Butchered alien movement
elodea
Editlodea Join Date: 2009-06-20 Member: 67877Members, Reinforced - Shadow
Editlodea Join Date: 2009-06-20 Member: 67877Members, Reinforced - Shadow
First the skulk, then the fade, now the lerk. I'm really at a loss for words.
It doesn't bother me so much that the movement is poor atm as much as it bothers me that UWE is constantly taking a generally quite good <b>base</b> of pre-existing movement/control and making an almighty mess. Whatever happened to the so called 'lockdown'?
Poor skulk and fade was bearable because i could always just lerk, but now you've really gone and done it. It's not even the lerk surface rollerskating that bothers me (even though this is pretty terrible in and of itself), its the lack of once again proper strafe movement. There is now NO alien class with a satisfying, precise, and meaningfully skill indexed movement model - I'm not surprised at all that NS2stats is seeing an increase in the ammount of gorge time. Changes are meant to improve, not the opposite.
I'm seeing a worrying trend - that UWE has close to zero clue when it comes to movement. So please, some simple changes at the very least
1) Change the lerk back
2) Bring back proper walljumping
<strike>3) Blink momentum</strike> <b>OOPS</b>
and postpone the extensive movement fiddling till after 1.0.
It doesn't bother me so much that the movement is poor atm as much as it bothers me that UWE is constantly taking a generally quite good <b>base</b> of pre-existing movement/control and making an almighty mess. Whatever happened to the so called 'lockdown'?
Poor skulk and fade was bearable because i could always just lerk, but now you've really gone and done it. It's not even the lerk surface rollerskating that bothers me (even though this is pretty terrible in and of itself), its the lack of once again proper strafe movement. There is now NO alien class with a satisfying, precise, and meaningfully skill indexed movement model - I'm not surprised at all that NS2stats is seeing an increase in the ammount of gorge time. Changes are meant to improve, not the opposite.
I'm seeing a worrying trend - that UWE has close to zero clue when it comes to movement. So please, some simple changes at the very least
1) Change the lerk back
2) Bring back proper walljumping
<strike>3) Blink momentum</strike> <b>OOPS</b>
and postpone the extensive movement fiddling till after 1.0.
Comments
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3) Blink momentum<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Isn't this back to more or less the way it was a few patches ago? I've been happily playing celerity fade on again, so I don't think there are big problems with the blink now.
and walljumping got better in the last builds ...
lerk movement got a bit funny, but i don't think it's a reason for raging like that ...
My proposed changes: Revert everything back to how it was 10 patches ago when I was raging about something else.
Skulk walljump works but is kind of awkward in that you need to do either 50 walljumps or climb to the tallest ceiling on the map and drop down in order to get a decent speed. Impractical in combat situations.
I don't do much strafing anyway, but the Lerk rollerskates are loltastic. On one hand I like not losing all my speed when I graze a wall, but on the other hand I can't bounce off a wall for a hard turn to evade fire. Not to mention when I fly to a gorgey for heals, he has to run after me as I slide past him haha.
But yeah, Elodea has a point: every time an alien gets a decent movement system, UWE goes and butchers it for no reason at all. And now as a result, playing aliens is not much fun.<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
My proposed changes: Revert everything back to how it was 10 patches ago when I was raging about something else.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Wow, nice job making me sound like a child. I may be raging but afaik i was keeping it out of the post.
Big mistake on the fade blink, kalli is correct, i never bothered to try fade recently.
*edit*
I'm totally fine with UWE messing with movement and doing whatever they want to it (they're designing the game). What irks me is that they're making pretty significant changes to movement during lockdown - changes (lerk) which happen to not be very good at all.
If his point is that UWE makes changes for absolutely no reason, then theres no point in saying that he has a point.
So pointless.
<!--quoteo(post=1992725:date=Oct 17 2012, 12:56 PM:name=elodea)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (elodea @ Oct 17 2012, 12:56 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1992725"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I may be raging but afaik i was keeping it out of the post.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1992708:date=Oct 17 2012, 12:10 PM:name=elodea)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (elodea @ Oct 17 2012, 12:10 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1992708"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'm seeing a worrying trend - that UWE has close to zero clue when it comes to movement.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You may have tried to keep it out of the post, but you failed.
Fade movement is fine now, they reverted the bad changes and now its back to 220.
Skulk movement has improved, I would like to see the speed cap increased a bit though, 11 is a bit low considering how fast it drops off.
Lerk movement? Didn't know it even changes, feels the same to me
Fade movement is fine now, they reverted the bad changes and now its back to 220.
Skulk movement has improved, I would like to see the speed cap increased a bit though, 11 is a bit low considering how fast it drops off.
Lerk movement? Didn't know it even changes, feels the same to me<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
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2012-2012
I think for me the big deal is that the progress is mostly back and forth without a clear direction. The game is two weeks from release and there doesn't seem to be any clarity on how the movement should go. To me that's probably even bigger of a worry than the problems with the movement as it is right now. 'Just wait' has got old a long time ago.
The balance isn't, and shouldn't be, largely dependent on how a player jumps up and down with the skulk. The vast majority of incoming players will not know or care that the skulk can't do 360 noscopes off adjacent walls.
"proper strafe movement" for example, what do you exactly expect when pressing strafe, in terms of speed, direction and dynamic (~response time).
