Ravensoftware.... My thoughts.

[bind]

Raven in the past has made some very good games for us all. However this game has now degenerated into a backstab war between newbies who only care for frags and winning.. not the skill involved and the fun and enjoyment of playing. It is widley known that the cl_XXXXXXXX command is exploited for everyone experienced you know which command i am reffering to. This has totally ruined the game for us all and now is widely being used by everyone. people are now giving the excuse "well everyone else does backstab exploit i suppose i should also" Im sure ravensoft has recieved over 1000 emails about these simple problems that would take about 10 minutes to apply into a new simple patch. first off the cvar cl_XXXXXXXX command would have to either be locked in multiplayer to its default value or removed totally. second the damage that backstab, (all stances) death from above (red stance) does should all be reduced. instead of doing 99.9% damage they should be doing maybe 20.0% - 40.0% damage ? Im sure when raven was testing this new "flawless" final patch they didnt think that some people would be abusing one hit kills ? As a customer of past raven games it just pisses me off that there reply to all of this is "We are happy with the game as it is no other patch will be released" You have how many people on here supporting your games and also the release of a new patch but its too hard to spend about 10 - 20 minutes writing something that would change the way "GOOD" players look at the game? wouldnt preserving your customers and making them happy do you good in the future release of your games? I dont mean to sound like a bitchy person here but i just feel this step is a very small one compaired to most which would make a lot of people happy playing this game.. and hopefully all the backstab spammers would be forced to play the game as it was ment to be learned skill not aquired from some cheap exploited move.

 

Anyway I am sure this has just been more of a waste of time for me writing this. I am almost positive it will have no impact from what i have heard from raven so far. But oh well

 

Enjoy the game everyone i try to forget about this every time i enter a server with spammers. hope its as easy for you all to do the same.

[Dark Begger]

Hey, you pose some good points there, but there are a couple things I'd like to comment on.

 

First of all, it does take skill to do the backstab/sweep and DFA well. The n00bs who do it (oftenly are assfighters) are quite easy to get away from, and therefore don't pose a huge problem to experienced players. I do not agree with knocking down on the damage. This will only cause battles to wage on longer than required, and the thrill of the game is taken away. People can go into a fight knowing that in the first minute of their attack that they cannot die. There must be near death moves to create an atmosphere where people place shots and avoid getting hit rather than run in to place a shot not caring if they get hit or not.

 

I have said this in many posts, to get rid of spamming (atleast of the backstab/sweep) the answer is not to nerf the move. Rather, they should concentrate on adding another element to the game that would make a backstabber think twice before turning his back to his opponent. Why do you think there were no backstab abusers in 1.02? It was not due to DFA as many would think, it was because if you turned your back, you would be laying out your own death bed. If saber combat was like 1.02 and the DFA bugs were fixed, I could see no problem that would come up with that (although there always are problems because not everyoen can be happy).

 

Look at it this way, if 1 hit moves are taken out, other moves will be exploited. If no other moves can be exploited, then a hack will arise to give people an upper hand. There will always be SOMETHING that people will use to exploit. I'd much rather it be an avoidable 1 hit kill than a hacking program.

[bind]

I do agree with you on thisyour idea does sound more reasonable. I guess i am just tired of all the spamming and looking for a quick answer... i rarely have problems with them or avioding them on servers but its when they do get in on others and you are observing it just makes me upset to watch someone walk backwards the whole game in hopes to get a kill. But with logic and reasoning your idea makes perfect sense and seems legit but can we ever expect this...

 

Time will tell i suppose.

[Dark Begger]

if not Raven, the community is working on a happy medium between 1.02 and 1.03 and bringing ass fighting to an end. The sad thing for me is that the community is still trying to 'nerf' moves rather than improve saber combat so nerfing won't be necessary. Already in 1.03a, backstab does not 1 hit kill, I believe Torment said it is more like a 3 hit kill. The good news though is that heavy stance has been given more power..now we just need medium and light to follow in its footsteps.

 

The Ghoul2 system that everyone is talking about on here looks promising. Taking down a little blocking makes the duels a lot faster and people will try to parry and avoid rather than stand and block.

 

So it looks like slowly the community and Raven are working together to create something that will be ultimately enjoyable.

[TheMadDoofer]

I don't know what command you are talking about. Can you tell me what it does?

 

[edinflames]

its in almost every gameplay thread m8

 

anyway raven do need to nerf the backstab.

 

red is perfect now dfa is so hard to pull of accuratly these days id say its balenced.

 

yellow again is nearly perfect it needs the basic damage increased (its pretty much the same as blue and blue is faster) but the yellow finisher is dead on as are the spins.

 

blue is very balenced as well exept base damage is almost the same as yellows.

 

in all cases backstab needs to be nerfed.

 

i agree in 1.20 turning ur back got u killed cos sum1 wud bash u b4 u cud do anything in the back of the head, and rightly so.

 

if u want backstab spamming to stop decrease its damage.

 

backstab is not 1 hit kill but the 3-hit-kill-in-one-strike is very easy to pull off seeing as most ppl r caught in blade long enuff to take mabey 100-150 damage 50-100 if thier good. this must stop if good gameplay is to exist at all.

