Define: SKILL

[Pint0 Xtreme]

Define: SKILL

 

What is this "skill" that we throw around when we complain and bitch about?

On one side, you have those who absolutely abhor the new patch because tactics used by those who ruled the servers simply ceased to exist as an effective weapon.

On the other side, you have those who absolute love the new patch because of previous tactics that were unseemingly difficult - if not, impossible - to counter became a pest of the past.

 

And now, what do you have? Two groups with one saying that the skill has been taken away and the other implying that room for skill has been put there. For those who haven't figured it out yet, maybe it is about time that you notice that "skill" is your ability to win! Those who hate this patch have lost their ability to win and those who love this patch have gained their ability to win. I, for one, is saddened and sick about hearing this nonsense to the point where I am going to actually write this god damn post!!!

 

First of all, how can anyone say that skill has been taken out or that there was no skill before? Many people witnessed me fighting in the original version attested that I had no skill and all I ever did was swing wildly with the complete lack precision and coordination. However, if you would look closer, you would find that my stepping, jumping and movement were all tuned in with my swinging to where anyone underestimating me would find themselves becoming Bantha Fodder.

 

OR how about the infamous DFA? People who complain about those who achieve monstrous kill ratios using only the DFA or heavy stance have never taken a closer look. In fact, if you actually concentrate on one of these DFA-wonders, you would probably notice that the DFA was a tactic these people took time to polish and develop. Yes, these DFA-ers actually have attained actual skill because they took the time to develop those skills.

 

In other words, it is almost impossible to determine who has skill or who doesn't have skill based their method of fighting. This new patch have changed the way sabers fight, thus changing the critical tactics required to win. There is no "LOSS OF SKILL" or "GAIN OF SKILL"; There is only "LOSS OF BALANCE" or "GAIN OF BALANCE".

 

One fights with precision and ability only through the discipline of time and effort. Raven would never intent a move that out-balances everything but they are not perfect. As a consequence you have small imbalances that upset the game. Because there are so many different tactics and moves available in this game, it is extremely rare - in fact, I believe it impossible - to lack a counter for any move.

 

Let's take a prime example. The DFA. The DFA is a powerful weapon and, when timely developed, can be a devastating tactic. Yet, it is not without a counter. I have countless times destroyed numerous players who have based their tactics solely on the DFA. But the real problem lies in the fact that the DFA is far harder to counter than other tactics. THIS is where the imbalance lies.

 

Finally, why then are we continually saying, "THERES NO MORE SKILL IN THIS GAME ANYMORE"??? OF COURSE THERE'S SKILL. You just have to change your tactics. It's called improvising. I must recognize the fact that there are valid complaints and criticism pointing out the imbalances, such as the DFA, drain and the new back swipe. However, everyone should also recognize the fact that this forum is filled with destructive criticism complaining about how the changes in the game have reduced the skill level when in reality what really needs to be changed are the players' tactics - the very one thing these people are too lazy to do.

 

To sum it all up, the only thing I can see worth complaining to Raven is the back swiping since it is hardest to counter. Everything else simply requires a little more effort in executing or, if necessary, a change in tactics. Everything else seems acceptable.

 

1.) The lightsaber battles are geared towards SP ideals, meaning more clashing, closer confrontations - in other words, more Star Wars orientated.

 

2.) DFA, drain and heal have been reduced in effectiveness to balance the game in terms of counterability and ease of use.

 

3.) Absorb now requires the opponent guess when it is active or inactive. Again, this balances with drain. The opponent must guess when drain will be used. Fair's fair.

 

4.) Jump-kicking now requires a double-tap. This eliminates accidental kicking or backflipping when you really need to jump over a small ledge.

 

Overall, it appears that Raven has done a great job in balancing the game. KUDOS to Raven. And really, this patch has done far more good than it has bad. Those who find themselves frustrated at the game should really learn to adapt. Because everything in life is about change. And if you cannot change, you will not survive.

[Hateplow]

[Pedantic]

Very well thought out post. Thank you for using correct grammar and spelling.