Fade is rather responsive now, you can go pretty fast along corridors with shadowstep and you're more maneuverable with blink.
Lerk is kinda glidy, sometimes you lose control if you turn too fast and such, but you can pretty quickly correct yourself with extra flapping. But I agree that lerk does feel kinda slow and very vulnerable without celerity. In the hands of a very good player vs regular players, you still survive quite well against lmg, but one skilled twitch shotgun user and you're roast.
Gorge uptime might also be because the spit cinematic was improved and that people are starting to learn the importance of bilebomb. :)
Obviously if this doesn't bother other people I guess I'll adjust... but I personally think it's awful, if shift stuck you to walls, no point in sticking automatically.
I don't think this is true. I've watched Andi using the new skulk wall jumping system a lot while he was tuning it, and while it does take some timing and skill to maintain the speed for long periods of time, he was able to get a good speed off one jump that allowed him to continue zipping around quite easily by just keeping his forward direction and skimming the walls. It obviously can't be made too easy to maintain a speed of 10 or more for extended periods of time, or it will impact the game balance far too much. I think people are still used to the old wall jump mechanic, and have not really spent much time with the new one yet.
--Cory
I'm not completely sure about the speed values in NS2 context, but I think NS1 taught us quite a lot on how the high speeds can be balanced. Predictable patterns and sounds go a long way already. NS1 held together relatively well with people going over 2x skulk base speed and it could've held together even better with some more adjustments that weren't possible in HL1 engine.
If you just keep gliding in combat instead of flapping this wont happen at all. It feels a bit weird though i agree on that.
--Cory<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah, what Skie said isn't really true. The new walljumping makes gaining and maintaining speed fairly easy. I disagree with you that it requires timing and skill though -- the timing element was basically removed with this iteration, and without any sort of air acceleration there isn't a whole lot of skill to it either. Once you realize that the way to gain speed is to use walls to gain altitude by jumping up, there isn't a whole lot more to learn about it. There's no speed penalty for moving erratically, no incentive for making nice curves in the air, nor is there much space for improvement once you get over the initial learning hump.
As far as NS2 walljumping goes, I think it's the best iteration so far, for its ease of access and fairly balanced speed gains. It is not the skill based movement we were looking for, however.
<!--quoteo(post=1992818:date=Oct 17 2012, 05:07 PM:name=Bacillus)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Bacillus @ Oct 17 2012, 05:07 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1992818"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'm not completely sure about the speed values in NS2 context, but I think NS1 taught us quite a lot on how the high speeds can be balanced. Predictable patterns and sounds go a long way already. NS1 held together relatively well with people going over 2x skulk base speed and it could've held together even better with some more adjustments that weren't possible in HL1 engine.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't remember the exact values anymore, but skulk base speed was around 300, which you could get up to around 450 with bunnyhopping and around 700 with celerity and bunnyhopping. You say something that's very important though, when you mention "predictable patterns", which is exactly what balanced bunnyhopping to my mind. To a player familiar with the bunnyhopping pattern, tracking skulks even moving at 700 speed was a piece of cake.
Cause, if the only way to really notice the speed gain is through a developer console command indicating the current speed, I don't think people will discover this on their own...
Anyways, ta ta!
I did get the gist of the system very well, but it was so bland (aim up while jumping from a wall, bounce a few times from ground, repeat) that I didn't consider it as something to keep forever. I don't like how it's so much more useful in some areas and quite gimped in others. Whenever you have a down elevation in the map, you get a lot of speed (up to 12 with a single jump). Whenever you have up-elevation, you are held to a frustrating 8-9.
Well the other important thing about the current mechanic that makes it very prone to spam is the "incentive" for doing the first jump which always yields a 20% increase from running speed regardless of how you do the jump or in what circumstance.
You always get the benefit of atleast 8.5 speed for being near a wall or a cluttered floor with weird geometry (tram especially).
Just the very fact that you stick to walls so easily and can jump off them with accurate precision makes it a good tradeoff over bunnyhop. Fade movement feels absolutely fine as well, perhaps take away the speed nerf when just entering blink (It seems to waste more energy than you want, since tapping blink used to be viable).
Also, it's nonsense to say it's impossible to gain and hold speed with the skulk now... its better now than in the last 4-5 builds. Speed is a good way to avoid getting shot as skulk, but shouldn't be the main focus for combat.
Just the very fact that you stick to walls so easily and can jump off them with accurate precision makes it a good tradeoff over bunnyhop. Fade movement feels absolutely fine as well, perhaps take away the speed nerf when just entering blink (It seems to waste more energy than you want, since tapping blink used to be viable).
Also, it's nonsense to say it's impossible to gain and hold speed with the skulk now... its better now than in the last 4-5 builds. Speed is a good way to avoid getting shot as skulk, but shouldn't be the main focus for combat.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<img src="http://www.ironmill.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/angry-mob.jpeg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
Skulk still needs skillful movement to scale with marine aim, walljump on paper can offer a somewhat evasionary mechanic but IMO currently requires little skill or practice, and you still greatly lack a predicable pattern high speed increase mechanic.
For comparision in NS1 base skulk speed was 290, and bhop averaged about 550 IIRC, with celerity going even higher. Thats almost a doubling in speed.
The Kharaa movement response feels the same way the Marines were before BUILD 222.