Lightsabre Stances

[tempest8008]

I just read in this forum a very good point (I wish I remembered what thread, for I would give credit where credit is due).

 

We're dealing with a lightsabre....a laser sword...a beam of light.

 

It's weightless, aside from the hilt, yet the Heavy stance makes it look like you're really 'leaning into' the swing. If you think about it, all that would do would be to make the swing faster, not slower and 'harder'.

 

I think the stances should be re-examined. I'm all for having 3 stances, I think they're great, but I think they should run as follows:

 

LIGHT

A one handed stance like a classic fencer. A very, uh, light stance, lots of flicking hits and the occasional lunge maneuever. Very fast recovery. You face your opponent looking over your shoulder (sideways to the other player, not chest-first). Best for saber fighting one on one, where there is no time to escape and heal. Defensively, your saber can be beaten aside by someone using one of the two handed stances, and it would leave you open for a counterattack. Would be best for defending against light blaster bolts (ie from the rifle or primary on the pistol) but heavier energy weapons being deflected could knock the saber from your hand. The primary on the Repeater, due to it's rapid fire rate, would eventually knock your saber aside.

 

MEDIUM

A two handed stance. Attacks are faster, but take longer to recover from. This stance could include alternate attacks as well, like kicks and/or punches with the primary hand holding the saber. (a kick delivered against an opponent who is en garde could end up with you being short a foot and dead). Introduces the concept of 'handedness' also (left or right) which would affect how you face your opponent. In this stance, you'd be in a slight crouch (like the game Medium now) and facing your opponent directly, with the saber angling away from your chosen hand and pointing towards your opponenet. This stance could deflect all incoming missile weapons except for explosives, repeated hits from blaster bolts would force you back. Gives a certain percent chance of beating aside an opposing player's saber if he/she is using light stance.

 

HEAVY

A two handed stance. VERY fast swings, long recovery time. Imagine swinging a baseball bat...you start off with two hands, swing, and on the backswing your "off" hand releases, leaving you holding the bat in one hand. Handedness would make a difference, again. You could block any energy blast, explosives of course would still damage you. Your saber could not be knocked from your hand, but you'd have an increased chance of knocking the saber out of a Light stancers hand over the Medium stance. You could stand your ground even under repeating blasts. You would be standing more upright in this stance, with the saber crossing your body. Could also make the stance have you stand straight, facing away from your opponent ninety degress, but be looking at your opponent, with the saber raised above your head. This stance (not medium) could be the 'spinning' stance, where when you swing while strafing you do a quick spin.

 

There have been plenty of times where I've done a swinging spin and watched my saber pass THROUGH another player, and only cause 30 points damage. It should have cut him in half, but due to the stance I was in, it didn't.

 

 

I dunno, maybe I'm just being silly, but to me it is the SPEED of the swing of a lightsaber, not the force behind it, that should determine the stance. The lightsaber should do the same damage no matter what stance you're in if it hits.

 

A lunge through the midsection should kill you or break your shields to 0. Same with a headshot. A stab to a limb should cause 30 points (love to see some localized damage models too, like limping if you're hit in the leg, or switching hands if you're hit in the arm).

 

A slash through the midsection or head should kill or break shields to 0. A slashed limb should suffer 40 points of damage. I can understand them not wanting to include decapitation or dismemberment to keep their teen rating.

 

The Light stance hits could cause 10-15 points per hit, as they are smaller wounds. The Medium stance hits could cause more damage, but less than Heavy as you'd be "pulling" your hit to ensure a faster recovery, but either way if you swing passed completely through the body or a limb, that'd be a kill.

 

The only saber combat I've seen in the movies where a hit did not kill was when Luke was fighting Vader. Luke tagged Vader on the shoulder, but the armour took most of the blow. Vader took off Luke's hand.

Obi Wan took out Luke's attacker in the Cantina by slicing off his arm...they never heard from him again.

In EP1 Obi Wan and Qui Gon took out dozens of Battle Droids with one swipe apiece.

 

They key to saber combat has always been NOT to get hit, period. In the EP1 combat the only hits that didn't kill were non-lightsaber hits (Maul's saber hilt to the face, various kicks, falls, force push to the face etc etc) I can understand that it would be very hard to model the kind of combat I'm after, but if it could be done it would be sooooo much more satisfying.

[ArtifeX]

By watching the movies, it's pretty obvious that the saber requires some effort to move it through a solid object.

 

Two specific instances I can remember:

 

Episode 1: about 5 minutes in when Qui-Gon is cutting through the blast doors of the enemy command ship. If the saber required no effort to cut through the door, then it wouldn't have taken him but a couple of seconds to cut a huge pie-slice out of the door and walk right through.

