1.03 Patch: What's the big deal?

[Kurgan]

Not to re-dredge up a subject that's touchy with a few folks, but I was playing the 1.03 patch last night to see what all the fuss was about.

 

In general, I didn't really see it as a problem. Granted, the "Death From Above" move is more difficult to do and can't turn in mid-air, and the saber system has to basically be re-learned, but I played some games of CTF and didn't notice a significant drop in the level of "fun" I had. In those games it wasn't saber-dominated either, again, as usual, it was just another weapon.

 

I did notice however that when somebody rushed into my base with a saber, it took a lot longer to kill them if I went at them with my own blade (much quicker just to blow them up or push them off a cliff anyway). I still scored many kills against saber users with the ST Rifle and other supposedly "weak" guns, as I always do.

 

I will admit however, that this is in the lag-free environment of a jedi master bot game (since I have no internet access at home for the present), but everything seemed in order.

 

Only a couple of things annoyed me... the double tapping of the kick move meant my hands got tired quicker and I didn't do the move half the time (once you get the timing down it is less annoying though). The other thing was a bug that I didn't notice in 1.02, which is when I tap the "change stance" key or the "activate saber key" multiple times, I'll often throw my saber. This is rather strange, and annoying (since that split second without a blade to protect you from shots or that swinging enemy blade can mean the difference on many occasions).

 

Another "bug" I noticed was that fact that the keys in the "numpad" section of the keyboard (including the / * - + etc) could not be bound to anything, but in 1.02 they could. This is annoying since there are so manyfunctions, being able to bind these keys was very useful. Hopefully they'll fix that in the next patch, along with the aforementioned problems.

 

The increasing mana consumption of drain/heal meant that those powers could simply be used less often or had to be managed better. In CTF games it was hardly an issue since we're surrounded by bacta, large shield boosts, and team healers/energizers. The "stealth" Absorb was actually quite nice, a feature that made it more like Absorb in JK/MotS, which added to its effectivness.

 

The saber duels in duel mode did last a lot longer than before, and looked a little more "cinematic." The new duel levels were nothing to scream about, but nice ports over from Single player. Though one of them is literally a big gray room full of crates.... bah (nobody make any sequels to that map, okay?).

 

I didn't duel long enough to notice any hands getting cut off (it's kind of hard when the camera zips away from the fight immediately though.

 

About the other issues people raised, the loss of Ghost Morgan skin is rather sad, I thought that one looked cool. What they should do is take those "extra" skins and incorporate them into the menus with their own face pics, etc. I didn't try the lightsaber challenge so I couldn't test the alleged "saber throw" by non duelists against those in a duel though.

 

As far as updates to the OS Page, I can see the Lightsaber section seeing several updates (which I plan to mark with the 1.03 patch), but when those updates will be forthcoming I can't say. At worst, you won't see them for another 2 weeks or so. Other than that, I don't see a real need to update anything for the patch, except perhaps a page quoting the list of changes so people know what they're getting into. ; )

[BoBa feTTichiNi]

i like the old saber system better ;-p:fett:

[Jedi Legend]

About the other issues people raised, the loss of Ghost Morgan skin is rather sad, I thought that one looked cool. What they should do is take those "extra" skins and incorporate them into the menus with their own face pics, etc.

 

Yes, but what happens when you play teams? It would be hard for them to make a "Ghost Morgan" red team skin. Also, it would be hard to tell if a Ghost Morgan had asorb on even if you hit them with lightning.

[NewBJedi]

Grip and drain = completely nerfed and basically useless.

 

The removed the ability to kick well which in my book is a big no-no.

 

Kick was my ultimate revenge for anything - and people could kick me back - it wasn't overused or abused.

 

The saber while very tight in control - is just a little too defense oriented.

 

Those are my reasons for reinstalling and going back to 1.02.

[NewBJedi]

To be specific:

 

Grip and drain = completely nerfed and basically useless.

