Dusty

So, I was wondering if I could discuss methods to make close-combat more rewarding in SP saber duels. I'm talking mostly codeless edits or simple/small code edits. Basically, I want to make hit and run sabering a bit less rewarding and make close-combat more rewarding. Here's what I've thought about: 1. Decreasing saber movement speed while attacking slightly - Forces you to get into range with saber attacks earlier - Makes it harder to pop in and out of close range while swinging - This is more realistic? Wouldn't you slow-down slightly IRL if you were putting a lot of power into a swing? 2. Removing saber throw - NPCs are cheap with it, you can be cheap with it - NPCs drop the saber occasionally leaving them defenseless - NPCs/you have to use force powers for ranged attacks instead (Reborn master and Desann force lightning moar?) - Only downside is you have to use guns against turrets and stuff 3. Decreasing max chain for all styles - Well this wouldn't make much of a difference - It'd just give you less control over the saber - Maybe decrease spamming a bit though 4. Increasing saber damage - Doesn't really make much difference either way, or does it? - Makes using your saber more purposeful as opposed to force powers etc. 5. Decreasing frequency of saber locks - Makes it less risky to be blocked vs. bosses and stuff - Takes away fun/makes saber contact less important (which I don't want)? 6. Make blocking more reliable and purposeful - I can speed up blocking making it faster and better - Make countering more important; where you block a weak swing then do an auto-aimed attack that rips through defenses - ^This is a double-edged sword: Over-doing it can slow down gameplay and make it annoying when you are always staggered by blocks or can always stagger NPCs and encourage even more hit-and-run gameplay Anyone have any other ideas? Or comments/suggestions on my existing ideas?

Kyle would care but he wouldn't be so corny about it. I feel like they did the same crap with Rosh. He was such a corny 2D character like Jaden. Also felt like that about Tavion. He's pseudo-friends with Jaden. Gets tempted by the dark side/jealous of Jaden and stuff. When Jaden tries to talk him out of it he actually listens for a sec making him less corny. But still. The scene later between Jaden and Rosh is kinda beat. Rosh never even says "I'm sorry", I guess it's implied but considering he tried to kill Jaden that's the least he can do. It would've been nice if Rosh could've actually done something cool like save you from Alora or something in a cutscene. Meh.

Clone?!?!?! I'm noticing some mistakes maybe? It says "He was a human male clone" and he "helped Jan Ors search for his old master". Something don't sound right... EDIT: Wait nevermind it talks about the cloning business a little more? And then by his master it meant Jaden's master Kyle.

^My point in that was that an auto-block takes no skill unless it's partially manual/controlled by the player. And to minilogoguy, yeah I agree Medium style if used carefully can wipe the floor with strong, I won't lie. But still strong wiggle and the ensuing baseball bat swinging duels always get on my nerves.

Funny how in a star wars game its so much more difficult to deflect things with a saber then outright dodge them. Maybe I play MB2 too much, I dunno. You shouldn't be able to rely on auto-blocking, (this is where MB2 gets it right, you have to manually block). But it should block half-hearted attacks and what not for you consistently, especially with the player using the right angles and movements. Auto-block shouldn't do very much at all on it's own because it's just that, an auto-block. This is one thing I like about SP at least. Blocks are consistent. You can "perfect-block" and aim your saber to block attacks (well they made it a bit difficult with some of the walk/run animations...). The auto-block can catch a few things out of the way on it's own but ofc it's not reliable. The only thing is blocking period in SP isn't reliable simply because 70% of attacks crush your guard. Same thing with blaster bolts. The auto-block is automated but you're responsible to direct it. You have to time dodges so you dodge during the cooldown and deflect in-between, and to this end you can deflect shots back into enemies. They have a similar counter system with saber slashes but it's difficult to use (you have to parry then do an autoaim slash, which if done fast enough rips through an NPCs guard). In base MP its just stupidly random in saber v saber blocking at least (or it definately seems that way). A bot can slash at me the exact same way 5 times and the auto-block will only act 2-3 times for single saber medium style. That makes breaking/slipping through someone's guard have an element of luck and randomness. The reason I dislike strong style is it screws up saber duels IMO. They turn into hoppy wiggle-fests because of Strong and staff spam. I feel like it should've been tuned differently. My 2 cents.

Alright. So keeping helpusobi locked to 1 seems to solve the problem. Heh. EDIT: Nevermind. It seems to randomly do it again.

Alright so I ran jasp.exe straight from Gamedata and it still did the exact same thing. ^I think I'm just going to have to stoop to writing and execing configs as katanamaru and you guys are suggesting. EDIT: Okay, I think I know what the problem is. I've isolated it to my initialize.cfg. I think the game resets itself because I'm using cheat protected cvars, and there's something about that it don't like.

^One reason I like SP is that the hit detection feels more smooth and a bit less dodgy IMO than in MP. This translates to better saber fights as it favors hit and run game play a bit less. My least favorite things about MP were that they took out reliable blocking from JK2 and then as usual strong style is king among single saber. Also, honestly, NPCs can be pretty tough IMO. The problem is they're easily outsmarted through cheap tactics. In JK2 NPCs, or at least gunners anyway, seemed smarter, as they were a lot less static. They'd run around and chase you/run away a lot more and they were scripted to use alt-fire much more often.

