Saber system: JA vs. JK2

[Dusty]

So, while largely similar, there are a few things different in JA vs. JK2 saber duels and mechanics. Some are little details, mainly like more special moves in JA, kicks, super breaks in saber locks, slightly easier/better player saber blocking and blaster deflection in JK2.

 

My main issue with JA for a while now has been that Saber Offense and Defense seem to have little use in the game. In JK2, Saber Offense at least was specifically for giving you new saber styles, and Defense was it's own power that affected how fast your blocking was and several other things. In JA though the saber styles function of Saber Offense is lost/unused mostly, as the game never makes it clear that Saber Offense is what's "giving" you the new styles you learn, and Saber Offense itself doesn't actually grant styles but only affects your saber lock strength, even though the game erroneously documents it as affecting your attack power.

 

So, I feel in JA a nice change from JK2 to go with the fleshing out of the saber system would be to allow Saber Offense to increase attack power, and Defense to increase defense power. Of course, there are other things I'm doing/planning too, like allowing that Medium style isn't always knocked away by Saber Defense 3 depending on your Offense and other factors making it more offensively viable, or Strong style can be blocked (that way you have to "batter" through defenses like the game's description says). However I am also worried about changing the game too much (also all these mods are cvar-enabled).

 

Another mechanic is blaster deflection. In JK2 your blaster deflection abilities are very high, whereas in JA you have a long cooldown so you can't just stand there and block, but enemies don't use as many sneaky tactics on you. An idea I had, would be to remove the deflect auto-aim from Saber Defense in JA at higher difficulty levels (you would have to aim the shots with the crosshair), but in exchange your blaster deflection would be better.

[Ping]

I actually feel like red stance was barely useful in both jk2's as well as jka's SP campaign. This is mostly because of the way dark jedi tended to just randomly parry, block or knock away the saber regardless of the swing they used. The only really viable swing in red you could do against those or boss type enemies was the overhead (w+attack) with a good amount of poke added to it for extra damage - mostly because it is possible to do damage with this swing while you're jumping away to secure your escape against a completely random parry that would normally instantly kill you.

 

So red's viability against saber wielding enemies is already very limited, but it's especially bad against everything else compared to the other stances. In fact, blue is far better against npcs with guns than red is due to its speed and potential to chain swings indefinitely. If you miss with yellow or blue, it's not a problem because you can chain them quickly and follow up with a new swing, while if you do miss with red you'll most likely get a blaster shot to the face before you can chain the next swing. And since npcs have very little hp anyways, 1-2 blue swings tend to just do them in and make using red for its damage completely unnecessary. There is literally no reason to use red against anyone but saber wielding enemies or bosses with large amounts of hp, and even then the stance is very limited.

 

Therefore I'd propose the opposite: extensively buffing red while leaving the other stances as they are. Make it so that you cannot under any circumstances knock away, block or parry a red swing to make it more viable against saber wielding npcs and thus make it a proper alternative to staff/duals (in jka). The only downside to that could be npcs that use force rage with red stance to slice you up real good.

[Dusty]

I actually feel like red stance was barely useful in both jk2's as well as jka's SP campaign. This is mostly because of the way dark jedi tended to just randomly parry, block or knock away the saber regardless of the swing they used. The only really viable swing in red you could do against those or boss type enemies was the overhead (w+attack) with a good amount of poke added to it for extra damage - mostly because it is possible to do damage with this swing while you're jumping away to secure your escape against a completely random parry that would normally instantly kill you.

 

Huh? Red has unbreakable offense pretty much no matter what. If you touch the enemy's saber with your slash, or even just during a transition their guard is completely broken and red slashes never get interrupted in anyway unless JK2 is vastly different from JA which I don't think it is. NPCs that have good stats will dodge and try to hit you during the parts that red leaves you open, but they cannot block it normally in any way, not to mention if it touches their saber instead of just breaking their guard it may knock them down. Red is bad against blasters in JA but is pretty uber vs. saber wielders.

 

Also, red is even more powerful in JK2 than JA, because only in JA does your saber style affect your parry/deflection speed, so in JK2 Red had just as good defense as other stances too vs. blasters and probably vs. sabers. Red style also does more base damage per slash than other styles I believe regardless of how long the saber is touching the enemy. In general, Red (and Staff in JA because of twoHanded 1 being on all the staff hilts) throw any sort of blocking out the window.

