movement and alien attack selection
invader Zim
Join Date: 2007-09-20 Member: 62376Members
Join Date: 2007-09-20 Member: 62376Members
<div class="IPBDescription">recap discussion</div>im sure this has been touched upon before but id like to clarify it and hear any more solutions
Particularly as an alien the NS1 weapon/attack selection system sucks. Traditionally in shooters you have your numbers 1-5 keys set for selecting weapons from your back pocket. This makes sense if your a soldier changing weapons from a pack. But if you are a lifeform that can bite, slash, jump etc it doesnt make sense to have to select attacks in a similar manner, it doesnt flow very well. If your a marine being able to change weapon should nt have to blend so well because you have to put on weapon away and get another out.
How can the alien interface be altered so they dont have to hit keys to change weapons in combat? I know you can script or reset your keyboard to minimise this problem but the default system that many new players will use shouldnt be so limited.
This problem is particularly noticeable with movement actions like leap, charge, and blink. Ideally these should be bound to a key, other than a number key and you shouldnt need to select the action from your attacks to use it and then have to select and attack afterwards. e.g. when skulk leap becomes avaliable the players "X" key is bound to leap. when ever the player hits X he leaps, he cannot bite at the start of the leap but can after a set of miliseconds. he doesnt need to deselect or reselect leap at any time it is always bound to X or another key if he alters his config.
Should such a system be set out for all alien attacks e.g. bite = mouse 1, parasite=mouse2, leaps = X, zenocide= mouse 3. As each unlocks that key becomes bound to it and no selection of attack is nessesary.
Criticize, amend and discuss
Particularly as an alien the NS1 weapon/attack selection system sucks. Traditionally in shooters you have your numbers 1-5 keys set for selecting weapons from your back pocket. This makes sense if your a soldier changing weapons from a pack. But if you are a lifeform that can bite, slash, jump etc it doesnt make sense to have to select attacks in a similar manner, it doesnt flow very well. If your a marine being able to change weapon should nt have to blend so well because you have to put on weapon away and get another out.
How can the alien interface be altered so they dont have to hit keys to change weapons in combat? I know you can script or reset your keyboard to minimise this problem but the default system that many new players will use shouldnt be so limited.
This problem is particularly noticeable with movement actions like leap, charge, and blink. Ideally these should be bound to a key, other than a number key and you shouldnt need to select the action from your attacks to use it and then have to select and attack afterwards. e.g. when skulk leap becomes avaliable the players "X" key is bound to leap. when ever the player hits X he leaps, he cannot bite at the start of the leap but can after a set of miliseconds. he doesnt need to deselect or reselect leap at any time it is always bound to X or another key if he alters his config.
Should such a system be set out for all alien attacks e.g. bite = mouse 1, parasite=mouse2, leaps = X, zenocide= mouse 3. As each unlocks that key becomes bound to it and no selection of attack is nessesary.
Criticize, amend and discuss
Comments
The changes in movement system probably release the mousewheel completely for weapon selection too.
+movement was a start, but it does not finish like this suggestion. This is a suggestion I would full on hope makes it into NS2 so that playing a Kharaa is far more fluid in the melee department. With this added, each action having its own "energy" bar as seen in some concept images shared with us would make even more sense.
or atleast slash and rocket!
or atleast slash and rocket!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ill tell you why, because itd be overpowered, hence the singular attacks would have to be weaker to account for balance, btu then fi you dont have rocket youd have some ######ty weak swipe <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad-fix.gif" />
FAIL
hud_fastswitch 1 and a good mouse will do it.
But I agree - the attack system should be moved to executables, rather than buckets in NS2, for aliens.
when blinking and metabolising, and trying to slash, the slash is hard to time, because you have to swith to it and it takes time, so you cant "twitch"
lerk should have its flight on +movement, so that you can fly with RMB (like all other alien movement for me), flying is like any alien movement - it takes energy and should therefore fall into that category
when onosing you have to WAIT while you're "switching weapons", from stomp to devour and so on, now i can accept that it takes time for the onos to prepare for devouring but all the other combinations should not have any delay
Furthur, as it is now only one "ability" can be used at a time, so here comes the ability binding into the picture, met+bli+sla is maybe a stretch, but combos of two should be possible
But seriously, while I do admit that it could feel more empowering to execute several attacks at a time, I don't think it's been too much of an issue.
