Patch Thread

[dartgeek]

They may nevery see my post but its a simple one:

 

Allow dual sabers as a legit option for server ops in mp. I have yet to find a cheat enabled server so i can play dual sabers with other people (cuz the BOTS dont use them either .) This is a really neat option that i wish could be brought to the forfrount. Thank you.

[Falkentyne]

Duel sabers is bugged, anyway.

If you execute a light style duck slash, you will become stuck on recovery, and UNABLE TO MOVE. You can get out of it, but...

[dartgeek]

Originally posted by Falkentyne

Duel sabers is bugged, anyway.

If you execute a light style duck slash, you will become stuck on recovery, and UNABLE TO MOVE. You can get out of it, but...

 

well lets post that as a bug we would like to see fixed

[Falkentyne]

I posted about this in a new thread, but felt I should include it here...

 

Did some more thinking about the saber styles, and after watching Vader and Luke fight, I noticed all the parries and clashes that were being done. (Didn't see much blocking at all, until luke got overwhelmed in ESB and lost a hand, and Luke's anger at Vader threatening his sister caused his feelings to completely dominate Vader in ROTJ.

 

Anyway......for the powers that be at Lucasarts or Raven...

 

Ok, I've thought about this carefully, and I think this would be a great option, and work wonders.

 

FIRST:

 

the MOST IMPORTANT THING is for saber combat to be improved, so you can PARRY a person's attack. Not just sit there and block, but parry, just like they did in the SW movies.

 

It's rather quite obvious how this would work.

It's basically blocking in reverse. Some might say that it's blocking while swinging, but it takes skill and timing for this to work.

 

If someone is swinging at you, and YOU SWING at them, or their saber, if the sabers connect en route, or if you execute the correct attack, the blow is deflected. Versus red style, a successful parry would make the red style swinger temporarily stunned (unable to swing again for a second), while he recovers, since his long, strong blow was deflected (red style only). THIS ALSO MEANS THAT THE RED STYLE PLAYER CANNOT IMMEDIATELY JUMP or use any force or other powers, for a second or so after recovery. Think of block stun in street fighter here, for a poor example

 

THE BEST way to parry would be with blue (light) style, as this is the fastest, so blue style parrying should work the best, or at LEAST have the best chance of succeeding. But, you need higher mastery in saber DEFENSE to parry sabers successfully

 

This would not only give you more options, but also a better chance to defend. And it would make saber combat less of a clickfest, and more like the movies we know and love.

 

The attack that you would use to parry, and /or when you attack, would vary, depending on the swing that they used. So if you see someone doing a straight slice or chop, the obvious parry is to do a simple defensive chop in return.

 

However, the light stance straight chop should work to parry most saber attacks, as long as you can CONNECT with their saber swing. So this would take a lot of timing on "spin" attacks, and you would have to probably face the direction of their saber swing, directly. It might be easier just to do your own spiral attack yourself, but the regular light style chop should be able to parry.

 

The ducking light "stab"/slash up should also parry as well, but due to the nature of its swing, it should only parry two things:

 

1) overhead slices

2) RED STYLE "100% death" slice, as well as **ALL** jump attacks..

 

This would make a lot of sense, and would be a nice tricky thing to do

If you do the ducking light stab on someone who does the red splitter, if you parry it, it should count as a knockdown Nice way to have a defense vs that attack. (this will only trip people using the aerial splitter, though).

 

By people doing this (combined with BOTH being able to parry and knock down thrown sabers, as well as attacking as an active block (which is what a parry is, anyway), the red style splitter wouldn't have to be toned down that much...simply crouch as soon as you see someone starting to leap in the air, activate blue style, then do the ducking up slash.....will PREVENT you from getting hit by the splitter, and knock them out of the air.

 

Sounds great to me

 

If someone executes a spiral /spinning attack, just turn toward their saber and chop it, or do your own counter swing.

 

*NOTE*NOTE*.

Parrying a SABER THROW SHOULD CAUSE THEM TO LOSE THEIR SABER, and they have to use force pull to retrieve it, or walk over the saber. (obviously some code must be done for this). Takes skill and people wouldnt complain so much about throw spamming anymore

 

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

Benefits:

Obvious. Takes skill to do, more realistic fighting.

Strong swings are * interrupted * by the parry. The saber is DEFLECTED. Unlike defensive blocking, you take no damage from a successful parry, and the defender is open to a counter attack if he was using a heavy stance.