 

What I wanted to do, is with making Red have slightly less uber/unstoppable offense, I wanted to make rebounds from attack and blaster/saber deflection slightly faster (as far as JA goes). I figured the stance would be more realistic if it was faster in most ways but could actually be blocked a little bit. Currently I feel NPCs are kind of cheap with it because they often skip rebounds and recoveries with Red which the player can't do.

[Ping]

I honestly don't remember this being the case for jk2 at all, but it's been a while that I've played jk2's sp so I might remember it wrong.

 

EDIT: Actually I might be completely wrong on this, now that I think about it. My only reference is the way saber wielding npcs work in MP (and therefore coop), but this might be very different in SP, which I haven't played for over a decade. In that case, my bad. Disregard everything I said.

[Dusty]

^The MP saber system is a bit different anyway, plus NPCs even then might not use it correctly as saber NPCs are very weird (I would even say broken) from what I recall in Base MP.

[katanamaru]

I agree with Dusty more, but Ping is right about the W + Attack being devastating. Red is only good against saber wielders. It destroys non boss character defense, does damage with it's transitions, and has higher damage per hit. It does have a terrible defense though. 

 

I always liked the idea of Sense being necessary to block and/or deflect blasters. 

[Dusty]

^I don't want to nerf red too much... I don't even necessarily want to nerf it really at all... I just want to make blocking a tad more prevalent/important in saber duels, and Red to seem more 'star-warzy'. Thing is, if a Jedi is proficient in defense with a lightsaber *cough* Defense 3 *cough* I don't see why they aren't capable of parrying attacks just because the attacker is swinging hard. And why did Raven make Red/Strong into a baseball bat stance? It would be more realistic in an awesome way if it was a bit faster, more combo-ish, and didn't have slow-motion defense. That's my opinion anyway.

 

Sense? I mean, I guess I see that more as a Jedi reaching out to sense what's around him. I was thinking of making that tie into sniper shot dodging though. I was going to make saber deflections not auto-aim at enemies at higher difficulties but rather have to be manually aimed, perhaps Force sense would give you a bonus to this?

[katanamaru]

We may have different views of red, and that's fine. I agree with your points, but feel that if we did all of that it might make red too good and detract from blue, yellow, and any others we add.

 

Also saber defense is affected by your sabers positions. I've seen this with some custom stances I've made. It is very noticeable with the backhand stances I released. Those stances have horrible blocking since the blade is behind the player.

 

This is something to consider when talking new styles. I normally try to make one blade forward to maximize blocking.

[Tempust85]

I just noticed that the strong attack in JK2 (right to left slice) is different from JKA (front slice).

[Dusty]

We may have different views of red, and that's fine. I agree with your points, but feel that if we did all of that it might make red too good and detract from blue, yellow, and any others we add.

 

Also saber defense is affected by your sabers positions. I've seen this with some custom stances I've made. It is very noticeable with the backhand stances I released. Those stances have horrible blocking since the blade is behind the player.

 

This is something to consider when talking new styles. I normally try to make one blade forward to maximize blocking.

 

Are you talking to me or Ping? Basically, Red you have to batter the opponent's guard a bit now (you can overwhelm it quickly though in most cases), but the defense will be a bit less slow and the slashes and rebounds a smidge faster. Not a huge change. Feedback will help it be perfected I suppose. Medium and fast will be pretty much unchanged, just depending on your attack power and defense of the opponent you won't always be doomed to have your attacks knocked away, just most of the time hehe.

 

As per saber defense, that's what I (and MB2 people) called perfect blocking. The game seems to base your block radius around the physical location of your saber blade. Your blocking arc also seems to get a bit smaller as the game difficulty goes up, with Padawan having a huge autoblock arc, and Jedi Knight having a somewhat smaller one, meaning you have to make sure the attack hits close to where the blade would be to block correctly.

 

Perhaps your backhand stances could use manual blocking to give the player a better angle? G_saberAutoBlocking and +block with a few modifications could probably be made to work specifically for those stances...

 

 

I just noticed that the strong attack in JK2 (right to left slice) is different from JKA (front slice).

 

Do you mean the attack strengths are different? Like in JK2 that slash does the most damage...?

[Archangel35757]

In regards the the red/strong stance-- I tend to think of this as how Luke fought in much of the ESB and in the throne room in ROTJ-- like swinging a broadsword in the age of Crusades. To me Red seems more "brutish" and less skilled (compared to the prequels). I think it is a bit slow...

 

EDIT: The "power-swings" should be faster (accelerate more-- very similar to swinging a baseball bat). It's the recovery back to a neutral-ready pose that should recover more slowly initially (because you've over-extended) and then begin to accelerate the recovery back to ready pose-- it's at the end of your swing when you should be most vulnerable... again, because you have over extended and leave yourself open-- much like throwing heavy, strong punches in a boxing match.

