(data base error, delete the other thread I can't)

Ok before anyone chimes in with standard responses/flames I want to make a few things clear:

I'm going to take the glaring problems with JA MP and *specifically detail why it is a problem and I would appreciate only serious and *detailed feedback if you respond.

If I say X is a problem, please tell me how Y can solve it.

That basically means no generic "give it time" or "it's only been out two days" responses.



Multiplayer problems:

(This section deals with 1v1 play)

Weak sabers in saber only game types.

In games of saber only Full Force the saber is even more useless than in was in Jedi Outcast 1.04.

Everyone knows players in Jedi Outcast used various combos that revolved around the double tap kick and the combining of Force powers with those double tap kicks to compensate for the saber weakness.


Problem is with the total elimination of those kicks and the combos, the sabers being even *weaker now and the healing power of drain being just as potent as it was in Jedi Outcast, a player who does not wish to be killed will not be.

I guarantee any of you who are reading this that if you were to duel me full force right now I could drag a single round out for 12 hours by simply draining you.

You could not rely on high damage force based combos to end my "drain whoring" because they have been removed.

You could not use "specials" or "Katas" to kill me because none of them are instant killers and even if you do take me to say 20 hp, I'm going to have plenty of force in reserve and just drain it right back.

Not to mention I can drain you from the start of the match to even prevent you from using them a single time because they require such a huge portion of your force pool.

You can't “saber" me with normal swings because they do such low damage I can actually let you hit me twice, wait... then start draining it back.


So my question is, how do you kill me?

Now when I say "me" I don't mean some random player on a public server, I mean myself. A very skilled player who is not going engage you, waste a drop of force and who will just sit back and drain you to prove that you lack the ability to kill him.


Now you may say "I turn on absorb so he can't drain me then do a Kata".

Wrong.

You turn on absorb I'm going to stay out of range (back off/run away) and won't engage or get near until it turns off.

Solutions?

Setting the saber damage scale high (server side) of course right?

Well answer me this:

We all hated sabers in 1.04 right?

That saber scale option was there in 1.04, explain to me if that was "our solution" why only 1 out of 600 servers used it?

The bottom line is 99% of the JO/JA server admins are not like admins from games like Quake 3 or RTCW. If you don't put it in *base game play, chances are it's not going to ever get used.

This is not opinion, it is fact.

If I am wrong then please tell me why everyone complained about weak sabers in 1.04, had the cvar to make them better, but no one, and I mean virtually no one used that cvar?


High damage specials require force

Very bad idea.

Now I know the logic was “people won’t complain about spamming if no one can spam them” when this was done.

But like a lot of things, in reality it does not play out that way.

Here is why:

In Jedi Outcast if you were being drain whored you had basically 2 options:

Run like hell and hope you can get away to regen or go on the offensive and use rapid attacks like a kick+ red dfa combo or specials like the blue lunge to turn the tide and get a quick win.

Now look at Jedi Academy:

I am drain whoring you, I have your force pool down to 0.

I keep holding down the key and hit you with a drain blast every second to prevent you from regenerating.


You can’t use any specials or high damage moves because they all *require force.

You can’t use any defensive or offensive force powers because you have a 0 pool.

What can you do?

Swing a saber.

But wait, none of the basic swings cause serious damage and since I’m just holding down the key I’m going to heal it back just as fast as you cause it.

See the problem in this guys?

Those special moves were the one great “random factor” when people would drain whore you.

I know many of times I have drain whored opponents only to walk right into 1-2 back to back lunges and lose the match that I though I had in the bag.

Before (in Jedi Outcast) a player being drain whored had many options in his arsenal to stay in the fight,

But now, his only option is run and hope the guy can’t strafe jump as fast.



Full Force Saber only CTF

This game can be summed up in two basic statements:

If you cap (a term for the guy who gets the flag) you NEVER fight, you run and you run like hell.


If you defend, you need to kill in one single shot. The cappers (flag guy) are NOT going to stand there and fight you so what ever you use has to be an instant kill. Not to mention they will be using absorb and level 3 speed to make them immune from any force based attacks and will be impossible to kill unless you get them in one shot as they fly by at 90 miles per hour


In Jedi Outcast you had two basic options to kill a capper, the DFA (or rage+dfa) or kick them off of a ledge for an instant fall death.

Now look at Jedi Academy.

The only “high damage” moves are the Katas, but you are locked into a stationary position while you execute them so unless the capper has moth blood in his veins and mistakes you for a giant bug zapper he’s not going to walk into a guy twirling a saber.


