Masters of the Force: Release 1

[Alesh]

I think i liked the mod too much

[SeiGFReiD]

hey...just downloaded the mod...I love it...there's a few things that could use tweaking though (take these with a grain of salt though...testing done with bots since I cant find a server that runs MOTF yet...if anyone has one please post it!) Blue stance is WAYY to powerful in MOTF...just throw saber once or twice to drain dodge and then run up and n00b away...1-3 hits and person goes down...red stance is exact opposite...way too weak because the other person dodges your hits and since you cant unleash a madd furry of attacks then they seem to never loose their dodge meter enuf to hit them...not really sure how to balance these things out...but I'm sure you'll think of somethin' also...crossbow seems useless completely now since everytime you dodge it makes you stop firing your weapon like the reload...so it kinda never fires if you get shot at alot...umm...other than that I havent noticed too many things...other than the Darth Sidious bot I have loves to n00b spam the lightning hehe...kinda appropriate...but thats off topic...keep up the good work...I might become completely addicted (still love runnin' around with maul with dual saber and tryin to kill yoda's hehe...) l8rz!

[acdcfanbill]

Well, this is a very early release of motf, and for the final version, the saber combat will be so changed i doubt you will recognise it... this is just to give you an idea of the dodge power Razor implimented i believe...

[razorace]

Bill is correct. I haven't messed with the saber code much yet. As is, it's pretty crappy since Raven's saber code isn't designed for Dodge and other new game changes. We're planning some pretty heavy duty changes to the saber system at some point in the future.

 

I know there aren't any servers. I simply don't have the money or hardware to host some. If anyone really likes the mod and have the hardware, I'm sure servers will pop up eventually.

 

Razor Ace

[SeiGFReiD]

ooh...sounds good to me saber combat is lacking in realism...I've really become addicted to u guy's mod...been playin the BFP mod for q3a to hold off my insanity of not being able to play anything but bots...so hopefully in the next week or so server's will start poppin' up...until then maybe I can find a good programmed bot...didnt think about that one...anyways...you guys rock and keep it up!

[Alesh]

A few more ideas:

 

Make the "off" hilt stay in the belt, I'm tired of carrying it in the hand

 

Maybe Force Sense (replacement for Force Seeing) could give some kind of Spiderman's danger sense, showing the force sight icon or something when somebody is aiming at you, or there's a projectile going to your direction, or, the harder (I think) idea, would be showing the path of the projectiles (ie a blue line, like the mine laser seen with force sight) so you know where will they go so you can dodge them.

 

I think animation priorities should be reworked, ie. is a little weird when someone is trying to hit you with a heavy slash, you cut them with a fast slash, and they almost don't notice (i know they sometimes do, but not always, and this is in the case they are not able to dodge and they don't die from 1 hit), i think i said it before but the dodge animation seems to almost always replace the blocking animation,

[razorace]

Originally posted by Alesh

A few more ideas:

 

Make the "off" hilt stay in the belt, I'm tired of carrying it in the hand

 

Maybe Force Sense (replacement for Force Seeing) could give some kind of Spiderman's danger sense, showing the force sight icon or something when somebody is aiming at you, or there's a projectile going to your direction, or, the harder (I think) idea, would be showing the path of the projectiles (ie a blue line, like the mine laser seen with force sight) so you know where will they go so you can dodge them.

That's a good idea. I'll look into it but it might be too much of a cpu hog to impliment that many additional trace calls. As for the blue line thing, I think it would screw up the look too much. You'd have 50 zillion lines in the air at once. Plus, with the new bolt speeds it won't help you much anyway.

 

I think animation priorities should be reworked, ie. is a little weird when someone is trying to hit you with a heavy slash, you cut them with a fast slash, and they almost don't notice (i know they sometimes do, but not always, and this is in the case they are not able to dodge and they don't die from 1 hit), i think i said it before but the dodge animation seems to almost always replace the blocking animation,

That's mostly a hit detection issue more than anything. The saber is visually swinging thru the player's body but it's not registering a hit. I might fix that at some point.

 

However, I'll see if I can make the system make blocking scans during a dodge. The current system makes it too easy to get dodge comboed to death.

[Alesh]

I forgot another one:

 

Force Speed, i think the 50 (i think) force points cost just to activate it is really weird, id make it just like a toggle, and when its on, it spends force depending on the move you do (ie: standing still costs 0 fp, running costs x/second, attakcings y/second and so on), I think it would be more """realistic""" this way.

 

P.S:

...until then maybe I can find a good programmed bot...

the best Bot i've found (for saber combat at least) is the QuiGonVM3, for guns id go with Jango Fett from the mandalorian pack.

[razorace]

I agree. All continous force powers will have a simple per second FP cost.

[Alesh]

I've been thinking about something... a Die by the Sword like sword system is not very likely isn't it? (If you don't know what I mean there's a demo of the game at http://ftp.interplay.com/pub/demos/dbtsdemo.zip)

[razorace]

Die by the Sword had an interesting system but it wasn't very useful in it's freestyle mode. It was ether too sloppy or overally sensitive. It might work good if there was some sort of varible resistance on the control system but it would require some serious play testing.

