Raven please read all of this. I love your game, but I wish that the lightsaber control was better/smoother, so here’s an idea. The purpose of this idea is to create better looking lightsaber fights that are smoother, and more thought out. Rather then the get behind them and click click click fighting, with the occasional accident of locking. As of now the control and successful use of the lightsaber feels very random.

As it is, if you want to swing horizontally left you must hit strafe left and attack (mouse1). Why not have it so that a slight mouse movement left while pressing/holding attack swings your saber left? If you slightly move the mouse left or right with attack held down your character will swing left or right. If you move the mouse down with attack then it will vertically swing straight down. If you move the mouse diagonal down left or right, the saber will swing diagonally down left or right. If you move the mouse diagonally up L/R it will uppercut diagonally up L/R. If you move the mouse straight up, it will uppercut straight up.

The boundaries of the mouse directions:
Think of a 360є degree circle around the mouse from a birds eye view. “Up” can be considered any degrees from 342.5є to 22.5є, upper right would be 22.5є to 67.5є, right would be 67.5є to 112.5є, and so on. From a coder's perspective, this would be dealing with horizontal and vertical input ratios.

Attack mode:
Is when you have the attack key (mouse1) held down. It will only execute the attack movement only when something is in range, rather then when ever you click it. An example of this is the gauntlet for Quake3 as opposed to the axe in Quake. Why? Because real characters wouldn’t swing at a guy that’s 14 feet away, but we see this all the time and it looks bad. In the game you can’t tell if they’re close enough, so your character could do the guessing for you (auto attack), just as how you character auto deflects lasers. Also, if you hold down the attack, the enemy is in saber range, but you do not move the mouse, it will not swing until you give it a direction. Perhaps your saber offense skill will determine better range estimations. The disadvantage to having the attack key down so much is that you aren’t in block mode with it pressed down.

Block mode:
You character is by default in ‘block mode’ when the saber is in your hands and the attack key isn’t pressed. Another idea (perhaps it’s too much) is other than having the chance of blocking something that's based on your lightsaber defend skill is to allow players to manually heighten their chances of a block. When in block mode if your opponent swings horizontally left and you slightly move the mouse left (in block mode), your character will parry left, increasing your chances of a block. If the enemy strikes downward and you move the mouse up, he will block upwards. If you do not give a direction or you move the mouse too far in the opposite direction that the opponent attacks, he will get a hit. The higher your saber defense skill, the more amount of degrees you can be off to still get a high chance of a block.

The results:
If you keep the attack button down, then all you have to do is slightly move the mouse in the direction you want your character to swing. Light saber control would be outstanding as you could tell your character how to swing with your mouse rather than your keyboard, allowing you to remain in the same spot with only your torso and arms moving. As it is, people are running all over the place (some of them are just trying to swing left or right). With this mouse rather than key direction idea, you could stay relatively in the same spot and saber fight it out like we see in the movies. With the occasional moving forewords or backwards, like the fight between Luke and Vader in ROTJ. This wouldn't eliminate the need for jumping or crouch rolling, and it would get rid of a lot of the ugly, unrealistic, and excessive movement.

Please take this into consideration. Modders, if something like this isn’t implemented, here’s a good place to start. The lightsaber animation and appearance looks very nice, but honestly the saber fights could be so much more. Once again, GREAT game!

/me gives Zealot two-thumbs up :)

Genius, pure genius.
I love the idea, Zealot. It would totaly increase the intensity of saber dueling, and not to mention it would look really awesome from a viewers point of view (no more random hacking while running around like a madman).
Perhaps Raven will think about this in a future patch? Who knows. If they don't I'd really like to see this feature in a mod.

When I first read a Preview of JKII somewhere, I thought the saber control would be like that in the first place...
Anyway, nice idea Zealot, looks like you thought long and hard about that one ;)

Excellent suggestion. One of the things that have kept me coming back for more in the Dark Forces/JK series is the saber-play. I am a fencer, so I really enjoy using this type of weapon in an FPS.

