I wouldn't worry too much about t.res costs to be honest, I'm sure those are still very much experimental at this point. What's more is the actual mechanics at play, pricing is easily finetuned afterwards. Needless to say, I'm glad there's a much higher t.res sink for aliens than there is in NS 1, whether or not it's too high I can't really comment on.
Is it possible to change the mod so that it allows to start the match with only 1 Commander and have it not auto-concede if there are no players left on a team?
I often try to get a server started with it, but it takes ages or longer until someone actually joins and if nobody else joins for some time, he is likely to leave again. And I'd really like to do something else than jumping around the map as lone Skulk, so being able to start the game on my own and actually try some of the new stuff out without needing a second dummy player would really help a lot. We can still decide to restart the match in a more serious manner once enough players joined.
- increased starting team resources to 75 (up from 50)
- increased resource tower costs to 15 (up from 10)
marine
- reduced shotgun damage per pellet to 10 (was 11)
- adjusted shotgun spread (inner pellets slightly higher spread, overall spread reduced)
- increased advanced armory cost by 10
- reduced jetpack research cost by 5
- reduced exosuit research cost by 5
- fixed exo weapon not profiting from weapon upgrades
- reduced exo cost to 40 (60 for dual minigun)
- reduced exo base armor to 270 (50 per upgrade, was 60)
- exos can now be nano shielded
- toned down minigun damage to 20 (26 full upgraded, was 25 before)
alien
- infestation receding is now twice as fast as growing
- gorge tunnel entrances create now infestation when the other side is infested
- reduced gorge tunnel cost to 5 (was 10)
- reduced gorge tunnel build time to 10 (was 15)
Opinion (without having played it):
-Can't judge the starting res adjustments yet because I have no real overview on how this plays together with the changed research cost. (Though with the removal of prerequisites for tres Fade and Onos egg, this means that aliens can basically get a 0-minute Onos at the cost of being down to 0 res and 1 RT for a long time.)
-RT cost increase means that the loss of a tower hurts even more and it takes even longer for a tower to redeem it's cost. Not too fond of that by now since upgrades are already expensive enough on their own.
-I guess that shotgun nerf is supposed to be a less harsh one than the 30% decrease from the last update. I think this brings it back to the level that it had quite a few patches ago, aka before it was able to one-shot a Fade up close at W3. Also back to sniper shotguns with the spread reduction? Though the lack of pellets in the center could prevent that a bit. Probably makes it more deadly against smaller targets in close to medium range without turning it into a long range weapon again.
-Advanced Armory gets more expensive, that means it makes it less attractive to have redundancy for it in second and third bases. Honestly not a fan of it. Makes Flamethrowers and Grenade Launchers also less attractive and will only be accepted for the sake of the Prototype Lab.
-Base Exo damage output is lower, which is good. The slight increase to the maximum damage seems to make up for the increased costs for getting to W3/A3 in the first place.
-Exo armor is now 270/320/370/420 at the respective armor levels. Was 320/440/520/580 before, IIRC. Though you have to keep in mind that they can now be nanoshielded for 3 seconds and 75% damage reduction. That means an Exo can probably still survive the critical moment of an Onos attacking it head on if he gets active support by the commander. So it makes large masses of Exos more vulnerable but also more affordable/spammable and only one Exo at a (limited) time for an additional cost is assumed to stand it's ground against an Onos.
Alien changes are minor but can potentially have a big impact if played out well. I also like that you are not committing to a 20 pres payment anymore just to connect two places in the map for your team. This actually makes it possible to use Gorge tunnels right off the bat when joining a game in progress instead of having to wait until you get 30 pres or the khammander drops you a Gorge egg.
Overall interesting concepts. Though I'd like to see less Exos in general, one has to see if a mass spam of Exos is actually still viable despite the cost decrease when comparing it to normal marines. Another thing that factors in is that the RT cost increase and some other upgrade cost increase are likely going to delay tech quite a bit, so like the post above me stated: it seems like we aim for more fun early game with an even later lategame. Me gusta.