 

I agree that skill inherently lies in one's ability to play, not in the game. I also agree that adaptation is necessary. However, because I found the pre-patch style to be more enjoyable for me, I chose to revert to the 1.02 version. It wasn't that I was unable to adapt to a new style, but, rather, it was that I enjoyed the pre-patch style more.

[SaberPro]

I'd say the word "skill" in MP World means, capable of manuevering at ease and inflict successful attacks, while taking minimum damage.

 

That's all I gotta say about that.

[NewBJedi]

Simple:

 

Skill = 1.02

 

Nerf = 1.03

[EekTheKat]

Simple:

 

Someone obviously didn't read his post....

 

Don't let your blind hatred of this patch cloud your judgement Newb

 

[toolboi]

I see it like this:

 

Skill=winning if and only if you do so by legitimate means.

 

What is a legitimate mean? One that does not give you an upperhand, aka. cheating, DFA spamming (though thats been fixed), etc.

[Darkling19]

the difference between skillfull fighting and lame tactics is that a 7yr old can't spam a skillfull tactic lefthanded with his eyes closed and still win.

 

if you play skillfully and win you can say you are the better player and walk away a winner.

 

if you spam some lame trick that just happens to be deadly it only shows you want to win without regard to fellow gamers and you don't care if you annoy the heck out of everyone, you might as well just play bots on padawan level cos you don't care about showing you actually know how to play.

as long as u can mash that button and people die you're happy and that's lame and unskillful playing.

 

the "you" here is merely theoretical, there's a lot of good players out there and i don't mean to insult anyone, you know who you are

[C]-[33S3/\/\@N]

Ok, so weve tried to establish what skill is, My biggest beef is about Honour, skill is something you develop if you are determined enough to practise. Honour, on the other hand, seems sorely lost on a lot of servers.

 

[Luc Solar]

Umm..I would say that skill does not = number of kills. Cheap kills are cheap kills. If you go with the DFA aginst the same newbie all day, you'll surely get lots of kills. Lame tactics get you kills, but is it skill? I don't think so.

 

IMHO skill is as follows: The ability to adapt. Extensive knowledge of every little detail (map, move, gun etc.) in the game. Good reflexes. Playing smart.(!!) (f.ex If you have 03 health, you shouldn't attack someone, but search for healing)

 

Skill, however has nothing to do with being "a good sport". In real war, you don't go: "Uh, that guys is obviously not paying attention (afk), so I'll just walk buy" or "He seems to want a saber duel...oh well, I'll switch my flechette away then and bow."

This is, however, a game. The goal is to have fun.

 

Too bad there are so few skilled players with "morals" out there...

[Krak3n]

I vewi Skill as this :

 

It is someone who analyses and adapts to differnet aspects of the game and become good in tho's areas. In Jedi Outcast their are 4 Areas to adapt to :

 

Weapons - The weapons are not the best part of the game but you must learn how to use then effectivly, in most occasions Weapons own sabers any day.

 

Force : The most important aspect to gain 'skill' in. You must learn when to and when not to use the force. There is such as thing as OTT in useing the force powers, using it too much can lead to crappy gameplay. a ballance must be struck, you cannot rely on the force.

 

Sabers : A nice weapon for back up and used correctly with the force you can get some easy kills. You must obtain your own style of play, everyone will play different to a style which suits them, do not try to copy some elses style.

 

Straff jumping : A very importasnt aspect, but much more difficult to do in jedi Outcast becasue of force jump. You can moce 3 times faster then normal running, although carrys risks with push + pull.

 

A skilled person is good in all theses areas and does not 'brag' when he/she wins.

 

Krak3n

[Imrtl]

Skill = proficiency that is acquired or developed through training and/or experience.

 

Therefore reguardless of the system, skill can be attained.

 

It may take more or less training but it is still possible to become skillful.