So, I share your opinion of saber mechanics in JO. The more control and finesse provided to the user, the better. Raven might also consider implementing a separate slider for "Saber" sensitivity, IF there is a User Interface disparity between the suble movements for saber use and user needs for all other camera control (or, perhaps saber movements can just be coded in as a percentage of regular mouse movements, of someone can figure out what works best).

I find myself currently making most of my saber attacks at the ground -- the result of trying to get a better camera angle. As I try to put the camera more overhead, the more Kyle looks down.

I wonder if there is any script that could be written that would move the default 3rd person camera angle away and up (or, perhaps just a little bit away would work) from its current position on Kyle?

Have any of you guys heard of VSIM?
I know some have, since i've read some people talking about it.
It's similar to what Zealot888 explained.
It has been incorprated into a game called "Die by the Sword".

The idea is pretty good. Though i dunno if they can implement it now. Not with a patch anyway. Well, who knows what those crazy people at Raven can do!
=P

and i always thought im the only one playing (and actually liking) die by the sword.
though i doubt it would work for this game, without slowing down the combat. and even more that inverse kinematics like that could be added with a simple patch (dont know the q3 engine but i dont think it was meant for anything but 'prerecorded' animation).

so his 'simple' idea should work a lot better and should be easy to implement.

Originally posted by Kurashu
Though i dunno if they can implement it now. Not with a patch anyway.
Raven probably wouldn't, but people could always make mods :)

Actually this whole idea reaminds me of the vader battle in that starwars arcade game. You know the one where you can fight boba fett and darth vader with sabers. You use the joystick on the arcade for the movement of the lightsaber. I like that a whole lot better because it allows MORE control of the lightsaber. Im not saying take this idea to a joystick.. HELL NO...if you play FPS with joysticks...god have mercy on your soul. Buy yes i can see a this happening with the mouse. Would be hard to control buy hell, its possible. Sounds like a GOOD mod if they take this into consideration. HEAR THAT MOD MAKERS. IF you want to be like the COUNTER-STRIKE of JK2 then DO THIS!!!!

I was just thinking about Die by the Sword earlier...wasn't a bad game at all, and the weapon control was superb but anyway...

This could be done I am fairly certain, but would require, dozens at least, and probably hundreds of pre-recorded animations. Thinking further, though, you could set up (I don't know how to go about this) a theoretical plane with eight points and it measures a certain amount over, as the next point in the frame this would only work in one direction though, whichever way you were facing. I believe this was similar to what DBS did, because i remember i used keypad controls for it, and it was facing forward, and 8 did high left, 3 low right etc.

not sure if any of this is solid fact, or if it can be done, just my own ideas and conjecture on the subject.

There was a game called "Die By The Sword" that worked on that exact principle. It sounded good in theaory, it was kinda fun at first glance, but it quickly became quite frustrating. The truth is you just can't do interesting moves with that type of control system. It may in some respects be more realistic, but I'd choose fun over realism any day.

edit: ooops heh, apparantly Die By The Sword was mentioned already.

I think I would be happy with the lightsaber combat if they just likend the moves to keyboard buttons.

then you could have Q for swing left, E for swing right, R for swing down, T for swing up, F for stab,

you get the picture. I think that this would give the control everyone is missing from the game.

the problem is that in multiplayer, people don't play right. the reborn in the game know how to make you think its star wars, they're constantly charging you, so that most of your swings connect. in multi, everyone is backing up, strafing, and such, so that swings rarely connect. <shrug> thats why it doesn't seem to be "real" combat.

Likewise I find that the fact you have to move to execute a swing is annoying, however i've found just tapping the direction can still provide good results.

Die by the Sword's system was a little unsofisticated though.
I always thought that a slowed down dueling system would allow a 3 style attacking on the mouse to be quite effective, basically Left button sticks your sabre far out, right keeps it close in, whereas neither just leaves it at a kind of half point.

When extended it gives no blocking but has long range
When Semiextended it can block but has limited attacking range
When blocking it cannnot attack but covers areas well

Just a thought...