Woo exo adjustments! Been wanting to see a nerf and a pres cost reduction.
The giant metal liability/coffin needed some help to be in line with the JP in terms of the affordability to power ratio.
edit: I am not too sure about the nanoshield change. I still think it shouldn't be able to be used on marines, but allowing it on the exo would be fine if and only if the standard marine couldn't get it. The synergy between nano and medpacks is too ridiculous and this would be a nicer compromise as it would remove the synergy while still allowing it to be on players in some cases. However, MACs would still need to be limited to one per target for this to not get out of control.
It also makes the use of nanoshield consistent. I.e. "only works on mechanical targets" rather than EVERYTHING, except exos, because we said so.
I like the concept behind cheaper, weaker exos and it always annoyed me that they didn't make use of weapon upgrades so it's good to see something being tried there. Does this mean that the railgun is just straight up buffed in the current mod version? (same base damage but now it gets boosts from W1-3)
Well, why not make it so that Nanoshield reduces 75% of incoming damage against armor/inanimate things?
That way it won't work on marines whose armor has been depleted already (so aliens can prevent it if they get the drop on a marine before their commander notices) and they can actually wear the armor of a nanoshielded player down, which can't be refilled as easily as HP with medpacks at the frontline.
Exos would still get the full benefit since they are only armor (and can't be medpack-spammed either). I included inanimate objects as criterium because some stuff like Prototype Labs and Observatory don't have armor and you often decide as commander to use nanoshield after a building has been attacked for a while already.
Well, why not make it so that Nanoshield reduces 75% of incoming damage against armor/inanimate things?
That way it won't work on marines whose armor has been depleted already (so aliens can prevent it if they get the drop on a marine before their commander notices) and they can actually wear the armor of a nanoshielded player down, which can't be refilled as easily as HP with medpacks at the frontline.
Exos would still get the full benefit since they are only armor (and can't be medpack-spammed either). I included inanimate objects as criterium because some stuff like Prototype Labs and Observatory don't have armor and you often decide as commander to use nanoshield after a building has been attacked for a while already.
dude why so complicated? :P
it works on everything except X > it works on everything except X unless A, B and/or C.
Well, why not make it so that Nanoshield reduces 75% of incoming damage against armor/inanimate things?
That way it won't work on marines whose armor has been depleted already (so aliens can prevent it if they get the drop on a marine before their commander notices) and they can actually wear the armor of a nanoshielded player down, which can't be refilled as easily as HP with medpacks at the frontline.
Exos would still get the full benefit since they are only armor (and can't be medpack-spammed either). I included inanimate objects as criterium because some stuff like Prototype Labs and Observatory don't have armor and you often decide as commander to use nanoshield after a building has been attacked for a while already.
dude why so complicated? :P
it works on everything except X > it works on everything except X unless A, B and/or C.
Nothing wrong per se with the marine commander still buffing his troops with it, so I introduced a rule that would prevent immortal medpack spam abuse.
The increase starting res would probably make an instant second Hive drop more attractive as well, since you have spare res for two additional RTs after that instead of just one. Would be a bit problematic if that was kind of a default strategy then, though.
Yeah banelings are really useful. NS2's alien team should also have an upgrade to their basic infantry unit that allows it to self-destruct for heavy damage to surrounding units and structures.
While your correct, Xenocide is still pretty useless as a base buster. I find that if I just suicide as a skulk biting, I'd do more damage then using Xeno. I know there's balance issues with making it do too much damage, but damn it its a 3 hive ability. One thing I'd love to see about Xeno change is removing the normal spawn queue. Only if Xeno was the cause of death (you get shot down, doesn't apply) then the skulk that Xeno's gets an instant respawn with the closest egg. That would let players who don't have much pres be useful in endgame assaults, and couple that with some shift spam (that still costs res) could be actually effective.
