Community Question: Stamina Bars

(tokamak) #21

To be honest I don’t think I’ve ever seen the heavy breathing have influence on the gameplay.

(Humate) #22

And you like skill right? Knowing when and where to use your sprint as a resources is just as much a skill as strafe-jumping or picking a knife. I’d wager one that adds more depth as the consequences of mismanagement are far more severe than the others.

Yes, but like I said - you could be easily reaping the rewards of a sprint bar in a fight without actually managing it.

To be honest I don’t think I’ve ever seen the heavy breathing have influence on the gameplay.

A Covertop in disguise while heavy breathing, becomes easier to spot than the normal footsteps.

(.Chris.) #23

Strogg and GDF had different breathing sounds, you could spot an enemy in disguise by the sounds made when they’re sprinting.

(DarkangelUK) #24

[QUOTE=tokamak;384828]
And you like skill right? Knowing when and where to use your sprint as a resources is just as much a skill as strafe-jumping or picking a knife. I’d wager one that adds more depth as the consequences of mismanagement are far more severe than the others.[/QUOTE]
Cognitive skill vs physical skill are 2 very, very different things. Please don’t confuse them, comparing them is just silly.

(Breo) #25

Depends on what kind of game it is, it’s a important feature that doesn’t fit in every game.
A realistic shooter (MW3, BF3) need the stamina functionality. Adding this feature to a game from the quake francise will break the unique characteristics, like the fast paced gameplay.

Same counts for the strafe/jump/run if you do this in BF3 it will slow you down instead of gaining speed as in ETQW.

(tokamak) #26

Granted, even though I never got in such a situation either. If that really is the most important consequence that sprinting has then it just goes to show how trivial it really is.

I’m not sure if it’s you or me being confused here. I recognise the difference between cognitive and cerebral skills. Physical skills seem non-existent in video games (unless you’re playing on a wii or what’s that xbox thing’s name again?). Hand-eye coordination and mouse aiming for example fall under cognitive skills.

But to take this discussion further than semantics, why shouldn’t these two (once we figured out which two these are) be compared? They often overlap or encroach on each other. People with poor plans can often compensate with superior cognitive (or physical?) abilities and the other way around. In diverse games they can both be employed to get the job done and that’s what makes them so compelling.

It’s a bit like saying that in an RTS, micro and macro management shouldn’t ever be compared, as if they exist in two different spheres. But nothing could be further than the truth. Moving your units around and giving them detailed orders during a battle draws your APM, the same APM you use to keep your economy, production, recon and area control up. A good game is able to award specialists on both ends of the scale but will let those that are able to balance both skills when appropriate excel beyond the others.

So back to the stamina bars. If it stops being a resource, you don’t give the cerebral players anything to work with, it stops being a field on which they can gain an advantage all the while the cognitive players reign freely. I think that’s a shame. I think that keeping the sprint infinite but adding a more severe (and gradually increasing) consequence to exceeding your ‘allowance’ will benefit both. The cognitive players can still sprint everywhere they want but if players chose to be more considerate with it then it will lend them an accuracy advantage. This works especially well because sprinting is a combat advantage as much as accuracy is.

(DarkangelUK) #27

Yeah I was pretty much minced when I posted that.

I don’t regard the stamina bar as a resource, I’d say it’s more of a hindrance. It reduced too fast and filled up too slow, and I’d say it was mostly trickers that got the full benefit of it… everyone else got about 2 virtual meters further when sprinting to an area and that was about it. Most of the jumps that required sprint needed practice to land consecutively, and required practicing with nofatigue on. Those that never did that wouldn’t have had the patience to practice having to wait for the bar to refill. Used purely as a sprint bar, it gained you very little… negative side of waiting to refill, reduction in the bar when you jump, stopping refill when you jump vs the very small distance gain when used was completely imbalanced. Sure it’s good for people like me that took the time to hone its usage and get the maximum advantage from it, but when in the heat of battle, it meant very little.

(Scrupus) #28

I’ve killed a lot of disguised qw players detected by their “alien” breathing, so it surely have some impact, even if it’s only useful in a few situations. :infiltrator

But of course that only works with asymmetric team games like qw - would’n make sense if you had to listen for the “accent” of axis breathing in ET for example :tongue:

Another penalty you get for sprinting in qw is that you can’t reload while sprinting - this had some impact in some situations (mostly for rl/obli players), but nothing major.

