Marine Sprinting mechanic

afratnikov

<div class="IPBDescription">Expansion on Flayra's idea</div>In the <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/news/2007/10" target="_blank">5th Podcast</a> Flayra discussed a sprinting ability for marines which went something like this:
- activated by shift key
- When sprinting, marines make a loud, distinct sound that aliens can hear much farther away than regular running.
- Acceleration and deceleration are gradual. While decelerating, the marine draws weapon.
- Marines can only sprint forward. Momentum plays a role when sprinting, so marines can neither strafe nor turn rapidly while sprinting.
- there is no energy or "stamina" - infinite sprint

I would like to bring the sprinting discussion back to the boards with a couple ideas of my own.
Purpose: sprinting is used to move through safe areas, get to attacking or defending positions quickly, and flee from enemies.
There are risks associated with sprinting: aliens will easily hear you, you can't fire, move very predictably, and can't track aliens.
Additionally, ninja play-style might be expanded by allowing players to sprint quickly and quietly after dropping all weapons except the knife.

- the lighter the weapon the faster you can sprint* (for example: LMG: run speed x1.5, SG: x1.3, HMG: x1.2, pistol: x1.8, knife: x2.0, welder and mines reduce bonus by x0.1)
*these numbers are very rough and depend on skulk speed. I'm assuming that skulks sprint is about 3.0x marine speed.
- Marine ninjas adjustment: when only a knife is in inventory, the marine's sprinting and running are quieter. Crouch walking is sped up as well. (For those who don't know what ninja marines are: some NS1 players chose to move quietly, avoiding aliens, to sneak into a hive. Then the marine would place a Phase gate and the whole team would then kill the hive)
- sprinting forces you to breath heavily, making it difficult to listen for alien movements. Motion tracking turns off and sounds are muffled.
- Parasite reduce sprint speed or disable it completely
- When sprinting, marines take extra damage and/or when hit marines are forced to stop and draw their weapon
- Heavies can't sprint

The sprinting mechanic has been discussed at length 2 months ago, when the first podcast appeared. Unfortunately, i didn't read the forums then, so i don't know what the general opinion was. Could someone enlighten me please on the arguments for both sides?

BIG EDIT: completely redid this post to make it more manageable. Read second post for more info.

afratnikov

Now i'll discuss affects of sprinting on NS2 gameplay as well as possible problems.

Marine tactics:
Sprinting is designed to be used out of combat or as a retreat and provides many disadvantages when close to the enemy. Yet the speed will add a lot of tactical flexibility.
- The marines sprint quickly in the safe zones or when covered by a team mate, then slow down when entering a dangerous area.
- A couple of marines could work together: one sprints ahead, while the other covers him. Then the second marine sprints while first walks forward. Of course aliens will easily hear them.
- At the beginning of a round some marines might drop their LMG to get to RTs or choke points faster.
- Marine "ninjas" might use their quickness to sneak into a hive and drop a phase gate, TF, or armory with shotguns
- Rushing takes a whole new meaning! The loud sound of marines' steps will bring terror and alert the aliens, yet a skulk could safely jump in, kill a marine, and slow down the rush.
- New "suicide rush" where the comm beacons, team drops all weapons and dashes at double speed. If they survive, commander drops armory at hive and then shotguns.
- Long corridors and open spaces would provide a great advantage to sprinting marines, but making turns and moving in closed spaces is dangerous.
- Marines could try sprinting away from onos (even drop their weapons to sprint faster!). Also, when low on health they might risk and try sprinting behind their team mates.

Effect on Alien tactics:
- sprinting would make ambushing even more useful for aliens: A skulk hears loud steps, hides around a corner, and jumps out almost certainly killing the careless marine.
- For new players it would make targeting sprinting marines easier, since they will only turn slightly and it will be more difficult to run past him.
- it will be important for aliens to spread out around the map to track marine movements.
- Skulks will benefit greatly if they manage to get behind enemy lines, where marines think they're safe.
- Gorges will need extra protection, because if alone, they could be easily run down.
- Onos effectiveness decreases, because they will only be able to chase light marines, but not catch them (unless they have charge) - they'll need to work with faster life forms.

Atmosphere:
- Due to ability to only sprint forward, constrictions to turn rate, and muffled sound, sprinting in enemy territory should feel very dangerous, since you can't check around corners or hear closing enemies. sprinting from opponents should feel scary, since you can't see them and only hear muffled alien sounds behind you.
- The game will feel more frantic due to increased speed.