The bottom line is the capper has no reason to stand there and “duke it out” because his job is to get back to his base as fast as possible and score.

You remove the instant hit kills with no kick+fall deaths, you weaken the specials and make them use force (no rage+dfa combos now) and this translates into a capper with an escort using team heal being totally unstoppable.

What was once before a fast paced game of CTF now turns into both sides grabbing the flag in the first 30 seconds and standing off for 19:30 and the match ends at 0/0 when the time hits.


Force grip not being able to stay active when it is out of the line of sight

This makes no sense at all, in theory maybe, but not in practice.

Look at level 2 grip.

Why is it useless?

Because you are directly in the guys line of sight and all he has to do is push/pull and it instantly breaks, you simply can’t ever use it on anything other than bots or NPC’s that do not have push/pull.


Grip at level 3 has become no different than level 2 now.

No person with even Ѕ a brain is going to just sit there being choked if he is being held directly in front of the gripper with the option to break it with a simple push/pull.

You say “spin the mouse around”?

Wrong.

You may think that is a viable strategy because it works on newbie’s, but it is incredibly easy to break for experienced players by simply looking down and exploiting the area of effect of force pull.



Ways to fix these problems

1.01 patch

-Up saber damages like we were being led to believe they would be when we were getting info on this game. Sure “technically” no one lied when they said sabers would be more lethal in some game types and weaker in others but every one of us thought that meant *high damage sabers in some game types, and *really high damage ones in others. I.e. stronger sabers than Jedi Outcast 1.04 had across the board.

-Get rid of force usage restrictions on basic special moves. If you want to keep them on the high damage Katas fine, but the basic specials like the lunge and the dfa need to be un nerfed to be of any use in a realistic situation.

-Kicking for all stances. This is one thing both “fan boys” and “competitive players” have all mentioned they wanted. If the debug melee command is server side only, like the damage scale command in Jedi Outcast 1.04, you know as well as I do it will never get used.

A simple way to fix this is give the other two stances the double tap kicks and keep the multi style kicks for the staff users.

As a side note, please test and refine the debug melee command if it is implemented because when used in single player it is obvious it is untested because of how erratic the results are (wall walking up a guys face when you try to kick him is a prefect example).

-remove the line of sight restriction for grip to actually make it a power worth putting points into again.



In closing I wanted to say thanks to all of the competitive guys from the various clans like =AX=, [div3rse], FK, rk //, guys like remij, +/< and others as well who have come here to respond to these threads.

I know it can be frustrating when you are trying to make a serious point about game play mechanics and you get responses like “well that’s gay cuz in episode 2 yoda used absorb and blah blah” but please try to keep the tempers in check guys.

Also as a final note I want to make it crystal clear to every single person here why this backlash is going on and who is responsible for it.

This is nothing like the “back stab” whining that went on in Jedi Outcast.

I really wish people were going “OMG These Katas are gay they keep spamming them and every one is getting killed!” because that would imply there is actually some serious depth and danger to be found in the game play.

The problem we (the competitive players) have is there is simply no “meat” on this games bones.

A few flashy eye candy moves that are ineffective in a realistic situation, the removal of high damage and complex combos and strategies basically makes this a “pick up and play for all ages” type of game that is so simplistic it’s dull and pointless to play at the moment for those people who crave a hardcore gaming experience.

As I have said before, if this were a true new game I would totally agree that we should just sit back and give it some time, but let’s not play dumb, this game is 90% Jedi Outcast with a new coat of paint.

You take what “did work” and remove it or weaken it, replace what was taken out with *ineffective moves that look pretty and slap a $50 price tag on it and yes, some people will be naive enough to believe it’s a whole new game with months and months of stuff to still be learned but those of us who play these games for the “game content” and not the “star wars content” are not going to be sold on that line of b.s.

i couldn't have said it better myself.

please if you have no desire to play full force / saber only, DO NOT POST IN THIS THREAD.

If you turn on the saber realism cvar you will get the sabers you desire. I just finished playing on a power duel server with it enabled and there were a lot of one shot kills that were not katas and just regular attacks. Single saber heavy stance is especially powerful in this mode.

Edit: g_saberDamageScale is the cvar.

Well said Wiener Dog. I only have one little discrepancy.

In CTF games you said that the game would last 20 minutes and end at a stalemate. But actually it is MUCH worse than that.

