On No-Force Duels and Force Balance

[ArtifeX]

I've been playing a ton of Duel multiplayer lately and I have some concerns that I'd be interested to get everyone's feedback on.

 

No-Force(NF) Matches

 

First off, am I the only one who thinks that No-Force lightsaber-only duels are boring as hell? This is true because two major aspects of Saber combat are unavailable in this so-called "Pure" duel mode: the ability to do the flip-kicks and the ability to throw your Saber. Without these two options, these duels degenerate into flailing, uninteresting strafing matches where the luck factor in victory is higher than it should be.

 

While i might be able to be convinced that Saber Throw does not belong in a No-Force match, I am stauchly insistent that the kicks should ALWAYS be available, even if the player only has level 1 Force Jump. They are such a salient and enjoyable part of normal Force-powered duels that I can't imagine that their absence in NF play is anything but an oversight.

 

Dev Team: Please, please add the kicks into NF play!

 

Force Balance

 

Many in the jk community have voiced these concerns, but I wanted to wrap these up in one spot.

 

- Drain - I, and many others, think drain is overpowered. the other day i played for 4 hours undefeated in an 8 person duel server using only drain from the dark force powers. Granted, i'm no slouch when it comes to saber fighting, but being able to suck an opponent's force reserve dry in under a second with minimal force use from me is a bit rediculous. I was free to use force push and force speed while my opponent had no access to his own powers. This would have been even worse had I opted for the uber-easy drain/lightning or drain/grip tactic.

 

Some might say, "Well I'd just use Absorb and I'd 0wN j00!" True, absorb will protect you for a few seconds, but it's a simple matter to run backwards away from an Absorb user and wait for it to run out or for them to turn it off, then drain away.

 

The only hope for a light side player against an experienced drainer is to turn on both absorb and speed at the same time and hope to overwhelm the drainer with an all out offensive onslaught before the light jedi's force power runs out. Once it does, the drainer's got you. This, as you might imagine, is rare in the extreme.

 

Suggestion: Simply have this use up more force power per second of use than it does now. 25-50% ought to do it.

 

- Mind Trick - Mind Trick is completly freakin' worthless. you spend about 18 force points to get level 3 Mind Trick and all someone has to do is use 1 force point to get level 1 force Sight and they completely nullify Mind Trick. I just love being in a duel where some ignorant light-sider trys to go invisible on me, turns off his saber and starts to crawl towards me (so as to make no sounds). I pretend to look the other direction like, "Oh my god, where did he go?" Then I wait for him to get in range and pull off the Strong finishing move. I can't tell you how many times I've been kicked off a server for doing that. "You lamer!", "You're hacking!", "Cheater, I was invisible!", etc...

 

blah, blah, blah...

 

Suggestion: Force someone to use a Force Sight of equal or higher rank to counteract a Mind Trick. At least then you make someone spend some points on it. Or, make the range at which a Mind Tricker is made visible by Force Sight shorter depending on the differences between the levels of the two opposing powers.

 

- Heal - Despite what some players say, Force Heal is NOT overly powerful. It is one of the few ways to defend against the drain/lightning combo and can be completely nullified by a good Drainer. Those who complain that they can't kill a Healer with Light or Medium fighting stance moves should realize that's the price you pay for being able to attack in rapid succession.

 

Suggestion: Leave it as it is.

 

- Protection - How often do you actually see someone using this? Not very. The reason why is that you can almost immediately bring someone out of this with less than a second of Force Drain. It also still leaves you open to any force powered attack. The only use this has is for surviving a gauntlet run down a rocket-filled narrow hallway.

 

Suggestion: I have no idea. I'm not sure I'd use this no matter what they did to it. It just sucks. An Absorb/Heal combination is much more dynamically useful.

 

- Grip - This is fine the way it is. It's only mildly useful, so I can't see why people complain about it. It's effective only when someone has either been drained, has squandered their force power away, or is hanging out near a ledge just begging to be thrown off the edge. Easily counterable when you haven't been loose with your force power.

 

Suggestion: Leave it.

[The Truthful Liar]

kick ass post --^

[Tree]

I like NF matches the way they are. Except for the saber balance which I wont get into here.

 

Maybe they need to add an OPTION to include.

 

Jump, throw and kick.

 

I will not play with those though.

 

The way it is now is purely about hitting the other guy with your saber. All that other stuff just gets in the way. If you think its luck then no wonder you don't like NF duels.

 

I hit where I want to.

[ArtifeX]

Originally posted by AB_Legion

kick ass post --^

 

 

Hey, I try to keep the quality up

[ArtifeX]

Originally posted by Tree

I like NF matches the way they are. Except for the saber balance which I wont get into here.