[Zek]

Critics of the 1.03 saber system call it skill-less because they believe that all you can do to win is swing randomly at them until you get through their defense and hit them. It escapes them that they're losing for a reason when they do this, and that there's actually more to the saber system now than there was before. They never bothered to develop new tactics that take into account the chance to block, and that's why they bitch and moan about no skill being involved. They all seem to be under the impression that skill should just come to then immediately with no effort required, so they don't bother trying new tactics or anything. They're so busy complaining about it that they never got past using newbie tactics, so they insist that's the only way to fight.

[Dvlos]

This is an awesome very rational, and logical post. More people should read this thread. I still like this game and personally feel Raven has made it better by not making it like JK1...and by making people use new "tactics" as described above.

[Darth Iroel]

The only point in which I disagree in the initial post is in consider techniques as DFA spamming skill...I don`t think that exploiting an unbalance in the game could be considered such....I think that most people came to conclusion that one of the 2 version is unskilled because the effectiveness of some tactics is not balance with the dexterity needed to execute them......

[Xanthos]

Originally posted by NewBJedi

Simple:

 

Skill = 1.02

 

Nerf = 1.03

 

 

ahhahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahahahahhahahaha. That's probably the most retarded post I've seen ever. I'm never coming back here. lol

[TheDarkSide]

quote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally posted by NewBJedi

Simple:

 

Skill = 1.02

 

Nerf = 1.03

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

 

 

ahhahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahahahahhahahaha. That's probably the most retarded post I've seen ever. I'm never coming back here. lol

 

***********************************************

 

Yeah, sometime around 4:00 PM CST yesterday NewbJedi turned to the Dark Side. He ceased to be patch-tolerating NewbJedi and became patch-hating NooBJedi. He's more machine now than man, twisted and evil

 

TDS

[Pint0 Xtreme]

Originally posted by Toolboi:

Skill=winning if and only if you do so by legitimate means.

 

What is a legitimate mean? One that does not give you an upperhand, aka. cheating, DFA spamming (though thats been fixed), etc.

 

Sry, Toolboi, I'll have to disagree with you here. Actual skill is the developed ability to play with accurate and intently precision attained only through practice and time.

 

DFA spamming may seem skill-less to many people but those whom have been practicing DFA spamming actually have developed a skill in DFA spamming. Skillful DFA spammers would win against skill-less DFA spammers. And a more skillful player would win against the averagely skilled DFA spammer.

 

 

 

Also, after further extensive playing and testing, I really do not see what the problem is with the backstab. All you do is jump! Or even better, a fatal attack from above done with medium stance.

 

I even enjoy the new force power tweaks. I am a dark-side player and I must say that I am finding the new improved absorb to be a welcoming change. I finally feel that the fight between myself and my opponent are fair and that dark-side players have no mutual advantage over light-side players.

 

I really do not understand how anyone can say the new patch has "nerfed" the game. In my opinion, the patch has improved the game immensely. For those who hate the patch, it would prove far more effective if you presented arguments in the light of mine. Wouldn't you think so?

[[QGA]Vertigo]

Here you go... (copied from another post of mine)

 

What is it with you guys that you think that everyone who's not pro-patch is/was a DFA whore ?

 

I personally played with all the 3 stances, never (well, almost never) used the DFA, and knew for virtually everything a good counter (executing it correctly is another matter.... hehe).

 

After playing 4 hours/day for 3 days I have to say that I utterly hate what they've done to saber combat.

 

Deflections/Reflections/Parries/Knockaways is all good... in SP, NOT in MP. While it looks nice and seems more realistic, it narrows down the gap between newbies and more skilled players a LOT, making competitive play something to laugh at.

 

Saber combat is made less random... yes, in a way, when you do a slash it will ALWAYS be the same slash in the same conditions, but this is totally negated by the INSANE amount of blocking that happens. Thus, due to the blocking, everyone's charging at everyone in one big ball of players, frantically trying to hit someone, resulting in very chaotic and random gameplay.

 

While duel might have been improved slightly (is more "pretty" to look at...) it totally wrecks ALL OTHER game modes.