[Dusty]

^I agree with you. Red should be strong. Just not too strong that it's unrealistic and has to be extra slow to make up for it and suck at non-saber dueling.

 

I think what I'll do is make block recovery a hair slower from blocking red (mainly as a visual indication that your stagger counter is increasing but also maybe for slight strategic value), make red slashes a bit faster and spins, rebounds still slow but faster than they are now, and better blaster and saber defense.

[katanamaru]

I just noticed that the strong attack in JK2 (right to left slice) is different from JKA (front slice).

It may be. I know for sure that when you use the right to left cut the game won't play the wind up part of the animation. Easiest way to see this is use a saber with unlimited chainning and just hold left/'A' and tap the attack button. The game will skip the beginning part of the swing most of the time.

 

I meant to bring this up in the OJK board, but forgot. 

[Dusty]

Would anyone want any sabering changes for JK2? (Optional of course by cvar or something)

 

I personally think JK2's system is good, but there are 2 things:

 

1. Should strong style be tweaked to be slightly faster and weaker like in JA? It could be a simpler version of what I'm doing in JA. Perhaps strong style slashes slightly faster but Saber Defense 3 can block it a bit?

 

2. Should JA expansions be brought into JK2? I wouldn't say JK2 needs them anymore than JA, but they are pretty awesome. Staff and Duals are being brought into JK2 right? They of course aren't necessary to make the saber duels "good" but are pretty interesting, just like the melee system in JA (you know, kicks, jump kicks, melee katas), the added attacks, and super breaks for saber locks.

[eezstreet]

no pls no JA stuff, JK2 sabering is the besticles

[Dusty]

no pls no JA stuff, JK2 sabering is the besticles

 

Katas are cool and roll stabs. Special moves do get a bit spammy and silly sometimes, but some of them are pretty cool and balanced (katas anyway, as they take 50 force). Kicks are good fun, and make the saber combat less stale IMO, especially when you get kicked over and retort with a somersaulting double-foot takedown on that smirking reborn. Not saying they NEED to be added to JK2, but they would make a nice addition.

 

What about strong style though? I think it should be a bit faster but be a little blockable. Would you think that would be good for JK2 or no?

[Solinarius]

Hello everyone! I'm Sol, for short. Avid gamer, modding generalist, and a fan of DF and JK since the beginning. Please pardon my current and future enthusiasm, as I really do love these games and I'm Glad to be here .

 

On topic, I'm going to be brutally honest. I initially loved JO's & JA's saber combat, but over the years, I started nit-picking because it can be so unwieldy and cheesy, depending entirely on how you play. I started a project that, on the surface, is not too dissimilar from other single-player saber improvement mods. However, I focused my mod on making the sabers practical, fluent, and dangerous, without sacrificing speed. My experience and knowledge have taught me that practicality is among the most important foundations for combat (in games and for real). Jedi Knight is no different. While styles have added a measure of strategy to the game, they are poorly balanced and are hardly logical. This is especially true for the dual saber and staff styles, which are highly exaggerated. I'll have to agree that JK is better off without most of the special attacks.

 

There are still plenty of rough edges with my saber animation edits but overall the combat is very consistent. Aside from the occasional wild graze, you have to exploit openings in an opponent's defense in order to make successful blows. Here's a demo:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P26egPGxlGw

[GPChannel]

Hello guys!
Can you change the wallrun animation like in jedi outcast in this mod please
The JK:O version was mutch better (i think)

[Oobah]

Hello guys!

Can you change the wallrun animation like in jedi outcast in this mod please

The JK:O version was mutch better (i think)

 

Those wall run animations (left and right) are specific to JO.  They aren't in the _humanoid folder for JA.  Someone would have to specificly rip the animations or recreate them for JA.  It's doubtful someone would go to that work less they want some brownie points with JO folks.

 

Front wall run is just the force flip kick animation, you can already do that anyway with just setting your force jump level to 2 in JA.

 

Red spam is more prevelant in JA simply because your arm swing animations lock out when they hit the mid point in any of the main swings.  Where as JO just does the full/complete swing.  It's a matter of debate whether it is better.  But that is the core reason for pokes in JA.  You can still do it in JO but without the animation lock up it does mean you have to time your swings a little bit more than just spam the red stance all the time.

