Some people seem to think so, at any rate. I’ve gotten a few comments to that effect, though to be honest they didn’t make as much sense to me as I’d like, due to the fact that at least one of them was sent by a person that does not speak English natively, and I had trouble understanding exactly what he meant. But the basic message seemed to be "it’s broken".
I looked at the source for the update, and it would appear that while I had thought I was using the same code that a few testers had gone through not long ago, I was in fact using a slightly different version. It is not obvious to me why the few minor differences would cause any problems, but just a few minutes ago I released another update with the code that I thought I was using in the first place.
So, if this latest "latest update" is still broken, I’d love to hear why and how, and I will look into it immediately and see what I can do about that.
45 Comments
Robby,
I don’t have a specific complaint. But I’d like to know what was changed with this release. That might put some of the comments to rest.
Utayo
A couple of us played with the 1.0.7.1… it makes us sad. I understand slowing it down to shut people up but it seems a bit too slow… and by a bit I mean like a lot! lol Other than that we haven’t seen anything big. :3
What I noticed most was that the .7 messed up my jump attacks a lot. Ver 7.1 seems to have fixed that though. It doesn’t seem to much slower to me..I still beat the people I beat before and usually loose to the same people as before as well. Some of them I am catching up with though lol.
I’m still mystified by the comments about it being slower. Here’s the thing… I slowed it down by about 5 hundredths of a second on three of the attacks.
I wouldn’t ever have thought that would even be noticeable, so my only logical conclusion is that Second Life just flat-out doesn’t respect the timing very well.
I wanted to make the weapon a little slower, cause quite frankly I’m tired of hearing about how it’s so much faster than everything else, it’s a cheater weapon, etc, etc. But I didn’t intend to make it slower than everything else, lol!
As for the problem with jump attacks on 1.0.7, yeah… That version was borked, badly
I’ll tweak it a little more, and try to get some people to test the tweaks. Maybe one of these days I’ll actually make a weapon that isn’t considered a noob blade, haha.
And by the way… Although I am “back”, so to speak… I’m spending a lot of time in my 3D and animation programs
Yup, making a new weapon. Nothing worth showing to folks yet, just playing with some ideas for something a little different, but it’s fun to do!
I didn’t notice much difference in speed. Both 1.0.6 and 1.0.7 seem balanced on speed to me. My problem was with people running around and still using version 1.0.3, which did seem wickedly fast (I saw someone using that as recently as last week). Thanks for fixing the stamina bug! That was a real issue.
Oh a new weapon, what fun!
Yeah, I mentioned the problem with V1.0.3 before… Basically, I didn’t have enough foresight to put remote-deactivation code in previous versions, so there’s really nothing that I can do to directly force people to upgrade.
One thing I *did* do, however, is make V1.0.7.1 ignore all damage from earlier versions, including V1.0.3, so if someone is still using the older version, it will not work with people using the latest version.
I will have remote-deactivation code in all weapons from now on, though. Lesson learned
I wonder how many complaints about the speed of the Take are really complaints about the speed of 1.0.3, and not complaints about later versions? Would it be possible to have the Wave also ignore damage from earlier versions of the Take?
I intend to put out an update on the Wave this weekend, and yes it will also include the ability to ignore 1.0.3 damage.
You might be right about the comments being for previous versions. Unfortunately, the reports and comments I get are very often ambiguous, and I’m often left trying to guess exactly what is meant and what might be the root of the issue.
Speaking of which, I still get quite a few comments saying that the Wave is itself perhaps too fast… I don’t know if that’s true, but now that I’m feeling better I want to resume the project that I was starting before that I hope will allow me to gather more meaningful information about performance, etc.
I’m not so such about speed issues with different weapons. Most believe that the “A” key for the Nagi is the fastest attack for that weapon. I know a well known fighter that swears the “W” key on the Musashi blade is faster than any other katana (even faster than Taketori BTW).
