Saber system suggestions

[Maxstate]

I think there needs to be an added melee move to get people off of you, especially those who try to spam you, i.e. bots. Bots currently just spam you with slashes over, and over, and over, and over, and over again. They use no strategy whatsoever. They just go in swinging, I've even tricked a bot into wasting all his force power by slashing at me while I was ontop of a box.

Yep, it's that kind of stuff that gets you the ojp reflexes.

You should try playing MB afterwards and you'll soon notice that it's a lot easier!

[razorace]

I think there needs to be an added melee move to get people off of you, especially those who try to spam you, i.e. bots. Bots currently just spam you with slashes over, and over, and over, and over, and over again. They use no strategy whatsoever. They just go in swinging, I've even tricked a bot into wasting all his force power by slashing at me while I was ontop of a box.

Kick should be useable for that purpose now.

[JRHockney*]

Kick should be useable for that purpose now.

 

Yeah, but when will bots start kicking us or our slowbounces once in a while?

 

Happy 900 posts saber suggestions thread!

[razorace]

I have no idea. Kicking players is a completely new behavior that I haven't designed at all. It would take some time to impliment.

[Maxstate]

I had 2 saber system feedback ideas that could prove useful for portraying parries and hits:

 

 

Idea 1

When you slash someone and the slash is not parried a small almost invisible black cloud of smoke comes emanates from where the sabers locked. The effect is already there, I think it's called "fizz" or "boil" and it happens when you dismember NPCS.

It's located in GFX > Sabers.

 

When you or your opponent do parry, either:

-The saber block flash that Razor did appears.

-A small amount of sparks appear.

-Nothing appears.

 

Idea 2

When you parry an attack your DP meter flashes blue for a second, when you don't it flashes red.

[razorace]

Right now, I think the animation difference along is enough. Maybe start a poll thread and see what others think?

[Doctor Shaft]

I'd say an animation difference would work too, although I think the flashing of the DP meter would also be a good indicator, letting someone know they had a successful block/parry.

 

That's the problem I currently suffer from now, as a newbie (I'm afraid bots aren't really making me any better at this game :-) ). I can't tell how successful I am against them. I could be smacking them to death, and they're still kicking. I could be blocking their shots, but until the start bouncing wildly out of control, I can't really tell how close I am to defeating them.

[Maxstate]

Personally I think that OJP's combat is too fast to have a clear animation warning.

Besides we already have the new blocking ones which I absolutely adore!

 

 

And if it were up to me, I'd have a combination of the two indicators I mentioned. For example, if someone's nearing red dp, sparks could fly off when the sabers clang.

Visuals rock.

 

And Ace I don't think this deserves it's own thread, plus I really don't think we need more unactive threads littering the front page.

*hides*

 

Edit: I agree on the bot thing.

[JRHockney*]

And if it were up to me, I'd have a combination of the two indicators I mentioned. For example, if someone's nearing red dp, sparks could fly off when the sabers clang.

Visuals rock.

 

I'd agree with that. The sparks would have to be in combination with the normal flash though I think because the sparks werent like that in the movies, but they'd be a cool addition. I'd say make the extra sparks for the when you dont parry something though.

[razorace]

Personally I think that OJP's combat is too fast to have a clear animation warning.

Besides we already have the new blocking ones which I absolutely adore!

Uh, what new animations? If you're referring to the way the player actively bats the saber away, those are the parry animations.

 

And if it were up to me, I'd have a combination of the two indicators I mentioned. For example, if someone's nearing red dp, sparks could fly off when the sabers clang.

Visuals rock.

I suppose we can try it. However, I'm going to point out that the sparking was removed in the first place since that effect wasn't in the movies!

 

And Ace I don't think this deserves it's own thread, plus I really don't think we need more unactive threads littering the front page.

*hides*

Threads become unactive because people don't have anything more to say on a given subject. I don't see that as a problem.

[Maxstate]

Uh, what new animations? If you're referring to the way the player actively bats the saber away, those are the parry animations.

Okay, the parry animations.

 

I suppose we can try it. However, I'm going to point out that the sparking was removed in the first place since that effect wasn't in the movies!

 

Threads become unactive because people don't have anything more to say on a given subject. I don't see that as a problem.

Okay, I can bump the feedback thread too I guess.

[JRHockney*]

I cant make tonights testing session (or anyother thrursday night for that matter), but I do request that two things be worked on that I've discussed with razor already:

1. test to make sure attack parries work right.