 

Maybe they need to add an OPTION to include.

 

Jump, throw and kick.

 

I will not play with those though.

 

The way it is now is purely about hitting the other guy with your saber. All that other stuff just gets in the way. If you think its luck then no wonder you don't like NF duels.

 

I hit where I want to.

 

Man, I'm not saying I'm not successful at NF fighting, on the contrary, I win quite often. My argument is that NF combat lacks depth. Kicks add another attack option, which I think is desperately needed.

[Ves]

your 100% correct

[Elmo O.o]

so tr00 artifex... u sumed it all up gj

[Lord Nodata]

A better solution to the drain problem would be to make it so that they could NOT use drain if they had 100 life already. Simple yet effective.

[Mattman]

I disagree with you on heal. It's instant effect makes lightside vs lightside matches a "who can heal the fastest" event that can stretch on forever. I think that it could be fixed if it simply took a few seconds to take full effect. Same amount of force power consumed, same amount of health restored, it'd just count up the health over a couple of seconds, instead of taking effect instantly. The force energy would be consumed all at once, just like it is now, so a drain wouldn't be able to negate a heal in progress. This way, you couldn't heal between your opponent's swings, which is ridiculous.

[Canis_Aureus]

Drain

The amount of force drained should equal the amount used... this does heal you after all. The arc of fire should also be greatly reduced for lvl3 power. Besides I think they should make the draining start off slow and then increase in strenght... or just make a warmup period of a few seconds before it starts to drain.

 

Mind Trick '

I agree that it is useless. I agree that you should need seeing of equal rank to reveal an invisible player. Besides I think it should be cheaper considering it's limited use.

 

Heal

I agree it's fine as it is.

 

Protection

It's ok, but the initial power cost is too high.

 

Grip

Fine as it is. Easy to avoid, minimal damage... and pretty fun on those levels where you can be thrown down to your doom (I play as light but like it anyway )

 

Seeing

Not very useful. Perhaps add the option to see your oponents health, armor and force - depending on rank. Also when you have it sniper dodging should be enable all the time even though seeing is not.

 

But all of the above is not nearly as important as the change mentioned where you play as a Jedi OR Gunner... I really look forward to that!

[Sartori]

my 2 credits.

 

make the drain rate slower and/or decrease the size of the fan it uses so i is possible to dodge it.

 

I personally like NF duels, but I think they would be MUCH more interesting with jump and throw included.

[worm777]

I run a NF duel server mainly because I can't stand drain and heal.

The matches drag on forever and I don't want to wait 30 minutes after I lose a duel to be able to duel again. The problem is there is no way to disable certain force powers on the server without completely getting rid of jump. Also if you disable just one force power the server will say all force powers are disabled and it won't let any of the clients change their force powers. This is a known bug and if Raven ever fixes it their should be enough variety in servers to make everyone happy.

[Spider AL]

The kicks, like all acrobatic maneuvers, rely on Force Jump level 2... I honestly don't know why Raven disabled all the acrobatics in duel challenge mode, but it would be a simple matter to enable them again. As for drain, it's certainly effective in a Duel match. But frankly, one needs skill to back it up, and I haven't lost a duel match to a drainer yet. Drain by itself, does not a Jedi make.

[ArtifeX]

Originally posted by Lord Nodata

A better solution to the drain problem would be to make it so that they could NOT use drain if they had 100 life already. Simple yet effective.

 

Well, that would sure force a change in tactics. It'd keep someone from dropping into a huge melee and draining 4 or 5 people at once down to nothing if, when they reached 100 health the drain automatically turned off.

 

That'd sure nerf it, but I think that may be too much. That'd make the power completely unusable against anyone using the strong saber swings. (one hit you're dead--you'd never have the drain option available.)

 

I'd still say just increasing the amount of Force power needed to use it would allow for better balance as it could be fine tuned--i.e.: if 50% more force to use drain was too much, then you could back it down to 40%, etc.

 

Plus, in dark vs. dark matches both parties would be 100% vulnerable to grip and lightning. That would encourage the n00bs to just lightning spam as soon as they walked into a room.

[Xatos]

I disagree with you on heal. It's instant effect makes lightside vs lightside matches a "who can heal the fastest" event that can stretch on forever. I think that it could be fixed if it simply took a few seconds to take full effect. Same amount of force power consumed, same amount of health restored, it'd just count up the health over a couple of seconds, instead of taking effect instantly. The force energy would be consumed all at once, just like it is now, so a drain wouldn't be able to negate a heal in progress. This way, you couldn't heal between your opponent's swings, which is ridiculous.