I believe a lot of the speed issues has to be your perspective based on SL lag and your personal system. The only way to really resolve the issue would be to devise a test within SL and start making a database.
meeh..I think that all the hate for the take is unfounded. It is significantly different from the other blades and it forces your opponent to adjust their style. That’s what causes all the whining. Besides hasn’t this happened with almost every new weapon..until people figure out how to beat it? I wouldn’t worry about it Robby. Haters will hate and there is nothing you can do about it. Don’t let them punish you for making a great sword! I’ll tell you something I heard the other day in reference to other blades, “Compared to the take they are dinosaurs.” That was said by a well known and respected fighter.
Take heart and keep up the fantastic work. I can’t wait to see your next project!
@Julie – Yeah, perception seems to have a lot to do with it, and that’s why I desperately want to create testing tools that can help me with it. Obviously what I’ve tried to do so far is not objective enough, and doesn’t give me enough confidence that it’s “balanced”, so I’ll be working on that again, with renewed enthusiasm.
@Utayo – Yes, there have been comments exhibiting a wide range of opinions on every blade I’ve seen since I first discovered C:SI way back when. But I’m trying to do my best to to my part to make sure that C:SI stays in the #1 place for melee combat, as well as make sure that I’m not reflecting poorly on the great folks that invented C:SI
That means I have to continue to worry about it, and if there’s any thing I can improve, I’ll continue to do so as I learn more.
Thanks for the feedback, guys, much appreciated!
P.S: As for the new weapon, right now I’m just trying out some new tools for modelling and animating, to see what’s going to be possible. I’m still trying to decide if I’ll make another katana, which is very familiar to me and I’ve got a good process for, or try something more ‘exotic’. I’ll post more when I’ve discovered what’s going to work out well, and once I’ve decided what the next weapon is actually going to be.
No, Robby, YOU are teh suxxorz! D:
I know *cries*
Ouch.
Okay, it’s horrible, I get the picture…
1. Okay thinking about lag issues and crap like that. I just went to Daichi. Daichi hardly has anything running or have many primes being used. At the lowest settings possible I ran an average of 85 fps, 2-18kps, a ping of 99 and me in third-person mode. So yeah. I went from .6 to .7.1 not .3 to .7.1. Still noticed it. But not hardly as much as I did before. Now it’s like the other swords.
XD lol Anyways! Still think it’s a sweet blade. I Loved it then and it’s still the best in my opinion. It’s just more reactive than the other blades. 
It’s a perfect blend between form and function. I agree with whoever talk with Utayo. BTW How will mono effect the weapons? new blades are always coolies. I was thinking of making a bunch of heavy sword animations for fun. XD :3
Maybe someone can answer this for me? I was at EDO last night and had 35 FPS, Ping SIM of 89. (3rd person, low settings, yada yada yada). The lag there was the worst that I have ever seen! Usually if someone kicks you, you can counter. Last night, that was not the case, as a matter of fact, I tried to move and was basically stuck for the two spars that I had.
So my question is, this has to be a function of the SIM and not a avatar. Therefore, any testing should include the numbers of the SIM performance. How can you check and measure SIM performance?
I was just reading Shindo’s comments, where he mentioned Daichi and although the said few prims, nothing running; there has to be a way to measure that SIMs performances in comparison to another?
Julie
Which Edo? Samurai Edo is always like that if that was the one. I think that some forms of lag are not related to FPS or pings. I often have issues with key response on sims like Samurai Edo. I’m not sure why this happens but I think it may have to do with prims and textures lagging your client. When the remodeled that sim they should have simplified it not made it more complex.
Any way there is a monitor tool under the help menu that can tell you if the lag is client or server side and it gives you a short reason why. try opening that tool next time just to see what it says.
Some more information for me to think about :
Supposedly it won’t affect them at all, at least initially. The way it’s supposed to work is that the swords will continue to run on the old script engine until we specifically recompile them to run on Mono. After we’ve reached that point, it’s kind of hard to guess how things will be affected. The hope is that the swords will be more responsive and memory efficient, and will cause less strain on the already overloaded sims, but as with anything else in Second Life we’ll believe it when we see it.
