How it should have been done

[Darth Darth]

I just bought the game a few days ago, and while it is great, I am disapointed with the lightsaber controls. The number of attacks you can pull off is pretty limited, but more importantly, the attack you pull is dependant on the direction you are moving. A better way to do it would have been to have players hold the mouse button down, and drag the mouse in the direction they wanted to swing. This way, the lightsaber controls would be completely intuitive, and you would not have to choose between making the swing you want, and moving in the direction you want. Obi-wan for the PC was going to have something like this before it was canned. Anyway, you drag the mouse in the direction you want to swing, and tap the mouse button for a jabbing motion, double tap it for a backstab. You could move in any direction while making any attack, for a large combination of possible moves. For instance, click to mouse, then hold it down and drag it upwards, while moving forward, to do something like the light lunge. Dragging the blade to the side and pressing the keyboard button that turns in the same direction would do a spin attack.

 

In one of the Star Wars novels, Luke explains lightsaber combat to his class at the jedi academy. There are 3 basic stances, but they are not based on speed vs power. They are outer, middle and inner, based on how far from your body you hold the saber. You could have these as the 3 stances. The speed of an attack would depend on how fast you move the mouse, possibly combined with a new lightsaber ability called saber speed. The power of an attack would depend on how far the saber moves in that swing. So, for a really powerful attack you would start facing to the side of the enemy and swing around 90 degrees, baseball style. Blocking shots and swings would not automatically happen if the shots came from a 90-180 degree arc in front of you, but would happen if the shots came within a certain distance of your blade. This distance would depend on how many levels you have in saber defense. You would have to swing the saber in the general direction of incoming shots in order to block them. This way, defense would really be based on skill.

 

Another thing is the instant use force powers. Rather than have you press the button, taking a set amount of energy to do a set amount of results, you would hold the button down to exert more energy, rather like is done with force jump, and lighting. So, simply tapping the force push/pull button would only move a target a little, while holding it would move the target more. Healing would work the same way, as would team healing and team energize. The only powers that should not be scalable like this are level 1 lighting and drain, because if they started out scalable than they would be a bit unbalanced. This way, you could shoose howhard you want to push or pull an enemy, how much you want to heal, etc. Also, push/pull should have more effect on smaller objects, since everyone knows that exerting the same force on a smaller object will cause a greater change in velocity. So, while just tapping the force button may only push a person a meter, it would push a pair of flechette grenades a dozen meters.

 

It would improve the force powers considerably if you made them scalable like that, especcially the push/pull powers. Using a mouse-based attack system rather than a movement key-based one would have made the ligtsaber combat revolutionary, rather than evolutionary. That said, the game is still great how it is. I only hope I see some sweet controls like that in Jedi Knight 3. Meanwhile, I think I'll go push some people off some walkways.

[Darth Darth]

Come on, tell me what you think people! Do you like my idea? Does it sound brilliant? Or do you think it would be too hard to code, or too prone to lag, or just too hard to animate? Gimme some feedback guys!

[Tekkaman Slade]

Sounds like some good ideas. I definitely think JKII is too "hack and slash". I think a good way to gauge the Lightsaber combat is to play without Force powers. Does the lightsaber alone have enough variety and strategy to make it satisfying?

 

More control would be great. Coming up with a good sword/saber interface is paramount in this kind of game. JKII is still great, so we'll have to hope for the next time.

[Darth Darth]

Yeah, the saber combat is so simplistic. Plus, the current position of your lightsaber seems to have no bearing on whether or not it blocks a swing, so you can't even kill people with a lunge to the back. Saber combat is always either just holding down the attack button and hoping to connect, pushing/pulling/gripping people off cliffs, backstabbing, lightning attacks, and throwing. No actual swashbucling, nothing like a real sword fight.

 

I forgot to mention a few things. Double tapping a move key would perform a quick lunge, backpedal, or sidestep. That is what you would do for a light lunge, not just hit it once. Force should recharge faster, so that you don't have to attack, withdraw from combat for a bit, then go back into the fray. This would make it more feasable for a single player to fight off multiple oponents; they could not just overwhelm him and wear down his force meter so easily.

 

A few more things I just thought of. People should be able to quickly roll in any of the 8 cardinal directions when they fall down. This would make it a bit harder to just knock people down, then shove them off a cliff or backstab them. Also, lightsabers should do more damage. One solid hit, either stabbing into someones chest or through a limb, should kill them unless they are using force protect or have a lot of shield energy left. People should also be able to use force push/pull while lying on the ground; another measure to prevent these lame knock down/backstab and knock down/push kills. The problem with this game is that lightsaber combat revolves entirely around cheap tricks like that. Finaly, it would be cool if lightning did less damage, but stunned people a bit. Like, maybe caused them to suffer the effects you get after ending a dark rage, for just a few seconds. So lightning would be used less to kill people, but to set them up for a saber attack.

