Ideas I previously posted on another thread in another section.

[Doctor Shaft]

Ultra long (possibly useless) post on JO saber gameplay

 

Well, I've decided to start posting some more to see if I can get more people to discuss the saber system, and the ghoul2 system settings as well. No, I'm not making a mod or a patch, and as silly as it is seems, if I can influence the community to eventually make adjustments, or whoever ends up adjusting the game, then I'll willingly waste your time here on the boards. To start though, I'm going to be terribly reduntant and copy something i wrote a few hours ago. That post was in a thread that I feel isn't really going to be read much anymore, so I'll try my luck and get everyone to hate me, or simply ignore me, in this thread. It's long and tedious, so good luck.

 

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 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 in a saber fight (humping) for some reason, you can beat your saber opponent 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 chances 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? And if you reply - "because I get more ammo" or "the splash damage is less", then we're all going off track. 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 for the stronger, more fatal swings 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.

 

 

Last edited by Doctor Shaft on 06-11-2002 at 02:23 PM