For myself and several other players, we've simply adapted to switching out the moves we wanted to use. I mean, the old switching weapons to Blink and Leap weren't <i>that</i> hard, just took a little messing with the number keys mid flight. Heck, I used to play for a while without hud_fastswitch and still pulled off leap + bites. But yes, +movement has really helped out a lot. Now we have Adrenaline skulks spamming leap to take down Jetpackers!
Also, there's a question of how to control these moves. For a 3 Hive unit, there's 4 moves you have to bind.... somewhere. I personally have used up all the easily accessible keys for other stuff like requesting health. And really, are you really gonna Gore and Devour at the same time? I'm not sure why we would bind the Lerk's flying to the +movement, the spacebar works just fine.
The point is you rarely ever use multiple moves in conjuction in the first place. Also, it helps new players since they have the ease of switching out moves similar to a typical FPS, and it can help them know which ability is selected. Forcing to bind a bunch of keys to attacks that shouldn't be combined in the first place (acid rocketing blinking metabolizing Fade) can cause more confusion.
Perhaps a happy medium is to keep the system in place for learning and the old grumpy people. But open up key bindings for the weapon slots for people who want to bind their keyboard up to execute multiple moves on the fly. Just also code such that one move cannot be executed on top of another, except for movement abilities like Leap or Flying. For example, binding "q" to Weapon Slot 1 would execute a bite for a Skulk, even if the +attack for the mouse is still bound to say xenocide, similar to how +movement executes the Leap/Blink/Charge.
Since we're talking about a new engine here, anything is possible.
e.g. Instead of having to press '4' to switch to acid rocket. You simply press 4 and fire an acid rocket.
Obviously noone would use 4, but since it would be customizable to any button... anyone could bind it to whatever they felt most comfortable with.
@weezl: You actually can do it immediately, the animation just doesn't play right.
But I like bunny hop.
OK, maybe I'm a little masochistic and enjoy the challenge of swapping out my special move super fast ability. =] But, as I said, the ability to bind the keys for all your moves can help make life easier (+movement) but then you've gotta figure out where to bind all those abilities. So, let the player decide, open it up to binding just like the ability upgrades are open to binding.
Left hand:
Index, Middle, Ring finger = WASD movement
Pinky = CRTL crouch
Thumb = SPACE jump
Right hand:
Index finger = attack
Middle finger = scroll through weapons
Ring finger = +movement
Thumb/Pink = unused (a normal mouse, like most people)
We don't have the FINGERS for this guys! We can't do it, we don't have the technology! When everyone gets a 5+ button mouse, then maybe.
heh. sorry. Looking back at your post I just noticed how you mentioned to "wait" between actions, something that is critically important. I'm not actually in favor of moving beyond the +movement as far as changing the system Aliens use, but I can see the advantages of opening up the key bindings for people who want that style. So, might as well, won't hurt anything, as long as we don't get stomping charing Oni that gore and devour at the same time.
and if one's gonna use abilities, then binding them to 1234 directly is still faster than fastswitch
Left hand:
Index, Middle, Ring finger = WASD movement
Pinky = CRTL crouch
Thumb = SPACE jump
Right hand:
Index finger = attack
Middle finger = scroll through weapons
Ring finger = +movement
Thumb/Pink = unused (a normal mouse, like most people)
We don't have the FINGERS for this guys! We can't do it, we don't have the technology! When everyone gets a 5+ button mouse, then maybe.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1684519:date=Jul 26 2008, 12:16 PM:name=weezl)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(weezl @ Jul 26 2008, 12:16 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1684519"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->@novusanimus: are your fingers really glued to the buttons? how do you play without minimap and pup-up menu?
