Simple Suggestions to Perfect JKII (Non-PlayBalance Issues)

[paulbob]

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Repost - moved from Valley of the Jedi:

This post is NOT about about the backswings etc. It's about the nongameplay balance issues that would help make JKII the perfect game that Raven set out to make. the I know it's a long post, but at least read the first few paragraphs and tell me what you think. Any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated!!

 

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Jedi Knight II is my favorite Star Wars game, no doubt about it. Overall, it's an awesome game. Sure, the game isn't perfect: there's still a few kinks that need to be worked out; by now, I'm sure you've encountered some gameplay issues, such as the backstab/backspin spamming, or at least heard of them on these forums. So instead of creating yet another post about those issues, I've taken it upon myself to focus on the small, tiny issues that could make Jedi Outcast even more enjoyable to play than it already is. Besides the general spamming of backstab/backspin/kickflip/saberthrow (and I've also heard complaints about absorb being too strong and Dark Side being "nerfed too much" in 1.03?), here's a list of all the small things I think would help perfect JKII, not only as a game, but as an engine as well:

 

First off, one of the most disputed topics in JKII: killing people with their sabers down or while they are typing. I have a simple solution: invulnerability. Why not have it so that people who have had their sabers down or have been typing/using console for X seconds be rendered invulnerable? I say only after X seconds, maybe after 5 or 10 seconds, so that people can't just open the console right when they are about to be hit so as to avoid damage. And maybe make it so that people have to stay in one spot for the invulnerability to activate so that someone can't take their saber down for 5 seconds, walk up to someone and then kill them right after taking their saber out. Think about it. I see no disadvantages to this idea. But maybe there's something I'm missing. What do you think about this idea?

 

Next, I just have to say kudos to Raven for the voting system. I have never seen such a well implemented voting system that makes it so easy for even a first time player to participate in voting. I just wonder: why stop at the current options available in the voting menu? Why not make every aspect of JKII voteable? Rule by the people, or in this case the players, would almost indefinitely make the gameplay experience more enjoyable. [ Don't like some tiny detail? Get rid of it! ]

 

The main aspect I'd at least like to see implemented, would be the voting to enable or disable certain guns or force powers. Such as in 1.02: where people thought the alternate fire on Repeater to be too powerful. A simple voting to disable that weapon would have fixed that problem indefinitely. Maybe a certain force power is too strong? Or everyone is spamming saber throw? Vote to disable it.

 

One problem I see frequently is that vote kicking doesn't work if the person about to be kicked changes his or her name. I find it very annoying, and I'm sure some of you may agree with me, to see an immature player cursing everyone out with the caps lock on, only to change his or her name right before the vote is about to end so that he or she doesn't get voted off the server. Kicking someone out of a server for whatever reason is an important feature to have. But if this small issue doesn't get fixed soon, everyone will know about it and votekicking will become useless.

 

On the topic of votekicking, why no votebanning? A simple ban or "ban for x minutes" under the kick option would be great. As I said, kicking a player for whatever reason is a good feature, but if they can come right back, what's the point? Banning someone for 15 or 30 minutes would be great. Or maybe multiple options for different amounts of time.

 

My second point of praise is the duel system. Whoever came up with this idea of letting two people in an FFA server fight 1 on 1 is a genius. Pure genius! But of course, there is much else that I'd like to see done with this. First off, why only one duel? Why not two? Or three? Or why not make a variable for this, and letting an admin decide on its value? And then making this value voteable via the voting system?

 

My next point about dueling is in CTF or TFFA servers etc. Why no dueling in these game types? I see no reason why not. Or instead, make this feature voteable so that the players can choose whether to have dueling enabled or not in these game types.

 

Also, how about making all other players transparent to duelers? It's very annoying when two people are trying to duel and then someone else comes along and sits there trying to hack away at the duelers (i.e. first time players). Or sometimes players try to get in between the duelers because they think it's funny to disrupt their duel. I think that once two people begin a duel, all other players in the server should either be transparent (ghost-like) so that the duelers can walk through them or all the other players in the server should instantly disappear. (But of course, non duelers should still be able to view the duel, whether or not the duelers can view them.) It would also be helpful if this idea was voteable via the voting system.

 

What about some indication for who is dueling who in FFA games? Sometimes I'd like to know instantly who is dueling who without having to ask (as the duelers certainly won't answer) or looking in the console and pressing Page Up a half a dozen times for the "Person A has engaged with Person B in a duel" message. Maybe something in the scores menu? The duelers' names highlighted in a certain color or their names put at the bottom or the top of the list would suffice. Or something similar to the current leader's picture and name on the right side of the screen. (And if increasing the number of simultaneous duels possible sounds like a good idea, it could be easily used in conjunction with this idea of highlighting the duelers' names in the scores menu with different colors for each pair of duelers.) And it would be good if people could vote via the voting system on which method to use or to use any method of indication at all.

 

Also, why not put the "Person A was defeated by Person B" in the console as well? Sometimes I'm fighting someone and I don't pay attention to the message that comes up on the screen so after I finish fighting I can look in the console to see who won.