 

Episode 5: Vader and Luke fighting above the bottomless pit in the Bespin vents. Luke hits Vader's shoulder with his saber. If it cut effortlessly, then a simple flick of the wrist from Luke would have split Vader's torso in half. Instead, there's just a few sparks and a little grunt of pain from Vader. You'll also notice Vader's retaliatory swing where he really puts some effort into it and cuts the 3 poles next to him in half.

 

Just in general, if effortless cutting was possible, they would be using the sabers like epee's or foils. Why do large swings otherwise?

[tempest8008]

Just to defend my position....

 

 

Originally posted by ArtifeX

Episode 1: about 5 minutes in when Qui-Gon is cutting through the blast doors of the enemy command ship. If the saber required no effort to cut through the door, then it wouldn't have taken him but a couple of seconds to cut a huge pie-slice out of the door and walk right through.

 

Metal a couple of feet thick, plus a blast door, all armoured would definately require some time. Qui-Gon was MELTING the door, not cutting it. I would guess a swing at such an armoured mass would just shorten the blade while the energy is pumped into the metal. It might leave a glowing scar, like when you swing at a wall in JKII, but it wouldn't cut right through.

 

Originally posted by ArtifeX

Episode 5: Vader and Luke fighting above the bottomless pit in the Bespin vents. Luke hits Vader's shoulder with his saber. If it cut effortlessly, then a simple flick of the wrist from Luke would have split Vader's torso in half. Instead, there's just a few sparks and a little grunt of pain from Vader. You'll also notice Vader's retaliatory swing where he really puts some effort into it and cuts the 3 poles next to him in half.

 

I mentioned this in my post. Darth Vader's suit is armoured, and Luke was also moving so quickly that he pulled his stroke, and only just managed to avoid Vader's riposte.

 

Let's just look at the game for a second...

 

On ANY stance, you can lop an arm off, or if you've got the right codes in, cut someone in half. Doesn't matter if you're on Light, Medium, or Heavy, the 'sabre cuts the same, and doesn't matter if you have speed on or not. This alone means to me that it is the 'sabre that does the cutting, not the force of the blow. You could stick out a 'sabre and run by someone and it should cut them in half.

 

What I'm talking about is fighting either very lightly armoured (Storm Troopers) or non-armoured (Reborn, Imperial Officer) opponents. MP player models are all based on these characters (no Fyaar suit, or other armoured player) and so it is the speed of a stroke, not the force behind it (although you could argue that a faster stroke is a harder stroke) that should determine the stances.

 

Damn, I have more points but have to go do some work now...

Let me know what you think...

[nabroc]

tempest, I think you need to considder playability, game concept and fiction of the movies here. Real physics is IMHO totally out of place as long as we don't know exactly what the 'blade' of the saber is and how it functions. BTW, photons do act like they have a mass (while in motion) and maybe someone knowledge out there could calculate how much mass the 'blade' would have until two sabers reach a density so they could actually collide and not pass each other (i don't even want to start on the duality nature of light). And if we start here, why on earth does a saber have a defined length, why doesn't the beam continue in the direction it's emmited and how come the laser beams from the blasters move so friggin slow, how the heck do sound waves travel in space etc. etc.?

And if ther's no force behind the saber, if it doesn't have a momentum, why on earth would I use both hands on the grip? I can swing further and more agile with just one hand ...

dunno, I just tend to enjoy the movies and the game cause their fun - if I would start trying to explain stuff seen in both I would either have to call it unrealistic or explain it by phenomenas we don't have any knowledge of - either way it'll make a poor basis to reason on. Maybe it's me, but 'realistic' and Star Wars just don't mix .

As to the proposed damage model, sure it would be cool if damage would also depend on sepperate hit regions and not just stances but considdering the endless amounts of DFA and/or red stance complaint-posts i don't think everyone would be happy with the instant kills from every stances (unless it's a head hit maybe), but a nice idea non the less. One can argue bout implementing the stances differently, e.g. manipulating the in-game saber concept but I fail to see the logic why speed would increase from light to heavy the way you've explained it (I don't think a fencer performing a full swing moves his blade slower then a baseball player his bat).

 

One more thing - Qui-Gon is cutting through the blast doors. Now Maybe that's another Jedi trick but I don't think a human would be able to bear to be that close to such a heat emitter as a red/orange glowing metal mass of these proportions (I've been to a foundry, trust me , just another example of not to take the matter to seriously.