How is sprinting fun?
- more fast-paced game, reducing time to get where the action is (33% less running through empty corridors with an LMG's 1.5x speed increase)
- provides an exciting risk/reward mechanic
- the ninja marines (which were present only to a very small extent in NS1) could provide a unique play style that rewards cunning instead of aim.

What might not be fun?
- Lack of control when sprinting might turn players off.
- getting ambushed and not able to do anything to save oneself could get frustrating.
- simplified marine movement when compared to NS1.

Possible balance issues:
-Maps with too few players would greatly favor marines due to their speed gain and lack of alien coverage (aliens hearing where marines are might not be enough)
-Maps with too many players would ALSO favor marines, because they could quickly get to the hot spots and plenty of players to cover their backs.
-Aliens get and overwhelming advantage when attacking an unsuspecting, sprinting marine (but they don't have to sprint)
-Quite sprinting with a knife might be overpowering.

Here are several topics i found searching for "Sprinting": "Why Sprint Keys Are Bad", "Fast arcadey movement of NS, hope it stays in...", "Blog update - Marine concepts"
Let's restart the discussion and give the developers some new ideas and inspirations. I'll try to add any ideas/concerns you come up with.

Again, big EDIT

schkorpio

some nice ideas in there, i agree with most of them

my 2 cents :-

i dont think that any marines should be able to out run an onos, excpet for jetpack marines. (don't forget onos also has or atleast used to have a charge ability which was quite fast)

I like the idea of dropping weapons to gain speed, it reminds of that joke, there are 2 marines in a space station and suddenly an onos appears, both marines start running, the first marine says, we are never going to out run this thing, the 2nd marine drops his weapons and says, well i only have to out run you. (yeah its bad lol)

I also think that having a shotgun should make you sprint faster than an LMG because there is more of a need to close in on your targets. but that may over power it.

afratnikov

Here's the idea as it was proposed on the <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/2007/10/fifth_podcast" target="_blank">5th Podcast </a>- sprint discussion starts at 19:20:
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Charlie: Also Another idea, well it’s kinda standard in FPS right now to be able to sprint, but I think it would be really cool if the marines could sprint, but there would be no energy bar, cause it’s complicated to have energy bar just for that.
Max: I hate the energy bar just for sprinting
Charlie: I do too. But sprinting is great, so what if you could sprint, as long as you wanted, but you made more noise because you’re breathing heavily and your boots are clumping on metal floor, and then you have to put your weapon away while sprinting – you can’t fire, and it takes another second or so to bring your weapon back up after the sprint. And we could also do an onos-type charge thing where, which is what I wanted to do for NS1, but where you couldn’t actually maneuver quite as well – you couldn’t just spin around as fast as you wanted while you’re running. You actually have to pick a direction and go in that direction. It’s almost like a more intentional. Like you aim, you hit, sprint you run, and then you can’t just like spin on a dime like immediately run back where you came – there would be some momentum involved. So there would be some more skill in like contriving your guy.
Max: I mean what you said about sprint is interesting because typically the way things are balanced in games, a lot of times it makes them not fun, like the way sprint is typically balanced in games is by not letting you doing a lot.
Max: Yea right.
Charlie: Which is just annoying.
Max: But sprinting is so great. But there are so many other axes on which you could balance something.
Charlie: Yeah exactly.
Max: So I think it’s good to explore those potentially make something that is not a lot of fun it’s useful obviously in day of defeat, but sprinting probably isn’t a fun activity to do, just because it tends to be frustrating a lot of the times and actually making something that is fun all the time,
Charlie: And plus you see the gameplay effect is that if you watch somebody sprinting and they are out of energy but they still want to sprint, you see them sprint for a little bit and they stop and they sprint for a little bit and they stop. And that’s not the visual effect you want either.
Max: Yeah
Charlie: But think how cool it would be if you had a whole squad who just got decimated at one hive and then they all decide to book it back there, you’d see a squad all running with their weapons down it would be this massive charge and they would run all the way to the hive.
Max: That’s what it should be called it should be called booking it.
Charlie: Press “shift” to book. Anyways I’m just excited thinking about the actual NS idea again
Max: yeah we haven’t nailed down too many of those things and it’s probably the right point to study.
Charlie: So hopefully you guys will se a progress of this pretty soon here.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Do you think they've tried implementing sprinting, and then moved to other stuff. Should they even try putting it into NS2?