 

 

Agreed. It's a duel - Not a who can out-last who match by the sake of healing yourself over and over. It's boring, lame, and does not belong in a dang duel.

 

Heal should be the same as Single Player Healing, on all levels, with the exception of slightly or somewhat faster speeds. Otherwise, I agree with the original post in all areas but the heal.

 

You sound like a healer or someone who hasn't taken into consideration all the angles.

[ArtifeX]

Originally posted by Spider AL

As for drain, it's certainly effective in a Duel match. But frankly, one needs skill to back it up, and I haven't lost a duel match to a drainer yet. Drain by itself, does not a Jedi make.

 

I agree. As I said though, someone who is good with Drain can make sure his opponent never has access to any of his Force powers while the Drainer has access to all of his. While that doesn't guarantee a win, it sure does weight the scales in the Drainer's favor. I.E.: The Drainer can use Saber Throw while his opponent cannot, he can heal via Drain while his opponent cannot, etc.

[ArtifeX]

Originally posted by Xatos

 

 

Agreed. It's a duel - Not a who can out-last who match by the sake of healing yourself over and over. It's boring, lame, and does not belong in a dang duel.

 

Heal should be the same as Single Player Healing, on all levels, with the exception of slightly or somewhat faster speeds. Otherwise, I agree with the original post in all areas but the heal.

 

You sound like a healer or someone who hasn't taken into consideration all the angles.

 

Actually, I use the Strong fighting stance for just this reason. Any Strong swing will kill someone with one hit if they have no shields. You spawn into a duel with 125 health (counts down to 100) and 25 shields. After that first hit, it doesn't matter how much you heal, next time I hit you you're dead. That's why Healers never bother me. The only people who do seem to have a problem with them are the ones who stick to light and medium styles.

[Bronzefist]

Great posts guys.

 

I only been playing for about a week, but I've noticed the annoying sutff already.

 

I agree with everything artifex said, except for his paragraph on healing. I think it does need to be toned down--you recover all your energy instantaneoulsy, which is a far cry from what we do in single player.

 

Xatos pretty much sumed up what I wanted to say about heal, so I'll just end my post now

 

Peace,

Bronze

[Zek]

I have to disagree with you on Grip. It is very overpowered if used properly. With level 3, you can spin the person around you very quickly until they take the big 50-or-so hit in HP, and they'll have a very hard time pushing you. The only counter to this is absorb, and if they're drained empty before you start they won't have the force to turn it on in time(or push you). Most of this would be fixed by a Drain change. I think they need to increase the cost of drain a bit, and decrease the speed at which it drains power a good deal(draining all their force in 1-2 seconds is ridiculous).

[FlashFearless]

I agree that the real problem with heal isn't in dark vs light, it's in light vs light.

 

I literally had to leave a duel server before because two light jedis just kept healing theirselves. When the healmatch reached the six minute mark I decided I needed to eject.

[ArtifeX]

Force Heal

 

Anyone who thinks heal should be nerfed: adapt. Just because you really like being a light/dark side, light/medium/strong swing player doesn't mean that your playing style is going to work in every situation. If you insist on using Light Stance moves against a healer, then realize what you're in for.

You'll have to adjust it against different tactics. Heal can be countered with strong swings, medium combos/finishing move, drain, push and pull just to name a few. If you don't use them because you don't like them, that's fine. But realize that the game balance doesn't need to be adjusted because you refuse to use them. The options are there--it's your choice.

 

I've asked for a nerfing of Drain because there are NO options to counter it other than Draining them first (as I explained, Absorb is only temporary protection and an experienced player will simply wait you out). That is an oversight in my opinion and needs to be addressed if the community is going to avoid having jk2 end up as a "Drain Match" in a few months as people figure out what I and other experienced players have.

[Essobie]

I think the main reason why Drain is as quick as it is is specifically for use in FFA, where it really NEEDS to be this quick.

 

Don't get me wrong, in a no guns fight, Drain is much too useful since you essentially remove ALL "weapons" from your opponent... can't jump, can't defend against push or pull, can't stop a grip or lightning, can't even throw a saber.

 

But in FFA with guns (where I think most of the force powers got their tweeking), Drain is the only way for Dark Jedi's to heal up without finding health packs. It's also allows them to stop runners in CTF. It needs to be fast to completely REMOVE the force power from players.

 

I think a better fix for Drain would actually be to up the regeneration of force power a bit, but that still doesn't fix it for no guns gameplay where force is everything (frankly, a saber you can't throw is a crap shoot offensively).

