They should follow Blizzard's lead and allow players to beta test the patches before they release it.

Jedi Outcast fans got screwed coz every patch release was just too radical of a change to the game...

Hope Raven learnt from that.

Originally posted by Dunpeel
They should follow Blizzard's lead and allow players to beta test the patches before they release it.

Jedi Outcast fans got screwed coz every patch release was just too radical of a change to the game...

Hope Raven learnt from that.

I assume that you are asserting that the knowledgable JKII audience - as represented here by people who whine, complain, flame, and disagree about virtually everything - would have done a better job in shaping the patches? I am not saying you are right or wrong, but given we've simultaneously seen 'make the saber single-hit lethal' and 'remove all 1-hit kill moves' ... it seems unlikely.

I'm not a big MP player, and likely won't be for JA (or HL2 or EF2 or whatever), but it seems to me that people thought the first patch took care of the major balance issues, the next threw things out of balance, and the next was instantly ridiculed by some (some of whom seem to instantly ridicule everything) and rejoiced by others. Balancing weapons is not easy. Balancing weapons, plus 3 classes of sabers, plus two 'sides' of Force with multiple powers each becomes even more difficult.

One thing I will say - I hope they decide on a 'balance framework', and I don't care if it is 'fair' or 'right' or 'canon', but pick one, and stick with it. Only patch bugs and things that obviously break that 'balance framework'. Some of the more thoughtful posters here have said things I'll paraphrase as 'I don't care which gameplay mode you choose, just don't mess with it when the game is already out there'.

Mike

Patches that alter gameplay mechanics are often very contentious, and inclined to split gaming communities. I've seen it happen with other games, and I saw it happen with JO. So I echo Mike's sentiment that any patches should only address obvious bugs, and not alter fundamental features that affect how the game is played. There will always be people who will complain how a game plays, no matter what the settings, but if the majority of people are happy with it, I don't see that there is a major problem. As long as Raven play test it and are satisifed that the game plays how it is meant to play, then I hope they leave it alone...

Another thing ... and I say this as a huge Star Wars fan since seeing the first one at 11 in 1977 ... [yes, I know - Fossil!]

Star Wars fans are under the impression that they own the context of the saga. They are wrong. George Lucas owns the overriding context, and whether or not we like it, Star Wars is ultimately what he says it is. Likewise, Raven and (more importantly) LEC owns the context for the DF/JK game series. They decide what is right and wrong, and we either like it or not. But it is not ours.

I like the basic decisions Raven and LEC made with the franchise last time out, and hope they will make more judgements that fall in line with my opinions of the SW universe this time ;) But again, make a decision and stick with it for MP. Otherwise someone's 'fix' becomes someone else's 'nerf' (no, not the football ...)

Mike

It didn't seem to me like there were all that many changes in the patches. Of course, I didn't play much before the 1.4 patch, so that may just be my own misconception.

Huge changes Minstrel, huge changes. Back in the days of 1.03, I was lobbying almost constantly for gameplay-changing patches to be eradicated. They never do any good. But as long as there are people around as there were in the days of 1.02, who are too ready to whinge and whine about things at the top of their voice, we'll get gameplay patches. Woe unto us.

How can Raven avoid screwing the game up? Don't change it after it's released. That way, if it's crap, it's crap. But if it's good... then we're assured of a great experience for years to come.

Star Wars fans are under the impression that they own the context of the saga. They are wrong. George Lucas owns the overriding context, and whether or not we like it, Star Wars is ultimately what he says it is.While I detest Lucas and the fact that he's spending all his time and the fans' money destroying the very marvel he helped to create in the late seventies, I am forced to agree with you on a legal basis. :(

Yup... I agree that the patches should not mess with gameplay.

Indeed as stated, not everybody likes the same things and what is perfect to some is junk to others.

If all players grasp the thought that even though it isnt perfect according to their standards, the game WONT change, they probably will eventually adapt to the system and accept it.

if it gets changed once... then they think : hey... i'll just voice my opinions.. maybe they'll listen... if not.. then i'll scream my complaints for making it worse than ever.

finish the system for SP... use the same for MP... final version??? ... cool!... keep it final.

Well the thing is if raven gets 90 million e-mails a day saying "OMFG THIS HAS TO BE CHANGED" chances are they will forward the info to Lucas Arts and say something like "Look we are getting tons of complaints about X. Can you authorize us to do a patch?"

LA will see a potential to fix a problem that may hurt sales and grant permission for a patch.

That’s what happened before and will happen again I fear.

Now unless Raven simply deletes all complaint e-mail, which I doubt they will do because it's a very customer friendly company, the rest of us have to speak up just as loud about how the game is not broken.

So am I the only one who thought that drain was too powerfull, the DFA shouldn't be able to be aimed, the backstab was abused too much and you shouldn't be able to avoid falling damage with a lunge in mid-air???

C'mon guys, those were problems, some move that is overused isn't nice and those pull-backstabbers really began to annoy me :mad: Yeah sure, some of you might think; "if it's there, I use it", and I agree, but without those moves dueling could be alot more fun...

