the point is that no mechanic should be difficult for new players and trivially easy for good players. This is a fundamental root of bad skill curve design. This is part of the reason that mechanics like walljumping or bhopping are fundamentally bad mechanics for any fps game. The focus should be on making combat itself very deep, not the traveling mechanic.
Thing is that travelling mechanic is 80% of the skulks combat mechanic.
Of course we could remove walljumping and bunnyhopping from the game and skulks could just press W and go 20 speed. After that we could reduce skulks bitecone by 70%. Travelling easy - combat hard and "deep". That oughta do it!
(Note: Not really sure what you mean by making skulk combat deep without skill based movement system)
play avp, or hell, just look at how fades interact with marines
play avp, or hell, just look at how fades interact with marines
Aliens vs predators? I don't think you are supposed to learn from example of shit tier multiplayer games. If you want to play AvP, play AvP.
But, I am curious to know what would you do with the skulk if you had free hands. So, to recap, it has to be:
1. Intuitive
3. Reward interactive skills
2. Travelling easy but combat deep and skillful(like fades)
4. Easy for newer players, but still very deep and hard to master for competitive players
If you are so experienced and know about everything so much, why don't you just make your own game or sell your ideas to UWE? You'll be a millionaire! Or again if you want to play AvP, just play AvP.
Feels a teeny bit like people are making a big deal out of this. It's only like 1,5 speed more than casual walljumping, innit? From 10 travel speed to 11,5 or so?
And still, a skulk coming straight atcha is usually a dead skulk. AND still, you gotta hit those bites.
I can't see this mechanic giving an immense combat advantage. And, so far, it's not easy enough to be trivial either. (Atleast for me.)
Soooo.... We're pretty good for now?
Should prolly let it be for a month or two and see what it's like.
The top-speed movement is already really fast. Giving more speed to the better, more knowledgeable players widens the skill gap and makes them exponentially harder to shoot at.
Feels a teeny bit like people are making a big deal out of this. It's only like 1,5 speed more than casual walljumping, innit? From 10 travel speed to 11,5 or so?
And still, a skulk coming straight atcha is usually a dead skulk. AND still, you gotta hit those bites.
I can't see this mechanic giving an immense combat advantage. And, so far, it's not easy enough to be trivial either. (Atleast for me.)
Soooo.... We're pretty good for now?
Should prolly let it be for a month or two and see what it's like.
The top-speed movement is already really fast. Giving more speed to the better, more knowledgeable players widens the skill gap and makes them exponentially harder to shoot at.
Giving good players who dedicate themselves to learning new aspects of the game an advantage over those who are satisfied with what they have is a bad thing?
Giving good players who dedicate themselves to learning new aspects of the game an advantage over those who are satisfied with what they have is a bad thing?
No, that is not a bad thing but the top speeds achieved by doing this are to high. If Sewlek intended for speeds of this caliber to be reached, he would have put the BT skulk from a month ago into the live game.
Honestly, I could care less about the mechanic and how complicated/retarded/un-intuitive/whatever other adjective you want to call it. To me, none of that matters. There are plenty of tricks that are so hidden in nearly any game, that trying to use that as a reason against it is meaningless. As long as the game remains approachable and the impacts of those hidden 'tricks' are not game breaking - there's nothing wrong with having them there. The problem with this mechanic IMO is solely in the amount of speed gained, its just too much.
All things considered, having some high level mechanics that are somewhat executionally complex is probably a good thing - aliens still are much easier to play than marines, and that's not just because of fades.
Sidestepping the whole skilled based movement mechanic discussion, does anyone think this might make skulks a bit too fast?
No not really, at least from an anecdotal point of view. But you asked what we think. And I think no. I've yet to play a marine and curse the speed of the skulks, they are still easy targets if they hurl towards you. One problem could be that skulks can rush the marine naturals at the beginning of the game a bit faster, but anecdotally travel times haven't (yet) proven to be problematic.
seems to me the flicking is not needed I can keep the speed up just fine without it
Can you clarify what you mean?