CTF games cannot end in a tie. So basically, you could in theory be stuck on the same map for an infinite amount of time. But most likely what would happen is one FC would outlast another's boredom. One FC would disconnect and the other team would cap, and FINALLY we could see the next map. Sounds to me like alot of 52 minute 1-0 games.

The rest of the post was right on the money and I agree whole- heartedly with everything else you said.

Originally posted by Losonos
If you turn on the saber realism cvar you will get the sabers you desire. I just finished playing on a power duel server with it enabled and there were a lot of one shot kills that were not katas and just regular attacks. Single saber heavy stance is especially powerful in this mode.

Edit: g_saberDamageScale is the cvar.

Did you read the post sir?

JA MP really reminds me of Jedi Outcast *single player.

Slow, simple, toned down and more for "star wars" fans than true players.

I'm not saying JA is "total crap" like a lot of people, I love the new maps, player models and think the single player game is a blast.

Problem is, the MP game play mechanics took all the "hard core" killing stuff from Jedi Outcast out but instead of replacing it with "new hard core" killing stuff they replaced it with ineffective flashy moves.


Everyone keeps saying "there is more to learn give it time" well look at it like this:

Everything that got brought over from the previous game is now ineffective due to the wide range of nerfing, so if there is one "super move/combo" to be found still, do you not see the problem with that?

Didn't everyone get all pissed off because "all people did in 1.02/03 was spam the same one move over and over"?

You bet they did and it pissed people off.

So if we know all the stuff we have found is ineffective (since about 85% of the game mechanics is JO recycled, there is not a lot to find) do you want to be back in the "one move wonder world" again?

This is why the multiple things that were nerfed need to be put back in, to give people options.

well said. I agree 100%
Only thing i would say is that not all gametypes are happy with things like gripkick, pk etc. I just play ctf and ff duels, but other ppl have to be happy too. Why not reimplement them, but give the server the option whether to turn them on or not. This would let ctf servers keep them, but duel servers remove them.

I just think the solution is for all the good coders and people like wiener dog here to sit down and make a mod. I mean, Raven is great, I love them, but they aren't going to 'fix' anything, ok? Even if they do change the game, they wont be 'fixing' it -- lets face it they don't have the best track record here.

This basically the same game...they could just keep them in. All the animations are there...you can kick a wall, so it can't be much coding to kick a person. The trouble with mods is they aren't official, so only a few clan servers will run them and not public s/o ctf servers.

To the entire drain rant, two syllables. ab-sorb ^.^ (and you can't hide for ever Luke.. eh.. weiner, you'll have to come out and fight like a man XD)

A good post the weiner dog! And unfortunately no really flamable, which is disappointing. j/k :) I do have a few comments with SO FF Duels in mind though...

Originally posted by the weiner dog!
That saber scale option was there in 1.04, explain to me if that was "our solution" why only 1 out of 600 servers used it?

The bottom line is 99% of the JO/JA server admins are not like admins from games like Quake 3 or RTCW. If you don't put it in *base game play, chances are it's not going to ever get used.

This is not opinion, it is fact.

If I am wrong then please tell me why everyone complained about weak sabers in 1.04, had the cvar to make them better, but no one, and I mean virtually no one used that cvar? I agree that the cvar was not used nearly enough, and likely would have improved the situation quite a bit.

I seems that asking admin to alter this cvar is not going to do the trick. However, it seemed just about every server had an admin mod of some sort. Perhaps the altering of this cvar, and perhaps some others that would introduce better gameplay could be bundled up in a little mod and posted on the various file sites. This would essentailly be what Raven would do with a patch (more or less). It might possibly lead to a bit wider distribution of the cvar alterations. I guess what I'm saying is make it as easy as possible for admins to "install". If it is something they could just download and put in a directory, they might be more likely to do it, especially if it dramatically improves things. I doubt that would really work, I'm just thinking out loud...

Originally posted by the weiner dog!
stronger sabers than Jedi Outcast 1.04 had across the board. Keep in mind that many people complained in JO that duels in the duel gametype did not go on long enough. Raven developers have stated that trying to make changes to saber damage that cover all gametypes introduced more problems than it solved. A more gametype-specific solution is probably necessary.

Originally posted by the weiner dog!
-Get rid of force usage restrictions on basic special moves. If you want to keep them on the high damage Katas fine, but the basic specials like the lunge and the dfa need to be un nerfed to be of any use in a realistic situation. This makes sense.