[Nobodi Kenobi]

Bind

 

I agree with you and I think what is happening now is that there is finally an actual compromise that the new 1.3a Mod/Patch and others that are sure to follow are considering and that is doing exactly what you propose in that it tones down BS...

 

But also increases blue and yellow to their 1.2 strengths, thus no move is being nerfed.

 

I for one will openly support this type of move because while you can't please everyone all of the time, the fact is that in my and others opinions, 1.3 introduced some SERIOUS imbalances in terms of this game to the point where it is not even fun to play online anymore (BS spammers; assfighters).

[Dark Begger]

arggh...edinflames, are you understanding what I'm saying? They should NOT I repeat NOT nerf the backstab/sweep. If they keep nerfing things, the game will turn into a bland piece of crap. Why LIMIT moves when they can EXPAND on them? Why not add something else, or incraese normal saber damage, so that if someone comes in for a backstab, the opponent can easily just slice him to death? Then you aren't NERFING anything, and BOOSTiING the gameplay. NERFING is not hte answer, Raven tried that, and obviously, it went too far. The way to go is to fix it indirectly by increasing saber damage.

[Dunedain]

The key problem here is this, players should *not* be able to turn

their backs on saber wielding opponents without extreme risk of

instant death from a hit on their unprotected flanks/backs.

 

Right now in 1.03 every lamer in the world is doing the same thing.

Run up to someone, turn your back, then backstab or backspin 180

degrees and kill everyone nearby.

 

This is so unrealistic it's a joke and ruins the saber duels. In a real

duel (which is the Star Wars ideal we are trying to recreate in JKII),

if you turn you back, you'd die immediately from leaving yourself open.

 

This is what should happen in JKII against a skilled opponent if

you leave yourself open like that. You die.

 

How to fix the problem and make the duels realistic again?

Making these changes would fix it.

 

A.) Increase saber damage for normal non-special move swings,

especially if you get hit in the back area.

 

B.) Make backstab and backspin slower to execute and

do less damage, especially the spin, which can kill so many people

at once.

 

C.) Make doing a backstab or backspin leave you much more open

to strikes, especially strikes from the rear quarter.

 

These fixes would get rid of all the goofy "back fighting"

stuff that is ruining the game.

 

Duels should be about skill, not using cheap exploits. And if

there is any way to make these lame attack scripts not work, that

would be another HUGE plus for a patch.

 

I hope that the cool folks at Raven will figure out some way to get

these fixes in the game. This way all the game servers will be

running it and players won't have to go off looking for servers

running various mods and such to correct these serious problems.

[Dark Begger]

I agree with what you suggested except for suggestion 'B'

 

it should not lower damage, the reason it is called a special is because it does that damage. leave teh damage, up the normal saber damage, slow down the backstab, and we got an easy solution. that's all that needs to happen. Do any more and the move will be TOO nerfed..like DFA.

[Snake13]

the saber damage for normal strikes should be increased by at least 10 for all stances, then the backstabs made slower

[Nobodi Kenobi]

I don't mean to be hostile or off topic...

 

But I was just on another thread debating "What Raven did wrong with 1.3" and here is something that needs to be said here:

 

It is not just "noobs who suck" who don't like the BS spammers, assfighters, push/pull/grip/lightning/bs whores.

 

It is a majority of normal skilled players -- skilled players who are not clan members or competitive level -- Who aren't having any FUN with the game anymore (online) because that is ALL the servers (duel, FFA, even CTF) that don't enforce no spamming rules have turned into.

 

Should a duel be fought with two people's BACKS facing each other?

 

Should you spend all your time, skill and energy getting someone down to say 15 health... Then some BS comes up behind you and KILLS you with ONE shot in a FFA match -- Or even a duel???

 

That is my and many others points about this whole mess.

 

However, the fact is that once someone says "I hate how this one move or exploit is used over and over" they are immediately labeld a "noob"... Which in the online community is now paramount to a racial pejoritive in its connotation (Like a White person calling a Black person the N-word to make them feel less human or worthy) -- Which is FAR from the case.

 

The fact is the imbalances in JO with the BS Spammers are so bad that a majority of the threads on this forum alone start out about one topic not even remotely related to gameplay then invariably end up talking about how 1.3 screwed up the game because of the exploits it introduced.

 

In closing, flame me all you want, but I think what I said NEEDS to be said because it is the truth that some people don't want to admit -- Either Raven themselves or other so-called "leet" players who like to use and exploit this move.

 

BTW... Dunedain, unfortunately, I don't think Raven cares now with the release of the SDK and the fact they flat out state no more patches. That sounds harsh, but I think it is the sad truth.

 

Is this good business sense? No. But then again, that is the nature of business. We're all just consumers and not gamers or people with actual, intelligent opinions to them

[Snake13]

we need to get some people together and make a good saber mod, turn ghoul2 on always, slow down the walking speed a bit (I think this would replace some of the luck with skill cause you'd have more control) and increase slash damage

[Doctor Shaft]

It's good to finally read some posts that are in line with what I've been thinking all this time. I personally would like to see more threads that just constructively discuss some of the current existing game issues. Granted, it seems like the community will have to do the patching to change anything most likely, but it's better if people start talking now rather than find out months later that all hope for an official patch is lost. Here's some thoughts I had on 1.03.

