JektJoin Date: 2012-02-05Member: 143714Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
I think you'll learn to love the BT fade given a few more hours, especially from a control perspective. Blink does offer a lot more options in that regard. I was in the exact same situation as you when I first started.
My posts so far have been focused on the new BT movement, because that's the only thing I'm *really* worried about in the BT Mod. I'd like add that I'm NOT opposed to the mod in general. Quite the opposite - there are plenty of things I really like, and I'm excited to see them in the standard game. For example:
Aliens:
- the biomass system
- crag/shift/shade always available from the start
- scalable upgrades + getting both upgrade options at once
- switching upgrades (although, ironically, it's not as necessary anymore with both options becoming available at the same time)
- phantom + removing full camouflage
Marines:
- cheap welders
- only one MAC per target (as it promotes team play)
- no armor from armories
- general tech tree changes
- shotgun changes
A few are a questionable IMO (self welding, drifters to build at normal speed, etc), but there is no change that couldn't be tweaked/changed after the release again.
Except for the one thing: the new alien movement. Which I would HATE to see moved to the standard game as it is, because it feels so awkward, sterile and un-fun to play. (Lerk and Fade are the worst offenders here; Skulk might be ok if not for the silly idea of weaving/"bhop".) I've been actively trying to like it, in various versions of the BT Mod, but no matter how much I do, it always leaves me feeling disgusted. This is not an exaggeration. In vanilla NS2, I play as an alien about 80% of the time. In the BT Mod, I just can't bring myself to do it anymore. (And yes, I understand how the new mechanics work. I just think they are not enjoyable, and are a step in the wrong direction.)
Note that I'm NOT talking about whether the new movement is BALANCED or not. That's not the issue here. Balance parameters (acceleration, energy management, top speeds, ...) can be tweaked indefinitely. Fundamental gameplay mechanics, however, can not. And that's my main objection to releasing the BT Mod *as it is*: Once the BT movement code has gone live along with the other changes, I don't see a way how UWE could *ever* roll this back. They can not risk alienating players with the new movement first, only to alienate those who stayed again by reverting it. There is no middle ground between the old and new movement code. It's one or the other, and going back is just not going to happen. So we would be stuck with the new movement, and that would reduce my enjoyment of the game tremendously.
So PLEASE, UWE: release the mod into two parts. Release all the balance changes now, but do not roll out the new alien movement yet. Make it a separate mod instead, so players can compare and vote with their feet. See if it sticks, and if it does, so be it, merge it into the standard game. But it think it would be a mistake to "piggyback" such a huge and controversial change (movement) on top of the other, awesome changes, which seem to get a lot more support from the player base.
That's an odd request. I feel the new movement system is by far the best part about BT. To a point where I'd almost say screw all the other changes as long as we get the new movement.
The celerity adrenaline debate in vanilla is for another thread so I wont rebuttle to that. I have my reason and will stick to them.
There's no debate to be had. If you think celerity has any use for fades in vanilla, you're quite simply playing the fade wrong.
There's still no denying the general opinion in the comp scene was cele fade from Nov-Jan or Feb ish when people started realising if all you do is SS spam then adren is better to break tracking with blink spam, of course it has probably been ret conned in BT mod and people pretend they always cele faded because they're fades IRL who do not needlessly waste energy at all ever.
Also, changing the amount of control or rather the way you can control a fade in combat is the whole point of the BT changes. Instant top speed via vision obscuring teleport is not what anyone with any game sense calls fair or balanced. It's fun, obviously, but only because it's piss easy to do and virtually impossible to predict for marines in close combat.
But SS is in the BT mod...and it even maintains momentum while jumping...so it works in exactly the same way as live does except it can be used vertically...and leaving combat you just have to tap blink, jump, SS and continue jumping out of whatever area to achieve the exact same movement live fade does SS spamming.
BT mod fade is an energy whore, comp players might appreciate how restrictive and punishing it is but pub players won't, it also severely limits your ability to engage multiple marines, swipe cost is way too high given both fade and onos can easily out of energy themselves attacking structures.
But hey, in addition to the carapace changes less is more right.
I feel the new movement system is by far the best part about BT. To a point where I'd almost say screw all the other changes as long as we get the new movement.
Now that's what I'd call odd ^^ To each his own, I guess
Note that I didn't say UWE should discard the new movement right here and now because I (and others) don't like it. I'm just against piggybacking it on top of the other changes, with no realistic way to ever go back.
IF it turns out that the majority actually wants the new movement style, I'll have to live with that. But from what I read in this forum and hear on servers, I'm very sceptical that this is the case.