Originally posted by the weiner dog!
-Kicking for all stances. This is one thing both ?fan boys? and ?competitive players? have all mentioned they wanted. If the debug melee command is server side only, like the damage scale command in Jedi Outcast 1.04, you know as well as I do it will never get used. I admit that I never really liked kicking in JO, mainly because it took away the gameplay from the lightsaber in SO games, and it was too effective for what it represented (kicking someone). Now, having a kick like the saberstaff might be good, but personally I would not want it have all the same characteristics as the kick in JO. Specifically, the damage direct to health, the ability to still defend yourself using the saber, and the relatively high damage. Having the kick do a bit of damage and potentially knock someone down would be useful regardless. I'd rather see a solution involving making the lightsaber more effective.

Originally posted by the weiner dog!
A few flashy eye candy moves that are ineffective in a realistic situation, the removal of high damage and complex combos and strategies basically makes this a ?pick up and play for all ages? type of game that is so simplistic it?s dull and pointless to play at the moment for those people who crave a hardcore gaming experience. To be fair to Raven, rightly or wrongly the "pick up and play" type of game is exactly what they tried to make. They are trying to make a game for the widest range of customers, and the fact is that most customers are casual gamers. Making the game too complex or difficult to pick up might alienate a large number of customers. So it is not that Raven failed in what they were trying to do. They just didn't make a game that appealed to every group of players. I'm not trying to defend Raven here, I'm just saying that thay made a decision about what game they wanted to make and tried to cater to as many groups as possible. And it is not like they completely ignored competative gamers, as they have mad the game very customizable. I agree that making certain settings widespread is not easy, but Raven can only do so much. It might be up to the community now to get things the way we want them. After JO, I suspect Raven will be very hesitant to release a gameplay altering patch that caters to one group of players.

My 2 cents...

more for "star wars" fans

Well, the name Star Wars sort of imploys the fact that it was made more for fans of Star Wars :rolleyes:

Ah, yet more rambling about the same thing over and over, look we've had threads before about how you so called "experienced players" hate this and hate that, well take the game back then and wait until Halo or Half Life 2 are released, im sure they will satisfy you more.

And stop with the slagging off about how Raven have made "this crap" or "sabers suck worse than 1.04", this is Jedi Academy not Outcast, now if you prefer Outcasts MP then play that, and stop waisting my time with useless threads like this.

Ya know, I would've been completely happy had they just simply re-released JO with a main menu option of choosing 1.03 or 1.04. And implemented the improved graphics, new maps and gameplay options.

The only problems needed to be fixed in 1.03 to me were the freezing glitches. As in if you knock someone down right after doing a blue lunge you were immobile for a few moments. And also if you knocked someone down amidst a backstab they are frozen for a couple seconds right after getting up. I never had a problem with the pivating backstab, it added more of a challenge on defending the move and when to use it to me. It also puts rage and protect to full usage.

S/O ctf was a blast in 1.03. Forced reality server anyone? ;) Simply having three guys standing on the flag backstabbing constantly then jumping in at the perfect moment to knock them away or backstab them as well to grab the flag was a good challenge.

1.04 seemed fine to me as well, I had no problem using melee over saber attacks when needed. They were equally entertaining to myself. I think 1.04 lacked the aerial blue lunge, otherwise it was just fine and dandy.

I know there is the option of using a program called patch commander, but it was too buggy in it's final release to be used. The simple option of choosing between patches in the main menu sounds great to me, as well as the option to disable kicks for those who couldn't stand it as well.

This would obviously not then be a completely new game, but its not like JO had any expansion packs anyways, this would've been perfect for one and I wouldn't even bother with JKA.

Eh...dont reply then telsa...
and weiner man ur text made me hard

oh yea...the only way u could ACTUALY kill a FC's would be mind trick+kata...but any skilled Capper could easily hear mind trick and activate seing...beside that combo....pathetic

Originally posted by Tesla
Well, the name Star Wars sort of imploys the fact that it was made more for fans of Star Wars :rolleyes:

Ah, yet more rambling about the same thing over and over, look we've had threads before about how you so called "experienced players" hate this and hate that, well take the game back then and wait until Halo or Half Life 2 are released, im sure they will satisfy you more.

And stop with the slagging off about how Raven have made "this crap" or "sabers suck worse than 1.04", this is Jedi Academy not Outcast, now if you prefer Outcasts MP then play that, and stop waisting my time with useless threads like this.

You, not being a competitive gamer have no business to post here. This thread was for competive gamers to post what they want improved in JA, not to flame or tell him that his thread is useless and to play another game.