 

I've tried the ghoul2 with sabertracefirst at 0, to get less blocking. I thought the change of play was for the better. Granted, more tweaking based on saber damage, etc., would be needed, but the way things played out felt slightly different. My experience has been that with everything at standard defaults, many of the swings and maneuvers are useless. The blocking was too high, rendering light and medium useless unless another person was swinging at the same time, and you hit an open spot. Basically, heavy stance was the only reliable stance. It basically broke through defenses constantly and even though start up was slow, parrying against it was minimal, if not almost non-existant. I would usually use the strafe right swing all the time. Basically, I found myself playing JK1 again, being able to just use either that move or the backsweep to affectiveness. With ghoul2, parries are more frequent, the heavy stance gets knocked around alot of it you get beat to the punch, and the blocking decrease causes players to be more strategic, to a certain degree. I don't want to play it up as miraculous, but the game play is dramatically improved in that sense. I actually found a reason to use medium stance, because it didn't get blocked every all the time at close range.

 

Some people have commented that ghoul2 with blocking at one is better. I think that while it's fun, it ultimately ruins the game in the long term. Now, before I go on, let's clear up what I mean ruined. I know there are people who enjoy that game as is, or enjoy a lightsaber duel that lasts long and has alot of blocking, but in the end the learning curve, the room for improvement, decreases. The true appeal of games is how long you can enjoy the game as well as being able to develop as you play. With blocking at an all time high that renders more than half of the swings uselss unless another person swings, it creates a short ladder. Obviously, some competitive players and even normal players have left because they've reached the top. They've done all the can do. Blocking at 0 makes the chances for making contact much better.

 

The way I experienced it, the blocking was still there, pending you didn't 'hump' the opponent. With blocking at 1, there's no point in swinging anything else except certain heavy swings and the backsweeps/stab. This of course causes people to believe that certain moves are too strong and need to be reduced. That's precisely the wrong course of action, and I'm glad some people actually believe that as well. Those moves aren't too strong by themselves. Singularly, they are not too powerful. Yes, if I combine my backsweep with force pull knockdown, I am far too powerful. But if I manage to get it off in a fight one one one, and you don't notice that I'm trying to do it, then shame on you. I've notice that with ghoul2 on, the backsweeps and such are more or less blockable, even with sabertrace at 0. Again, if you 'hump' your opponent, then yes, you're dead. But, if you keep your distance at least a saber's length, you'll be fine. That's where the problem lies. Are you getting killed because that abusers of the backsweep or stab keeps breaking your defenses? Well, from what i've experienced, with the ghoul2 on and the sabertrace at 0, then yes that move is killer when you're too close. If you keep your distance, it's not a problem. In fact, most times I have been able to watch the person whiff the move and then counter with my own normal swings. Even worse, I sometimes could get in my own backsweep in reply. What's too close? It's what I call 'humping' and i think that's why people complain about blocking or even kicking, it's because they 'hump'. I'm not trying to be vulgar, but it's the best way to describe. Many people cry that kick should be reduced in strength, or even made harder to execute. That's baloney. The kick is not too strong, or even abusive. the problem lies in everyones instinct to ram a person. The kick was designed precisely to defend against that. To weaken the kick or even remove it is like removing an entire stradegy of the game. Rather than have normal duels where people strike from a distance and circle, people want to just run at a person, block shots from up close, and then from point blank range take a swing when they see an opening. That makes the game a mess. With sabertrace at 0, point blank means some of your saber swings, even some medium swings, will get in. This means in order to survive, and remain offensive, you can't run all the time. Sometimes you have to walk to slow your retreat or dodge enough to maintain range and initiative. It will not degrade the game into a jousting match, that only happens if you just run away and completely disengage, but you don't have to. If a person runs foward, side step, don't hump the person. Humping is bad, humping is what causes misconceptions .

 

Here's an example. Someone says that they fight a person for a long time, they get in all their light or medium swings. They are pretty much winning the match. Then said person walks backwards and kills them with backstab or backsweep. Let's forget about the pull thing for now. Just a backstab or whatever. The problem is not that the backstab/sweep is too powerful. The problem is actually two things. One - the victim was humping his opponent, so sorry, you got hit by a high priortiy, powerful move that IS avoidable, and two - saber damage for normal swings isn't very lethal. The backstab is fine. Why ever use a backsweep or backstab if you have to hit with it three times? That's silly, and promote the same ridiculously long battles that have been occuring because blocking ability against sabers is so high. These long battles don't occur because both players are good, it's because the blocking is so high, and only a select few swings have a reliability of hitting an opponent. This is not to say that no one is a good player, or that no one is capable of making long battles because they are good, it's just suggesting that these long battles should not be primarily attributed to skill, but rather to the incredible blocking ability. sabertrace 0 fixes that in my opinion.

