Disarm Mechanic

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Yesterday's games got me thinking. Is there any particular reason we have this amazing (tm) gameplay mechanic?

It occurs (I think) when a lightsaber wielder "blocks" (more like parries) a thrown lightsaber coming at him, so it does 0 dmg. Now this same all-damage-negating block can also occur in normal lightsaber versus lightsaber combat (which does not involve saberthrow), except, you will not get disarmed that way, and you can just carry on attacking.

I honestly don't know why this mechanic even exists in the game; I can't remember any Jedi/Sith ever losing their thrown lightsaber to a parry in any of the films/books/whatever. And even if it does happen, who cares about lore reasons. On one of the most played map we sell crack and rob a liquor store.

I think it's simply not fun to lose your saber, as it leaves you defenceless on a 50 hp class. Not to mention the absolute riddiculous cooldown of 3!!! seconds before you can even get your lightsaber back. In most cases the loss of your lightsaber will result in your death, or at the very least will render you useless for 15% of the entire spawn, giving the enemy team a huge advantage.

Oh by the way, not having your lightsaber also stops force regeneration.. for whatever reason. Never mind that you can regenerate force just fine if you have melee, which should be equivalent to you currently not holding your lightsaber after a disarm.

I'll also confidently say that disarm rng is the second most complained thing about, right after getting sniped through level 3 saber defence.
I don't know how difficult it would be to change this behaviour, but I feel something should certainly be done.

  1. I think the best solution would be to simply remove this whole disarm mechanic. Enemies could still block your saberthrow, thus negating all your damage, but your saber would just fly back to your hand, and not result in a severe handicap. And to be fair, a pullthrow will consume 40 forcepoints, almost half of your total forcepoints. Commiting that much and ending up dealing 0 damage should be enough punishment.
  2. If it is too difficult to get rid of the disarm part, can we at least lower the cooldown. Why do you need to wait 3!!! seconds before you can get your lightsaber back? This has got to be the dumbest design decision in the entire game. Even 1 second would be annoying as hell.
  3. If none of the solutions above can work, can we at least make forceregeneration not stop when you lose your lightsaber. Makes no sense, as explained earlier. This could also be combined with 2, if the cooldown can be lowered.

Re: Disarm Mechanic

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I agree and I'm glad you made the comparison of normal saber v saber combat where you can get blocked without being disarmed. It's a complete shit mechanic. Just blocking the saber is enough. You don't need to be punished so hard for attempting to attack people. In terms of coding it would be extremely simple to remove.

Also depending on saber levels there is literally RNG in terms of the server mod selecting a random number to determine whether disarm occurs. IIRC the literal RNG doesn't happen in most cases though. Just one more bullshit bullet point to add onto the list.

Re: Disarm Mechanic

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I have to disagree. To me it makes sense that it happens since you aren't holding your weapon if it gets deflected I'd think it'd go on the floor. Lore doesn't really come into it as they don't exactly do saber throws in the films either.

The risk / reward of saber throwing a Jedi currently:

Risk - Disarm (loss of weapon for 3 seconds), weapon and primary defence is airborne leaving you more vulnerable ( pretty minor Vs a Jedi this is more relevant when facing a scout).

Reward: High damage, keeps distance from enemy wielding a melee weapon.

With no disarm the negatives change to only being slightly vulnerable when the saber is in the air = small risk with high rewards.

That's a problem for me. Playing as a Jedi you should be conscious of disarm and time saber throws to prevent disarm as much as possible using push/pull, avoiding saber or attacking when they are swinging their saber.

Losing your saber is a big negative of course but I think it works competitively. There has been an upsurge in being disarmed as people play defence Jedi more particularly on urban. I think it goes to show that being disarmed isn't disadvantage enough to deter picking the class and I think it adds skill to playing Jedi.

Removing this element that works, in that it is intentional, not bugged and, adds to gameplay, would be a mistake. At the end of the day you don't need to throw your saber to get kills but it is the easiest way to play the class and making it easier to do lowers the skill ceiling.