@MrFangs you summed up my feelings pretty well with that post, too. While I actively want a skill based movement system, I find it annoying that we weren't able to capitalise on this unique opportunity to break away from the old bhop ideas and come up with something truly new.
But hey ho, the change will happen and we'll all have to both put up and shut up. I hope enough players (like me) stick with it so we don't have just empty servers. It'll probably be okay, but I will remain disappointed that what started out as an old engine bug has been deliberately coded in (broadly speaking) where actually with some thought and experimentation, something more intuitive, fun and both accessible and skilful could have been designed.
Whats currently in BTmod isn't really bhop. There's no longer a speed gain from the "bhop" movement (smooth left to right movements with mouse +strafe), it's just walljumping to gain speed and priming your ground jumps to maintain it.
I will remain disappointed that what started out as an old engine bug has been deliberately coded in (broadly speaking) where actually with some thought and experimentation, something more intuitive, fun and both accessible and skilful could have been designed.
Like what? There's only so much you can do with movement while still having it be sufficiently realistic for these aliens to be able to do in the given context. It's not really bhop, it's piss easy to learn, and it encourages you to include walljumping in a clever way. As skulk anyway. I can maybe vaguely understand people not liking the fade movement when you've spent dozens or hundreds of hours shadowstepping, but the skulk movement?! Come on, the vanilla skulk makes me fall asleep and feel utterly helpless in comparison.
AsranielJoin Date: 2002-06-03Member: 724Members, Playtest Lead, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, Retired Community Developer
I might missunderstand something, but for me the bt movement does not have much in common with bunnyhopping, other than you have to jump as soon as you can to keep your momentum. In quake you have to do that strange strafing and jumping and mouse turning. None of that are necessare in bt to get good speed with the skulk. Just occasional jumps from the wall and then keeping the speed on the ground. Or i'm just bad with skulks (which is very well possible)
For me the new movement is the best part of the mod. I cant stand vanilla movement anymore, it just feels wrong
Whats currently in BTmod isn't really bhop. There's no longer a speed gain from the "bhop" movement (smooth left to right movements with mouse +strafe), it's just walljumping to gain speed and priming your ground jumps to maintain it.
I just tested it and speed gain from bhopping is still there, even though the effect is small. Without wall jumping, it takes about 13-15 circular jumps + strafing in order to go from 7.0 to 8.6 speed, reaching the first skulk sound. By comparison, it only takes a single walljump + strafe in order to reach this speed. Bhopping is still relevant to BT since it helps you gain small amounts of speed whenever you need to turn during/after wall jumping.
I think the strafing aspect of bhopping is a bit unnecessary since the A + D buttons can tie you up even if you're a skilled bhopper. You're able to use the best "racing lines" in your own listen server, but this is often not the case in online play. Simply holding W and gaining small speed gains during turns would result in the best fluidity with wall jumping imo.
I might missunderstand something, but for me the bt movement does not have much in common with bunnyhopping [...]
That's correct, they don't. Unfortunately, the terminology is quite mixed up here: as far as I see, "bhop" is the common forum term for the BT mechanic loosely inspired by actual Half-Life *bunny hopping*. But it's easy to see how "bhop" could be mistaken as an abbreviation of "bunny hop", and I think some people actually use it that way, which adds to the confusion.
To avoid this, I tend to call it "weave movement"/"bhop" in my posts, to hint at that I'm not talking about the Half-Life variant. Not a perfect solution either, but better than leaving it to guesswork completely.
Also, I'm not arguing against BTMod "bhop" because it used to be an engine exploit. I'm against it because it is a silly, artificial way of adding movement complexity. It's completely implausible that any predatory lifeform would move this way... in contrast to wall jumping, which is believable.
It gets even sillier when you apply it to a two-legged, half-teleporting lifeform like the Fade.
It is, yes. Which kind of invalidates the point that it adds so much to the skill ceiling.
Of course, properly planning out and chaining wall-jumps takes skill, but I don't see how you couldn't realize the same with normal jumps without enforcing this kind of silly mouse weaving.
Like what? There's only so much you can do with movement while still having it be sufficiently realistic for these aliens to be able to do in the given context.
For example, I could imagine a system when you'd vary the length of your normal floor jumps by looking up and down, to hit the next wall corner at the perfect height. The better you do, the more of a wall-jump boost you can achieve. Imagine a dog running before jumping over a crevice, or a human distance jumper, you get the idea. *That* would be plausible Skulk movement for me.
Wall jumping is also a pretty nonsensical way of gaining extra speed, if you wanted it to be realistic you'd have to just straight up give skulks sprint or some other "press button gain speed" mechanic and it would be hideous for gameplay. I'd rather have gameplay concerns over plausability in my game with magic robots and teleporting aliens.
