Saber system suggestions

[JRHockney*]

Also, please note that this does cause a heavy slow bounce, which is affected by force powers.

 

Whoa, wait a minute here. I thought you fixed that so its only vulnerable to force powers when the opponent has the appropriate DP! This needs to change, BADLY. Eventually, it will be spammed by half the people who know how to do it and the conversions will rarely be done if you can just tap lightning and knock them other that way.

 

Once we have more players, it will be exploits like this that will drive people insane and be constantly complained about on the forum. If you don't believe me, go to the MB site and search the follow words: saber malee and saberthrow.

[razorace]

I realize that it could be an area of abuse but that just hasn't happened yet. Right now, it seems to be too hard to pull off to make it really abusable. I'd like to wait and watch it for a while since I like the idea of being able to use force powers earlier in fights if skill is used.

[Sushi_CW]

Another bug... it seems that when a dual saberist throws/loses his right saber and only uses the left one, he can't be parried. Has anyone else seen this?

[JRHockney*]

Another bug... it seems that when a dual saberist throws/loses his right saber and only uses the left one, he can't be parried. Has anyone else seen this?

 

Hmm, I wasn't sure which saber hand it was, but I did notice that one time a bot lost his saber, he was suddenly almost unbeatable without it. Maybe this is the same thing.

[razorace]

Odd, I'll have to check that out.

[da_chimp]

i've tryed that one out me being the one with only one saber where i should have 2 you cant parry either

[razorace]

you can't parry or be parried?

[da_chimp]

it seems to me you cant do either you cant parry your enimy and they cant parry you against the old doublesided it was pretty even

[Sushi_CW]

Here's a couple of ideas/observations I wanted to post before I forget about them. Standard disclaimers about "just my opinion" apply.

 

1. DP Regen delay

This is an idea I've been kicking around for a bit. Basically, it would mean that there would be times when your DP regen would pause. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what the best times would be, but right now I'm thinking as follows:

 

A) DP should not regen while you are in the middle of a dodge.

B) DP should not regen while you are in the middle of a stun.

C) DP should not regen while you are in the middle of a slowbounce or parry recovery.

 

First of all, it would make it so that players can't dodge a saber 6 times in 5 seconds. Second, it should shorten fights in general, without having to do wierd stuff with the FP, and you could actually win fights without the aid of kicks, force powers, or mishaps. Most importantly, it would make it possible to defeat an opponent without having to first drain their FP almost every time. It would also reward aggressive players. More on this below...

 

I feel very confident that A and B are good ideas, and I think it's easy to see why. C may take some more explanation. If you land a successful attack fake and thus throw your opponent into a slowbounce, this benefits the attacker, which is fine. He earned it! However C is most important for the defender. It gives HIS DP a chance to regen a bit while his enemy has his frozen for a second, and allows for a potential shift in momentum for the fight.

 

This actually wouldn't change the fights too much, EXCEPT for the endgame. It would only really make a difference for players with critical/low DP, and would result in fewer situations where players with <15 DP manage to survive way longer than they should.

 

I'd really like to see this at least tried, and feel pretty strongly that it would make a significant positive difference in the combat.

 

2. Dodge cost

It might be good to raise the dodge cost again... no matter what, I don't think anyone should be able to dodge more than a couple times in a row. If someone puts three swings through you in a row, it should be dodge, dodge, die. That said, I'd like to see what happens with a DP regen delay before trying to tweak dodge costs further.

 

Do dodges cost more for back hits? If not, they should.

 

3. FP drain/regen

Apparently, on the code test server right now getting hit costs a bit of FP as well as DP. I don't like it... you run out of FP way too fast. Right now, most fights are won only when one player runs out of FP, which is a problem. I think it should be easier to drain DP and harder to drain FP. FP drain should only become an issue in prolonged battles, where both players know enough to play effective defense and keep their DP up. See #1 for my ideas on how to fix this... but yeah, I don't like the "getting hit costs FP" thing.

 

4. Roll stab

What do you guys think about making the roll-stab unblockable from the back? If you roll-stab someone from behind, they would dodge if they have enough DP or die if they don't. On the other hand, the stabber would be vulnerable during the attack, and wouldn't be able to block attacks made on him. That way, this would be a move that is appropriately deadly, but dangerous for the attacker if his opponent is ready for him.

 

5. DFA

On a similar note, I'd like this to be more deadly. It's fairly hard to hit somebody with and fairly easy to defend against, so I think it should do a considerable amount of damage.