 

So based on that gratuitous spiel, one that you probably either didn't read, skimmed because it was dreadfully boring, or simply steamed over it and mentally refuted every comment I made, here is a hopefully shorter breakdown of what I see as a truer and more sensible way for the community, or even Raven if they somehow take notice this more or less insignificant member of the internet and decide to make a patch, however the true patch system works, to improve the game.

 

Saber Damage:

Okay, I think we've had our fun and watered this game down long enough. We've all played 1.03, and we've not only tasted, but completely engorged ourselves with lower saber damage in an attempt to balance the game. I think it's served its purpose and parts of the community are satisfied. However, I'm willing to give everyone here the benefit of the doubt and proclaim that we've all gotten better. That means even the people who play ever so casually, and only play with their friends. So I issue the challenge (of which hundreds, or better yet, the one or two people who read this post regard as silly and useless) that we raise the saber damage and make the game more challenging for ourselves.

 

How should we raise it. Look, I've never played 1.02, so let's not just proclaim me as the guy who wanted to go back old school and held a grudge. I started on 1.03. I enjoyed the damage when I started because I like most new players couldn't handle everything. After much playing with many different people, and noticing the comments of the more competitive players, we've all figured out the system, and thus many of the moves we have deemed ineffective against the others we've found. On the other hand, we've also gotten better reflexes, and more defensive, so the other slew of maneuvers are not only weak but too easily blocked, and in the end, worth trading damage against the other dominant swings. Solution: put the damage ratios significantly higher. That's right, like 90/70/60. The question then comes "What about the differences between the stances. If I can score 120 damage with a light swing faster than I can score 90 damage with heavy stance, what's the point of ever switching. We're back where we started". Good point. However, I've always felt this way about that. These stances were never meant to be about damage per say. I'm certain Raven would not be silly enough to implement a style the primarily involved whether you wanted to do more damage or not. They meant to give different maneuvers to use against a player. With this high ratio, all the stances are downright deadly. So why use other stances? Here's the answer. With blocking at sabertrace 0 instead of one. While medium and light can get a few hits in, it's not an exorbitant amount. You keep range, you can block a great deal and parry a great deal, then counter strike. The differences in the stances should be in speed, the range, and the forcefullness of the swing, i.e the likely hood of breaking a person in complete defense. Heavy swing should be that highest damaging, but primarily the most forceful swings. I don't care if heavy swing only does a marginal bit more damage than medium or light if I get the higher advantage of breaking someone's guard, or meeting with their lighter swing and either breaking that or throwing their defenses down. If we change the system like this, people will suddenly be able to use all the stances again. Light stance keeps its speed relative to the medium stance, that's fine. However, it has no range. It would be primarily your weapon against gunners, now that you can do a good deal of damage per swing, and if you get in really close for some reason, you can beat them to the punch. Otherwise, you switch to medium for you medium range to long range swings to normally engage someone. Then, you switch to heavy swing if you know you can throw your move, avoid getting hit during the wind up, and want to take your changes at slamming your saber down on someone. That should be the true reward of heavy swing. Not damage. If we reduce saber stance to a primarily damage system, they become nothing more than guns. Why use the bryor pistol when I can use a rocket laucnher or a sniper rifle with the same amount of accuracy and more punch? Same with sabers. Why use light or medium if they can be blocked all the time with sabertrace 1, or if the damage means nothing compared to my opponents heavy swings i.e... i hit him three times with some well place light hits while this guy is winding up for his heavy swings. Then, he gets in his one or two, and i'm almost dead. However, i still need another three or four to go. He just needs to kick me or something. I'm not complaing about dying so fast, i'm complaining that the style of attack I used was so ineffective. Lowering damage against wont' fix it because from my experience, you can't fool your opponent the same way all the time. With light stance or even medium, that's what's happening. i have to outthink my opponent not once or twice, but five or six times, sometimes seven. Meanwhile, if he's smart and sticks with heavy swing (this is assuming we have sabertrace 1) he's got the only moves that in the end really have that destructive guard break power. And he's the only who truly gets rewarded for outhinking me. This limits the game. Is it still fun. Sure, it's amazing. But like I said, the ladder is too short. With a week or two of dedication, you can climb this ladder all too quickly. And you can only stand on top of that ladder for so long before it loses its appeal and breaks down.

 

Okay, post is too long... I should just wait and see if anyone ever cared to read it, and then based on that, continue my opinion. Have a good day, take care, etc. Oh yeah, and thanks for reading if you did, hope i did not disturb you.

[edinflames]

bloody hell that was long but at least it was a good read c3:)

 

i agree with u almost totally but being a competative player i do want ass fighting completly gone, it was a good idea of ravens to have backstab/sweep do so much damage but like weev sed it wrecked the game. if the damage was increased as shaft just said then there wud be no need to nerf anything cos ud be doing almost as much damage facing the right direction thus removing as fighters, unless that is the player sux.

[G0G0GadgetForce]

I actually read that whole post and I probably wouldn't have except your a good writer and can express a well thought out discussion.

