Problem with lightsabre damage

[Unchar]

Perhaps it is already well known. After some extensive testing in SP with "notarget" (idle AI), it seems lightsabre does damage in rapid pulses when it is touching the model.

That means the total damage base on the type of the attack, the body part it hits and the lenght of time it leave inside the model. A high speed slash will do less damage than a slow slash because it past the model quickly! If you inspect carefully you will see and hear the pulses of damage. Some obvious cases are

Blue backstab: the sabre just hold there, and it does many pulses. -> very powerful and falls boss monster in 1 hit.

blue forward chop is stronger than yellow chop: Yellow chop pass the model in one quick slash, blue chop has a slow beginning. If you play with saberrealisticcombat on, blue chop will usually dismember both head and hip in 1-2 strike, while yellow need 2-3 and only dismember hip.

Blue crouch strike: its animation is kinda slow especially at the beginning.

It just seems wrong that a fast inertial slash that should cut the whole body in half is less powerful than a stab that just punch a hole. The damage of different attack types need some tweaks I think.

[RichDiesal]

To be accurate to the films/books/entire SW universe, the saber should instantly slice of whatever it touches anyway...

Since Raven decided to ignore that (for the sake of longer lasting gameplay and limitations in the Q3 engine), everything they did implement is simply about game balance - i.e. move more difficult to pull off = more damage.

Not that this is necessarily how it should be, but it makes sense in terms of past games.

[Vanor]

That simply isn't true, based on what happens in the movies, as well as what would realisticly happen.

In ESB Luke hits Vader with the saber, and doesn't cut off anything. Same thing happens in AotC.

And finaly lets look at this reastlicly, or as realisticly as we can considering we're talking about a lightsaber here.

The only way a lightsaber can cut off a limb or someone in two, is if enough of the blade passes though the target. A grazing hit with the tip of a lightsaber would not chop off anything. The lightsaber may be a energy blade, but it is still has physical dimentions, and as such works the same way any other blade does.

If I swing and hit someone with the tip of my saber, at the end of my swing, it would only be a grazing strike and wouldn't chop off anything, or do much damage. To cut someone in two for example, the blade would have to extend at least a tiny bit past the back of the persons body, and the cut would have to have a arc long enough to pass from one side of the body to the other. Simply tapping someone in the side with a saber isn't going to cut them in to.

[Unchar]

They do allow dismemberment which is fine enough. I just think the damage isn't visually and physically sensible. I mean, a fast wide slash weaker than a slow narrow slash makes no sense. I don't think Raven really considered the hit interval in deciding the damage. The blue backstab is especially noticable (ass-fighter anyone?)

Surely Raven can balance the game in better way. Well perhaps I am the only one get disturbed by this. :)