SP: How can I encourage close combat in saber duels?

[Dusty]

Nope. With a parrybonus of 3+ you can block strong style -- kind of.

[katanamaru]

But then you block other styles even better right?

[Dusty]

No. You can already parry all medium and fast attacks, with the odd exception here and there. You can't block it anymore than parrying really (again with odd exceptions sometimes).

 

You can do disarms if you have a disarm bonus, but that's basically the exact same as being parried, you just drop the saber.

 

All in all, saber defense 3 is simple. Basically, if you get a solid block, you parry the attack always, unless the attack is too strong to be blocked in the first place, which would be staff/strong style, however upping parrybonuses very high bends the rules a bit.

[katanamaru]

I don't want to sound like an ass here so please don't take this with any negative connotation.

 

How do you know this? Did you see it in the code or play test it?

[Dusty]

^You good don't worry.

 

All play testing. No idea how the code determines these things exactly.

 

 

////

So, I have an idea for parry/breakparry bonuses.

 

Basically, they each add 1/2 to your offense/defense strength, however some caps are put on it by your current saber offense and defense level, so having a breakparrybonus of "2" with saber offense 2 isn't quite as strong as saber offense 3.

[Dusty]

Something interesting I just figured out (took me long enough)...

 

I'm pretty sure parrying with Saber Defense 3 actually has a slight element of randomness to it. Swings either can or can't be parried, period, no in-between. However, swings that can be parried, aka medium and fast style under normal circumstances; have a slight random chance not to be parried.

 

It's completely random I think. You can't affect it all, and it doesn't matter whether it's the beginning, middle, or end of a swing, and it's the same rate for both medium and fast style I'm pretty sure. You'll get parried 8 or 9 out of 10 times, but the other 1-2 times, you'll just be blocked normally, where you bounce off but aren't staggered nor would you do a parry anim if you were the parryer.

 

Perhaps this is the failed parries NPCs do, maybe they just do the parry anim? 

[katanamaru]

Could you define the terms parry and block for me? I think I know what you are describing, but I want to be sure.

[Dusty]

parry - blocker/defender does a knock away anim and knocks away the attack of the attacker, causing the attacker to stagger unable to attack or block for a 1-2 seconds

 

block - blocker just 'blocks' it, as in the attack is blocked/deflected and bounces off, no staggers

 

 

Also, I think how parries work with saber defense 2 and 1 is this -- by default, Saber Defense 3 seems to have like a 90-95% chance to parry any attack that can be blocked normally, and Defense 2 and lower have a 0% chance normally I think. Perhaps parry bonuses raise this percentage above 0, at least it would make sense based on my observations.

 

Hurrah to picking apart SP sabering!

[katanamaru]

If I can get a stable internet connection I want to fork the sp part of OJK so I can play around in that. It would be great to finally be able to alter animations and see the workings under the hood.

 

I've been pondering your original question. Do you really need to do anything to encourage close duels? As a sp game why worry about how others want to play the game? You like close duels and so do I. So we play up close. Maybe someone else doesn't.

 

Though I've kind of come up with a solution for close fighting via animations. I'm thinking of making a one-handed Polish saber style. The basic attacks and parries have all been brainstormed and I have come up with two versions: a basic and an advanced form.

 

The basic style will behave like a blue style blocking and yellow style attacking statistics. I'd set a two or three combo limit. This reflects what I see in beginner and intermediate level fencers.

 

The advanced would have yellow statistics in defense, and blue level attack power. The difference would be that I'd put counter attacks into it's parries and attacks into its transtions. That way a combo attacks and repostes would encourage staying in range.

 

The attack and defense values would be play tested of course. Those are just rough ideas. Until we get the code figured out for adding styles I'm thinking of trying out the advanced style and replacing Tavion or Desann in the meantime.

[Dusty]

If I can get a stable internet connection I want to fork the sp part of OJK so I can play around in that. It would be great to finally be able to alter animations and see the workings under the hood.

 

I've been pondering your original question. Do you really need to do anything to encourage close duels? As a sp game why worry about how others want to play the game? You like close duels and so do I. So we play up close. Maybe someone else doesn't.

 

Though I've kind of come up with a solution for close fighting via animations. I'm thinking of making a one-handed Polish saber style. The basic attacks and parries have all been brainstormed and I have come up with two versions: a basic and an advanced form.

