Raven This Man Says It All...

[Vestril]

Thank goodness I don't have the burden of skill. I only ever use finishers on accident, which obviously hampers my game playing ability. I could, obviously, learn these attacks, they're not very hard, but I would rather devote my time to developing skilled attacks and parries, attacks that require expert timing in a variety of situations. I am utterly certain that I will not win any tournemants that way. Utterly. I am also utterly certain that I won't quit playing because I'm bored of winning the same way again and again and again.

 

I have, in the last few days, met two people that could kill me as easily as I could kill them, while they used nothing but finishers. This has caused me to expand my game playing ability and use heavy stance as well as medium. This shift has caused a noticeable drop in my current kill ratios, but I suspect that in the end I'll only improve.

 

Artifex's intelligent and insightful discourses on this game will be missed. I suspect, however, that his gameplay will not be.

[Aylnon]

Dark Begger, I know I am thinking of joining with your clan, and I understand the respect that is meant to go with it, but I must say this. You are taking this far too seriously. You seem to make it out to be a professional sport. It is naught but a game.

 

Now, the attacks that were nerfed:

 

Death From Above (DFA) - This move was far too overused, either by newbies who only wished to win without the need to practice, or by experienced DFA spammers who had learned how to run away and turn back at the last moment for a quick DFA attack. You say the game was ruined? By nerfing this attack, Raven effectively removed the DFA spammers, stopping those long and tedious, boring matches where observers would be stuck for minutes on end just watching two people take a few heavy swings at each other and every now and then DFA each other. By nerfing it, people are forced to use other attacks. DFA has its uses, but they are limited, and limited well. Now observers watch far more fast paced matches with techniques that involve blocking, dodging, counter attacking. Not just step away, DFA, step away, DFA, etc.

 

Medium Stance - Many people complained that Medium stance's ability to spin like a top the same as Light stance should have been left in. They are wrong. Medium is not a cork screw style of combat, and never was. Now it is a style based on timed, and accurate swings. It has a very well designed range, and the speed was toned down to a far more realistic level. In 1.02 it was the same as Light stance, with a bit more damage. Now it is unique, apart from both Light and Heavy. It is balanced. For those who say Light stance is too effective now, just spinning and killing Medium, what do you think some players did in 1.02. Spun like a top using Medium stance. Now, I can defeat almost any cork screw fighter with Medium. Just use it's extended range. Technique.

 

Heavy Stance - The damage on this attack was toned down, and I agree perhaps too far. But, it gained the ability to link swings. Alter the angle of attack by 45degrees and you can you chain two swings together. It effectivly doubles it's potential. I do think the damage of this stance could be raised again, however. It is ineffectual at the moment, but has its rare moments.

 

Now for the attacks that were hyped:

 

Backattacks - These were surverely amped up, and indeed, far too much. The new curse of the force dueler is to be pulled down or pushed, and then backstabbed. It can easily be avoided with absorb, but that limits your force powers considerably, as does pumping both push and pull to gain an immunity. Also, those players who use rapid-fire mice, and I know they exist, are a backstab threat, as once locked, they can hurl any normal clicker to the ground in seconds, then backstab them. Raven needs to tone down the level of damage, by about 50%, and increase their ability to penetrate defenses, and they can still be blocked.

 

This is my opinion. Any of the attacks that were nerfed were nerfed effectively. All Raven needs to fix are the backattacks. Increase defense penetration, decrease damage, and perhaps eliminate their ability to hit fallen foes. Leave normal attacks able to hit them, but the backstabs/sweeps should have a raised height, so they cannot hit foes on the ground.

 

That is my opinion. I will be happy to take any debates.

[Vestril]

Death From Above (DFA) - This move was far too overused, either by newbies who only wished to win without the need to practice, or by experienced DFA spammers who had learned how to run away and turn back at the last moment for a quick DFA attack. You say the game was ruined? By nerfing this attack, Raven effectively removed the DFA spammers, stopping those long and tedious, boring matches where observers would be stuck for minutes on end just watching two people take a few heavy swings at each other and every now and then DFA each other. By nerfing it, people are forced to use other attacks. DFA has its uses, but they are limited, and limited well. Now observers watch far more fast paced matches with techniques that involve blocking, dodging, counter attacking. Not just step away, DFA, step away, DFA, etc.

