You all have some fairly twisted ideas about what skill is. All you could do in 1.1 was either flick your wrist around really fast and try to hit someone at close range or fire off beams. The teleport-assisted combonations took practice but for the most part it took those people a month only because they weren't used to the speed. People picked up 1.2 faster because it's slower pace, but if you're getting knocked around by new people it's your own fault, and noone can say otherwise. If you let them always hit you with advanced melee that's your fault for not moving. If they had hit you with simple melee it would have been the same thing, they'd still have hit you.
It's true 1.2 also involves swooping in circles but at least you can cut someone off with a side swoop or wall jump at the last minute and swoop back into someone, or try to bounce them off of objects, which was much more difficult in 1.1
What's so bad about people not being used to the speed? I think it's a good thing people have difficulty at first getting use to the speed. 1.2 is so slow that anyone can pick it up, which is one reason why a lot of people don't like it. Seems like a fair reason not to like it to me.
You could cut people off with a swoop when you're flying in circles in 1.1 also, it was just harder (theres nothing wrong with this, infact, I liked it harder). You could also just teleport out of that and try to get a back/side hit again, somthing that's annoying to try to do in 1.2 thanks to the tele delay. Once you start to tele away, they just follow you and you're royally screwed because you're only option is to keep teleporting. You eventually run out of ki and get ****ed. Happened to me plenty of times
You say lots of people used different techniques. Give me examples other than HOWing. "Hitting someone in the side" is not a technique. Basically you could melee, beam, or try and mix them up. There were no wall jumps, you couldn't throw, you couldn't do any gambling (advanced melee), no gen balls. You could just hit someone really hard.
There are tons more variations in 1.1 then there are in 1.2. I'll say a quote that I took out of your sig, I believe pcjoe said it. (He was talking about 1.1 melee) "The melee system right now is like tetris. It's so simple, yet it's simpleness makes it complex at the same time." It's not exact, but It had that general message. Now lets see. Techniques from 1.1
you could ki pounce (Where you teleport 2 or 3 times into the person swooping and it stops there swoop)
You could do this nifty little trick that I could never master. It didn't have a name and few new about it, but it was pritty cool. It was basicly a way of hitting somone from head on, you win the head on, but you have less ki then your opponent. It's kind of complicated, opty showed it to me and later a few other people tried to teach it to me too.
Wait for the last possible second, then teleport once, then swoop down and hit the guy. This is one of the only skills I found to still work in 1.2.
Stand still on the ground, wait for the guy to swoop at you, you then swoop in a stright line for less then a second parrarell to the ground, then do a complete turn around and he will be in the spot you were just in standing still. You then hit him. This was one of my fav.
Forever swooping. This was hard to master. It was a way of swooping forever by timing your swoop right before your current swoop ends.
Freefalling. This is also one of my fav. You start flying, in the middle of the swoop you stop, turn the swoop mode off and you start free falling at the same rate you were flying. This was a good way to save ki. You can still do it in 1.2, but the swoop speeds are so slow and it's so much harder to do.
Keep teleporting backwards until your opponents swoop stoped. Then go in for the kill >
. I use to do this all the time when I first started playing. This one's also possible in 1.2, but like I said up top of this post, you get royally ****ed doing it now.
Freefalling while holding block. If they hit you, they usually stay still right there charging up thinking they got a hit. You can then go in for a hit.
Blocking on the ground. This was pritty annoying to the guy you were using it, but it was usefull.
Blocking next to the edge of a map. This is the same thing as from the ground, except your next to a wall.
I dunno if this one counts, but in 1.0, there was a way to always win a head on. All you had to do was when someone was swooping at you, teleport backwards once, then swoop foward at the other guy. I don't know why it always got you the hit, but whatever, doesn't matter I guess....
Zig zag swooping. I guess this would just be moving your mouse around while charging at your opponent, but I consider it a techniqe since it was good vs howers and not everyone did it. Oh well.
Then theres tele hits which are no longer practicle thanks to the tele delay.
The burning attack combination thingy. Shoot a burning attack at someone and they'll be blind, then charge at them for a hit. I use to love doing this
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And most if not all of those tricks have counters. For example, if somone starts blocking on the ground, throw ki blobs next to him and he'll be forced up.
All of thats just the stuff I can name off the top of my head. Yea, 1.1 had no skill/techiniqes :scared:. Not to mention I didn't even mention the combos you could do. Combos were my favorite part of 1.1, and there was what seemed like an endless amount of variations.
edit: Just know I wasnt good at 1.1. Someone better then me could list tons more of little tricks like that im sure.