Reasons why the Lightsaber Needs to be Made Respectable

[Guest Vagabond]

This may not need pointing out, but I'll do so just so that everyone has a chance to understand and comment on this, if necessary.

 

When playing as a NF saberist, whether by intention, or simply a NF class that has happened upon a lightsaber, unless one is Force-sensitive, one should not be able to block any weapon fire, the analogy being Han Solo using a lightsaber. Sure, he could clumsily weild one, but blocking blaster bolts? He'd just as soon have a good blaster at his side.

 

I only mentioned this because I was getting the impression that some thought a NF saberist would be able to block weapon fire, when in reality, this ability would be inconsistent with the Star Wars universe.

 

We now resume our regular programming...

[Syndrix]

I dont at all want a JK clone KillerBee, that would be terrible, I was merely pointing something out.

 

Vagabond makes a good point, you must be in tune with the force to use the saber effectively enough to block fire. All the more reason for the saberist/Jedi to be only allowed the force (if a class system is in place).

[Guest Vagabond]

I think I'd be fine with a Jedi using weapons other than the lightsaber, while still being able to use the Force. However, the lightsaber, in the hands of a Jedi, is capable of some amazing feats, such blocking weapon fire, and Saber Throw.

 

When playing MotS, my Gray Jedi would use ranged weapons from a distance, if necessary and for variety, but more often than not, a lightsaber was all I needed. Let's face it, a dodging Jedi with Force Speed, can easily and safely close on a foe, even one with a heavy splash-damage weapon, and then with a quick circle-strafe-slash here, and a quick circle-strafe-slash there, the threat is no more.

 

I see the suggestion that Jedi not being able to use weapons as arbitrary and artificial. My thought is that any class, Jedi or otherwise, should be able to use any weapon so desired. However, a Jedi that is not currently using the lightsaber chooses to forego the advantages that weapon bestows to the Jedi.

[KillerBee]

if a jedi can use any weapon, then you end up with jedi v jedi using guns. Unless you make all the weapons blasters and have maybe thermal dets and sequencers, in which case its jedi v jedi with sabres..

It doesn't matter how powerful a sabre is, if someone can run backwards at the same speed as you run forward blasting you with a rail, then you are going to die before you get into sabre range. I would prefer the falsity of jedis not being able to use guns (due to dna encoded user interfaces ) then jedis only being able to use the force with sabs out..

as for nfers not being able to use a sabre right..well it would put an end to nf sabs..

 

syndrix: I didn't mean that you wanted a clone.. sorry if it sounded like that.. I hope no one wants a clone, as to me thats worst case senario.. and one that shouldnt even be brought up, cause it makes me nauseous that they might just try to do that..

[Syndrix]

You may be able to catch someone using speed, but if a gunner has speed he will backpedel and fire turning the saberist to dust, so a saberist won't catch up will he.

 

I hardly think, in a class based system which I was talking about, a Jedi being restricted to a Saber is artificial. This somewhat bemuses me, as when have you seen a true Jedi use a blaster (Luke isnt one in the first two movies).

 

The problem is that the game is not a direct translation of SW, thus there would have to be few benifits to the saber if you were able to use all other weapons as well, as you start with the saber. In straight DM this is, of course, different as everyone starts the same.

 

Edit: yeah I get ya Bee, also I was trying to point out the same thing, you posted just before me. If a Jedi has force powers and guns then its pointless, thats in only Jedi's using force senario, but if gunners had force, what is the point of classes at all, it'll just be JK. NF should be abolished in a class system, obviously.

 

[ August 18, 2001: Message edited by: Syndrix ]

[Guest Krayt Tion]

I'm in complete disagreement. From day one I've been pushing for a mode that will allow FF Jedi armed only with a Saber to take on NF gunners.

 

What's artificial is not giving us a set way to enact such a common Star Wars movie scenario where force-less humans or other species try their hand against a Jedi armed only with his saber.

 

Personalities in MotS came the closest to enabling this to happen but what I would really like to see is a more customizable set of hosting character prereq configurations.

 

I suppose I shouldn't have said I'm in complete disagreement, as what you said makes sense, but it does not have to make sense at the expensive of a NF guns vs FF sabers (Jedi) mode that has plenty of validity to it indeed. I've always pushed for FF anything goes mode as well along side this. Never thought anything should be taken away in that regard. Just added.

 

And if it was so easy to close in on conc-armed foe as a Jedi and saber him, then (generally speaking) why are we sitting on a 10 page thread about improving the Saber and Saberist's abilities to better balance against such gunners?

[Guest Vagabond]

KillerBee

 

...if a jedi can use any weapon, then you end up with jedi v jedi using guns...

 

Not necessarily. Perhaps in class-based MP, other classes are bestowed advantages with certain weapons, analogous to the advantages the Jedi receives with the lightsaber. This would add an attraction to playing a class other than the Jedi. Further, perhaps the non-Jedi classes have other abilities, such as picking locks, and welding doors shut, etc.

