Puny Human forums

Hi!

So this week, we have a couple of major things going out.

As usual, launch Sidekick to update your Blade Symphony to the latest Build! If this is the first time you install Blade Symphony, you can grab the full installer.
here (direct download) or here (torrent). If you need to grab the server package to update your server, you can find it here. If you're not participating in the beta yet, enter this code:
ccdb5957d77f7f5d on the Blade Symphony beta page and join the duels!

The first of these things is this: we’re finally releasing District (huzzah!). It’s still closer to WIP than it is to being absolutely 100% complete, but it’s now in a playable state - and you can finally get your hands on it!
District, our third map, takes place in the heart of Annex’s slums - where paupers, vagabonds and immigrants go to hide from the Greater Wing’s Imperial Army, who very rarely leave the wealthy parts of the city. Annex is a great metropolis located at the very heart of the Known World - it was already the seat of the Black Rose's power before the advent of Greater Wing - whose inhabitants live surrounded by technology of a level unheard of by those living in the Known World's hinterlands. The Seven Rivers Administrative District (colloquially referred to as just "the District" by those unfortunate enough to live there) comes dangerously close to being a shantytown

The second major thing is that we’ve gone and drastically rebalanced all of our attack and block timings. It’s a pretty thorough work-over with pretty sweeping changes. We’ve listed as many of them as relevant in the changelog (just for the sake of keeping a record), but trust us when we say you won’t be able to tell the changes just from reading - you’ll have to go out there and play! These changes should go a good way towards making the game much more predictable and much easier to understand.

This turned out to be a pretty short post despite the big announcements! To compensate, here’s a very long changelog:

• Combat Balance Changes
• Made knockback more consistent. Knockback should now knock players directly away from each other.
• Knockback is no longer linked to damage, but to stance. Reverse stance has the lowest knockback, and Heavy stance has the highest knockback.
• Hit recovery from all attacks is now 0.5s. Block recovery is now 0.4s. Weak block recovery (when block color doesn’t match attack color) is now 0.7s.
• Block recovery times are now linked to stance and block type. Reverse attacks that are blocked take a long time to recover (1.2s). Balanced attacks have average blocked recovery (0.8s). Heavy attacks recover the fastest (0.15s). This makes Heavy attacks ideal for gaining frame advantage on a blocking opponent.
• Weak Block recovery has changed and now is also based on what the attacker’s stance was. For Heavy and Reverse attacks, an opponent weak block will cause the attacker to suffer 0.9s recovery. For Balanced attacks the attacker will only have 0.2s recovery. This makes Balanced attacks ideal for forcing weak blocks on an opponent and gaining frame advantage.
• Charge tiers now allow you to cancel the rest of the cooldown animation. Tier 2 charges cancel 20% of the remaining animation, and Tier 3 charges cancel 40% of the remaining animation. This allows you to chain combos out of Tier 2 and Tier 3.
• Revamped combo system. Additional hits in a combo now reduce each damage in the combo by 20% recursively. So for example, a Balanced -> Balanced combo will do (20+16) damage. Balanced -> Balanced -> Reverse will do (20+16+6), etc. Combos also increase knockback per hit, and the hit stun on the victim is reduced for every hit.
• Getting hit mid-string will now reset your string counter. Blocking attacks will not affect your string counter.
• Wall jump! Press dash or roll while facing a wall, and hold the forward key. This will allow you to flip back off the wall and avoid being trapped. After wall jumping, the cooldown for combat moves will be temporarily increased.
• Removed hit-stop animation freezing.
• Slowed down Reverse left attack.
• Tightened timing window for damage on balanced left and right attack.
• Sped up dash/shuffle animations slightly.
• Added dash and shuffle cancellation. You can now cancel the dash and shuffle animation by blocking.
  
  Sword Balance Changes
• Staccato Black damage changed to 10/20/28 from 8/20/25. Added 90% less tier 3 damage ability. Added no damage scaledown ability.
• Grave Requiem damage changed to 10/24/45 from 8/18/40. 30% more tier 3 damage ability removed. Added 50% more knockback ability. Added 40% damage scaledown (default is 20%)
• Legato Splice damage changed to 10/15/25 from 10/15/20. Now charges up 17% faster instead of 15%
• Andante Incendio damage changed to 11/18/27 from 10/15/20. Removed its unique tracer particle effect.
  
  Bug Fixes and Additions
• duel_district released!
• Added Dyssonance. 14/22/0 damage. Cannot use Heavy stance. 110% more knockback. 30% damage on tier 3 attacks.
• Fixed "sliding feet" animation issue.
• Fixed a prediction error that happens at the end of an attack.
• Fixed attack input buffer erroneously attacking more than once.
• Fixed an issue where the sword selection code ignored your choice at spawn.
• Fixed a bug where the game would try to change your sword immediately when you purchased a new sword.
• Allowed for changing tickrate via -tickrate startup options
• Added bb_string_reset (on by default) to reset string after the victim has been struck (hit, weakblock, unblockable).
• Added bb_debug_recovery to see exactly how long each stun is taking.
• Added bb_debug_comborecovery to see how much combo recovery affects hit stun.
• Revised bb_tracerdebug to show “hitboxes.”
• Made tracers fade out when they are no longer in “damage dealing” state.
• Added some code to prevent map changes while a duel is running.
• Fixed a memory leak with swords and ragdolls sometimes not being removed.
• Set default duel type back to arena queue.
• Added a HUD element to show your ready status while spectating.
• Made stance/string indicator not display during round start screen.
• Moved round start screen timer to the centre.
• Changed chasecam to POV cam.
• Reverse stance idle animation tweaked slightly (made smoother/less janky - no gameplay effect).

