Version 1.4

Version 1.3.2 (October 31st, 2015) | Version 1.4 (May 7th, 2016)

## **CHANGELOG (8-5-2016)**

### General Gameplay

We have made some small gameplay changes with the intention of moderating the power of a couple of some classes, while providing various quality of life changes to other classes’ abilities to promote diversity and dynamicity.

#### Wookiee

We noticed that wookiees have been almost unstoppable while in Rage Mode, and a large part of this was because of their endless supply of fury, so we’ve toned that down a little bit.

* Change: Reduced fury gain from damaging enemies while in rage mode by 30%. Reduced fury bonus from killing enemies in rage mode by 35%.

#### Super Battle Droid

Super Battle Droids have always been a pretty strong class in comparison to their pure simplicity. Rather than toning down some of their upfront damage we decided to instead highlight their weakness at close range. Oh, and apparently one ability did not match up with it’s information tooltip; we’ve fixed that too.

* Change: Slap damage reduced from 30 to 10.
* Fix: Blast Armor now reduces melee damage by 20% in addition to 40% explosive damage reduction. Previously did not reduce melee damage despite its class configuration description.

#### Mandalorian

Mandalorian has always lacked a degree of diversity. A contributing factor to this problem has been their lack of complimenting tools. The Flamethrower was always a tool we wanted to be diverse and work in a multitude of situations, while The Wristblaster sort of fell to the wayside. We’ve implemented a quality of life fix and tinkered with the values of Wristblaster to give Manda some of the diversity it’s lacking.

* Change: Wrist Blaster no longer has an initial delay before firing. Reduced ammo before overload from 5 to 3 and decreased its regeneration rate from 1 ammo per 3 seconds to 1 ammo per 5 seconds.

#### Player Movement

For the most part player movement is in a pretty good spot, however there are a few areas that we’ve looked to improve the quality of life of.

* Change: Crouch now reduces force push/pull displacement by half.
* Change: Crouch/Dive can now be performed into walls and slopes.
* Fix: Wallgrab release inducing falling damage even when releasing from a close distance to the ground, when the wallgrab had been initiated from falling off a ledge rather than jumping off of it.

#### Armour

Damage to armour has been modified to improve consistency.

* Change: Armour mechanics have been altered so the reduction of location damage modifier always applies if armour remains. Previously the modifier was ignored if the damage received was higher than remaining armour.

#### Lightsaber System

Jedi versus Sith, Jedi versus Jedi, Sith versus Sith

While many of the core mechanics and basics in Version 1.4 will be the same, or similar to how they’ve always been, there have been changes made to halfswinging, countering, perfect blocking, swing chaining and ACC gains, the return of the formerly defunct nudge mechanic, and the return of the saber clash GFX and SFX for the sake of fluidity. These changes are mostly meant to promote more dynamic, reactive and varying styles of saber on saber combat, increase the overall skillcap of the saber system and address the lack of appealing visuals which previous versions suffered from.