The patches, unfortunately, "fixxed" a lot more then they needed to :( But Raven did NOT screw this game up. I still like saber combat and think t hat most of the ppl who claim the 'professionals' left because of the changes are no different from the 'saber off = peace' lamers :mad:

after playing 1.04 for a long long time, then going onto a 1.03 server, i must say that the patch is a GODSEND! 1.03 is really really crap, the backstab for one, but also force push or pull pretty much pins you to the ground because it can be repeated very rapidly. The patching of JO didnt make 'major changes' to the game, they fixed exploits that some people were using to give themselves an unfair advantage.
Balancing a game so that everyone has an equal chance of winning on a server is really hard. Ideally, a balanced game will have a server full of completely unexperienced players all with the same score (approximately), but as i said, thats really really hard to do. Things like the backstab and push/pull exploits had to be removed, it was simply a balance thing..if everyone had an even chance of doing it (like if it was a documented skill) then maybey it couldve been left in, but its a pretty bad design move really.

Also, Blizzard does not test its patches publicly, no company that im aware of makes beta patches public unless it fixes a hardware problem that only a relatively small amount of people will suffer from. Blizzard have been running public betas of their full games since Warcraft3, but this is only for Battle.Net play, and only the release version of it. Patches are later brought out in repsonse to the community, just like with JO and JA, they are tested in-house first though. Believe me, in house software testing is a heck of a lot better than public testing for gameplay changes.

Originally posted by Matariel:

after playing 1.04 for a long long time, then going onto a 1.03 server, i must say that the patch is a GODSEND! 1.03 is really really crap, the backstab for one, but also force push or pull pretty much pins you to the ground because it can be repeated very rapidly. The patching of JO didnt make 'major changes' to the game, they fixed exploits that some people were using to give themselves an unfair advantage.Ugh! wrong. 1.03 was the patch that the whiners wanted and received. 1.04 was made to try and fix all the problems that the silly whiners caused! Surely you've been playing since 1.02? Maybe not...

Ravens only mistake was they listened "community" too much.. they shouldn't have tweaked the gameplay at all ! After 1.03 came out I stopped using saber as a normal weapon, it became simple shield against blasters because I didn't like running backwards while pressing one mouse button. *sigh* Not only they changed damage of saber but the whole movement was different ! Yes I WOULD go back playing 1.02, but there really isn't many servers like that out there..

Raven really made two mistakes IMO, and I hope it is avoided this time around:

1. They made patches that involved altering (however drastically) the gameplay itself. Most of the time people complained because they couldn't be bothered to figure out what the counter was. The patches should have addressed bugs only (like the DFA collision box issue).

2. To try to balance things, they nerfed stuff. This made many things less effective (like the lightsaber), and less fun. If you are going to try and "balance" something, provide an equally powerful alternative.

Raven should really try and wait a month or two before listening to complaints about gameplay issues. Give people time to find out what the counters are. Then, hopefully (naively?), the complaints will die down.

Originally posted by Prime
Raven really made two mistakes IMO, and I hope it is avoided this time around:

1. They made patches that involved altering (however drastically) the gameplay itself. Most of the time people complained because they couldn't be bothered to figure out what the counter was. The patches should have addressed bugs only (like the DFA collision box issue).

2. To try to balance things, they nerfed stuff. This made many things less effective (like the lightsaber), and less fun. If you are going to try and "balance" something, provide an equally powerful alternative.

Raven should really try and wait a month or two before listening to complaints about gameplay issues. Give people time to find out what the counters are. Then, hopefully (naively?), the complaints will die down.

I agree with your two points, but I think your first and 'third' points are somewhat contradictory, and were something I tried to address before. Namely, I'd like to think that Raven would come up with a MP spreadsheet for each gametype, and cross-matrix attacks and counter-attacks and defences including weapons and force powers. Once they decide how that matrix works in a way that they believe it is balanced, put it 'in ink'. Any patch would only be to address bugs/exploits that voilated those 'rules' in fact, or in spirit if there was a compelling case.

Perhaps by providing more of a sense of what is *supposed* to happen they can avoid 'noob confusion' (in this case, we're all newbies when a game just is released).

A personal thing I'd like to see is more 'reverence' for the lightsaber. By this I mean that if I have a saber and you haev an E-11, and you're 2 meters away from me ... unless I am doing one of those useless blue twirl attack nothing moves, I should never die. As stated in various places of semi-canon, up close, there should be nothing more lethal than a Jedi and his/her lightsaber.

Mike

From where I sit the multiplayer implementation of JO was unsuccessful. Painfully obvious bugs were present at launch and subsequent patches were drastic enough as to be divisive to the community.

Whatever methods Raven used to develop/balance JO mp it is clear these methods need to be approached differently, replaced, and/or expanded for JA mp. This will become even more important given the increased complexity class/objective play will bring to multiplayer.

Originally posted by Sargasso
From where I sit the multiplayer implementation of JO was unsuccessful. Painfully obvious bugs were present at launch and subsequent patches were drastic enough as to be divisive to the community.

Whatever methods Raven used to develop/balance JO mp it is clear these methods need to be approached differently, replaced, and/or expanded for JA mp. This will become even more important given the increased complexity class/objective play will bring to multiplayer.

