Originally posted by babywax:

Is it just me or is the only really unique thing about star wars the swords??? It's the only reason I play JA.You think the swords in Star Wars are unique? Why? They're just swords made "futuristic". Like the blasters are guns made "futuristic".

Besides, the sword combat is a good reason to play JO. But it's not the only reason.

Originally posted by babywax:

Lateral motion does nothing against someone who is minimally skilled with a gun.I think you may have the wrong idea about guns. A gunner tries to anticipate where you'll be in a second's time, and fires his gun at that spot. The counter to that strategy? Be unpredictable, of course. And fast lateral motion is one method of being unpredictable. That's what we serious gunners cultivate. Unpredictable patterns of motion.

Originally posted by babywax:

Someone who is real good with guns is unbeatable. They use absorb, push, pull and overpowered guns.Nobody is unbeatable, my friend. If they beat you, it's because they're greater in skill than you are. It's because they're having a better day than you are. It's because they picked a better strategy than you did. Take your pick.

If you're talking about trying to kill a gunner with your sabre, that's just a poor, frankly silly strategic choice. A melee weapon vs. a ranged weapon? Why would you even try? :confused:

Originally posted by babywax:

Do you want to know why flechette is considered overpowered by most people? Because it is. Small but perfectly formed argument there. Incorrect, though. A gun that kills people in two-three shots is not overpowered.

Originally posted by babywax:

If you run at someone with a flechette who is skilled, he will double ball you, while you fly back he will calculate where you will land and double ball you again.Even you admit then, that the flechette's effectiveness depends on the skill of the user. Read your own line: "If you run at someone with a flechette who is skilled"... Of course you're going to get flechied if you just run at a skilled flechette-user. That doesn't mean the gun is overpowered.

Originally posted by babywax:

I don't complain when I'm killed, almost ever.And I don't murder people with a pick-axe. Almost ever. :p

This is the wrong thread, but...

Range is not the greatest factor in the usefulness of a weapon. The saber allows you to close the gap, plus it does way more damage close up. If a guy is shooting at you with a sniper rifle, you turn on seeing and speed and run up to him before he can react, do a three hit red combo, and he's dead. Just because you have to be close doesn't meant the saber is no good against guns.

If a guy is shooting at you with a sniper rifle, you turn on seeing and speed and run up to him before he can react, do a three hit red combo, and he's dead.

Erm... a competent sniper shoots you in mid air in a fraction of a second while he is bunnyhopping away. You will not have time to put on seeing or speed.

Running up to the gunner and hitting him three times with RED!? No offense but.. uh, you don't play much with guns, do you? :)

Range is not the greatest factor in the usefulness of a weapon. The saber allows you to close the gap, plus it does way more damage close up. If a guy is shooting at you with a sniper rifle, you turn on seeing and speed and run up to him before he can react, do a three hit red combo, and he's dead. Just because you have to be close doesn't meant the saber is no good against guns.Range is very much the most important factor. The straighter the trajectory, the better the weapon. The more powerful the projectile, the better the weapon. But if a weapon has infinite range, it's so very powerful. The disruptor is one of the best weapons in JO, because of its variable power, instant fire-hit and 100% straight trajectory. As for your "run at them" strategy, it relies on them being very very slow. Remember, they don't have to charge the disruptor to shoot you. Especially when you're slowed down by waving your red style sabre around. If the sniper was anywhere near your skill level, they'd have a choice of either evading you, or killing you.

The reason the sabre is inferior to the guns is very MUCH that you have to be close to use it. All they have to do is maintain distance. You have to close it. You have more work to do.

Originally posted by Solbe M'ko
Range is not the greatest factor in the usefulness of a weapon. Actually, I think it is. As in the guns have it and the lightsaber doesn't.

Originally posted by Solbe M'ko
The saber allows you to close the gap. Huh? How does it allow you to close the gap. Doesn't it only force you to close the gap? And thus it is at a disadvantage? All it does is block some primary fire. But who relies on the primary fire? Most people rely on the secondary fire, which the lightsaber is useless against, at least for the big guns.

Originally posted by Solbe M'ko
plus it does way more damage close up. More damage than what? Certainly not much more than the top end guns. Besides, unless you are using red stance, it takes several hits to kill someone. You can kill them with fewer shots from a gun. If you are using red stance, the swing is so slow you can still kill them faster with a big gun.

