Little Changes I'd like to see for Enhanced 0.1.0

[JackBaldy]

Attack fakes are too slow and can be interrupted. Not only that you can parry while running. And right now the only way to affect someone with force is if they have a high mishap bar I believe (in the code server, unless razor changed it, and excluding lightning, that effects you when you have low DP I believe). And I am pretty sure if you pull someone and they fall to the floor they can jump away.

[JRHockney*]

Attack fakes are too slow and can be interrupted. Not only that you can parry while running. And right now the only way to affect someone with force is if they have a high mishap bar I believe (in the code server, unless razor changed it, and excluding lightning, that effects you when you have low DP I believe). And I am pretty sure if you pull someone and they fall to the floor they can jump away.

 

I'm pretty sure he changed that even back when he changed the mishap bar. I think I remember asking him after you told me and Im pretty sure you are vulnerable to force powers now when your DP is low.

[JackBaldy]

Code server hasn't been up in a while, so my memory isn't that fresh. I guess I'll just leave my suggestions to myself until the code server goes up again.

[da_chimp]

personally id like to see some larger differences in the saber styles to make the more usefull in certain situations

 

i can see it now force drain becomes force nerf "no you can't use force powers for 5secs obiwan i force nerfed you ;P" but seriously now thats a nice idea using the force to temporaily disconnect someone from the force making them rely on the skill

 

id also like to see some objects ingame that can be toyed with or staticly charged so you could set traps e.g force lightning a medpack and the next person to pick it up takes damage rather then getting healed or electrofieying a e11 so it cant use its second fire.

 

make force grip into something similar to force throw by making it able to grip weapons ammo or medpacks

 

the blocking animations should be updated to keshires because its kinda unsettleing when you go to hit someone and it just stops part swing and goes the current blocks

 

also it would be nice if your force wasnt treated like fatigue because even when a jedi is completely buggered they can use there force powers

 

it would also be nice if there when a couple of attacks which just crushed blocks/parrys which you have to physcly avoid or be knockedown

 

these are just some things i've been thinking about for a while

[UDM]

I've got a few suggestions to make regarding the saber system:

 

1) Make parrying less common. I'm not sure whether parry is related to DP or mishap bar or both, but imho parry should be related to mishap (or better termed as 'aggression') bar only. This gives players with low DP a better fighting chance, therefore players can opt to play defensively. However, there may be some who take advantage of this and choose to defend all the way, then create mishap. Therefore, I suggest that the mishap bar move up more slowly. Therefore, fights can be faster-paced, but they do not end so quickly ie. parry -> kick -> downwards stab or lunge -> kill opponent

 

As for opponents who are overly aggressive (think tabbots), instead of being penalized by the system, they can be countered by players' skills. This makes the whole system more twitch based instead of waiting-based (defending players trying to parry and then mishap). Since the saber system allows for sabers to clash by 2 aggressors ie. attacking and forcing your saber into the other guy's, then defenders should counterattack, instead of just waiting for the moment to happen, then create a mishap. In other words, I think the parrying animations should be removed when mishap slider isnt anywhere near the top. What about heavy slowbounce and normal bounce? Maybe the game can randomly roll a number out of a scale of 10, and if it hits 9-10, then it goes into heavy slowbounce, and if it's anything less than that, then it goes into normal bounce

 

Why do I suggest this? Using ROTS as an example, Anakin is always fighting on the offensive side, but he doesn't slow bounce every 5 seconds. This makes fights more intense, more movie-realistic and more fast-paced. Compared to 009b, 009d is a major improvement because of less parrying animations, but I think it should be taken one notch higher as mentioned above. I've heard some newcomers complain about how parrying animations in 009b always get in the way in pacing the fight, and while it's definitely an improvement in 009d...well im basically repeating myself

 

2) I'd like to see some difference between Aqua and Blue animations. At the moment, there isn't much difference to them. I like how styles are made preferential now, but there has to be some sort of benefits and different animations to differentiate them

