DB Locomotion Design Motivations

(Nail) #21

From what I understand, they are perfecting “basic locomotion” right now, “advanced locomotion” will come at a later date, remember folks this is an alpha, not a beta. As they’ve said, this is the walk before you can run phase. We’re in this for the long term, game is prolly a 2014 release at earliest.

(Dormamu) #22

Solution to “The Table Problem” - Part II :stroggtapir:
:confused: To be continued…

(DarkangelUK) #23

Sorry but that’s the wrong order to do things. Right now the locomotion is completely at the mercy of the map design, any changes to movement need to take into consideration how that will affect how the maps are played and how they can be broken by movement. IMO locomotion should have been one of the 1st things that was designed to an advanced level so the map designers could then build to suit accordingly.

(stealth6) #24

I feel like I’m beating a dead horse, but here we go again :smiley:

[QUOTE=MrEd;440678]While doing a great job of providing high levels of mastery, the level of information required to convey exactly what strafe jumping is and the actions required to perform it are too convoluted to be considered a simple to learn movement mechanic. It is not a move that a player can attempt to understand by simply competing against another player on a server without a full description of what is going on from an external source. Indeed it is such a bizarre move and so breaks the other rules of locomotion in almost every game it does feature in that it is often seen by the uninitiated as a hack or cheat. As such strafe jumping as a move in and of itself is not under consideration for inclusion in Dirty Bomb.

As such we are considering other options, which as DarkangelUK put it, offer ‘a decent level of movement that really didn’t require much training to take advantage of, then those of us that want to take it further usually can, which means they cater for both side of ‘advanced’ fence.’[/QUOTE]

I don’t understand the counter argument very well. I agree that in the previous titles it was hard to understand what was going on by just looking at a player strafe jumping, but that doesn’t mean it always has to be like that. Plus it was only regarded as a cheat / hack since it wasn’t well advertised that “this is also a part of the game”. So new people wondered how others could go faster. (So my argument is that there was a lack of accessibility)

In Quake 3 and some more recent mods in W:ET provide visual aids (cgaz) that tell you whether you are doing it “right” or not. The only tricky thing then is having a little hand eye coordination so you press left and move left and press right and move right.
Another “fix” that dumbed down the mechanic was “upmove fix” - I have no idea what the complexities are behind it, but the difference is that holding spacebar while in the air doesn’t slow you down anymore. So you don’t even need to hit spacebar at the right time.

So after a while of playing with cgaz on you’ll learn how to trickjump in no time!

I still hope you reconsider adding something with a complexity like strafejumping into DB. Mind I say “something” since as I’ve already mentioned there are possible solutions to make it easier.

tl;dr Strafe jumping had bad accessibility in previous titles. Some solutions already exist to make it easier. Please add something similar in DB.

Also +1 to everything DAUK said.

(INF3RN0) #25

I think that the main thing to note is that strafe jumping was not a necessary part of the game. It just allowed it to be played in a more complex and intuitive way. If the main problem with strafe jumping was that it allowed players to move faster than intended or broke map design, then that can be easily fixed. The bigger scheme was a highly dynamic movement system that let player creativity take the reigns. That movement system could easily be replaced by something completely different, but it is really a big compliment to have something vs nothing.

(MrEd) #26

Perhaps, but as Bethesda do not license idTech anymore and Dirty Bomb is published by WarChest it would be highly unlikely that the level designers would sit around twiddling their thumbs for 2 years while we reconfigured the Unreal Engine to our liking. That’s just the way it is.

(DarkangelUK) #27

Oh yes, really, because nothing can be done what so ever if the movement isn’t down pat… cmon now dude :tongue:

(MrEd) #28

That seemed to be your implication. As stated above there are basic systems, functionality and quality bars that had to be reached before consideration of further functionality could be started. Anything else would be building the roof before laying the foundations.

(Fishbus) #29

Everything is at the mercy of everything else. Things have to be made in tandem, in budget, and on time. Sometimes stuff gets written down.