 

As far as Protection, that's another reason I think all the force powers got tweeked in FFA testing. Protection is supposedly very useful against gunfire... although honestly I've been doing better with Absorb and Heal only. But I imagine on servers that have a LOW force rank (which are few and far between, sadly), Protection would be king, since most people will have to rely on gun fire for all of their score. Having an extra sheet of armor would be extremely beneficial.

 

I agree totally with the fact that noforce saber only is boring. But personally I don't see it ever not being that way unless you can bring the depth of arcade fighting games to the table, which I don't think is possible with the design of JK2.

 

Essobie

[ArtifeX]

Originally posted by Essobie

I think the main reason why Drain is as quick as it is is specifically for use in FFA, where it really NEEDS to be this quick.

 

 

I actually hadn't considered that. I think everyone so far has been thinking about it in terms of 1v1, be it in duels or off in a corner during an FFA.

 

Of course, in FFA, the ultimate trump card is ganging up on someone with a buddy.

 

I think a better fix for Drain would actually be to up the regeneration of force power a bit, but that still doesn't fix it for no guns gameplay where force is everything (frankly, a saber you can't throw is a crap shoot offensively).

 

I'd thought about faster force regen. That's actually something the server admins can control, but that would boost the power of all the other Force skills. With faster force regen people would be able to keep powers turned on.

 

We just need to nerf Drain, not boost everything else. That would just compound the problem.

 

 

I agree totally with the fact that noforce saber only is boring. But personally I don't see it ever not being that way unless you can bring the depth of arcade fighting games to the table, which I don't think is possible with the design of JK2.

 

Essobie

 

With internet lag being a factor, I don't think we'll see something like that for a while. Fighting that requires split-second reaction to block/counter would be fertile ground for lag-related kills.

 

I think just repairing the shallow gameplay of NF would suffice for now, and would be very simple to do.

[Etherael]

Originally posted by ArtifeX

I've been playing a ton of Duel multiplayer lately and I have some concerns that I'd be interested to get everyone's feedback on.

 

No-Force(NF) Matches

 

First off, am I the only one who thinks that No-Force lightsaber-only duels are boring as hell? This is true because two major aspects of Saber combat are unavailable in this so-called "Pure" duel m

ode: the ability to do the flip-kicks and the ability to throw your Saber. Without these two options, these duels degenerate into flailing, uninteresting strafing matches where the luck factor in victory is higher than it should be.

 

While i might be able to be convinced that Saber Throw does not belong in a No-Force match, I am stauchly insistent that the kicks should ALWAYS be available, even if the player only has level 1 Force Jump. They are such a salient and enjoyable part of normal Force-powered duels that I can't imagine that their absence in NF play is anything but an oversight.

 

Dev Team: Please, please add the kicks into NF play!

 

Here here, Kicks rule, kicks are necessary, kicks, as they say... kick.

 

Force Balance

 

Many in the jk community have voiced these concerns, but I wanted to wrap these up in one spot.

 

- Drain - I, and many others, think drain is overpowered. the other day i played for 4 hours undefeated in an 8 person duel server using only drain from the dark force powers. Granted, i'm no slouch when it comes to saber fighting, but being able to suck an opponent's force reserve dry in under a second with minimal force use from me is a bit rediculous. I was free to use force push and force speed while my opponent had no access to his own powers. This would have been even worse had I opted for the uber-easy drain/lightning or drain/grip tactic.

 

Some might say, "Well I'd just use Absorb and I'd 0wN j00!" True, absorb will protect you for a few seconds, but it's a simple matter to run backwards away from an Absorb user and wait for it to run out or for them to turn it off, then drain away.

 

The only hope for a light side player against an experienced drainer is to turn on both absorb and speed at the same time and hope to overwhelm the drainer with an all out offensive onslaught before the light jedi's force power runs out. Once it does, the drainer's got you. This, as you might imagine, is rare in the extreme.

 

Suggestion: Simply have this use up more force power per second of use than it does now. 25-50% ought to do it.

 

I agree with this also, except maybe absorb could be modified to deal with the insane power of drain right now, you see if you turn on absorb while someone is draining you, nothing happens, I don't know if that means that the absorption rate for absorbing from drain and the force usage rate for draining from absorb is exactly the same, but that's probably the case, it stands to reason. What I think should be done with absorb is that if someone hits you with a drain and you flick the absorb on, it should be the same as grip, nearly instant full force meter replenishment, that should stop the drain whoring and still require a modicum of skill on the part of the light jedi in order to avoid the skill (so hard to get absorb turned on before drain takes all your force points to begin with)

 

- Mind Trick - Mind Trick is completly freakin' worthless. you spend about 18 force points to get level 3 Mind Trick and all someone has to do is use 1 force point to get level 1 force Sight and they completely nullify Mind Trick. I just love being in a duel where some ignorant light-sider trys to go invisible on me, turns off his saber and starts to crawl towards me (so as to make no sounds). I pretend to look the other direction like, "Oh my god, where did he go?" Then I wait for him to get in range and pull off the Strong finishing move. I can't tell you how many times I've been kicked off a server for doing that. "You lamer!", "You're hacking!", "Cheater, I was invisible!", etc...