 

I like Maxstate's anims, but somehow they don't really work out in 009d when you're fighting against over aggressive enemies ie. animations become very twitchy and kind of ruin the whole "I'm watching a movie" thing

 

I suggest that Aqua use a stab-like animation for its W / S attack, and max's saber twirling animations for A/D. Similarly, I think yellow and red are overly similar. Would be nice to have something different for Red (thou shalt not touch holy yellow )

[Sushi_CW]

This is a truly small thing, but right now, a full level 1 force jump costs the same FP as a full level 3 force jump. Could we adjust this so that if you accidentally do a short jump without full force jump points you don't lose so much FP?

[razorace]

That's a tricky issue. I'll have to think about it.

[Sushi_CW]

I've modified the force jump code so that the force cost of jumps scales better based on the power level selected, and actually uses the values stored in forcePowerNeeded. I've left the values there at their defaults, but if we want to tweak the force cost for jumping in the future, this will make it a whole lot easier. Right now, a full level 3 jump costs about 30FP, a full level 2 about 15, and a full level 1 about 12.

 

If you guys (mostly Razor ) are in favor, I'll commit the changes.

 

	if (forcePower == FP_LEVITATION)
{ //special case
	int jumpDrain = 0;

	//Edited by Sushi so that the jumpDrain amount depends on the force cost for Jump in forcePowerNeeded.
	if (ps->velocity[2] > 250)
	{
		//jumpDrain = 20;
		jumpDrain = forcePowerNeeded[ps->fd.forcePowerLevel[FP_LEVITATION]][FP_LEVITATION] * 0.66;
	}
	else if (ps->velocity[2] > 200)
	{
		//jumpDrain = 16;
		jumpDrain = forcePowerNeeded[ps->fd.forcePowerLevel[FP_LEVITATION]][FP_LEVITATION] * 0.53;
	}
	else if (ps->velocity[2] > 150)
	{
		//jumpDrain = 12;
		jumpDrain = forcePowerNeeded[ps->fd.forcePowerLevel[FP_LEVITATION]][FP_LEVITATION] * 0.4;
	}
	else if (ps->velocity[2] > 100)
	{
		//jumpDrain = 8;
		jumpDrain = forcePowerNeeded[ps->fd.forcePowerLevel[FP_LEVITATION]][FP_LEVITATION] * 0.26;
	}
	else if (ps->velocity[2] > 50)
	{
		//jumpDrain = 6;
		jumpDrain = forcePowerNeeded[ps->fd.forcePowerLevel[FP_LEVITATION]][FP_LEVITATION] * 0.2;
	}
	else if (ps->velocity[2] > 0)
	{
		//jumpDrain = 4;
		jumpDrain = forcePowerNeeded[ps->fd.forcePowerLevel[FP_LEVITATION]][FP_LEVITATION] * 0.13;
	}

	//Removed by Sushi
	//if (jumpDrain)
	//{
	//	if (ps->fd.forcePowerLevel[FP_LEVITATION])
	//	{ //don't divide by 0!
	//		jumpDrain /= ps->fd.forcePowerLevel[FP_LEVITATION];
	//	}
	//}

	ps->fd.forcePower -= jumpDrain;
	if ( ps->fd.forcePower < 0 )
	{
		ps->fd.forcePower = 0;
	}

	//[FatigueSys]
	//check for fatigued state.  I'm putting this here in addition to BG_AddFatigue
	//because a lot of the code uses this function for draining instead.
	if(ps->fd.forcePower <= (ps->fd.forcePowerMax * FATIGUEDTHRESHHOLD))
	{//Pop the Fatigued flag
		ps->userInt3 |= ( 1 << FLAG_FATIGUED );
	}
	//[/FatigueSys]

	return;
}

[JRHockney*]

Hmmm, so does that mean doing the highest jump possible would cost only 12 FP total? Wouldnt that mean the lesser jumps would only cost like 6 or so? We have to be very careful to to make jumping cost very little at any level because we dont need base players coming in here and jumping around all over the place with little penalty.

