Ok, ok, so I don't want to divide the community, but this kind of comparission end up arising sooner or later. And I preffer it sooner to settle down the faster we can the differences between mods and what advantages do they have between them.
So, I will explain here my feelings about those two games. I think EoC has a better base to be worked up. Why do I say this? Well, I tried to love MBattles, but the game has something that grinds me on and makes me feel uncomfortable with the game. What I am talking about is this. Just look to the attack the guy in green saber makes in the minute 2:08 (your reproduction should be starting right in that momment).
Youtu.be
That kind of spam attack with the saber, which usually ignore saber colission, just ruins up one of the better swordfighting mods I was able to find. It's not for the attack itself, but for the fact that is very difficult to defend. I mean, it kinda ignores saber collision, or either you can't properly block it and lead the enemy into a slowbounce that stops the annoying spamming. The halfswings are indeed, for me, a problem in Movie Battles.
I like, however, how EoCIV handles this annimation, giving you possitive control so that you can use this kind of attacks from the manual blocking stance, and avoiding spam at the same time. Aswell, EoCIV takes more seriously the saber collision, so that you can't spam in that way because you saber doesn't pass through the enemy saber, it just bounces when hitting an enemy saber.
Does this mean that everything is better in EoCIV? No. Absolutely not. In fact, altough Movie Battles has more of a poor system in what physics and colisions refer and allows spamming attack, and so his bases are not so good (imo at least), the game does have 2 very good virtues. First one is the sabersystem itself. Yes, I was just talking shit about the sabersystem a minute ago, why then I am praising it now? Well. Inconsistences, bugs and spam attacks aside, movie battles feature a game with a big set of styles in there, all solid and balanced, AND a huge metagame strategy. While Evolution of Combat does have a big set of styles, not every one of them is solid, much less balanced and posesing some sort of strategy. I talked about it in a previous post, this game is too much about swift moves to get inside the defences of the enemy, however, you can't submit him by pure strength, using it to create openings on the enemy, something that in fact you can trully do in Movie Battles.
Why do I say that? Well, let's give a look to Movie Battles system.
Movie Battles features block points, usually adressed as BP. Getting caught into an attack without holding block makes you loose a lost of BP. However, you can swing block so that you still attack but don't get penalized when getting hit into your attack animation. In EoCIV you just get killed if get hit into an attack. No matter if you were pressing block while attacking. This is the first thing I would change. I understand that attacking must be a risk, but it shouldnt leave you complete open. Make it so that you can block even while attacking, by stopping your attack when pressing block. Currently, instead of defending, you change the direction of your hit with a saber fake. And although I see it like a good feature, I would add it by pressing the slap/kick button or the saber throw one during the wind up, instead of blocking. By pressing the block button, you would get back to your defence position, but only if you are still on the wind up animation, which would stop and go back to de defending posisiton. It could be featured, aswell, to stop an attack even after the wind up animation, but then I think the one going back to the defence position should loose extra FP (that act here like BP) when blocking a hit into the next second, or 2 seconds or 3 seconds. This way, you attempt to give the player a possibility to not die when is going to be hit while attacking, at least if he has good reflexes, but will still be penalized by blocking after interrupting a swing.
About perfect blocking. How is it held in MB? You must direct your crosshair for one of the specific place of the enemy model depending on what direction he is attacking from. Is further explained in this guide.
Community.moviebattles.org
"This defensive technique is simple to understand but hard to master. In essence, you aim your crosshair at different PB zones that are independent of the way the enemy’s lightsaber moves. This will take some clarification to explain properly. First, the PB zones are attached to the model itself and not the lightsaber. This means that you must aim somewhere around the enemy’s model to perform a perfect block and only use the lightsaber swing as a guide to what zone you should aim for. When you are successful, your crosshair will flash green on screen. (If it doesn’t, enable the option under crosshair settings)."
Well there is something that I like about this PB system. Simply. It allows you to defend properly without messing with the fucking direction buttons. And, in addition, is lore-friendly. Why? Because of the 3 rings of defense.