* New: Yellow style now has a saber vs saber perk. Perfect blocks with yellow drain 1 ACC from attacks.
* New: Saberists can now continue the swing chain with a halfswing after performing a swing feint (interrupting a swing by pressing reload).
* New: Can now shut off saber when in nudge by pressing use + reload.
* New: Nudge has been reintroduced upon saber/saber or saber/body collisions, when not attacking.
* New: Saber/saber clash SFX and GFX have been reintroduced.
* New: Perfect block is now called full perfect block. Being full perfect blocked now prevents the continuation of swing chains.
* New: **Semi-perfect block**: Similar to full perfect block, but can be performed when attacking, running, walking and rolling (not knocked down or in a getup animation), and only negates BP drain and ACC gain. Does not stop combos nor benefits from any perk such as purple ACC gain on PB or yellow ACC drain on PB. Semi-perfect block triggers yellow flashes on the crosshair and BP bar.
* New: Being hit by a non-parried saber swing now always triggers a blocking animation from which a half-swing (called "counter") can be performed.
* New: Half-swings performed from nudges, chain pauses and blocking animations are now of similar speed in all directions and spinning moves no longer occur in these cases. Swings chained in the air are unchanged.
* New: Counters performed off of a full perfect block are instantaneous and deal 1.2 times BP drain regardless of swing blocking, walking or running.
* New: Parrying now drains BP depending on which stance is being used with respect to the opponent's. For this feature, Blue/Cyan/Duals count as light styles, Yellow/Staff count as medium styles and Red/Purple count as heavy styles. Parrying against the same weight class or lighter results in 1 BP loss, a weight class one level above 2 BP loss, and a weight class 2 levels above 3 BP loss.
* New: When reaching/having 0 BP after a parry/cancel-out or after being semi-PBed, it is no longer possible to continue on with the combo.
* Change: Force lightning now stuns Jedi/Sith equipped with a lightsaber if force focused or too low on FP (relative to FB level).
* Change: ACC gain is removed from all saber special moves except DFAs (Forward+Jump+Attack).
* Change: When pausing after a chain during a combo, the saberist now regains the ability to gain ACC for the next chain; a chain being a set of consecutive swings, as opposed to pausing then doing a half-swing; being hit and performing a counter also resets the chain, as does performing a consecutive swing in the air (while not hitting another opponent).
* Change: Consecutive body hits within a single chain now only drain 0.5x as much BP. Only the first hit of a swing chain drains the normal 1.0x amount.
* Change: Dual style slapping BP drain reduced from 16 to 8, dual now has the same increase in blocking arc as staff.
* Change: Slightly reduced purple, staff and dual styles' attacking power. Significantly reduced red style's attacking power. Increased cyan's defensive power.
* Change: Red BP drain on PB perk removed and given to cyan; cyan BP drain on parry removed. Red stagger on 3rd hit is now a shorter stagger (i.e. the player still cannot block blasterfire or PB swings during the stagger, unlike the flinch feature versus gunners).
* Change: Saber stagger speeds are now the same in every direction.
* Change: Walking non-swing blocked saber swings now only deal 1.1 times more BP drain (down from 1.2 times), and running swings only deal 1.0 times more BP drain (down from 1.2 times).
* Change: Perfect block (full and semi) zones have been made smaller overall.
* Change: Overall BP drains have been increased by 1.2 times.
* Change: ACM offsets are now the same for all styles. ACM = ACC - 1 for all styles. One exception has been added regarding ACC loss behavior: Blue/Cyan styles lose 2 ACC instead of 1 when bodyhit by styles other than Blue/Cyan, and when perfect blocked by Yellow. Blue/Cyan still lose only 1 ACC when bodyhit by Blue/Cyan.
* Change: Slightly reduced the minimum delay between two saber strikes on a single opponent for blue style (other styles are unchanged).
* Change: Blue style's swing chaining capacity is now 2 swings instead of 8.
* Fix: Blue style's diagonal bouncing animations now work correctly.
* Removed: Direction restrictions for chaining swing combos have been lifted for all styles.

#### Jedi/Sith versus Gunners

There are also a good number of changes to the way saberists and gunners interact, with a few value changes and the addition of a new ‘Flinch’ mechanic. We wanted Jedi and Sith to really commit to a close quarters fight and to punish them for misplaying, and to reward gunners more for consistently hitting shots and dealing damage.

* New: Jedi/Sith now have a universal 20% damage reduction in addition to the 0.75x when blocking. Does not apply when swing-blocking.
* New: Saber-out melee moves like slap and jump kick are now stopped and cause a stagger when shot by a projectile from very close range.
* New: **Flinch**: Flinches are short directional staggers during which it is possible to use saber melee moves or block blaster fire if not pressing attack. Flinches now occur when a player who is not swing blocking gets shot by an opponent at very close range.
* New: When a projectile hits a lightsaber, it will trigger a block from the saberist if the shot was going to hit his body or pass very close to his body, both when not attacking or when swing blocking; otherwise it will pass through the lightsaber.
* Change: While meditating force sense level 3 no longer has an activation cost and does not impede FP regeneration.
* Change: Base saber deflection arc increased to 180°.
* Change: Medium style point costs changed from 6/8/6 to 8/2/4.
* Change: Purple style swing damage reduced from 440 to 320, red style swing damage reduced from 600 to 450.
* Change: Automatic blocking saber animations upon incoming projectiles now occur at all ranges, only when actually deflecting projectiles and not when projectiles pass close by, and they lead to half-swings similar to the nudging ones (no more instantaneous swings).
* Removed: All saber vs gun stance perks have been removed, with the exception of duals and staff which now both have an increased deflection arc. (Red style damage reduction, purple style FP damage reduction, cyan style acrobatics not requiring FP, blue style blocking blaster shots while performing jump kick with saber out, duals reduced FP cost of force powers and staff increased FP regeneration out of combat).