Oh wow, District looks great. The map I'm working on was inspired by District (early pics), District has many elements I wanted in my map, alleys, warehouses, roof tops, etc. I have a few more arenas left up my sleeve, so hopefully I can make the map not share too many similarities with District.

Nice to see those updates coming thick n fast.

Updating my client and server asap!

I like what's been mixed up!

It looks like wall running does not evade those side-sweeping heavy attacks. Is it possible to implement this, or does it end up revisiting the whole complexity problem of multi-height combat? It'd be nice to have a real way out of getting cornered by a heavy attack, but on the other hand, maybe it should be a punishment.

Also, what does the Charge tier cancellation change refer to? I can't seem to figure out how to cancel or what it would look like. Could you re-explain it?

I'm making a video to explain all this. Stay tuned.

Aight I'm updated, took a look @ district, some nice things in that map, I like how its turnt out so far, found odd cubemap issue will post screenshot l8a. Though I'm really here to say good job on the wall run/back flip, I like how it works @ a 45 degree angle too, though! I guess I started to accept the mod for what it can do, I'm glad you guys are striving for more!

Maybe the 45 degree could be used to intiate a run along the wall, something to consider just to mix up variation.

If you ever include a more jump feature, you could have something like old desert crisis mod where if two walls were close enough you could jump from one to the other gaining height to acess new areas. But only if you start to radically reform things in that dept.

I'm just happy as hell there's a bit more variation in movement.

Also have you guys considered a walk assigned key + animations, just for casual walking around, mainly for free maps where long distances may need to be covered and the player may not nessercaily need to be so hyped up hoping weight from one to the other as current idle/walk animations. Something like you current s_idle stuff but for walking. Would be nice to strut around looking relaxed, instead of constant battle ready.

old desert crisis mod

Desert Crisis owned so much.

Also have you guys considered a walk assigned key + animations, just for casual walking around, mainly for free maps where long distances may need to be covered and the player may not nessercaily need to be so hyped up hoping weight from one to the other as current idle/walk animations. Something like you current s_idle stuff but for walking. Would be nice to strut around looking relaxed, instead of constant battle ready.

I know that it would mean considerably more animating time, but this would be fantastic. It could just be for sheathed stance or etc, opening up the maps a bit for wandering without skidding around like multi-track drifting

This may have been asked somewhere before.


but I come from a land of long ago.... a land called Jedi Knight 3.

I want to know if it's possible to add a bind to cycle through your stance (reverse, heavy, medium) instead of using 3 buttons to swap between them.

Would make doing multi stance combos a bit more interesting I would think. Unless I'm just one of the weird people that do that >.>

This may have been asked somewhere before.


but I come from a land of long ago.... a land called Jedi Knight 3.

I want to know if it's possible to add a bind to cycle through your stance (reverse, heavy, medium) instead of using 3 buttons to swap between them.

Would make doing multi stance combos a bit more interesting I would think. Unless I'm just one of the weird people that do that >.>

IMO, it's better to get into the habit of using direct mappings between stances. Stances are already one "mode," in which pressing the same button (LMB) performs different actions. Having a mode-changing button that is itself a mode (cycle performs 3 different actions) makes things awfully complicated. To be fair, I've always been partial to direct weapon switches (I hate the last weapon button so much.)

You might be able to write a script that does it, but I wouldn't know how.

Code: Select all

alias stance_rev "+reverse;wait;-reverse;alias stanceup stance_bal;alias stancedown stance_heavy"
alias stance_bal "+balanced;wait;-balanced;alias stanceup stance_heavy;alias stancedown stance_rev"
alias stance_heavy "+heavy;wait;-heavy;alias stanceup stance_rev;alias stancedown stance_bal"

alias stanceup "stance_heavy"
alias stancedown "stance_bal"

bind <key> stanceup
bind <key> stancedown

That might do it but I'm not sure how well it'll work with the + and - commands, should pester flux to change them into just "reverse", "balanced", "heavy", since I don't think having + and - on them is particularly useful.

Edit: yeah, nevermind, it doesn't seem to work. Maybe the script can be made to work around the + and - commands but personally I blame flux, it's a good general solution.

This may have been asked somewhere before.


but I come from a land of long ago.... a land called Jedi Knight 3.

I want to know if it's possible to add a bind to cycle through your stance (reverse, heavy, medium) instead of using 3 buttons to swap between them.

Would make doing multi stance combos a bit more interesting I would think. Unless I'm just one of the weird people that do that >.>

I played Jedi Outcast once upon a time. Is there any community left for any jedi dueling game?

I played Jedi Outcast once upon a time. Is there any community left for any jedi dueling game?

I don't know, I haven't played any in years, I loved that game though, and someday hopefully lucasarts will make a jk4 xD

I occassionaly launch it back up with some friends and just FFA for a while. Just for the nostalgia.

Is it issue from DYSTOPIA?
^_^
great build!!!

the + and - commands,

lol, totally forgot you used to have to hold down the stance keys to remain in the stance

Amazing sweeping changes! Didn't think the blocking and Knockback system would get fixed until well after launch, BRAVO this is going to be a solid game.

Ahh, the code's no longer working. Was hoping I could give the beta a try!

Ahh, the code's no longer working. Was hoping I could give the beta a try!

You're a Support! You don't need a code, you're in the beta programme already.

Maybe a console command to change health values? - If there isn't already, I'd love to have one, long fights seem like fun.

Not a crazy idea.

I'm not sure about stat based duels, but Flux mentioned bonus type rounds, maybe a health regen bonus round and double health round would be cool just to break up the norm. Would be great to have say 20 different types of bonus rounds (all sorts to spice things up) and every twenty rounds one of the bonus rounds is picked at random.