Originally posted by Solbe M'ko
If a guy is shooting at you with a sniper rifle, you turn on seeing and speed and run up to him before he can react, do a three hit red combo, and he's dead. Just because you have to be close doesn't meant the saber is no good against guns. How are you going to run up to him before he can react? Is he standing 10 feet away? What if he starts backing up and throws on speed too? What if he is on another walkway that you can't reach? How are you going to close the distance then? By the time you get there, he has alread pulled out the rocket launcher.

Because you have to get close for the lightsaber doesn't mean it is useless, but it does mean it is at a big disadvantage.

I think, again, what we're dealing with here is the difference in game styles that people PLAY and the game styles that people WANT. I think that a lot of the "Hey! The flechette sucks! It's too powerful!!" people would be satisfied if they were playing a class-based game. In such a scenario, sure the flechette would be powerful, but using it would, for example, cause your movements to slow, or deny you the ability to use a sabre, or whatever.

I used to rail about the whole balance issue, especially of guns vs. sabres until I tried thinking about it from a game STYLE perspective. When you get down to it, FFA is just about frags. Plain and simple. Nothing more. Grab a weapon, kill the other guy, rinse, repeat. If you're wedded to a particular weapon, you'd better be DAMN good with it. For example, in UT, if you wanted to use nothing but the sniper rifle, great, but you'd better be able to get headshots every time, or else that guy with the flak cannon is gonna turn you to kibble. Same goes for Q2. You can use that double-barreled shotgun all the time, but you'd better watch out for the railgun toting dude who can pick the fleas off a dog's back with that thing.

Another thing that I think really puts things in perspective is where you look at Al's (or someone's, if not Al) discussion that our expectations for FFA come from the Star Wars universe, in which there are Jedi and everyone else. In FFA, though EVERYONE is a Jedi (at least in terms of having access to the same powers, equipment, etc.). So if you're looking for the kind of balance I described in the paragraph above this one, you're just not going to find it in FFA.

In fact, come to think about it, that style of gameplay really isn't suited towards one v. all FFA anyway. It's better for team FFA or other team games where you can have the classes complement each other. IE: the medic is great, but you need the engineer to back him up so they can repair each other's armor and health together. Whatever, you get the point.

Now, as far as the balance of guns in FFA for JO goes, the more I thought about it, as I've said, the more I think they're well balanced. The Merr-Sonn is powerful, but REALLY easy to dodge, and even easier to push back. The E-11 fires quickly and is powerful, but is lousy for accuracy and can be blocked back at you. The flechette is powerful , but its primary fire can be blocked partially, and the secondary can be unpredictable. The heavy repeater has an even more easily blocked primary, and its secondary is easier to push back at you and requires pretty good aim for long range use. I could go on, but you get the picture.

I will say this, though. Even with all of that, I still think the sabre is almost worthless in a full guns, full force FFA game, at least as an offensive weapon. For defense, it's great, but offensively it's lousy. It might as well just be a shield for all the use you get out of it. I'd like to see the sabre beefed up for ALL styles of combat, to the point where one hit will kill pretty much instantly if it hits the body or head, and two hits will kill for any extremity, regardless of stance or swing type. I still think that the disadvantages for the sabre would outweigh its power, since, as has been pointed out, you have to work pretty hard to close the distance between you and the enemy, even with the reduced backpedal speed.

Now, as far as a class based mode would go, in THAT sense, I'd say we need some more class-specific weaponry and abilities. Gun users should not be as mobile as sabre users, for example. There are plenty of other ways to balance such a game style, but it would need a different KIND of balance than what you need in FFA. FFA needs different weapons to perform different jobs, sometimes at different power levels. Class-based needs a closer eye towards almost leveling the playing field so that no single class can dominate a game. Doing the same thing in FFA would result in a fairly boring game, though, since you'd just have a whole bunch of guns that do basically the same amount of damage, just with different graphics maybe.

Now as far as MY problems with certain guns (and man, on an unrelated note, this is a long post even for ME), for me it's more about the feel of the universe being lost with certain weapons than with their power. The flechette and heavy repeater are still on my "not cool" list, though that's largely due to the fact that they operate in a manner that seems somehow un-starwarsy to me. I'd have no problem bringing the conc back, though. That one's always had a star wars feel to me. Probably because it's more reminiscent of a blaster. I don't have a problem with other projectiles showing up, but the JO guns just seemed somehow less starwarsy than what I'd hoped for.

Excellent post :)

And I was one of those who brought up the "everyone is a Jedi, unlike the movies" argument. :p

And I was one of those who brought up the "everyone is a Jedi, unlike the movies" argument. :pBah! T'was me first, cully! :hatchrun:

On a side note, I find this smiley:

:monkbomb:

Disturbing. I vote that it should be removed, because it's anti-monkey in its sentiments.