 

They removed the ability to kick well which in my book is a big no-no. Double tap is just annoying and hardly ever works correctly.

 

Kick was my ultimate revenge for anything - and people could kick me back - it wasn't overused or abused.

 

The saber while very tight in control - is just a little too defense oriented.

 

DFA is now replaced with a backstab which is even harder to avoid - a simple spin and thrust.

 

I never asked for any of these changes.

 

Those are my reasons for reinstalling and going back to 1.02.

 

As I recall a lot of people stayed with Quake 3 1.17 for a long time until ID Software made the new patches have the 1.17 'feel options' (mainly the mouse).

[NewBJedi]

Kurgan, this is what is needed:

 

http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=51872

 

It'll solve all the problems.

 

Tweaking and nerfing gameplay is the worst thing a dev team can do to a game that established itself for a month or more.

 

Options are one thing, but permanent changes are really bad - again, see Tribes 2.

[Obi-Wan X]

RAVEN should have waited a bit longer, and thought out the issue of a patch a bit more than listening to a few people whining on the forums. DFA was a nice change, although most of the changes were simply meaningless. Although it was fun to play, and a bit foolish at times with some new enhancements. I will still try to adapt to 1.03. *bows*

Obi-Wan Kenobi: Don't defy the council, Master, not again.

Qui-Gon Jinn: I will do what I must, Obi-Wan.

[Lucky]

Kurgan i could kill a 'jedi master' bot with a stun baton in almost any situation.

 

Their behavior is predictable, so its not an accurate test of the game. Playing the bots you never would have guessed that DFA would have been an exploit.

 

 

It appears blocking is mostly client side now, which doesn't really bother me, but it means its very hard to get a kill with a strifle in lag conditions.

 

On top of that, the guns are nerfed badly enough that you can't defend your flag. You get all of 4 shots to kill someone, and thats simply not enough. Granted, if you take 5 minutes to comb the level while they escape with yer flag, u can get 12 shots, yay.

 

Also, if someone does have enough ammo to kill you, the saber is even more meaningless, because you have to get closer and get a more accurate hit. They essentially nerfed the saber as well.

 

Everything got nerfed except for absorb. In the next patch, they should follow the example of what they did with absorb, and make everything more powerful. Much more powerful.

 

 

Lucky

[NewBJedi]

Originally posted by Lucky

Everything got nerfed except for absorb. In the next patch, they should follow the example of what they did with absorb, and make everything more powerful. Much more powerful.

Lucky [/b]

 

Yes, my new saying to gameplay changes (if they really must be done):

 

Add Do Not Subtract!

 

If one thing is too powerful, make the other thing equally as powerful.

 

See, now you know the deep down thoughts of 'NewBJedi'.

 

I've decided that from now on I'll stop riding the fence and trying to please everyone - I'm going to stick up for my truest beliefs.

 

Add do not subtract - and when all else fails: Leave the game alone!

 

[NewBJedi]

FYI - on the topic of the sabers ...

 

The offense control is better .. but the added defense negates it completely.

 

More skills does not = more swings.

 

And that's what the uber saber defense does.

 

It just requires you to swing a lot more.

 

Skill has NOTHING to do with it.

[EekTheKat]

Not entirely true....the added defense is part of what makes the new offense scheme balanced.

 

The new blocking scheme is far from uber. From the way you describe it you make it sound like it's near impossible to kill anyone with a lightsaber now with your own. There are ways to get around the current defense scheme (most people just haven't learned them yet)

[cig]

The flipkick, that now requires hitting jump twice is impossible to perform on other players. Near impossilbe to combo after hitting someone with it as well.

 

What has been lost with 1.03 totally -

The special hop that used to be done after performing a flipkick doesnt exist anymore either. Hop was used to set up other moves. It was done by simply jumping immediately after you did a flip kick, you could hit your jump as hard as you wanted an would never jump high, you would just do the lowest jump move that was in the game allowing you to set up a 2nd move as you hopped towards your opponent. We need the hop back.