 

Makes light stance more worth something...worth a lot.

 

Problems:

The MOST obvious problem here has to do with pings. If someone with a low ping swings at you, and the swing "hits" you before your system has been able to receive the packet, but on your computer, you successfully hit his saber, how is this handled? This would have to be handled intelligently, otherwise only people with very low pings could parry successfully, unless there is a game check to determine what the other party actually did. I don't know anything about netcode, though.

 

Something has to be done about being able to push/pull people who are fighting with sabers....they should NOT be affected by these powers...it's just too stupid and rediculous, ruins realistic saber combat totally. Only applies to people using sabers, though. Push/pull SHOULD trip people who are throwing sabers at you, though.

 

 

Hope someone takes note of this.

 

What do you guys think of this? come on, need some feedback on this idea...especially after watching the movies AGAIN, I'm convinced I'm right about this.

[NewBJedi]

Originally posted by mothra

Bug:

Restricted 1st person gameplay (completely unavailable in MP w/saber), player loses several abilities by switching views. JK allowed all the same moves and freedom of choice in MP.

 

Enhancement:

Just draw the whole player model from 1st person view (transperant head maybe) to add realism and so you can look down at your own feet & shadow instead of a bodiless nothing.

 

I know it can be done, maybe there are issues with player model latency vs. view model latency, but it should be an option...

 

I wonder if that's a limitation of the Quake 3 engine.

 

The only time I've seen this well done was in Tribes 2 - where you can see your feet and shadow - it's really neat.

 

Hopefully future game/engines include that.

[Scarlet Widow]

Enhancement:

 

i really hate how lightsaber/blaster marks and corpses disappear! Years ago it was reasonable since we were so limited in memory, but now we're so far away from being limited to it, so why not take advantage of it? i think that there should be a user option to set the desired cache specificly for marks, corpses, debris etc.

 

Why is it that the player can just kind of keep all their weapons and everything seemingly in their pockets? i think that for every weapon the player should have it somewhere on their body and then be limited to how many weapons you can carry....at the very least do this with the lightsaber, have it attached to the characters belt when its not in hand.

i really like how Raven did such a nice job with Heretic II with things like this, its a shame Jedi Knight II didn't get that same attention.

[NewBJedi]

Originally posted by Falkentyne

Something has to be done about being able to push/pull people who are fighting with sabers....they should NOT be affected by these powers...it's just too stupid and rediculous, ruins realistic saber combat totally. Only applies to people using sabers, though. Push/pull SHOULD trip people who are throwing sabers at you, though.

[/b]

 

Push/Pull is great and easily avoidable if someone pulls you in.

 

Just play on force-off servers if you don't like it.

 

It's pretty silly to complain about the force aspects in this game when you have the option of joining servers without it.

 

Blatant cheats and bugs are one thing to complain about, but it gets a little whiney beyond that.

 

If you want the option to disable push/pull via rulesets - I'm all for that, and you can join your happy server without it.

 

Otherwise, I hope they leave gameplay mostly alone and if they do want to tweak it, they offer ways of enabling or disabling things as 'server-side options' - i.e. the ability to disable heavy stance, force push/pull/drain, single-player lightsaber style, etc.

 

*Force pulls you in and sabers*

[Falkentyne]

You totally missed the point, didn't you, NewbJedi? In your rush to attack my argument, you completely overlooked the argument itself !

 

Patience, young Padawan.... you are not a Jedi, yet.

 

I NEVER said pushing someone away or pulling them close should be taken out. What I said is tripping someone who is about to swing at you. And THIS IS ALL IN CONTEXT of the OTHER improvements that I listed, too !! Not JUST 'no tripping" when you're righting with a saber, as this would give heavy stance just another advantage.

 

If my parrying idea were implemented (notice how you totally avoided the ramifications of that), then pushing and pulling to trip someone over would just be stupid......just parry and counter attack, like real Jedi do. If someone does the heavy splitter, just parry it with the lunge and knock them down in the process.

 

I never said you can't push people with sabers off ledges, and so on, I never meant that. All I meant was TRIPPING THEM OFF THEIR FEET using push, when you're in combat with them.

 

If you really want a compromise, how about only tripping them when you are behind them, if you are in melee? Sound better?

 

You know, i get really surprised how defensive people get, and how closed minded people can be, when you are about to take away their twink.....