While I agree that the patches were divisive, I would characterize JKII's MP as a 'mixed bag'. I believe it would have been more successful without the divisive patches, which created a sh*tstorm (mainly of whining but I'll leave that for someone else to say ;) ) right when the game was at its' fastest selling pace / greatest hype factor. I'm not a big MP person, so it didn't matter much to me, but it did tend to largely keep me away from these forums for some months.

On the other hand, I think that aside from team combat type games, and UT2003, JKII is still right there with other games of its' class. There wasn't anything to make it more appealing to squad based players. Hopefully JA will deal with this as well.

Mike

I believe it would have been more successful without the divisive patches, which created a sh*tstorm (mainly of whining but I'll leave that for someone else to say :) )While the patches did create a heated debate, as a dedicated MP player, I have to say that most of the whining occurred prior to the patches. They whined about getting killed, so 1.03 was created.

Originally posted by Spider AL
While the patches did create a heated debate, as a dedicated MP player, I have to say that most of the whining occurred prior to the patches. They whined about getting killed, so 1.03 was created.

Thanks for the correction ... as an outsider, I just saw the sh*tstorm :(

Mike

Originally posted by txa1265
I agree with your two points, but I think your first and 'third' points are somewhat contradictory... I guess I didn't explain that very well. I feel that patches shouldn't introduce gameplay changes. But if you are going to make a gameplay patch, at least allow some time after the game comes out to find out what the problems really are.

Originally posted by Prime
I guess I didn't explain that very well. I feel that patches shouldn't introduce gameplay changes. But if you are going to make a gameplay patch, at least allow some time after the game comes out to find out what the problems really are.

That is why I said 'somewhat' ... I thought I understood what you were saying (and was pretty much right). My thought is that they should be more anal - once they have decided the balance strategy (even if it is 'we want a**fighting everywhere ... it may be lousy but it's hilarious to watch), then stick with it. Patch what is broken only ... not when people say Red is too strong - even if itt's true ... only if it is uncounterable and you designed it to be too strong but counterable.

Mike

I think patches should alter gameplay if necessary. I think what happened with 1.03, is that Raven didn't realize the new problem created by their patch. They obviously fixed this in 1.04. You may think the sabers are totally nerfed in 1.04, and you may be right. A few good server cvars can make it all better, however we shouldn't have to set those ourselves.

I think Raven would have gone on to make another patch, but LEC didn't think it was necessary. At that time, they probably thought, "Well this JA expansion of ours is going to be out in no time, and is going to redefine the MP anyways, no point in making a patch." And they were kind of right. Remember at that time JA would still have been an expansion, not a full game.

I think patches should alter gameplay if necessary. I think what happened with 1.03, is that Raven didn't realize the new problem created by their patch. They obviously fixed this in 1.04. You may think the sabers are totally nerfed in 1.04, and you may be right. A few good server cvars can make it all better, however we shouldn't have to set those ourselves.Don't forget the Dark Side and Heal nerfing... 1.04 didn't fix that. As you say, Raven may have gone on to sort it out in another patch, but frankly why bother? One bugfixing patch would have been fine, instead we got two gameplay-altering patches which, to an extent, spoiled the game for a lot of people. In fact I can't think of a single gameplay-altering patch for any game I've ever played, CS, UT, that has improved it in any noticable way.

Anyway, here's hoping JA is as excellent as 1.02 was.

Spider Al, what do YOU think Raven should've fixxed in the patches then??

Originally posted by Spider AL
While the patches did create a heated debate, as a dedicated MP player, I have to say that most of the whining occurred prior to the patches. They whined about getting killed, so 1.03 was created.

Yep.

I registered here the day the game came out and within the first week people already started flipping out over "heavy swing whoring".

People never even gave the game a chance or tried to learn counters before they started complaining.

The 1.03 days were the worst of this. Literally the *day that patch came out they started in with the "THIS MUST BE FIXED OR I QUIT!!!11" (any of you vets remember all the "retirement threads" from disgruntled players?)

Now I admit going from a total dark to a total light was a little tough to adjust to... it took me all of a week to learn/adapt.

Although I'm not a big fan of 1.03, the point is before you start preaching the death of JA give it a chance to friggen *come out first...

Sure things may seem unbalanced or overpowered at first but remember, we will *all be noobs in the beginning.

With a little time/strategy/ingenuity those "cheap" moves and powers will seem trivial in no time if you actually put some effort into learning the game.

It was the same with 1.04, a lot of ppl refused to play in competition with that patch :rolleyes: And it was only the nerfing of the backstab that made them say that... It's just too bad JO suffered from whiners :(

On one side, you have the RPGing fanboys who whine that Raven should add all those RPG **** and that all moves that can be 'whored' should be removed.

On the other hand you have the so-called 'L337' ppl who wanted to DFA and backstab like their lives depended on it (er... ;)) and who were mad because of what the patches did.

Thos two groups ruined the community every time, all patches were bad, even before they came out... BTW, I must say I admire Raven for the fact that they released some sort of unnoficial 1.04 patch... Not that the patch was everything I hoped for, but it showed to me that at least they care...

1.02 damage scales with 1.04 animations would rock.

1.02 to be honest had really crappy physics and animations when compared to 1.04.

Little things like the roll forward then +back for a quick halt tend to "tighten up" the overall feel of your control over your player and make it play smoother.