 

This is more of the reason why yellow is used more in JO vs. JA regardless of code changes and what have you.  Yellow is the middle or the core saber stance.  It's in all saber styles for that very reason.  If you remove the locking out of the swing animation you more or less revert back to JO with people relying more on the speedy swings/stances and less on reds arms locking up at the swing mid point. 

 

Is that better from a gameplay stand point?  Eh, considering how many people NOW in JA are used to that animation lock up, I consider more might complain despite the fact going back to JO it didn't do that.

 

You can do lockup animations on all the swing styles though, where as JO just cycled through the whole animation regardless of the stance you were in.  It was a lot more "fluid" I would say.  Same with even in MP of JO, the characters had a fluid/smoothness about them when they spun around and walked just due to how the animations were setup to be read/played.  Base JA actually has that to a certain degree/point.  It's more so something from the SP portion but changed for MP/other players simply because in SP you kinda move like you're in an ice rink.  Where as with MP it was a lot more grounded.  But this is my opinion.  I'm sure some who play will notice that if they take 2 seconds to pay attention to any animations play from SP to MP between both games as well as how MP animations moved/flowed in JO compared to JA and the mods done for JA.

 

JO also had the problem of swinging from the left red swings it would skip the animation when you did a 3 swings in red and just cut to part way through the animation.  This was fixed in JA but we got the animation lockup for the midway swing points in place of little things like that.  I imagine like the animation skip in JO red swing to the left, the animation arm swing lock up was probably something they overlooked as well.  I don't think it was there original intention to have it so people can lock up swings and wiggle around like crazy to do high end damage stacking. 

 

But this goes back to older JO patches, people still play the older versions for little animation glitches cause some feel it's apart of the "core" design despite later patches removing that stuff because it obviously wasn't apart of there design to have people exploit things to get an advantage based souly on gimick or obvious fighting.

 

This is the MAIN reason why the best people who saber between both games, don't stick to one style and have a good firm setup with use of the yellow stance.  Not just due to fan/wiggle spam either.  Basically person just has that kinda stuff commited to muscle memory and it's really no longer just brain thinking and processing, but there body knows how to move the mouse and keyboard keys to a point it becomes simple clock work to them.  Best saberists I've seen to this day, still knew there way around yellow out of all other stances. 

 

But it's a game, anyone who plays long enough and pays attention even drunk can get good at sabering lor what have you.  But that's the appeal of JK2 to JA with the hands on combat itself.  It's achievements didn't come in flashy gear, high levels, who did the best raids like other standard games.  But in the skills that people accumulated through actualy playing.  But lot of people hit the point where they don't wanna learn new stuff or are happy in what they got aka that cap point.  But the cap in JK games was always based on the individual and not an over arching system.  It's an individual cap system so it does add to the diversity when every person who plays has distinct styles of play, despite doing same old gimick stuff, but it speaks volumes in that it makes people more distinct when the game is built in such a way everyone can stand on there own merits and not a system saftey net to fall back on (raid runs, gear, etc).  That's the main appeal I feel that makes these games and it's still unique to this very day because of that system.  I also feel people don't fully appreciate a self building up kinda system like this.  Hence why you got the people who talk about 10-0 score crap which just dragged people into the mud instead of encouraging more growth in terms of gameplaying.

 

Want a more over the top kinda sabering system you can try OJP Enhanced.  Lot more based on the movie stuff but I'm sure if people played at it long enough you'd probably run into the same kinda people using same moves over and over with fights even in that mod.  It's just what happens.  People find/pick out what gets the fastest kills or can boost there e-peen fastest and everyone else either has to do it or kinda be left in the dust cause crowd mentalities can have a major effect on socialization for folks.

[Solinarius]

Red spam is more prevelant in JA simply because your arm swing animations lock out when they hit the mid point in any of the main swings.  Where as JO just does the full/complete swing.  It's a matter of debate whether it is better.  But that is the core reason for pokes in JA.  You can still do it in JO but without the animation lock up it does mean you have to time your swings a little bit more than just spam the red stance all the time.

 

This is more of the reason why yellow is used more in JO vs. JA regardless of code changes and what have you.  Yellow is the middle or the core saber stance.  It's in all saber styles for that very reason.  If you remove the locking out of the swing animation you more or less revert back to JO with people relying more on the speedy swings/stances and less on reds arms locking up at the swing mid point. 

 

Is that better from a gameplay stand point?  Eh, considering how many people NOW in JA are used to that animation lock up, I consider more might complain despite the fact going back to JO it didn't do that.

