My Basic Explanation of New Alien Movement. Critique for betterment of community :P
TrustMeImADentist
Join Date: 2013-04-27 Member: 185014Members
Join Date: 2013-04-27 Member: 185014Members
If they released BT with a 50% sale/free weekend or whatever, that would be very very smart.
If they just released BT without doing that, that would be pretty dumb. I have high hopes for BT!
ALTHOUGH, there STILL needs to be some in-game explanation to new players about how skulk and fade movement works.
I kinda see it as two levels of difficulty for the skulk.
LEVEL 1 (I don't do this but I saw Strayan's video and he does)
....Jump off the edge of a wall so that you gain momentum in the game engine.
....The first jump after the initial wall jump will let you maintain that momentum (speed). This jump has to be directed back at the wall though, because any jumps afterward will kill that momentum.
....Jump off the wall and repeat.
LEVEL 2 (I guess a little bit more difficult, but not really. Also, it's way more fun when you finally get it).
....Jump off wall to gain momentum.
....Pseudo-Bunnyhop (PBH). PBH'ing is where you jump, strafe in a direction (L/R) while simultaneously looking in that direction. So, if you're coming to a corner that turns left, and you have some momentum going (from a wall jump, or later in the game from leap), you would jump, immediately press and hold A, and smoothly guide your skulk left around the corner with the mouse. In NS2_amazingalienmap (that's not a real map if you're a noob), you'd land in a long hallway in front of you. Immediately upon landing, you want to switch to strafe to the right, because trying to PBH left again would make you hit the wall awkwardly. So, when you land, you press and hold D, and smoothly look a little to the left. It doesn't have to be very much, but smooth mouse movements are key when you're first learning. Then, you'd switch to strafing and holding left again while smoothly looking left a little. What makes all this challenging is that you're trying to go faster and faster with each jump or leap, so you need to be precise and accurate. Messing this movement up will bring you back down to normal skulk running speed. Also, you hold W (forward) the whole time.
You know you're doing it right if you hear your skulk start to growl. At over speed 10 (I think) the skulk will begin to pant. When you're really flying, your skulk will begin to do almost a tiny roar. Celerity will get you to a pant almost immediately.
Basically, you want to build momentum with a skulk or a fade and maintain it through PBH. There are tons of ways to build momentum, like wall jumping, leaping, tapping blink... Just as long as you PBH afterward you will maintain your speed.
It's not easy and it's not supposed to be, but once you learn it it's a lot of fun.
Also, a lot of players may not realize that the speed and movement mechanics are primarily for getting around the map. The same ways that skulks have always killed marines, i.e. being sneaky sneaky, and having good aim with their melee bite, still apply. You can use PBH'ing and speed in creative ways once you get good at it, but I fumbled for a while under the impression these tactics would make me a god skulk. Still gotta bite them good!
If they just released BT without doing that, that would be pretty dumb. I have high hopes for BT!
ALTHOUGH, there STILL needs to be some in-game explanation to new players about how skulk and fade movement works.
I kinda see it as two levels of difficulty for the skulk.
LEVEL 1 (I don't do this but I saw Strayan's video and he does)
....Jump off the edge of a wall so that you gain momentum in the game engine.
....The first jump after the initial wall jump will let you maintain that momentum (speed). This jump has to be directed back at the wall though, because any jumps afterward will kill that momentum.
....Jump off the wall and repeat.
LEVEL 2 (I guess a little bit more difficult, but not really. Also, it's way more fun when you finally get it).
....Jump off wall to gain momentum.
....Pseudo-Bunnyhop (PBH). PBH'ing is where you jump, strafe in a direction (L/R) while simultaneously looking in that direction. So, if you're coming to a corner that turns left, and you have some momentum going (from a wall jump, or later in the game from leap), you would jump, immediately press and hold A, and smoothly guide your skulk left around the corner with the mouse. In NS2_amazingalienmap (that's not a real map if you're a noob), you'd land in a long hallway in front of you. Immediately upon landing, you want to switch to strafe to the right, because trying to PBH left again would make you hit the wall awkwardly. So, when you land, you press and hold D, and smoothly look a little to the left. It doesn't have to be very much, but smooth mouse movements are key when you're first learning. Then, you'd switch to strafing and holding left again while smoothly looking left a little. What makes all this challenging is that you're trying to go faster and faster with each jump or leap, so you need to be precise and accurate. Messing this movement up will bring you back down to normal skulk running speed. Also, you hold W (forward) the whole time.
