The debate.

[Lucky]

This thread was created to identify the folks involved in the ongoing debate/arguement/discussion/flamewar centered around the 1.03 patch.

 

I've got this to say to everyone who frequents this forum.

 

 

 

Yer identifying the groups of people involved in this debate incorrectly.

 

1)You have a few folks who want their exploits back, there really aren't that many of them.

 

2)You have a lot of folks who are upset at the new exploits, there's a considerable # of these.

 

3)You've got CTF'rs like me who are annoyed that the game balance got so screwed up that it makes it difficult to even defend a flag.

 

4)And you've got people who are overjoyed that they got what they wanted.

 

 

Most of the anger on this board is directed at either the first group, or the last group. Most of the 'whining' flames are aimed at those groups, or are emanating from those groups.

 

I'd have to say that the CTF'rs and the people who want their exploits back (DFA) are by far in the minority. The people who are overjoyed seem to be in the majority, with the folks who are upset at the new exploits coming in a close 2nd.

 

CTF'rs are most clan types and competitive types who rarely post or even frequent this board. They're angry because it seems like this forum is responsible for the changes that screwed up their mode of play. I count myself among those.

 

I'd have to say there are VERY few people who are actually trying to posit the idea that the DFA/drain/heal didn't need to be nerfed, or that the balance between guns/sabers didn't need to be altered. I'd say the vast majority feel just the opposite. So group #1 isn't even really represented here. If yer going to fire off an angry retort at someone, consider that they most likely aren't a member of this group, and whoever yer about to flame probably doesn't even realize why yer flaming them.

 

The group thats upset with the new exploits has a legitimate claim in being. If the DFA needed to be nerfed, then isn't it possible the backswings need to be nerfed as well? Flaming them isn't going to solve any problems either, and as a precedent, if the DFA got nerfing, any massively used but entirely unintentional technique should prolly get squelched. I wouldn't flame these folks either, they're simply trying to stem the next DFA.

 

Finally, the last group, the one most of you belong to, is the group thats entirely pleased with this patch. I'd say at least half of all the players that post here are fairly pleased with this. The other half is composed of the other 3 groups. Either you haven't been exposed to the new exploits yet, or yer finding them easier to deal with than the DFA, but for whatever reason youre happy.

 

What you all need to understand, is that these are all DIFFERENT GROUPS OF PEOPLE. I've been told repeatedly that I wanted the DFA to remain exactly the same, or that I was a drain/heal whore, simply because I've got a problem with the ammo constraints of the ranged weapons I need to defend my flag in CTF. I've said no such thing, and yet ive seen that silly violin gif about a thousand times now.

 

What we all need to do is look outside our realm of play and see what we're all talking about. When I start talking about ammo constraints, a lot of you start telling me about sabers. I'm not talking about sabers, im talking about keeping someone far away from my flag and making them think before they run thru a defensive point in my base.

 

When someone starts talking about sabers, a lot of folks start talking about the forces that got nerfed, the DFA and other things. They aren't the same issues.

 

Right now, there are problems with the patch in my opinion. And in other people's opinions. And not in some people's opinions. But by far, we've got a lot of DIFFERENT opinions about DIFFERENT things.

 

We all need to have a heart and make sure we know where one another is coming from before we bust out the violin gifs or the 'newb' flames.

 

There's a lot to be fixed, and some things that don't need to be fixed. If we think about it, we can give some very constructive advice to Raven for the NEXT patch. Otherwise, we're going to drive eachother away from these forums AND THIS GAME.

 

So keep the issues seperate, state clearly what you're having a problem with, and offer solutions. Hopefully we'll find popular solutions we can all live with and mebe Raven will take heed and implement them.

 

I found myself incensed after I installed the patch, it took me 2-3 days to calm down. Now I'm hopeful that Raven will clear some of this up and i'm CERTAIN that we can have a hand in that, since they seemed to take our previous complaints very seriously.

 

As a project, for the next patch, we need to list all the seriously unavoidable issues with this one, and offer suggestions for fixing them. We should hold off with new suggestions that might screw up the balance until after the game plays reasonably well without adding anything that wasn't in there on the release.