I agree with everything that weiner dog has said. He seems to be speaking for every competitive ff/so player out there. I'm especially angry that the kicking is disabled and Raven hasn't come up with any better ideas for katas besides some flashy saber movements that make you immobile for the whole move. Don't even get me started about the crappy rolling... Strafing to the right is a lot faster than this crappy nerfed roll.

Originally posted by Pedro The Hutt
To the entire drain rant, two syllables. ab-sorb ^.^ (and you can't hide for ever Luke.. eh.. weiner, you'll have to come out and fight like a man XD)

you obviously never played anybody that was, for lack of a better word, one of the elites.

Originally posted by g//plaZma
You, not being a competitive gamer have no business to post here. This thread was for competive gamers to post what they want improved in JA, not to flame or tell him that his thread is useless and to play another game.

I agree with everything that weiner dog has said. He seems to be speaking for every competitive ff/so player out there. I'm especially angry that the kicking is disabled and Raven hasn't come up with any better ideas for katas besides some flashy saber movements that make you immobile for the whole move. Don't even get me started about the crappy rolling... Strafing to the right is a lot faster than this crappy nerfed roll.

oh yea ... rage is totaly useless in saber only(in gametype with saber only)

Eh...dont reply then telsa...
I have the free right to post in any thread that i wish to,thank you very much.

Oh and it's Tesla.

And can i not voice my opinion on a thread ?

Originally posted by Tesla

And stop with the slagging off about how Raven have made "this crap" or "sabers suck worse than 1.04", this is Jedi Academy not Outcast, now if you prefer Outcasts MP then play that, and stop waisting my time with useless threads like this.

You said it urself,ur wasting ur time

Just what i personally felt myself, no harm done to others. :)

if i remember correctly, weiner asked for people who actually play the gametype(s) to reply with ways to fix it/views.

you are not one of them. we know what everyone else thinks, we've had it shoved down our throats for a year and a half. we're voicing our opinion on how gameplay could be made better in what we play. the discussion doesn't concern you and you haven't added anything to it, so please don't reply as its a waste of your time.

and stop waisting my time with useless threads like this.

No one held a gun to your head and said READ THIS THREAD OR YOUR BRAINS ARE ONE WITH THE WALL! Did they?



I agree 100% with this thread, basically all the gripes I have with Academy have been stated above.

oh yea...the only way u could ACTUALY kill a FC's would be mind trick+kata...but any skilled Capper could easily hear mind trick and activate seing...beside that combo....pathetic

Even then, what flag carrier with half a brain would stay still long enough where you could Kata them?!

Yea i know...but still that would be the only way to kill a FC and that rather pathetic

dude just imagine a capper with 2 energizer with protect on?how in the world are u supose to kill him...beside luck

Already tried and failed. Its plain and simple that you CANT kill a flag carrier.

Yeah, I agree, except about the kicking. I've been kicked down, and kicked repeatedly while trying to get up far too many times to want it exactly the same, although some sort of kick as a dfa counter, (if they were to be usable again), would be good. I haven't played enough JA yet to really know, but the duels last forever and I'd like saber damage up all across the board. With FF duels, that's why I mainly played no force duels, and it's rather disappointing that the only way for a serious fight in a jedi game is to ignore the force. If heal and drain were toned down and taken out, it would be much more quickly resolved and all, but how long until it was a lightning spam-war. You don't even really need to aim that.

wow that suck....

DFA should 1 hit kill still+no force
oh here a nice idea:when u lunge on the ground=no force
if u lunge in mid air=use force
lol that sound cool
kick should be implented(old jk2 kick)with sum difference(u guys think of something like....3 taps on jump to kick?lol)
Saber=stronger please...cuz saber are a joke now
Grip should be like jk2

Dark rage and grip sound so useless

I do not own the game yet, but it sounds like the mutliplayer is not so good. I would mainly be playing multiplayer, do you guys that have tried it think that it is worth buying this game for playing singleplayer maybe once and then playing multiplayer?

I completely agree with everything that has been said here about the problems with JA multiplayer. Something should be done to make s/o ctf playable, because right now, face it, it isn't.

Weiner dog for president!

Screed change your name bro, that dhu tag is making me gag.

;)

Serious though, the people who are contributing in these threads were (and in many cases still are) the absolute best players you will find in Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy.

You have members from a professionally sponsored clan posting here and members from another clan who just won a major company sponsored tournament involving all of the top competitive clans in Jedi Outcast.

I know it may seem like we are "bashing" the game but if anything please keep in mind all these people really are the most knowledgeable resources when it comes to understanding game play mechanics.