 

blah, blah, blah...

 

You can hear force seeing. if someone has force seeing turned on to nullify mind trick they've wasted a significant amount of force to get past it, with only one point in force seeing it takes about 5 bars to turn it on and then it wears off in I think around ten seconds, and the mindtricker can just turn his force power off and start recharging instantly, if you deactivate force seeing, mindtrick can be turned back on, on top of that there's some extremely dodgy things you can do with mind trick turned on which I'm not entirely sure are bugs or not, but trust me, they're nasty,whenever I get picked on by a drain | lightning/grip ***** the first thing I do is exploit this to it's nastiest max factor.

 

Basically, while you're invisible, you can execute the flip kick without cancelling the mindtrick.

 

*repeatedly*

 

Nasty.

 

Suggestion: Force someone to use a Force Sight of equal or higher rank to counteract a Mind Trick. At least then you make someone spend some points on it. Or, make the range at which a Mind Tricker is made visible by Force Sight shorter depending on the differences between the levels of the two opposing powers.

 

Interesting suggestion, but in light of the above facts, does it really need to be made any more powerful?

 

- Heal - Despite what some players say, Force Heal is NOT overly powerful. It is one of the few ways to defend against the drain/lightning combo and can be completely nullified by a good Drainer. Those who complain that they can't kill a Healer with Light or Medium fighting stance moves should realize that's the price you pay for being able to attack in rapid succession.

 

Suggestion: Leave it as it is.

 

How does heal help the drain / lightning combo? I don't follow you, someone drains you, you switch on absorb, nothing happens, they switch it off, you switch it off, you've got less force than you started with, they lightning you, you switch on absorb, you get a little bit more force, but not significantly more than you started with unless they go completely mad on the lightning while you're standing there sucking it up, which they'd have to be stupid to do.. and if they did that yeah ok then you could use the power glut to heal... But I'm assuming that's not what you meant? Noone would be dumb enough to try fry you while you've got absorption on?

 

- Protection - How often do you actually see someone using this? Not very. The reason why is that you can almost immediately bring someone out of this with less than a second of Force Drain. It also still leaves you open to any force powered attack. The only use this has is for surviving a gauntlet run down a rocket-filled narrow hallway.

 

Suggestion: I have no idea. I'm not sure I'd use this no matter what they did to it. It just sucks. An Absorb/Heal combination is much more dynamically useful.

 

Yeah, this is lame and pointless, this is why they should nerf drain, so that both sides have one useless skill.

<cough>

 

- Grip - This is fine the way it is. It's only mildly useful, so I can't see why people complain about it. It's effective only when someone has either been drained, has squandered their force power away, or is hanging out near a ledge just begging to be thrown off the edge. Easily counterable when you haven't been loose with your force power.

 

Suggestion: Leave it.

 

I agree again, people who whine about this are doing so without merit.

 

WITH THE EXCEPTION OF when it is combined with drain.

 

That's just not nice. These are the people that deserve to be repeatedly kicked in the head till death by invisible assailants.

[MrCoulomb]

I'd agree with most of it. but...

 

*I think no force matches are pretty fun. I do agree that the kick move, and force jumping to level 3 would make them better.

 

*I think that force heal can get a little annoying. I mean, on public servers I usually select force heal, and just heal whenever the other person does (if i need to.) And all it serves to do it make the match longer. Long duels are great, if they are immenseley exciting, but dragging on for 10 minutes simply because of heal is just annoying. I wouldnt change heal loads, but what I would do is make it so that you can only use it every... 5-7 seconds maybe. So that if you have full force but you are down to just a couple of health, you can't just recover immediately as if nothing happened. Regaining the 25 health would give you more of a fighting chance to win, but it wouldnt get you back to the level of the person who just skilfully dropped you to next to nothing.

 

* I'm not particularly fond of force grip. It can be easily countered with a push, and it isn't overly powerful for the first few seconds (the only nasty thing is when it is used in combo with drain, which at the moment is far too easy as you say)... but most people tend to use over and over again, and it kind of breaks the flow of the battle.