Force Drain

[dansolo]

So what do you think of Drain? I personally think it is too powerful. It has an amazing range and can take the opposing team's mana down in less than 2 seconds.

 

Simply put, I hope the developers take note of this in the future.

 

-ds

[Swamp]

i really have no opinion, i havn't encountered any problems with it? ... i dunno .. off the top of my head i dont see a problem with it, i will keep an eye out though.

[dansolo]

Additionally, some people have mentioned that it might work better if the dark jedi are unable to use Drain if they have full health... this is a good idea because the light side cannot use heal unless they need it.

 

Also, in case you haven't noticed, Absorb doesn't do a damn thing to counter Drain...

[Sartis]

Not a damn thing?

 

You don't get drained with absorb on, thats pretty good protection if you ask me.

[BlackRoc]

Like he said Absorb doesn't do anything to counter Drain. Actually I would say it doesn't do much, I slows it from draining you but not by much. it just adds another second.

 

The making it only work if the person is lower them 100 health is what I was thinking about but the range and power usage still has to be worked on. Heal takes 3 bars to activate and as i've noticed with drain it can be started with 2 bars and it uses there power too slowly.

[dansolo]

Well, it protects you from it... but considering how Absorb reacts to other force powers you would think it should regenerate your mana pool.

[Goumindong]

that is because drain doesnt do any damage.

 

On that note, you left out the "nothing, it is easily countered with absorb and push" option

[dansolo]

Originally posted by Goumindong

that is because drain doesnt do any damage.

 

On that note, you left out the "nothing, it is easily countered with absorb and push" option

Drain does the most damage as far as I'm concerned...

 

Countering it is easier said than done. How can you use a force power to counter Drain when it takes 1.5 seconds to drain all but one bar of your force pool?

 

Absorb works if you're lucky enought to have it on when a red bolt of Drain comes flying your way.

[Millions o' Monkeys]

i think the main problem with it is the annoyig fps drop it creates...i guess thast got nothing to do with the question so i wont say any more

[brigand1138]

I tend to switch absorb on as soon as I dive into a battle, but this limits my use of other force power like heal and push/pull, so toning down the drain would make it a bit more even, but I wouldn't say that darksiders have a MAJOR advantage, it just needs a bit of tweaking!

 

Before I edited this post it looked quite humorous!! But stupid!

[TheDarkSide]

As a Light Jedi, I am often torn between calling for a tweak to drain and just leaving it as is for fear of being called a whiner

 

It's been confirmed in another post, but Level 3 drain only requires .8 seconds, let me repeat, .8 seconds, to drain a completely full force pool. 800 ms, subtract the various pings involved, human reaction time, etc etc and the net result is that unless your absorb is already on, you *WILL* be out of force energy, quicker than you can look at your force meter.

Experienced Dark Jedi just wait until the absorb runs out, using evasive and circling tactics.

And I think herein lies the problem....with absorb on, the Light Jedi glows like a bright blue neon sign in Vegas. Your enemy knows exactly when it runs out. I propose that an excellent solution would be to get rid of this feature, and replace it with one that requires you to use force seeing to tell if someone is using absorb. Or only have the blue glow appear when force is being absorbed ala how it looks when someone is getting drained and they glow red.

All of the Dark Jedi I play with have pretty much agreed that the Dark side completely owns the Light Side and it is due to the power of the drain. They also agree that the fact the an absorber constantly glows blue makes it ridiculous as a legitimate counter. Everybody I've proposed this solution to so far thinks that it would definitely help even things up, making it much of a strategic decision on their part on whether to chance wasting their force power or not.

Now it should be noted that I am primarily talking about balance in a 1 v1 saber only situation (ala a Duel server). In a FFA, team FFA environment, especially one with guns, the best defense a Light Jedi has to drain is to start gun whoring. That's what I do, but it feels pretty cheap.

Reading these forums I feel I am in the distinct minority here, but if I wanted to run up and down a DM server with a flak cannon or rocket launcher, I'd fire up UT or Q3. The thing that really sets JK2 apart from every other FPS out there is the lightsaber and force powers. To use guns only or even guns mostly, to me is a slap in the face to what makes this game unique. There are SW skins, mods, and maps for UT & Q3. I dunno I'll stop my ranting for now Does anyone else agree with me?

 

TDS

[HBK]

Well, I finally got into MP today- besides a few minutes here and there to check it out. Going in I was intimidated by the drain from all I've read about it, but for no reason. I rarely throw my sabre or use guns so I don't need the alt-fire on the mouse2. So I bound absorb to mouse 2. I got drained MAYBE half the time. Of that half, I rarely went below half my force power because my finger on the mouse2 is fast. (I do have a cable modem and was pinging around 40-50. Maybe that helped me. )

So, I voted that nothing is wrong with it. Drain isn't a problem now, it's the non-force combat I need to work on. I was pretty successful with my absorb bind/strategy.

 

Now, if I was a dark-sider I'd have issues.

 

 

HBK

[TheDarkSide]

What kind of servers were you playing on, HBK? The experience you describe is generally my experience when playing on larger FFA or Team FFA servers. I have absorb bound to a thumb button (your right click bind is intriguing...I'll have to try that).