As it is using xeno for much other then the lulz seems to be a waste.
One thing I'd love to see about Xeno change is removing the normal spawn queue. Only if Xeno was the cause of death (you get shot down, doesn't apply) then the skulk that Xeno's gets an instant respawn with the closest egg. That would let players who don't have much pres be useful in endgame assaults, and couple that with some shift spam (that still costs res) could be actually effective.
This sounds pretty good actually.
Another change I overlooked was that Umbra now only blocks one out of three bullets, aka 33% damage reduction instead of 50%. Might have been too powerful on second Hive otherwise.
Makes me wonder if there should be efficiency upgrades for existing evolutions further down in the tech path now, so for instance another ability on 8/9 Biomass that upgrades Umbra back to it's old capacity once researched. So the ability scales with the game progress as well. Might be too much confusion, though, and maybe the new Umbra is in a good spot after all. It was primarily used against Exos anyway, which are now much more vulnerable.
I agree, though I haven't had any chance to play this mod yet. I'm wondering why the servers are usually completly empty even though this mod seems to good to be true.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
edited March 2013
Like the newer changes a lot more, but am worried about GL viability with these AA nerfs that were intended to effect Exos (that have been adjusted to compensate)
GLs already have a tough time being viable with whip knockback and requiring cover fire and/or JP.
And finally i like the dmg adjustment of the shotgun, and the more even spread, (fits the cost) but i disagree with a more narrow spread overall... theres no cause or reason for that as its been working fine and fitting it's role, imo, and the recent shotgun threads will back that up i believe.
No one liked being killed by the sniper shotgun :-P
I agree, though I haven't had any chance to play this mod yet. I'm wondering why the servers are usually completly empty even though this mod seems to good to be true.
We totally need Hugh to show a match on a server with this mod on his channel to raise the public awareness.
I would so blatantly point him towards this thread using the @ notification system, but his name contains, against the rules of the universe and everything beyond, a whitespace and brackets and is thus completely shielded against that system.
The skulk skill-based movement system in this balance mod is REALLY BAD. You gain speed by simply jumping............. Just jump in a straight line a few times and you're up to 8 speed.. then up to 9 speed.. then 3 more and you're up to 10 speed. Seriously. You can get 10 speed in almost any hallway/room by just jumping 8 times in a row without even touching a wall or doing anything that requires any resemblance of skill.
Now not only that, but you can't use it up stairs and you lose all of your speed any time you touch anything for longer than the grace period of about 0.3 seconds. It takes two jumps near a wall to get up to 10 speed, but it's retarded because you have to use your jump sphere to get the speed boost. If you ever actually latch onto a wall (ie if the model ever looks like it's wall walking) then you immediately lose all of you speed.
P.S. Prepare your jump scripts. There's no timing involved. There's no skill involved. You just jump on the floor and sometimes near the wall to get huge speed boosts.
... theres no need for a script if there is no timing mechanic... thats the whole reason against adding one (just adds a reason TO script the jump). The point about skill based movement is not necessarily about the ease of which you can GAIN speed, but about how you use it. It took almost no practice to get decent bhop speed in NS1 (~500u/s), but the difference between a good skulk and just a straight line bhopper were night and day. If your a skulk in this jumping along at 15 speed but going perfectly straight.. its not very hard to kill. I think you should play against decent marines before having those conclusions. I do think it should be a little harder to gain speed, but I think that is all being tweaked slowly currently.
Yeah, that's basically my only gripe with it. While it's awesome that a Skulk can reach such top speeds without Celerity now, the feature is more harmful if there is no actual skill involved and jumping straight through a corridor is more effective than actually using walls to build your speed.
There should be some check in the system that prevents the gain of forward momentum from a jump if it starts off a planar ground surface. Though I am not exactly sure if the jump acceleration is responsible for the overall increased speed or the momentum you gain through gravity after the apex of the jump. If you start the jump from a higher position, that should still accelerate you properly.