 

It's good to finally read some posts that are in line with what I've been thinking all this time. I personally would like to see more threads that just constructively discuss some of the current existing game issues. Granted, it seems like the community will have to do the patching to change anything most likely, but it's better if people start talking now rather than find out months later that all hope for an official patch is lost. Here's some thoughts I had on 1.03.

 

I've tried the ghoul2 with sabertracefirst at 0, to get less blocking. I thought the change of play was for the better. Granted, more tweaking based on saber damage, etc., would be needed, but the way things played out felt slightly different. My experience has been that with everything at standard defaults, many of the swings and maneuvers are useless. The blocking was too high, rendering light and medium useless unless another person was swinging at the same time, and you hit an open spot. Basically, heavy stance was the only reliable stance. It basically broke through defenses constantly and even though start up was slow, parrying against it was minimal, if not almost non-existant. I would usually use the strafe right swing all the time. Basically, I found myself playing JK1 again, being able to just use either that move or the backsweep to affectiveness. With ghoul2, parries are more frequent, the heavy stance gets knocked around alot of it you get beat to the punch, and the blocking decrease causes players to be more strategic, to a certain degree. I don't want to play it up as miraculous, but the game play is dramatically improved in that sense. I actually found a reason to use medium stance, because it didn't get blocked every all the time at close range.

 

Some people have commented that ghoul2 with blocking at one is better. I think that while it's fun, it ultimately ruins the game in the long term. Now, before I go on, let's clear up what I mean ruined. I know there are people who enjoy that game as is, or enjoy a lightsaber duel that lasts long and has alot of blocking, but in the end the learning curve, the room for improvement, decreases. The true appeal of games is how long you can enjoy the game as well as being able to develop as you play. With blocking at an all time high that renders more than half of the swings uselss unless another person swings, it creates a short ladder. Obviously, some competitive players and even normal players have left because they've reached the top. They've done all the can do. Blocking at 0 makes the chances for making contact much better.

 

The way I experienced it, the blocking was still there, pending you didn't 'hump' the opponent. With blocking at 1, there's no point in swinging anything else except certain heavy swings and the backsweeps/stab. This of course causes people to believe that certain moves are too strong and need to be reduced. That's precisely the wrong course of action, and I'm glad some people actually believe that as well. Those moves aren't too strong by themselves. Singularly, they are not too powerful. Yes, if I combine my backsweep with force pull knockdown, I am far too powerful. But if I manage to get it off in a fight one one one, and you don't notice that I'm trying to do it, then shame on you. I've notice that with ghoul2 on, the backsweeps and such are more or less blockable, even with sabertrace at 0. Again, if you 'hump' your opponent, then yes, you're dead. But, if you keep your distance at least a saber's length, you'll be fine. That's where the problem lies. Are you getting killed because that abusers of the backsweep or stab keeps breaking your defenses? Well, from what i've experienced, with the ghoul2 on and the sabertrace at 0, then yes that move is killer when you're too close. If you keep your distance, it's not a problem. In fact, most times I have been able to watch the person whiff the move and then counter with my own normal swings. Even worse, I sometimes could get in my own backsweep in reply. What's too close? It's what I call 'humping' and i think that's why people complain about blocking or even kicking, it's because they 'hump'. I'm not trying to be vulgar, but it's the best way to describe. Many people cry that kick should be reduced in strength, or even made harder to execute. That's baloney. The kick is not too strong, or even abusive. the problem lies in everyones instinct to ram a person. The kick was designed precisely to defend against that. To weaken the kick or even remove it is like removing an entire stradegy of the game. Rather than have normal duels where people strike from a distance and circle, people want to just run at a person, block shots from up close, and then from point blank range take a swing when they see an opening. That makes the game a mess. With sabertrace at 0, point blank means some of your saber swings, even some medium swings, will get in. This means in order to survive, and remain offensive, you can't run all the time. Sometimes you have to walk to slow your retreat or dodge enough to maintain range and initiative. It will not degrade the game into a jousting match, that only happens if you just run away and completely disengage, but you don't have to. If a person runs foward, side step, don't hump the person. Humping is bad, humping is what causes misconceptions .

 

Here's an example. Someone says that they fight a person for a long time, they get in all their light or medium swings. They are pretty much winning the match. Then said person walks backwards and kills them with backstab or backsweep. Let's forget about the pull thing for now. Just a backstab or whatever. The problem is not that the backstab/sweep is too powerful. The problem is actually two things. One - the victim was humping his opponent, so sorry, you got hit by a high priortiy, powerful move that IS avoidable, and two - saber damage for normal swings isn't very lethal. The backstab is fine. Why ever use a backsweep or backstab if you have to hit with it three times? That's silly, and promote the same ridiculously long battles that have been occuring because blocking ability against sabers is so high. These long battles don't occur because both players are good, it's because the blocking is so high, and only a select few swings have a reliability of hitting an opponent. This is not to say that no one is a good player, or that no one is capable of making long battles because they are good, it's just suggesting that these long battles should not be primarily attributed to skill, but rather to the incredible blocking ability. sabertrace 0 fixes that in my opinion.