Starwars.wikia.com
This doesn't mean I do not like the EoCIV manual blocking, it just means that for me is not enough. So what would I do? Simply, I would copy this style of defense from MB. For me is legit enough, and does not necessary break the spirit of EoC. The opposite, it just makes the game better. Why? Because you are featuring 3 different styles of blocking that represent the 3 rings of blocking in the lightsaber art. Firstly, by pressing the manual button, you enter autoblock (ready) stance. Autoblock would repressent the inner ring, at the cost of FP. Second, you would have the middle ring, represented by the perfect blocking system, that would give the possibility of defending yourself while moving in a more easy way, and without loosing too much FP. Perfect block would work here as it does in MBII, it would be like autoblocking an attack but without loosing fp, because you looked towards the placer were the attack came from. Then the character would do a autoblock move, but without loosing fp. Autoblock and ready stance would let you move without entering m.block stance. Lastly, you would have the manual blocking system, that would be entered just like in MB, pressing block+attack at the same time. If the both buttons are hold, then the character stays in the mb stance, just as it is now moving while blocking, but only if you hold both buttons. If you release attack, you go back to autoblocking stance (the ready stance of each Form), and if you release the blocking button, you do an attack from the guard position. Manual blocking would be representing the outer ring, more common to the Form V Djem So and Shien. Why do I say that? Because the Manual Blocking system would become not just a defensive system, but an offensive one! What do I mean with this? I mean the next thing. To give balance to the game, each style, or even better, each form (I posted somewhere else that each form you buy should give you different styles and bonuses) would give you some bonuses to one or more of your defensive system. The point here is to make manual blocking work as the Guard Impact in Soul Calibur, so if made with the right timing by pressing block and then attack, it does not just defend the player, but creates a opening (by bouncing the player or even disarming him) in the enemy. Fast but weak styles/forms should not be having very good results from this kind of parry, but much better with Perfect Blocks or even Autoblocking. However, those Forms based on aggression, hitting the enemy blade out of the way, and trying to create openings out of enemy attack or even by pressing with strong attacks themselves, should feature great things with this kind of block. Maping the m.block in the MBII way, also would allow to lessen the spamming of saber flick, since you need to press both buttons and then release one of them.
This is what it can be said about blocking. Now about attacking. Movie battles has a good thing. The more you defend, if you don't PB, the more powerful are the enemies hit and more damage they do to the BP. Not only that, red and purple style, by the fact of being strong styles, get ACM much faster, thus alowing to deplect the BP of the enemies in a cuple of things. And this is what EoC fails to do. I still think EoC has a problem of strategy since awaiting for an opening in the enemy defense is far more easy than depleting his FP and thus making him unable to autoblock (in the case perfect block was implemented should be unable to use, aswell). This ends up in the game being unbalanced, since the strong styles that should be blowing of the enemy defense, are completely useless, since they attack to slow and cannot create the opening, neither exploit the ones that the enemy creates when attacking.
I don't mean that it must be picked the same system than MB. While I feel perfect block system like a valid option to implement, I think the attack should be handled difficult. ACM is not a bad system, but I feel like it should be a Form specific reward, meaning that forms would create subclasses inside the Jedi/Sith class, since this Forms would give not only but various saberstyles and some features that would change how the yellow style is played with Makashii class, for example, that to play it with Ataru class, or Djem so one.
This is in fact, other of the things MB does better than Evolution of Combat. For each style, they have a serie of "perks" that modify how the style is played in comparision to others. Instead of that, I would feature that perks, as well as a set of styles, were given to your char WHEN PICKING A FORM. The Forms could have more than one level, each one giving different perks or enhancing the previous one, and each of the level adding a saber style. For what I understand by perks is a kind of ability that makes the Form or style work different with the in-game mechanics (Force Points Drain, slowbounces, disarms, saberlocks, etc...) when hitting, being hit, or simply using attacks/using force powers.
If you want, I could give a explanation of the Forms, how where they grown and which specific styles and perks should they be featurin in my opinion, based on what I read and saw in the films.
So, in conclussion. I think Evolution of Combat has a better base in what saber collision and moves can be told, but aswell, I think it needs more work in terms of fighting strategy, so that not only the fast styles are usefull, and most important, to make the fact of winning by smashing a defense a more valid strategy than nowadays. Aswell, giving the posibility of canceling your attacks would make slower styles or those that attack too much easier to control and not get hit while attacking which is something that would happen more ocassionaly and not so many times.
After half and a week playing, and previous experiences on EoCIII, what do you think? Would this changes of p. block and m.block change too much of the spirit of the mod? What do you think to the tweaks to the forms?
