Movement physics feedback
Nilar
Join Date: 2010-06-14 Member: 72058Members
Join Date: 2010-06-14 Member: 72058Members
So, I spent some time searching the forums and I found alot of threads discussing whether air control should stay in the game or not, but I didn't find any feedback on the actual physics of air control and other movement. Playing the tech demo, there are a couple of tidbits that I would like to bring up. Of course it's all very subjective, but I still figured I'd bring it up and see what other people think.
First of, the air velocity drops off almost immediately (same decay as when on ground?) if you let go of your movement keys. I find it would be more intuitive if you had to do a reverse movement to slow your jump. It's also more or less impossible to do those awesome "jump-spin" shots with the high velocity decay, but that might be a concious design choice to create balance in the first place.
I find that both the inertia when running on ground and the amount of air control you have are quite high. Race- or class based settings for these things could be a powerful tool in tweaking balance.
I'm not sure if I'm imagining it, but it feels like the direction of your jump is altered when you rotate your view - it's hard to tell with the combination of quick air velocity decay and very strong "manual" air control. This might actually be a good thing for increasing maneuverability of the Skulk in particular, but overall I find it rather unnatural (as opposed to breaking the law of inertia. heh) and especially for marines. Again, race- or class based settings for this could be very handy when designing balance.
Lastly and most importantly I would really like to beg the developers to not let the Half-life 1 type of "air control" sneak into the game, where you would - no matter your current velocity - stop dead in the air as soon as you hit the backpedal key and just drop like a rock. Please?
First of, the air velocity drops off almost immediately (same decay as when on ground?) if you let go of your movement keys. I find it would be more intuitive if you had to do a reverse movement to slow your jump. It's also more or less impossible to do those awesome "jump-spin" shots with the high velocity decay, but that might be a concious design choice to create balance in the first place.
I find that both the inertia when running on ground and the amount of air control you have are quite high. Race- or class based settings for these things could be a powerful tool in tweaking balance.
I'm not sure if I'm imagining it, but it feels like the direction of your jump is altered when you rotate your view - it's hard to tell with the combination of quick air velocity decay and very strong "manual" air control. This might actually be a good thing for increasing maneuverability of the Skulk in particular, but overall I find it rather unnatural (as opposed to breaking the law of inertia. heh) and especially for marines. Again, race- or class based settings for this could be very handy when designing balance.
Lastly and most importantly I would really like to beg the developers to not let the Half-life 1 type of "air control" sneak into the game, where you would - no matter your current velocity - stop dead in the air as soon as you hit the backpedal key and just drop like a rock. Please?
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<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->First of, the air velocity drops off almost immediately (same decay as when on ground?) if you let go of your movement keys.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I and a few others I've talked to hope this is a bug that will go away later. Hopefully you will still move while in the air due to "inertia" and slight control via the WASD keys to have some "air control", ie.e changes in speed, direction etc.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'm not sure if I'm imagining it, but it feels like the direction of your jump is altered when you rotate your view - it's hard to tell with the combination of quick air velocity decay and very strong "manual" air control. This might actually be a good thing for increasing maneuverability of the Skulk in particular, but overall I find it rather unnatural (as opposed to breaking the law of inertia. heh) and especially for marines. Again, race- or class based settings for this could be very handy when designing balance.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Again, most likely they haven't really put in proper inertia controls. Instead, your WASD keys probably only create a set movement speed and direction. Hopefully in future versions intertia effects will come into play, especially while jumping.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Lastly and most importantly I would really like to beg the developers to not let the Half-life 1 type of "air control" sneak into the game, where you would - no matter your current velocity - stop dead in the air as soon as you hit the backpedal key and just drop like a rock. Please?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Hm, never really experienced this that much, or if I did I just ignored it. I don't remember if NS1 had this either. Still, yeah, sounds kinda annoying.
Oh right. I think I do remember this now.
Never used it much since I almost always was trying to move as fast as possible and didn't do surf maps.
Works in Source games too.
In a melee vs ranged game like NS, movement is utterly crucial, you really cant overstate the importance of getting it right. RTS balancing issues like damage scalars, unit and weapon costs etc. are all easily twiddled and would be expected be changed back and forth with successive patches, players are used to that. What you can't do is start drastically changing movement physics around after a commercial launch - at least it certainly isnt something players expect. They really need to be in good shape right out the gate.
Back to the air brakes, it is possible to soften the slowing effect of that, the result is that you reduce the acceleration possible in the air and shorten the maximum turning arc in the air before you lose speed. I can think of at least one other game that kept the QW system intact with just a reduction in the braking effect, you ended up being able to swing your current momentum to some degree in the air but there was almost no acceleration from just hopping along the ground. That still meant you could keep, and manipulate the speed from 'pushing' effects like rocket jumps (or a fade blink in NS's case). It's not my prefered solution, but the air turning of NS1 is perfectly suited for control of melee classes like leaping skulks and fade with the 2.0 version of blink. If you clip the air brakes a bit you retain a degree of control without as much acceleration from a standstill. I don't really want to imagine the idea of leaping skulks without the ability to turn in the air.
Although movement is a core component of the game, it is as far as I have gathered not a core component of the code and should be relatively easy to work with.
Also i really would like to see the overall speed of the game decreased a little but, it always felt way to fast to me. I'm not a slowpoke or anything either, iv played other fps with success. Its just those gosh darn skulks leaping entire screen lengths in half a second, makes the learning curve feel so high.
It just felt a little too frantic to me.
But don't get me wrong, i still play and love the game. thats just the one thing i hope they change.
and even if they don't change it, ill still play it.
p.s. about to buy the special edition, really excited for alpha