popular, it would be good not to frustrate fans of it by making kicks next to useless.

We can at least give it a shot. I suppose it makes since that a dedicated meleer would be able to land more powerful kicks. However, we need to watch out for kick spamming, which has been a problem in the past.

 

3. And most importantly, Make it so that NO ONE, not even rocket shooters can interfere with personal duals. THis has been one of the most annoying things ever that I always forget to mention.

Name specific forms of interference and I can look into fixing them.

 

4. maybe make it so that you run much slower when you have red zone DP. This should make it much easier to kill runners.

mmm, I'll think about it. The 2x DP penalty for running appears to have helped already. Maybe comboed with short bursts of a retooled Force Speed would help prevent the running problem.

 

5. If you have time, create the no dodge cvar. Remember that you may have to lower the general thresholds for this to work right, but they are already pretty low.

Already did. g_allowDodge I think. Anyway with the current threshold settings, I don't think it needs to be messed with since they're so low in the first place.

 

 

Non-priority suggestion: I still like the idea of specific hits on slow bounces (hitting formerly low swings in slowbounce causing disarms, high causing knockdowns, and hitting with specials causing stuns). It just seems more orderly than a random roll.

I'm not really with this one at the moment. The particular mishap that's going to occur probably doesn't have that much to do with the swing you use to bang them.

[Kyle Kelasheski]

Quote:2. Make kicking as a straight malee person knock down any one. No backflip protection for the person getting kicked. Since straight malee battles are still pretty popular, it would be good not to frustrate fans of it by making kicks next to useless.We can at least give it a shot. I suppose it makes since that a dedicated meleer would be able to land more powerful kicks. However, we need to watch out for kick spamming, which has been a problem in the past.

 

I'd advise avoiding a "get kicked=automatic knockdown" scenario. If one's a Force User and has two points invested in Jump, then that individual would get a very brief opportunity early in the kick to be able to jump out of it as we've seen Obi-Wan do in Ep. 3. If one has three points invested in Jump, then said person would get a brief opportunity for a lengthier period of time to respond to the kick.

 

 

And by the way, I tried playing an online match very late last night, and the server was behaving quite strangely. From time to time, I and the bot would suddenly get influenced by the "jerking around" of the maps. Frequently this led to us falling off of ledges, lol. Also, there was only one bot online, and he was a shooter. Playing Power Duels was not an option. So, in spite of my wanting to test out the saber system, I was stuck running around on large FFA maps trying to hunt down a lone bot who refuses to use his lightsaber. Needless to say, I left the server rather quickly, even though I wanted more practice.

 

Hopefully I'll have some time to play against some humans today.

 

We'll see, won't we?

 

Yours,

 

Kyle

March 11, 2006

 

.

[razorace]

Sorry about that. My auto virus scanning probably kicked in. The server was done when I got up this morning so it might have been something else too. We will see.

 

As for kicks, the actual kick impact is instantanous so there's no such thing as "early" or "late" in a kick. Theres the impact and that's all the kickee ever sees.

[JRHockney*]

We can at least give it a shot. I suppose it makes since that a dedicated meleer would be able to land more powerful kicks. However, we need to watch out for kick spamming, which has been a problem in the past.

 

The shouldn't be too much of a problem. Since they can get lightninged very easily to push and pulled while their running, they should e too hard to kill....unless the activate absorb.

 

Yeah, that bug is buggin me too. I'm not sure what's causing it yet.

 

By basic blaster do you mean the e11 blaster rifle or the pistol? I think people are just having a hard time adjusting to inherent advantage Jedi have over gunners. You're not going to down a Jedi Master in a couple of shots, period.

 

However, we could do some tweaking to help things out....like make it so that back shots cost double DP like the saber attacks do.

 

Whie I haven't tried it with th E-11, but I have with the pistol and that seem to do it. I only wish the coding server could still be up so we could we which weapons do what.

 

 

I'm not really with this one at the moment. The particular mishap that's going to occur probably doesn't have that much to do with the swing you use to bang them.

