Marine movement
NeoRussia
Join Date: 2012-08-04 Member: 154743Members
Join Date: 2012-08-04 Member: 154743Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Needs an immediate fix.</div>Since we are close to 1.0 and this has no yet been addressed is much cause for concern. Currently, marines can't jump more than a half a foot and when they do they can't do it after the first time and are forced to wait a whole 2 seconds to jump again. Sprinting is flawed and currently doesn't work for many certain reasons and is still in the game despite all the balance issues surrounding it. Remove sprint, increase marine jump distance and base speed, remove the jump limitations after consecutive jumps as well as that assinine slow down when walking backwards. Seriously, I unbind my S key whenever I play marine, this is just stupid. None of these changes are hard to implement. So many problems still surrounding marine movement, I'll list some of them right here:
- skulk bite has to be shortened because it is too easy to hit targets that stand still and don't try to dodge your bites. This leads to very annoying gameplay where you need to hug a marine and can't see anything but armour and flesh in front of you, while trying to strafe or jump which causes you to knock into team-mates or map geometry. What good is movement when everything amounts to the same thing in the end.
- You are basically almost a turret as a marine, and are forced to either strafe really slowly in either direction or/and spam jump, as those are the only 2 things to do if you chose to fight. This and the above point are really big, as nobody wants this and it's hurting gameplay and most of all FUN for some stupid mechanic which doesn't even work well to begin with.
- might as well unbind your S key, as there is no reason to use it when you can use A and D and strafe. That's actually what I did at some point because using it is actually a bad habit in this game.
- sprinting is unbalanced and impossible to balance for mentioned reasons. You can go faster than skulk, and good luck trying to kill marines when they can scatter like flies as an onos. Don't sprint, and it feels like you weigh 2 tons and just makes your speed feel terrible.
- sprinting is limited, you can't do it all the time or else it would be even more imbalanced. This means a marine can outrun a skulk but not all the time, and there is no way for a skulk to know when he can.
- Since getting bitten while jumping causes you to fly across the room this is what most people try to do in a fight, as well as rifle butt which also gets severely cut down because of movement, because if you miss you have no choice but to flail around, standing still, and keep spamming it.
- it feels like an insult to remove skill, fun, and basic mechanics from the game because a very few amount of people who bought NS2 can't aim as well so they feel like they have to have their targets be easier to hit. Why are these people being catered to and not people who can play the game or want to try to get better at it?
- advanced skulk movement makes it really easy to chew down marines. Similar to the point that I made before, but as a 14 speed skulk against a comparatively immobile target it is a complete joke. No wonder they can't balance walljump or make it good in any form.
- so many strategic plays are flawed/imbalanced/cookie-cutter because of how marine movement works. I don't want to expand on this because people will just argue what works and what doesn't work even though it comes down to player skill.
- shotguns are ridiculous to balance. Either you hit your shot and it doesn't hit all the pellets so the experienced skulk kills you before you can fire again, or you get lucky or have good aim at really close range so that it kills him in one shot. Can't position yourself after or before the first shot because of movement. Sure the spread is already a big problem, but movement is what changes whether you can get another shot off to survive.
and many more points to make but it is really clear that so many problems can be traced back to movement. If it doesn't get fixed by 1.0, we can at least hope that the NS2:C mod can fix the problem so that the devs will understand this and implement it after release, if the lack of this change doesn't impact release too much.
- skulk bite has to be shortened because it is too easy to hit targets that stand still and don't try to dodge your bites. This leads to very annoying gameplay where you need to hug a marine and can't see anything but armour and flesh in front of you, while trying to strafe or jump which causes you to knock into team-mates or map geometry. What good is movement when everything amounts to the same thing in the end.
- You are basically almost a turret as a marine, and are forced to either strafe really slowly in either direction or/and spam jump, as those are the only 2 things to do if you chose to fight. This and the above point are really big, as nobody wants this and it's hurting gameplay and most of all FUN for some stupid mechanic which doesn't even work well to begin with.
- might as well unbind your S key, as there is no reason to use it when you can use A and D and strafe. That's actually what I did at some point because using it is actually a bad habit in this game.
- sprinting is unbalanced and impossible to balance for mentioned reasons. You can go faster than skulk, and good luck trying to kill marines when they can scatter like flies as an onos. Don't sprint, and it feels like you weigh 2 tons and just makes your speed feel terrible.
- sprinting is limited, you can't do it all the time or else it would be even more imbalanced. This means a marine can outrun a skulk but not all the time, and there is no way for a skulk to know when he can.