[razorace]

I don't get it. Did you make actual value changes or just reorganize where the values are defined?

[Darth Cariss]

You know, I agree. Jump should be way more expensive, not just in FP cost, but to actually get as a Power.

 

I think Instead of constant Force Jump, there should be real skill in platforming. Not just "Jump 50 feet in the air", I'm talking Prince of Persia style skill in platforming.

 

We already have a lot of what we need, Wallrunning, Ledgegrabbing (which I think should shimmy faster while grabbed on), etc. It's just not used as good as it could be.

 

What if a lot of players didn't get Jump becuase it was expensive? What if they got just stuck with Jump Level 1 (Which should have Wallrunning in my opinion, it's useless with Level 2 since you can jump anyway, but with Level 1, it actually adds value to the ability in allowing you to reach places you normally can't jump to).

 

Just think about it, It'd be like making the normally worthless wall-running valuable and useful for reaching places.

 

But lets take it a step further, just for arguements sake. What if there were some extra coding done for some more platforming features? Lets not even get into needing new Animations yet... I think the "wall Grab" feature (Where you jump and latch onto a wall for a moment, and then jump off of it) should be sped up (so it's more like a wall bounce), and made so you actually gain hieght off of it. What if you could "wall jump" back and forth up a narrow walkway to reach the top? I think that'd be awesome. It'd also add value and use to JA's normally useless feature.

 

I personally am I big fan of Platforming (For example, I like the Prince of Persia games for thier elaborate platform puzzles), and I think JA is capable of a lot more platforming than it normally has. It already has Wall Grabbing, wall Running, etc. I just don't think it was ever taken to the level that it could be taken to.

 

Also, with a possible new Skill system, this could give gunners a way to reach places without needing silly Force Jump where they leap 50 feet into the air. No, this would add skill to reaching places, something that would make people feel good about themselves for getting to a hard to reach area. "Force Jump" Just seems so lazy to me, and in my opinion people should pay more points for being lazy.

[UDM]

I find that many features in JKA are useless and besides giving you that 2-mins "wow" feeling, they don't do anything more

 

But the problem with this is that how do you really differentiate between doing a normal force jump, and wall-2-wall hopping? If I could just force jump all the way up, why then do I need to hop from wall to wall? And if hopping from wall to wall has advantages like less FP cost, then why do I need to force jump?

 

Besides, there are very few ledges that are unreachable in OJP with force jump and ledge grabbing. Taking these into consideration, it's hard to strike a good balance

[Sushi_CW]

I basically reorganized where the values are defined. The costs shifted slightly as a result, but they could be more easily shifted back, shifted up, shifted down, or whatever people want than they could before.

 

The way jumping worked before:

Force would be drained at intervals throughout the jump.

How much force was drained in a given interval depended on the player's jump velocity. Basically, when you first jump, your velocity is high and the interval cost more force. As you near the top of the jump, your velocity is low and the cost per interval is less.

The cost for the interval would be divided by the player's skill in jump.

 

The way I modified it, the cost per interval is multiplied by the force cost listed in forcePowerNeeded. The fractions in my code are proportionate to the values that used to be there (See commented code) so that the overall cost for a level 3 jump is exactly the same.

 

The main point is to be able to adjust the jump costs by modifying forcePowerNeeded instead of by modifying hard-coded values in the force drain function.

[ensiform]

i'd like to see the kicking taken out of the staff if you have any throw powers, and add in staff throwing maul has (in battlefront 2)

[Sushi_CW]

Re jump spam: Most of the jump spam you see in Jedi Academy is the kind that doesn't require any force at all. Right now, it takes 0 FP to do a bunny hop, which is what makes it possible to bounce around the map tigger-style.