 

5. Hitting enemies on ground bug

Everybody has certainly noticed this by now: how it is somehow way too hard to do any damage to enemies on the ground. This is a bit of a hunch-guess, but I think it may have something to do with the getting up animations. I haven't been able to do any damage to someone getting up from a fall for quite some time... they're invincible.

 

6. View switching

This is a minor annoyance. If you are in 3rd person view with guns and switch to saber, it puts you in 1st person saber mode. Wouldn't it be better if it left you in 3rd person saber mode?

 

7. Attack fakes

I don't like the fact that attack fakes can't be parried, since it is often nearly impossible to tell a normal attack from an attack fake under real-life laggy situations. The fact that they switch directions on you is confusing enough to the defender.

I would be perfectly content to have attack fakes with the following properties:

A) Does a bit extra damage

B) Can cause slowbounces/mishaps against DP-drained opponents.

C) Cost more FP (enough to prevent them from being spammed).

D) Parryable like any other attack (based on final attack direction). Successfully parrying an attack fake causes a slowbounce on the attacker (or something more than the normal penalty for getting parried, based on current FP/DP or however it works).

 

I know, most of this is how they already work. The main thing is that the defender should be able to stop attack fakes with basic parries. Please Razor?

 

8. Saber locks

I've already stated ideas about this... this is just a reminder to PLEASE have saber locks do something. At least a dodge or mishap, which should be easy enough.

[Guest JRHockney]

it seems to me you cant do either you cant parry your enimy and they cant parry you against the old doublesided it was pretty even

 

I was playing around with this last night and it seems that if I throw one of my sabers in dual and just fight with one saber, I can't be parried at all. I can however parry others with this though. Fighting with one saber was kind of fun btw! LOL

 

Alot of sushi's ideas here are good ones. The DP regen delay actually sounds better here than I understood it last night.

 

He's also right about attack fakes being really hard to see (an no we don't need longer trails! LOL) and swing at in time. Maybe they should be parryable, but have their un parried hit cause a slowbounce. If this is too spammable, we could always make parrying an attack fake cause a mishap or heavy bounce and if the parrier is low on DP, it only causes a regular slowbounce.

 

the FP drain thing me and razor talked about after we stopped fighting. We' still debating what can be done with that if we keep it. But your right, it's too much right now.

 

The Roll stab might be a good idea.

 

The DFAs already do 1 and 1/2 bars of DP damage, but I suppose it could be more to make it more worth doing. I can't be too much though or it will be used too much.

[razorace]

The DP Regen delay sounds reasonable to me. We already have situations where FP doesn't regen so we'll give that a shot.

 

Do dodges cost more for back hits? If not, they should.

Yes, they do.

 

Roll stab

As for roll stab, I think we have to be really careful about making ANY move unblockable because it creates a massive hole in the defense system.

 

DFA

Well, I don't want it to cost more than a standard body dodge.

 

Hitting enemies on ground bug

oooh, I'll check this out. This could be the case.

 

View switching

try toggling cg_trueinvertsaber?

 

attack fakes

mmm, well, I think that without the slow bounce induce, the attack fakes are pretty useless. Maybe make it so that attack parries induce mishaps in attack fakes?

 

 

So, what happened to Hocky's post number?

[JRHockney*]

mmm, well, I think that without the slow bounce induce, the attack fakes are pretty useless. Maybe make it so that attack parries induce mishaps in attack fakes?

 

Well, the way I put it, getting hit by an attack fake witout parrying it would give you a slow bounce so it would still be plenty useful, just parryable. Your idea might help aswell.

 

Although I must say that I think I've finally figured out why the attack fake the way it is is so troubling to me: It's not just backwards (fake) like its suppose to be, it's "double" backwards. Basically the player is thinking "ok he's swinging this direction so I move this way to parry it. No wait, he's swing the other direction so I move the other way. No wait, its an attack fake! arrgghh!" Thats alot to think about in this fast action. While I'm not opposed to having a move or swing that parries them if they parry it, having it involve a fake might be a little too much, especially for new players, and it's hard to tell apart as we've already mentioned.

 

So, what happened to Hocky's post number?

 

NOOOOOOOO!!!!!! MY BEAUTIFUL POST NUMBER!!!! It probably had something to do with me posting on another computer.

 

(Edit) Oh wait, there it is.

