ArtifeX's "What Needs to Happen in 1.04"

[ArtifeX]

Please keep in mind that the term "finisher" was invented by the community. This isn't a Mortal Kombat fatality, it's just another set of swings you have at your disposal. The only reason they were categorized thus was because they were very flashy, slow and did great damage.

 

I still can't understand the mentality of those who want to limit the scope of the combat even further than it is now. Let me repeat my axiom:

 

More options=Deeper Combat Experience=More Fun

[ldeviator]

I agree that we all invented that.. but they are finishers because they usually can only be executed on those that are prone... ie knocked to the ground. I think that if someone hits someone with these "finishers" while standing there is no question that they deserve the hit. Getting around those asses that run around backwards is easy... just saber throw them to death... move laterally and kick them.. whatever..

 

"Being prone" is really what I think the problem is... that one is "prone" much too easily. That is one can be knocked the the ground too easily. I think that needs to be fixed... that and regular swings need to follow your advice too. Otherwise I think the game is fine.

 

And ya... more moves = good.

[tempest8008]

Hey ArtifeX, I have a couple of ideas to incude too.

 

1) Make it so that you can lose your lightsaber by having it knocked out of your hand. It happens all of the time in the movies and makes for some of the best drama.

 

That leads the way into your suggestion for ramping up lightsaber combat, by having two sabers (but being limited to the light style). Imagine having the saber knocked from your hand and you have to use Pull to get it back before the other guy grabs it...or you roll after it, or have to drop to a lower platform to retrieve it....great stuff!

 

 

2) Make it so that if you are a Light sider, and you kill a defenceless/prone opponent, your Force pool is drained. Gives some consequences to your actions. I haven't managed to think up a similar nerf for the Dark side though...you can't really be punished for NOT killing someone, can't make the game read minds after all.

 

3) Make it so you can destroy weapons. I'd love to saber in half a missile launcher. You could give it a 'build up' period as well after which it explodes. They'd have to make it so you could throw away weapons though.

 

Just to clarify one thing:

 

ArtifeX wrote:

 

Make all Saber Styles cost the same number of points to buy in the Force Power Setup. Don't make any style a prerequisite of another.

 

 

So instead of Saber Defence and Offence and Saber throw points you'd have points to put into the STYLES instead? My one concern here is that it's kind of on or off, you either have the Heavy style or you don't. How would they do 'levels' of the Stances....?

[ArtifeX]

Originally posted by tempest8008

Hey ArtifeX, I have a couple of ideas to incude too.

 

1) Make it so that you can lose your lightsaber by having it knocked out of your hand. It happens all of the time in the movies and makes for some of the best drama.

 

That leads the way into your suggestion for ramping up lightsaber combat, by having two sabers (but being limited to the light style). Imagine having the saber knocked from your hand and you have to use Pull to get it back before the other guy grabs it...or you roll after it, or have to drop to a lower platform to retrieve it....great stuff!

 

I agree that that would be a great addition if it were properly implemented. That would take a great deal of playtesting to figure out the specifics of how you could lose it/get it back without disturbing the balance of the game.

 

2) Make it so that if you are a Light sider, and you kill a defenceless/prone opponent, your Force pool is drained. Gives some consequences to your actions. I haven't managed to think up a similar nerf for the Dark side though...you can't really be punished for NOT killing someone, can't make the game read minds after all.

 

No. That'd just reduce the options you had when playing light side.

 

3) Make it so you can destroy weapons. I'd love to saber in half a missile launcher. You could give it a 'build up' period as well after which it explodes. They'd have to make it so you could throw away weapons though.

 

dunno about that. it seems to me that if a gunner's close enough for you to hack on him in the first place then he's in enough trouble without blowing up his weapon.

 

Just to clarify one thing:

 

So instead of Saber Defence and Offence and Saber throw points you'd have points to put into the STYLES instead? My one concern here is that it's kind of on or off, you either have the Heavy style or you don't. How would they do 'levels' of the Stances....?

 

I'd separate Saber Offense into a bunch of different skills ideally, but if we were to just separate the styles, then it'd look like this:

 

Light Stance: 1 2 3

Medium Stance: 1 2 3

Strong Stance: 1 2 3

 

I'd do away with Saber Defense altogether i think, as that should be linked to your mastery of the current stance. As you bought more levels, your attack speed, damage, defense breaking, parrying and blocking would all increase in effectiveness.

 

I really hope they do something like that.