and if one's gonna use abilities, then binding them to 1234 directly is still faster than fastswitch<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
When I respawn or evolve I usually use a ability to have it under the last used weapon (Q), so for instance with fade:
slash/metabolize under Q
blink(+movement) under R
or skulk
bite/parasite under Q
leap(+ movement) under R
and the best part is that xenocide or acid rocket are not used in the mid-game and rarely at the end
the only alien life forms which get really tricky (IMO) because of "lack of fingers" are Lerk and Onos, becaue there is no +movement skill and since you often get to play a lerk or onos when the third hive is up and you need to switch between 4 skills, which all are good depending on the situation
it would be cool to see some changes in that matter
I would suggest two ways:
- introduce good old secondary attack and group attacks, for instance for Lerk (secondary attacks would be available only after it's respective hive is up, the same as it is now):
Head attacks - primary bite, secondary primal scream
Gas attacks - primary spores, secondary umbra
and for Onos:
Head attacks: primary horn, secondary devour,
Lower body attacks: primary stomp, secondary charge (it's still the head that deal damage, but it's all about the speed boost you get that cause an Onos to deal more damage)
or the other way
- maybe make the same skills behave differently when an Onos moves/behaves in a different manner, i.e.
> to make stomp work one would have to jump+horn attack while falling down,
> to devour one would need to attack when pressing crouch? (which would make much harder to eat jetpakers in mid-air)
> charge activated when you press walking + attack (but you wouldn't need to hold walking after activation)?
and for Lerk
> shoot umbra when pressing crouch/walk and attacking with spores
> primal scream when pressing crouch/walk and biting
Q - Pop-up menu
Mouse Right-Click - Does nothing... I despised the situations where I was about to kill an enemy when I accidently pressed my right click.
I use 'V' for "+kickball" when I'm on co_kickball and "+hook" the rest of the time.
I think the attack/movement system for NS is quite good. I found the aliens attack slots being filled with movement abilities to be actually quite ingenious and thought it worked very well with how the game was set up. I actualyl don't think any other combination would work as well. We either don't have enough fingers or if we have attacks activated after we do a specific series of actions (i.e. jump + crouch) then it will limit the scope of that weapon immensely. The whole joy of devour was eating heavies while they try to flee and eating jpers while both in mid-air.
But seriously, while I do admit that it could feel more empowering to execute several attacks at a time, I don't think it's been too much of an issue.
For myself and several other players, we've simply adapted to switching out the moves we wanted to use. I mean, the old switching weapons to Blink and Leap weren't <i>that</i> hard, just took a little messing with the number keys mid flight. Heck, I used to play for a while without hud_fastswitch and still pulled off leap + bites. But yes, +movement has really helped out a lot. Now we have Adrenaline skulks spamming leap to take down Jetpackers!
Also, there's a question of how to control these moves. For a 3 Hive unit, there's 4 moves you have to bind.... somewhere. I personally have used up all the easily accessible keys for other stuff like requesting health. And really, are you really gonna Gore and Devour at the same time? I'm not sure why we would bind the Lerk's flying to the +movement, the spacebar works just fine.
The point is you rarely ever use multiple moves in conjuction in the first place. Also, it helps new players since they have the ease of switching out moves similar to a typical FPS, and it can help them know which ability is selected. Forcing to bind a bunch of keys to attacks that shouldn't be combined in the first place (acid rocketing blinking metabolizing Fade) can cause more confusion.
Perhaps a happy medium is to keep the system in place for learning and the old grumpy people. But open up key bindings for the weapon slots for people who want to bind their keyboard up to execute multiple moves on the fly. Just also code such that one move cannot be executed on top of another, except for movement abilities like Leap or Flying. For example, binding "q" to Weapon Slot 1 would execute a bite for a Skulk, even if the +attack for the mouse is still bound to say xenocide, similar to how +movement executes the Leap/Blink/Charge.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Agreed.
Despite saying WHY CANT I SWIPE AND ACID ROCKET AT THE SAME TIME before, i have no problem with the current way the game plays. Infact, i think it makes it more skill based to have to time changing weapons.