 

Want a more over the top kinda sabering system you can try OJP Enhanced.  Lot more based on the movie stuff but I'm sure if people played at it long enough you'd probably run into the same kinda people using same moves over and over with fights even in that mod.  It's just what happens.  People find/pick out what gets the fastest kills or can boost there e-peen fastest and everyone else either has to do it or kinda be left in the dust cause crowd mentalities can have a major effect on socialization for folks.

 

I never played JO/JA online, myself. Still, it's easy to understand why the strong stance would be the most popular. It is cheesy, not only for the reasons you mentioned, but because it effectively ignores saber defense (medium does this as well, to an extent). This is why the best of the saber combat needs to be consolidated, while the rest be restrained, so that abuse is minimal and so the playing-field provides a straight-forward, fair, and rewarding challenge. I also strongly disagree that OJP is over-the-top. It attempts to bring some sanity to the chaos that is the vanilla saber combat. It's vanilla JK that is over-the-top. Even more so than the prequels because Episode I had at least -some- values of real melee discipline and theory mixed in with the "sword clashing".

[Oobah]

I never played JO/JA online, myself. Still, it's easy to understand why the strong stance would be the most popular. It is cheesy, not only for the reasons you mentioned, but because it effectively ignores saber defense (medium does this as well, to an extent). This is why the best of the saber combat needs to be consolidated, while the rest be restrained, so that abuse is minimal and so the playing-field provides a straight-forward, fair, and rewarding challenge. I also strongly disagree that OJP is over-the-top. It attempts to bring some sanity to the chaos that is the vanilla saber combat. It's vanilla JK that is over-the-top. Even more so than the prequels because at least Episode I had -some- values of real melee discipline and theory mixed in with the "sword clashing".

 

Strong is popular in JA, JO it's more balanced but you still get the occasional spam in the use/form of people picking specific styles to kill people which is not any different from JA.  Had a friend in JO who just killed people with regular blue spam and also got away with it on a constant level that rivals that of someone good with red saber in JA (that was souly with OVERHEAD blue swings also), you can't get away with that in JA as much just due to how the sabering itself was changed to be a little more touchy.  But I purely attribute that to the more sensitve location based saber hitboxs as well as the lock out animations alone.  Nothing else beyond that is really different beyond the added saber styles on top of that.  

 

Pretty simple when you break it down to that level isn't it?  Hell, force flip kick is STILL in the core game code just */ /* out in the code.  Imagine what base JA would of been if the devs allowed that in the initial 1.00 or brought it back in the 1.01 patch?

 

 

JO had the best balance because it was fluid in that it didn't lock out the animations.  I attribute that to the introduction of the cartwheels in JA.  I'm sure someone can break up the code for the cartwheels so the rest of the sabers no longer have the lock out the swing animations anymore.  But the playing community wont like it because it changes something they're used to, that's the only reason why.  Introducing something different to people who are kinda set in there ways meets either confusion or frustration.  Some people have a hard time getting into learning something new.  But people sure do love talking about the "old days" with any of the JK games years after those things are gone instead of making new memories.

 

The JO balance was simply because it was built around 1 single saber style and that was it.  JA was more or less an expansion off JO and it brought new things to the table and in a sense I would say it's all fine.  Mods always try to "remedy" things to a point but if the people who play still always fall back on "base JA is best for sabering" I think it's safe to say JA people only speak from the position of playing 1 game, not more in the JK series.  Base JA actually came with a setting alone you could simply change to 0 to more or less effectively put it back to JO's style of hitbox but no one uses it.  Not to mention the saber additions and the lock out animations alone still wont ever make it JO regardless of what people do.  Even JO folks and DF2 folks still talk about how they're game was "best", JA community is really no different on that matter either.  It's kinda funny everyones in there own world of "my game is the best blah blah blah" despite the fact I think each community has contributed really awesome things and would do better coming together with content/ideas.  But that's never going to happen.

 

Dark Forces 2 still has a modding community.  That's just a sign people really just love these games regardless of how much they've aged.