### User Interface

We’re always looking to improve on the usability of the current UI, and while the idea of a new UI sounded fantastic the time was really against us. That didn’t stop us from improving on what we did have though.

* New: Enabled usability hint icon. This appears when something can be interacted with using the Use key. Previously disabled feature from single player.
* New: Droideka power management can now be toggled by using Class Special 2 in addition to Weapon Mode.
* Change: New automatic demo record icon.
* Fix: Open mode lightsaber hilts are now listed in alphabetical order.

### Effects

We have hit the engine limit for number of .efx files loaded on a few of the larger maps which means some things, like Droideka Blaster fire could disappear. This has been fixed by doing cleanup of the effects files. For those with custom FA's you can see the list of changed file paths below.

* New: Added several FX files with additional color variants of existing.
* Change: Passthrough Deflect color is now orange instead of yellow to better differentiate it between a normal deflect.
* Change: All FX have had their physics calculations reduced. You should see some performance gains, particularity if you are using Enhanced EFX.
* Change: Updated dozens of FA character configurations to account for merging of files.
* Fix: FX files have been merged and reorganized to reduce duplicates and have a more clear structure. Even after additions mentioned above, 84 FX files and 37 folders have been removed.
* Fix: Freeing of many basejka FX for use again in things like Full Authentic as our FX no longer overwrite base files.

### Models

There will be a few brand new models available for the player to choose from in open mode, as well as a variety of changes to already existing models. And some mode specific fixes that only a few people will actually care about. Props to The\_Unguided for his work on the mass model merge.

* New: Endor Leia, TFA Luke, TFA Han, Poe Dameron, Finn, Kylo Ren, 41st division Clone, Captain Rex ARC, General Veers, and Emperor Palpatine added to Open Mode.
* New: F-11D weapon model replacement for TFA Stormtroopers in Open Mode.
* Change: Moved default RotS Anakin to Jedi. Replaced robed RotS Anakin on Sith with Toshi's hooded model. Split and reorganized soundsets into light and dark side versions.
* Change: Updated TFA Stormtrooper, ATST Pilot, Darth Maul, Vitez's combined clone model, and Palpatine.
* Change: Replaced Kylo Ren hilt with new and improved original model by Plasma.
* Change: Improved Open Mode performance by merging identical models (clonetrooper\_ab/rgb > clonetrooper/airborn\_rgb, cloneultcom/default > clonetrooper/commander, ailyn\_vel/default > gwethenea/ailyn\_vel).
* Fix: Merged Circa's fix for base lightsaber hilt hand placement. (More information here: https://jkhub.org/files/file/2201-fixed-saber-hilts)
* Fix: Old Ben's robes are no longer semi-transparent.
* Fix: Improved Full Authentic performance and efficiency by fixing shaders, replacing clones with combined models and merging identical GLM's (Official/MGM/CMP/uM).

### Official Maps

The changes to the maps this time around have been small, and aimed at preventing certain scenarios, or improving the flow of the map on either side, as well as the usual optimization changes that wouldn’t be noticeable to anyone else.

