Here we go then. Here in this thread want to talk about the Forms in EoC IV. Currently, they are treated as styles. That in my opinion is pretty bad, since although styles have similarities with Forms, there could be some forms attacking with more or less the same moves, but with different timing, speed etc. In adittion, different forms have different strategies, and here those strategies are being pretty similar with all the styles. Before starting, though, I will have to clarify some terms I'll be using, and ask for others that I don't know how they work now. I won't be talking about forms in this post. In this first post I wanna request for some systems that could be usefull to put in game, and that would make the game work better even now, without changin anything else. When Serenity pronounces about this and says if it's possible to do this or not, then I will be taking on to the next step, that is talking about Forms, having in count what he told to me.
So let's start. I'll be talking here about the FP drain when blocking, the "Perfect Block" system, and the Perfect Blocking counter.
FP drain on block: When blocking, some Force Points should be lost, althought you Perfect Block (I explain next). I don't know how the FP is being handled when blocking. I hope someone can explain this to me. If it's serenity, even better. I'd like to know if manual blockind drains your sp when being hit, if some styles drain more FP than others...etc. For example, red should be draining a lot of FP on hit to make the enemy go easily down.
Perfect Blocking (also refered to as PB): This is a function that I don't know if it's already working, since I don't know how does the game code works, but it would be fine that when you are being attack from left, you gotta move your saber to left but not parry inmediately. If you parry as soon as you move to the left, you still loose FP. You gotta move your sword between 0.4 and 1 sec before impact. If you parry before 0.4 or after 1 sec, you don't perfect block. Why do I want a minimum time to pass? Because of next thing. Firs we gotta have in mind that FP are Force Points aswell as Fatigue Points. Connecting to the Force needs concentration, something that fatigues you. Having this in count, when being close and you attack on and on from the guard position, you do it with the intention of breaking your enemies guard. Is like boxing. Jabs don't do a lot fo damage, but they want to tire you and make yourself to put down your guard by endlessly hitting you, to DRAIN YOUR FATIGUE POINTS. When you get close in any fight and harass your opponent, you do it with the intention he can't perfect block you everything, meaning this time that sometimes he will have to block with instinct, and not technique. That's what I want to be reflected in the game. If you gotta block fast attacks, they will cause you extra effort to being all perfectly blocked, and at the end, you won't be able to perfect block everything, and so, you will get tired when having to block something in a blink that you hadn't expected. That's the reason of the 0.4 secs, when you gotta abuse your reflexes to block something that is about to hit you, you end up tiring yourself. In addition, when being with less than a percentage, that 0.4 increases to 0.5, and 0.6 later. There's more reasons aswell to have this little time where you can't perfect block, and to make it increase with fatigue. The reason is that currently, the attack feint made by attack + block, is almost useless. However, if there's this mechanism, you can make it as to fake an attack to a side, and then press block to attacking to the other, and if your opponent is confused by the move, he will be late to perfect block the second hit, and so you drain FP.
One last thing I request to perfect blocking is the next thing. Perfect blocking counter: You perfect block, one, two, three times. In real life, you would be taking an extra effort to do so. You wouldn't be putting your guard down, but you would be tiring yourself by perfect blocking. However, as long as you keep on perfect blocking, your mind will be with the insight and won't get tired. However if you land only ONE ATTACK after being perfect blocking, all the effort you had been taking to block the previous hits, will be taken into your mind now. How to reflect this in game? Well, this way. You perfect block, you don't loose any FP. While you keep perfect blocking in the next 10 seconds, your FP doesn't go down. However, for each hit perfect blocked, you are virtually loosing some FP. This FP virtually lost is stacked by the game in some virtual counter, and when you block without being PB in the next 10 seconds, you loose all that FP on a hit. Even though, the amount of FP loss this way would be less than not pb'ing all those hits. If you pb all hits and you are not attacked in the next 10 seconds (or 5 or the ammount of time we see more realistic), the FP stacked on the virtual counter is lost, and so you the danger of loosing all that FP on a hit is lost, and here we go again to the beginning.
In adittion to this, I'll be requesting some things more.
Changes to Force Speed, interacting with the walls. When having Force Speed level 3, or the Ataru Form active (we will see in the next post), you can run against walls, matrix style. Either vertical or horizontal, depending on the positioning against the wall. This would be in a similar fashion as how it's done in Blade Symphony
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Prince of Persia
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or Matrix
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or even real life (here you go with a tutorial)
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Now about Force Seing, I thing it would be fine that is kinda basic training into the Force Ways. What I would do is that depending on the level, you've got a different mana pool. Being level 1 100 points, level 2 200, and level 3 300. The objective to this is to symbolice the connection with the force. Now, I would buff the active use of the Force Seing itself. When using Force Seing, you enter a state where you can dodge for some FP costs, or autoblock attacks you wouldn't in a normal way by some FP cost aswell. It gives you aswell the power of spot your enemies in the radar, and even dodge hits from the back, or things as sniping bullets (they couldn't be dodged without having Force Seing active), and obviusly, blaster aswell (if you can dodge snipers, you would be able to dodge blaster), although blaster rifle would be throwing a lot of bullets in a small time, so it would be better to block them rather to dodge them, which would take too much FP. This system would be a fair treat against the gunner bullies, since they can still try to deplect your FP, but you've got a tool to fight them.
About Force Jump. This is pretty simple. When being caught into a wall to avoid yourself falling into an abyss, it's almost a lose of time. I want some system so that you can jump back to the fight. For example, I would make so that you can jump even further and higher by the use of force speed before jumping from a wall. I encourage you to give more suggestions to solve this problem.
And, for the momment, I think it's a good long post with many suggestions that could be great to see in the game. I will advance in later posts into the Forms, it's requirements, and the perks they would feature. But first I want Serenity to confirm me if all this suggestions can be done in game, as well as all the community giving it's thinkings about them.
Edited by: Hels