I don’t think it is a coincidence that not one well known/ranked competitive player has stepped up and taken the side of the argument that this game now "requires more skill" as opposed to it being over simplified like many players from the competitive community have said.

Hell, look at the top of this forum. See that sticky about TWL?

Now go here:

http://www.teamwarfare.com/forums/showthread.asp?forumid=104&threadid=82261)

even the admins of these leagues see a very realistic issue of these leagues and ladders dying a pre mature death due to the across the board disappointment from gamers who play competitively in saber only game types.

And while I noticed someone said “we will have to rely on the mod community to fix this” I can’t help but get really annoyed at that premise.

There has been a very disturbing trend in retail game releases over the last few years where a sub par product barely past beta phase is released and it is left up to the mod community to fix it, all under the guise of “community involvement”.

If you guys want to turn JA into EXACTLY was JO was then go back to playing JO and stfu. Or just take 10 minutes to adapt to the new playing style...which isn't that bad when you get used to it.

Originally posted by the weiner dog!
I don’t think it is a coincidence that not one well known/ranked competitive player has stepped up and taken the side of the argument that this game now "requires more skill" as opposed to it being over simplified like many players from the competitive community have said. I'm going to play devil's advocate and say that Raven/LA likely designed JA so that it was enjoyable for the most possible players. This means casual gamers (likely the largest group?) who do not necessarily care if moves take skill. They want it to be easy to pick up so they can jump in and play right away. I think that it is obvious that that was the way they wanted to go, and that was the way it went. It is unfortunate that you guys are unhappy with it :(

Sorry about the tag :D, was just to lazy to make another account. Just goes to show ya how long ago I made this acct.
You know whats really funny, www.darkhorseunited.com) check out their poster boy screenshot :p


Again, I agree 100% with weiner dog.


I'm going to play devil's advocate and say that Raven/LA likely designed JA so that it was enjoyable for the most possible players. This means casual gamers (likely the largest group?) who do not necessarily care if moves take skill. They want it to be easy to pick up so they can jump in and play right away. I think that it is obvious that that was the way they wanted to go, and that was the way it went. It is unfortunate that you guys are unhappy with it

So your saying JA was given a Teen rating b/c they were attracting the 5-9 year olds who cant hit more than 1 button at once? Your statement makes no sense. They decided to go with the casual gamers aspect, when they are the ones to abandoned the game first b/c it got "old"?

Originally posted by Screed
So your saying JA was given a Teen rating b/c they were attracting the 5-9 year olds who cant hit more than 1 button at once? Your statement makes no sense. They decided to go with the casual gamers aspect, when they are the ones to abandoned the game first b/c it got "old"? Casual gamer does not equal 5-9 year olds. It's people who don't give a rats ass about winning ladders or whether the kata requires skill or not. It's people that play the game for fun. They could be 30 year olds. Many of them probably won't touch MP. In any case it is the majority of players, which means the majority of customers, which means the majority of money spenders. And whether they abondon the game one day after or five years later doesn't make an once of difference to Lucasarts because they all bought the game. They make the same money regardless.

yeah, i def agree that JA is geared for a larger audience of people who just like to sit down once in awhile and bust out a saber.

Personally, to all the hardcore players, id suggest playin JO for the next month or so, and im sure theyrll be a few mods that will satisfy your every need. I meed, most members of the modding comunitee are hardcore gamers like yourselves (heh they have to be to create mods, takes alotta time) and im sure theyre prob not happy with the way JA is now either.

Originally posted by Catalyst
If you guys want to turn JA into EXACTLY was JO was then go back to playing JO and stfu. Or just take 10 minutes to adapt to the new playing style...which isn't that bad when you get used to it.

RTFFP

To the entire drain rant, two syllables. ab-sorb ^.^ (and you can't hide for ever Luke.. eh.. weiner, you'll have to come out and fight like a man XD)

RTFFP

Tesla: RTGDFFP

Ahem... Now that I got that out of the way.

With the lack of kick and the nerfing of certain powers (Who in their right mind would throw an LOS restriction on force grip?), it became blatantly apparent that the saber is going to have to do the talking. However, the three most obvious problems right now with the saber is lack of damage capability, overabundance of blocking on blows which should make past, and pretty ****ty hit detection (you do three katas in a row, only to find that they don't connect at all while the guy humps your leg).