 

DF2 sabering was a lot more basic/real (basically just blue stance only with a kata special) and it had 1 hit kills.  But 1 hit kills all the time are boring from a gameplay stand point.  Sure it can add to the tension when people can't just dive in, much like combat is now in general with people doing pot shots then jumping away to swing again, but it's boring because everyones basically sabering the same whether it's ffas or duels.  Other saber styles do break it up but you only got so much you can do with what is in place of the core system now so it's no surprise people fall back on specific fighting setups.  It's what works.  But the main thing anyone has to realize is you can "copy" people in what works best for killing.  But the people who truly have skill aren't a generic "1 trick pony".  They can adapt to things, that's what makes them truly skilled.  But I don't expect anyone to go so crazy to be the best "kung fu masta" kinda mindset.  For many of us it's a hobby and a leisure activity to kick back and enjoy in a variety of ways.  Games hands on combat and the free range you can have on any map in FFA truly gives you a sense of freedom no other game offers, hell you can LITERALLY define your own specific look with your own 2 hands if you really get skilled enough at it.  All your stats/skills come specificly come from you alone.  Only real limitation is the fps shooter size of things (can't have huge mmo scale of worlds) and the communities level of imagination on adding to the atmosphere as well as the general level of socialization you can have with others.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

OJP is over the top in that it trys going off the movies, as well as the community in regards to a more fleshed out saber system.  It built off a system for something more specific, due to how little it is hosted/used for hosting it's obvious it speaks to a specific group of people.  Like JO/JA it will also suffer from the same problem of if enough people play it, they will ALWAYS try to exploit for the specific styles/moves that get the fastest kills and more or less put ones self on top of the food chain sorta deal, which really is rather pointless because it promotes isolationist attitudes and making little pocket crowds that play the "I'm better than you game".  Competition is all well and good but people gotta keep a perspective on things.  Forced comeptition only puts a bad taste in everyones mouths.  It's in part due to why we have such rules as the laming rule and admins having to babysit people.

 

JO sabering itself was not only established the saber system JA built off of but it was MORE fleshed out due to being the original more advance hands on sabering system, which I still say is on its own the most balanced.  JA introduction of the locked out animations, as well as the 2 additional saber styles can add to the confusion plus diversity.  It's pure gimmicky that people across the board more or less play in the same manner with specific saber styles.  Argument of red spam is purely looks since score ultimately is, like always, pointless.  Outside of servers/mods that keep track of that kinda stuff, it constantly wipes and for the most part no one lives in JK on a level of constantly memorizing or viewing people on the level of kill/death ratio as it is.  That's the equivalent of gear score in WoW.  It cares more for a specific set in stone interpretation of the game itself and less openness to the idea of diversity which JK was when it was new to people.  It is great for a measurement of things to a certain point, but the more die hards don't use it in that way. 

 

These days no one really smelling the flowers, everyones kinda rushing around more and burning out trying to get there equivalent "nicotine fix" with ffas rather than sticking around building a community everyone can feel at home with.  Which I do attribute to those "good old days" memories everyone loves to talk about but can't seem to recreate/build.

 

That's what ultimately made JK what it was when people started.  Hands on combat was great to learn for everyone I imagine to start out, but a lot of us are past that intial learning point now.  What else is gonna keep interest for folks besides the usual file alteration now or starting generic clan/community 10000?  Gonna take more depth than that at this point.  Old join clan and get admin handed to you at specific rank/point isn't going to keep interest anymore, people need to recognize that already.

 

Trials and meetings still probably are one of the best ways to get people more involved in the investment of such things, plus going to other servers instead of camping on your main one all the time.  Be more fun that way I think, every server has a community specific temple and everyone kinda treats it as if going to another server is like setting foot in another persons kinda jedi temple or sith academy sorta deal and diversifying out more and building bridges instead of people trying to burn it all down.  All this history and fun etc etc came from the community investment.

 

 

Just gonna spoiler most the post, it's to long for lazy people to read/look at.

[Solinarius]

I won't get too into the "good old days", but they did happen, and the hay-day of the DF2 community was very special. That whole era of early online gaming was special (and it will never happen again!). I attribute this to the fact that PCs were rarer and too difficult to understand (due to being less mainstream) for the common, unwise, and hateful people that are so visible today. As a result, there was a higher ratio of reasonable individuals, intellectuals, and cheerful folk to go around. Here's to us!

 

Eeeeh... I made a big reply to most of your post, but I accidentally closed Chrome (/doh!). To summarize: It's not just the sabers that need work, for their own sake, they need to be better balanced against the Force itself. That's one thing I felt OJP did well. Not that I would like to see a replication of its combat. It's a bit awkward for me to say what "needs" to be done, though, when I have very little frame-of-reference on the Jedi Knight: Enhanced agenda for sabers and the Force.

 

By the way, when I mentioned "prequels", I meant the Episode 1 movie. Heheh, the saber in DF2 is a joke, without mods (specifically SBX!).