 

However, it's not really doable in JK2. It would require a total code rewrite. And that's a bit above the call of duty for our mod. Now, if we had access to Id's source AND had some financial support, yes. But, unless pigs start flying suddenly, I don't think that's going to happen.

[Alesh]

That's what i thought... damn i want an improved die by the sword (even better with lightsabers )

[razorace]

Sorry. I think our current concept system will probably be better than that anyway.

[Alesh]

Now you really got my interest (plus moving the sword however you want seems to be better for RV...).

 

Any hints on what are the changes gonna be? (or how is the collision system different from raven's)

[razorace]

RV?

 

I haven't checked out the current hit detection system so I'm not sure I can do much to improve it.

 

Anyway, the plan is to totally "redo" the saber system into "Stances" and "Aggression Modes".

 

Stances will be different style/school sets of moves (NOTE: These will probably just be rehashes of the current moves until someone figures out a way to add new animations.) ALL stances will be pretty much the same (-+ 25% stat difference, tops) so this will be more of a style choice than anything else.

 

Aggression Modes are the new bread and butter of the saber system. Aggression is made up of three modes (Defense/Neutral/Attack).

 

Neutral:

 

The Basic mode. This mode is for beginners or people that don't want to do the whole Attack/Defend strategy. While in Neutral mode, you can attack and defend (auto-blocking). The special ability of this mode is to be able to "block" attacks while doing attack moves (See the arena fight in Episode II.) (To make this look good, we'll probably have to make bolts that are "blocked" autotrack to blade. This shouldn't be noticeable at the current bolt speeds.) This mode is best for fighting in a gun battle.

 

Defense:

 

You CAN'T attack in this mode. Instead, you use Primary to do Active Blocking. Active Blocking is where you boost your combat stats (block, deflection, parry, etc rating) by clicking Primary just as an attack is coming it. The closer the click is to the impact time, the more your stats are improved. This abilty will obviously have a recharge time to prevent spamming.

 

Attack:

 

In this mode, the autoblock rate will be little to none. However, your attack skills are boosted in exchange (damage, defense break, saber lock, etc.). There will probably be some other advantages (say, make "finisher" moves only work in this mode.)

 

These changes are set up to make saber more rythmic (based on changing aggression postiers than a rock-paper-scissor or red beats all system.) Neutral lets "lite" players still enjoy the game while Attack/Defense provide deep gameplay for the experts.

 

Other changes will probably involve slower saber swings, a total redo of the unrealistic, unbalances "specials", Saber Clashes (replaces Saber Locks with a more tactical system based on reflex and smart thinking instead of button mashing), and "Finishers" (basically "cool ways to kill your defeated foes")

 

Note that this is all long-term planning that won't all be done tomorrow. The project will gradually go in that direction as things progress.

 

Razor Ace

[Alesh]

I meant VR (virtual reality).

 

And that system looks really good, i just hope you can change defense/neutral/attack withowt having to cicle (in all 5 stances mod i end up taking less saber offence just to be able to switch faster ).

 

Just a question, will the clic in defense mode be from server's view or from client's view? since it can be a little hard to clic on the right moment with lag.

[razorace]

Oh, ok.

 

Toggling will probably be handled by 2 to three buttons. Personally, I think an Attack/Defense button and a Neutral toggle would be the best system.

 

As for the Active Blocking, it has to be server side. Otherwise it would be WAY too easy to cheat and would add more lag to the game. With it server side, lag shouldn't be anymore of a problem for Active Blocking as it is for aimming.

[razorace]

Since people seem interested in the design process, I'll remind everyone that most of the MotF Team hangs out in #motf on the IRC server gamesnet.net (http://www.gamesnet.net). We do our mod communication and design work there.

[Hekx]

Here's some things I noticed a while ago when playing the mod..

 

Changing the alt-fire on the Blaster was a very good idea. I kept gettings bots spam alt-fire at close range making it quite impossible to block with a saber. Alt-fire was too powerful and I've never seen any blasters in the SW movies fire that fast (Chewie does fire a blaster quite fast in ANH, but it didn't have the punch and speed of the current games alt-fire) On most occassions the alt-fire on the blaster was able to push DFAs backwards due to the power of the blasts.

 

The only thing I dislike in the 1st release is gunners being able to dodge. The dodge animation seems more Jedi-like than the whole SW universe being able to manipulate the Force and dodge Matrix-style. I think the idea of adding a class-based system like ProMod; in which you can give points to selected abilites. Dodge could be apart of Level 3 jump? Who knows, but it would be a lot easier if Jedi could only dodge. Having bots with rocket launchers dodge every DFA that comes their way can be tedious and unfair.

 

This doesn't mean having dodge as a force power, maybe having it like roll and kick. Gunners can't roll or kick while holding weapons; but saberists / Jedi can. Luke does quite a fair bit of ducking and dodging in ROTJ apon Jabba's Sail Barge, while most of the 'bad-guys' stand around getting killed, not dodging.