Even the backstab in 1.02 had a different "feel". It's hard to explain unless you are one of those die hard players but 1.02 did kind of have a "loose/sloppy" feel to the player movements.

Stuff like the dfa/back stab pivot, the air lunge could have been fixed along with the various animation changes and if the damage/blocking would have been left alone (sabers) it would have been great.

Even the backstab in 1.02 had a different "feel". It's hard to explain unless you are one of those die hard players but 1.02 did kind of have a "loose/sloppy" feel to the player movements.

kind of like single player i think, i hated that feeling. hopefully it will be like 1.04 (tight and not sloppy) in JA

Originally posted by txa1265
That is why I said 'somewhat' ... I thought I understood what you were saying (and was pretty much right). Cool :)

Originally posted by txa1265
My thought is that they should be more anal - once they have decided the balance strategy (even if it is 'we want a**fighting everywhere ... it may be lousy but it's hilarious to watch), then stick with it. Patch what is broken only ... not when people say Red is too strong - even if itt's true ... only if it is uncounterable and you designed it to be too strong but counterable. Well, if something is obviously broken in terms of gameplay, I won't get too upset with them fixing it. Like the pull/backstab, for example. But your motives I certainly agree with. Raven needs to be very selective what they try and change, and I rather they leave things as is as opposed to making too many drastic changes.

Originally posted by Emon
You may think the sabers are totally nerfed in 1.04, and you may be right. A few good server cvars can make it all better... I am really surprised that this hasn't caught on more. A simple increase of the saber damage scale makes the saber much more deadly and useful. I have played on a server or two with this, and it was a blast. For all the moaning about nerfed sabers, the solution is sitting right there.

Originally posted by shock ~ unnamed
The 1.03 days were the worst of this. Literally the *day that patch came out they started in with the "THIS MUST BE FIXED OR I QUIT!!!11" (any of you vets remember all the "retirement threads" from disgruntled players?)I certainly remember those :D I remember when Artifex left, he wrote this big long post about how crappy the game was and it wasn't worth playing. The funniest threads were when people (sometimes first time posters!) were posting that the game sucks and they were uninstalling it, and they got upset when the only responses they got were "good" and "see ya". :D Of course, the game has been branded "dead" for about a year now.

Originally posted by shock ~ unnamed
Sure things may seem unbalanced or overpowered at first but remember, we will *all be noobs in the beginning.

With a little time/strategy/ingenuity those "cheap" moves and powers will seem trivial in no time if you actually put some effort into learning the game. Indeed. Remember all the posts about how Lightning was unbeatable and DFA was the super uber-move? Ah, the good old days...

ahhhh yes 1.02, what a fun time that was, then the 1.03 experience,

and yes you could still have a great game if the server was configured right, all the time with each patch just about everyting was configureable so you could make the game play and damage how you wanted it, then not to mention the changes the mods brought, hehe

whiners, man i wish i had been in the cheese business back then, and i was and still am a decent player, i looked for all the counters and got good, if you just used a max of three moves you have no chance against me, i wonder where all these kids get the 50 bucks for the game and why they dont just spend it on candy and let some of us have a decent game with out playing babysitter for them all, i really feel for the devs and all the corps making games and haveing to listen to constant scrutiny, they are all just doing us a favor and bringing our imaginations to life, we should be thankful and find a way to make anything work, its all about the fun

im sure many things about academy have been learned from jk2, atleast i hope so, one thing i hope everyone learned is, if you spend the time to make something great, you dont have to listen to some who dont like it, it was your life that was used to make it so make it how you think it should be, its everyone elses choice to waste their life playing it, lol

Well i think it all comes down to "if it's not broken, dont fix it!"

Of course bugs and exploits should be removed or changed... just not at the expense of creating new exploits.

Originally posted by Prime
Indeed. Remember all the posts about how Lightning was unbeatable and DFA was the super uber-move? Ah, the good old days...

One of the very first posts I made here:

http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=39882)

I was a noob, I was getting owned, so I asked for help.

JK2 people are actually very friendly if you simply ask for help (rather than "FU LAMER!") chances are you will get it.

DFA spam in 1.02 duel mode... I don't know what was worse, that or being knocked to the bottom of the "waiting to duel" list because I switched my force set up from light side to dark side.

Most (well, I hope most) mods have have a set of g_ commands that allow you to tweak damage from minimum blue slash damage to DFA (I know that VAM and JA have this right off the bat, not sure on the other ones). If balance could be found through there, then I believe the experience would have been more enjoyable then the craptastic glowsticks (that word will always be in my vocab, thanks Fatal) we have right now.

Obviously Raven needs to do the one thing they should have done in the beginning: give the whiners a hearty cup of shut up if it's a stupid reason for them to be whining.

Originally posted by HertogJan:

Spider Al, what do YOU think Raven should've fixxed in the patches then??Well HJ, in 1.02 there were only a few bugs to fix. Raven technically classified the way people could spin after a DFA a bug, so that should indeed have been fixed. Batsabre was not a bug, but was intentional so even though I dislike it, it should have been left in. Sabre damage and blocking should not have been changed as they were not bugs. All multiplayer specific bugs such as quitting a duel if you changed skins or other player settings, and the invisible skin exploit, should have been removed, as should the hover-light-lunge move, which was a particularly strange, fall-damage avoiding bug.