 

The blue saber attacks are way too strong, you can backstab someone with a blue attack now an kill them out right at 100 health. Red attacks arent strong enough, yellow seems ok.

 

They need to change the flip kick back to the way it was, for the love of god!

As it is now its worthless, its just not possible to get it off consistently. I dont even see why they changed this at all. It was one of the few things seperating the newbs from the skilled.

 

They need to make it so we can control the saber attacks better, blue an yellow attacks are still too uncontrollable. Let us be able to control the saber spins, right now its just flailing lucky strikes that wins the duels. Its stupid. I think all the stance attacks need to be slowed an swing animation be changed to longer, wider swings. Red attacks are the only truely controllable swings. We need a wider variety of attacks like the BLUE stance Crouch+Forward+Attack, and the RED stance Attack+Forward+Jump.( I know there is a yellow one but it sucks) The reason the Red one got used so much wasnt just because it was deadly, it was also one of the few swings you could control very well.

 

I want to be able to combo some moves, for instance, I hit yellow stance I saber spin, as that move goes off i change to blue and do the crouching attack as the spin ends, then i change to red stance as the rising crouch attack ends I do the red strike(A+F+jump) to end the combo. Can kinda be done now, but the moves dont really flow together. And its tough changing between stances like that. Or just give each stance their own combos like that.

 

As it is right now with 1.03 its all luck, there is less structure to the fighting than there was. Swings are tighter but strikes seem to be less acurate, which makes no sense. Blue attacks that do 100 dmg? Red attacks that do 70? wtf? Blocking should require some skill to do, its too damn easy to block attacks.

And the one thing that needed to be changed, the DAMAGE for the red strike, not the hit ability. NO ONE wants a one hit kill, LESSEN the damage for (A+F+J)

One of the advantages of using the red slow swings was the range the swings had, with the new blocking its impossible to land a regular swing, so we seem to see A+F+J even more now. Just trying to get a damn hit.

 

If you played the game lots an understood about flipkicks, the hop, then you will hate the 1.03, if you didnt understand about that stuff then of course you wouldnt see a problem with the patch. The ones that dont understand are being refered to as noobs. And seeing that most dont know about flipkicks from the MANY people ive fought . . .

[Maugan_Ra]

I will add my personal experience to this mess.

 

This mod makes Dueling great... which makes me think that the guys over at Raven are partial to the duel mode, seeing how they also included more duel maps. It lengthens the duel, and levels out the playing field between newbs and seasoned vets.

 

I to am extremely displeased at the doubletapping jumpflipkick. I even macro'd the double action on my belkin n50, and it is STILL hard to get off.

 

While it makes dueling better, it has completely ruined what I like to call 'chaos, team chaos, or chaos with a flag' modes. After being completely fed up with trying every which way to try and kill people in less than 30 seconds (which never used to be a problem) I found a corner in the deathstar map up on a ledge so push/pulling would be difficult. I sat there, no joke, for 5 minutes. I got up, took a piss, and I was still alive, taking maybe 30 damage total. I wasn't even at my computer, and yet I was blocking attacks. It was incredible.

 

And then, I put on light stance, and speed and just went careening through the level. I would have to say that I did more damage just randomly swinging than I did actually trying to actually employ some kind of skill against people.

 

The whole problem is that now the saber combat is based on a counter-attack advantage. If you can get your opponent to swing first, then you have it all locked up. It was the same before, but to a lesser extent, and if someone wanted to play the defensive thing with you, there was always the jumpkick.

 

If you think I'm whining, then you're right. I enjoyed playing 1.02 MUCH better, and I'm seriously rethinking my involvment with this game as long as saber combat favors the "mass-chaos-swing-away" method.

[vulcanspy]

Originally posted by Lucky

On top of that, the guns are nerfed badly enough that you can't defend your flag. You get all of 4 shots to kill someone, and thats simply not enough. Granted, if you take 5 minutes to comb the level while they escape with yer flag, u can get 12 shots, yay.