[Swifty]

Sounds like you did some homework! While I don't agree with ALL of your ideas (which is bound to happen), it's very well thought out and presented.

 

One odd thing I'd like added:

 

More unique MP Models and Sounds.

 

Most of the "bad guys" have the same voice, same with "good guys". I play as a Rodian simply to tell when I'm being hit, versus me doing the hitting. I know this is reflected in damage scores (obviously), but every clue help, including audio. Besides, it adds variety, I'm sooo tired of fighting reborn .

[tempest8008]

Another question then...

 

Do you (or anyone else) have any idea how Raven is DOING the playtesting? Or is it just 10 of them in some dark back room going, "Oooh, neat, that was purty. Put that into the next patch."?

 

 

Personally, the only changes I want to see right now have to do with collision detection. If my lightsaber passes THROUGH a limb or the torso of an opponent, it should be a one-shot kill.

 

It seems everyone wants to stretch out saber combat, make it more elegant and refined. That's nice. But if I stick my saber through your chest and see it come out your back, or swing it right THROUGH your midsection or head, you should be dead.

Period.

End of story.

 

No ratios, no damage, no sparks and a grunt of pain...just, dead.

Respawn and keep playing. If you've got shields, fine, your shields can block the saber, but it should be like your saber is hitting a wall, your blade disappears. (try going up to a thin railing and putting your saber through it, your blade gets 'sucked up' by the railing, it doesn't poke through) Your shields are drained by blocking the saber until they are empty, then you've just got your health.

 

One shot kills should be COMMON with lightsabers, not exceptions. This makes defence more necessary, of course.

 

Oh, one other thing. I'd like to be able to Pull or Push spawned items around the map. I'd love to be able to pull a spawned Bacta away from someone who was running for it, counting on it, NEEEDS it.....heheheheh. To make it so that a dozen objects don't come hurtling towards you when you pull, you could have to focus on an object for a moment (have the "you can use the Force here" icon appear), and you pull that item to you.

[ArtifeX]

Originally posted by tempest8008

Another question then...

 

 

One shot kills should be COMMON with lightsabers, not exceptions. This makes defence more necessary, of course.

 

Oh, one other thing. I'd like to be able to Pull or Push spawned items around the map. I'd love to be able to pull a spawned Bacta away from someone who was running for it, counting on it, NEEEDS it.....heheheheh. To make it so that a dozen objects don't come hurtling towards you when you pull, you could have to focus on an object for a moment (have the "you can use the Force here" icon appear), and you pull that item to you.

 

I have no idea how the do their playtesting.

 

I can agree with you on pulling items around. I think that would add some strategic (strategery! :] ) depth to duels and FFA.

 

I can't agree on the common one-hit kills though. If you could kill someone by just hitting their torso then that would completely invalidate any slower, stronger moves. The idea then would be to make the quickest, widest horizontal swing you possibly could and land yours before your opponent does. I think that would be the opposite extreme to what we have now.

[ldeviator]

Actually my brother made this point to me too... if you watch the movies. Light sabers either kill or sever limbs. They only 'nick' if the user wants them to or are too far away... and so for our purposes, unless you get hit with ONLY the front 1-2 inch of the saber, you die or loose a limb.

 

So, if we REALLY revamped it all, if you get hit in a limb, the limb probably goes away (depending on distance). If you get hit in the chest you will probably die based on how close they are too. If you get hit in the neck or head, you are toast.

 

So basically if we keep health on a 100 scale, ALL saber hits do 20 damage and 100+ if their sabers are closer then 1 or 2 inches.

 

Sheilds are fine.. keep them.

 

That saber a damn plasma torch that can push through steel with little effort. If you get hit, you are probably gonna die.

[ldeviator]

can't agree on the common one-hit kills though. If you could kill someone by just hitting their torso then that would completely invalidate any slower, stronger moves.

 

That's the misconception I think... there are no stronger moves. If you move a light saber very lightly / quickly across my torso it STILL cuts through just the same as doing it deliberatly and slowly... it's not like a katana or other bladed weapon. It's hot plasma that INCINERATES on touch.

 

I agree it is the opposite of what the game is now, but that's the problem I think too. Half everyone wants to make it more "gamey" and half everyone wants to make it more "star wars-y" or "realistic".

 

I think the difference can be seen in how damage is dealt with in Quake III vs Counter Strike.