To be clear, locomotion is not under reign from level design. At all. In fact the opposite holds more truth, we have to be flexible to incoming speeds and whatnot.

(ImageOmega) #30

[QUOTE=Fishbus;441962]Everything is at the mercy of everything else. Things have to be made in tandem, in budget, and on time. Sometimes stuff gets written down.

To be clear, locomotion is not under reign from level design. At all. In fact the opposite holds more truth, we have to be flexible to incoming speeds and whatnot.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, I noticed this with maps over the patches. Areas that were odd due to speed of being able to get there or jump height were changed to allow more freedom of movement. I like that there is a clear response to what players are able to do, but I would like to see movement changed to allow more freedom within the maps as well.

(INF3RN0) #31

I liked the fact that someone was able to climb the pipes to a ledge on the 1st obj of Canary. It made for a nice surprise. It would be cool if there was more possibilities like that (of course within the limits).

(rapid_shot) #32

I know acQu already covered the whole strafe-jumping thing, but I need to give my 2 cents then I’ll shut up. I’ll start off by saying that the most appealing thing about W:ET to me was how simple the concept was, yet how complex the game was as a whole. The simple concept kept me in the game, and the complexity is what made me come back again and again. One of the things that was complex was strafe-jumping. Run, jump, left, right, very simple concepts. Combine them, and you get a complex feature that is hard to master. On a side note, when I played W:ET after some time, I figured out what to do with my controls to get me to jump further. It was something picked up, not something taught.

[QUOTE=MrEd;440678]
While doing a great job of providing high levels of mastery… to be considered a simple to learn movement mechanic.[/QUOTE]

I guess I was just confused by this. General movements are simple to learn, the complex things when you string them together are what are hard to master. Strafe-Jumping as far as I’m concerned isn’t a “thing”. Its just a strategic way to use simple controls to the best of a players ability.

[QUOTE=MrEd;440678]

  • Try not to take control away from players.
  • Maintain a good conservation of momentum.
  • Simple to pick up; hard to master.[/QUOTE]

That said, I fail to see how the points listed above don’t adhere to strafe jumping.
I guess you can’t remove control we never had, but it does limit our options in the advanced locomotion area. Strafe jumping was a way to conserve momentum, and I already spoke on the last point.

Also, I keep hearing the excuse of no other modern shooters have strafe jumping as if that’s a good thing. Many of us would love to see a new game come out with it and who better than SD?

Ok, I’ll shut up :smiley:

(INF3RN0) #33

The overall take away should really be that if any previous form of advanced movement was found unattractive or too problematic, it would be very beneficial to replace it with something else rather than to have nothing at all. If absolutely nothing can be done or if it would be too costly,etc- then we should be told that much :wink:. If anything basic jump-to locations might be the most realistic alternative, and then some intentional complex jump paths that take some practice to perform consistently. Anything helps really.

(Valdez) #34

dont think that was designed. I just found a way to do it, they will remove it.

(stealth6) #35

The main reasons I want to see trickjumping return to the gameplay is for 3 situations:

  • Doc runs (then I actually feel like picking up the objective since you’re not just a sitting duck while holding it)
  • Retreating from a gun fight to cover (I like to lure the enemy closer to me to give me the upper hand)
  • Getting to cool places

Of course there are other ways to achieve the same affects without strafejumps for example slide, crouch jumping and wall jumping.
Slide
Sliding could help you escape a bad situation since you’d be a harder target and could use low cover. To cover immediacy the slide should stop as soon as you let go of crouch or sprint (sliding would be a combination of these two buttons). Letting go of crouch would make you stand up and keep sprinting. Letting go of sprint would make you waddle further crouched.
Sliding could also be used in a doc run. I’m imagining somebody sliding around a corner to get away or just throwing a slide into their sprint to throw the enemy off.