- Since getting bitten while jumping causes you to fly across the room this is what most people try to do in a fight, as well as rifle butt which also gets severely cut down because of movement, because if you miss you have no choice but to flail around, standing still, and keep spamming it.
- it feels like an insult to remove skill, fun, and basic mechanics from the game because a very few amount of people who bought NS2 can't aim as well so they feel like they have to have their targets be easier to hit. Why are these people being catered to and not people who can play the game or want to try to get better at it?
- advanced skulk movement makes it really easy to chew down marines. Similar to the point that I made before, but as a 14 speed skulk against a comparatively immobile target it is a complete joke. No wonder they can't balance walljump or make it good in any form.
- so many strategic plays are flawed/imbalanced/cookie-cutter because of how marine movement works. I don't want to expand on this because people will just argue what works and what doesn't work even though it comes down to player skill.
- shotguns are ridiculous to balance. Either you hit your shot and it doesn't hit all the pellets so the experienced skulk kills you before you can fire again, or you get lucky or have good aim at really close range so that it kills him in one shot. Can't position yourself after or before the first shot because of movement. Sure the spread is already a big problem, but movement is what changes whether you can get another shot off to survive.
and many more points to make but it is really clear that so many problems can be traced back to movement. If it doesn't get fixed by 1.0, we can at least hope that the NS2:C mod can fix the problem so that the devs will understand this and implement it after release, if the lack of this change doesn't impact release too much.
Comments
The movement collision is weird and just outdated feeling. A player should be able to move a character with their weight and velocity. Like how an Onos charge gets stuck on a marine standing still.
Plus everything can fall from any height and not take any damage.
I know it's unfair to compare it to big budget games but some of these things are necessities, and I hope these things can make it after launch.
Currently, I have <b>way </b>more fun playing marines compared to aliens.
Ns2c 4 lyfe
qft
Feature lock means no new features, this thread is about fixing/removing/balancing features already in the game.
If feature lock means they arent going to rework blatantly broken things like sentries we might as well start passing out the shovels.
As for OP, let me add collision to the list of major concerns. If that is sorted out I feel some aspects of the movement will improve as well.
Oh and +1 on sprint being a bad idea.
Invariably.
Marines should have to rely on teamwork to get things done. Aliens are better than marines 1v1. Marines should be forced to rely on their teammates shooting at the things biting their ankles to survive. Its when marines work together that the aliens are in trouble.
Really? more nerfing? Why do people rely on nerfs instead of improving their game... Like a jumping marine affects a gorge/lerk/fade/onos.
And if all you care is about the skulk, it's not much of a problem for celerity skulks or once you have leap. The thing is, initial skulks (with no upgrades whatsoever) are pretty horrible right now, but why keep nerfing marines when you can give better movement options to the skulk.
I think many look for solutions that lower the skill bar instead of taking it higher.
In almost every single first person shooter ever made jumping makes you easier to hit than moving around on the ground. If someone spams jump even if marines had twice the jump height they do now they would be just as easy to hit, you stand underneath them and bite up. The movement is completely predictable, it is incredibly easy to bite someone when you know exactly where they are going for the second that they are in the air. The fact that spamming jump is actually useful shows how gimped marine movement is in the first place. If sprint was not in the game and marine movement speed was faster it would be a lot better to dodge using strafing and not mindlessly spamming the jump button. Like I said all the problems come from the movement in the first place. Not to mention if marine movement was better, then skulk bite would have to be longer range, and then you could actually see if the marine is jumping or not because you don't have to be right in his face. This would also mean that the skulk would have more opportunity to move around back and forth as well as in the air and on walls, while still being able to bite and having some sort of skill needed past simply closing distance. Watch some NS1 videos, jump spam was not a problem then even though marines could jump higher and constantly, even bhop at one time.
The ONLY (single, lone) advantage aliens have over marines is mobility. Marines have range and therefore <b>the ability to cover eachother.</b> Marines can even do the most damage in the shortest amount of time, the only limit is aiming skill. You really think it makes sense to give the marines a piece of the only advantage the aliens have over them?
Careful comparing NS2 to NS1 when talking about movement balance, you'll sound like you want bhop back.
The only thing i'll agree on you with is that buffs are better than nerfs. But if buffs are going around aliens would need far more than marines after this patch.
Sprinting is not a problem in fights. If there is an option to run away, it can't be useless. So you should have at least some speed. The fact that you can run faster as a skulk if you drop all your weapons doesn't matter. Who does this actually? What is it good for? Saving your life? For what? You obviously have no pres-weapons, so just die and respawn. It's faster.