[razorace]

Well, if we do that, then parries are completely unbreakable again.

[JRHockney*]

Well, if we do that, then parries are completely unbreakable again.

 

Hmm, true. Maybe we do need a just a regular swing that breaks parries. Wait a minute, remember my old turn swing idea? Maybe that could break the parries, but turn swings should cost move FP and be more valnerable to hits (maybe hits on them do more DP damage or something,(and maybe slow them down a bit if possible). This could be a helpful advantage for the faster styles to because their turns are faster and help balance them against the heavier styles a little more. We could also make them parryable by attack parries.

[razorace]

But spin moves are really hard to land.

 

Also, I'm not sure what's wrong with using attack fakes vs some sort of power swing. The only difference is the direct that the attack would come from.

[Sushi_CW]

I'm all for having the attack fakes cause slowbounces, in fact I agree that it is essential. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

 

I assume that by making parrying unbreakable you mean it would make it too easy to turtle. I'm doubtful that this would be the case...it's reasonably difficult to parry everything even when you are focusing solely on defense, especially when you throw lag into the mix.

 

As far as the view inversion thing, that CVar doesn't quite do what I'm talking about, but it isn't that big of a deal.

[razorace]

As far as the view inversion thing, that CVar doesn't quite do what I'm talking about, but it isn't that big of a deal.

If I understand what you're asking for. cg_trueinvertsaber is all that's been done. What you're asking for would be uneven in terms of how the interface works. IE, it wouldn't make sense to preserve the view setting from guns->saber but not vis-versa.

[razorace]

I assume that by making parrying unbreakable you mean it would make it too easy to turtle. I'm doubtful that this would be the case...it's reasonably difficult to parry everything even when you are focusing solely on defense, especially when you throw lag into the mix.

I'm mainly concerned about situations were the defender is over blocking and causing the attacker to just slowly drain down due to repeated parries. Having a parry breaker makes it so that the attacker can work his magic on the defender.

[JRHockney*]

But spin moves are really hard to land.

 

Also, I'm not sure what's wrong with using attack fakes vs some sort of power swing. The only difference is the direct that the attack would come from.

 

Their not that hard to land. In fact The reason I suggested higher force cost and greater valnerability was to prevent people from spinning like a top to kill their opponent.

 

Whats wrong is that its too complex. I posted this reason in editing, but you probably didnt see it:

 

Although I must say that I think I've finally figured out why the attack fake the way it is is so troubling to me: It's not just opposite hit (fake) like its suppose to be, it's "double" opposite. Basically the player is thinking "ok he's swinging this direction so I move this way to parry it. No wait, he's swing the other direction so I move the other way. No wait, its an attack fake! arrgghh!" Thats alot to think about in this fast action. While I'm not opposed to having a move or swing that parries them if they parry it, having it involve a fake might be a little too much, especially for new players, and it's hard to tell apart as we've already mentioned.

[Kyle Kelasheski]

Hello All,

 

I'm finally back, for brief moments of feedback due to having only too brief moments of time to play.

 

Over the past several days, I've only had the opportunity to play v. 9. I've tried getting online several times, but each time I've made the attempt, I'm left hanging. There's a counter indicating the time I've waited to join a match, and after a minute's worth of waiting I leave. I can only assume that the reason why I'm waiting is due to the two servers being down. Is this assumption accurate, or...? I was able to play only briefly online against bots, and one of the Jedi Trainers (the one with the beard) was swinging a saberless hilt. Strangely, there was a saber blade being emitted on his behalf, but the blade was coming out of his right thigh.

 

 

 

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

 

Here's my brief feedback on v. 9:

 

1. I love the saber trail lengths, as they look very cinematic to me. This high opinion holds true to even the saber fakes. Nice work!

 

2. Battling bots is now MUCH tougher, although I still wish they'd look around more often, and then move on. It's still pretty common to see them just staring at a wall, standing still and "resting" their saber into the wall's surface.

 

3. Thus far, I've only been able to roughly win 20% of the matches against bots using a single lightsaber, with me winning only about 5% of my matches against tandem saber users, and I've yet to win against a bot armed with a saberstaff. Now, either my skills have really dropped in the weeks I've been away, and/or the combat system was dramatically overhauled. I'm still trying to figure out how to manage my defensive and offensive energies, as it seems I'm always depleting one to a dangerous degree. The bot duels are SO deadly now that I no longer play Power Duel, just so I have more of an opportunity to try and learn how to use the revised system.