To make up for it, Skulks should retain their previous fast speed a little longer while walking regularly around surfaces, so you are no longer stopped dead in your tracks so easily if there are no proper spots for wall jumping around.
Another movement feature I'd like to see at some point: fast double-tapping of the jump key right when hitting a surface will re-align the Skulk based on the "angle of incidence equals angle of reflection" principle while retaining the majority of the velocity that the Skulk had when hitting the surface in the new direction. So if you were to jump head-on with full speed at a wall and double-tap, the Skulk would repulse itself from the wall as if it had springs in it's legs (what it probably has) and basically do a 180 turn without losing any speed.
The only question remaining would be how to handle the camera after such a sudden direction change. (Quickly but smoothly interpolate along the shortest way to the new camera rotation?)
In general would I like to see more of a repulsion upon wall jumping and less of a "jumping upwards next to a wall".
... theres no need for a script if there is no timing mechanic... thats the whole reason against adding one (just adds a reason TO script the jump). The point about skill based movement is not necessarily about the ease of which you can GAIN speed, but about how you use it. It took almost no practice to get decent bhop speed in NS1 (~500u/s), but the difference between a good skulk and just a straight line bhopper were night and day. If your a skulk in this jumping along at 15 speed but going perfectly straight.. its not very hard to kill. I think you should play against decent marines before having those conclusions. I do think it should be a little harder to gain speed, but I think that is all being tweaked slowly currently.
There's no skill involved at any point in this system. You gain speed through a skill-less action and you lose it as soon as you stop jumping, touch a wall, or hit any kind of slight elevation in the map. There isn't going to be any extra skill involved in "using it" any more than there is skill involved in a good player running along the floor versus a bad player running on the floor.
It's a completely skill-free movement mechanic that is also going to feel wonky to people who try it.
And there's no need for a script, but it's yet another thing that will be benefited from by a script. Faster jumping = faster speed gains, spam jumping via script = more/quicker instances of your jump bubble touching a wall/ceiling and you getting a big boost from it.
It makes absolutely no sense. I'm not sure why you'd push forward a change that's basically a terrible version of bhop with all the awkwardness of wall jumping and a simple jump mechanic for speed. Hell, I'm not even sure why simply JUMPING IN A STRAIGHT LINE for speed is considered an improvement over the half dozen previous incarnations of wall jumping which far surpass this current pogo-stick version.
Durp, you failed at one point GORGEous. Sewlek already put a built in script into the game. If you hold space, you will jump as soon as you land. Then press space again and weeee.
But yes, the movement does need more skill than just having the skills to jump over the stairs.
Oh yeah? That's good then. Now all we're left is a bastardized bhop retaining all the stupidity and none of the skill combined with a dash of awkwardness from the wall-jumping jump-with-jumpsphere-near-wall'ing.
"Those who do not understand bunnyhopping are condemned to re-invent it, poorly."
edit: this is not a slight at sewlek, more at the original design decision to leave out bunnyhopping in the first place. after months of investing effort into creating something that is not bunnyhopping, we have ended up with... what, exactly? a mechanic that requires zero skill to execute, looks just as foolish as bunnyhopping ever did, but without any of the depth, trade-offs, masterable aspects, scaling, skill, fun... what exactly is the point?
I think the skulk movement as it stands would go a long way in lowering the skulk skill floor, which is actually a great thing and something the game is in dire need of (as new player skulk accessibility and enjoyment is downright horrible atm). There's quite a bit of room for players to master this 'mechanic' (as the speed comes at a cost), so it doesn't affect the ceiling, or may even raise it a little, from where it's at in NS 2 currently. More importantly, I find this skulk movement mechanic to be FAR more enjoyable at least. You get an awesome sense of 'build-up' that is absolutely missing in the current skulk movement mechanic (even with walljump).