Re: Disarm Mechanic

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I'm afraid I'll have to side with Black on this one. IMHO, the disarm mechanic has a similar effect as rocket hp, in that it (should) be cause for consideration before attacking. When I play HW and the opposing team has a tech I find myself hesitating to fire for fear of blowing myself up. Similarly, when combating splash classes (as HW) I find myself firing slightly off center to avoid hurting myself should the splash cause the rocket to explode. If we remove rocket hp, the little intelligence it takes to play HW disappears. Granted, removing the disarm mechanic would not make Jedi op; however, it would remove some of the skill from the class. I would say keep the mechanic, but make it a structured mechanic as opposed to an RNG (idk how hard this would be). I.e. disarming occurs if I pt a jedi from a certain angle (I suppose this would be similar to saber defense; couldn't you just dot the body normal vectors and if the angle satisfies some criterion, disarm occurs? Do bodies even have normal vectors? I kinda figured they do, but I could be wrong.) I 100% support a more structured disarm mechanic. I also support force regen when disarmed. However, I don't think nerfing the mechanic is a good idea.

Re: Disarm Mechanic

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ceasar wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 2:16 am but make it a structured mechanic as opposed to an RNG (idk how hard this would be). I.e. disarming occurs if I pt a jedi from a certain angle (I suppose this would be similar to saber defense; couldn't you just dot the body normal vectors and if the angle satisfies some criterion, disarm occurs? Do bodies even have normal vectors? I kinda figured they do, but I could be wrong.) I 100% support a more structured disarm mechanic. I also support force regen when disarmed. However, I don't think nerfing the mechanic is a good idea.

Currently it compares saber throw level and saber defence level. Assuming the sabers contact:

  • Throw > Defence - never disarm
  • Throw = Defence - RNG for disarm
  • Throw < Defence - Always Disarm

I don't really have too much of a problem with RNG being used to determine it but if saber block changes as discussed in the disruptor thread were to include angles for disarm and block instead I'd be up for that. If we are to overhaul saber defence I'd rather add skill / awareness to the mechanic I think making the Jedi face the saber would be a great thing e.g.

  • Defence 1: 0-10 Degrees = Disarm, 10-40 Degrees = Block
  • Defence 2: 0-20 Degrees = Disarm, 20-100 Degrees = Block
  • Defence 3: 0-30 Degrees = Disarm, 30-180 Degrees = Block

This would remove RNG and take away ST level as a factor (although it could remain a factor with multipliers or something I suppose). But, I suspect this would be a lot of work and I'd only recommend it as a part of the overhaul involving all elements of saber block.

Re: Disarm Mechanic

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Black wrote: Reward: High damage, keeps distance from enemy wielding a melee weapon.

I would question this "reward": more often than not, you will fail to kill the enemy jedi with just a single saberthrow. Sure, you can one hit gunners most of the time, but that is irrelevant when discussing jedi versus jedi combat.

Black wrote: With no disarm the negatives change to only being slightly vulnerable when the saber is in the air = small risk with high rewards.

I think spending 40 forcepoints on an attack that may not even kill your enemy, and ending up dealing 0 damage is a pretty huge risk in itself. It takes a while to get your forcepoints back, and as you said, you are vulnerable when the saber is in the air.

Black wrote: Losing your saber is a big negative of course but I think it works competitively. There has been an upsurge in being disarmed as people play defence Jedi more particularly on urban. I think it goes to show that being disarmed isn't disadvantage enough to deter picking the class and I think it adds skill to playing Jedi.

Well I wouldn't say it's just urban, it happens on all maps we play bar hoth. I have seen it happen on nar and bespin as well, and especially on cargo, where d jedi is often picked to deal with o jedi.
Also, you can't just not pick jedi classes. It doesn't matter that you are susceptible to disarm, you will have to pick the class anyway, to counter enemy scouts. Bespin is a great example what happens when d jedi is not able to counter o scout: defence has to run the mirror class to counter it, and you end up with a d and an o scout shooting at each other for ages while moving around the map as unpredictably as possible.