 

Actually the way I described it makes sense. If you they are old slow bouncing with a low swing (or side swing), in real life you would hit when there saber is low (and you hit near the hilt) it is more likely to cause a disarm (and btw, I looks really cool when it happens at this angle). If your hitting a high old slow bounce, in real life it could knock them off their center of gravity causing them to fall over. The hitting eirther with a special move to cause a stun just makes sense because it's harder to do and stun is a greater penalty/reward.

 

I'm just not a big fan of the Roll. It's not entirely balanced because it has stun in it and it just feels random. Anytime something feels random, especially in a saber combat system, it makes it not feel solid. I also worry about new players thinking this as well, eventhough it hasn't been too much of a problem yet.

[Sushi_CW]

I'd just like to say that I am very happy with the saber system at the moment, including balance against "runners" (usually me ). The force speed thing would help, but I'm against any further tweaks to FP/DP balancing right now... I like it how it is!

[razorace]

Sorry about the code server being down. I just couldn't run it while I was away for a week. I didn't want to have to come back to a melted computer or something. Besides, I wouldn't be able to do dynamic changes without it anyway.

 

As for the slow bounce idea, so, basically we're referring to where the bouncer is at and not the attacker? That's the confusion I has having.

 

Finally, I think there's always going to be some level of randomness to combat since that's just the nature of things. I don't want the mishaps to be completely hard coded since regular players would catch on eventually and it would look corny. If stuns are really that much of a disadvantage, I'll try boosting the animation speed fo the next release. That way the moment of vulnerablity will be smaller.

[JRHockney*]

I'd just like to say that I am very happy with the saber system at the moment, including balance against "runners" (usually me ). The force speed thing would help, but I'm against any further tweaks to FP/DP balancing right now... I like it how it is!

 

Agreed. The balance of the regular combat DP wise has never been better. The only thing we might want to keep thinking about is possible exploits that can be created in order to give it even more strategy.

 

As for the slow bounce idea, so, basically we're referring to where the bouncer is at and not the attacker? That's the confusion I has having.

 

Yeah, thats right. The height at which the saber is slow bouncing (in the old animation) will determine which mishap occurs when it gets hit, low and side for disarms, high for knockdowns and hit the saber with a special move for stun.

 

Anyways, Let me know what you think of that manual, Razor. Be sure to send me a copy of any possible changes that need to be made soon (unless 0.0.9 is realised very soon) because my actual technical writing assignment is due Wenesday.

 

I can hardly wait for 0.0.9 to come out. I hardly know how to play 0.0.8 anymore! LOL

[razorace]

Ok, now I understand what you were getting at. I'll have to think about it some more. I'll admit that I personally like a little bit of randomness in the mishap rolls since it adds a little bit of unperdicitablness.

 

As for the manual, I'll get back to you on it as soon as I can.

[Alesh]

I can say when trying with bots it was pretty confusing... "Ok so if i hit him when he does that he get's knocked down... oh wait no, it's a parry... er... what?"

 

But of course i bet having read a bit more info beforehand could've made things a bit more clear, though i'm in favor of letting the players decide anyway, rather than some random number.

[JRHockney*]

I can say when trying with bots it was pretty confusing... "Ok so if i hit him when he does that he get's knocked down... oh wait no, it's a parry... er... what?"

 

But of course i bet having read a bit more info beforehand could've made things a bit more clear, though i'm in favor of letting the players decide anyway, rather than some random number.

 

If you hit his saber when he's slow bouncing, he will get mishaped. This will change a bit in 0.0.9 though.

 

They manual I have posted as a thread here applies only to Enhanced 0.0.8 and its not very good. But fear not, I have made a much more clear and technical manual (I think. It was late when I wrote it!) that will be with Enhanced 0.0.9. Int order to understand teh changes that have been made since 0.0.8, you really just have to read back over the past couple of pages on this thread.

 

And yeah, I agree that the randomness should be minumized as much as possible. While it might keep things interesting, it might also make things more frustrating for new players and take away some control that the vets want to achieve. I think that the best way to keep things interesting is to create alot of different exploits that have different effects. I've thought of a few possibilities:

 

1. Lunge may end up being over used because of its power, so I suggest the following: if a person misses with a lunge and then gets hit in the back, he gets knocked over on his face. This will probably look the best once keshires block animations are put in because of the back block it has (or just use his back block if possible). You could also make it so that if you hit a person who has just lunged with an attack fake or lunge, they fall over as well.