* mb2\_alderaan
	+ Cleaned up the PK3. No gameplay / visual changes.
* mb2\_deathstar
	+ Change: Rebel spawns also move if the control room is reached (alternative to completing tractor beam objective).
	+ Change: Saved a few entities around objective by using scripts.
	+ Change: Garbage compactor deactivation is now in the same location as the Imperial activation hack.
	+ Change: Control room window can be remotely hacked open by Rebels via old garbage compactor deactivation location. Intended to reduce the viability of the easiest Imperial defense.
	+ Fix: Garbage compactor chute is harder to camp.
* mb2\_echobase
	+ New: Added ambient sound to Infirmary.
	+ Change: Rebels may no longer destroy the backway. This prevents defenders from camping Secondary Storage too early or weakening their own defense.
	+ Change: Redesigned T-Junction to improve gameplay around main route. The area is now less of a choke point.
	+ Change: Redesigned route from T-Junction to Command Center to reduce defender advantage.
	+ Change: Improved visuals around T-Junction and mixed in new box texture set throughout the map.
* mb2\_kamino
	+ Change: Locked secondary route to objective until science lab doors are opened.
	+ Fix: Full Authentic mode models.
* mb2\_lunarbase
	+ New: Round limit ending cutscenes based on overall winner.
	+ Change: Slightly reduced height of a few boxes near choke points to increase SBD vulnerability.
* mb2\_theed
	+ Change: Minor visual improvement and optimization.

### Unofficial Maps

Most FAs were slightly updated to maintain compatbility with this release. Unless otherwise noted there are no gameplay changes.

* um\_downfall
	+ Fix: Fisticuffs class is no longer based on a Wookiee. This allows the use of force jump again. Class now has Heavy Melee instead of Strength to retain melee damage.
	+ Fix: Force class no longer has force repulse.
* um\_prisonraid
	+ Fix: Keldor class now cannot use overpowered dual pistol fire.
* um\_ragnosbattle
	+ Fix: Lightsaber wielding classes have BP again.
* um\_sniperlabs
	+ Change: Spawn camping Rebels is now even more difficult.
	+ Fix: Removed emplaced guns to avoid effects glitching.

**Server Administration**
Here are a couple of requested tools that will hopefully better aid in general server administration, as well as a general fix that we know has been bugging server admins for a while.

* New **Mute/Unmute**: Mutes a certain player for a set amount of minutes.
* New: **SetTK**: Sets TK points of a certain player.
* New: **Shuffle**: Reshuffles all players according to their scores, and locks them in their team for an amount of time defined in a g\_ cvar. Can be used by an admin by typing /smod shuffle.
* New: **Auto-balance**: A new server side option that locks joining teams with too great of a numerical advantage.
* New: Server setting g\_spectateTeamOnly defines if players are able to spectate other players from the enemy team.
* Fix: You can now force team to opposite team, or force team from spec into either team.

### Engine

Version 1.4 will introduce an update to our MBII OpenJK compile across all platforms, which will hopefully provide better stability on newer and older machines, and a new cheat detection and prevention system that will roll out with the launcher update.

* New: **Anti-cheat System**: This build we will be introducing new anti-cheat detection and prevention measures to ensure players have a consistent experience against fellow players. MBII will now require the launcher be active in the background to join servers that enforce anti-cheat (default setting). Servers running anti-cheat will display a shield icon in the server list. Mac OS X and Linux are excluded from this requirement.
* Change: Increased minimum intermission time from 10 to 15 seconds if all players have not signaled ready. This allows for more creative frag / round limit cutscenes. The intermission will still end immediately if all players signal ready.
* Change: Updated MBII client across all platforms with recent OpenJK code.
* New: Client crash logger: In addition to servers, debugging information for any clientside crashes should be saved to GameData. Please upload these when reporting crashes.

### Misc. Fixes

And these are the miscellaneous fixes that really don’t fit anywhere else, but are just as important...

* NPCs now use correct idle animation while holding weapons.
* NPCs now correctly behave when given orders through Icarus on Linux servers.
* Mitigated client error MAX\_GAMESTATE\_CHARS. Server setting sv\_pure will no longer work.
* Multiple server crash fixes.

### Documentation

The MBII Readme in GameData has been updated with some new features targeted at server management.

* Integrated Puppytine's SMOD calculator into the server install section.
* Added a new section displaying the recommended default server configuration.