Wall jumping is also a pretty nonsensical way of gaining extra speed
It makes sense when you're a lifeform that can run along walls. Think of starting blocks for sprinters. You can propel yourself much better away from a surface than along the floor.
I'd rather have gameplay concerns over plausability in my game with magic robots and teleporting aliens.
Actually, that's what I'm after as well. Note I didn't talk about realism anywhere. I'm fine with phase gates and teleporting Fades, because they fit into the game world, and add gameplay value. They don't give me the "seriously? that's BS" feeling of hopping down a corridor while taking turns left and right for no valid reason at all.
Imagine this: Somebody decides that phase gating lacks "depth and complexity". To address this, you can now stand at the phase gate, hold down E and weave your mouse left/right/left/... for five seconds. Call it "calibration" or something. The more precise your timing is, the faster your phase jump will be. Of course, you don't HAVE to do this... but then your phase jump will be slower than everybody else's.
Sounds fun? No? That's exactly how the BTMod bhop feels to me. It's artificial interface clutter that doesn't add anything to the game.
You can just keep w+SPACE jumping if you want to maintain most of your momentum. Strafe jumping, afaik, works better. And you really only need one good blink to reach max speed.
I'm fine with phase gates and teleporting Fades, because they fit into the game world, and add gameplay value. They don't give me the "seriously? that's BS" feeling of hopping down a corridor while taking turns left and right for no valid reason at all.
[...]
Sounds fun? No? That's exactly how the BTMod bhop feels to me. It's artificial interface clutter that doesn't add anything to the game.
I've always seen "bhopping" (and by extension wall jumping or any other mechanic similarly designed) as just an extended version of the triple jump. I really don't have any problems with them.
Imagine this: Somebody decides that phase gating lacks "depth and complexity". To address this, you can now stand at the phase gate, hold down E and weave your mouse left/right/left/... for five seconds. Call it "calibration" or something. The more precise your timing is, the faster your phase jump will be. Of course, you don't HAVE to do this... but then your phase jump will be slower than everybody else's.
Sounds fun? No? That's exactly how the BTMod bhop feels to me. It's artificial interface clutter that doesn't add anything to the game.
Well... Maybe there will be a whole genre of trickphasegating films then.
You can just keep w+SPACE jumping if you want to maintain most of your momentum. Strafe jumping, afaik, works better. And you really only need one good blink to reach max speed.
Last time I played with cheats on it was along the lines of 1 blink gets you to say 17. Then the next to 18, then the next to 19, then the next to 20. And we couldn't get past that. So that's what I've been doing to traverse the map, just quick blinks to boost speed and not bunnyhopping to keep momentum
It gets even sillier when you apply it to a two-legged, half-teleporting lifeform like the Fade.
I like to picture the fade as using one leg at a time and jumping in and out of some dimensionish thing where he got a whole bunch of momentum xD Makes more sense than the skulk. But I'm just all for any kind of moving left and right using strafe while turning at high speeds that you want to give me
This has been said from the beginning and tried since alpha. It has been so frustrating to follow and play through ideas of a skill based movement when there was a tried and true version already in existence.
All i ask is let people implement what we know works, THEN pontificate and theory craft all you want. I have been waiting years to hear some shred of Bhop was coming back. I have put up with wall jumping for years now, it is only fair we try what the BT mod is doing. After all, you can still wall jump your heart out. (I would still love to see strafe jump + air control brought back 100% and not in its current, compromised form.)
You can't have real oldschool air control because there needs to be a tradeoff between speed and predictability, if you can turn on a dime in midair then you're not very predictable. I agree with both of you guys though, 'something else' would be better than what we're going to get, but trying too hard to avoid the one thing that we all know works just because it's objectively kind of dumb in concept is pointless and just hurts the game.
skulks still move erratically and are hard to track. I don't know if it's more erratic or less compared to 249, but it's pointless to have any fast movement things if people can just dodge everything... it makes it a recipe with 0 disadvantages
marines being able to actually hit targets is far more important for balance (in the practical sense) than any increase in movement-skill requirements (and therefore aiming-skill requirements)
skill-based stuff is good when the game is so huge and shallow that there isn't enough there to differentiate the teams
NS2 is almost dead and already really hard to play, so that stuff would be counterproductive
people think too much in theory. they are kind of blind to the fact that they are already going to roflstomp worse teams and get owned by better teams and it'll just get worse the more they make the game about mechanical skill
skulks still move erratically and are hard to track. I don't know if it's more erratic or less compared to 249, but it's pointless to have any fast movement things if people can just dodge everything... it makes it a recipe with 0 disadvantages
marines being able to actually hit targets is far more important for balance (in the practical sense) than any increase in movement-skill requirements (and therefore aiming-skill requirements)
skill-based stuff is good when the game is so huge and shallow that there isn't enough there to differentiate the teams
NS2 is almost dead and already really hard to play, so that stuff would be counterproductive
people think too much in theory. they are kind of blind to the fact that they are already going to roflstomp worse teams and get owned by better teams and it'll just get worse the more they make the game about mechanical skill
With the bt mod skulk, you lose a lot of speed when making sharp erratic mouse movements. So you can't move at high speeds AND easily dodge marine fire without risking to drop dead out of the air.