[Oobah]

I won't get too into the "good old days", but they did happen, and the hay-day of the DF2 community was very special. That whole era of early online gaming was special (and it will never happen again!). I attribute this to the fact that PCs were rarer and too difficult to understand (due to being less mainstream) for the common, unwise, and hateful people that are so visible today. As a result, there was a higher ratio of reasonable individuals, intellectuals, and cheerful folk to go around. Here's to us!

 

Eeeeh... I made a big reply to most of your post, but I accidentally closed Chrome (/doh!). To summarize: It's not just the sabers that need work, for their own sake, they need to be better balanced against the Force itself. That's one thing I felt OJP did well. Not that I would like to see a replication of its combat. It's a bit awkward for me to say what "needs" to be done, though, when I have very little frame-of-reference on the Jedi Knight: Enhanced agenda for sabers and the Force.

 

By the way, when I mentioned "prequels", I meant the Episode 1 movie. Heheh, the saber in DF2 is a joke, without mods (specifically SBX!).

 

I think lot of the past stuff was just cause it was new to us, and a lot of the places we joined up with already had communities of sorts as well so it meant more focus on playing and less on recruiting and advertising or even tons of people editing game files.  But we have the other problem now of a lot of "masters" around and no one really focusing more on lowering themselves to get in the trenches.  More people wanna prop themselves up than just integrate into the mass and be apart of the crowd, hard to know when you feel with all the knowledge and experience that somehow you shouldn't get some kinda fancy title or cookie.

 

 

I think the core JO related code would function best for sabers, as well as the more fluid animations so you don't suffer the lock out problem.  But this gets into a whole nother debate of saber defense, is certain damage to high or to much for certain swings and so forth.

 

Force is definable in JK so it's a take it or leave it thing, I think JA's little additions via JA+ is probably the best full forcing out there such as absorb now gives force back due to grip attempts and drain spam, but JO had drain spam and I have seen people spam rage also.  Not to mention in comparison the forcing is a bit faster paced in comparision to JO, but like the sabering JO had core that is awesome for anyone to dig it up and build off of.  You might look at it like "taking a step back" but this is what JA was built off of.  Inspite of the limitations and difference to JA, it is still a great learning experience to dig into it and get a real taste for it.  Just as much to learn from any of the Jedi Knight games.  All the games had dedicated communities that eventually just bled dry and even I'm aware of the same kinda attitudes that polluted the DF2 community (had a dedicated forum and it just screamed the same thing that plagued JA with the attitudes such as "I know the history of the game more, I was the best nf saberist, etc"). 

 

Lot of communities have left force in the dust, I prefer idea of integrating it into the core game cause it adds another element.  Now of course force can turn someone into a human nuke but I attribute that kinda phobia/attitude to people who refused to learn how to use it and actually still kept to the socializing and getting along with others, and the idiots that left the bad taste in everyone elses mouths.

 

I've shown a few people the core basics of full force and just let them take off with it through the years, but there's no real way to calculate what they may go off/do with it or how they're attitudes might change when they're able to effect places a lot easier via full forcing.  Same problem with admin if you don't really get the point across that as a community it does better if we don't have trouble makers all over, it just drives activity and interest away from the game as a whole.  Now of course another solution is you get every trained up to at least the core basics to full force which is really just pull kick being the main thing that defines full force in a nutshell.  Take out force flip kick, full force is no longer full force.  It heavily needs/relies on that to even be full force.  Otherwise your force powers turn into a weapon setup with less hands on control.  You can still grip, speed, rage, and drain spam all you want but the pull kick adds in the core control aspect for direct combat.  It's really a lot like sabering in the grand scheme it can be fun and great.  Not everyone who learns it, is gonna ruin everyone elses fun/good time.  But that's a pointless debate cause no one who has it off on a server is probably ever going to turn it back on anyway.

 

It's the main reason I setup yavin_trial from JO for Massassi Temple.  A safe isolated area people can test core force powers without being harassed or forced into doing so.  It's an old fashioned learning experience and like sabering it branches out into something that can define a person even more so once they get into picking specific force powers that speak to them the most.

 

OJP is a bit more of a slower kinda play but like even base or mods, it can pick up with intensity the more you get into it and the longer fights.  OJP for me is more like chess where as the lighter end/base stuff is more like checkers.  I enjoy both personally but I prefer regular/light end mods just due to how used to them I am at this point.  If something like the base JA game was more like OJP Enhanced I have no doubt the JA community would probably have server settings to disable certain saber styles and such cause like force now, easier to focus and deal with one thing than have to many variables.