2. if the attack parries work right, add the attack parries against attack fakes causing heavy bounce thing I talked about a thousand times that has been delayed because of attack parry uncertainty.

 

Also I was wondering if we could make the mb2 sabers a menu option since it would be more convinent and alot of people like them. You might have to make a longer trail for the attackfakes though.

 

Anyways, got to go. Have fun testing and make good decisions that are balanced.

[JRHockney*]

After some more play testing on the code server, I think the following things need to be tested and adjusted:

 

1. test the new attack parries to see if they work efficiently enough. This is very important and hasn't really been directly addressed yet.

 

2. if the attack parries work good enough, make attack parrying an attack fake cause a heavy bounce; thus making conversions (disarms) more possible and giving us a more proficient way to demonstrate what a heavybounce looks like to noobs.

 

3. get rid of the saber locks in attack parries. I've given in after having bots saberlock me non-stop at the code server. It gets in the way of the gameplay (especially with bots) and its just not worth it anymore. I suppose we could leave them in for them only for when the opponent is low on DP just so you could still do superbreaks with them, but other than that, they need to go

 

4.we need to play around with the whole 50% mishap probability for parries thing and either adjust it so it varies at different levels (i.e. maybe like 25% at slowbounce level, 50% at heavybounce level and 75% at full level) or just get rid of it completely. While it may not seem like that big of a deal, I've really started to notice the lack of control it gives players compared to not having it at all and I'm still worried about its potential "random system" complaints in the future. The fact that the bots can now attack parry fixes that prevous problem of potentially being able to swing spam bots, so at least thats not a problem anymore. At the very least, the probability needs an adjustment thats lower than 50% at least for the first level. I tried like mad to get bots into heavy bounce and maxout range and I had a heck of a time getting past even the first level of mishap with out it auto mishaping the bot.

 

5. make maxout cause stumbles and only allow disarms and knockdowns at low DP.

 

6. PLLLEEEEAASSEEE bring back the differing DP values for the saber styles (with the exception of blue becoming the new weakest). I've given reason after reason for this in the past and the bottom line is: THE STYLES WILL NEVER BE COMPLETELY BALANCED AGAINST EACHOTHER. If I have to go back through all the reasons I've listed for this I will, but unless we go the route of making specific and balance bonuses for each style which we probably wont do...THEY WILL... well, read the caps above! LOL

 

7. I still think that not parrying an attack should do something to your mishap meter for logic sake and to not make defense too strong, but thats just me.

 

For those of you who dont want to touch the sabersystem anymore, I'm sorry, but I refuse to settle for our saber system the way it is when their could be simple adjustments that make a ton of difference. The point system and borderline RPG improvements we are making at the moment are very important for the future of OJP, but these features are most likely not going to be the diving force of what makes us unique amoung the JKA mods considering other mods have features that are kind of similar this (though they haven't done it with this much customization).

 

Anyways, if you guys could keep these things in mind at the next testing session (if its thursday), I would appreciate it. Thursday testing sessions at 7pm my time have become nearly impossible for me to make.

[razorace]

Create bug tickets for #1, 3, and 4. See notes on the others.

 

2. if the attack parries work good enough, make attack parrying an attack fake cause a heavy bounce; thus making conversions (disarms) more possible and giving us a more proficient way to demonstrate what a heavybounce looks like to noobs.

I think that would just over complicate things. Besides, I think the windup period for the attack fakes is enough of a penalty as is.

 

5. make maxout cause stumbles and only allow disarms and knockdowns at low DP.

Just low DP? Or mishaps that occur at low DP?

 

6. PLLLEEEEAASSEEE bring back the differing DP values for the saber styles (with the exception of blue becoming the new weakest). I've given reason after reason for this in the past and the bottom line is: THE STYLES WILL NEVER BE COMPLETELY BALANCED AGAINST EACHOTHER. If I have to go back through all the reasons I've listed for this I will, but unless we go the route of making specific and balance bonuses for each style which we probably wont do...THEY WILL... well, read the caps above! LOL

I don't really see a need to go back. Without additional perks/disadvantages to go along with the style specific, there's really no justification for it.

 

7. I still think that not parrying an attack should do something to your mishap meter for logic sake and to not make defense too strong, but thats just me.

I don't think it would be logical to most players. They'd just be like "why am I continuing to gain MP?!"

[Maxstate]

Create bug tickets for #1, 3, and 4. See notes on the others.