 

2. Maybe use the same idea for the DFA's. Not sure about this one though.

 

3. Kicking a person who is attack faking (which would be very hard to do because they can fake with it) will make them lose their saber and fall over.

 

4. Hitting a person who is attack faking with a lunge or flip attack will disarm atack faker (the attack faker can always fake the attack fake and reverse this as well).

 

5. Parrying a lunge will cause the lunger to get knocked over.

 

6. Winning a saber lock should also do a bit more DP damage if the if the loser has moderate DP 50%+ and maybe knock them over if they have lower DP 25%+, and knock over and disarm them if they have under 25% DP.

 

These are just a few possibilities that might increase the strategy and complexity a bit. More ideas like this will lesses the need for random mishaps I believe. Any other ideas anyone?

[razorace]

Right now most of the special moves already have penalty because they count as if the player is running. I know that this is already true for the lunge and probably applies to the DFAs as well.

 

As for saber locks, I haven't really messed with them yet. Ideally I'd like to have them be more involved than just button pressing since that's pretty boring and really easy to cheat at. I originally considered some sort of attack/counter attack system for the saber locks but I think that's a bit redundent with the current state of the normal saber attacks. Any ideas?

[JRHockney*]

Right now most of the special moves already have penalty because they count as if the player is running. I know that this is already true for the lunge and probably applies to the DFAs as well.

 

THat's good if that their penalized all ready, but The main reason I made these suggestions this way is so that the saber combat has the potential to be more dynamic, but reasonable as far as mishaps are concerned.

 

As for saber locks, I haven't really messed with them yet. Ideally I'd like to have them be more involved than just button pressing since that's pretty boring and really easy to cheat at. I originally considered some sort of attack/counter attack system for the saber locks but I think that's a bit redundent with the current state of the normal saber attacks. Any ideas?

 

Hmmm, Thats a tough one. One think I would like to see is the view of each person when they get into a saber lock not to change. It might be cool to be able to walk in a saber lock in order to break out of it if thats possible. In the lock, the other person would walk with them unless they pressed a different direction. I don't know. Maybe this will give you an idea or something. Ijust don't know the dynamics about what cn be done with a saber lock. But I would like the view to change to normal and maybe so of the glow effects normalized that happen when you see two people lock.

[razorace]

Call me crazy, but I don't think we really need the saber locks at all anymore. They'd just slow the combat down. Sure it would be nice to have fancy locks and such, but I think that development time would be better spent on other features.

[razorace]

Ok, I've gone over all the bugs/possible features and added everything that seemed reasonable. Besides fixing drain and grip, is there anything else I need to work on before 0.0.9?

 

Also, the current code only allows slow conversions during the old slow bounces (as opposed to the fancier slow returns that happen above 50 DP). Should we leave it that way or should I change it to allow during all slow bounces?

[JRHockney*]

Call me crazy, but I don't think we really need the saber locks at all anymore. They'd just slow the combat down. Sure it would be nice to have fancy locks and such, but I think that development time would be better spent on other features.

 

I'd still like to have them in just for the sake of occasional variaty. If possible, I would still like to see the view changed to default and maybe a knockdown penalty for losing or something.

 

Also, Keshire made some cool looking saber lock animations that migh be useful to have in as well. I think those will be in MB2 b18 as well.

 

Ok, I've gone over all the bugs/possible features and added everything that seemed reasonable. Besides fixing drain and grip, is there anything else I need to work on before 0.0.9?

 

While I wouldn't mind some of those mishap causing exploit ideas I listed above being tried out, I can't really think of anything pressing at the moment. Anyone else?

 

Also, the current code only allows slow conversions during the old slow bounces (as opposed to the fancier slow returns that happen above 50 DP). Should we leave it that way or should I change it to allow during all slow bounces?

 

Their fine that way, unless you think they old bounces should be a tad bit allowed with a bit more DP, but I'm not even sure about that one.

[Lathain Valtiel]

I'd point out that you can very easily cheat in saberlocks by binding attack to the mousewheel.