 

So based on that gratuitous spiel, one that you probably either didn't read, skimmed because it was dreadfully boring, or simply steamed over it and mentally refuted every comment I made, here is a hopefully shorter breakdown of what I see as a truer and more sensible way for the community, or even Raven if they somehow take notice this more or less insignificant member of the internet and decide to make a patch, however the true patch system works, to improve the game.

 

Saber Damage:

 

Okay, I think we've had our fun and watered this game down long enough. We've all played 1.03, and we've not only tasted, but completely engorged ourselves with lower saber damage in an attempt to balance the game. I think it's served its purpose and parts of the community are satisfied. However, I'm willing to give everyone here the benefit of the doubt and proclaim that we've all gotten better. That means even the people who play ever so casually, and only play with their friends. So I issue the challenge (of which hundreds, or better yet, the one or two people who read this post regard as silly and useless) that we raise the saber damage and make the game more challenging for ourselves.

 

How should we raise it. Look, I've never played 1.02, so let's not just proclaim me as the guy who wanted to go back old school and held a grudge. I started on 1.03. I enjoyed the damage when I started because I like most new players couldn't handle everything. After much playing with many different people, and noticing the comments of the more competitive players, we've all figured out the system, and thus many of the moves we have deemed ineffective against the others we've found. On the other hand, we've also gotten better reflexes, and more defensive, so the other slew of maneuvers are not only weak but too easily blocked, and in the end, worth trading damage against the other dominant swings. Solution: put the damage ratios significantly higher. That's right, like 90/70/60. The question then comes "What about the differences between the stances. If I can score 120 damage with a light swing faster than I can score 90 damage with heavy stance, what's the point of ever switching. We're back where we started". Good point. However, I've always felt this way about that. These stances were never meant to be about damage per say. I'm certain Raven would not be silly enough to implement a style the primarily involved whether you wanted to do more damage or not. They meant to give different maneuvers to use against a player. With this high ratio, all the stances are downright deadly. So why use other stances? Here's the answer. With blocking at sabertrace 0 instead of one. While medium and light can get a few hits in, it's not an exorbitant amount. You keep range, you can block a great deal and parry a great deal, then counter strike. The differences in the stances should be in speed, the range, and the forcefullness of the swing, i.e the likely hood of breaking a person in complete defense. Heavy swing should be that highest damaging, but primarily the most forceful swings. I don't care if heavy swing only does a marginal bit more damage than medium or light if I get the higher advantage of breaking someone's guard, or meeting with their lighter swing and either breaking that or throwing their defenses down. If we change the system like this, people will suddenly be able to use all the stances again. Light stance keeps its speed relative to the medium stance, that's fine. However, it has no range. It would be primarily your weapon against gunners, now that you can do a good deal of damage per swing, and if you get in really close for some reason, you can beat them to the punch. Otherwise, you switch to medium for you medium range to long range swings to normally engage someone. Then, you switch to heavy swing if you know you can throw your move, avoid getting hit during the wind up, and want to take your changes at slamming your saber down on someone. That should be the true reward of heavy swing. Not damage. If we reduce saber stance to a primarily damage system, they become nothing more than guns. Why use the bryor pistol when I can use a rocket laucnher or a sniper rifle with the same amount of accuracy and more punch? Same with sabers. Why use light or medium if they can be blocked all the time with sabertrace 1, or if the damage means nothing compared to my opponents heavy swings i.e... i hit him three times with some well place light hits while this guy is winding up for his heavy swings. Then, he gets in his one or two, and i'm almost dead. However, i still need another three or four to go. He just needs to kick me or something. I'm not complaing about dying so fast, i'm complaining that the style of attack I used was so ineffective. Lowering damage against wont' fix it because from my experience, you can't fool your opponent the same way all the time. With light stance or even medium, that's what's happening. i have to outthink my opponent not once or twice, but five or six times, sometimes seven. Meanwhile, if he's smart and sticks with heavy swing (this is assuming we have sabertrace 1) he's got the only moves that in the end really have that destructive guard break power. And he's the only who truly gets rewarded for outhinking me. This limits the game. Is it still fun. Sure, it's amazing. But like I said, the ladder is too short. With a week or two of dedication, you can climb this ladder all too quickly. And you can only stand on top of that ladder for so long before it loses its appeal and breaks down.

 

Okay, post is too long... I should just wait and see if anyone ever cared to read it, and then based on that, continue my opinion. Have a good day, take care, etc. Oh yeah, and thanks for reading if you did, hope i did not disturb you.

 

//Looks at post count....

 

Piff! STFU N00b you have no clue what your talking about becuase your post count is under 700! Don't ever come to a public forum and express a well thought out reply based upon your honest opinions of the game. Next time just spam a thread with "it suxors!" so you don't make me fall asleep becuase my attention span is that of a fruit fly.

 

 

 

Well I thought I would post before =scc= Kal-El had a chance. So maybe he won't grace this thread with his spamming presence.

 

To add something to this post, I see where your coming from in all aspects of your reply and I appreciate you thoughts. Especially on the ghoul2 and sabertrace. Been looking for a longer than normal discussion on these variable.