[ArtifeX]

There's a balance trying to be struck here. Making the game follow exactly what we've seen in the movies would be pretty boring. Likewise, a game that completely diverged from the movie mythos wouldn't be a star wars game anymore.

 

Making every swing cut off a limb or kill outright would mean that all you would need would be one swing. All the other swings would have the exact same effect, only slightly different arcs. That would make the differences very negligable, which is exactly the opposite of what needs to happen. We need more radically different ways to attack and to affect ourselves and our opponents, not less. Making everything do the same damage just because the saber supposedly cuts through anything would be a grievous game design error.

 

Think of it like this: What if in the movies, all blaster bolts killed outright or cut off a limb? Would you consider putting that in? Would that be more or less fun? Would that encourage or discourage you from using weapons with smaller blast radii/slower shots?

[ldeviator]

Originally posted by ArtifeX

There's a balance trying to be struck here. Making the game follow exactly what we've seen in the movies would be pretty boring. Likewise, a game that completely diverged from the movie mythos wouldn't be a star wars game anymore.

 

I don't think the saber fights in the movies are boring... but I do agree with the rest of that.

 

Making every swing cut off a limb or kill outright would mean that all you would need would be one swing.

 

One swing that connects right. We couldn't have an unblockable/unavoidable swing. In the movies, if a saber is in the way of the other saber, it is blocked. Not so in the game all the time.

 

All the other swings would have the exact same effect, only slightly different arcs.

 

I don't think that needs to be the case. High, middle and low (ducking) swings from the front, back and sides would make a total of 3*4 or 12 different regular moves... plus any special aerobatic moves to trick the opponent.

 

That would make the differences very negligable, which is exactly the opposite of what needs to happen. We need more radically different ways to attack and to affect ourselves and our opponents, not less.

 

I agree. Right now there are only a few ways to set someone up to damage them and that sucks.

 

Making everything do the same damage just because the saber supposedly cuts through anything would be a grievous game design error.

 

I agree... if you are coming from a Quake III like angle but it seems to me that quite a few of the fans aren't coming from that angle or they'd be playing something with a ton of guns and rockets in it....

 

Think of it like this: What if in the movies, all blaster bolts killed outright or cut off a limb?

Would you consider putting that in?

 

Yes ala Counter Strike.

 

Would that be more or less fun?

 

More fun if you want to be like the movies, less fun if you want a more gamey experience. I prefer "realism".. that's why I play CS in stead of Quake III. Rocket launcher to head and people are still ok in Quake III...

 

Would that encourage or discourage you from using weapons with smaller blast radii/slower shots?

 

I'm not sure how a gun could have slower shots unless you are talking about rockets... all blasters I've seen travel at the same speed and all guns in our world travel at close enough to the same speed that it doesn't matter much to the targets who can't move fast enough to get out of the way of a gun already fired at them....

 

Also, in the movies, winning a saber fight is not so much out doing the enemy as is putting pressure on him to screw up... that is also not the case here in the game where you have to go through a couple different combos of moves to get the other person in a position where they can't do anything but die.

[Xzzy]

> Yes ala Counter Strike.

 

Go try out Rune then, a Unreal engine game.

 

It's melee based, and pretty much revolves around one hit kills. I found it boring because combat had absolutely no depth to it, just imagine that every hit is as hard as a backstab.

[ldeviator]

Originally posted by Xzzy

> Yes ala Counter Strike.

 

Go try out Rune then, a Unreal engine game.

 

It's melee based, and pretty much revolves around one hit kills. I found it boring because combat had absolutely no depth to it, just imagine that every hit is as hard as a backstab.

 

I haven't tried that game but I guess I should... but still.. just because they do have one hit kills doesn't mean that they did it right. It could have been reduced to a handful of moves that once mastered, beat the other person and that's not what I'm proposing here.

 

But again, I have no idea about that game... I'm only using the CS vs Quake III analogy as attempted "realism" vs fast paced gun play.

[tempest8008]

Then in response they'd just have to make BLOCKING less automatic and more controlled, as well as attacks.

 

The real problem is that we have no real control over how a swing is made. You hit the button, and your character swings. There's basic swings, strafe swings, overhand chops, ONE lunge, a couple of jumping attacks, the back swings and back stab. A couple of combos, but that is it. ArtifeX, in your testing, have you noticed a BIG difference between your saber blocking when you put more/fewer points into Saber defence? You saw in 1.03 you can just stand there and block forever, but is that only when you have maxed saber defence?