 

4. The new Force Push effect is nice. It's very satisfying to see your opponent land on their backs. This event rarely happens though, but it's good to see the knockdown, as it instantly reminds me of what we've seen in the films. I've yet to get pushed down, and I have to ask: is there a "shaken up" camera effect that's used when it occurs to the player, as I suggested in the past?

 

5. Saberlocks seem to be occuring more, which, in my opinion, is a nice thing to have. The results of winning a saberlock are still pretty unsatisfying, and more often than not, the champion's saber harmlessly swings through the losing duelist. Without question, saberlocks in the films are treated more as "contests of character" rather than for strategic advantage. So I'm wondering if maybe the consequences should reflect this in the mod. Perhaps the winner gains some portion of offensive and defensive points back due to having his/her morale boosted, while the opponent would loose a chunk of defensive points. It also might look more cinematic to have the looser of the contest be knocked back a short distance-- nothing too dramatic, but it's a distance that's far enough away to ensure that the winner's saber doesn't harmlessly pass through their body.

 

6. In one of my duels against a tandem saber user, she saberlocked with me and threw her other saber to hit me in the back, a feature that I've only seen availabe in single player. For some reason, seeing her being able to execute this attack really rubbed me the wrong way.

 

7. Are there any plans to fully integrate OJP E's multiplayer saber system into the single player game? Thus far, the single player experience plays out in pretty much the same way that Raven intended. I would much rather play single player with the multiplayer system, if that's possible.

 

 

That's it for now. Time for bed!

 

Yours,

 

Kyle

April 9, 2006

 

[JRHockney*]

3. Thus far, I've only been able to roughly win 20% of the matches against bots using a single lightsaber, with me winning only about 5% of my matches against tandem saber users, and I've yet to win against a bot armed with a saberstaff. Now, either my skills have really dropped in the weeks I've been away, and/or the combat system was dramatically overhauled. I'm still trying to figure out how to manage my defensive and offensive energies, as it seems I'm always depleting one to a dangerous degree. The bot duels are SO deadly now that I no longer play Power Duel, just so I have more of an opportunity to try and learn how to use the revised system.

 

Yeah, the bot battles are alot tougher, although if you think their tough in v.0.0.9, you should come to the code server (I'm not sure why you cant get on, but it almost sounds like you forgot to refresh your server list or something) and play with the new changes! WAHAHAHA! Bots are even harder there. Believe it or not, I harder ever lose a match when fighting a 0.0.9 bot unless their using staff (which isnt balance in that 0.0.9). Its all about comboing and knowing the exploits. Make sure to read the manual carefullly. The only way to beat a staff bot unless you hit him a lot is to lower the FP gain and wait for him to run out of FP. Read the cvar guide readme to rind out how to do that. Staff is more balanced on the code server btw.

 

4. The new Force Push effect is nice. It's very satisfying to see your opponent land on their backs. This event rarely happens though, but it's good to see the knockdown, as it instantly reminds me of what we've seen in the films. I've yet to get pushed down, and I have to ask: is there a "shaken up" camera effect that's used when it occurs to the player, as I suggested in the past?

 

You think thats cool, try lightning! hehe.

 

The following changes have been made to the coding server:

 

1. Attack fakes are unparryable. If you try to parry it, you will get slow bounced yourself. The only way to stop them is by swinging at them.

 

2. An Attack Parry has been added to the gameplay. Tap attack right before a saber hits you to do this parry. This parry causes heavy bounces which can be conversioned like when their parried low on DP. Also in this heavy bounce*coughs*theirvalnerabletoforcepowerswhichtheyshouldn'tbe*coughs* Excuse me I have a BAD COUGH!

 

3. Hits do FP damage as well as DP damage.

 

4. Those almost random turns/spins that you see all the time in 0.0.9 are gone.

 

5. Staff is more balanced because hits on it now do 75% damage rather than 50%.

 

Thats all I can think of at the moment. I should probably make this a thread so that everyone knows changes.

[razorace]

7. Are there any plans to fully integrate OJP E's multiplayer saber system into the single player game? Thus far, the single player experience plays out in pretty much the same way that Raven intended. I would much rather play single player with the multiplayer system, if that's possible.

Unfortunately, we can't add anything to the single player game because Raven hasn't released the single player source code. However, with the use of CoOp mode, we can play the SP maps in MP to some degree.