 

Honeslty I like the sabertrace left on. I feel that the when sabertrace is enabled with ghoul2 enabled if forces the use of skill to properly land a special move. Blue lunge must be dead center to cause major damage, the backstabs must be accurate and close, the dfa only kills upon landing not when your standing 6 feet to the right, the yellow down slash must be executed with surprise or a blue lunge or down slash with block it.

 

This encourages the use of more standard swings to get your opponent into a pattern so you can surprise them with a backstab or yellow down slash. The blue lunge can no longer break through every defense from a mile away either. One of my primary attacks is the blue lunge to get my oppenent open or running away, but I found that now I must set my opponent up to get him straight on before I execute it. I can't backflip in circles puling off bluelunge landings.

 

But the sabertrace enabled will cause more 'humping' with the blue stance types and the best counter is the kick as you've said above. And poeple have already complained about the kick when they humped my leg repeatedly. It may or may not lead to nerfing the kick, but honeslty sabertrace on just feels better. I'll have to try them again after reading your post.

 

Thanks for posting a lucid thought in the valley, Gadget

 

Piss off Kal-El your flames aren't needed or wanted here.

[Nobodi Kenobi]

GoGoGadgetForce

 

It is nice to have a real adult debate on something that might seem trival to some - a video game - And I just wanted to commend you for helping promote respect and civility in these forums.

 

I don't know Kal-El, but I have seen his/her many posts and simply ignore them. I don't care if they are 13 or 30. They have nothing constructive to say, therefore they are not worth my time as an adult and I ignore them.

 

Moving on...

 

Dr Shaft

 

I want to add something to the equation that others have brought up on other threads.

 

It is not just the gameplay imbalanaces themselves that are ruining JO, it is also the types of people playing.

 

Before I get flamed, let me explain.

 

1) We have competitive players - Clans, teams and single players - Who play the tournament ladders and who ultimately want to win big money for their efforts.

 

I have no problem with that, but it appears to me that a lot of these players - Not all mind you - Consider themselves "above" the rest of the normal, casual players such as myself and the MAJORITY of those who play games online (not just JO, but all MP games).

 

Now of course, if they are playing to win money of course they are above us -- and SHOULD BE ABOVE US -- In skill.

 

It's just like Michael Jordan and the kid who plays basketball at his local court. There should be a difference in skill.

 

However, this aspect relates to gameplay in that because they are better - skill wise - They automatically expect the rest of us normal players to simply adapt to the changes in the game.

 

Again, there is nothing wrong with that viewpoint.

 

However, this leads me to the fact that the problem(s) that the 1.3 patch introduced to JO has jointly to do with another type of player:

 

2) The player who basically plays like an ass - in general - aka the BS Spammer, "ass fighter" and who use an exploit of the game as their primary offensive strategy (I.E. Push/Pull/BS, DFA or whatever exploit the particular game has).

 

This kind of player may or may not be competitive.

 

I'm going to give competitive players the benefit of the doubt and say that 90% of the BS Spammers (and from now on this will include other exploits in general in all MP games) are NOT competitive and simply playing for "fun" on public servers only caring about being number one on the frag board without any qualms about how they got there (using exploits).

 

This is type of player is who is ruining JO. Period.

 

This type of player is why a majority of the other casual, normal skilled players have either left the game or complain constantly about -- Myself included.

 

So, to recap what we have here are two types of players and basically two camps that play JO and all MP games in general.

 

A) The competitive crowd.

 

B) The casual gamer who doesn't care about competition and is simply logging onto a public server a few hours a night to have fun.

 

This is also where another imbalance in the game - and most MP games - Exist, ironically.

 

A majority of the players fall into the B category.

 

And that is the problem with JO right now with the BS Spammers.

 

While what I just said has been said before, I think it needs to be said again because when a majority of those normal skilled, casual players playing the game are complaining -- And I'm not saying competitive players aren't complaining or are; there are those on both sides -- I think something has to be done because ultimately, this is bad business sense on game developer's parts because competitive video gaming is just in its infancy and companies like Raven can NOT afford to base all of their income on what is a very, very small part of the overall demographic of who games are for target to (the regular, casual player).

 

And of course, this all ties back into the effects that patches - good and bad - Have on a gaming community since MP is primarly the "wave of the future" (it's here!) versus scripted, SP games.

[Snake13]

okay, great post, I agree with most of it except for a few things

 

block shots from up close, and then from point blank range take a swing when they see an opening

 

this is exactly what Lightsaber duels are like in the movies and I think that is what we should be aiming for, I think with increased damage and lower movement speed this would work out great.

 

with ghoul2 on all that needs to be changed is that the lightsaber damage needs to go way way up and movement speed slowed down, with movement speed slowed down then when you went up close you'd be able to keep in controls and the strikes would be more tactical and delibrite

[Dunedain]

Good comments, guys. Especially Nobodi, Snake and Begger.

 

Quick note about something Nobodi said. He mentioned that the

people who are complaining the most about the backstab and

backspin exploits are not newbs. He is very right about that.

The people I see complaining the most are the highly skilled players.