Not saying it's in a perfect state, it still needs some tweaking for sure and I wouldn't mind seeing bunnyhop return but AFAIK UWE has already made a concious decision against that. The wall interaction in particular seems to slow me down usually, it'd be nice if you could at least maintain momentum using walls in between your jumps. (Or maybe I'm just doing it wrong?)
Also love the fade mechanics, though I've only tried the blink. To me it feels like I wouldn't even need shadowstep anymore though.
So what was the skill requirement to bhop? Learning not to hold W? You could bhop in a straight line with 0 mouse movement and still gain speed, just like the walljumping in the mod currently. You will gain speed quicker in the mod, and also the lack of a cap means you can hit the same speed ceiling, but it in no way requires 'less skill' than bhop did at an entry level, just certain aspects are a little too rewarding.
It amazing how people make arguments against a system that it sounds like they have never even tried, let alone explored for more than 10 minutes.
I'd rather have a better walljumping mechanic than the current bhop. I'm not against bhop - I loved it in the ns1 days - but the straight line bullet skulk just doesn't make sense for a unit that (in theory) should be about agility. It does nothing to aid the skulk in close quarters combat were the skulks movement really matters.
I'd rather the walljump mechanic was of real use, so you feel like there's a real reason to use it in combat to stay off the gound. Thats currently not the case, to me at least the skulk feels even less agile in this mod due to the lack of air control, which kills speed in combat if you need to change directions quickly.
Someone should make a Steam Group for this mod, btw, so we can have announcements to all players in the group when someone is trying to get a server with the mod started or things are taking off.
I will gladly do it when I get home in four hours or so if Sewlek or no one else does it. I am very active every day from 6pm to midnight Eastern time on the NS2 BT server so I could easily get people to join.
Comments
I often try to get a server started with it, but it takes ages or longer until someone actually joins and if nobody else joins for some time, he is likely to leave again. And I'd really like to do something else than jumping around the map as lone Skulk, so being able to start the game on my own and actually try some of the new stuff out without needing a second dummy player would really help a lot. We can still decide to restart the match in a more serious manner once enough players joined.
Opinion (without having played it):
-Can't judge the starting res adjustments yet because I have no real overview on how this plays together with the changed research cost. (Though with the removal of prerequisites for tres Fade and Onos egg, this means that aliens can basically get a 0-minute Onos at the cost of being down to 0 res and 1 RT for a long time.)
-RT cost increase means that the loss of a tower hurts even more and it takes even longer for a tower to redeem it's cost. Not too fond of that by now since upgrades are already expensive enough on their own.
-I guess that shotgun nerf is supposed to be a less harsh one than the 30% decrease from the last update. I think this brings it back to the level that it had quite a few patches ago, aka before it was able to one-shot a Fade up close at W3. Also back to sniper shotguns with the spread reduction? Though the lack of pellets in the center could prevent that a bit. Probably makes it more deadly against smaller targets in close to medium range without turning it into a long range weapon again.
-Advanced Armory gets more expensive, that means it makes it less attractive to have redundancy for it in second and third bases. Honestly not a fan of it. Makes Flamethrowers and Grenade Launchers also less attractive and will only be accepted for the sake of the Prototype Lab.
-Base Exo damage output is lower, which is good. The slight increase to the maximum damage seems to make up for the increased costs for getting to W3/A3 in the first place.
-Exo armor is now 270/320/370/420 at the respective armor levels. Was 320/440/520/580 before, IIRC. Though you have to keep in mind that they can now be nanoshielded for 3 seconds and 75% damage reduction. That means an Exo can probably still survive the critical moment of an Onos attacking it head on if he gets active support by the commander. So it makes large masses of Exos more vulnerable but also more affordable/spammable and only one Exo at a (limited) time for an additional cost is assumed to stand it's ground against an Onos.