[Dough with Fish]

Darth Darth, these are some AWSOME ideas, too bad Raven didn't have you there to pound them into their heads. But I do have a little nit to pick. And thats the idea about holding down the button and moving the mouse, in other how saber combat was going to work in Obi-Wan. While this idea seems to look good in writing, well, in practice it just SUCKS ASS. I got Obi-Wan the same day I got JK2, and let me tell you, Obi-Wan was the biggest waste of $55.00. Especially the saber combat. Its way too sluggish and non-responsive to be any fun whatsoever. And holding down the swing and moving at the same time rarely gives you anything other than the normal swipe.

 

This game (Obi-Wan) is the second game I have returned without beating it, the first was the horrid Episode One for PC.

[Darth Darth]

I'm talking about obi-wan for the PC though, which was cancelled. We all know the X-box game sucked. The PC version had a system like this, called the Glyph system, which sounded like it was going to be really awesome.

[Darth Darth]

Also, I have some more ideas for force powers. How about if, in adition to the force power meter, you had a force recharge meter? The more full that meter is, the faster your force meter recharges. This meter would also recharge at a slow, set rate. You could then try to win fights by wearing your enemy's recharge meter down, then overpowering him. Kicking would knock the recharge jeter down a bit, and you could add a new netral force power that fires a little bolt which reduces enemy recharge meter. I don't really have this idea fleshed out, just thought about it.

 

Another thing: different lightsabers. I have heard a guy who plans to make a mod that has several different lightsabers to choose from. You can get a medium length one like we have now, a longer one, a double bladed one, or 2 shorter sabers. This would be cool. The only thing is, the double and twin sabers would need to have different stances and attacks than the single sabers. Im not sure what the stances would be, and the attacks, using my idea for a mouse saber system, could not be as simple and intuitive as with the single swords. Maybe you take away the lightsaber throw ability for those, and have the primary and secondary fire buttons attack with the 2 different blades? That way it could remain an intuitive, "move the mouse this way and it swings the same way" system, and there would be a good reason to stick with the single blades. The double saber and twin sabers would have advantages and disadvantages. The double saber would be ideal for fending off multiple oponents. While one blade swings in one direction, the other blade would be sticking in the oposite direction, guarding against blows on that side. However, the double sabers swings would be limited because you have to keep the other blade you arent swing from slicing yourself. Also, it would be a bit slow to make longer swings. You also have to keep in mind that swinging one blade might move the other out of defensive position and leave an opening. The twin blades would be great for deflecting shots, because you can deflect 2 at once, since the 2 blades move independantly of eachother. They would be pretty fast, but holding any weapon one handed makes you slow to reverse the direction of a swing. They would be good for combos, and could bat aside an oponents sword and then go for the kill quickly. They could also be good agsinst paired oponents, IF you have the mental agility and speedy mouse hand to keep track of 2 seperate swords and 2 oponents. Their major weaknesses would be that the 2 swords are each pretty short, weaker than any of the other swords since you are only swinging with one hand, and you have to avoid getting them crossed up. The single swords would be a lot easier to use. The medium length one would be pretty fast, and the best for throwing. The longer one would be a bit stringer and slower, have better reach, but an oponent could get inside its reach, forcing you to retreat, kick them back, or make crappy, weak swings.

[Etz]

There was an old game called Die By the Sword which used the method you described. It would be nice but I'm not sure if it's feasible to program it into JK2. I agree though that we really need to separate the saber movement from character movement. It's the only real way of bringing the feel and realism of the saber combat from movies. It would also be nice if dmg would at least partially be decided by the location that got hit. I.e. hits to head should almost always be fatal.

 

The mod you were talking about is Kaiburr Saga. I hope they succeed although I don't agree with some of the changes they are planning. I got another mod in the making (or rather plannign as the SDK isn't out yet). Its purpose is to make sabercombat as fun as possible, and more realistic. I'm going to create a forum for it in the near future, until then you can send suggestions to hannu_hurme@msn.com

 

There really are a lot of issues with JO's saber combat, and no really simple solution. One way would be to keep the current system, but tweak the blocking, speed and damage values until it would be better balanced. I'd rather see a whole new system though. If you feel you'd be up to program such changes or know someone who might be willing, please send mail to the address above.

[graigsmith]

its a neat idea sure.. but it would be hard to implement on a multiplayer game. not only would it be somewhat hard to track. but it would be hard to block someone elses saber. especially when lag is a factor.

[Darth Darth]

I have never played Die by the Sword, but I have read a couple other people mention it in reference to the lightsaber controls. Lag is definately the biggest obstacle to lightsaber combat. In fact, that is why there aren't any multiplayer fighting games, a little lag can make it impossible to counter enemy moves. Now, JK2 seems to have pretty low lag, aside from occasional spikes. Although a mouse-dragging system would be somewaht more complicated than the current one, and therefore require somewhat larger data packets, I think this is feasable from a netcode standpoint. What I am more worried about is the idea of doing this as a mod to JK2; I'm not sure if a non-profesional, making this as a mod to a game using a totaly different system, could pull it off. It would definately make a good system for JK3 tho, or even perhaps an expansion pack.

[devNiGHThaWk]

i think you are a ****ing starwars nerd.

[Darth Darth]

If reading books makes me a nerd, than sure. So, anyone have anything useful to contribute to the conversation?