 

 

I think that would just over complicate things. Besides, I think the windup period for the attack fakes is enough of a penalty as is.

 

 

Just low DP? Or mishaps that occur at low DP?

 

 

I don't really see a need to go back. Without additional perks/disadvantages to go along with the style specific, there's really no justification for it.

 

 

I don't think it would be logical to most players. They'd just be like "why am I continuing to gain MP?!"

 

Well untill I actually see any confirmation of styles becoming different by feats and skills I'd like the damage and mishap attributes back for the styles too.. I'll give it another wait though.

 

I agree that disarms should play a big role in OJP from now on. I also think that the replacement pack cyan/Makashi should be the style with which people will have a perk in exactly those things.

 

I'd like to see a simple skill buyable that enables you to disarm low-medium mishap enemies by riposting their attacks.

[razorace]

Disarms are practically a finishing move. I don't think we can get away with allowing them in the low-med mishap range.

[JRHockney*]

Create bug tickets for #1, 3, and 4.

 

I'm on it.

 

I think that would just over complicate things. Besides, I think the windup period for the attack fakes is enough of a penalty as is.

 

Disarms are practically a finishing move. I don't think we can get away with allowing them in the low-med mishap range.

 

From my experience, disarms are about as much of a finishing move as MB2 is an RPG. Have you seen how fast bots get back their saber in a disarm? Thats how fast most of us vets get it back and it makes it not much different then doing a slowbounce/kick/hit combination damage wise. Heck, half the time the players I fight realise they've been disarmed as quickly as I do and they move and get back their saber before I can even hit them. Bots dont run away when they get disarmed so they're much easier to hit (this might be a cool future edition btw xp). And enough of this overcomplicating nonsense especially for a no brainer addition like this. I know we're all sick of those complaints, but we said originally that we weren't going to cater to noobs and we've already catered alot. The reasons I listed above should be more than enough to add this in. On top of that, It just seems like the hit or kick is all we have 90% the time and it would be nice to see conversion disarms get more play. Also bear in mind that attack fakes are more powerful then they ever have been before with the new saberlock possibilities. It stands to reason that they should have another potential downside (that will be VERY hard to pull off btw considering you have to time the attack parry perfectly with the attack fake)

 

I don't really see a need to go back. Without additional perks/disadvantages to go along with the style specific, there's really no justification for it.

 

Dude, how many times do we have to go over this? While animations for all the styles move at the same speed, the extra animation FRAMES in the windup anim of certain styles make those styles slower to hit than others. If I had the option to add 2 DP extra damage for aqua and I new it would end up doing the same damage as red if I did the same for red, I would choose aqua EVERY TIME and so would any logical OJP player. On top of that, in reality, Why the heck would a style that you can swing with one at high speed with no drawback (aqua) do the same damage as a style you swing like a baseball bat (red). Sword weights aside, imagine trying to block a scottish claymore with a fencing foil. We are throwing physics out the window by making them do the same DP damage when we make a two handed swing with a windup as strong as a one handed swing with no windup. Ok class, be sure to read the section in chapter 2 on inhertia and leverage, and questions 3, 4, and 6 are due tomar... wait a second...

 

Just low DP? Or mishaps that occur at low DP?

 

I'd say 25% DP or so. That should be fair enough.

 

I don't think it would be logical to most players. They'd just be like "why am I continuing to gain MP?!"

 

Well, the answer to that question would be, "you arent parrying very well." The way I had it set up in my code before made it pretty balanced between defense and offense and penalized swing spam, but also bad parrying. If only I could remember exactly what they were. This isnt that important atm anyways but might be something to consider later on.

 

Btw, I'm still going to need the entire WIN32 folder for the repository code from anyone who has it. Unfortuanately I noticed that ensiforms code for crash prevention requires more from WIN32 than just windows.h of that folder.

[Sushi_CW]

My responses to Jon's stuff:

 

2) I agree with Razor here...I think the attack parries are fine as they are.

 

3) I agree fully. I've already disabled them for myself and it's a lot more fun.

 

4) Right now, the 50% thing serves a pretty important role. Without it, every parry results in a mishap unless the attacker has almost no MP. Having it means that a parry doesn't guarantee a mishap unless it's an attack parry, and I think that it's one of the things that has made such a huge difference in the system since .009b or so. It also is important in making sure the higher mishaps ever happen. Tweaking the percentages MIGHT work, but I suspect that doing so may cause more harm than good.