Alien changes are minor but can potentially have a big impact if played out well. I also like that you are not committing to a 20 pres payment anymore just to connect two places in the map for your team. This actually makes it possible to use Gorge tunnels right off the bat when joining a game in progress instead of having to wait until you get 30 pres or the khammander drops you a Gorge egg.
Overall interesting concepts. Though I'd like to see less Exos in general, one has to see if a mass spam of Exos is actually still viable despite the cost decrease when comparing it to normal marines. Another thing that factors in is that the RT cost increase and some other upgrade cost increase are likely going to delay tech quite a bit, so like the post above me stated: it seems like we aim for more fun early game with an even later lategame. Me gusta.
The giant metal liability/coffin needed some help to be in line with the JP in terms of the affordability to power ratio.
edit: I am not too sure about the nanoshield change. I still think it shouldn't be able to be used on marines, but allowing it on the exo would be fine if and only if the standard marine couldn't get it. The synergy between nano and medpacks is too ridiculous and this would be a nicer compromise as it would remove the synergy while still allowing it to be on players in some cases. However, MACs would still need to be limited to one per target for this to not get out of control.
It also makes the use of nanoshield consistent. I.e. "only works on mechanical targets" rather than EVERYTHING, except exos, because we said so.
That way it won't work on marines whose armor has been depleted already (so aliens can prevent it if they get the drop on a marine before their commander notices) and they can actually wear the armor of a nanoshielded player down, which can't be refilled as easily as HP with medpacks at the frontline.
Exos would still get the full benefit since they are only armor (and can't be medpack-spammed either). I included inanimate objects as criterium because some stuff like Prototype Labs and Observatory don't have armor and you often decide as commander to use nanoshield after a building has been attacked for a while already.
dude why so complicated? :P
it works on everything except X > it works on everything except X unless A, B and/or C.
Nothing wrong per se with the marine commander still buffing his troops with it, so I introduced a rule that would prevent immortal medpack spam abuse.
While your correct, Xenocide is still pretty useless as a base buster. I find that if I just suicide as a skulk biting, I'd do more damage then using Xeno. I know there's balance issues with making it do too much damage, but damn it its a 3 hive ability. One thing I'd love to see about Xeno change is removing the normal spawn queue. Only if Xeno was the cause of death (you get shot down, doesn't apply) then the skulk that Xeno's gets an instant respawn with the closest egg. That would let players who don't have much pres be useful in endgame assaults, and couple that with some shift spam (that still costs res) could be actually effective.
As it is using xeno for much other then the lulz seems to be a waste.
This sounds pretty good actually.
Another change I overlooked was that Umbra now only blocks one out of three bullets, aka 33% damage reduction instead of 50%. Might have been too powerful on second Hive otherwise.
Makes me wonder if there should be efficiency upgrades for existing evolutions further down in the tech path now, so for instance another ability on 8/9 Biomass that upgrades Umbra back to it's old capacity once researched. So the ability scales with the game progress as well. Might be too much confusion, though, and maybe the new Umbra is in a good spot after all. It was primarily used against Exos anyway, which are now much more vulnerable.
I agree, though I haven't had any chance to play this mod yet. I'm wondering why the servers are usually completly empty even though this mod seems to good to be true.
GLs already have a tough time being viable with whip knockback and requiring cover fire and/or JP.
And finally i like the dmg adjustment of the shotgun, and the more even spread, (fits the cost) but i disagree with a more narrow spread overall... theres no cause or reason for that as its been working fine and fitting it's role, imo, and the recent shotgun threads will back that up i believe.
No one liked being killed by the sniper shotgun :-P
We totally need Hugh to show a match on a server with this mod on his channel to raise the public awareness.
I would so blatantly point him towards this thread using the @ notification system, but his name contains, against the rules of the universe and everything beyond, a whitespace and brackets and is thus completely shielded against that system.