Yes, I'm very competitive in the sense that when I'm in a duel,

I fight to win. *But*, I want the duel mechanics to be as close

to a real Star Wars duel as possible, and that means keeping

unrealistic junk (like exposing your back to an opponent

giving you easy kills, instead of getting the guy with the exposed

back killed, which is what would really happen) out of the duels

as much as we can.

 

I want to win, but I want to win cleanly using realistic

techniques, and my opponent should be limited to the same.

I don't use the exploits, in fact, I avoid them like the plague.

But it ruins the game when you constantly have to put

up with this "back fighting" garbage with 90% of the players.

 

Our goal here is to have Jedi lightsaber duels, just like in Star Wars.

But we can't have that until these flaws in the dueling system are corrected.

 

Let's assume Raven will do nothing further with a patch. That

means it's up to us to get this fixed with a simple mod that

will correct these duel exploits.

 

Ok, I think we have a game plan here. Do we agree the following steps

should be taken to get rid of this backstab and backspin problem?

 

1.) Since the backstab and backspin are special moves, they

should do a lot of damage, but they also leave you very open

to enemy strikes. So you should get no blocking ability at

all when doing a backstab or backspin. It's open season on you

until the move is fully completed.

 

2.) Backstab and backspin should be slower to execute (longer

delay and wind-up time before the attack is carried out), especially

for the spin, which can hurt a lot of people.

 

3.) Normal saber swings should do more damage, like they

did in the 1.02 version. This means that if some dope turns

his back to you, he's wide open for a clean, and very likely fatal,

strike. Like it would be in a real saber duel.

 

4.) Maybe the back spin should be blockable, so if you have

your saber in position to block you can deflect the spin swing?

This will prevent jerks from running up to groups that are fighting

and just spinning and easily killing everyone. At least the

people in the group would have a chance to block it.

 

These changes would get rid of this back fighting stuff once

and for all. What do you guys think? Can we get a mod out

soon that would make these simple changes?

 

This would be something easy for the servers to dl and would be

extremely popular for the many many players that hate what 1.03

did to saber duels.

[Nobodi Kenobi]

Dunedain

 

Thanks for the kind words

 

To continue on the same line of who is actually playing JO (and a majority of MP games online)...

 

I wanted to add that the average Jedi Outcast fan is almost always - 9 time out of 10 - a Star Wars fan in general.

 

That may seem like a duh! statement, but I think it is important to bring up because it reflects not only who will be playing the game (competitively or casually), but the values of those who are playing the game which is an extention of what those players want.

 

Let me explain.

 

When I say "values" I don't mean morals or other things of that nature.

 

What I mean is that the Star Wars fan wants realistic saber fights from the films -- Like Dunedain stated. I will fully admit to being in that crowd as well. Why else would a SW fan buy JO other than to live out their fantasy as a Jedi and take down some Siths or other real human oponents online in what is a lost art-form (dueling) with a weapon that doesn't exist, but is so elegant -- So damn cool -- That nothing compares to it?

 

And that is why I think most of the JO fans are upset as well.

 

We all want to be a Jedi Master and be able to wield the most elegant weapon in the galaxy with skill, timing and just plain bad-ass skill...

 

But what happens when the skill to use that weapon is taken away from the fans at large via the BS manuver and other exploits?

 

Granted, this is just a game, and yes, I DO have a life outside of video games and Star Wars... But again, I also feel that what I just said is the way a LOT of JO fans feel, but might be too afraid to admit because it makes them sound like "dorks" or even worse... The dreaded "n" word: Noob.

 

I think Raven grossly miscalculated what the effect 1.3 would do to such a passionate and diverse fan base -- The Star Wars fan base -- And ultimately, I think they will loose credibility in the long run since the community themselves will now start to produce patches and mods to make the game what THEY want it to be: Reaslistic, fun sabers and guns game-play that actually requires SKILL to be good at it.

 

Peace

 

"Force Push and Pull? Backstab and Backswing? A Jedi craves not these things".

[Ranking_skin]

I have made 2 posts tonight about geeks... Now that I see this thread I don't know where to begin. So many places to start... gosh... I am overwhelmed.

 

I can't do it. Too much, too little time.

[Emon]

Guys, Raven IS NOT to blame for this kind of thing. LucasArts pulls the chains on Raven, LucasArts controls every detail that goes into the game.

 

For the last ****ing time, RAVEN is not bad, LucasFarts I mean LucasArts, IS!

[Dunedain]

Well, whether it's Lucasarts or Raven doesn't really matter at

the moment. We have an obvious big problem with 1.03 saber

dueling. So let's get it fixed, then we can spend more time playing

and less time trying to figure out who to fix it.

 

What do you guys think about taking the 4 steps in a mod from the

post above to fix this backspin and backstab problem?

[Dunedain]

Come on, guys, let's have some feedback on the proposed mod

changes for 1.03 to fix these messed up saber duels.

 

I heard something about a mod called "fanmod". Does this

have all the 4 saber fixes listed above?

[QuietSith]

It's up to LucasArts whether the game is patched or not.

 

Raven just does the work.