 

THE ONLY DIFFICULT THING ABOUT PARRYING would be properly implementing it with the way lag works in net games. It would be absolutely PERFECT over a LAN, with NO drawbacks. If you want a good example of it, try to play Street fighter alpha (any version) over the net using MAME/ Kallieria, and try parrying there. You will only be able to parry if you do it EARLY, before his attack comes out, and since you must block first, and since in PC games, your movement is predicted, you can see the problems that can occur.

 

Even if it is difficult to implement or practice if your ping is above 50 ms, it can still be an option to be enabled...won't hurt at all.

 

I don't mind force at all...but you seem to have NO clue about game balance. With your logic, you could say "if you don't like force drain, just go play on a NF server". That's a copout, when all you want to do is USE drain, and not have your twink taken away. Anyone with half a brain, who has studied at least a little psychology, will understand how people act and react to things when they like something, only because they use it.

 

It's like those old Warcraft2 arguments on Kali.. "don't change the game....if you improve humans, then I won't be able to rape you over and over with orcs, anymore" (translation: the game will be fair and balanced, and I don't want to have to adapt to humans being very dangerous, or a stone fortress).

[NewBJedi]

Originally posted by Falkentyne

I don't mind force at all...but you seem to have NO clue about game balance. With your logic, you could say "if you don't like force drain, just go play on a NF server". That's a copout, when all you want to do is USE drain, and not have your twink taken away. Anyone with half a brain, who has studied at least a little psychology, will understand how people act and react to things when they like something, only because they use it.

 

Thanks for the personal attack.

 

If you cared to notice I mentioned that it's fine if you want things done, but they should be 'optional'.

 

I know more about tweaking gameplay for the sake of 'balance' that leads to disaster - one person's balance is another's dumbing down of the game.

 

Re-read my reply before you make any further assumptions.

 

BTW: I don't need to reach a compromise, I actually like the game, for the most part, how it is now.

[Mr_Sharky]

Falkentyne. parrying is already in mp. It doesn't happen to often though and probably for the reason you suggest (lag). If you slow the game speed down, however, parrying and blocking happen much more frequently because there is more time to send the data. That's my theory anyway because parrying and blocking do happen more often when the game is slowed down. My preference is g_speed 205 or 210, they make saber combat a lot more fun imo.

[Lord_FinnSon]

I may be barking an old tree here, but dynamic lighting could need a little bit tweaking. Especially lightsaber doesn't light up immediate surroundings properly and even though most of the time that doesn't really bother, there are few instances in SP where it would really help you up to see much better. One of these examples is Starport level in Nar Shaddaa and darkened room, where lightsaber doesn't help a bit, but instead you have to use Light Amplification Goggles to navigate through room.

 

True, dynamic lighting, if done right, can really drop framerate, but you can already turn it off in that case(in MP you don't even need it) and upcoming graphic cards will surely run the game even with this feature on. Maybe it could be even divided into three alternatives to choose from like in case of shadows: OFF, SIMPLE(this would be as they are in their current form) and REALISTIC. I think this would please everyone.

[gaeb]

* Bunny Hopping Fix

* Reduce the speed at which we can run backwards

* A server filter option (IE: Type = Capture the Flag, Max Force Rank = 7, Guns = 1, Force Teams = 0 would be a filter I would want to use)

 

* Leave the force powers they way they are until the backward run speed fix has had time to make an impact on the game

 

- Gaeb

[Father Ruckus]

quik question, what the hell is bunny hopping? and why would it matter? this is star wars not CS. JK2 is not striving for realism, CS is(which might i add...it sucks).

[Falkentyne]

Originally posted by Mr_Sharky

Falkentyne. parrying is already in mp. It doesn't happen to often though and probably for the reason you suggest (lag). If you slow the game speed down, however, parrying and blocking happen much more frequently because there is more time to send the data. That's my theory anyway because parrying and blocking do happen more often when the game is slowed down. My preference is g_speed 205 or 210, they make saber combat a lot more fun imo.

 

Mr Sharky.

I've tried "hitting" red style saber swings, even on my own server when my ping was 0 (with bots), and it NEVER worked at all.

 

I'd either swing, then block because the swing was done (if I swinged too early), or I'd just eat full damage.

 

FWIW, you are right, that I HAVE seen swinging sabers collide, but you would think that I would have seen it more often in single player.

 

And I've NEVER, EVER seen it happen vs red style

Even though it was clearly posted (and I assume this is from the game docs?) "that if your opponent's attack is strong and yours is weak, a parry is possible. "

 

I will try lowering the gamespeed though, and test it out with bots...but with 0 ping, you'd think i wouldn't have any problems anyway.