No force powers should have been changed in terms of healing or damage, as there was nothing buggy about them.

Bear in mind, a bug is any effect that the game designers did not intend. Not every bug is bad, but most are. Bugs must go, but gameplay must be left alone in all other respects. It's up to Raven to decide what is a bug and what is not, because only they know what they intended to program in.

Don't try to balance gameplay with a patch, you'll never do it. Just fix bugs and let the game find its own level playing field.

Originally posted by Spider AL
Don't try to balance gameplay with a patch, you'll never do it. Just fix bugs and let the game find its own level playing field.

Try telling that to Mythic.

You know, 1.03 was a great improvement for SP. It also added EAX which many of us enjoy greatly.

If anyone cares, you can fix 1.04's nerfed saber with a few cvars (not saying Raven shouldn't have fixed it or made these cvars default).

I think MP could have been awesome had it been just like SP. That's pretty much why i didn't play the MP game, I'm not a big fan of MP anyway but it could have been fun with the AI and gameplay used as in the SP campaign. And i'm sorry the mods jedimod, promod, and all those other mods that tried to enhance the game just didn't cut it. I think all they did was add to the problem and divided the community exponentially. The problem was with the core gameplay and if you can't change that, there's really no point in trying to enhance what you can't change.

But i'm pretty confident raven has heard the problems that people had as most of the people i hear complaining are the ones who wanted the MP side more like the SP game. Here's hoping they make the game like this or better.

haha, yea shock, i remimber that post, its weird to see all those nicks that were once regulars, and now tehy all have 0 points lmao.

Anyway, im not a die hard rpgsabernoobie, and im not a competitive player im probably yoru average player in jk2, i happen to think that raven didnt screw up in jk2, and i play it to death, whatever each patch is, i find what works, the longer a patch is out, the more stuff people will find ;)

Im also reletivly sure that all of JA's MP action will be at least based on 1.04 since that is the latest patch for jk2, you wouldnt think they would start all over again, but who knows. I think whatever they put out for a saber system, i will play it and learn it well, and hopefully there will be a promod, so i can rid the world of gunners with one fell swoop :D

yes, promod for JA will be cool :)
i dont even use the saber since we started to play promod, killing jedi with guns just rocks :)

But- when we decide to play a duel map (without promod usually) i have to say that 1.04 is so very much better than it was with 1.03.

And to Spider AL, im not a 1.04 'n00b', i bought this game the day it was released in Australia, but we didnt play it at a lan until about a week later, and by that time 1.03 patch had been released. One of our lan regulars found out about the backstab move from ppl on the net and started to use it constantly. That sucked. A move that gives a player an unfair advantage on a server is BAD GAME DESIGN. Solution: 1.04, excellent, balance has been restored.

Could somebody explain to me the 'huge gameplay changes' that were supposedly implemented in 1.04?

Originally posted by Matariel
But- when we decide to play a duel map (without promod usually) i have to say that 1.04 is so very much better than it was with 1.03.

Yes, but it didn't really work out for FFA and CTF etc.!! Duel and FFA are two completely different gametypes, which should be treated differently!! I'm thinking of different saber damage and speed, maybe even different stats for some of the force powers!

And to Spider AL, im not a 1.04 'n00b',You're right, you're a "1.03 n00b". :) Your word, by the way. Not mine.

i bought this game the day it was released in Australia, but we didnt play it at a lan until about a week later, and by that time 1.03 patch had been released. One of our lan regulars found out about the backstab move from ppl on the net and started to use it constantly. That sucked. A move that gives a player an unfair advantage on a server is BAD GAME DESIGN. Solution: 1.04, excellent, balance has been restored.That's why 1.04 is universally looked upon as the lesser of two evils among serious players. ;) And balance is a myth, btw.

Could somebody explain to me the 'huge gameplay changes' that were supposedly implemented in 1.04?Okay. In 1.04, ammo consumption was changed from 1.03. Many sabre moves and the damage thereof were changed in 1.04 from 1.03.

As for the changes 1.03 introduced from 1.02... Have you got a few hours? Since you haven't played 1.02 online, you may not be familiar with the term "batsabre". It's the term that describes the 1.02 effect of heavy stance strikes on an opponent. It literally threw them around, like they'd been hit with a bat. Big gameplay difference. Then Force Heal was completely changed in 1.03, absorb was completely changed in 1.03, ammo consumption was changed in 1.03, sabre DAMAGE was changed in 1.03, the list is endless.

The reason people don't go around raving that 1.04 is the best thing since sliced bread, is that it didn't fix EVERYTHING that was wrong with 1.03. It fixed a lot of problems and was welcome, but it didn't fix them all. So JO was wasted as an online experience, frankly. I still played it for a long time, and indeed have a fun game every now and then, but I was a serious player during 1.02, a dissolusioned player in 1.03, and a part-timer in 1.04, simply because the patching process removed a lot that was good, from the game.