SamusDroidColoradoJoin Date: 2013-05-13Member: 185219Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, Subnautica Playtester, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
edited June 2013
I just don't feel they should force it on everyone is mostly why. That and it would take a while for me to readjust to the new changes when I was finally starting to get the hang of things and getting better.. I can almost guarantee someone will make a reversal mod and it will just be flipped, more playing balance and less playing original. Which I guess is not that bad as this is what balance tests needs in order to really get solidified. I don't know why I dislike balance, I guess I just had a few bad experiences with it at first. Maybe I will give it another try again once it is more polished. Maybe a poll or something asking whether or not balance should come to vanilla would be useful here.
Comments
Otherwise, fair point about just not liking the BT fade, and I guess unlucky for you. :P
Sending pm
Aliens:
- the biomass system
- crag/shift/shade always available from the start
- scalable upgrades + getting both upgrade options at once
- switching upgrades (although, ironically, it's not as necessary anymore with both options becoming available at the same time)
- phantom + removing full camouflage
Marines:
- cheap welders
- only one MAC per target (as it promotes team play)
- no armor from armories
- general tech tree changes
- shotgun changes
A few are a questionable IMO (self welding, drifters to build at normal speed, etc), but there is no change that couldn't be tweaked/changed after the release again.
Except for the one thing: the new alien movement. Which I would HATE to see moved to the standard game as it is, because it feels so awkward, sterile and un-fun to play. (Lerk and Fade are the worst offenders here; Skulk might be ok if not for the silly idea of weaving/"bhop".) I've been actively trying to like it, in various versions of the BT Mod, but no matter how much I do, it always leaves me feeling disgusted. This is not an exaggeration. In vanilla NS2, I play as an alien about 80% of the time. In the BT Mod, I just can't bring myself to do it anymore. (And yes, I understand how the new mechanics work. I just think they are not enjoyable, and are a step in the wrong direction.)
Note that I'm NOT talking about whether the new movement is BALANCED or not. That's not the issue here. Balance parameters (acceleration, energy management, top speeds, ...) can be tweaked indefinitely. Fundamental gameplay mechanics, however, can not. And that's my main objection to releasing the BT Mod *as it is*: Once the BT movement code has gone live along with the other changes, I don't see a way how UWE could *ever* roll this back. They can not risk alienating players with the new movement first, only to alienate those who stayed again by reverting it. There is no middle ground between the old and new movement code. It's one or the other, and going back is just not going to happen. So we would be stuck with the new movement, and that would reduce my enjoyment of the game tremendously.
So PLEASE, UWE: release the mod into two parts. Release all the balance changes now, but do not roll out the new alien movement yet. Make it a separate mod instead, so players can compare and vote with their feet. See if it sticks, and if it does, so be it, merge it into the standard game. But it think it would be a mistake to "piggyback" such a huge and controversial change (movement) on top of the other, awesome changes, which seem to get a lot more support from the player base.
There's still no denying the general opinion in the comp scene was cele fade from Nov-Jan or Feb ish when people started realising if all you do is SS spam then adren is better to break tracking with blink spam, of course it has probably been ret conned in BT mod and people pretend they always cele faded because they're fades IRL who do not needlessly waste energy at all ever.
But SS is in the BT mod...and it even maintains momentum while jumping...so it works in exactly the same way as live does except it can be used vertically...and leaving combat you just have to tap blink, jump, SS and continue jumping out of whatever area to achieve the exact same movement live fade does SS spamming.
BT mod fade is an energy whore, comp players might appreciate how restrictive and punishing it is but pub players won't, it also severely limits your ability to engage multiple marines, swipe cost is way too high given both fade and onos can easily out of energy themselves attacking structures.
But hey, in addition to the carapace changes less is more right.
Note that I didn't say UWE should discard the new movement right here and now because I (and others) don't like it. I'm just against piggybacking it on top of the other changes, with no realistic way to ever go back.