I will be doing some heavy testing on Mono tonight after work! Last time I tried to use the sword scripts compiled for Mono (a couple months ago) it was a disaster and my impression then was that Mono wouldn’t be ready for release for at least six months. I really have no good idea where Mono is with stability, performance, and compatibility at this time, but I admit that I am pretty anxious to find out
I wish I knew how to test sim performance. There have probably been hundreds of posts/articles/comments that I’ve read on the subject, and they all seem to say in the end that the tools Linden Lab gives us to measure performance are sadly lacking. Then again, I’m not an estate admin, and perhaps those folks have better tools than you and I, I couldn’t say.
The issue on Edo is well known, but is a bit of a mystery to me. I can tell you that I’ve been part of several conversations about the issue with the other C:SI devs, and I know that they are taking sim perf into consideration with every build. To some extent I think it’s just
the nature of the beastSecond Life being flaky, though.Julie,
FPS is a measure for client lag and ping sim is a measure for network lag, so the lag must have been server lag. “Time dilation” is a good thing to look at to see if there is server lag. It should be 1.00 (although often sits at 0.99), but if it’s any lower than that, you will probably start noticing some slowdown. This is the type of lag where it feels like you’re walking through molasses. You can also look at Sim and Physics FPS. I think both of those are 45 in normal conditions.
Okay Samurai Edo is using a different Havok version than your average sim. They can’t upgrade it to whatever Havok version we have now ’cause LL won’t allow it. That would be one reason for lag. Also, aside from texture and prims there are active scripts. You can see things like ur fps, active scripts and whatever by hitting CTRL+SHIFT+1. This will show you all kinds of goodies. :3 … Oh! Pretty shiny thing! *chases shiny thing*
I use those tools almost constantly. Unfortunately, it’s often misleading, since there are many times when the sim ’stats’ would not indicate any problems, but I am nevertheless experiencing *something* that makes SL feel like mud.
Well phooey! I didn’t realize that there was no mono-enabled viewer available yet. I guess I’ll have to stick with the Beta grid for testing
That’s hardly as useful, in my opinion. Sure, I can see if there are any obvious errors, but it won’t let me test things in combat situations.
Do u needz mono beta testerz?
Yes, of course I do
When I have something worth testing, I’ll make sure you get one.
And me too?
Some mentioned in the Scripters Support Group chat yesterday that they could use the viewer that connects to the Beta grid (and has the option to compile with Mono) to connect to the main grid. I’m not sure how exactly, probably changing something in a config file so it connects to a different server.
28 replies and I finally chime in. Bet you all thought I was comatose or stuck in the Peruvian Andes or something. Anyway, i got the chance to use the version sent to me on Monday. Not sure if that was .7 or.7.1. The timing really threw me off in Heisei. I honestly still don’t think this blade is any worse or better than any other. They all have issues. But two that definitely needed to be addressed from .6 were the upward kick push that negated the opponent’s ability to activate combat mode (since they’re in the air), and the stamina bug that Judo identified. Otherwise, Robby, you can’t please everyone because as has been discussed here, we fight with and against the Take differently in different sim lag. For what it’s worth, the .6 timing was something i was more comfortable with, meaning when I hit W, a slash happened in a time frame that I was used to. Sorry to be so ambiguous, but I haven’t extensively used it due to RL work. Just my initial observation, but it’s got to mean something if it was so noticable.
I believe that’s the first I’ve heard of the upward push being a problem, actually… That makes sense, though, because when I was going back and forth with Linden Lab about how Havok 4 broke kicks, they gave me all sorts of ‘try this’ workarounds, and one of those was to increase the push power and upward force.
I’ll fix that ASAP. So far as I know, the stamina issue has already been resolved. If that’s not true, someone please say something!
I think Judo said the stam bug is fixed.
I haven’t played around with the new update yet, but was going to second Solace on the issue of the upward kick. The worst part about that is it makes a retreat much harder and can result in an extra free hit for the Taketori user before you can back out of range.