The way he throws his view in the opposite direction of the direction he is strafing,the twitch you see when he bounces of a wall it isnt needed to maintain the speed if u just do the strafe wallhop it has the same effect,you get the same speedboost.
@kenshir maybe I still don't follow but If you do the first jump in his video w/o using the mouse twitch you are going to jump directly along the wall not go any where unless you are already looking right when you hit the wall which I find harder to do if you don't do it fast. Simply put the mouse flick changes your trajectory to allow for the jump. From what I can tell it has nothing to do with the speed boost itself.
@kenshir maybe I still don't follow but If you do the first jump in his video w/o using the mouse twitch you are going to jump directly along the wall not go any where unless you are already looking right when you hit the wall which I find harder to do if you don't do it fast. Simply put the mouse flick changes your trajectory to allow for the jump. From what I can tell it has nothing to do with the speed boost itself.
Well not per se it seems easier to do this way,wel atleast for me the flicking just messes up my jumps.And yea that was my point the flicking doesnt do anything to the speedboost, just reading from the first pages it looked like people thought the flicking was important wich it isnt. Or maybe I just misread
Exploiting game knowledge while ensuring it is kept hidden from others seems very dishonest. I think this video clip is great, Quaxy didn't need to share this, but they did and now lots of us can do this movement. And can tell the new players when they're like 'dude, wtf how u go so fast?'
It SHOULD be documented somewhere, even if not in some perfectly written, detailed, 'this is precisely how you do it step-by-step' guide. It just needs to be noted that a specific type of walljumping exists that gives skulks bonus speed over the usual cap.
And can we please learn the definition of intuitive? I argue that this mechanic is NOT intuitive. It can be learned and it can be understood, but it is not something that you look at and go, oh yeah, I see how that would work. Unlike marine positioning, where LMG positioning can be intuited by thinking logically, there's nothing logical about the super fast wall jumping.
I'm not arguing to remove it, I like that it's there, but this talk of 'well someone worked it out therefore it must be intuitive' is really getting on my man boobs...
Exploiting game knowledge while ensuring it is kept hidden from others seems very dishonest. I think this video clip is great, Quaxy didn't need to share this, but they did and now lots of us can do this movement. And can tell the new players when they're like 'dude, wtf how u go so fast?'
It SHOULD be documented somewhere, even if not in some perfectly written, detailed, 'this is precisely how you do it step-by-step' guide. It just needs to be noted that a specific type of walljumping exists that gives skulks bonus speed over the usual cap.
And can we please learn the definition of intuitive? I argue that this mechanic is NOT intuitive. It can be learned and it can be understood, but it is not something that you look at and go, oh yeah, I see how that would work. Unlike marine positioning, where LMG positioning can be intuited by thinking logically, there's nothing logical about the super fast wall jumping.
I'm not arguing to remove it, I like that it's there, but this talk of 'well someone worked it out therefore it must be intuitive' is really getting on my man boobs...
being able to "look at and go, oh yeah, I see how that would work.." is different for different people.
You say marine positioning 'can be intuited by thinking logically' ... the process of thinking logically has changed you into a person who can intuit proper marine positioning.
If I went up to a random gamer, and asked them how they would like to position them selves, if they had guns and where being assaulted by a pack of rabid aliens... they would probably tell me to they'd like to clump up in a corner. (see: left 4 dead). Only through playing ns, and seeing the dynamics of marine vs skulk (recoiless guns, no friendly fire, small skulks, lots of cover...) can you come the conclusion that spread out formations are more effective. Try this out, by observing a bunch of green players, trying their first rounds as marines.