IF it turns out that the majority actually wants the new movement style, I'll have to live with that. But from what I read in this forum and hear on servers, I'm very sceptical that this is the case.
But hey ho, the change will happen and we'll all have to both put up and shut up. I hope enough players (like me) stick with it so we don't have just empty servers. It'll probably be okay, but I will remain disappointed that what started out as an old engine bug has been deliberately coded in (broadly speaking) where actually with some thought and experimentation, something more intuitive, fun and both accessible and skilful could have been designed.
For me the new movement is the best part of the mod. I cant stand vanilla movement anymore, it just feels wrong
I think the strafing aspect of bhopping is a bit unnecessary since the A + D buttons can tie you up even if you're a skilled bhopper. You're able to use the best "racing lines" in your own listen server, but this is often not the case in online play. Simply holding W and gaining small speed gains during turns would result in the best fluidity with wall jumping imo.
To avoid this, I tend to call it "weave movement"/"bhop" in my posts, to hint at that I'm not talking about the Half-Life variant. Not a perfect solution either, but better than leaving it to guesswork completely.
Also, I'm not arguing against BTMod "bhop" because it used to be an engine exploit. I'm against it because it is a silly, artificial way of adding movement complexity. It's completely implausible that any predatory lifeform would move this way... in contrast to wall jumping, which is believable.
It gets even sillier when you apply it to a two-legged, half-teleporting lifeform like the Fade. It is, yes. Which kind of invalidates the point that it adds so much to the skill ceiling.
Of course, properly planning out and chaining wall-jumps takes skill, but I don't see how you couldn't realize the same with normal jumps without enforcing this kind of silly mouse weaving. For example, I could imagine a system when you'd vary the length of your normal floor jumps by looking up and down, to hit the next wall corner at the perfect height. The better you do, the more of a wall-jump boost you can achieve. Imagine a dog running before jumping over a crevice, or a human distance jumper, you get the idea. *That* would be plausible Skulk movement for me.
Your information is dated :>
Why you no like BT fade? It actually feels pretty organic.
Actually, that's what I'm after as well. Note I didn't talk about realism anywhere. I'm fine with phase gates and teleporting Fades, because they fit into the game world, and add gameplay value. They don't give me the "seriously? that's BS" feeling of hopping down a corridor while taking turns left and right for no valid reason at all.
Imagine this: Somebody decides that phase gating lacks "depth and complexity". To address this, you can now stand at the phase gate, hold down E and weave your mouse left/right/left/... for five seconds. Call it "calibration" or something. The more precise your timing is, the faster your phase jump will be. Of course, you don't HAVE to do this... but then your phase jump will be slower than everybody else's.
Sounds fun? No? That's exactly how the BTMod bhop feels to me. It's artificial interface clutter that doesn't add anything to the game.
I've always seen "bhopping" (and by extension wall jumping or any other mechanic similarly designed) as just an extended version of the triple jump. I really don't have any problems with them.
Well... Maybe there will be a whole genre of trickphasegating films then.
Last time I played with cheats on it was along the lines of 1 blink gets you to say 17. Then the next to 18, then the next to 19, then the next to 20. And we couldn't get past that. So that's what I've been doing to traverse the map, just quick blinks to boost speed and not bunnyhopping to keep momentum
I like to picture the fade as using one leg at a time and jumping in and out of some dimensionish thing where he got a whole bunch of momentum xD Makes more sense than the skulk. But I'm just all for any kind of moving left and right using strafe while turning at high speeds that you want to give me
This has been said from the beginning and tried since alpha. It has been so frustrating to follow and play through ideas of a skill based movement when there was a tried and true version already in existence.
All i ask is let people implement what we know works, THEN pontificate and theory craft all you want. I have been waiting years to hear some shred of Bhop was coming back. I have put up with wall jumping for years now, it is only fair we try what the BT mod is doing. After all, you can still wall jump your heart out. (I would still love to see strafe jump + air control brought back 100% and not in its current, compromised form.)
marines being able to actually hit targets is far more important for balance (in the practical sense) than any increase in movement-skill requirements (and therefore aiming-skill requirements)
skill-based stuff is good when the game is so huge and shallow that there isn't enough there to differentiate the teams
NS2 is almost dead and already really hard to play, so that stuff would be counterproductive
people think too much in theory. they are kind of blind to the fact that they are already going to roflstomp worse teams and get owned by better teams and it'll just get worse the more they make the game about mechanical skill
With the bt mod skulk, you lose a lot of speed when making sharp erratic mouse movements. So you can't move at high speeds AND easily dodge marine fire without risking to drop dead out of the air.