Are you going to look at the Wave speed? I think the only real issue with it is just how fast it is, otherwise everything else about it seems fine. If you want I can show you how drastic the speed difference is in world a few different ways, but would probably be easiest if we sparred… dunno if SL runs ok enough for you or not though.
And now for my obligatory cranky oldbie statement… I notice its pretty frequent for people to dismiss issues of balanced or weapons being overpowered as “whining” or “complaining”. That contains just about no content at all. I could as easily point out the number of people that have admitted liking some weapons because they are overpowered and get angry that someone might “spoil” that and get that taken away (“don’t worry about the people supporting the Wave or Taketori, they are just lazy and seeking petty advantages”, something like that). But my saying that doesn’t actually address whether or not the weapon is actually overpowered or not. That would require identifying the ways I think they are overpowered and being able to replicated that, and show how its not possible on other models, and then be able to either show or explain how that fact creates a significant imbalance. The same works in the opposite directon if I were to support some claim that a weapon is not imbalanced (by showing how the other weapons in the system are capable of the same things). So I can show how much faster the wave is if asked in a variety of ways. I could also show how the musashi W slash is no different than the Arch W slash in speed (it was mentioned above that is faster but can show how its not, or show how my red sunset is no different from the magical HOD). If I say weapon A is imbalanced and someone says I’m complaining, if you really look at that, they haven’t really said anything at all. The reason for this rant is its far more productive to be vocal about these issues, and vocal through channels where the developers will learn about it and determine if there is anything to it, than to create an atmosphere that ultimately will lead to a lower quality product through people’s reluctance to point out issues affecting the quality of the system. Its so bizarre to me that the developers are sometimes the last to know about issues, and I know there have been times that people don’t want them to know (see Wave speed) for what I assume are farming purposes.
hmm..I was probably the one who mentioned whining. But, I can use your same argument against you. Lots of people are just repeating what they have heard when they complain about the take. They don’t have any real data on why they don’t like it. Well..beyond that they cannot defeat it. If people spent more time figuring out how to fight against the Take and less time complaining this would be a non issue. Check out Judo fighting against Take when you get a chance, she easily defeats it almost every time. Besides, as a a Take user I have to say any advantage you think it might give I still suffer from unresponsive keystrokes and getting stuck far more with the Take than any other blade. So I think it balances out over all.
While we are at it though let’s address and re-address a few other imbalances that people don’t seem to care about. At least I don’t hear many people say I wont fight against nagi or blood drinkers much. Both of these weapons have major bugs and people use these bugs purposely all the time. Nagi users try to get that sweet spot where they can kick you and you cannot reach them every time I fight them..they edge in just a bit trying to find it. Really is that fare? As for the Blood Drinkers there is a bug that allows the user to deliver kicks with no animation played for them. I see this used more and more. Why aren’t people up in arms about these things? Or is just because these weapons aren’t ‘new’ anymore? And also that people have figured out how to beat them even with the bugs?
Random tidbits:
Judo doesn’t beat the Take. She fights the user. As we all should.
HoD, Sunset, Dragon, Ring…I’ve used 3 of the 4. All the same mechanics. Nothing magical about any of them as far as I can tell. I’ve heard of combo bugs but haven’t explored them.
Wave….I stun more against it than any other weapon. I am impressed by the slash speed…more impressed by the speed of the W slash to block transition. (As a side note, if the Wave had the Take block, ie getting my hands out of my face, the Wave would probably be my number one kat again.)
Nagi, if the nagi user lets you, stick close and try to negate the kick range bug. Otherwise, it’s your choice whether you want to keep fighting.
Drinkers, I second this no-anim kick observation. But it’s my experience you can usually tell when the Drinker user will double kick based on their habits. Again, if they’re crafty enough to pick up on the fact that you’ve anticipated the double kick and go to single kick + block to garner a stun, well it’s always a choice to finish the spar and stop fighting. But frankly, then it becomes a tank situation where you have to anticipate the single kicks.