 

If you concur with this, help me out and start a thread here and there and make sure to clearly outline a) where yer coming from, and b) what your SPECIFIC problem is. Please avoid blanket statements and generalities.

 

And keep in mind, that the current balance might already have a solution that you haven't discovered yet. We should all take every issue seriously, but we need to make sure that there isn't a way around the problem without actually comitting somthing to code.

 

We need to think like beta testers folks, and be very scientific so that we can give Raven good advice. They're busy with other projects and they won't have time to dote on us forever, so lets be as effecient and as helpful as possible.

 

 

Lucky

[Vestril]

I found myself incensed after I installed the patch, it took me 2-3 days to calm down. Now I'm hopeful that Raven will clear some of this up and i'm CERTAIN that we can have a hand in that, since they seemed to take our previous complaints very seriously.

 

...The Patch has been out for three days?...

[Lucky]

Yer having a problem that i've been pissed off since I played one night of CTF after it went live because? =P

[Luc Solar]

*Standing ovation*

[Cougaris]

Indeed.

 

I never really got into CTF, but I can understand where you are coming from. The actual saber mecahnics have been augmented to resemble the SP mechanics - which neraly all game reviewers loved. The force powers sit just fine now

 

There really are only the four groups that you identified plus one more: the group of people who said "I hate what you did to the game and I'm not playing it anymore" but for some reason, still hang around this forum.... strange that.

[Lucky]

I think those are mostly folks in one of the 3 groups who are unsatisfied and still coming down from their tirade. I was one of them after I did some # crunching on rage/protection vs the ammo constraints.

 

Right now there are a lot of serious challenges for Raven to overcome to satisfy all of us, which may or may not be possible.

 

I'd say they have to spend a lil time on the team based dynamics, tweak the force dynamics here and there, and balance guns vs sabers. + they need to completely rid the saber combat system of any sort of predefined exploits.

 

there's a lot of different solutions to all those problems I can think of off the top of my head, and there are a lot of gritty details to each one.

 

What we need to do is identify the problems, look for solutions found within the current version of the game, and then if nothing else can be done, simply come up with as many different solutions as possible in terms of things they can tweak and or add.

 

And we need to back all of our suggestions up with concrete evidence of the problems they're designed to fix. We need to put some serious thought into the issues and give Raven legitimate feedback instead of half assed ranting.

 

 

Lucky

[[OSF]Zurk]

Kudos on the good post. It's a nice change of pace from the others out there with the incessant whining. I haven't gotten much playing done in the new patch, but I think a lot of issues can be addressed by adapting to it. I fully agree with you when you say that we need to back up suggestions with concrete evidence. Raven's not going to change the game without some serious thought, and if the community wants change it needs to be serious about it as well.

[Demangel]

There it is folks, someone with a brain ANd an opinion! someone who thinks before he speaks! Someone with reason! someone I might even vote into office if they ever ran! Excellent post, this is how I felt from day one, but got pulled into the dark side of flaming one time to many!

 

Personaly I love the patch, I do feel some things need to be fixed still however, most are new things due to the new patch however...

 

for example, lightning now is not so easily countered by drain due to nerfing the hell out of drain... they SHOULD have simply improved absorb, and nerfed heal. Why? Well maybe there is another way for a dark force player to counter lightning other than drain, but lightning was intended to be countered by drain and absorb!

 

Now Drain does little to nothing VS lightning, since it blasts longer than you can drain, and it drains more slowly, thus the lightning keeps whipping you, and drain does little to save you... 90% of the time drain shuts off beforte thier lightning is finished (tried it over a dozen times now with the same effect regardless of how much mana I have or the drain level).

 

I'm NOt a drain whore, I use it to heal and only when I feel I have earned it... OR to counter lightning. (earning it means either fighting two or more people at once, or starting a fight already badly hurt).

 

Thus I think drain shouldn't have been nerfed... it's still playable as it is, so long as nobody lightning spams, and I am still loving the new patch overal... but this and a few other more minor things need to be tossed into the dumpster...