[Darth Cariss]

But the problem with this is that how do you really differentiate between doing a normal force jump, and wall-2-wall hopping? If I could just force jump all the way up, why then do I need to hop from wall to wall? And if hopping from wall to wall has advantages like less FP cost, then why do I need to force jump?

 

Well the point would be more than just making platforming cost less FP, but the player would also be able to do it to reach places without needing high Force Jump. Wall-running could be enabled for players who don't have Jump, and Jump's Points cost could be incresed, so the lazy people have to spend more points to jump 50 feet through the air.

 

As for why you would need to Force Jump, the answer to that is quite simple. Because people are lazy, and they want to do what's quick. Even moreso in the heat of battle, just leaping up to a ledge will make one far less vulnerable than having to run up a wall, grab the ledge, and then pull one's self up. You get the quicker, easier way of reaching the top of that ledge with Force Jump (would would be costly) than with the slower, more cost-effective method.

[razorace]

Re jump spam: Most of the jump spam you see in Jedi Academy is the kind that doesn't require any force at all. Right now, it takes 0 FP to do a bunny hop, which is what makes it possible to bounce around the map tigger-style.

Agreed, I'll try to fix that when I have time.

[ensiform]

add the rest of the code for 1-Flag CTF and make a way for it to work with base ctf maps maybe. i could make the model/icons.

[razorace]

mmm, do people really want 1-flag ctf? There's already a lot of gametypes that players rarely use as is.

[Vruki Salet]

I'd rather see king of the hill, with territory to take instead of a flag.

[UDM]

I'd rather see an improvement to Siege

[JRHockney*]

Ok, we've made alot of progress on Enhanced over the past several weeks and 0.1.0 is alot closer to release I think. I'm making a new list of things I'd like to see get occomplished before the release:

 

1. Tabbot skill level variation and maybe attack parry and kick usage. Maybe We can base the percentage of auto parry of the tabbots on their skill level and also make them occasionally auto attack parry and kick (which the rate could also be based on skill level)

 

2. find a good balance to force powers such as this idea from the force power thread for push and pull:

 

only access to back pushes at low DP, anyjumps at low DP, and running swings at low DP

1 level higher = only can push jumps at any level of DP and maybe running swings

2 levels higher = can push jumps and running at any level of DP.

3 levels higher = full access.

 

3. Finish the ideas that we've been working on (me and Razor) at for lightning. Such as make the dp drain for using it on melee (and maybe for w/saber) faster or slower depending on the lightning skill level of the defender. It would work the same for absorb except level 3 absorb reflects the lightning back. I would also like to see the defender execute the level 1 lightning effect when hit (so it looks like he's absorbing it).

 

4. Add a sound and maybe even a spark effect to the saberlocks.

 

5. Make a final decision on how the random saberlocks are fought and won. I've actually killed bots with it in practice and it annoyed the heck out of me.

 

6. More coop maps to play with and maybe better bot behavior.

 

7.Maybe do more as far as distinguishing gunners from jedi on the force menu and maybe start allow putting weapons on there to buy if they choose no force powers (or maybe access to NPCs, but thats probably a later build thing). This isnt super neccessary, but it might be good to get a start on it.

 

8. Find a way to bring in the back hand animation in the saber combat. I've explained one way one another thread.

 

9. Finish Keshires blocking anims including back block (probably almost done).

 

10. Finish the HUD (probably almost done too).

 

11. Make double DP damage for blasters hitting a jedis back. I just thought of this one, but it makes sense; even after the jedis have a back block.

 

12. I just noticed that tabbots in duel gamemode only use blue style and purple. We might want to look into that.

 

Thats is for now. Any other suggestions?

[Vruki Salet]

Sorry JR I forgot about those keshire block anims in my eagerness to get realtrace in Basic. I'll see if I can work with them later today (Thursday) after I sleep.