 

No offense, but it sounds like the drainers you were going up against were either inexperienced at draining or possibly weren't at level 3 drain. If you turn on your absorb after you were hit by drain, and your force pool is now ticking away, what did the drainers do? Run away, keep trying to drain, or did they evade waiting for your blue sphere to go away, so they could move in (read grip, lightning, etc) for the kill. If you were able to turn off your absorb, and they didn't fire back with an immediate drain, then you were playing clueless Dark Jedi...if they did, and you were still able to counter with a right click absorb, then you might be on to something

 

TDS

[grellin]

I would like to see the option of only using force powers found in the SP game - at least for the Duel game mode. I understand that more is better and all that, but the extra MP powers seem to take away some of the fun and balance that exists in SP duels, which almost perfectly recreate a "real" jedi battle in my opinion.

 

Force Drain is just kind of stupid if you ask me - in the world of Star Wars, the force is something that just exists and can't be "drained" or "absorbed" through magical jedi spells. We're getting into the realm of fantasy and mana and spells, which is not what Star Wars is about. Anyway, regardless of all that, and to get back on topic, I think that drain especially is overpowered. A good drain followed by grip can leave your opponent helpless to resist and give you a rather cheap and undeserving kill.

[dansolo]

Originally posted by grellin

... in the world of Star Wars, the force is something that just exists and can't be "drained" or "absorbed" through magical jedi spells. We're getting into the realm of fantasy and mana and spells, which is not what Star Wars is about.

I totally agree with this. Why give people the chance to manipulate other people's force pool? That's just asking for frustration.

 

I say modify Drain and Absorb so they no longer manipulate the force pool.

 

I hope these comments are taken into consideration for future patches.

 

-ds

[Darrett]

I usually play on Jedi Knight servers, with only neutral powers except for 1 point in grip just to get rid of that last force point. The power of force drain is just too massive. I think that it should be just fine to have it drain as fast as it does, provided it uses as much of your force as it takes away. Basically, it should be a way for dark side to completely nullify force usage for the next few moments of the battle.

[Buddy]

perhaps instead of weakening force drain, a tweak of force absorb might work- for example making it into a toggle power similar to force speed, rather than a power that constantly drains energy, thus only really delaying the inevitable drain-gripping to come...

 

the idea of it costing more force power seems feasible as well, since it would make slightly more risky for a dark jedi to use...

[HBK]

Originally posted by TheDarkSide

What kind of servers were you playing on, HBK? The experience you describe is generally my experience when playing on larger FFA or Team FFA servers. I have absorb bound to a thumb button (your right click bind is intriguing...I'll have to try that).

 

No offense, but it sounds like the drainers you were going up against were either inexperienced at draining or possibly weren't at level 3 drain. If you turn on your absorb after you were hit by drain, and your force pool is now ticking away, what did the drainers do? Run away, keep trying to drain, or did they evade waiting for your blue sphere to go away, so they could move in (read grip, lightning, etc) for the kill. If you were able to turn off your absorb, and they didn't fire back with an immediate drain, then you were playing clueless Dark Jedi...if they did, and you were still able to counter with a right click absorb, then you might be on to something

 

TDS

 

You are right. I was going to get into that but had to go out. I get the feeling that the drainers I faced WERE inexperienced. They would fire off the drain, I'd go blue and they'd still try to drain, or lightning/grip. The matches were FFA. I don't mind leaving the absorb on for a bit instead of shutting it down when they are done draining. I figure they are waiting for me to turn it off and perhaps not preparing for my sabre assault. I am fairly confident that I can have success this way. It works perfectly in my head.

 

Though if my sound ever goes out I'm in trouble. And if I meet some real pro darksiders, I'll probably change my tune.

 

HBK

[lobotomist]

I dont know...all of you just try to find the way to counter drain power.When it is completely plainly visible that the DARK force, rules over the light force!!!

It is completely unbalanced.Not only that they have all the usual powers -push,pull,speed and seeing. But also DRAIN - which you must be apsolute expert to avoid. Than GRIP - ok you say use push, but i have seen darks side players that throw you around so fast that you just can not catch them with pull (And they usualy drain you first). Finnaly you have LIGHTING,and RAGE -wich are not so unbalanced , but they are surely powerfull.Especially for taking out last hps of the people that are dueling (IN FFA)

 

Now lets see LIGHT force.

First all what you have is defensive.No ofensive power at all.So what you have. ABSORB - ok well, it works against lighting,and it kind of stops drain (but wasnt your force soposed to fill up when somebody uses the force against you?). And thats it. But it should work against every dark force, and it should fill up your mana!MIND TRICK- It is cool,it is funky.But does it help..not really.Actually it is completely useles.Seeing counters it.And if you attack enemy sees you mile away.HEAL-it is only force a light side actually has.PROTECTION- well it is good, yes. But the dark side has the same thing -rage.

 

And look at me...i am trying to play the LIGHT side.Just for fun.I want to be a good guy.But how many ppl are playing light side...not many at all.They are not stupid.

 

SO WHAT AM I SAYING-

 

LUCASARTS-RAVEN

BALANCE THE FORCES!!!!

you read hear many oppininons,use them.Balance the forces,and put out the patch...i am sure fight of good against the evil will be much funnier than!