You could probably tune the mechanics and numbers of ns2 a reasonable small amount and make clumping up the better option.
on the flip side:
The process of learning to wall jump, has allowed me to see this mouse flick mechanic as 'intuitive.' Now I don't think of it as simple, straight forward, or particularly transparent to a new player. I probably wouldn't classify it as 'intuitive,' my point is mostly:
1) that intuitive is a vague concept to try and design game mechanics around. How do you judge what is, and is not intuitive (hint: you can't, at least not at a detailed level). How do you know when you have achieve an 'intuitive' design (hint: you can't, at least not at a detailed level)
2) The entirety of the game need not be understandable to a new player learning the game. Just the basics needed to play the game should be immediately understandable, and from there the complexity should unfold. (this is a really hard thing to achieve, which is why most designs skip it, and just make a tutorial)
The problem with the word 'intuitive' is that it is a non-word. It really doesn't carry much meaning, when you try and pin it down to a specific definition. You might as well replace it with the word 'good.' What is and is not intuitive is largely subjective when you get down to details.
PS: I think more could be done to coax new skulks into experimenting with wall jump, by making wall jumping feel more satisfying (unique footstep noises while wall walking, unique skulk view model animations for wall jumping and wall landing etc)
Lol, all you need to do to bring walljump to the masses, is put a custom Skulk walljump map in 'Practice', where you're prompted what to do, with debugspeed on.
...just like in quake with rocketjumps, mind you. Add a scripted event in the start where the player gets to spectate someone doing it for realz, and it's perfect. Doubt doing the whole thing would take too much time.
Exploiting game knowledge while ensuring it is kept hidden from others seems very dishonest. I think this video clip is great, Quaxy didn't need to share this, but they did and now lots of us can do this movement. And can tell the new players when they're like 'dude, wtf how u go so fast?'
It SHOULD be documented somewhere, even if not in some perfectly written, detailed, 'this is precisely how you do it step-by-step' guide. It just needs to be noted that a specific type of walljumping exists that gives skulks bonus speed over the usual cap.
And can we please learn the definition of intuitive? I argue that this mechanic is NOT intuitive. It can be learned and it can be understood, but it is not something that you look at and go, oh yeah, I see how that would work. Unlike marine positioning, where LMG positioning can be intuited by thinking logically, there's nothing logical about the super fast wall jumping.
I'm not arguing to remove it, I like that it's there, but this talk of 'well someone worked it out therefore it must be intuitive' is really getting on my man boobs...
being able to "look at and go, oh yeah, I see how that would work.." is different for different people.
You say marine positioning 'can be intuited by thinking logically' ... the process of thinking logically has changed you into a person who can intuit proper marine positioning.
If I went up to a random gamer, and asked them how they would like to position them selves, if they had guns and where being assaulted by a pack of rabid aliens... they would probably tell me to they'd like to clump up in a corner. (see: left 4 dead). Only through playing ns, and seeing the dynamics of marine vs skulk (recoiless guns, no friendly fire, small skulks, lots of cover...) can you come the conclusion that spread out formations are more effective. Try this out, by observing a bunch of green players, trying their first rounds as marines.
You could probably tune the mechanics and numbers of ns2 a reasonable small amount and make clumping up the better option.
on the flip side:
The process of learning to wall jump, has allowed me to see this mouse flick mechanic as 'intuitive.' Now I don't think of it as simple, straight forward, or particularly transparent to a new player. I probably wouldn't classify it as 'intuitive,' my point is mostly:
1) that intuitive is a vague concept to try and design game mechanics around. How do you judge what is, and is not intuitive (hint: you can't, at least not at a detailed level). How do you know when you have achieve an 'intuitive' design (hint: you can't, at least not at a detailed level)
2) The entirety of the game need not be understandable to a new player learning the game. Just the basics needed to play the game should be immediately understandable, and from there the complexity should unfold. (this is a really hard thing to achieve, which is why most designs skip it, and just make a tutorial)
The problem with the word 'intuitive' is that it is a non-word. It really doesn't carry much meaning, when you try and pin it down to a specific definition. You might as well replace it with the word 'good.' What is and is not intuitive is largely subjective when you get down to details.