 

You only get 4 shots because you're using the secondary fire, which was the only thing about the guns that was nerfed. Are you seriously saying that secondary fire is the ONLY way to kill people in CTF? No, it's just the fastest, easiest way. A team with enough skill should still be able to deal out enough damage to win a round.

 

I don't intend to sound demeaning, but if the game had been released with features similiar to v1.03, and then a patch came out with features similiar to v1.02c, you'd all be complaining about how guns are overpowered, saber combat is too short, and dear Lord why oh why did they take away the double-tap flipkick 'cause now I keep kickflipping off 'lips' on bridges and stuff. It's really amusing if you think about it. I'll even be big enough to admit that I'd probably be making the exact opposite of the argument I'm making now.

 

We all bought the game (in theory). After we bought it, there were things about the game we all did not like. Yet we played it and sang it's praises anyway. Now the patch comes out, and there are different things we don't like. But this time, we all say it's ruined the game and half of us are giving up on it. Well I for one am still planning on getting my money's worth, and if it means I have to relearn a few things, that does not disuade me from having fun. There will always be things I like and dislike about any changes or additions, but I can deal with that. I respectfully suggest that we all try to do the same.

 

-VulcanSpy

[goorooloo]

What VulcanSpy said!

 

Secondary fire on the Golan and Repeater was Primary fire to almost everybody out there. Golan shrapnel was only seen extremely up close so you didn't kill yourself and the repeating feature of the Repeater was almost non-visible unless someone was using speed to run away from you.

[geronimo27]

Originally posted by vulcanspy

I don't intend to sound demeaning, but if the game had been released with features similiar to v1.03, and then a patch came out with features similiar to v1.02c, you'd all be complaining about how guns are overpowered, saber combat is too short, and dear Lord why oh why did they take away the double-tap flipkick 'cause now I keep kickflipping off 'lips' on bridges and stuff. It's really amusing if you think about it. I'll even be big enough to admit that I'd probably be making the exact opposite of the argument I'm making now.

 

Well, you be big enough to admit that for yourself, but don't try to admit it for everyone else. I will be honest enough to admit that if the game had been released as 1.03, I would have quit playing within that same week that I first bought the game.

 

This has nothing to do with what system we got used to first, and then dislike it just because it changed. For me, this has to do with a system that I enjoyed, and then disliked the change because to me, the changes are bad, not because they happen to be different.

 

I always welcome changes for the better, and to me, these changes were not.

[Nax]

I have yet to manage a 1.03 backflip kick thus far, but I saw someone else just shooting them off like it was nothing. I have no idea how he was doing it, but I presumed that perhaps it was just changed a bit.

 

Perhaps you have to be in the air now to kickflip.... I'd test it, but it's pretty late here.

 

G'night!

 

Nax

[Lucky]

I'd have quit playing after I finished single player.

 

The explosive and area effect properties of those 2ndary fires are what comes into play here. If any of the weapons were accurate enough to be deadly at a distance, this wouldn't be an issue.

 

The problem with nerfing these 2 guns, comes from the fact that all the rest of the guns are almost useless already. Its nearly impossible to get a kill with anything else unless yer extremely close to someone. Mainly do to the slow moving projectiles, and the sheer inaccuracy of the weapons.

 

Right now I get most of my kills from simply pulling someone over and unloading half a clip of whatever into their face. I don't particularly enjoy doing this, its just easy and effective. The alternate fire on the repeater was the only LONG range weapon we really had outside of the sniper rifle, but now its not effective anymore.

 

The golan isn't really screwed too much, however it was the next best substitute for a long range weapon and its been nerfed too.

 

Thats not really even the issue, the issue is, why the hell did these guns get nerfed in the first place? Were they overpowered against someone using a strifle? no. A bowcaster? not really. A bryar? Mebe, but the bryar is meant to be a POS.

