To new players who have trouble learning

[UDM]

I was just messing around in-game with npc spawning and bots. I was just examining how come tabbots are so powerful...and then it struck me

 

They moved erratically when you strike them. Then, they parry all attacks before bouncing you off. This means that they're programmed to parry all attacks. One of the easiest ways to kill a tabbot would be to unleash a combo of attacks only after he initiates an attack. Therefore, he will not be able to parry

 

A lot of new players, myself included 2 months ago, had difficulty understanding how the combat system worked because of this. Why don't tabbots lose as much DP when I hit them? Why do I lose every round, even though I parry 60% of the time too?

 

Even today, my skills aren't bad, I can beat up NPCs easily eg. Desann but still get killed in a 1-on-1 with a bot 1/3 of the time

 

I realised that it's the way tabbots worked, mentioned above. Tabbots have a very different parrying system from NPCs. NPCs don't parry unless they get lucky. NPCs hardly walk. And more importantly, NPCs don't get in your face all the time, like Tabbots do. Reason why I got killed before, and why newbies get owned by tabbots, is because humans and tabbots have a different reaction time. When they get in your face and attack, you cannot parry as fast as they do. Therefore your attack fails, and theirs will always succeed. And this gets annoying when it ruins the movie-like feel and pacing of the match

 

How then to train? How then to realise and reap the full benefits of parrying?

 

The answer lies with normal bots. That's right, like I mentioned, I was playing around with bots, and then I decided to try normal bots. I've never tried them before. They're awesome, giving good parrying practice. This is because: first, they love overhead strikes for some reason, so you can get a good feel of how parrying works by moving backwards; second, they're easy to set a combo on because they don't have any innate parrying abilities; third, they're just plain fun to fight, especially since they don't move awkwardly just to try and parry

 

In my experience, the main difference between tabbots and normal bots is not their AI, but the level of difficulty given. Tabbots react to the new saber system, like sodium reacts to water (fizzing reaction). Similarly, normal bots react to the new saber system like how sodium chloride reacts to potassium hydroxide (no reaction). It provides a more newbie-friendly environment for training, and helps to get into the game faster. So to newcomers who get frustrated over tabbots, before you actually hit the wall, try out with normal bots

[Maxstate]

I agree^.

[Sushi_CW]

It's strange, but defending/parrying by moving in random directions is sometimes just as effective as actively trying to parry. The tabbots switch directions very frequently (and fairly randomly) and it works pretty well for them.

 

Perhaps it would be better if AI skill affected how often the bots switch their movement direction, either for attack or defense? That way, the initiate tabbots would be easier to predict the motions for and set up combos against.

[razorace]

Actually, *cough*, to get the TABBots to be able to play with Enhanced, I cheated a bit and made ALL bots have a constant rate of parrying, in addition to their movement-based parrying (which they're random with).

 

Since it seems to be a problem, I could just disable that cheating aid.

[Sushi_CW]

AH-HA! That explains a lot.

 

I take it that this affects NPCs and Normal bots too then?

[JRHockney*]

AHHHHH HAHAHAHA!!! yep that sure does explain alot. But I think the best way to fix it it to adjust their parriying rate based on what ever skill level you choose for them. Overall, I think they really should vary in difficultly more. I would still like to see Tabbots kick slowbounces once in a while if thats possible.

[UDM]

I'd like to see Tabbots have varying difficulties of parrying. I'd also sacrifice training for movie-like duels with bots

 

Maybe we could start off for initiate with having no parry abilities so they're like normal bots, but they don't run all over the place and they swing like normal Tabbots, without any form of fakes at all. In other words, they just attack mindlessly, allowing for very new players to play at their own pace

 

Padawan skill lets em parry, but the system could be like that: when you first initiate swing, the bot AI checks only once where the swing is going to hit, and they move in that direction, so they won't start moving erratically to try and parry, and cannot attack fake. In other words, you can just counter them by attack faking. This is good for most starter to below average players

 

Jedi is the same as Padawan, but they can use attack fake and tap fakes.

 

Jedi Knight is like Jedi, but they now become unpredictable with styles, and perform a check 4 times for parry, so they start to move more erratically

 

And Jedi Master has the ability to parry almost all attacks, so they work as unforgivingly as normal Tabbots

 

Tabbots now are very aggressive, always wanting to stick the saber in your face, which makes them less effective as a training device, since I've yet to fight a player who goes in my face all the time. This, plus insane parrying skills, makes them pure 0wnage

[>Chewy<]

That's the thing, Tabbots are unlike any other player, therefore you learn nothing like as muvch playing them as you do playing real opponents.

[Maxstate]

That's the thing' date=' Tabbots are unlike any other player, therefore you learn nothing like as muvch playing them as you do playing real opponents.[/quote']

 

Human players arent psychic, if thats what you mean