^Just wanted to say I got a hold of Laam/Tomatoe and all's well.

^me. This was the perspective of one of the MB2 coders: even if you're a C/C++ master not knowing the game's style of coding and structure can make it nearly as confusing. He suggested learning C first then C++, as C is simpler and C++ simply builds on it. Also he said JA SP is writting in like 90% C with a little C++.

Well I PMed him, and if I'm lucky maybe he'll get a notification email. Perhaps, could one of the mods PM me his email he registered with for this website? If no I understand, but I just wanted to ask.

Well some of them are. He hasn't been active on here for a year though and he has no contact info on his profile.

Sorry guys haven't got around to testing this yet.

I emailed Eike-Legion on two different emails, but no response yet...

Can't find this guy anywhere. His hansasaurous@gmail.com email is gone that was on jk2files.com and all his websites are dead. The most recent forums he's been to is here on jkhub.org and that was like a year ago. Anyone have his contact info? I'm trying to get permission from him to have some of his models added to MB2.

^Alright. I'm going camping this week, but I'll be sure to try this and reply when I get back. If I have to, my mod will need to write and exec configs constantly to keep things going, but hopefully this can be fixed.

Ugh, it's doing it again now. I tried taking the autoexec out of the .pk3, and then out of my base folder period and it's still doing it. Arg. Is there anything in the .exe or ui game code that could be warranting this? I don't really understand what's going on... This is my initialize.cfg, which is always the trigger: Something is triggered upon execing this, loading up a game and then exiting out, that the next time the game opens everything is re-written in the jaconfig file.

Hmm, maybe... The autoexec doesn't change controls or settings or anything though, you still think it's what was responsible?

In one of the .pk3s there is. I don't have anything in there that'd warrant the jaconfig to delete itself on startup though I don't think. Are you talking about compatibility mode? I'm using Windows XP myself so I think that's out in this case.

That wouldn't make sense, as I've always run the game through JediAcademy.exe and it only did this after I had done exec initialize.cfg in the main menu, then I would have to load a game then exit some time after that (whether from ingame or at the main menu) for my jaconfig to be reset. I mean, safe mode is supposed to make your graphics settings go to bare minimum right for people who would have trouble running the game? After watching the jaconfig closely using Notepad++ while having the game running, I noticed JA would seem to rearrange things ingame, but it'd leave my custom cvars and settings, even upon exiting the game. It was upon loading up JASP (through JediAcademy.exe if that makes any difference) that the config was reset/erased/rewritten it seems. Now, this mysteriously stopped happening though yesterday, and everything seems to be fine?! The game will just keep remembering all my settings and cvars! I'm still very perturbed though, as I have no idea what was causing this... and my mod (and my sanity when it comes to not having all my game settings reset) hinges around the jaconfig being stable unless I do more fracking ghetto workarounds. Could it be/have been a bug in the game's code? I sure hope not... EDIT: Also, something very strange I noticed. Using "seta" ingame won't write anything to the jaconfig, but sets does... (what?)

Hmm, maybe there's something in the UI code, but still, strange nevertheless. I mean, the weird part is, whenever I do that specific action with the initialize.cfg (and I'm pretty sure nothing in the config itself is causing this), upon exiting the game, everything is reset, even the normal game settings. Thanks for the tip though Stoiss^.

Alright, I'm pretty sure I haven't been using safe mode. Still, I don't get why the config keeps resetting.

^I edited my 1st post with some crucial info I forgot to say. So, how do I know if I'm using the safe mode shortcut? I know there's a shortcut for safe mode for JAMP in the start menu folder but the JASP shortcuts on my desktop and in the start menu folder look pretty 'normal' to me. The path for the desktop shortcut (which is what I've been using) is "C:\Program Files\LucasArts\Star Wars Jedi Knight Jedi Academy\JediAcademy.exe", anything unusual there? EDIT: Well the shortcut calls up a menu for me that asks me you know do I want to play SP or MP? etc. Could that perhaps be using safe mode?

I picked up my SP mod again. But I can't get to the bottom of these issues I'm having with the game remembering my custom ui cvars. I'm not sure what's happening. But whatever it is, it not only erases my cvars but it also resets the entire jaconfig as well because when it happens my game resolution and other graphics settings are also defaulted along with my cvars being lost. It seems to happen when I load a game, then exit JA, either from inside the game or by going back to the main menu first. Then once I load up the game again, everything is reset and I don't know why that is. The game remembers all the settings when I load a game, then go back to the main menu, but once I exit the game, everything, whether my stuff or normal game settings is kablooiee. Anyone have any advice? EDIT: It happens whenever I exec my initialize.cfg which sets up my cvars and calls them into existence and writes them into the jaconfig. As long as I stay in the main menu, I can exit and open the game as many times as I want, and everything stays. But after I've done that, as soon as I load a game, the next time I start up JA afterwards everything is erased or so it seems, unless there's some variable I'm affecting here I'm not seeing.