[Falkentyne]

Originally posted by NewBJedi

 

Thanks for the personal attack.

 

If you cared to notice I mentioned that it's fine if you want things done, but they should be 'optional'.

 

I know more about tweaking gameplay for the sake of 'balance' that leads to disaster - one person's balance is another's dumbing down of the game.

 

Re-read my reply before you make any further assumptions.

 

BTW: I don't need to reach a compromise, I actually like the game, for the most part, how it is now.

 

Ok, I'm sorry for the personal attack, that was out of line, but I was getting my ass flamed to hell just by mentioning to other people that force drain is horrendously overpowered, and they countered, saying "absorb is lame". (what a wonderful way to avoid dealing with the issue--absorb doesn't ATTACK anyone..drain takes away your power so fast, before you can react, you're drained, and then they push and saber you. That needs to be fixed big time, and most people do agree). I was in a pretty sour mood, anyway.

 

It's absolutely no fun, having someone drain you before you can do anything, and then waiting for your absorb to taper off, and then they do the cookbook "Drain+ pull, + pull again to trip, + red saber", and you're dead.

 

I'm also trying to judge saber combat from a "jedi's" perspective. Just watch AOTC on May 16th to see how combat should be, then when you go back to JK2, it will feel like Quake with a saber

 

Aren't we supposed to be SW fans, anyway? Or Quake players who want something a little different?

 

Yes, if you re-read my post too, I said that my changes (improvements to blocking and especially parrying) should be a server option (not forced), as there might be bad problems making parrying work reliably, so that if people like the way the game is now, they can join a server with the old powers, and so on.

 

I honestly don't mind the other stuff TOO Much, but I don't think there is any compromise necessary when dealing with drain...AT LEAST that needs to be toned down considerably, WITHOUT any server option for "old style drain". Some things are just imbalanced no matter what side of the coin you try to look at.

[Falkentyne]

Originally posted by Mr_Sharky

Falkentyne. parrying is already in mp. It doesn't happen to often though and probably for the reason you suggest (lag). If you slow the game speed down, however, parrying and blocking happen much more frequently because there is more time to send the data. That's my theory anyway because parrying and blocking do happen more often when the game is slowed down. My preference is g_speed 205 or 210, they make saber combat a lot more fun imo.

 

Ok I just checked this.

 

First of all, there seemd to be no noticeable gamespeed difference between 250 and 205, at least not what I could easily tell. 200 though made a noticeable difference to roll speed....rolling speed at 200 was identical to walk speed. but at 205, it was the same as 250 (it sure looked the same). Movement speed was also slower.

 

As far as parrying....

There didn't seem to be ANY parrying whatsoever. I checked very carefully, against various styles the bots were doing. What LOOKED Like parrying apparently was simply normal blocking. When I tried to swing my saber when a bot was swinging his, I either hit him or got hit. Never was there a parry. Remember, this was against bots, so ping isn't an issue.

 

oh well...

 

I'd love to be able to swing at the opponents saber and cause both sabers to be deflected, just like the movies (or in the case of heavy stance, his saber deflected if I'm light....Still hope something like this can be added.

[NewBJedi]

Falkentyne,

 

No problem, it can get frustrating.

 

For now, think of force drain as tempting you to the dark-side.

 

Join us and you may use force drain too.

[NewBJedi]

http://www.geocities.com/justsomegeek2002/JK2bug.html

[Mr_Sharky]

I think 205 does make a difference and for the better!

 

I don't use 200 because of the effect it has on roll but at 205 i see a noticable difference in walking/fighting etc... It looks more "realistic" and I for one do see more blocking and parrying. If you TRY to parry of course it's not gonna work more often. It's to random to try and time it. Try just tapping the mouse button rather than holding it down and doing single swings ratch than spins.

 

At one point against a bot i spun left and hit the bots defending saber and immediately spun right as I was parried hitting him the other side... Looked cool and happened twice in a row, which was nice. Never happened after that though even when I tried to do it. I normally parry at least once a fight against bots, less against people.

[nifelan]

Originally posted by taboo

Fantastic game!!! Some enhancements I'd like to see :

 

1. more than one duel\challenge allowed at a time.

 

2. server option to allow/disallow individual force powers and limit their mastery level

 

3. server option to limit force powers of gunners? (Maybe reduce force masteries by 1 while holding light weapons, by 2 when holding heavy ones, reduce force refill rate etc)

 

4. more powerful weapons could make you run marginally slower. This works very nicely in RTCW.