Anyway, I wonder if the questions in this poll got a bit confusing. One thing is to have a stamina bar that let you sprint - but the effect of sprinting itself could be just as interesting.

I really don’t like the stamina energy bar mechanisme by itself, but I’m open for harder side effects of sprinting, like you’re suggesting. Increasing spread for a while, or reducing FOV while you sprint - that would be kind of natural. As long as you can sprint whenever you like, even if it will cost you some blood and sweat.

(tokamak) #29

[QUOTE=DarkangelUK;384963]Yeah I was pretty much minced when I posted that.

I don’t regard the stamina bar as a resource, I’d say it’s more of a hindrance. It reduced too fast and filled up too slow, and I’d say it was mostly trickers that got the full benefit of it… everyone else got about 2 virtual meters further when sprinting to an area and that was about it. Most of the jumps that required sprint needed practice to land consecutively, and required practicing with nofatigue on. Those that never did that wouldn’t have had the patience to practice having to wait for the bar to refill. Used purely as a sprint bar, it gained you very little… negative side of waiting to refill, reduction in the bar when you jump, stopping refill when you jump vs the very small distance gain when used was completely imbalanced. Sure it’s good for people like me that took the time to hone its usage and get the maximum advantage from it, but when in the heat of battle, it meant very little.[/QUOTE]

I agree with that the W:ET stamina bar isn’t handled correctly. But say a bar is between 100% and 0% then having a 100% bar gives you a 100% spread recover modifier and the 0% gives you the slowest spread modifier (and of course everything in between is gradual). You can deplete the 0% and keep sprinting as long as you like.

This means you don’t have to constantly watch your bar, only when you anticipate that you’re about to enter combat, that’s where you might consider taking a breather before you jump in or should an emergency require, take the risk and enter combat right away.

(dommafia) #30

voted to keep them by mistake! I prefer no stamina bar ALA ETQW. Change my vote if u can badman :slight_smile:

(king_troll) #31

thats stupid, the strogg are machines, they do not need to breathe, they can run forever,

(Humate) #32

[QUOTE=tokamak;384974]I agree with that the W:ET stamina bar isn’t handled correctly. But say a bar is between 100% and 0% then having a 100% bar gives you a 100% spread recover modifier and the 0% gives you the slowest spread modifier (and of course everything in between is gradual). You can deplete the 0% and keep sprinting as long as you like.

This means you don’t have to constantly watch your bar, only when you anticipate that you’re about to enter combat, that’s where you might consider taking a breather before you jump in or should an emergency require, take the risk and enter combat right away.[/QUOTE]

Spread already kicks in when you move and jump… we dont need additional spread based on a sprint bar. We have enough monopoly games that prompt players to constantly stop. :slight_smile: Also knife for speed boost essentially does what youve described without needing to stop. You want to get to the frontlines quicker, use knife. You anticipate action? Switch back. I see no reason why this needs to be changed.

(EnderWiggin.DA.) #33

[QUOTE=tokamak;384828]The scale of the game needs to be considered when establishing movement mechanics.
[/QUOTE]
This would be my answer. A sprint bar in ETQW would have sucked but the stamina bar worked just fine in RTCW & ET.

Additionally, one needs to consider the default run speed, whether one can shoot while sprinting, and how accurately one can shoot while sprinting.

(king_troll) #34

why would you get to the frontline quicker by carrying a knife, you still have a mini backpack full of weapons and ammo

(Apoc) #35

Because its easier to run with than holding an assault rifle in both hands.

(DarkangelUK) #36

Everyone knows you run faster with a knife

(king_troll) #37

soldiers in games are all that, but listen to house music and cant carry a gun with 1 hand

(light_sh4v0r) #38

Nothing wrong with house music :confused:

(tokamak) #39

Spread recovery that is. The time it takes for your spread to reduce. It’s way more elegant and subtle than the knife running, which, if you’ve got to be honest, doesn’t make a whole lot sense in the first place.

(king_troll) #40

house music is pathetic, body builders all use gym machines and get knocked out with a slap, they cannot lift any actual physical weight, to be built like a soldier in a game, you would be benchpressing at least 50kg on a barbell for 30mins, and running along with 1kg gun in 1 hand would be no problem