 

5) I don't quite agree with this, but I do agree that stumbles should be the most common consequence of maxing out. However, I like the fact that you're never sure exactly what will happen... if I keep attacking and max out my MP, will I get a relatively harmless stumble, or will I drop your saber and lose it down a shaft? I've set up my game to cause stumbles about 2/3 of the time and I'm pretty happy with the result. Stumbles most of the time, occasionally something else. Random? Sure, but it's a CONTROLLED randomness, and players deal with that all the time. Fun games are all about calculated risks.

 

6) I wouldn't mind having the different DP damages back either, but it's not a huge deal for me either way. The truth is, they are significantly different already by virtue of the animations they use, and I find myself switching between them for different things even without DP damage differences.

 

7) Having the mishap meter increase when you get hit is a good idea when the mishap regen rate is fairly fast. That's how I have it set up on my machine, and basically what happens is that if noone attacks you or if you parry everything, your meter goes down fast. If you fail to parry attacks, your mishap meter "hiccups" in it's descent, so your mishap regen is effectively slowed down but not stopped or reversed. It works well for me, but I don't think it would work as well in the official system as it currently stands.

[JRHockney*]

2) I agree with Razor here...I think the attack parries are fine as they are.

 

Um... why and how is my reasoning not sound? I've given multiple good reasons why we should have this several times now, and so far, nobody has given me a good reason why we shouldn't have it other than that tired overcomplicated argument that falls short. I mean come on, the conversion disarms are one of the coolest features we have that no one ever sees because you rarely get into a situation where they make sense. This is a way to bring them out a bit more because it will be your only option other than a normal hit when you do attack parry and attack fake when their mishap is at base level sinse you cant kick them. This will atleast make it attempted more. Come on skeptics, how many more reason do I have to list that I've already listed before and havent been given good counter arguments too? Sorry if I sound annoyed, but I feel like I've been over this a thousand times on the forum, in chat, and in game (although this my be the first time you've seen it personally).

 

4) Right now, the 50% thing serves a pretty important role. Without it, every parry results in a mishap unless the attacker has almost no MP. Having it means that a parry doesn't guarantee a mishap unless it's an attack parry, and I think that it's one of the things that has made such a huge difference in the system since .009b or so. It also is important in making sure the higher mishaps ever happen. Tweaking the percentages MIGHT work, but I suspect that doing so may cause more harm than good.

 

The only role it serves for me is frustration because I have no real control over where my opponent mishaps. If I want to try and get him high, the code makes that decision for me 50% of the time. And btw, attackfakes and kick also cash in as well remember? We have the tools at our disposal to make this work just fine and let the players decide when to cash in and not random chance. Also, one thing I've noticed about when we got rid of the kick block is that its real easy to get up in MP from swing and the second you get that random mishap, you are fully vulnerable to a kick and its very "luck of the draw" in that sense as well which means more random outcomes or DP loses.

 

I've mentioned this before, but I hear people say that MB2 sabersystem seems random and they dont even have random features. What will they say about us? You've always been trying to make our system more dynamic and thats good, but I'm pretty certain that random features is not the way to do it. At the very least, I think this needs to be tested out to see if it works or not and also maybe play around with that rate a bit. Just because we've played with the 50% mishap thing in the system for a long time doesnt mean their isn't a better way or we shouldn't at least try others ways that have potential.

 

5) I don't quite agree with this, but I do agree that stumbles should be the most common consequence of maxing out. However, I like the fact that you're never sure exactly what will happen... if I keep attacking and max out my MP, will I get a relatively harmless stumble, or will I drop your saber and lose it down a shaft? I've set up my game to cause stumbles about 2/3 of the time and I'm pretty happy with the result. Stumbles most of the time, occasionally something else. Random? Sure, but it's a CONTROLLED randomness, and players deal with that all the time. Fun games are all about calculated risks.

 

You can only control getting to that level of mishap, you can't control what type of mishap the game spits at you. When a certain type of mishap can determine the outcome of a fight and you just happen to get that certain mishap that is fatal, it allow for excuses on why you lost. When I play dice, I expect my fate to be mostly random. But when I play action oriented video games, the last thing I want is a portion of my fate to be in the hands of the code. As I've said before, I've heard our system being called random by noobs who don't know what their doing countless times and I hate having to admit that some parts of it are. The second I do, they seem more start showing more signs of skepticism.

 

6) I wouldn't mind having the different DP damages back either, but it's not a huge deal for me either way. The truth is, they are significantly different already by virtue of the animations they use, and I find myself switching between them for different things even without DP damage differences.