Black wrote: Removing this element that works, in that it is intentional, not bugged and, adds to gameplay, would be a mistake. At the end of the day you don't need to throw your saber to get kills but it is the easiest way to play the class and making it easier to do lowers the skill ceiling.

The only map where I frequently see a jedi class get kills without saber throw is cargo, everywhere else you will be throwing your saber. And mind you, I actually genuinely enjoy normal saber versus saber combat on cargo, but I feel if I attempted it on any other map , other jedi would just back away a bit and saberthrow me. Not because that requires less skills, but because that is the safest approach when dealing with enemy jedi.

Black wrote: That's a problem for me. Playing as a Jedi you should be conscious of disarm and time saber throws to prevent disarm as much as possible using push/pull, avoiding saber or attacking when they are swinging their saber.

I feel you are only thinking of strictly jedi versus jedi scenarios, and not taking into the other teammates. While on paper it may sound plausible to play around the weaknesses of saber defence, I think it's actually really hard to do if the jedi's teammate is not braindead.

ceasar wrote: I'm afraid I'll have to side with Black on this one. IMHO, the disarm mechanic has a similar effect as rocket hp, in that it (should) be cause for consideration before attacking. When I play HW and the opposing team has a tech I find myself hesitating to fire for fear of blowing myself up. Similarly, when combating splash classes (as HW) I find myself firing slightly off center to avoid hurting myself should the splash cause the rocket to explode.

The comparison with rocket hp actually surprised me, not that it isn't a valid one, just that I think they are the exact opposites. D HW will try sitting in a position where he cannot be easily attacked, but still able to fire rockets at the enemy. This usually involves staying close to the objective, and just in general, staying as far away as the attackers as possible. This playstyle is further reinforced by the slow mobility of the class, and its vulnerability, that comes from rocket hp. Jedi classes on the other hand, are the exact opposite. They are mobile, low hp classes, that usually want to play on the front, leading the charge/pulling aggro.
While rocket hp can also be annoying, it actually contributes to HW's role, and keeps the class in check (just think of how threatening urban o hw is without rocket self damage). A jedi losing his lightsaber on the other hand just straight up renders the jedi incapable of fulfilling its role. And once again, they are usually on the front when this happens, in close proximity to the enemy team.

Black wrote: Currently it compares saber throw level and saber defence level. Assuming the sabers contact:

Throw > Defence - never disarm

Throw = Defence - RNG for disarm

Throw < Defence - Always Disarm

If this is true, then it's actually really sad, considering jedi classes are useless without defence level 3, while the only map that has a class with level 3 saber throw is bespin.

Grab wrote: Before we "fix" rng and fix saber blocking disruptor, can we see if this happens on basejka server? I think it might be happening because of broken blocks on modded server.

I was not aware modded servers might have an issue like this. Though while we never tested disarm in ctf, alpha did spend a lot of time examining how saberdefence worked, and iirc the conclusion was that raven just half assed the entire thing, and it worked the same regardless of basejk or b_e. This is further reinforced by his surprisingly excellent saber defence thread.

Re: Disarm Mechanic

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Onasi wrote: Thu Nov 15, 2018 12:58 pm I was not aware modded servers might have an issue like this. Though while we never tested disarm in ctf, alpha did spend a lot of time examining how saberdefence worked, and iirc the conclusion was that raven just half assed the entire thing, and it worked the same regardless of basejk or b_e. This is further reinforced by his surprisingly excellent saber defence thread.
Saber blocks are broken on all modded servers. It is because compiling mod on modern hardware/software makes blocks work in different way. That is why saberists play on basejka. What I'm saying is, we don't know how blocks work on basejka.
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