 

5. rebalance drain/absorb force powers! Drain should suck force slower and absorb should not cost so much to use or not indicate that it's in use until it is doing work.

 

6. backpedalling should be marginally slower

 

I agree with you

 

Also the range of force drain should be reduced AND it should suck less force

[NewBJedi]

As in other Q3 engine games, when team-chatting in a 'team based game' - CTY, CTF, TM-DM, it be nice if it gives that person's location.

 

This is especially useful for 'help me!' - and it shows that so and so is at such and such place.

 

Thanks.

[Lord_FinnSon]

I'm sure a lot of people must have mentioned this already, but patch could include that EAX support which had not been tested at the time of release. I haven't enabled it through codes myself, so I can't comment here how buggy it may or may not be, but it surely is something a lot of us 4.1/5.1 speaker setup owners using either Sound Blaster Live or Audigy card would like to see included as it really can enhance the gameplay.

 

Also, an ability to choose from different saber hilts while in MP could really add more variety in conjunction with different blade colours already present. Maybe they could all be designs seen in SP("standard" Kyle, Luke, Reborn & Desann) plus additional one or two possibly straight from the movies like Darth Vader's and Count Dooku's(I bet this would be popular one because of it's unique design) hilts. I remember some people even talking about "custom" hilts which you could make using three parts(lower, middle and top) and therefore having numerous individual designs. Even though these may only seem to be minor visual additions while actually playing, they also draw much from SW mythology because Jedi apprentice have to make his own saber as part of training.

 

EDIT: One more thing I almost forgot: create a good swimming animation for Kyle. Even though you only had to practically swim few times on Yavin Swamp level, there was no actual swimming animation connected to it. Realistically this is something that even modders will need, if they are going to add rivers, ponds or even lakes into their custom made levels.

[NewBJedi]

Originally posted by Lord_FinnSon

One more thing I almost forgot: create a good swimming animation for Kyle. Even though you only had to practically swim few times on Yavin Swamp level, there was no actual swimming animation connected to it. Realistically this is something that even modders will need, if they are going to add rivers, ponds or even lakes into their custom made levels. [/b]

 

Yah, all the models need a swimming animation.

[dansolo]

I know several issues like this have already been mentioned, but I think Multiplayer should be a lot more like Single player.

 

I'm not really talking about force speed, or other potentially impossible multiplay features, I just think many simple things failed to come across in Multiplayer- but were executed well in Singleplayer.

 

I'm sure you (Raven) recognize the differences, but here is my list of things I would like to see better-converted to Multiplayer in some way:

 

- Saber collision / blocking / balance

This is probably the number one feature request right now. Single player saber combat feels like the movies. The sabers collide, spark, and smoke.. all using cooler sound effects than are used in Multiplayer mode. Sure, you can blame most of it on "the nature of netplay', but I think a better comprimise can be reached.

 

- Force pull items & weapons

 

- Slower tumbling speed

 

- Most of the sounds for weapons / lightsabers

 

- Many saber animations and swing controls

Again, the single player saber seems more polished. Whoever created the combos for MP *really* liked those 360 spins...

 

 

Thanks Raven.

I hope you check this out and keep my comments in mind!

 

-ds

[Mulgie]

Enhancement:

 

Originally posted by evildonut

 

The lack of light from the light saber (or any other weapon for that matter) is due to the way the Quake3 engine handles dynamic lighting. Or rather, how it doesn't handle dynamic lighting. Unlike Quake 1 and 2, Jedi Knight 1 or pretty much any other 3d engine, Quake 3 has no dynamic light capability.

 

What it actually does to "simulate" dynamic lights, as far as I can tell, is that it simply a bit of color to the light already available. This is how it works in Quake3, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Star Trek: Voyager, and any other Q3 based game that's been released. If Raven added REAL dynamic lights to JK2, it would be a first for the Q3 engine.

 

Nooooooo, that can't be true - you're not my father!

 

Sorry, got carried away there. Why is the Q3 engine missing such an important feature like dynamic lighting? I imagine that adding such a feature to the engine would be a massive task and unlikely to be released in a patch? It's a real shame 'cause it really detracts for the look and feel of the game. Also, walking around in dark places is an absolute nighmare without a working lightsaber. The only option is to use the IR Goggles which only work in a (reduced visiblity) 1st Person view.

 

Thanks for listening.