 

They do have some differences in the way they hit, but my experience tells me that the slower styles will be little match for the faster styles if they do the exact same damage; especially comparing red to blue or aqua. I mean, how many of us have been destroyed by bots with blue style even before the DP damage balance? I know I have, and now I feel like I cant use any slow style against them without seriously cutting down my odds of winning. Its all in the way they hit.

 

7) Having the mishap meter increase when you get hit is a good idea when the mishap regen rate is fairly fast. That's how I have it set up on my machine, and basically what happens is that if noone attacks you or if you parry everything, your meter goes down fast. If you fail to parry attacks, your mishap meter "hiccups" in it's descent, so your mishap regen is effectively slowed down but not stopped or reversed. It works well for me, but I don't think it would work as well in the official system as it currently stands.

 

Agreed, the mishap regen should be at least a twice as fast as the default in order to make this work.

[{TheChosenOne}]

Well I was playing earlier and I noticed that defending isn't a very important role at all in this mod. I just got beaten by spam tbh even after I defended well.

 

I think when that stunned animation due to the directional block(forgot the name ) should cause force power to go down so spammers don't get the upperhand. I even remember when I first joined, I spammed Razor Ace and won

 

I also think when you successfully block an attack your own DP should go up, to emphasize defense.

[Maxstate]

You have riposte for that ;0

[{TheChosenOne}]

I also just got lunge spammed and it ate my dp's......

 

Maybe make it so lunges, DFA's, etc. take 1/4 DP or force points?

[JRHockney*]

I also think when you successfully block an attack your own DP should go up, to emphasize defense.

 

Hmm, I dont know. That may make fights go on forever. But maybe we should consider getting rid of the 1/3 of damage for hit thing.

 

I also just got lunge spammed and it ate my dp's......

 

Did you remember that the parry for lunge is forward?

 

Hmm, quick idea for the sake of swing spam. Maybe we should put a slight delay between each swing in a combo as you get up in mishap/balance. Maybe a 10th sec delay between swings on the slowbounce range, 20th sec on the heavy bounce range, and 30th sec on the last range. It would be mild of a change enough to tell for sure, but it would help prevent swing spam or at least make it easier to defend against. We could either make this only when you parry the person or we could keep it like this and just double it for parries.

[{TheChosenOne}]

Hmm, I dont know. That may make fights go on forever. But maybe we should consider getting rid of the 1/3 of damage for hit thing.[/Quote]

That may be the case but currently if you want to be defensive in a fight and wait for your chances to strike you'll end up dead.

 

You could possibly have it so that the person who successfully blocked gains DP and vice versa to the one who got blocked to again make being a defensive fighter a more viable option.

 

I was just ingame fighting another human opponent and doing the longer attack fakes(forgot the name), attack + alt attack, and it just leaves you open and is slow. I got blue/teal (Soresu and Makashi) spammed making those longer attack fakes useless.

 

Did you remember that the parry for lunge is forward?

They didn't ONLY attack me with lunges so I had to change movements, but they threw in a lunge frequently and it's hard to predict it considering it's faster than a normal attack. Plus the few times I got a successful block on it, the damage was done and my DP was suffering. A simple solution for it would be to just take out lunge entirely, though nobody would want that 'cept me.

 

Another thing to note is that saber combat suffers from crouch spam much like MB2. Like my idea to stop crouch spam in MB2, it can be applied to OJP: making the offensive power of attacks when crouched severely lowered than normal.

 

Yet another thing to note is that blue/teal stance have a very short slowbounce(? Not sure if that's what it's called), meaning being defensive against those forms is fruitless.

 

The big problem I can see so far with this mod's saber system is that being defensive is not nearly as beneficial as being offensive. You don't really even need to successfully block in Enhanced as you can just run away when your dp is low and it will regen. Again I think DP should not regen while running or jumping.

 

One thing worthy of note is that FP hardly ever goes down in saber fights and yet it controls your swinging speed. There needs to be something to lower it imo. Like I said, maybe on successful blocks it can take away 20 force points off your opponent.

 

My last thoughts go out to kick. Not only is the kicked guy very vulnerable again to a lunge he is a sitting duck. I was wondering if the kickups from base could be implemented to allow movement and/or escape when kicked. Though if it is already there.....I must really be out of it. O_o

[DScion]

I've found blocking to be rather pointless too, I never beat bots unless I beat them with a gun.