 

And on the topic of console messages, maybe a few different messages for different saber deaths? I notice that there are a few such as being kicked, being killing by lighting, or being thrown to doom etc. But for being sabered, there's only one. I think it would be interesting to see something akin to the way Counter-Strike handles death messages. If not with the little pictures, at least with words. Something like "Padawan was caught in Darth Pimp's backspin" or "Padawan's head was split by Sith Doughboy's DFA". And with the rapidly growing community for JKII, I'm sure you guys will have no problem getting responses if you simply asked the community for ideas for each saber death. And maybe make these custom saber messages enabled or disabled voteable via the voting system.

 

For duel servers, I'd like to see a time limit for each duel. I.E. something like in fighting games such as Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter. More than once I've witnessed two friends come onto a server and when they face each other, they just sit there, laughing at everyone else because they can hold their duel indefinitely. It would be great if the admin could choose whether to have a time limit on each duel and decide on how long that time limit was. Or maybe if it was all voteable.

 

This brings me to another point. Why can't spectators in servers vote or call votes? I see no reason why not. Especially in duel servers where it only takes 2 votes to do anything. As in the previous paragraph, I've seen people come into a server and then start votekicking everyone else out. Sigh...

 

As for duel servers, I'm not sure if this is true, but when someone quits from a duel server, the next person in the list gets spawned in. But the person who stayed doesn't get his or her default 25 shields back. I say that I'm not sure because I have only seen this once, and I was the person who was spawned in second. The person who I was dueling told me that they didn't get the default 25 shields, only their life back to 100. If someone else can confirm this?..

 

A few more small things:

-The Darth Maul-esque dual saber: this needs to be taken off the cheats list and used more in general gameplay. Who wouldn't want to use this saber, or maybe two sabers at once, like Anakin in Episode II. Maybe make two sabers/dual saber a powerup or an item you can pick up like a regular weapon. Or maybe a gameplay type similar to Jedi Master but with these special sabers.

-Allow for downloading of maps from a server instead of giving the "error loading map message".

-Maybe an AT-ST map somewhere along the road? (although a mod would be just as great.. *hint hint*

-An option somewhere in the options menu whether or not to use the dueling music in FFA games, or to keep the map's music always running throughout

-In the options menu, a place to setup color names so first time players can color their names right away without having to enter a game and be laughed at when they ask how to do so.

-Some way to officially decline a duel challenge? I.E. something in the Esc menu to choose to decline someone's challenge.

-More skins, more saber colors, more name colors. I think we can all agree that's a good idea, right?

 

 

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For a great, well-written post about the gameplay issues (i.e. backspin), go here:

http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=58271

I agree with most of Areoch's ideas, especially the minor changes.

 

And if you haven't done so already,

http://www.oculis.org/asc/guides/retirement.html

 

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Thank you for taking the time to read my post. If you have any suggestions, comments, changes, or additions, feel free to post away!

-Soldier2200

[Bill_st]

I've read a few paragraphs of you post (my, it's too long ), and you may have a point, but some of your suggestions are not feasible/likely to help.

 

For instance.. invulnerability for chatters: nope , that would be totally wrong. Picture this: someone manages to reach the enemy base, hides in a corner for a few secs with the console open and, voila! he is invulnerable.. ready to kill enemy FC as they come to their base.

 

Ok, now. You may say: only in FFA/team FFA games.. Bad again. Imagine someone opens chat and plants himself on one of Nar Shada's ledges. As soon as someone walks by him (why would you have to get away when you see someone with the chat icon?) he exits the chat window, grips you by your back and throws you to the abyss. Who would you blame? Him? Nope, I would blame the people that had enabled him to do that.

 

As for the dual-saber confined to cheats-enabled servers, it may serve a purpose: the actual implementation of the dual-sabers is just an afterthought, something that the developers included with very little effort and is obviously underdeveloped. The 2nd saber clips through your body, you don't have special animations/saber style for it and you have an unfair advantage being able to hit with 2 sabers instead of one, requiring further balancing (and I must point out now that this game requires a new patch urgently that brings balance to the force *grin*). A totally new animation set/saber style is totally out of the question I think, maybe they might include it in a expansion set, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

 

The voting system.. it is nice. But I rarely see it work any good, since most of the servers I have played on have the voting option disabled. Shame. Still, your suggestion about disabling certain weapons/powers through voting would piss many people off. Imagine you rely heavily (like many people do) in a particular weapon/force power. Then someone in the middle of an interesting game, with a few minutes left, decides he is tired of being killed by you and your l33t skill using that particular weapon/force power and starts a vote to disable it, and it passes. What would your reaction be? Starting a vote to enable it again? Starting a vote to kick the guy that promoted that vote? Spamming "F*CK U SORE LOSER" in the chat? Crazy stuff. Better leave that kind of decisions for server side options.

 

I agree with you on the duel suggestion though. Sometimes it is confusing watching scores of players running around you when you are trying to have a cool duel with someone. Maybe fading out everyone else would help have "cleaner" duels in the middle of FFA games (it wouldn't be the first time I lose one of such duels trying to hack a guy with the same model as my opponent while my rival kicks my ass). Still, having duels in the middle of CTF/Team FFA matches is out of the question. The one big difference is that Team FFA and CTF revolves around teamplay (or lack of it, depending on the teammates). If you allow people to duel in the middle of CTF games, you are defeating the purpose of the whole game (working as a team to achieve a goal), in favor of personal satisfaction (beating a single opponent without help). Teamplay on pubs is already pretty thin, I dare not think what would happen if people would start duels in the middle of a CTF game