 

What we need is a system that lets you control your attacks more. Imagine your mouse sitting on a bisected sphere. You have a half circle in front of you. Imagine you lightsaber as an extension of your mouse. When it is centered, your saber point is in the middle of that sphere, poking OUTWARDS. Move your mouse around the sphere, and the point of your saber moves around too.

 

This way you move the mouse to block AND swing, no more pre-scripted "animations".

[ldeviator]

What we need is a system that lets you control your attacks more. Imagine your mouse sitting on a bisected sphere. You have a half circle in front of you. Imagine you lightsaber as an extension of your mouse. When it is centered, your saber point is in the middle of that sphere, poking OUTWARDS. Move your mouse around the sphere, and the point of your saber moves around too.

 

This way you move the mouse to block AND swing, no more pre-scripted "animations". [/b]

 

That is a GREAT idea!!!

 

It would be MUCH harder to master but those that did would have a truely rewarding experience.

 

The only thing with that is there would have to be some easy way to move your look around too without moving your saber all the way to the extremes of your movement... like if I wanted to turn left it would be BAD to ALSO have to move my saber all the way left... so like maybe making the saber only move while you hold down the fire key?

 

That would also do away with all these problems with Style Ratings, Defense Ratings, and so on...

 

Style might just be how you hold your saber. How fast/where you want to swing it is your deal.

 

Very good proposition. Again, a lot harder, but way better in the end I think.

[Moradivh]

Ideviator:

One hit kills rarely work in games. You can't simulate the intricacies of real sword fight using a keyboard and mouse, and with the limited number of moves games provide. The fight never turns out like the dramatic, death-defying cinematic swordfights you want to emulate.

 

One hit kills might be cool for a super-advanced VR game located in DisneyWorld 10 years from now, or if someone develops a REVOLUTIONARY combat interface for the keyboard, but we're nowhere near that with JK2. If you make a mod that pulls it off, I'll play it. Good luck!

 

Everyone else:

If we go outside the realm of realism and just make a WISH-LIST, there's tons of stuff we'd all like to see in multiplayer saber fights. Off the top of my head...

 

-True martial arts (real punches and kicks, not just this backflip crap)

-New moves/styles (dual-sabers, one-handed, Maul)

-More official skins/sounds/taunt-animations to distinguish players on pure servers

-More official maps

-Broken/lost sabers

-New powers (like Yoda's force absorb/deflection in Ep2)

-Lightning that actually THROWS victims through the air (again, Ep2).

-All the powers from JK1 (blinding, destruction, debree throwing, etc.)

-Deformable terrain that can be thrown at opponents via force powers

 

These are fine ideas and would add great variety to the game (assuming they're perfectly balanced from the start-- if not they'd just LESSEN the variety). But most of it we're not going to see until an expansion pack or a sequel. Seriously, how much do you expect Raven to design from scratch, for free, now that the game's been released, and now that they're working on OTHER titles? These guys don't have time to work on JK2 forever, just to please a small percentage of players who want multiplay perfect. After all, the vast majority of JK2 customers probably don't even play online.

 

It was nice of Raven to give us new maps in the last patch, but even they were just recycled from singleplayer, or earlier versions of the game. They probably intended to release those maps with the original package but got delayed. We can't expect Raven to give us any completely new moves, or powers, or much of anything that has to be built from scratch.

 

Granted, 1.03 made saber dueling into a whole different game. But as far as I can tell it was all done by balance changes, tweaking what was in there already. They made some swings faster/slower, altered the damage, changed the number of combos and chain attacks you could perform. But they're all still the same moves/force powers.

 

It's fun to pretend to be a designer and suggest small, "surgical" additions (like punches) that would theoretically balance the game, but I'm pretty sure Raven would rather just get everything they designed in the first place to work the way they intended. It's probably all they have time to do anyway.

 

Still, people shouldn't freak out over this. If you look at how different 1.02 is from 1.03, you can see that Raven still has the power to change gameplay A LOT. I'm confident that, with the right decisions, the designers can greatly improve the depth and variety of saber combat without turning the original system upside-down.

 

- Blind Moradin

 

P.S. Great game last night ArtifeX! Sorry I had to break you , but after 4 hours I would've been playing far worse than you did. Great to see the champ at work!

[ArtifeX]

Originally posted by ldeviator

 

I don't think the saber fights in the movies are boring... but I do agree with the rest of that.