 

It was bugged, and there weren't many sustained whiners. Most of the people that complained were people who came on angry after getting DFA'd 10 times. They were angry, they got their anger out, then they learned and adapted. This is one of the useful aspects of a forum, it's a good venting ground.

 

As I've said before, I loved DFA, but I never used it. I just loeved it because people would use it and I could get a free hit. It was hard with the skilled ones, because of the bugginess, so I dreamed of the day when they would fix the bugs, and I could own DFA users so easily. Then they fixed the big and nerfed it, so few people use DFA--and for good reason, it's remarkably easy to hit someone who DFA's, and remarkably hard to use it. You can even block it sometimes so if the person manages the incredible task of landing an on target hit, they may not even get the kill!! It's absurd, bring back the useful DFA, so I can kill the spammers.

 

It won't even be boring because the lack of bugginess will still make people who use it easy targets, it's just that it will be a competitive move for those with timing and accuracy, if un-nerfed, which would be nice.

 

Medium Stance - Many people complained that Medium stance's ability to spin like a top the same as Light stance should have been left in. They are wrong. Medium is not a cork screw style of combat, and never was. Now it is a style based on timed, and accurate swings. It has a very well designed range, and the speed was toned down to a far more realistic level. In 1.02 it was the same as Light stance, with a bit more damage. Now it is unique, apart from both Light and Heavy. It is balanced. For those who say Light stance is too effective now, just spinning and killing Medium, what do you think some players did in 1.02. Spun like a top using Medium stance. Now, I can defeat almost any cork screw fighter with Medium. Just use it's extended range. Technique.

 

The same as light stance with more damage? Who are you trying to kid?? You couldn't spin like a top in any stance with 1.02, the hit detection was buggy so a half decently timed medium swipe would lop off 40 or 50 health. In 1.02 spinning like a top in any stance was stupid and useless. Blue was just pathetic, I think I was beaten once by a light stancer out of what had to have been hundreds of duels.

 

I personally like that they mostly removed the spins from medium, but only because the spins were pointless, they didn't add any damage and they left you exposed for an attack..

 

As to your suggestion that we use medium style to take on light style, I suppse that's nice if you want to take a loooong time with it. That spinning makes it so that you have an extremely high chance of making contact with their lightsaber, making it extremely defensible to yellow stance. Red Stance, on the other hand, powers through and connects, taking the fight right out of the little buggers. My average duel time went wayyy down after I learned to use Heavy on the Light people.

 

Heavy Stance - The damage on this attack was toned down, and I agree perhaps too far. But, it gained the ability to link swings. Alter the angle of attack by 45degrees and you can you chain two swings together. It effectivly doubles it's potential. I do think the damage of this stance could be raised again, however. It is ineffectual at the moment, but has its rare moments.

 

Pshawww, don't be absurd, see above. I agree that Heavy on heavy is stupid, as is heavy on medium, but heavy on light is very effective.

 

Backattacks - These were surverely amped up, and indeed, far too much. The new curse of the force dueler is to be pulled down or pushed, and then backstabbed. It can easily be avoided with absorb, but that limits your force powers considerably, as does pumping both push and pull to gain an immunity. Also, those players who use rapid-fire mice, and I know they exist, are a backstab threat, as once locked, they can hurl any normal clicker to the ground in seconds, then backstab them. Raven needs to tone down the level of damage, by about 50%, and increase their ability to penetrate defenses, and they can still be blocked.

 

No...they weren't amped up, they just weren't nerfed. Probably thanks to an oversight.

 

As to your suggestion that pull/backstab is 'easily avoidable' thanks to Absorb...meh, I'm the wrong person to argue the point, but the few times I have tried this, it's been obvious to me that I had to end the match fast, before I ran out of Force power=--ie use pull/backstab myself, or run away while I let my Force regrow. To be honest this makes it a limiting factor to games. Of course, the only FF server I really play on is Artifex's, and that very rarely and for short times only, so I can't comment too much...

[toolboi]

I like aspects of 103 a lot. I like the way yellow "feels" more (less spins) and I like red a LOT more (slower, and combos. Red combos are truely deadly), however the parry system...

