How to Fix Lightsaber Combat (BFIII Maybe?)
I don't know if someone has posted about this before but I haven't seen anyone else talk about this idea, so I'll throw my two cents in. To make lightsaber combat more skillful and less spammy, you only need one mechanic: parry. It's that simple. If you attack while holding block as a lightsaber hero, you do a specific parry animation with a fairly tight window to clash with a lightsaber strike. If timed correctly, the opponent is staggered, allowing you to get a couple swings in or use an ability before they recover. This is standard in fighting games, and I honestly view lightsaber combat as a pseudo 3d fighter (just poorly designed). The thing is about fighting games though, they are never perfect, and this system would not make it perfect, just way better than it is now. This way, players with skill to read their opponents (or just counter swing spammers) can parry and get a good punish. I'll admit, the addition of this technique would destroy swing spammers, but it would be tight enough to perform that strategically wearing down someone's stamina with unpredictable swings is still a viable strategy. First, lets cover the basics. Here are some notes I have thought about with the basics of the system:
- A parry is performed by swinging while holding block as a lightsaber user, and will stagger an opponent if timed correctly.
- Abilities cannot be parried, that doesn't even make sense and would be hard to perform.
- Parries cannot be performed when depleted on stamina, as with swings and blocks.
- Parries probably should not cost stamina, as the risk of even using it and being punished for it is hefty enough to not require stamina drain.
- Parries are non-negotiable on stats: absolutely no star cards or hero specifics would change it, same stats across the board.
Now that we have gone over the absolute basics of how parries will work, here are the specifics that will determine exactly how they function, along with balancing options and ideas:
- Missed parries would have decent end lag, meaning that a wrong call can actually cause you to be punished. For a successful parry, end lag would be cancelled, allowing for the quick follow ups and preventing the devs from staggering heroes for ages while they take blaster fire as the successful parry animation ends. After the first hit, like many abilities in the game, the opponent recovers, so I think two swings would be the max punish besides abilities. Opponents who are parried would obviously still be hit by blaster fire, but it would still be shorter than ability knockdowns if opponent end lag is cancelled so that punishes are immediate. It doesn't have to be a long dramatic animation, just a quick stagger back with enough lag for a punish.
There are two options for balancing the parry window:
- 1. Parry window would be tight enough that you cannot just spam parry when someone is hitting your block, it would have faster recovery from block stun when being used to intentionally make players who just spam parry perform it early and miss. This also prevents brain damage for people who would do that, while allowing a well timed parry to interrupt a block string.
- 2. You don't have enough time to parry at all when in block stun, forcing you to evade and reset neutral, predicting or reacting to the strike early as your only way of parrying (as it is in most fighting games). This not only encourages more strategic gameplay with more mind games, but it also makes wearing down stamina a more viable strategy. Thankfully, because evades exist, the timing would be right that you have enough time to parry after an evade, making punishing swing spammers just as easy.
- To further reward the person who parried (since it should be difficult), they will receive a slight stamina regen, at least enough for a couple swings if not more. This stamina regen ensures that a punish can be made, even if you get that clutch parry on little to no stamina. Maybe consider giving the hero who parries slight damage reduction for 1.5 seconds so they can be a little safer from random blaster fire while punishing, much like evades (large multiplayer mode concern mainly, getting a parry and not being able to follow up because of teammates, which would still happen anyways with this change but make it less risky when there are few people). Keep in mind that you can't parry while out of stamina, making this not broken. It would be a great way for clutch parries to be the best option to escape stamina depletion when you are almost out.
I think that lays out enough of the idea for parries. I personally would love to see this mechanic, but let's talk about some obstacles to this becoming a reality in BFII (especially since support is already done anyways).
- New animations for every saber hero: missed parry, successful parry (way faster while still needing to be fluid), and stagger.
- Specific hit boxes, timings, and fine tuning to make sure it works properly
- Balancing to find the right amount of stagger and how make quick transition from successful parry to character control
- Improper input delay causing people to accidentally parry when letting go of block and trying to swing
- Probably have to nerf every stamina star card in the game involving lightsaber attacks to bring back some balance if you really want to improve saber duels (Looking at you, Kenobi). I think cards that relate to blaster deflections are fine, but leave the lightsaber stamina stats alone for the most part unless dealing with abilities (focused rage, duelist, etc.). Make stamina buffs special to make combat more interesting and do more work balancing base hero stamina pools to make character playstyles vary.
It's definitely way to much work to be considered something as "that one last thing they could add that would be quick and make the game better." That being said, I would love to see this mechanic in a third game if EA is up for it. Not to mention, if you experiment with mechanics like this, you could also toy with the idea of counter abilities for new heroes, giving more unique heroes and an ability to add more depth to lightsaber combat. Also, if you made all of these changes and introduced a mode with small arenas, 1v1, lightsaber heroes only, you have a pretty good dueling game on your hands that could even be made into a standalone 3D fighting game in the future (with more balance consideration of course). That's all I have, let me know what you think about this and make sure to reply and give some xp so hopefully a dev or something sees this.