I have no magic answers for the Nagi or BDs. These are just things I’ve tried with varying degrees of success. Things that would be nice to have fixed for sure. But fat chance in the near future.
I wasn’t actually addressing you specifically, its actually something I hear all the time in world if the issue comes up. Its suddenly THE knee jerk response, and my only point was how its like a form of saying “I don’t care about or understand this issue and would like for you to talk about something else.” I am not sure what more that could mean, but I could be wrong. And yeah, I beat Taketori and Wave users all day, and even my wins are incredibly lopsided I can still tell how their weapon can do things timing wise that mine can’t, but they just aren’t skilled enough to take advantage of it.
Here is something that has happened more times than I can keep track of… someone asks to spar, I say ok, and they draw their Wave or Taketori. I draw a Musashi for the first spar. If they are good enough to make use of their faster weapon, I put on a Take or Wave too. So I might lose the first one, as they get hits in the gaps of timing that my sword can’t get in principle, I die, I switch to the Wave so I can do it too, and win the next 17 in a row.
If anyone is interested I can show you the difference really easily in just a tank drill. I’ll use a musashi or arch for 5, then a Wave for 5. I KNOW people will be able to see it and feel it because the difference is not at all subtle.
I don’t think people talk about the Nagi anymore because the issue has been beaten to death and its just common sense now. I saw Esprite say somewhere that Arch is taking a look at it finally, so. I’m not sure how aware he is of BD kickspamming, but I think he must… Esprite did some tweaking to the ninjaken to bring that one in balance a while ago and the BDs probably need the same fix he did.
Anyway, I honestly don’t care that much and if a bunch of weapons are overpowered its not really something I care about now, but just wanted to point out that it doesn’t do Robby any favors to not complain if the complaint is legit, which with the Wave speed and Taketori kick it is. I’m sure Robby would much rather people say “I am noticing this issue and wondering if you are aware of it” than no one saying anything and his weapons he worked hard on getting reps as noob sticks in the meantime.
I’m not actually sure if Esprite released his Ninjaken update. He was playing around with both the kick speed and slash damages. The kick anim change I think he’s happy with. I lost track of what he did to the slashes. Then again, i haven’t strapped mine on in a while now so I don’t even know if an update is out there. As of Spring 2008, I was testing those Ken betas.
I’m getting behind on the comments. Stoopid work
I do in fact plan on putting out a Wave update. I keep telling people it will be ’soon’, then not delivering for one reason or another (usually schedule problems), so I’m just going to stick with ‘as soon as possible’ now. I do want to look into the Wave speed, though with the problems I’m having over Take speed apparently not reflecting what the code says, I’m not sure I want to step into that steaming pile just yet. At the very least I have a couple of niggling issues I want to address, among them the block issue mentioned above. The speed issue will require some heavy beta-testing by others, so volunteers are welcomed!
I’ve been spending too much of what *should* be my “Second Life time” lately in 3ds Max instead of SL. I’m trying to create an animation rig so that I can improve my sword anims, but… 3ds Max rotation flaws are kicking my ass.
I’ll put that little project on the back burner so that I can catch up on these balance issues, or at least *try* to catch up, haha.
Are Daikon katanas considered noob sticks? If so, why?
I don’t think so..The current noob stick de jure is the Ronin.
lol. Well that’s not for function’s sake I don’t think. I haven’t picked one up but my understanding is that the Ronin is identical to the Dynasty Flame. That was a decent sword as I recall.
Are you all pretending to work like I am?
So this will probably offend too many people and I know I need to shut up and just not read these blogs, but a “noob stick” is a term I stole from Alyssa. She had used it to describe when jump slashing became really popular, and how the ashes made it really easy. So it made people fight really spastic and random, “like noobs.”
But I sorta stole it and re-applied it to the nagi when that became the popular weapon of choice to try to get more wins. And now I use it for any weapon that becomes popular for the wrong reasons, like being overpowered (higher speed at equal damage for example). Its sorta a semi-inside joke among the three people left that I talk to that have been around for a while.