 

sigh...I didn't say the movies were boring. I said that the game itself would be boring if it rigidly followed the only things we've seen in the movies.

 

Oh, and the episode 4 saber duel was boring. Looked like a couple of geriatrics fighting with their walkers.

 

One swing that connects right. We couldn't have an unblockable/unavoidable swing. In the movies, if a saber is in the way of the other saber, it is blocked. Not so in the game all the time.

 

And what if you're moving? The animation while you're running has your saber swing up and down with your arm. How are you supposed to block with it while you're in motion? I wouldn't like being so vulnerable every time i moved.

 

Also, trying to position a saber just right when dealing with 50, 100, or 200ms of lag would be impossible for some.

 

I don't think that needs to be the case. High, middle and low (ducking) swings from the front, back and sides would make a total of 3*4 or 12 different regular moves... plus any special aerobatic moves to trick the opponent.

 

But why use them?? They do the same damage! Screw acrobatic moves! Screw ducking! I'd be using the right+attack Strong swing for every single attack, as it hits the most and has the greatest range! One little nick and they're dead! You can completely stay out of reach until they get careless, then cut them down with a finger's-width of the blade.

 

I agree. Right now there are only a few ways to set someone up to damage them and that sucks.

 

I agree... if you are coming from a Quake III like angle but it seems to me that quite a few of the fans aren't coming from that angle or they'd be playing something with a ton of guns and rockets in it....

 

I don't see how wanting deeper, varied gameplay is related specifically to Quake III or even to FPS's in general. I'd say that's a universal constant.

 

Yes ala Counter Strike.

 

Jedi Knight 2 | Counterstrike

___________________|_____________

Light Style (wimpy) | Glock 9 (wimpy)

Medium Style (ok) | mp5 (ok)

Strong Style (good) | m4a1 (good)

Backsweep (uber) | AWM (uber)

 

You propose:

 

Jedi Knight 2 | Counterstrike

___________________|_____________

Light Style (uber) | Glock 9 (uber)

Medium Style (uber) | mp5 (uber)

Strong Style (uber) | m4a1 (uber)

Backsweep (uber) | AWM (uber)

 

 

Now do you understand? This is the same thing!

 

More fun if you want to be like the movies, less fun if you want a more gamey experience. I prefer "realism".. that's why I play CS in stead of Quake III. Rocket launcher to head and people are still ok in Quake III...

 

I'm not sure how a gun could have slower shots unless you are talking about rockets... all blasters I've seen travel at the same speed and all guns in our world travel at close enough to the same speed that it doesn't matter much to the targets who can't move fast enough to get out of the way of a gun already fired at them....

 

please tell me you're not trying to equate Jk2 weapons to conventional slug-throwing ballistics.

 

Also, in the movies, winning a saber fight is not so much out doing the enemy as is putting pressure on him to screw up... that is also not the case here in the game where you have to go through a couple different combos of moves to get the other person in a position where they can't do anything but die.

 

Remember Street Fighter? I do. It was fun. What if you made every single move kill with one hit? Would it be fun anymore? Nope.

[Xzzy]

> It would be MUCH harder to master but those that

> did would have a truely rewarding experience.

 

And those with a 10ms ping, probably.

 

In a multiplayer game, intricate melee combat has two problems: interface and latency.

 

If there are too many commands being sent over the network, eventually the combatants will get out of sync or slightly lagged and the whole thing ceases to be a fight, it becomes more of a random mashfest.

 

By amplifying the intricacy of the combat, the importance of even just 10ms of time is also amplified.

[ArtifeX]

Originally posted by Moradivh

P.S. Great game last night ArtifeX! Sorry I had to break you , but after 4 hours I would've been playing far worse than you did. Great to see the champ at work!

 

Wish you'd lasted through the rotation long enough for me to have at you again. That was a painful way to go after such a long win-streak. I could have stood for a redeeming.

 

My overconfidence is my weakness... hehehehe

[ldeviator]

Originally posted by ArtifeX

 

sigh...I didn't say the movies were boring. I said that the game itself would be boring if it rigidly followed the only things we've seen in the movies.

 

my mistake

 

Oh, and the episode 4 saber duel was boring. Looked like a couple of geriatrics fighting with their walkers.

 

I agree there.. that was the first one ever though...

 

And what if you're moving? The animation while you're running has your saber swing up and down with your arm. How are you supposed to block with it while you're in motion? I wouldn't like being so vulnerable every time i moved.