Originally posted by Matariel
One of our lan regulars found out about the backstab move from ppl on the net and started to use it constantly. That sucked. A move that gives a player an unfair advantage on a server is BAD GAME DESIGN. Although I like 1.04 much more than 1.03, 1.03 certainly wasn't "unfair", since every player had the ability to do the pull/backstab. The balance was fine in this respect. But as Al has said, and has been debated here in the past, balance never truly exists anyway.

As for bad game design, the pull/backstab and its ilk were so powerful because it was not part of the game design at all in the first place. This is what happens when a gameplay patch is hastily put out to answer to all the whining about this or that being too powerful. Like the pull/saber throw now, the pull/backstab was not designed as part of the game, and thus did not have a reasonable counter.

In the end though, 1.03 was less fun for most people than 1.04.

Originally posted by Matariel
Solution: 1.04, excellent, balance has been restored. Again, balance has been restored in what sense? Guns dominate sabers, some guns are better than others, and so on. 1.04 did deal with certain "moves" that weren't part of the design in the first place. :)

Again, balance has been restored in what sense? Guns dominate sabers, some guns are better than others, and so on. 1.04 did deal with certain "moves" that weren't part of the design in the first place.

True, it did deal with most of the illegit special problems (I'm still itching my head over the rotatability of the yellow undercut when you are on the ground, even more prevailent is the bug used to get out of it in basejk :eek: ), however to say that balance was restored was bull****. Promod was the one of the few chances to have sabers restored to an asskicking weapon besides the guns, and very few play it.

If only rcon admins had knowledge of their server cvars.

Originally posted by Rad Blackrose
If only rcon admins had knowledge of their server cvars. Amen to that :)

You know what I think would help avoid the problems of JK2? DO IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME.

Eliminate the need for gameplay patches by creating a good, fun game the first time around. Now, that's of course a pretty obvious suggestion, but I think it goes deeper than just "don't release gameplay altering patches." I've seen games really benefit from gameplay altering patches before, and I think that when done right, they can be quite beneficial. BF1942 is a good example. In early versions of the game, you could toss grenades at tanks and blow them to bits with only 4 or 5 grenades. A tank. Blown up. With grenades. Well, a later patch fixed this and made it so that the damage done was considerably lessened (though not eliminated). Big improvement. Not ALL gameplay changes are bad, but the ones done by Raven for JO weren't fantastic.

Personally, I thought that 1.04 was a much better patch than 1.03 (obviously), and that it was somewhat more fun than 1.02, though I never played much 1.02 online. I always felt that 1.02 was, as has been described already, loose and sloppy. There were hardly any sabre collisions, which resulted in people swinging their sabres around as if in a jousting match.

WARNING: FROM HERE ON, THIS POST GETS PRETTY LONG. SKIP TO THE BOTTOM IF YOU WANT THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. READ THE REST OF THE POST IF YOU WANT THE REASONS FOR MY SUGGESTIONS. :D

I think that one thing that Raven could do that would help alleviate the problems we saw in JO is abandon the notion of a single balance scheme for every gameplay type. When your gameplay styles are roughly similar (IE: FFA & CTF) it makes sense. But when you throw in duel mode, that changes things. Much of 1.04 and 1.03 (without the backstab exploit) were pretty damn good for dueling. But they were lousy for FFA and CTF. In dueling, you want the game to be slower, more thought out. FFA, you just want to frag people. CTF, you want to frag people, but with a team-based goal. :) With JA, we'll see the introduction of class-based MP, and for that, you DEFINITELY need to have a different system. Just having people only have certain different weapon loadouts won't cut it. There will need to be differences in the classes that have to do with abilities, weapons, equipment, etc. And you may want to have the weapons themselves operate differently in class mode from how they will in FFA. Why? Because your balancing goals are different.

In FFA, the balance issue is to have weapons that are good for some uses, but not for others (thus, there is no single uber weapon for all situations). People may have preferences for weapons, and while some weapons will be more powerful than others, skilled players should be able to do well with a number of different weapons, depending on the situation. Overall, at least with the guns, I felt that existed pretty much perfectly in JO. I didn't particularly LIKE the weapons, but you can't deny that they were pretty well balanced -- no single weapon was THE uber weapon. They all had advantages and disadvantages, even if they didn't all do the same level or type of damage.

Same goes for force powers in FFA: different uses for different powers, and no single power will or should always dominate in every situation. Sure, absorb is great, but sooner or later it runs out or you need to use a different power, and then your opponent uses some darkside power to kill you or severely weaken you. Likewise, lightning is an AWESOME power, but it's pretty much useless when the other guy has absorb turned on. I thought there were some changes which really helped gameplay in 1.03 at least in terms of force powers (IE: turning OFF the constant blue-glow effect of absorb, and making it only flash when its turned on, but still making it audible) and I think that some aspects of the force powers could've been done better (IE: push and pull were FAR too easy to overuse, and shouldn't have been quite so dominant), but on the whole, I think the force powers were done pretty well for FFA.

In CTF, your balance goal is pretty much identical to FFA, at least if it's not a class-based CTF game. Essentially, all you're doing is adding teams and flags to the game, not changing the weapon dynamics.