Crouch jumping
Crouch jumping is another mechanic that could be used as an evasive maneuver as well as jumping through windows or over certain objects. This works like in other games, but maybe without the height advantage that CS offers. (I don’t see an advantage in having it on or off)
You could combine this with the somersault from unreal tournament to make it look fresh and cool. (I’m not sure about other versions of unreal, but back in UT99 double tapping a direction would make you perform a somersault in that direction)
You could also add a first person camera roll so the move doesn’t become some OP spammable thing that makes you unhittable, with no downsides. As for immediacy it’s just like jumping, without the air control (another downside)

Wall jumping
Wall jumping covers my last point of just getting to cool areas. Combining two jumps to get that extra height to reach some harder to get spots. As for implementation look at Warsow. There pressing 1 button while looking in the direction you’re looking gives you a boost in that direction. This covers immediacy since you can break off at any point.

Of course if you added all three they could also be combined which could be a bad thing or a good thing depending on how you view it. Just imagine somebody doing a somersault into a slide would be pretty hard to hit. Or a guy doing a wall jump into a somersault and flying right over your head. (breaking your wrist :tongue:)
For me this would just make it more fun, giving more evasive options. Understandably not everybody is going to feel this way.

These were just some suggestions what could be done in DB without implementing Strafe jumping while still giving the player some more options to play around with. The thing that strafejumping has that these don’t is that it takes a while to master. Any move that’s just a few button presses is going to be child’s play in comparison.

There was previously a lot of discussion about Strafe jumping here: http://forums.warchest.com/showthread.php/33158-Strafe-jumping
In that thread I also suggested using the weapons recoil to give you an extra boost in your jump. (Could also be done with the Panzerfaust in W:ET) and ramp jumping.

I’m just trying to say that there are many cool ways to solve the same problems without strafe jumping and if strafe jumping doesn’t make it into the game I hope SD will implement a different system to take its place.

(MrEd) #36

Haha the collision on those things wouldn’t be that smooth if it wasn’t intentional :wink:

(Loffy) #37

When I play medic and dash forward to a fallen comrade in arms and press “F”, it takes a couple of miliseconds before we “connect” and he is revived, and that “time to conncect” feels like foooooreeeeeever. Is is possible to shorten that “time to connect”, i.e. the time it takes from that I press “F” to the completion of the revive process? Is this even a locomotion question for this thread? I just wanted to voice this issue.

Otherwise, game plays well and feels smooth.

(DarkangelUK) #38

And if something get’s done, not incorrectly, but short of sight as it were in the beginning, then too far into development you reach a point of no return because other parts take priority or cost too much time/money to change.

To be clear, locomotion is not under reign from level design. At all. In fact the opposite holds more truth, we have to be flexible to incoming speeds and whatnot.

I think we may have differing views of just how much locomotion can effect a map. At the moment the movement in DB is pretty restricted with very little scope for deviation beyond what you want to happen, therefore if a slight change occurs, then really what are we talking about, minor map changes? Boost a ledge a few inches higher etc. If ET movement was added to DB, those maps would need a complete overhaul given what you now know about ET locomotion. If DB movement was added to ET, I doubt you’d need to do anything to the ET maps to accommodate that change.

It was said by the ET devs themselves (sorry not sure if you were part of that) that they had no idea that some of those tricks were possible with ET movement and were amazed at what people could do and it spawned a massive following and hundreds of movies… simply for movement in a game! There’s something fantastically wonderful about that and it’s a big part of ET’s magic and charm. I’m willing to bet you know just about everything that’s possible with DB movement, and sorry but that’s just lack-luster and boring to me personally and a grossly missed opportunity to set yourself apart from the growing crowd.

(en2ie) #39

Nope not really about movement, have you tried equipping defibs first? - I do this and haven’t noticed any delay.

(Mustang) #40

Rather than taking 6 years to build the ideal game a better strategy could be to get something out the door in 3 years with a sequel or substantial revamp 3 years later.

You still get the game you wanted in the end, but with more monies to fund things along the way.

At least that’s how I see it, yea there may well be some changes that are too costly to be changed, but there’s always next time, it’s an evolution.

It’s often said, “take your time”, “get it right”, “make it perfect”, etc. just realistically there is only so long that can be spent before returns are needed.