Oh, did I fail to mention force costs for specials? I will reiterate what I said earlier, in which I could see a justifiable FP cost for DFA provided its power is upped, and the same could go for the rest. However, right now the risk is not worth the reward. For 25 FP, I can fly upside down, completely miss a person, then get a free chance to be introduced to Bubba at the prison cell. Its just not WORTH IT.

EDIT: Whoops, forgot to add my suggestions...

1.) In terms of saber damage, a damage scale needs to be established as to which while the saber is not ultra-lethal, you know you're ****ed if you take a shot from an overhead red slice.

2.) We need to find a way to tone down the blocking factor. If you know you got a good hit, you should score it. This especially goes for back attacks, and the block bug still exists in that department.

3.) Remove specials FP cost, or up their power (and whose bright idea was it to throw a cost on roll stab?). Keep kata's force cost at 50.

4.) Saber hit detection is Raven's field, not ours, but it definetly needs help. I thought we would have this **** worked out by now.

Its funny that all the people coming in here now who are telling the people who knew how to play JKII to its full potential to STFU wouldn't have even a hint of what happened in the competition scene.

i am not a very competitive player or a force fan from JO. but you guys are serious and the top of the player pool, so it makes sense debating with you rather than with those fanboys.
i tried playing JO with forces but it made no sense. this drain thing was just to strong, and so it still is in JA. while i agree to many of the "weiner dog" gangs statements, i don't agree with the following:

changes like force using specials or KATAS are bad.
kicks like they were back in JO should get back in JA.

i am a so player so i would have to say, that all these new features sound very nice and logicaly. ok the damage thing was a problem before and i would have to play on servers with high damage cvar. the kicks destroyed gameplay before and now only saber staff players can kick, and they are vulnerable while doing it! the same with specials like the red dfa and the backstabb/slash. not that i wasn't on of the first in our community (germany) to ever use those moves. it was a matter of hours and i already pissed off everybody who did not addapt to it.
so raven took my ideas (heh just common sense, not that i was asked by them) and made specials depending on the force pool. that solves the spaming. ok they don't realy have a clue about damage, i always had to change that myself for our servers. the thing you guys are complaining is that public servers don't have it and waiting for mods as salvation, which is a crippled bitch btw, takes 4ever...

ok here comes the sollution which i think should do it:
g_saberRestrictForce
problem is, it's cheat protected. ARGH!
otherwise it would be realy nice to test it on public servers. to see if it works correct and how it changes gameplay. for those of you who don't know about it: no force use while the saber is on except KATA and special moves...so much for the theorie.
so go check it out, turn cheats on and play duel with ff. everytime a player wants to drain/heal or what ever he has to holster his saber.

in the end, public servers remain unplayable for me as a purist and a powergamer. so are leagues ofcourse, since those never support mods or other settings than defaults...to please most players...

I'm going to toss my two cents in here.

First off, based simply on the opinions of this board, Raven would have a hard time changing ANYTHING in the game. Whenever Raven has made a change, people whine about it. They fix the DFA, people whine. They fix backstab, people whine.

Secondly, by boosting the saber damage you're only going to run into the problem with random blocking. Basically, it's random. Sure, there's some level of skill in flanking your enemy and cutting him down but the saber blocking system in JK2 (and I assume JKA) basically blocks (with a random faction) everything you can from your point of view.

oh yeah i forgot about that! higher the damage makes the accuracy worse. or better say it makes you realy aware of how inaccurate it is. if one swing make much damage and it doesn't count although it looked like you hit the guys, man you're pissed. the same for blocking, if somehow a swing gets thru, ARGH. that's why they alwas try to tone damage down since 1.03...

Well, that's partially why the damage has always been toned down.

1. Because the saber blocking is far from perfect (not a knock against Raven. I know they did it that way for a number of good reasons.)

2. Because noone really wants to die when a lucky hit cuts off their left big toe and kills them.

(sigh) returned my copy today. Thank you Raven for putting out the worst sequel to a game possible. I use the word sequel lightly.

oh.. side note, dark side owns lide side in this game bigtime.

No, light rocks... Oh wait, I was beating up half of SiN tonight, that was why. *eyeroll*

EDIT: BTW, just to give you a fair warning and advice, if you're running an s/o server, and you have a high force regen setting, you better be ready to see some high dual saber kata spammage... Pretty sad I had to leave a server whose clan I know real well because it was reduced to spammage of one move.

thanks for the good, well thought out post, nitemare.

although i do have to disagree on a lot of that, i am too tired for a rebuttal.

First, I have to say this to cheeta101 (or whatever your name is):

I consistently see you posting in every single thread (be it constructive or not) that we (the competetive players of JK2) should give JKA more time. You neglect to read ANYTHING that ANY of us say, and simply say we have not LEARNED this game.