In Duel, your balance goal becomes much more narrowly focused. You're now dealing with two people, one of whom has likely been waiting in line for a while and wants a fun game that won't end in two seconds flat. So, you need to slow things down, and make them more deliberate. Guns are generally thrown out the window, so you're left with sabre balance issues and force balancing issues. You can still basically maintain the force balance that you had in the other modes, but you may want to lower damage rates for certain force powers, so as to drag the duel out (after all, it's duel mode, not shooting gallery mode like FFA). Same goes for sabre damage. The damage ratios you had in FFA may be higher than the damage you have in duel. Why? Again, speed of the game. You want FFA to be fast paced, so you want powerful attacks and lower blocking abilities. You want duels to be more thought out, so you have to take an almost opposing design for them (weaker attacks, higher blocking). 1.03/.04 was a dueler's patch fundamentally.

This is why I think that you can't have a single uniform, one-size-fits-all approach to weapons, force powers, and the sabre. You need to tailor them to the game mode in question. That's my first BIG suggestion to Raven: keep in mind what the goal of the game type is, and design accordingly. And keep in mind that the game types can be VERY different.

The other suggestion I have is to get rid of the current design scheme for the sabre. It just doesn't work. It creates too much dissent in the community, especially when damage values are changed. IE: this stance is too powerful, people whore move X, etc., etc. Having sabre styles and attacks that are differently powered in terms of damage just doesn't work and creates far too much fodder for complaint. Rather, I'd say make the sabres absolutely lethal if they hit you on the head or body, or if they sever a limb. (Let's face it. John Cleese as the Black Knight notwithstanding, most people can't continue fighting when their limbs keep getting hacked off.) Glancing blows are a different story, but the blade itself and the force with which it's weilded should not be a consideration in the amount of damage the thing deals. It's a frickin' laser sword. If I slowly, gently, swipe it through your arm, it's gonna chop it off just as easily as if I took a huge windup and slashed the sucker off.

Instead, all attacks should deal equal damage IF they connect. Where the different stances can come in is their ability to break through defenses, their speed of attack, and, most importantly, the range of the swing and how open it leaves you to counter-attack. In fact, get rid of the notion of "heavy/medium/light" for the stances, and name 'em something different altogether. Have them be called Style 1, Style 2, and Style 3, for example.

Style 1 is more focused on tight, precision attacks, that are contained, fast, and much more finesse-oriented. It's like using a rapier, if you want to get a general sense of the idea. Your ability to defend with this style is also increased, because you keep your attacks contained, and thus leave yourself less open. However, the price is that your attacks aren't as forceful, and you may have to work longer to wear through an enemy's defenses. BUT IF YOU HIT HIM, YOU WILL KILL HIM.

Style 2 is a much more aggressive style, in which the jedi adops a more offense-oriented approach. Style II uses more forceful, wider swings, and is more of a hacking approach. Think basket-hilted Scottish claymore (or broadsword, if you prefer the term) if you want to get an idea. It ain't about finesse, it's about power and range. The upside to this style is that you can knock opponents off balance and penetrate defenses with fewer attacks. The downside is you leave YOURSELF more open to attack because you tend to open yourself up and overextend a bit more. BUT IF YOU HIT YOUR OPPONENT, YOU WILL KILL HIM.

Style 3 is a balance of the two previous styles, in which the jedi uses less power and the swings have less range than Style II, but is more forceful and has more range than Style I. Again, if you hit your enemy YOU WILL KILL HIM.

You don't necessarily have to use this particular scheme, though. The point is that there would be differences in the stances/styles, which would be STYLISTIC and would have no effect on the DAMAGE that you deal out. They'd once again just be different tools for the job. No style would be the uber-style, able to win in all situations. Rather, the person who wins in all situations is simply more skilled with that particular style than the opponents he or she has faced. There is, however, no guarantee that they could not be beaten with a different style. Part of the problem we've had is that Raven treated the sabre as if it were a normal sword, which it isn't, and shouldn't be. There are obvious similarities, but the blade itself is (or should be) considerably more lethal than a regular sword. Thus, swinging it harder or softer against a target should have no discernible difference in effect upon the target, as far as damage dealt goes.

Making the sabre entirely lethal would also eliminate the need for "special" (read: uber) moves. In my mind, these special moves were a BIG problem. Sure, they're flashy and look cool the first few hundred times you see them. But after about, oh, the 438th time you've seen your opponent go for a blue lunge or a red or yellow DFA, it gets old. There is really only one reason that I believe explains why people spam special moves: they are one-hit kills. People want to kill the quickest way possible, and given the lethality of the sabres in JO, they needed special moves to do this.

There is only really one reason that I can come up with why Raven includes such moves in the game: they look cool. Obviously, Raven's reason for including them has little to do with why people use them. Witness what happened with the red DFA rom 1.02 to 1.03. In 1.02, it was the attack of choice for MANY people. In 1.03, no one used it. Why? Because the move was balanced in 1.03 to the point where the benefit was roughly even with the downside of using the move. PLUS, there was a new move that could be used just as easily, and that required even less ability to execute. As for looking cool, well, look at all the ass fighters. Ass fighting was about as stupid-looking as you could get, but because the was an insta-kill, people did it.