[JRHockney*]

After seeing how often attackfakes are spammed in the combat at the moment. I would like to resuggest an old idea of mine and combine it with a new one (well, sort of):

 

1. Make attack fakes parriable, but make a successful hit cause a slow bounce (we may have to make getting parried when using the attack fake cause a heavy bounce in case we find out that it is too spammable).

 

2. Create a "primer" swing. This swing can be used at any time, does 1/3 or maybe 1/2 the damage of a regular swing, and cannot be parried. The purpose of this swing is to set up for another move (so it should bounce well into another move if possible) and break through parries with comboing. In order to do this move, I'm think that attackfakes should only be started by pressing attack and alt attack at the same time, and this move be done by pressing attack first, then alt attack.

 

With these changes, I think this saber combat will just make more real life sense in general because a person probably would get confused (or slowbounced) if they got faked out (not if they saw it coming like the way it is now). The primer swing is just like a real life swing where you swing while expecting them to do something and prepare for the result in your swing (which probably wouldnt make the swing to much damage but set up for a new move); thus, anticipation.

 

I think that this should stop the constant spammage of the attackfakes while creating a new way to bust through parries and create a whole new dimension to comboing.

 

I also think we need to run more tests on the staff and dual. They just don't seem right aside from the obvious problems and I think we need to find out why.

 

Of course this all may have to take place after the semester is over.

[razorace]

I personally don't think that attack fakes are being "spammed" now because they're so easy to counter with a normal attack. Anyway....

 

1. Make attack fakes parriable, but make a successful hit cause a slow bounce (we may have to make getting parried when using the attack fake cause a heavy bounce in case we find out that it is too spammable).

Maybe make only attack parries be able to parry attack fakes?

 

2. Create a "primer" swing. This swing can be used at any time, does 1/3 or maybe 1/2 the damage of a regular swing, and cannot be parried. The purpose of this swing is to set up for another move (so it should bounce well into another move if possible) and break through parries with comboing. In order to do this move, I'm think that attackfakes should only be started by pressing attack and alt attack at the same time, and this move be done by pressing attack first, then alt attack.

mmm, I like this idea. Maybe we could go more indepth on this idea. Namely, we could reconfigure the mishap system to only respond to certain defense/attack layer combinations. I mean, think about it, we currently have two standard defense moves and two attack moves.

 

For example, several "light/primer" swings followed by an unblocked "Heavy" swing could result in a dropped saber. In combination with this, we could have a simple line bar that would indicate a player's condition in this light/heavy spectrum.

 

Anyway, I'll think about it some more and try to come up with more.

[JRHockney*]

I personally don't think that attack fakes are being "spammed" now because they're so easy to counter with a normal attack. Anyway....

 

It really isn't that easy to swing at those. By the time you realize its an attack fake, its already halfway through its swing and it will probably hit you before you finish your windup. Half the time their blocked this way, the person defending had already started his swing as his opponent started his attack fake without knowing he was doing an attack fake.

 

Maybe make only attack parries be able to parry attack fakes?

 

Maybe, but those are hard to time right with an attack fake so I doubt that it would be used much for blocking those. I still think my suggestion is more reasonable and more realistic for attackfakes.

 

mmm, I like this idea. Maybe we could go more indepth on this idea. Namely, we could reconfigure the mishap system to only respond to certain defense/attack layer combinations. I mean, think about it, we currently have two standard defense moves and two attack moves.

 

For example, several "light/primer" swings followed by an unblocked "Heavy" swing could result in a dropped saber. In combination with this, we could have a simple line bar that would indicate a player's condition in this light/heavy spectrum.

 

Hmm, this might be a good idea. Unasnwered comboing leading to mishaps would probably give the game more depth. Although we have to be very careful about how we implement this because it can easilly lead to "over priming." We might want to restrict the number of primers that can be done in a row and make it so that causing a mishap requires at least two normal swings in conjunction with the primers in a single combo. Keep thinking about it, we might be on to something here.

 

Quick suggestion: I noticed that conversions dont seem to be used very much because theyre hard to do, you can use force powers or kick instead, and they don't offer that much benefit compared to just quickly blasting them with lightning. The thing is, theyre such a cool thing to do!! I would recomment making their benefit greater by making the mishap they cause be only a Disarming Knockdown. This way, it will take the victim longer to recover getting up and getting his saebr and maybe this would make it worth it.