 

Neither would I. I don't have all the answers here and I'm not proposing that I do. I think you are used to dealing with others on here that are "out to get you" and I'm not....

 

Also, trying to position a saber just right when dealing with 50, 100, or 200ms of lag would be impossible for some.

 

The game requires a fast connection yes. I believe you yourself said that.

 

But why use them?? They do the same damage! Screw acrobatic moves! Screw ducking! I'd be using the right+attack Strong swing for every single attack, as it hits the most and has the greatest range! One little nick and they're dead! You can completely stay out of reach until they get careless, then cut them down with a finger's-width of the blade.

 

If there we 12 swings, each that would have to be blocked, parried, avoided in different ways like I propose, then apparently jumping over someone's head or turning to run would confuse them rather then them saying "oh here comes a combo"... at least that is my feeling. I could be wrong.

 

I don't see how wanting deeper, varied gameplay is related specifically to Quake III or even to FPS's in general. I'd say that's a universal constant.

 

I'm not splitting the difference on that point, but rather "real" vs "shoot 'em up" with my analogy.

 

Jedi Knight 2 | Counterstrike

___________________|_____________

Light Style (wimpy) | Glock 9 (wimpy)

Medium Style (ok) | mp5 (ok)

Strong Style (good) | m4a1 (good)

Backsweep (uber) | AWM (uber)

 

You propose:

 

Jedi Knight 2 | Counterstrike

___________________|_____________

Light Style (uber) | Glock 9 (uber)

Medium Style (uber) | mp5 (uber)

Strong Style (uber) | m4a1 (uber)

Backsweep (uber) | AWM (uber)

 

 

Now do you understand? This is the same thing!

 

I don't think this applies.. I've killed plenty a heavy gun toting dude using only an glock and I've died plenty of times using a m4a1.

 

And also, "please tell me you're not trying to equate Jk2 light sabers conventional slug-throwing ballistics".. oh wait.. ya just did....

 

I'm not flaming you here, but defending myself a little...

 

please tell me you're not trying to equate Jk2 weapons to conventional slug-throwing ballistics.

 

No I'm not. I'm trying to figure out what you were talking about... either blasters that all move at the same speed or real life guns...

 

Remember Street Fighter? I do. It was fun. What if you made every single move kill with one hit? Would it be fun anymore? Nope.

 

Not every single hit would.. just the close and inside ones... the GOOD ones...

 

I believe your view of fun and mine are different and there's nothing that can be done about that if it is in fact true. Sorry.

 

I guess what I'm talking about is best done in a mod and not a patch. Does that appease the gods?

[ldeviator]

In case anyone missed it.. I'm not for doing all this crazy stuff in a patch... only things I think aren't quite right in the patch are

 

getting knocked down too easily

regular swings not doing much damage

some force powers are nerfed too badly

 

and on the last 2 points, I agree with Mr ArtifeX..

 

the first one is my own beef

[BoBa feTTichiNi]

Really good ideas artifex.... maybe make that radical saber system a mod eh? I personally think dfa should be excactly what it was in 1.02 but when saber is buried shouldn't be a 1 hit kill.

[Bluezman]

Thanks for your feedback. I'd like to get back to my point:

 

Xzzy wrote:

And how would you propose the game figures out what your opponent is?

Indeviator wrote:

Boy that can't be right... The game knows when there is someone behind you and that is your opponent.... talking programmatically, it already knows if there is someone behind you so it already knows there is SOME opponent there... just add the conditional

 

if(opponent.health <= 30) { kill_their_ass(); }

Thanks for backing me up here, Indeviator . I'm no developer so I don't know. But I do think, that the game must know who your opponent is. Like the blue lunge move only works when an opponent is in front of you (or even in the crosshair?), so I guess that would work somehow...

 

Artifex wrote:

xzzy raises a good point: you have no idea how many hp's your opponent has. You just have to keep trying (and failing at) the move to test whether their hp is low enough. [/Quote]

 

Exactly. Thats why you can't spam the moves anymore. In FFA games, nobody would run into a ball of sabers anymore trying for a lucky frag with a backstab. People would think twice before they do that. When fighting 1vs1 or in a private duel you pretty much have a good sense about how low your enemys health is. Then after 2 or three hits you could try to pull off a special move.

 

Artifex wrote:

My other point: Why would you bother risking your "stylish" move when a faster, more likely successful swing will do the same job? If they implemented what you suggest, I would quit using the so-called "finisher" moves altogether, as even a normal Light Stance swing would do the same job.