 

The parry system is cool in SP because we have GREAT collision detection, and no lag. In MP we get lag and the $h!tty collision detection (maybe this is caused by lag, I dont know, all I know is that its $h!tty) and so it adds even more guess work into the game.

[Con. Snake]

Originally posted by Dark Begger

Bitch, Bitch, Whine, Whine, Cry.

Heres a quarter, call someone who gives a ****.

[Ferox]

rofl i love these guys like artifex who act like martyrs and waste webspace with this big longwinded reasons why they are leaving the game.

 

 

look at me i need attention. this is why this sucks bla bla.

[Aegis]

Originally posted by Ferox

rofl i love these guys like artifex who act like martyrs and waste webspace with this big longwinded reasons why they are leaving the game.

 

 

look at me i need attention. this is why this sucks bla bla.

Well said Ferox.

[Dark Begger]

Con Snake, thanks for the flame...

oh by the way, thanks for the quarter, It'll give me a good night with your mom, unless she decided to raise her prices.

 

 

Anyways...in 1.02, DFA may have been spammed, but there will always be an exploited move where a strategic FPS game is concerned. Just look at counter-strike and the AWP...but the makers of CS did not decide to rid the game of the AWP nor did the nerf it. And people still play the game. It has been out for how long now?

 

Anyways, DFA is easily avoidable, and if they had just fixed the bugs and nothing else, it would still be potent (aganst assfighters too..) but can't get lucky kills where you turn on the ground and hit. yeah.

[C'jais]

Originally posted by Dark Begger

Con Snake, thanks for the flame...

oh by the way, thanks for the quarter, It'll give me a good night with your mom, unless she decided to raise her prices.

 

I could post something very mean here, but instead i will just quote your post and let it stand as a bad example. I like thinking well of people, you should try it. Perhaps we could all make this forum a bit less more hostile, it certainly can't get any more hateful than it is now...

 

As for the patch, I say that the pro 1.02 are trying to glorify the "old game". It wasn't perfect. You hardly fought with lightsabers, it was more like the pathetic saber fights in jk1. How awful. It might have been more "balanced" whatever you mean by that, but it wasn't starwars. It was like you were wielding instant kill - jousting lances. Raven tried hard to make a starwars game, but they failed at first. They did better second time around.

I'm not saying the patch is a godsend or perfect, but i'm saying they're trying to fix what was broken at first.

 

Adapt or get lost. My bet is that most of these "competetive" players are simply returning from that counterstrike thingie... They don't care about the universe or about how the developer envisioned the(ir) game.

[Orangina_Rouge]

Originally posted by cjais

 

As for the patch, I say that the pro 1.02 are trying to glorify the "old game". It wasn't perfect. You hardly fought with lightsabers, it was more like the pathetic saber fights in jk1. How awful. It might have been more "balanced" whatever you mean by that, but it wasn't starwars. It was like you were wielding instant kill - jousting lances. Raven tried hard to make a starwars game, but they failed at first. They did better second time around.

I'm not saying the patch is a godsend or perfect, but i'm saying they're trying to fix what was broken at first.

 

Adapt or get lost. My bet is that most of these "competetive" players are simply returning from that counterstrike thingie... They don't care about the universe or about how the developer envisioned the(ir) game.

 

Raven did not have a "Vision" for the game ...they just gave the constant 1.02 noob whiners what they wanted

U could block in 1.02 contrary to what u think and it recquired SKILL ...now whatever u do u block most of the time and it makes saber fights totally random

It s also the origin of the Backstab exploit since it s the only move able to break the GODLY noob guard

 

So actually play the game with skilled opponents before saying they cme up better the second time ...and please don t say another dumb thing with the so-called "Star Wars Vision" ( another fan of TPM saber duel ....man i hate them )

[Dark Begger]

what utter crap. cjais, you weren't even here for 1.02, so you do not know what's going on. 1.03 was MADE for the complaints, people came on here and complained (as any good would have their complainers) and for some reason Raven CATERED to them. I do not know what the hell you are talking about the 'vision'. Raven's 'vision' came out as 1.02. If anything, the complainers are trying to CHANGE Raven's 'vision' into what THEY want. Please don't argue about something you know nothing about.