 

Krayt Tion

 

...I suppose I shouldn't have said I'm in complete disagreement, as what you said makes sense, but it does not have to make sense at the expensive of a NF guns vs FF sabers (Jedi) mode that has plenty of validity to it indeed...

 

I totally agree, and did not mean to give the impression that I'm only advocating one type of MP gameplay. Rather, as you've suggested, there should be customizable options available for MP games. Some possibilities might be:

 

Game Types:

 

• Death Match
  
• Capture The Flag
  
• Assault
  
• ...
  

 

Options:

 

• Jedi Only
  
• Class-Based (Jedi Class Optional, Bounty Hunter Class Optional, etc)
  
• Sabers Only
  
• Guns Only
  
• Force Level (0-8)
  
• ...
  

 

...And if it was so easy to close in on conc-armed foe as a Jedi and saber him, then (generally speaking) why are we sitting on a 10 page thread about improving the Saber and Saberist's abilities to better balance against such gunners?...

 

Good question. Personally, I feel this is a non-issue.

[KillerBee]

Vagabond

"Not necessarily. Perhaps in class-based MP, other classes are bestowed advantages with certain weapons, analogous to the advantages the Jedi receives with the lightsaber. This would add an attraction to playing a class other than the Jedi. Further, perhaps the non-Jedi classes have other abilities, such as picking locks, and welding doors shut, etc."

 

picking a lock, or grip, welding shut or door or becoming completly invisible to the guy with that ability.. they dont come close really.. jedi will end up ruling, I cant see any alternative unless the jedis abilities are lame which would annoy people also, or the nfers get major advantages like siting in little atpt walkers..

The star wars universe is designed with force users being vastly superior to everyone else.. if you want to be Star warsy then thats what will happen, unless you add a few artificial rules in. I know they arent great solutions, but as mentioned earlier you get a point where reality needs to give way to gameplay.

you could get round it, by issuing people with their gun at the start, and also bits of string.. to stop the gun being pulled

so you can never lose your gun.. and ownzor people..

(ps if they have classes, PLEASE let them have destroyer droids.. I wanna be a destroyer droid.. the one cool thing to come from ep1 and their is no reason that they cant have survived till after the imp war, in shaddowy organisations but thats an aside )

 

Gameplay Types:

This is a kind of interesting point thats been going on all through this thread.

whilst I have nothing against 1v1/ffa/ctf/lms/1flag/harvester etc type gameplay modes. I do have doubts over jks type of customisability of play, to f0-8

guns or sabres..

the skills and tactics were different in each. this was a great thing in one respect, but poor in other ways. to my mind the conky was overpowered for nf, whilst it was perfect for f4+. also their was problems with level design, seeing levels were very often tried to be designed for nf and ff, leading to poor gameplay in both catogries. tho if someone ignored nf, a great ff level could be made, or visa versa..

It also caused great segregation of the community.. which is not good imho.

even with just the addition of sabres, you get problems, although if sabres couldnt be limited to nf it would be better, seeing ff sabs and ff guns have never been as divided as ff guns and nf guns say.. (even if I positivly hate ff bgj)

 

although tbh I dont know what would be a better approach, all levels being playable with sabs or without.. or specific sabs only levels ala jk..

[DeathBoLT]

as opposed to choosing your destiny, light or dark, perhaps they could do mercenary and jedi. Have skills that greatly enable gun use, etc. for mercenaries and for jedi, force. There will be powers like neutral was in JK that both can choose(things that require little force focus like push). Past a point tho, there will be skills that will require you to choose if u want to be a merc or a jedi. If you choose the mercenary path, you'll be able to allocate skill points into abilities that improve gun use(maybe faster fire, reload quicker, or something that helps you aim a bit). If you choose Jedi, you'll be able to pick force powers that require a little more concentration(like lightning, grip, acrobatics, etc.)

[Luck]

Or u could balance all the guns on the vanilla spectrum and u could use any weapon against any other weapon and have a decent chance. Would be personal preference of tactics that would determnine which guns people sought out.

 

And then this really would be a non issue.

 

 

Lucky

[KillerBee]

but then you get large numbers of people complaining about how bad the sabre is, and you get the cause of this thread..

You couldnt make the sabre do enough damage in jk to make it a weapon of choice. Over either the rail or a conky..

 

specially with seeing, where you could keep your distance to within grip range.. and then keep back.. the sabre couldnt even be used for ambushing people..

 

I just dont reckon its possible to make the sabre powerful enough to please some people without giving the user a speed advantage over a gunner..

[Guest Sabre9]

Any chance that this thread can be seen by the Devs? (A summary sent, the URL sent, the text sent, what-have-you)?

 

There's a lot of GOOD stuff here, but if they never see it, what's the point?

[KillerBee]

devs are meant to read all the threads here..