You know you're doing it right if you hear your skulk start to growl. At over speed 10 (I think) the skulk will begin to pant. When you're really flying, your skulk will begin to do almost a tiny roar. Celerity will get you to a pant almost immediately.
Basically, you want to build momentum with a skulk or a fade and maintain it through PBH. There are tons of ways to build momentum, like wall jumping, leaping, tapping blink... Just as long as you PBH afterward you will maintain your speed.
It's not easy and it's not supposed to be, but once you learn it it's a lot of fun.
Also, a lot of players may not realize that the speed and movement mechanics are primarily for getting around the map. The same ways that skulks have always killed marines, i.e. being sneaky sneaky, and having good aim with their melee bite, still apply. You can use PBH'ing and speed in creative ways once you get good at it, but I fumbled for a while under the impression these tactics would make me a god skulk. Still gotta bite them good!
Comments
I know there are a ton of purists out there.
1. Use the walls to your advantage! Walljumping works just like in the previous version. In addition you will notice that skulks are now a lot faster when running on walls than on the ground.
2. Maintain the speed gained by walljumping by continuously jumping to avoid ground friction. You can now press and hold the jump button to jump as soon as you land (still one click per jump).
3. You will notice that air friction is lower than in the old version, and instead you lose speed when you make turns. This can be avoided by "strafing into the turn". What you do is hold strafe left when you turn left and strafe right when you turn right. Practice makes perfect!
You need to chain walljumps into it to keep high levels of speed up. I try and never go more than two ground hops before getting in at least one walljump.
Why do I need to HOLD forward key, AND press jump key, AND press a L or R strafe key, AND look in my desired direction, all at the same time (that is, within a fraction of a second)?
Jump and forward are enough for 1 hand. It just feels artificial to have to press a strafe key in addition to the jump key...for a movement that in reality, my mouse-hand wants to do, to be honest.
And depending on the situation, SWITCH between 2 different strafe-keys on top of that.
All to easy, my finger that rests on the forward key comes off, and gone is my speed.
Or I bounce my head against the ceiling or something, because my jumps go different than my mouse-hand wants to go.
Strafe into the direction I'm also aiming my mouse > that's double controls for 1 and the same movement.
Please get rid of the strafe-key part for this movement...together with the mouse-movement, it should be enough to get max speed.
This would simplify things allot, and shift some of the work to the mouse-hand.
Having to chain wall-jumps is great, it took me only 30mins of practice to get used to the 250 version of it.
At least, it gave me a few seconds of speed-boost (the 2nd skulk sound).
Or wait is the problem that there's no air friction stuff in NS2 engine so it needs to be created with the A D and I have no idea what I'm talking about.
Obviously it shouldn't be cryptic, we've got a history of bad tutorials etc unfortunately.
Never been a big fan of bunnyhopping myself, but the pseudobunnyhopping in b250 isn't really that essential though. It's just there for the people who want something extra. The speed you can gain from just walljumping alone is pretty massive in comparison to the speed you can gain by pseudobunnyhopping.
People are making this way more complicated than it needs to be...
You don't have to press A/D, doing so only gives you a minor benefit. The OP's guide is not accurate.
Seems to go down so fast after few corners
Skill will still be needed, as you need the mouse to land bites on marines.
Directing your momentum towards where the marine is - or will be - is a more intuïtive way of control, as that is where you use the mouse for (aim + attack).
No, I only get speed11 for a few seconds at most.
Celerity increases your accel so that you can maintain higher speeds. Or maybe it just decreases friction, but that seems unlikely.
*Or maybe im just talking out of my ass, but yes, your observation is designed to be so kalakuja
Or do you mean, just the air friction during movement on the ground/wall?
it was actually added for balance reasons - with its removal, the issue has returned. bhopping skulks just coming out of nowhere again... I think the sound attenuation needs to be lowered, so that they (very quiet) skulk hopping sounds are louder and carry further.
Yeah I know that, I was just saying *why* it got removed (it's also going to come back as soon as they get an appropriate sound to use, apparently)