Air control and ground acceleration

CommunistWithAGun

I see that screwing with skulk movement happened. My question is WHY. I understand the air control, that was kind of lame. However, why was ground acceleration screwed with? Skulk juking is going to be pretty much dead/useless now. Why are we encouraging aliens to be slow?

Mestaritonttu

I keep hoping this is a prelude to a proper walljump being introduced. :P

rantology

Air control was not touched. Acceleration and friction were.

CommunistWithAGun

rantology wrote: »

Air control was not touched. Acceleration and friction were.

And what logic went into that exactly? If anything had issue before it was AIR CONTROL, NOT ACCELERATION. Why are we telling players not to be a ground running skulk, when the class is turning into just that?

rantology

CommunistWithAGun wrote: »

rantology wrote: »

Air control was not touched. Acceleration and friction were.

And what logic went into that exactly? If anything had issue before it was AIR CONTROL, NOT ACCELERATION. Why are we telling players not to be a ground running skulk, when the class is turning into just that?

While I don't speak for anyone other than myself I can say that it's generally agreed upon through out the community that the Skulk needs to have a lower skill floor and a higher skill ceiling. It was too easy for players to faceroll their keyboard while wall jumping, causing their model to twitch out and making them artificially more difficult to kill (by doing something they themselves are not controlling through skill, rather exploiting the animation system of the game).

The changes to acceleration and friction in 240 do alleviate this somewhat, but they are certainly not optimal. They accomplish neither of the goals I listed above (higher ceiling, lower floor). They will not be the last changes to skulk movement, however. Consider them a first step for changes that may possibly come in the future.

I would consider the movement in 240 an improvement over 239, in the end.. even if it isn't perfect.

Desther

The biggest differences that I feel after about 30 mins of gameplay:
• You don't gain as much forward speed from falling
• Friction is applied earlier and harder when you hit the ground

Narfwak

It's worth noting that some of the fixes to how the skulk model orients while moving on walls and transitioning from one surface to another to make them less spastic and more fluid are also going to make them a little easier to predict and shoot.

Movement is never done and more changes will be coming sooner or later. There was going to be a much bigger change originally but it almost made the PTs lose their minds so what we have now is pretty minor in comparison.

CommunistWithAGun

rantology wrote: »

CommunistWithAGun wrote: »

rantology wrote: »

Air control was not touched. Acceleration and friction were.

And what logic went into that exactly? If anything had issue before it was AIR CONTROL, NOT ACCELERATION. Why are we telling players not to be a ground running skulk, when the class is turning into just that?

While I don't speak for anyone other than myself I can say that it's generally agreed upon through out the community that the Skulk needs to have a lower skill floor and a higher skill ceiling. It was too easy for players to faceroll their keyboard while wall jumping, causing their model to twitch out and making them artificially more difficult to kill (by doing something they themselves are not controlling through skill, rather exploiting the animation system of the game).

The changes to acceleration and friction in 240 do alleviate this somewhat, but they are certainly not optimal. They accomplish neither of the goals I listed above (higher ceiling, lower floor). They will not be the last changes to skulk movement, however. Consider them a first step for changes that may possibly come in the future.

I would consider the movement in 240 an improvement over 239, in the end.. even if it isn't perfect.

Go tell the top teams in NS2 that their skulks were only good because they facerolled, and you'll see why that's wrong.

xDragon

I dont think you understand in the slightest. It was far easier to become effective as skulk, than effective as marine. It did not take alot of skill or even really any practice to learn the basics of wallhop, and couple that with animation issues and players on marines that are new, you had a pretty big imbalance even at similar skill levels. This change takes steps to resolve that discrepency. The fact that you think air control was changed tells me you dont really understand the differences, how they interact, and why they would be hesitant to change air control when skulk movement is already lacking at high skill levels.

CommunistWithAGun

xDragon wrote: »

I dont think you understand in the slightest. It was far easier to become effective as skulk, than effective as marine. It did not take alot of skill or even really any practice to learn the basics of wallhop, and couple that with animation issues and players on marines that are new, you had a pretty big imbalance even at similar skill levels. This change takes steps to resolve that discrepency. The fact that you think air control was changed tells me you dont really understand the differences, how they interact, and why they would be hesitant to change air control when skulk movement is already lacking at high skill levels.

Sounds like to me you just want to troll.

xDragon

And how is that? Everyone that is competent and has played this game at a high level knows that skulk movement needs work, but the current movement system would not feel well with reduced air control, trust me its been tried.

ScardyBob

CommunistWithAGun wrote: »

Go tell the top teams in NS2 that their skulks were only good because they facerolled, and you'll see why that's wrong.

Top team skulks are good because they know how to coordinate and bait extremely well, not because they have an awesome mastery of wallhop. There really isn't any good way for skulks to combat marines who can shoot (e.g. all D1 teams) in a head-to-head fight, so instead they try to distract or bait marines such that they either lure them into a worse position or allow a teammate to sneak up on them. Watch any Archaea alien match to see this in action.

1dominator1

Whoever had the idea of giving skulk's air control at the expense of speed, cele and leap should be put on the breaking wheel imo.

ChrisAUS

My first scrim under the new patch was after playing maybe 5 minutes as skulk and initially I was frustrated as hell with how it worked.

Then I played more later in Pub and got a better feel for it. I don't think it's 'bad' at the moment. It just feels that some of the hours spent playing as skulk have been wasted since now alot of the jumps and combos I used to be-able to make I can no longer do so. In the scrim I was landing a few meters in-front of marines instead of on their head.

The play now feels 'heavier' where you jump off a high wall and instead of arcing out; you do a normal jump range and then start to fall heavily. I'm also finding that I'm losing speed occasionally but I think half of that is me mistiming things and half is me trying to force the distance to make a jump I used to be-able to make.

rantology: Are skulks still able to make all jumps they could in 239? I would like to know if I've been using poor basics all this time or if I should adjust and learn new limits.

Ghosthree3

Would like some kind of official statement as to what exactly changed. Numbers etc.