 

Gunners / Mercs / Bountys / Whatever they call themselves

should have a targetting system since the Jedi get dodge. Maybe a meter which can control the power of the attack. I think a good example of this is Jango Fett. In EPII, we see him eliminate Colman Trebor with his Westar blaster. Could he have increased the power of the blasts? It didn't seen him changed the range or speed of the blasts, so maybe a power meter would be benificial for both Jedi and Mercs.

 

On a good note, the dodge is very useful and a nice addition to the game. It does make lightsabre dueling more challenging and keeps you alive a lot longer against gunners.

If you miss a DFA, other special, or a strike with your saber; the dodge is usually there as backup. I don't see any problems with the dodge system so far.

 

One more thing. This maybe a bug; but it happened while testing the mod out...

Is this meant to happen?

(No damage and 100% accuracy )

[razorace]

Well, Dodge is really a gameplay compromise. Players without dodge die instantly. While that would be more realistic, it simply wouldn't be very fun to play, especially for nonjedi characters. We will eventually have hitzone specific damage and Dodge levels based on your stats (where Jedi get more Dodge Points than nonjedi characters). Both should help the problem to a degree but every player will still have at least some level of Dodge.

 

As for your "bug", that isn't actually a bug. I had to disable idle saber to get Dodge to work good. Previously, it was possible to screw your opponent up by poking him with the saber, triggering his dodge (for 1 point of damage!) and then striking him down mid swing. I know it's not very realistic, but it wasn't realistic the old way ether. An added bonus of this change is that you can stand all posey-like when dueling. (without the sabers constantly blocking each other when you get remotely close)

[razorace]

Ok all. I'm back from break. I've got a new hitzone set up based on Herr's idea/notes. However, I need betatesters to fill in the gabs in my "surface to hitzone" code. I need people to test the mod by firing weapons at a still kyle model player (since all the ghoul 2 stuff is based off him) and matching the hitzones to the reported surface #. It's really simple and easy to do. Please contact me if you're willing to help.

 

Razor Ace

[razorace]

My review of that mod:

 

It's good. The dodging system was thoughtful. At first, I was imagining that this mod would have some slow mo stuff going on like Style over Substance. I figured every dodge would just slow the game down.

1. Unfortunately, timescale alterations simply don't work very well in the JK2/Q3 engine. It causes numberous lag and error problems.

 

2. Slo-mo is cool as a gimmack but the game has to be playable. No one wants to be constantly going into slo-mo, especially when you can't even see the dodgee in a FFA fight!

 

It would be possible to do a game with playable slo-mo (in fact, I have basic idea for one) but we'd have to built an engine from the bottom up with good timescalability and a totally different design mindset.

 

It was pretty cool. I was playing bots though, so to say that I've seen everything there is to see about MotF is a falsehood. My saber battles were really long, mainly because our dodge meters lasted pretty long. Of course, I'm so saturated by the promod system of fighting, I wasn't very good in this one. It's an interesting mod, however my attention span is pretty much hooked. However, I commend it for its freshness.

Yeah, I know about the Dodge Meter and Saber Combat issue. It will go away once I've implimented the Fatigue system.

 

Most mods kind of add glitz and glamor. Like the old mods of JK, where everything was turned into a mega tank gun (interesting how they never modded the lightsaber. I swear, more "star wars" fans are buying the "star wars games" but go in wanting nothing to do with dramatic gun versus saber combat. They want their jedi armed with tank guns). MotF didn't add a jetpack, or a grappling hook, it just did something you don't normally see. It wasn't overbearing, just some plain and thought out changes.

 

Of course, I assume MotF is still a work in progress, it would be intersting to see where the mod goes from here.

[Hekx]

What news of Gondor 2nd Release?

 

I hope in the final stages, some emotes and a custom hilt selection is added. The RGB is good, but seems to stray too far away from the movie's saber colours; maybe just adding some extra saber colours would be good; Light Blue etc.

[razorace]

Well, the big news is that I got the new surface-based Ghoul2 hit detection mostly working. You actually have to hit the surface of the model to score a hit. This translates to better visual Dodging and reasonable hitzone based features like hitzone specific damage. Look for it in Release 2.

[Hekx]

Ah, sounds good. I can't wait for the next release.

Hopefully that will save me from rabid ugnaughts with stun battons and the ability to avoid every single red strike I throw at them.

 

Are you going to add any extra fancy additions to the mod; like custom hilt selection, emotes, RGB saber colour?

I believe you said about putting that in the final version, but what's your take about adding them to the mod?

 

I personally like the custom hilt selection, but the RGB makes it less SW-like due to having 5 jedi with 5 different shades of blue. Maybe just adding some extra colours to the originals would be nice; white, grey etc.

 

Emotes are nice, but it seems they can be abused (just like 80% of the game so far..) You can cut-out of move animations; avoid being hit (blasted sit and crossarms emotes..) so maybe emotes are a bad idea. But they do add a nice touch. Plus there's loads of unused animations in the animation.cfg file; so making some of those into emotes would be cool.