 

I am glad Light siders have a chance now, I was all for that since I play as both on any given day... but now a dark on dark fight can get wierd, it seems like some people use lightning a LOT more now simply because only a light jedi has a TRULY effective counter for it... sure I can drain two or three times, and keep on draining them, but lightning doesn't take much mana... and god forbid two guys do it at once, there is NO hope to survive it if your remotely hurt. Trust me I tested this a few times as well... I don't mind taking SOMe damage from lightning, but usualy i have no real defense against it now... which sucks. i can still try to push em or pull em away and or down and murder them, but thats far less reliable than simply draining them... sure I can TRY to jump over it...

 

however, for GODS sake don't nerf lightning, just put drain back to something like it was before... or make it work better for healing than it does now... this way light jedi still get thier challenge and new absorb, and dark jedi don't have to worry so much about eachtoher.

 

however to play devils advocate since the patch I only played light side once, and got owned bad LOL. True absorb is more interesting now, and I WAs out of practice, since I played the last week mostly as dark, but I still think from the way the numbers work that light is about equal now, with some minor exceptions, but the same can be said for dark...

 

Overal great thread, and a great patch, that just needs tad tiny bit of more tweaking and balancing... thanks to all involved. And rememeber no matter how bad an online game is, or good it is, improvements don't happen overnight with maybe the rare exception of a bug fix in a MMROPG.

 

i hope we can all find something of a middle ground, sure maybe it sounds like tree hugging hippy speak, but its the truth for once... these forums are getting WAy out of hand.

[HappyPrancer]

YOu left out a type of person.

 

There are also people who will complain about anything regardless of how much they actually like it.

 

-HP

 

P.S. the patch stinks

[Dvlos]

I still dont understand why we need 800 threads about the same thing on a forum? I understand making a thread about the patch, and/or argue different aspects of it. BUt so many threads that are like "The patch sucks because..." or "this patch is great thanks..."??!?!??!?????

 

:confused: :confused: :confused:

[Vanor]

Very nice post

 

Myself I'm in the "I love this patch" group, I'm a duelist, I don't use guns very offten, and the force is a tool, not a weapon when I play. So IMO this patch fixes the things I saw as problems, but I will agree that some of the things they did were a bit overboard.

 

I came to the same realization lastnight myself. I'd say that roughly half of the people who dislike the patch do so for very ligitimit reasons, CTF type people did get hurt in this patch. I really have no pitty on someone who joins a FFA game, and whines about being shot. The idea you had about a saber being a 1 hit kill against someone with out a gun is interesting, I think this would cause more whining by the hard core gunners in FFA however.

 

It should be easy to change things to make the CTF and Duelists happy, put more ammo in, and undo any nerfing to gun damage, if they really did nerf the gun damage. I don't know if they did or didn't, cuse I don't use guns. But enough people feel the guns are pointless that Raven should look into this.

 

I also think it would be a good idea to go to a more middle ground with sabers, reduce the amount of blocking by say 25% of what is now.

 

Raven said they didn't alter the damage done by sabers, other then with heavy stance, and then only at the very begining and very end of the swing.

 

Strong attacks also do more of their damage at the middle of the swing and less at the start and end. This was necessary to give the strong attacks a more realistic feel (because the anims are so long that sometimes you would get a somewhat accidental looking kill).

 

This, the increased blocking, and in 1.02 a "near miss" actualy counted as a full hit, makes it seem like sabers have been nerfed. I don't think this is the case, and what ChangKhan says backs that up. It's a matter of them fixing some issues, namely hit detection, and adding in more blocking that makes sabers feel nerfed. I've played enough duels to say that a solid hit, still seems to do as much damage as it did before.

 

As to the people upset at the new spam moves... They've always been there, just not used as offten because the old spam moves were easier. These things should be addressed, but it is not the fault of the patch.

 

I'd say that for the most part, the people who favor sabers over guns tend to play either duel or saber only FFA. These people are typicaly quite happy with the changes made, but I don't think any of us would be that upset if the blocking was decreased slightly.

 

So with realy very minor changes, Raven could make a 1.0x patch that would make 3 of the 4 groups you listed happy. Increase ammo, and make guns more effective again (Would just a increase in the amount of ammo, and how quickly it spawns do this?). Decrease the amount of blocking slightly, and tweak the back stab/slash which is currently the major spam move in saber fighting.