[Sushi_CW]

I'd like to keep saberlocks... even if not strictly necessary, they are a lot of fun. Here are some thoughts:

 

Winning a saberlock should obviously result in something more than just a simple hit on the opponent. I think a knockdown would be appropriate, or maybe a random choice of mishap between knockdown, stun, and disarm.

 

I think that FP and DP regen should both pause during a saber lock.

 

One idea I had to prevent click-spamming is to make it so that each click costs FP. Right now, it costs nothing, which promotes click-spamming.

 

Building on that idea... let's say each click you "invest" in the lock costs 3 FP. The direction the lock moves would depend on the difference between the amount invested by players A and B. If both have invested the same amount of FP (clicked the same number of times) then the lock doesn't move. If player A has invested slightly more, the lock moves slowly in A's favor, the rate increasing with the difference up to some limit that would allow B time to push back if he chooses to. This limit would make it a huge waste of FP to click-spam, since the overkill wouldn't help you win any faster. Smart players would click enough to start winning, and only click again when the lock starts to reverse. At some point, either player may decide to save their FP and lose the lock.

 

A side-effect of this is that whoever has the most FP at the time would have an inherent advantage. This makes sense, as fatigued jedi can't push as hard.

 

If after 10 seconds, neither side has won, both sides would experience the penalty of failure (both knocked down, for example).

 

Anyway, I've been kicking this idea around, and thought I'd get it into the open. Any comments?

[razorace]

That's actually a pretty good idea. It probably wouldn't require too much effort to impliment either. However, I see a problem with the possibility that saber locks would end up being the largest drain on FP in a battle, which in my opinion isn't a very good thing.

 

Secondly, what benefit would you get from a saber lock to make it worth it?

[Sushi_CW]

Good point. I'll keep thinking about it.

 

The time limit on duels can act as an effective upper limit on how much FP gets spent. With a reasonable time limit and a good amount of FP cost per click, it would be impossible for both players to spend ALL of their FP on a lock (unless they foolishly spam it away).

 

Maybe winning a saber lock could cause a bunch of DP damage, and a knockdown if they survive that. If the opponent is fatigued/low on DP, I think a saber-lock should be a duel-ending event. Something like that would make it worth it, I think.

 

Keep in mind, either player can break the lock, assuming they have FP enough for a jump or push. So players would remain in a lock if:

1. They think they have a good enough chance of winning, and know that a win will certainly or almost certainly result in a kill.

2. They are low on FP, but don't want their opponent to know that, so they bluff and hope the other guy breaks the lock first.

[razorace]

Comments on 0.0.9's release:

 

1. Doh! bugs = bad! argh!

 

2. One of the main reason why I added additional counters for grip was because grip makes it extremely easy to abuse the mid-air = no Body Dodge component of Dodge system. When comboed in Power Duel, there's literially no way to prevent the lone dueler from dieing at the doubles team. I hope that clears that up for some people.

 

3. What do you guys think of the current battle rythm? From my personal experiences, I've found that battles seem to last a very long time when between fairly skilled players. In fact, I think the battle times might be a bit too long and they sometimes don't feel like any progress was being made in the battle.

 

Any ideas/comments/suggestions about the battle lengths?

 

Some possible fixes that I've thought of:

1. increase the DP cost for parries

2. Raise the thresholds for the heavy slow bounces. Beyond the mishaps, the heavy slow bounces (with their lack of force power protection) are really one of the only ways to skillfully drain a player's FP/DP.

[JRHockney*]

Any ideas/comments/suggestions about the battle lengths?

 

Some possible fixes that I've thought of:

1. increase the DP cost for parries

2. Raise the thresholds for the heavy slow bounces. Beyond the mishaps, the heavy slow bounces (with their lack of force power protection) are really one of the only ways to skillfully drain a player's FP/DP.

 

1. Maybe. I'm no entirely sure about this one. I suppose you could also slow down the DP gain as well but I'm not sure what the side effects of that would be.

 

2. This one I think I agree with, but it should only be raised a little. The lighter styles should still have an advantage. Maybe 60 for regular and 70 or 75 for lighter styles.