PS: I think more could be done to coax new skulks into experimenting with wall jump, by making wall jumping feel more satisfying (unique footstep noises while wall walking, unique skulk view model animations for wall jumping and wall landing etc)
in·tu·i·tive
/inˈt(y)o͞oitiv/
Adjective
Using or based on what one feels to be true even without conscious reasoning; instinctive.
Intuitive is not a 'non-word', and has a perfectly reasonable definition. There may be some degree of subjectivity in some applications, but in this case there really isn't. Wall jumping, and indeed any form of bunnyhopping, pseudo or otherwise is NOT intuitive.
With my marine positioning example, it could be intuited that to ensure your marine buddy survives, you give yourself enough distance so shooting skulks off his feet is easier (smaller angle to cover). If you say to someone 'move from flight control to sub sector 10% faster than you currently can with wall jump,' the first thing they're going to say is 'wtf?' Not 'Oh right, yes I need to strafe into the wall while flicking the mouse away at a fairly large angle, then maintain that speed for longer by using strafe while jumping and moving my mouse this time in the same direction as the strafe key.'
What people seem to be getting mixed up with is learning something such that it becomes easy to perform with little active thought (which describes even this 'more advanced' skulk movement), and the property of a mechanic that makes it simple and obvious to the uninitiated (intuitive).
Again, that's not to say it shouldn't stay in the game. Especially now I can get to second growl without celerity
Where I do agree with you is that more could, and should, be done to coax new skulks into making the most of the movement mechanics. I think anything that can draw people off the floor would be a huge bonus to us all!
This technique doesn't make skulks too fast for balance purposes at all imo. I also don't think it can really be considered an exploit, the principle behind it is the same as the principle behind the "vanilla" wall jump. You're trying to stay on the wall for the shortest amount of time possible. It could easily be communicated to new players by saying something as simple as "Time your jumps so only your back legs touch the wall."
This really only takes ~30 minutes to learn, it's not that unintuitive either. After about 45 minutes of practice I was able to get bursts up to 16 speed on veil.
Comments
Aliens vs predators? I don't think you are supposed to learn from example of shit tier multiplayer games. If you want to play AvP, play AvP.
But, I am curious to know what would you do with the skulk if you had free hands. So, to recap, it has to be:
1. Intuitive
3. Reward interactive skills
2. Travelling easy but combat deep and skillful(like fades)
4. Easy for newer players, but still very deep and hard to master for competitive players
If you are so experienced and know about everything so much, why don't you just make your own game or sell your ideas to UWE? You'll be a millionaire! Or again if you want to play AvP, just play AvP.
The top-speed movement is already really fast. Giving more speed to the better, more knowledgeable players widens the skill gap and makes them exponentially harder to shoot at.
Giving good players who dedicate themselves to learning new aspects of the game an advantage over those who are satisfied with what they have is a bad thing?
Can you clarify what you mean?
No, that is not a bad thing but the top speeds achieved by doing this are to high. If Sewlek intended for speeds of this caliber to be reached, he would have put the BT skulk from a month ago into the live game.
All things considered, having some high level mechanics that are somewhat executionally complex is probably a good thing - aliens still are much easier to play than marines, and that's not just because of fades.
No not really, at least from an anecdotal point of view. But you asked what we think. And I think no. I've yet to play a marine and curse the speed of the skulks, they are still easy targets if they hurl towards you. One problem could be that skulks can rush the marine naturals at the beginning of the game a bit faster, but anecdotally travel times haven't (yet) proven to be problematic.
The way he throws his view in the opposite direction of the direction he is strafing,the twitch you see when he bounces of a wall it isnt needed to maintain the speed if u just do the strafe wallhop it has the same effect,you get the same speedboost.
It SHOULD be documented somewhere, even if not in some perfectly written, detailed, 'this is precisely how you do it step-by-step' guide. It just needs to be noted that a specific type of walljumping exists that gives skulks bonus speed over the usual cap.