 

Bottom line is... any skill you had at this game has been thrown out of the window, and is now replaced by mindless charging you opponent, wildly slashing with your lightsaber, hoping to hit/kill your oponent, OR spamming the backstab move/lightning all over the level... this due to the fact that everything else was nerfed and that these (unchanged) things have now become the best way to kill someone...

 

Some improvements indeed...

 

EDIT: and yes, I have tried timing my slashes nicely, along with just wildly charging and spamming the "cheap" moves throughout an entire game.

 

Whenever I would resort to just twirling around on blue stance, or backstap/DFA into the central cluster in any given saber-only game (I could take some screenshots to prove this if you want) I would ALWAYS en in the top 2 of the server... Not to mention the fact that I have a LOT less fun that way...

[Borf]

would people stfu about this topic already

 

deal with it

 

stop complaining, stop breathing, whatever, just SHUT UP

[Darth Iroel]

I agree with vertigo.....the amount of blocking it's insane, even because it doesn`t take any particular skill to do it...I don`t like 1.03 but I'll continue to play it hoping that the next patch will fix everything.....

[Vestril]

would people stfu about this topic already

 

deal with it

 

stop complaining, stop breathing, whatever, just SHUT UP

 

 

*Applauds the ingenuity of the post*

 

Overall, it appears that Raven has done a great job in balancing the game. KUDOS to Raven. And really, this patch has done far more good than it has bad. Those who find themselves frustrated at the game should really learn to adapt. Because everything in life is about change. And if you cannot change, you will not survive.

 

One of my problems with this patch is that Raven changed the game around substantially after a very short period of time. This kind of suggests that they did not think very highly of the game that they created in terms of balance and whatnot, and it seems to me that if you spend X amount of years developing a game, it makes no sense to me to change it around in a single patch after one month.

 

It seems like they were reacting rather than acting, which tends to be a mistake. I think that there were a lot of bugs and simple and obvious errors made in this patch that could have been avoided if they had let the community keep complaining and taken their time to release a better patch--or to release a less drastic patch to fix some of the bugs that were already in the game and allowing themselves to get some response to the changes they made there.

[BradFu]

At last, a fairly reasonable thread (so far I have to agree on the idea that skill is the ability to take a game system and make it work for you. I'll even agree that there was some skill involved with the DFA. But at the same time, I agree that honor gets overlooked a lot. To DFA newbies over and over just to rack up kills lacks honor (in my opinion .

 

In about a week, I think we'll be seeing a lot of skill developing in those that are willing to give this patch a chance and try to adapt. In my optimistic world, I even beleive a lot of the people who dislike this patch now will come to like it after they've adapted and enhanced their skills with the new system.

 

Those that say the new MP saber system has turned the game into a big swing-fest with no precision at all, I can honestly say you're wrong. I hate saying something that definitively, but that's the way it is. The reason I know this is because I spent the other day playing JKII Multiplayer. Part of the day, I played without the patch. Part of the day, I played with it. I can honestly and truthfully say that using the 1.03 mp saber system, I am now able to play with a great deal more precision and accuracy. I find it a great deal easier to be deliberate in my lightsaber moves. The amount of random hacking in my gameplay has dropped immensely. This leads me to beleive that clearly the lightsaber mechanics haven't been ruined, people just need to adapt.

 

 

BradFu!

[MrCrusher]

Having played Heretic2 for some years I have a bit of a head start with this type of control system.

 

I keep wondering what everyone is complaining about so I logon for a few minutes of play time and I'm once again convinced that this is now the best PC melee game ever released.

 

My defense is where it should be, my attacks are deliberate and I use some real life fighting tactics. I hit about 3 out of 5 or better of my intented attacks. If my opponent does not know how to break down my defenses then he has lost the duel.

 

The depth of play is incredible, and it will take a long time to master JO. It has some good legs to run on .....until the inevitable anouncement of JK3.

 

The only thing I could see some improving on is the time waiting to duel on duel servers. I'm spoiled by the three arena format that I'm used to playing. This format allows duelist to be constantly fighting 1on1 with whom they choose. Maybe I'll do some FFA 1on1 three arena maps to speed things up.