 

As to the force... I play light side, so I can't really comment on drain, I personaly applode the nerf to heal, it was just silly before, now it's much better. They could decrease the amount of force power used slightly and it would still be ok IMO. But it deffently needed to be tweaked, and this is comming from a light sider. I will admit I found myself starting to depend on heal to make up for any holes in my sabering ablity.

 

Absorb is perfict now IMO. It was truly silly the way it was before, what good is a defenstive skill, when everyone knows your using it? I know you could turn it off and on before, but this was a kludge work around for a problem with the skill.

 

Drain... Well I don't use it so I can't comment on it very much, but I'd say that idealy, it should be something along the lines of, you drain as much force power as you spend in draining. The amount of healing could be increased without a major problem perhaps... I don't know how much healing it does so I can't say for sure.

 

Idealy this is how Drain vs Lightning would work IMO... 2 dark siders square off, one uses lightning, the other drain. The lightning user should run out of force mana from drain and what he spends. The drain user should have maybe 1/5th of his force power left, which wouldn't be enough to use grip or something. And the drain person should take 15-20 net points of lightning damage, assuming he would take more but heal some of it back.

 

I agree tottaly with lucky, that what we should be doing is figureing out what the real problems with the patch are for everyone and see what we can do to fix it.

 

By real problems, I mean things like lack of ammo in CTF, not things like "I can't drain someone of all their force power with drain, and still have enough to grip them to death."

 

A idea for the flip kick, if it's something Raven could swing... Make it so it's one jump when used on Someone, but 2 when used on a wall. I must say that I got really tired of trying to jump up to the walk way on bespin, only to do a backflip cuse I was standing to close to the curb. But even if they can't... 2 jumps is how they intended it to be, and it doesn't destroy the use of that one move.

[Lucky]

I concur os, however I think we might want to put our heads together and come up with some solutions to offer the folks at Raven, they're only going to patch this beast so many times.

 

Might as well make the next few quality patches.

 

 

 

Lucky

[striderx2048]

Solution:

1. restore ammo comsuption of golan and repeater to 1.02c

the only reason thoses guns were nerfed was to "balance guns vs sabers", and even then the only complain was the secondary of the repeater firing rate was too fast for saberist to effectively push back, so slow that down.

 

2. decrease blocking or incease saber damage, either one should speed up dueling while still making the combat "like" SP,and less sparks

 

3. nerf the backstab move, geez thats too ez to get kills, but that might be the "nature" since the saber is "dangerous" for a long period of time. ie slow recovery

 

4. heal, either increase the heal to 30-35 or decrease the cost to 40% of force.

 

5. drain, balance it so lightning vs drain , drain has a chance of suvival.

 

6. is it me or saber blocking vs golan primary was decreased?

[JAtM Trev]

Haven't played much, but I guess that could be a incentive to gunners to use the primary fire of the golan and perhaps the repeater.

 

Since they heavily nerfed the secondary fires on them, the primary fires might be more effective.

[Lucky]

Neither of their primary fires is accurate enough to work as a long range weapon, which was why the golan and the repeater were so important in CTF.

[Etz]

My grudges against JK2 lightsaber combat go beyound the patch, which in itself is a good thing, because even if it doesn't fix everything (they rarely do) it shows that they care about the game and about us.

 

Considering the cult status Star Wars has I wonder why they didn't put more effort in the multiplayer in the first place. They should have known that people would rush to it like moths to ray of light. Only other melee game we've really had is Rune, and I was somewhat disappointed in that one. This game is so much more.

 

Even should Raven somehow botch the patches complitely people can still create mods with their own rules and systems on saber combat.

 

To me the combat now seems too chaotic, true I haven't played that long and there's much to learn. But I think the blocking / stances should be more intuitive somehow. It doesn't necessarily take much to change that, and it doesn't mean you should be able to master the game easily.

[DerthNader]

Well. I play sabre only duel and the patch has done wonders for this game-variant.

 

Against a skilled opponent, duels are like the epic battles from the movies now.

 

This makes me happy as I believe duel is the soul of JK2.