 

Same with melee.  Despite how nitpicky people get with JA+, I still say with the melee getting some more additions and the full forcing getting small little fleshing out a little more than JO's variation, it by far had the most hands on based learning and variety in regards to that combat.  It's slow when you start out, but the better you get the faster it can get, especially a good long full forcing fight or saber fight that goes on for a good while.  But these days people care more for sabers and that's just something due to the problems people don't wanna deal with and managing a saber only kinda server is easier to focus on cause you more so only have 1 aspect of gameplay to deal with at that point.  Some of us learned force and joined clans that had people who weren't into full forcing at all and we got along fine with people, cause some of us refused to join those groups that cater to an even lower common denominator than the casual groups.  It's one of those things that older places did a bit better, due to it being new there was less forcing and less experienced people so lot of problems and fun came as people learned and grew together as time went on.  It can still happen in new ways, but it's gonna take people lowering themselves and stop trying to play the all knowing I know what's best for everyone leader of blah blah blah 50 other clans to get back into the thick of it however what is gonna work remains to be seen.

 

[ShakeThatSalt]

Really like the discussion here and I think about the balancing of saber styles constantly while I'm playing the game, as well. Figured I'd kind of chime in from a more 'competitive' standpoint for JKA. This is my opinion on it, so feel free to disagree or whatever. This is for MP only as well, considering SP balancing isn't nearly as important (IN MY OPINION, DON'T HURT ME). 

 

For JKA Base/MP, yellow/medium is definitely the more optimal and versatile style, if you will (Single vs. Single). absolutely fantastic angles on the swings(A and D swings, in particular, are extremely straight forward), no reduced speed, great range, exceptionally high priority when swinging that even contests red occasionally, poking the swings also give it immense damage, etc.

 

The list really goes on. It's ability to pressure and counter swings is absolutely unmatched in the correct hands and it's defensive options are exceptional as well! Countering low-jumps by fanning mid-air, stopping pressure by forcing trades (yellow fan vs yellow fan), it truly is a strong counter to light/blue AND strong/red. Staff is what really takes medium/yellow to new heights in the meta-game, but I probably won't go into that. 

 

 

Let's talk about Strong a bit: Red, naturally, suffers greatly from a lack of offensive options due too it's absolutely ridiculous slow and long initial start-up animations, reduced speed on the ground,  and long swing cool-down animations making it extremely punishable if moving forward. Players in the community have gotten very creative however by jumping right before the speed reduction of the swing occurs, allowing you to have NO speed reduction while airborne. While a great technique and a soft-counter of sorts to medium, it becomes easy to to read by the opponent and even easier to dodge. The most viable way to use this technique is called low-jumping, which is quickly pressing the crouch button once during the beginning frames of the jump animation (around frames 2-5) allowing you to cancel your potential peak height in the jump, making your hang-time in the air significantly shorter. Due to a shorter jump, it's much harder for your opponent react with a counter or dodge and players can take advantage of this further by lowering their jump force level and/or choosing an FPS value of 83 or 142 which allows shorter jump height. Other than that, however, that's really all Strong/Red has for a consistent and viable offensive option. This makes it MUCH tougher to comeback in a match if you're down in score, the red user has to be extremely creative, precise, and careful even with low-jumping. 

 

Strong/Red does have a very strong defensive game, however. Swing delays, ranging opponents out with the little range they have over yellow, parrying, etc., can make even the most seasoned medium single or staff think twice before approaching too hard. This is also where the true skill-gap in the game is found, in my opinion. In order to make red viable against medium single and staff, it takes an absolute insane amount of practice and experience, which is why the newer people in the game really struggle against medium and staff. Red requires such precision and footwork mastery at high level it's truly something that should be commended if seen. The EU competitive scene has done a much better job in honing their Red style compared to most USA players, I must sadly admit. 

 

What should be changed if anything? Red needs more offensive options against medium single and staff, as well as a tad priority and strength boost against staff, specifically. Like most swings in any style or saber, the farther you are from an opponent when making contact actually gives you LESS priority, this makes ranging out opponents using red slightly more pointless and annoying (this can be read in the source code as well). Buffing Red/Strong offensively will greatly speed up the game-play as well, due to not having to rely so much on defensive/passive play. I'm not saying buff Red a lot or even mildly, but it definitely should be addressed in some way. I can talk way more into specifics about this, but I think I got the message across lol 

 

Red also is a bit more viable in JKA than JK2 (1.04), which is a little better for versatility, adding on to game dynamic and the entertainment value of watching the game. Also <3 Cartwheels