[WD_ToRMeNt]

About the saber throw, I don't think it'll be very usefull in a MP game. Sure, it might be able to mow down AI storm troopers, but experienced online gamers don't stand still like that.

 

The saber throw looks slow and dodgable, and it left the thrower very vulnerable. Remember the reports comming out of quakecon? Apparently you can deflect a saber throw, leaving the attacker defenseless until he can run to pick it back up.

 

It seems like some people never grasped not everything that worked well in SP, is worth using in MP. Take persuasion for example. It's awsome in SP, and it lets you slaughter AI. But when I hear the persuasion sound, I know that person is an easy kill (I always have seeing + map on so it's useless, and I know people who use it arn't hardcore). The bryer is another example, great for sniping AI, but completely useless in MP.

 

[ August 19, 2001: Message edited by: -WD- ToRMeNt ]

[Tap[RR]]

And thats why they need to up the saber damage, make all weapons useful, not just heavy explosive ones, make force powers useful, and balance the game. The point of this thread i believe.

[Ben_Walker]

The lightsaber was my first weapon of chooice in the levels of Jedi knight when you get to the planet of the Valley of the Jedi.

 

- You fight 4 dark Jedi on that planet.

 

- Good for severing limps off stormtroopers and Imperial personal.

 

- Deflect blaster bolts.

 

- Slice's and desices those flying retail things.

[ed_silvergun]

Originally posted by Krayt Tion:

<STRONG>From day one I've been pushing for a mode that will allow FF Jedi armed only with a Saber to take on NF gunners.

 

What's artificial is not giving us a set way to enact such a common Star Wars movie scenario where force-less humans or other species try their hand against a Jedi armed only with his saber.</STRONG>

 

I agree 100%.

 

Originally posted by Vagabond:

<STRONG>as you've suggested, there should be customizable options available for MP games.</STRONG>

 

I agree 100% there, too, and I think Vagabond's list is pretty comprehensive.

 

Originally posted by -WD- ToRMeNt:

<STRONG>I know people who use it arn't hardcore</STRONG>

 

I swear if one more person says the word "hardcore" in this thread, I'm gonna scream!

[GonkH8er]

man..... 10 pages.......

 

that's pretty...................hardcore

[ed_silvergun]

*Chops GonkH8er up into bite-size pieces*

[Luck]

lol.

 

kb, u aint gettin it, the point is to weaken the guns and give em limitations that make it easier to use the saber to kill the person using em until the saber is as useful as the gun.

 

It's not impossible, and it *needs* to be done, otherwise the saber won't have a whole heck of a lot goin for it.

 

Right now, if u can whack the majority of the projectiles out of the air, u can chase people down try'n to kill u with a gun. Might take some damage, but so long as the skill of makin a splash weapon explode is akin to the skill of whackin the shot in midair, its balanced.

 

In most fps's, u can't run backwards as fast as u can forewards, so u already have a speed advantage. This was true in JK, but the netcode made it impossible to take advantage of that, not so in client/server.

 

In a straight dm, without force, I'm not seeing a problem with a weakened concussion rifle, so long as u can thwack everything else out of the air, and the conc is weakened to the point of balance.

 

Lucky

[Guest Vagabond]

Here's what bugs me:

 

1. The lightsaber is a melee weapon.

2. The lightsaber is not a ranged weapon.

3. Excluding the Force, the guy with the lightsaber is going to lose against the guy with the gun.

4. However, with the Force, the guy with the lightsaber can kick the hell out of the guy with the gun.

 

The above makes perfect sense to me, so again, this all seems like a non-issue to me. Why don't we just wait for the game before getting our pannies all tied up in a wad?

 

[ August 19, 2001: Message edited by: Vagabond ]

[KillerBee]

if you balance the guns down to that, then gunners will hate the game cause the guns will feel like sh1t.. (and sabres should not be able in my mind to block rails or thermal dets, thats what force throw/push is for)

a class system would make it so the weapons could feel nice a beefy, and the sabre could still be useful.

[GonkH8er]

sorry ed. it had to be done

[WD_ToRMeNt]

First off, look at the E3 vid. I don't think that the saber will have a one hit one kill potential (at least on on body hits, head shot maybe). Doesn't matter, how much damaged it does if you can't hit anything.

 

Look, the saber isn't a ranged weapon, not unless you throw it. Even if you do throw your saber, it won't have splash damage, it looks fairly slow and predictable, must get a direct hit to work, and leaves you really vulnerable. That is why I don't think It'll work that well in MP. It just won't do much to some one who circles + strafes + jumps. It could POSSIBLEY if there was some type of targeting/guidance system (think of grip or pull in JK), but it doesn't look that way.

 

Seriously, if you don't want to play with guns, play on a "saber only" server. I'm sure there will be plenty out there.

 

[ August 19, 2001: Message edited by: -WD- ToRMeNt ]

[Finalnight]

Won't GHOUL II handle location based damage for the lightsaber?