Now not only that, but you can't use it up stairs and you lose all of your speed any time you touch anything for longer than the grace period of about 0.3 seconds. It takes two jumps near a wall to get up to 10 speed, but it's retarded because you have to use your jump sphere to get the speed boost. If you ever actually latch onto a wall (ie if the model ever looks like it's wall walking) then you immediately lose all of you speed.
P.S. Prepare your jump scripts. There's no timing involved. There's no skill involved. You just jump on the floor and sometimes near the wall to get huge speed boosts.
There should be some check in the system that prevents the gain of forward momentum from a jump if it starts off a planar ground surface. Though I am not exactly sure if the jump acceleration is responsible for the overall increased speed or the momentum you gain through gravity after the apex of the jump. If you start the jump from a higher position, that should still accelerate you properly.
To make up for it, Skulks should retain their previous fast speed a little longer while walking regularly around surfaces, so you are no longer stopped dead in your tracks so easily if there are no proper spots for wall jumping around.
Another movement feature I'd like to see at some point: fast double-tapping of the jump key right when hitting a surface will re-align the Skulk based on the "angle of incidence equals angle of reflection" principle while retaining the majority of the velocity that the Skulk had when hitting the surface in the new direction. So if you were to jump head-on with full speed at a wall and double-tap, the Skulk would repulse itself from the wall as if it had springs in it's legs (what it probably has) and basically do a 180 turn without losing any speed.
The only question remaining would be how to handle the camera after such a sudden direction change. (Quickly but smoothly interpolate along the shortest way to the new camera rotation?)
In general would I like to see more of a repulsion upon wall jumping and less of a "jumping upwards next to a wall".
There's no skill involved at any point in this system. You gain speed through a skill-less action and you lose it as soon as you stop jumping, touch a wall, or hit any kind of slight elevation in the map. There isn't going to be any extra skill involved in "using it" any more than there is skill involved in a good player running along the floor versus a bad player running on the floor.
It's a completely skill-free movement mechanic that is also going to feel wonky to people who try it.
And there's no need for a script, but it's yet another thing that will be benefited from by a script. Faster jumping = faster speed gains, spam jumping via script = more/quicker instances of your jump bubble touching a wall/ceiling and you getting a big boost from it.
It makes absolutely no sense. I'm not sure why you'd push forward a change that's basically a terrible version of bhop with all the awkwardness of wall jumping and a simple jump mechanic for speed. Hell, I'm not even sure why simply JUMPING IN A STRAIGHT LINE for speed is considered an improvement over the half dozen previous incarnations of wall jumping which far surpass this current pogo-stick version.
But yes, the movement does need more skill than just having the skills to jump over the stairs.
edit: this is not a slight at sewlek, more at the original design decision to leave out bunnyhopping in the first place. after months of investing effort into creating something that is not bunnyhopping, we have ended up with... what, exactly? a mechanic that requires zero skill to execute, looks just as foolish as bunnyhopping ever did, but without any of the depth, trade-offs, masterable aspects, scaling, skill, fun... what exactly is the point?
Not saying it's in a perfect state, it still needs some tweaking for sure and I wouldn't mind seeing bunnyhop return but AFAIK UWE has already made a concious decision against that. The wall interaction in particular seems to slow me down usually, it'd be nice if you could at least maintain momentum using walls in between your jumps. (Or maybe I'm just doing it wrong?)
Also love the fade mechanics, though I've only tried the blink. To me it feels like I wouldn't even need shadowstep anymore though.
Just because you fail doesn't mean you can't try again, (as evidenced by the dozens of versions) and eventually nail it?
I dislike the current version, but that doesn't mean that bhop is the only solution, ofc.
It amazing how people make arguments against a system that it sounds like they have never even tried, let alone explored for more than 10 minutes.
I'd rather the walljump mechanic was of real use, so you feel like there's a real reason to use it in combat to stay off the gound. Thats currently not the case, to me at least the skulk feels even less agile in this mod due to the lack of air control, which kills speed in combat if you need to change directions quickly.