MrCrusher Posted April 10, 2002 Share Posted April 10, 2002 Now that I've played a bit here are some observation and suggestions for online sabre duels. Defensive fighting doesn't work as well as it could. Auto block needs to be turned up. Evasive rolling and jumping work very well, but trying to block as a fighting technique is certain death. There appears to be a growing hatred for strong-stance only users. Strong-stance suits the SP game very well, but needs some balancing for MP. Simply put strong-stance is nothing more than a baseball bat that you need to be constantly running from. It makes dueling a bit silly. I would suggest NOT changing strong-stance, but adding a "defensive-stance" or enhancing the light-stance to block strong-stance. If a defensive-stance were added then it could be set on a timer so you could only use it 5 out of 10 seconds. You could not attack or damage from a defensive stance but you could do a slow pushing/knockback. In this stance you would block everything from the front and light attacks from the back. The special move could be an evasive ariel. This stance could be used like a block button, Holding down the button activates, releasing deactivates (or a toggle as an option). It also times out at around 5 seconds. Maybe while in this stance if you hit attack you would ready a parry for a second, that, if hit by the opponents attack would lower his defenses for a second. If an opponent hits the parry with the Strong-stance-special they would be knocked flat on their butt! Enhancing the light stance to block heavy attacks might be an easier solution, sort of a quick fix. But the defensive arc should still be increase to make blocking a viable technique. The sabre-lock could also use some tweaking. Instead of beating the hell out your mouse attack button have sabre-locks break randomly and the first player to hit jump would kick or knockback the other player. If a player instead hits crouch then he could evade a possible kick. Every time you hit jump before the lock breaks reduces your chance of a successful kick. If you move after the break the attack will fail. We all know how silly we look violently thrasing our mouse button during a lock. "daddy? what are you doing....? Nothing! STAND CLEAR!!!" One last thing (for now). Give the stances their own buttons. Excellent game. No other developer could have done what you guys did, your at the top. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrCrusher Posted April 10, 2002 Author Share Posted April 10, 2002 Some more ideas...... A defensive-stance could have a damage value similar to ammo in weapons (with its own status meter) or draw directly from the force meter. An arbitrary example would be 200 hit points every ten seconds. This means you could block strong attacks up to 200 hit points, but this would also allow the strong stance to eventually beatdown the defenses of this stance. It could replenish like the force meter or it could draw directly from force instead of having its own meter. Maybe a successful parry would add back value to the defensive(hit) meter or the force pool. The defense meter could look like the ammo status meter showing its fill level. This stance would also allow you to dodge sniper fire and other area effect attacks drawing from the defense meter or force pool as well. If you successfully parry a ranged attack - blaster, rocket etc. (the animation could be an automatic force push animation) then the attack would bounce directly back at the attacker. The defensive stance could only be available if you spec to level three in defensive force power. At present the advantage of specing high defense is unclear. Special attacks should also draw from the force pool. Especially the strong stance special. Both the medium and strong stance special attack kill almost a full second after animation is complete. This misleads players into thinking that the danger is over since the swing is complete and when they attack my frozen character I can just point my saber in their direction and Wack! I suspect that adding a new defensive stance as a mod could be one way to approach this. However I'm not sure that something this deep in code could be mod-able. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FatboyTim Posted April 10, 2002 Share Posted April 10, 2002 Originally posted by MrCrusher The sabre-lock could also use some tweaking. Instead of beating the hell out your mouse attack button have sabre-locks break randomly and the first player to hit jump would kick or knockback the other player. That would give an unfair advantage to the player with the lowest ping...:rolleyess Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrCrusher Posted April 10, 2002 Author Share Posted April 10, 2002 That would give an unfair advantage to the player with the lowest ping... Well I think low ping is an advantage regardless of my suggestion. Besides, what would be reaction time in milliseconds from the time one sees the sabre lock to the time they react. 200mls... 100mls? The idea of adding the duck/evade might help the high pinger. I would rather have a random chance break or higher chance of successful knoc-back with higher specs in offense/defense/current-remaining-hitpoints than the "vibrate your mouse as fast as you can" technique. Although I think the sabre lock adds a very exciting element to the game it just seems a bit hard on the mouse. The unfair advantage atually exists it the current technique. I have a programable controller that allows me to program a mouse click as frequently as a cpu clock cycle or greater. When I adjust it to around 10 and do a macro to cycle at random variables I can't loose ....and that is unfair. Therefore I do not use it....but others will............ The current method has little to do with good reflexes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khmer Ghost Posted April 10, 2002 Share Posted April 10, 2002 Isn't the strong-stance balanced by not being able recover as quickly as light and medium? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soul-Burn Posted April 10, 2002 Share Posted April 10, 2002 It is... But notice this, an overheard heavy blow, after slowing down, still does all damage. (seems so) The idea of the stances is about the actual blow, not the idle damage the saber does. Yes, I know normal saber idle damage is the same, but the damage done after the slash is finished should be the same as normal idle damage and not as strong as while the saber is moving... As I understand, the idea is: Light = fast slaps which means low damage and high speed Medium = average blows and damage, more power used to move the saber strongly. Strong = HEAVY _blows_, takes much effort to move the saber, like a medevil two-handed sword. If i'm not clear... the strengh/damage is in the blow/movement of the saber, not the whole "maneuver". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrCrusher Posted April 10, 2002 Author Share Posted April 10, 2002 A strong stance in martial arts and swordplay is a low solid stance that is hard to move from guickly; horse-stance, front-stance etc. A strong stance should be very stable and very powerful, but very low mobility. The strike can be quick and powerful, but its hard to place on a moving target. The light stance equates to a high or quick stance, tiger(cat)-stance, T-stance short-front-stance(fighting-stance) etc. Quick, light, dynamic attacks extremely agile. "Float like a butterfly sting like a bee" Sooo...for balance, slowing down mobility for strong-stance while increasing attack speed a little would make perfect sense but it would probably anger strong-stance users. Also when in a strong-stance it is much more difficult to enter into a roll or jumpkick/jump attack quickly. And yes you can block a strong attack but it might hurt a little. You can also jam a strong attack more easily. Best defense against a full round-house kick is to avoid it or jam it - jamming is basically a block-attack. My guess is that Raven will add to or balance JO a bit more. The force powers could use a little tweaking in my opinion. My feeling is that the three force defense levels are still under developed. Maybe there wasn't enough time before the deadline. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
~(\/)iasma-> Posted April 10, 2002 Share Posted April 10, 2002 "daddy? what are you doing....? Nothing! STAND CLEAR!!!" LOL I like the idea of the defensive stance. I want more control over blocking. If I see StrongStanceJ3|)| coming at me with the ever prevelant over head slice, let me go into defensive stance push fwd+atk which will then do a high block or something. (I'm not sure, but if I do this now does my sabre do any kind of blocking? I don't think so 'cause most of the time that hit just kills me dead.) I can then click off defense and hit Light Stance and slice and dice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soul-Burn Posted April 10, 2002 Share Posted April 10, 2002 Crusher, I like your idea... heavy stance = slow movin', hard hittin'... therefore, easier to hit them, but get close too much and your fried. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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