Most people who are against sprint, say that it brings the marines to fast back at the frontline. Where is the problem with this? I would agree if the balance hasn't been alien-favoring for ages. But it wasn't and that proves, that sprint doesn't overpower the marines. Yes, it leads to more action because you are faster back in the action. But that doesn't mean that it dumbs down the tactical part. It just gets faster. Not less tactical.
Jumping may actually be to powerful in this build. I can't say this for sure. But in previous builds it was fine. It gave you some advantage against a skulk, but it wasn't overpowered.
Finally I agree, that the movement in fights needs to get better. But not for marines. They got the ranged advantage. Aliens need the movement advantage. If the netcode allows it, skulks may need to be faster with the new short bite range. But we will see.
The main problem here isn't marine jumps or alien bite range. AFAIK the problem is the collision model. There are better experts and better threads about this on the forum, but basically marine collision box is a cylinder with sphere halves for top and bottom and the skulk collision box is a sphere. This and the current collision model leads to marines surfing on skulks and skulks going through marines. You might have noticed that you spontaneously move up on contact with drifters and macs. Same thing, except happens in melee. This and some other bugs make it really hard for even skilled skulks to land bites. You can see this over and over again when watching casted PCW:.
Slightly off-topic, but annoying, so I'll mention it ;) ... I need maybe 20% more vertical mouse sensitivity than horizontal, but neither the game nor my mouse drivers seem to support this... Makes it harder for me to hit anything that is not at the same height as me :(
Seriously? This is the reason skulk is brainless and easymode during combat currently, because people feel like they should be privileged to be given free kills with no need to understand how to play because skulk in melee = marine death or it should in their eyes. NS2 shouldn't be about rock paper scissors. It should matter to actually be a good marine and not HURRR TEAMWORK BEATS EVERYTHING. I'm telling you now that spamming jump does jack ###### and if it was reduced even slightly more it wouldn't change anything outside of those people who can't play already would now need nothing but a working mouse and keyboard to be able to get kills as skulk. In fact the hardest part is getting to the marine, if that wasn't there you might as well be using a gamepad controller. If people find jumping impossible to deal with I don't know what to say to them except they should probably start trying to move their mouse at some point in a fight, your other hand is useful for other things outside of picking your nose. In fact you don't even need to do that, if you keep your crosshair at a 45 degree angle and hold w and mouse 1 it should kill any marine that tries to jump because skulk bite range is a lot higher even now than marine jump height.
<!--quoteo(post=1982771:date=Sep 25 2012, 04:34 AM:name=_Necro_)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (_Necro_ @ Sep 25 2012, 04:34 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1982771"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Whats with that complains about the backpedal-speed? You don't need to be a genius to see, that a marine that can run backwards with full speed, can't be killed by melee-aliens.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Except it doesn't work that way. This was never a problem. Even at full speed it would be incredibly easy to kill a marine moving in one direction. Proof: every single game with a melee weapon in it. Even TF2, which has slower speed moving backwards. You only move 10% slower walking backwards in that game yet it's so easy to chase someone down with a melee weapon when getting the drop on them if they are the same class and moving at the same speed backwards or as a pyro, it makes a huge difference. Moving backwards at walk speed is just stupid, no game does this for a good reason. There is no reason to get rid of the S key in a shooter, what the hell? How can anybody endorse this.
You can't compare a semi-ranged class like the pyro with an melee alien that nearly needs to stick into its target to hit. Even the No.1 melee class in TF2 - the demo - works only because of it's charge ability (but this is hive2 for skulks). Without that demos rely on their ranged weapons. In other cases melee is only used, when your opponent is very near or unaware. The first only happens, because there is no melee-only-class. If so, every player would look out for them and keep the distance.
Maybe it shouldn't slow down your strafe speed while you hit "S", to make it not that punishing, but being able to kite the aliens will overpower the marines. This is obvious.
Backpedal + kiting will completely break the game, it was there in NS1 for a reason.
Same with the fact that marines aren't meant to move like quake players.
Deal with it.
how 'bout keeping the speed the same but fixing that initial movement? that would give more feeling of control to the marine player in the close combat melee scenario.
personally have no problem with the backward speed difference - it is not *that* big of a deal, it's just some that you need to adapt to.
edit: you might need to play with the skulk to adapt to the improved initial marine speed burst
edit#2: this is probably related to limiting jump - which perhaps is desired, but i think on the ground movement should be more spritely.
Also, they really need to fix the rollerskate skulk gameplay, it's really no fun fighting at high speeds as a skulk, because it feels like you lose all control.