 

SoF2 will probably be my team game of choice.

[UgonDieFoo]

Well, I've posted my views on the new saber combat b4 so I'm not gonna go through that again. Overall I think the new system is better than the old one. I just don’t like it how everybody seems to be reverting to the backstab/swipe move. I was playing two days ago in the morning and everything was fine and I was doing okay on a few duel servers. Later that night I logged on again to find that the backstab/swipe frenzy had spread like a viral infection. Nearly everybody was relying on it almost exclusively. On servers with no force, ppl would just charge backwards at each other. On the servers with force saber duels became a tug of war to see who can pull their opponent to the ground first and backstab. I had never seen the move abused so heavily b4 and this all disturbed me, as I know it has many other players. Something needs to be done...

 

Also, when it comes to drain Vs lightning, I haven't really had any problems with somebody relying on lightning (when I play dark and use drain). I've found that a good strategy to use with drain is to not drain someone who is using lightning on you unless you are taking damage directly to your health and not your shields. Don't try to drain them first because you won't receive the real benefits of drain, which are its healing abilities. If you stick to this strategy then a lightning user should not be able to overwhelm you. I don't think any balancing is necessary between the two. In fact I don’t think any balancing would be possible without upsetting the light VS dark balance which is probably the more import issue to be concerned with.

 

As far as heal goes, I think that they nerfed it a little too hard, even as someone who plays exclusively on the dark side. It was overpowered b4 but it is now 1/4 as force efficient as it used to be at level 3. Did it really need to be hit THAT hard? Also it's basically useless at level 1 and 2 where it only gives 5 or 10 health for half of your force. I realize that it pays to specialize in what force powers you select rather than spreading your points out thin, but the lower levels of heal are just pathetic for lack of a better word and should be made more powerful. I think heal should be something like:

 

(costing 50% of you force at all levels)

 

level 1 gain 11 health 12 health

level 2 gain 22 health or 24 health

level 3 gain 33 health 36 health

 

I think heal would be perfect if it was like this because the lower levels would be better and it would be more useful overall. (And it would still be a far cry from what it used to be.)

 

Oh and one more thing - Dark Rage. It should be the most powerful of the dark side powers and it is in many respects -except that it leaves you completely defenseless all of the time, especially at the lower levels. The problem isn't the reduced run/attack speed that lasts for 10 seconds after it wears off. The real problem is that it drains you of 80 health at all levels. This is especially bad at level 1 where you go from 100 - 20 health in just 10 seconds. Most sith don’t touch Rage because of this. I think Rage should be more like:

 

level 1 - drains up to 50 health, 60 health

same bonuses and after effects

 

level 2 - drains up to 60 health, 70 heath

same bonuses and after effects, or

 

level 3 - drains up to 70 health, 80 health

same bonuses and after effects,

 

That way it would be a little more viable at all levels, and you might just see a few more sith relying on it rather than drain/ lightning all of the time.

[zenroth]

My anger with the patch doesnt stem from the nerfing of DFA(I never would allow myself to use red stance) or even changes to force or guns as I play mostly No Force duel. My rage comes simply from the change of the saber styles and the increased blocking/reduced damage.

 

Ive played 1.03 ive won duels but the fights themselfs where extreamly chaotic and generally less enjoyable for me.

Someone can simply sit still never attacking and block almost if not all saber attacks? WTF is with that? Make the blocking manual where it requires skill, but auto blocking? Also the damage of the sabers have been nerfed so baddly its silly. But beside all of this why the style changes? The old styles seemed to flow much better in my opinion and the new ones just seem to be alot of slashing.

 

People have said they love the new control with yellow(my fav stance), but I dont see it what new control? Its like there is the downward hack, the 45 degree hack from each side,a quick horizontal hack and thats it. Where are your spins for running by someone and slashing there side open,etc?

[Vanor]

The spins are still there, you just need to swich directions a bit, or spin yourself.

 

And once more... They did not alter the damage of sabers, in light or medium stance, they only altered the damage in heavy, and that at the begining and end of the swing.

 

It seems like they did due to increased damage, and improved hit dectection. In 1.03 you have to hit the other guy more squarely then you did in 1.02.