 

Why would the hero risk anything? To win the love of the princess, of course

That's how players would develop different styles. You would use these moves then for example to show off, to humiliate your enemy (I think you even wrote something about blue backstab in your v1.02 saber guide "Use it if you want to show off" ), to feel like Obi Wan , to add some style to your fighting, whatever.

 

I agree that these moves would be seen much less, they would be taken out of the regular fighting and only appear on rare occasions. But isn't that what they are supposed to be? Similar to the movies: "Whoa, did you see that!?!! OMG, how he finished him off with that cool acrobatic move!!!!" instead of "myg0t, another fu<>ing DFA whore..."

 

Another analogy: When playing single player, I set the slow motion effect to "on death". When killing a Reborn, the last strike would be shown in slow motion. That looked really cool. I wouldn't like to see the whole fight in slow motion, though. Just as a goodie at the end. That would be similar with the special moves: they would be special again.

 

Sure, some players would stick to other moves, if they just want to be "efficient". That's up to each player to decide.

 

Artifex wrote:

Please keep in mind that the term "finisher" was invented by the community. This isn't a Mortal Kombat fatality, it's just another set of swings you have at your disposal. The only reason they were categorized thus was because they were very flashy, slow and did great damage.

 

Agreed. Make it "special moves" then instead of "finisher". With these moves being spammed all over the place they are far away from being "special" anymore.

 

ArtifeX wrote:

I still can't understand the mentality of those who want to limit the scope of the combat even further than it is now. Let me repeat my axiom:

 

More options=Deeper Combat Experience=More Fun

 

Hmmm. Actually at the moment people are not making use of all the options. They stick to special moves and spam them all over the place. "Limiting" them to using the special moves only on rare occasions would actually widen their scope of combat options, because they would probably finally be forced to learn the game and find out about many many many options they so far haven't even discovered. I've watched people in MP where one guy explained the game to a total beginner. He showed him backstab, DFA and saber throw. That seemed to be everything he must know.

 

Happy to hear your feedback...

 

Bluezman

[Xzzy]

Originally posted by ldeviator

 

Boy that can't be right... The game knows when there is someone behind you and that is your opponent.... talking programmatically, it already knows if there is someone behind you so it already knows there is SOME opponent there... just add the conditional

 

if(opponent.health <= 30) { kill_their_ass(); }

 

I dunno, I guess that's possible, but then it raises the question.. what if two people are behind you, one has 30 health, the other is at 100 health. Does it damage the guy with 100 health?

 

What if some guy with 30 health runs past you, you trigger an attack, then they run away while someone with 100 health chases them and just happens to run into your saber?

 

Or what happens when you're not standing near anybody, you trigger a DFA (which you can do without having someone nearby), and someone runs under you while you're midflight?

 

In other words it does two things: Increases the amount of code in the game, which is always a bad thing, and will instantly breed a new class of whines: 'omg he's a cheater he used DFA when I was full health.'

 

Seems to me an artificial barrier like an opponent's health is just a stupid solution to a specific problem. It would make far FAR more sense to implement either a stamina system or have special attacks use force power. Spam all you want, but use up your stamina and you can't do it no more.

 

That puts YOU in control of the moves you do, which is something I think is very important. Since the setups for a lot of specials are rather specific, forcing people to guess if they can do their special or not turns combat into a scam, because then you get people attempting a special, failing, shaving off a bit more of your health, then attempting a special again.. repeat until success.

 

like artifex often complains, such a change would LIMIT options instead of expanding them.

[ldeviator]

I agree.. I really don't think it should be done that way (ie putting in that artificial barrier), but I think it can be.

 

I think the best solution is to make it not so frequent that one gets knocked down which is about the only time those special moves really bother people. I'm not proposing limiting moves, just fixing the knock down.

 

Otherwise, in 1.03, dodging all those special moves is just stepping back a little/ducking/whatever it takes to evade. Sure you can catch people in them, but it takes more then just spamming... at least I think so anyway.

 

And not to say that will fix everything.. force pull/push and heal/drain and also absorb need to be looked at again.. and then nerfing regular swings isn't cool either Sure they are better now that the heavy overhand swing can't always annihilate someone, but when you DO land a hit now it's sorta like "ow, stop that".. if not one hit kills, then certainly 2 or 3 with no shields methinks...