 

The guns are powerful sure, but they aren't by any means OVERPOWERING. Except against saberists. I'm as effective if not more with a strifle or a bowcaster or a thermal up close. However, the problem is in the ranged combat. From far away, its difficult to kill anybody with anything. Those 2 guns were really what we CTF'rs relied upon for defense, and nothing else really fills the void.

 

Honestly, they got nerfed because of the new saber combat. They got nerfed because the sabers got 'nerfed' to make them more cinematic. Many people consider the new combat system an improvement, which is fine. However they nerfed the guns and screwed up the fragile balance that was CTF.

 

The solution, what they should have done, was make the sabers DEADLIER against anyone not holding one. A one hit kill. It would be tough to get, but you'd be far from defenseless with a saber.

 

Attributing previous complaints to me is extremely disingenous. I defended this game whole heartedly before the patch, I thought it was workable. Now I think its broken. I'm still not giving up, ill play 1.02 until they take another shot at a patch, but I'm not going to stop pointing out the problems with the current patch. Otherwise they wont get fixed.

 

Note: I actually like the new saber system, my sole complaint revolves around how they screwed up CTF. I've got issues with how badly they screwed up drain and heal, but its much less irritating than how they screwed up an entire MODE of play.

 

 

Lucky

[smith]

Actually, I'd have to disgree with the "make something more powerful to balance stuff" comment. I'd say take stuff down. Infact, I'd suggest that the Duel should be scored on hits, rather than frags.

[MrCrusher]

I try to make my swings deliberate when there is an opening.

 

When I do this well I am rarely blocked.

 

I am an anti button masher

[Jollix]

Has anyone else noticed that sabers can be thrown in a NF game. As a matter of fact you can't really disable force anymore.

 

I loved to play NF games where the only thing that mattered was skill, not seeing someone and pushing them off a cliff before they knew what ahd happened. Also, it doesn't seem like they fixed the hit box. And lastly, the pink stance (even if it hits them full on) only does about 1 hp dmage if it hits at the end of the swing. I don't care if it's the end of the swing, if a light saber hits dead on it's going to do alot of damage (at least more than 1hp worth).

[Jollix]

Another note is that the field should never be leveled between Newbs and Veterans... That's why they are veterans, they have played the game and have become good at it. Newbs should have to build skill like that too, but this patch just makes skill useless and replaces it with who can swing the fastest. Very very very very sad that Raven thinks games should be this way.

[Father Ruckus]

Originally posted by Nax

I have yet to manage a 1.03 backflip kick thus far, but I saw someone else just shooting them off like it was nothing. I have no idea how he was doing it, but I presumed that perhaps it was just changed a bit.

 

Perhaps you have to be in the air now to kickflip.... I'd test it, but it's pretty late here.

 

G'night!

 

Nax

 

He probably scripted it, which would actually be useful. even though i never backflipped before the patch, or fell victim to it.

[TheDarkSide]

Another note is that the field should never be leveled between Newbs and Veterans... That's why they are veterans, they have played the game and have become good at it. Newbs should have to build skill like that too, but this patch just makes skill useless and replaces it with who can swing the fastest. Very very very very sad that Raven thinks games should be this way.

 

OMFG. Yes of course skill is useless. Here's a test: I'll give my mouse to my 2 yr old brother, put him on a server with yourself, and have you try to beat him. If you cannot beat him, then YOU are the one with no skill. If you can't beat him, then I'll get on and show you how its done. And I'll do it sans DFA, backsweeps or anything else you find offensive.

 

 

IF you guys had bothered to *play* v1.03, instead of ing about it, and grandstanding in fits of self-pity and righteousness (i.e. v1.02 is back on my computer, thank the stars), you'd notice that the v1.03 community is already gradiating (look it up) into those with more skill and those without. Or in your terminology, vets and newbies. The thing is, some of those newbies are no doubt people like yourself who refuse to adapt to the new gameplay, and make incorrect conclusions like "since I ruled before, and suck now, the patch must require no skill"

 

TDS