[Dark Begger]

oh and cjais, it's funny how you can 'know all about 1.02' and how to saber when you barely played it. Talk about criticizing a game without even getting to know the actual depth to it. I've played 1.02 AND 1.03 and know them in detail, I still win in both, and continue to play on ladders. That's why I am commenting on which style is better. How can YOU comment on it when you knew NOTHING about 1.02 saber fighting? I find you're just portraying the perfect example of a n00b whiner who does not take the time to learn all the details of the game.

 

You actively complain about Raven 'failing' to make it in pre patch. how would you know? god, you keep bashing down 1.02 with no back up for yourself, you know nothing about 1.02.

 

I would think a company, like Raven, would make a game as close to their 'vision' as possible in the initial release. They are not trying to make it closer to their vision, they have to change things because people complain, so they have to steer AWAY from their vision.

 

You have no basis to say Raven failed, nor do you have any basis to say 1.02 sabering was worse than 1.03. So please, just don't bother trying to argue this.

[Dark Begger]

cjais, please, I would want you to continue arguing and trying to persuade me, but I just can't find any reason to take what you say seriously.

 

Please answer this question, with your limited experience on 1.02, why should we listen to your comparisons between 1.02 and 1.03? That's like, having a counter-strike player who has never played global ops compare the two games, even though he knows nothing about one of them?

[Count Beefstew]

Dark Begger is correct.

[H-street]

Did no one read teh latest plan file from the JK2 team?

 

if you like 1.02 sabre blocking you can turn it on with a simple cvar in your server setup.

 

Wow everyone complains about 1.03's sabre blocking but there is a variable to turn it off..

 

hehehe

 

does no one read anymore

 

 

 

2. For those of you unhappy with the increased

saber blocking in CTF and FFA modes in the 1.03

patch for Jedi Outcast, you can turn off the

changes by setting the CVAR g_saberTraceSaberFirst

to "0" in your server configs. Setting this

to "1" = More Blocking, "0" = Less Blocking. It

defaults to "1" in 1.03.

 

 

so if you are b1tching and running a server, turn it off.. if you are b1tching and not running a server.. well either run your own server or stop bi1tching.

 

personally i enjoy the 1.03 sabre more, backstabbing and all ( i guess i'm just a little more easy going than the average joe).

[Con. Snake]

Originally posted by Dark Begger

Con Snake, thanks for the flame...

oh by the way, thanks for the quarter, It'll give me a good night with your mom, unless she decided to raise her prices.

Have fun.

[Nathan Wind]

ugh. you now threads are broken when flames enter "your mom" territory. sorry begger

[Vagabond]

Okay, here's the deal:

 

1. Prior to 1.03, DFA had far too large of a hit box. One could die from an attack that was nowhere near you. This bug has been fixed in 1.03.

 

2. The saber combat was more deadly prior to 1.03, which I personally preferred. But hey, we're talking about personal opinions here, not universal truths.

 

3. Is there truth in the statements describing how the game gets boring once you learn and reuse a few winning combinations over and over? Absolutely. Especially since there are so few of them in Jedi Outcast. Conversely, the original Jedi Knight: MotS had several winning combinations and counters - that game was brilliantly balanced, providing nearly limitless replayability.

 

4. Concerning multiplayer, the weapons, force powers, and gameplay mechanics aren't balanced like they should be. Further, these attributes continued to be tweaked with each patch. With each new patch everyone literally had to "unlearn what you have learned", and start all over again, which can frustrating for some. Conversely, the original Jedi Knight: MotS didn't have a single patch, because great care and delibaration was taken to make sure it was balanced before it was released. Raven did not have that luxury, and were under heavy pressure to release by the end of March.

 

5. My overall, personal assessment of Jedi Outcast multiplayer? It's a good game, no doubt about it. It looks great, and plays smoothly (at least on my rig), and the maps and skins are good. However, it feels rushed - no first-person skins, no original-trilogy or prequel-trilogy skins, inconsistencies between SP and MP, and the balancing issues. Overall, it's still a good game, which I would and do recommend to people (and for the record, I think patch 1.03 is just fine). Jedi Outcast just doesn't take me to my Happy Place TM, like MotS did

[Nathan Wind]

when la was making good games, they didnt need patches. i have a bad feeling about any attempts that raven makes on their next go as well, unfortunately