 

I should point out that I've noticed that the old slow bounces almost never occur with the dodge turned off and happen more often with it on. This could be my imagination though. Also, I actually seem to be able to kill bots easier with swings when dodge is on. Any possible reason for these things?

 

I have also noticed that you get MB2 style "HPed" with the dodge off very gradually (this may not be a bad thing though). One thing for sure is that the scaring that happens with the dodge off needs to go. It's annoying and unrealistic looking.

 

Honestly, I think my idea about creating more exploits where mishaps occur would really help both the with dodge and without dodge saber combat. Its not right that the only way we could successfully cause a mishap and kill our opponent last night was through the kicks and hoping they didn't absorb it. Here are a few ideas that I've had in the past on this:

 

1. Lunge may end up being over used because of its power, so I suggest the following: if a person misses with a lunge and then gets hit in the back, he gets knocked over on his face. This will probably look the best once keshires block animations are put in because of the back block it has (or just use his back block if possible). You could also make it so that if you hit a person who has just lunged with an attack fake or lunge, they fall over as well.

 

2. Maybe use the same idea for the DFA's. Not sure about this one though.

 

3. Kicking a person who is attack faking (which would be very hard to do because they can fake with it) will make them lose their saber and fall over.

 

4. Hitting a person who is attack faking with a lunge or flip attack will disarm atack faker (the attack faker can always fake the attack fake and reverse this as well).

 

5. Parrying a lunge will cause the lunger to get knocked over.

 

6. Winning a saber lock should also do a bit more DP damage if the if the loser has moderate DP 50%+ and maybe knock them over if they have lower DP 25%+, and knock over and disarm them if they have under 25% DP.

 

I believe that thinking of other possible exploits such as these that are also balanced for both dodge and no dodge will make this system alot more fun and varied. I had alot of fun with no dodge last night, but there really needs to be more killing options and more fatal mistakes to make. Anyone have any more ideas for balanced mishap exploits?

[razorace]

1. Maybe. I'm no entirely sure about this one. I suppose you could also slow down the DP gain as well but I'm not sure what the side effects of that would be.

Not sure about that one either. I think more playtesting is needed. Unfortunately, server attendance appears to be low on the Meat Grinder since the 0.0.9 release. Either it's because I haven't been around when people are playing or maybe Spring Break just isn't the time for JKA.

 

2. This one I think I agree with, but it should only be raised a little. The lighter styles should still have an advantage. Maybe 60 for regular and 70 or 75 for lighter styles.

 

Well, I'm still debating it. The problem I see is that making it too high would make the battles not last very long because heavy bounces are completely vulnerable to all the offensive Force Powers.

 

As an alternate idea, we could make getting successfully kicked cause FP damage, just not as much as it does when a player is kicked while stunned. maybe 10 FP or something?

 

I should point out that I've noticed that the old slow bounces almost never occur with the dodge turned off and happen more often with it on. This could be my imagination though. Also, I actually seem to be able to kill bots easier with swings when dodge is on. Any possible reason for these things?

Not that I can think of. Dodge and the slow bounces are competely seperate. Maybe the DP regeneration doesn't work during Dodges?

 

I have also noticed that you get MB2 style "HPed" with the dodge off very gradually (this may not be a bad thing though). One thing for sure is that the scaring that happens with the dodge off needs to go. It's annoying and unrealistic looking.

That is the downside of having no dodge. Dodge normally is slowly depleted to absorb the idle saber damage. When Dodge is off, the player directly receives the damage and gets the scarrring. Just turn the idle saber damage debounce way down and it shouldn't happen as much.

 

 

Lunge/DFA/Attack Fake Ideas

The problem I see is that most of this would be very rarely used and would either be exploited too much or happen rarely enough to just appear to be random. In addition, there's currently no timers for to indicate a recent special move, so we wouldn't be able to tell that a player just made that move without adding additional timers.

 

Secondly, I'm concerned that some of that stuff isn't realistic. How does doing a lunge make you vulnerable to getting knocked over if saber attacked to the rear? I can understand it for a kick or something but not a saber attack. Right now, I think the fact that most special attacks make the player count as running (and therefore more vulnerable to mishaps) is probably a good enough counter...maybe.