And can we please learn the definition of intuitive? I argue that this mechanic is NOT intuitive. It can be learned and it can be understood, but it is not something that you look at and go, oh yeah, I see how that would work. Unlike marine positioning, where LMG positioning can be intuited by thinking logically, there's nothing logical about the super fast wall jumping.
I'm not arguing to remove it, I like that it's there, but this talk of 'well someone worked it out therefore it must be intuitive' is really getting on my man boobs...
being able to "look at and go, oh yeah, I see how that would work.." is different for different people.
You say marine positioning 'can be intuited by thinking logically' ... the process of thinking logically has changed you into a person who can intuit proper marine positioning.
If I went up to a random gamer, and asked them how they would like to position them selves, if they had guns and where being assaulted by a pack of rabid aliens... they would probably tell me to they'd like to clump up in a corner. (see: left 4 dead). Only through playing ns, and seeing the dynamics of marine vs skulk (recoiless guns, no friendly fire, small skulks, lots of cover...) can you come the conclusion that spread out formations are more effective. Try this out, by observing a bunch of green players, trying their first rounds as marines.
You could probably tune the mechanics and numbers of ns2 a reasonable small amount and make clumping up the better option.
on the flip side:
The process of learning to wall jump, has allowed me to see this mouse flick mechanic as 'intuitive.' Now I don't think of it as simple, straight forward, or particularly transparent to a new player. I probably wouldn't classify it as 'intuitive,' my point is mostly:
1) that intuitive is a vague concept to try and design game mechanics around. How do you judge what is, and is not intuitive (hint: you can't, at least not at a detailed level). How do you know when you have achieve an 'intuitive' design (hint: you can't, at least not at a detailed level)
2) The entirety of the game need not be understandable to a new player learning the game. Just the basics needed to play the game should be immediately understandable, and from there the complexity should unfold. (this is a really hard thing to achieve, which is why most designs skip it, and just make a tutorial)
The problem with the word 'intuitive' is that it is a non-word. It really doesn't carry much meaning, when you try and pin it down to a specific definition. You might as well replace it with the word 'good.' What is and is not intuitive is largely subjective when you get down to details.
PS: I think more could be done to coax new skulks into experimenting with wall jump, by making wall jumping feel more satisfying (unique footstep noises while wall walking, unique skulk view model animations for wall jumping and wall landing etc)
...just like in quake with rocketjumps, mind you. Add a scripted event in the start where the player gets to spectate someone doing it for realz, and it's perfect. Doubt doing the whole thing would take too much time.
in·tu·i·tive
/inˈt(y)o͞oitiv/
Adjective
Using or based on what one feels to be true even without conscious reasoning; instinctive.
Intuitive is not a 'non-word', and has a perfectly reasonable definition. There may be some degree of subjectivity in some applications, but in this case there really isn't. Wall jumping, and indeed any form of bunnyhopping, pseudo or otherwise is NOT intuitive.
With my marine positioning example, it could be intuited that to ensure your marine buddy survives, you give yourself enough distance so shooting skulks off his feet is easier (smaller angle to cover). If you say to someone 'move from flight control to sub sector 10% faster than you currently can with wall jump,' the first thing they're going to say is 'wtf?' Not 'Oh right, yes I need to strafe into the wall while flicking the mouse away at a fairly large angle, then maintain that speed for longer by using strafe while jumping and moving my mouse this time in the same direction as the strafe key.'
What people seem to be getting mixed up with is learning something such that it becomes easy to perform with little active thought (which describes even this 'more advanced' skulk movement), and the property of a mechanic that makes it simple and obvious to the uninitiated (intuitive).
Again, that's not to say it shouldn't stay in the game. Especially now I can get to second growl without celerity
Where I do agree with you is that more could, and should, be done to coax new skulks into making the most of the movement mechanics. I think anything that can draw people off the floor would be a huge bonus to us all!
This really only takes ~30 minutes to learn, it's not that unintuitive either. After about 45 minutes of practice I was able to get bursts up to 16 speed on veil.