I’m trying, but… Yeah
I’ve heard the term noob-stick applied to weapons because it seemed that primarily new people would buy a weapon based solely on it’s perceived (and sometimes actual) advantages over other weapons.
One of the most frequent questions I get from prospective customers is more or less equivalent to “which one of these weapons is the most badass?”, and then they buy whichever weapons they think fit that criteria. Many of the most advanced fighters, however, have different criteria which has nothing to do with such things, and more to do with not getting in their way.
Kinda like how all the black belts in an RL martial arts dojo will patiently explain to the visitor off the street that the question “how long does it take to get my black belt” is really not the right question to ask
Well, I have endorsed the Wave as a beginning katana. I used it before H4 to improve my own tanking, and that was after I had been playing C:SI for nearly a year. I don’t have students new to C:SI buy the Take because to me it feels the most different than the other swords and I am still trying to understand its ins and outs. I won’t tell my students to avoid the Arch, but i do tell them that the kick anims are slightly longer. Still Archs are fine swords for beginners as well. I have really no problem with the Musashis now since H4 made the jumpslash maneuvers similar to the other swords. Before H4 I had to comepletely release E before depressing my mouse button to jumpslash on my Musashis. Since H4, I can make that transition faster and smoother. I think others have also noticed this change.
Just to throw my own two cents in (1) the Take does feel different than other swords, particularly the jumps, (2) the Take can be countered and is balanced IMO, (3) like Solace, I stun most against the Wave, but I have learned to anticipate and deal with a high stun rate — and its not people with the Wave who beat me, its people like Solace, Shidji and Kasumi, none of whom use the Wave (4) the BD and nagi do seem to have bugs. For those of you who don’t know, the kick range bug on the nagi is particularly interesting. The kick range is set at 2 meters, but there seems to be this odd bug where if you press a,s, then a after drawing it, the kick range is reset to 3 meters. This is why some nagi fighters always do the asa sequence before they say “ready”. I actually get perverse pleasure out of trying to beat good nagi fighters …. not an easy thing to do …. but notwithstanding that, the kick bug should probably be fixed to rebalance the nagi. The BDs require a very high skill rate to use properly, but if a fighter has those skills, they are a nightmare to fight against and very very hard to counter effectively.
I played around with Makk yesterday with the Take kick (I think the slashes are fine) and there seemed to be the tiniest difference in speed over the Musashi and Arch (slightly faster), but small enough to be unoffensive. We could get unblocked kicks in on each other while countering the other’s Musashi or Arch kick maybe 4 to 1 compared to when we didn’t use the Take, BUT the margin was pretty small when they were ublocked. I think thats why people get kick spammy with it though, and with that upward push trapping you at times is why it can be slightly annoying to spar in the right hands. I guess if I were in Robby’s shoes I wouldn’t waste more time on the balance issue on the Take just cause I think a small percentage of people can get mileage out of that.
And I totally agree on the BDs. They skill set needed to make proper use of them is high, but once you can call up the different movements on command and in sync with what your opponent is doing it feels unfair to me as I use them. For example, getting a counter, a kick, a counter on the their counter to your kick, a jump slash on the retreat, another W slash on them while in the airmaking you fall back to the ground earlier than they expect, a sideways moving A or D slash as they try to respond to the SECOND jump slash, and maybe another slash as they retreat from being freaked you just hit them 5 times to none, and a few more hits and you’ve won. I try to only use them when I’m doing a bunch of fights in a row and there doesn’t seem to be much difference between when I use a kat or the BDs and switch back and forth a lot.
I think the Nagi got sped up, accidently or deliberately, in the Spring of 07 (but they rebalanced all the weapons then so might be just relative to the rest). I think the Nagi used to be way underpowered before that Spring, but I bet if it was between where it was and where it is now would be just right. But at least get rid of the sniper kick cause there are so many simple ways to exploit that with no real risk.