 

The basic style will behave like a blue style blocking and yellow style attacking statistics. I'd set a two or three combo limit. This reflects what I see in beginner and intermediate level fencers.

 

The advanced would have yellow statistics in defense, and blue level attack power. The difference would be that I'd put counter attacks into it's parries and attacks into its transtions. That way a combo attacks and repostes would encourage staying in range.

 

The attack and defense values would be play tested of course. Those are just rough ideas. Until we get the code figured out for adding styles I'm thinking of trying out the advanced style and replacing Tavion or Desann in the meantime.

 

I don't worry about how people play the game too much, nor do I want to change gameplay much. I just feel close combat for it's increased difficulty should have some point to it and be a little more rewarding. 

 

Your saber style idea sounds interesting. I'm learning a lot more C++ in school too. I'm just in basics now but even that makes things so much easier to read, as I can actually tell cryptic symbols and operators apart now.

[katanamaru]

Excellent news! I guess I'll pick up a text book or self-help book then.

[Dusty]

^The code is so easy to read now in comparison, I can actually kind of tell what's going on lol...

[Dusty]

Here's a video I made: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scsU2juKCZQ&feature=youtu.be

 

Basically a compilation of duels I had with Reborn Masters as kyle, where I only used Force absorb and maybe force heal every once in a while. Just showing off the saber dueling and stuff. I didn't mess up too badly managing to win sometimes, at least, I showed you most of the ones where I won. I had to get on a roll before I started using the videos so it wasn't too embarassing lol.

 

Reborn Masters are tough cookiees I'll tell yah. Also, no sound, must've had the recorder set up wrong or something. Up to the 3:00 mark I mostly get owned as I'm playing with 50/50 HP and shields, but after that I tend to do better at full health. For some reason I duel better with full HP, I dunno why, as in I seem to not lose half my health sometimes while at 50% health I tend to die very quickly lol.

 

Also at 4:12, weird saber lock glitch my mod causes but I can't seem to figure out why...

 

 

I summon @katanamaru, @therfiles, @Circa, and @eezstreet to watch this video.

[Dusty]

Soooo, how does it look? The main changes on display are the changed parry speeds, altered walk animations for better blocking, the changed parry values for sabers, so if you look closely, you can see that strong style attacks are actually blocked, but not parried/bounced back.

 

EDIT: Also, no saber throws in there, and the occasional kick attack by me (stylishly I might add, even though this was usually unintentional after a saber lock), the reborn masters seem to like using their tavion style, and the saber damage while overall mostly unnoticeable, should be 1.25x normal.

 

The difficulty is g_spskill 2 which is Jedi Knight/Jedi Master difficulty (they both use the same setting). The only thing I change is the amount of health I have part way through from 50/50 to 100/100.

[Circa]

Looks good to me!

[Dusty]

^Thank you!

 

Also, I'm adding some more details to the last post.

[katanamaru]

Soooo, how does it look? The main changes on display are the changed parry speeds, altered walk animations for better blocking, the changed parry values for sabers, so if you look closely, you can see that strong style attacks are actually blocked, but not parried/bounced back.

 

EDIT: Also, no saber throws in there, and the occasional kick attack by me (stylishly I might add, even though this was usually unintentional after a saber lock), the reborn masters seem to like using their tavion style, and the saber damage while overall mostly unnoticeable, should be 1.25x normal.

 

The difficulty is g_spskill 2 which is Jedi Knight/Jedi Master difficulty (they both use the same setting). The only thing I change is the amount of health I have part way through from 50/50 to 100/100.

Yep I caught most of this. I missed the walk a little because it is similart to the one I've used for so long. Did you also speed up the yellow's swing speed? It looked like the speed I use when I set the command g_saberanimspeed 1.1. Red's attacks were blocked much more which is good.

 

I'm thinking of changing the parry speeds in my animation mod to test it out now.

[Dusty]

Yeah I think it was a tad speedier as Kyle's hilt as a mod on it, animspeedscale 1.05. So, a hair faster. I think I deleted the changes I made to yellow swing speeds in the anim.cfg so that should be the only difference.

 

ATM red is blocked on the defender's side like any other style (aside from occasionally being knocked down), however the attacker can't have their attack interrupted. This makes using red against NPCs more risky as they can counter you without being staggered from blocking your red attacks, however you can pierce their guard with direct hits, and vice versa. Ideally I would change this slightly so Red could be blocked slightly better but it'd have more of a staggering effect on the guard overall.