Making the sabre equally lethal eliminates the need for special moves at all. Every hit is an insta-kill now, if the sabre is equally lethal for all attacks. And as for looking cool, I think you'd see MUCH cooler fights between people, if they had a wide variety of moves, if they required people to learn a large number of attacks and counters, if people had to do more than just spam one move over and over and over and over. Think about it. Instead of seeing one move used over and over again, you'd actually have a different fight every time. It wouldn't just be reduced to who can hit pull and execute a backstab first, or who can DFA into that crowd of people first.

There's plenty more that Raven can do to help improve JA's chances, but I'd say the above are a few major improvements. So, to SUMMARIZE:

1.) Have different weapon balances for different game modes. The sabre shouldn't operate the same way in duels as it does in FFA.

2.) Make the sabre 100% lethal if you score a clean hit with it. No more of this "Oh, I used red stance, so that deals out more damage" stuff.

3.) Eliminate uber moves, so as to add a little variety to the fighting and require a bit more skill.

Man, I just looked at that post there, and that is one long-ass post, even for ME. My apologies. :D

Originally posted by Solo4114
1.) Have different weapon balances for different game modes. The sabre shouldn't operate the same way in duels as it does in FFA.

I've been saying this for months. :rolleyes:

Points 2 and 3 are largely academic, IMHO, because of point 1. You can have whatever attacks/defences you need for each gameplay style, and some moves could actually be removed for one particular game mode, but not others.

Anyway, I obviously agree that Raven should implement different damage ratios and combat models for each game mode, and not have a sweeping one-stop-shop-across-the-board combat model for all game types. JO has proven it just doesn't work...

Yup, different damage models etc for different gamemodes, at least for Duel and the other gamemodes, probably for Siege too, in JA... Sabers in other modes than Duel were pretty useless, that's why I can't understand ppl who make NF Sabers FFA servers :rolleyes:

Very well said, and thanks for the naps ;)

The interesting thing is that many people are calling for more parity between SP and MP, without thinking about the overall implications. So, to extend what you implied ... remember that SP is a 'game mode', and has its' own unique needs. Don't feel the need to make sure that 1337 SP players (like me) immediately become 1337 MP players (like I ... never was ;) )

Mike

i pretty much agree with 1 and 3 above.

Saber hit damage should be based more on the hit location than the hit strength... With legs and arm hits causing less damage, then body hits, then head hits.

What hit strength could do is affect the amount of "penetration" the saber causes.
- A "light" hit to the left arm might only cause left arm damage (20%) and then stop.
- A "medium" hit might cross into the next area (left arm damage 20% + left torso damage 25% = 45%)
- A "heavy" (red stance, 2 handed) hit might penetrate 3 areas (left arm 20% + left torso 25% + right torso 25% = 70%

As it is, i think the lighter stance hits are supposed to be like the light touches Count Dooku uses to Obi-wan in Episode 2, but because the saber visually continues to pass into the body, just like the red stances, it makes no sense for them to do less damage.

This shouldn't be too hard to do, as they alreas have hit zones defined from SOF

Originally posted by Solo4114
You know what I think would help avoid the problems of JK2? DO IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME.Sigh. It sounds so easy when you say it. Software development, unfortunately, is a cruel mistress :) It isn't as easy as it sounds. Granted, there are some things in 1.02 that shouldn't have slipped out the door.

Originally posted by Solo4114
1.) Have different weapon balances for different game modes. The sabre shouldn't operate the same way in duels as it does in FFA. The only thing I worry about is having multiple unique learning curves for the different gametypes. I can see this pissing people off (especially casual players) if they have to learn multiple fighting styles. Certainly, damage ranges might have to be different, but having different moves or something might introduce more problems than it solves.

Originally posted by Solo4114
2.) Make the sabre 100% lethal if you score a clean hit with it. No more of this "Oh, I used red stance, so that deals out more damage" stuff. If you go this route and you have blue stance be a one hit kill, then you've removed any reason to use yellow or red. Right now red is more or less a one hit kill, but the slow swing is a disadvantage. If blue was a one hit kill, you have a quick swing that is still deadly. Which will I pick? Not red or yellow.

Originally posted by Solo4114
3.) Eliminate uber moves, so as to add a little variety to the fighting and require a bit more skill. What uber moves are you refering too? DFA? It has it's disadvantages, like leaving yourself open for quite a while. Personally, I like the special moves. I think it adds variety. I'm not sure how removing special moves would increase the need for "skill". Maybe I'm missing what you are saying.

Originally posted by toms
What hit strength could do is affect the amount of "penetration" the saber causes.
- A "light" hit to the left arm might only cause left arm damage (20%) and then stop.
- A "medium" hit might cross into the next area (left arm damage 20% + left torso damage 25% = 45%)
- A "heavy" (red stance, 2 handed) hit might penetrate 3 areas (left arm 20% + left torso 25% + right torso 25% = 70% Are you refering to damage location detection? Like if I hit your arm, your arm is less useful, and so on? If so, Raven looked at this and rejected this as a part of JO (I can't remember the exact interview, but it was a while ago). The reason cited was that no one really wants to play with a "character" that has damaged arms and legs. It makes it so that the person that gets killed now respawns at full health. The winner, who in all likelyhood received some blows, is now running around with no arm. They felt that this would not be a fun way to play. I have to say I kind of agree with them.