You know what I have to say to you? The main thing most of us are griping about is the fact that to play JKA...you don't need to learn ANYTHING. The new moves take approximately 30 seconds for anyone familiar with doing a dfa (red or yellow) from JK2 to learn. Besides the new kata's, the 2 new saber types (dual and staff) aren't in any way significantly different than the old sabers. Before you go and tell me I don't know what I'm talking about...just shut your face. I started playing JK2 well later than anyone else that I've ever talked to...I was probably the last person to *get good* at JK2. Ask FK if my capping skills were up to par with 1/4 as much experience as them when Div3rse took a server from them. Ask anyone on div3rse, RK, ms3, NJS, FK, eF, or any of the other clans that stuck it out with JK2 and kept playing until the release of this game. I learn fast. There's NOTHING to learn in JKA.

Anything that made JKO fun has been taken out and replaced with useless stuff. It's insane.

So far, I've seen that the *major* argument for these new changes has been that the *average* gamer doesn't give 2 ****s whether or not moves take skill to perform. Yes, good point. Now explain to me why the game can't have any sort of depth to it that would allow for competetive play. Explain to me how taking Kick out of the game makes it *easier* for your average gamer to play. The biggest problem for noobs coming to JK2 was that they would learn a stance's special move and spam it like crazy. That's all I see in any gametype server that I've been into in JKA. Lot's of Kata's going off in all directions. Thing I don't see is anything at the top of the screen saying "I8uRmOM has been sabered by DrTHV@D3R" or the like. Why? Because all the noobs are running around doing flashy moves that DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Sure, someone connects with a random kata sometimes and somebody does...but it's a noob server. How is that any different from JK2? Well, in most public servers in JK2, the same sort of thing existed. Lots of noobs having fun spamming DFA's left and right. By putting limits on the moves and such, you take out the "fun" element for noobs. They LOVE their flashy, useless moves. Thing is, in jk2, there was another level of depth that you could LEARN, and become BETTER than a noob. For the elite, there is no depth to learn. There is no way to become better than a noob because the only thing you can do is flail around and hope to get lucky. It's horrible for any sort of competitive play.

The way I look at it is this: The average gamer won't notice the difference if kicks are in the game, if sabers did more damage, or if anything else us elites want changed got changed. Why? He doesn't care. But if Raven wants to have any sort of LONGEVITY in this game, they need to cater to the competition. Why are games like CS, Q3A, etc. still around when they're much older? Those communities CATER to the competition, because the noobs can still dick around and have fun, but there's something THERE for elite people to play with.

My area of expertise:
Capping. I know how to cap. And you know what? The ONLY way I'm going to die in JKA when I have the flag is if I get a lag spike and somehow fly off an edge. Why? Sabers are too easy to avoid, kata's are even easier, and there are no kicks to slow you down, so literally, there's nothing you can do to kill me. Sadly, it's not because I'm a good capper (and in jk2 1.04, I am). It's because given 2 seconds of practice, anyone will notice that the simple role of capper by definition will make you invulnerable. Come again? Simple. A capper's job is to run to the flag platform, and run back to the base. No dicking around, just run. Therefore, NOBODY will kill you because nobody can hurt you unless you stand still...and you won't be...so have fun with those 80 minute 0-0 ctf games.

Anyways, I had to add my peice to this mess...it's probably not coherent because it's late at night, but whatever, I'll clear it up later

Uh, why play sabers only CTF anyway? The very nature of the sport requires you have have faster runners or guns that can shoot the runners down.

ctf without forces and weapons makes little sense. we tried it once but it was a real mess. the best thing was to turn on jedivsmerc, in our mod the mercs had better weapons like the disruptor sniper and mines & explosives...

Well said syn agree 100%

razorace you people are so hipocritical. You say 'this is Star Wars, we focus on sabers' then you go and say shoot him with a dock off gun. We play s/o becuase it requires some skill (or did). Guns are for unskillied spamwhoring aimbot people to use.
Why don't ff duelers duel with rocketlaunchers? Maybe they want sabers. Maybe we want sabers in ctf and atm, ravens removed everythin that requiered some skill in JO and replaced it with NOTHING, or a kata. gj.
I still reckon servers could get the otpion to turn individual things on/off like los gripping, kicks, ptk etc. That way other game types keep the stuff they don want out and the competetive community can have it and prolong whats turning out to be a short lived game.