Movement in Envy

[legacy-Kronon]

I loved the movement in UT2003. Boost-dodge, in combination with lift jumps, or hill-boost-dodging, or combine it with impact hammer. There where almost no DM map you couldnt'd fly over in a short time (for example, you could get from one end to antalus to the other with just one trick jump).

BUT, and this is important: imagine being a new player and see all these strange jumps. You could react in one of three ways:
1. They use some sort of cheat
2. They are incredible skilled, and I can hardly do a normal dodge in the game and will never be that good.
3. Wow, I have to learn to do these jumps.

Now, in a perfect world, option 3 above would be the most common, but its not. For most new players, these movements just made the game frustrating, and they quit playing long before they had learnt them. Shooters is hard enough for new players without a lot of trick jumps.

So I hope Epic does what I suggested even before UT2004: remove all 'strange' jumps, and stick with the normal jump and the normal dodge. Sure, I will miss the extraordinary jumps from UT2003, but I will miss players on pubs even more.

Besides, you wont ever get those in-your-face fights with all these jumps. Thats one of the reason UT felt more hardcore than both UT2003 and UT2004.

/Kronon

[legacy-DoMiNaToR]

UT without all those jumps would be crap, trust me.

[legacy-Thanatos]

I agree with DoMiNaToR on that one. I can't live without double-jump. I especially love wall jumps. They can make fights so much more spectacular.

[legacy-DoMiNaToR]

yeah, it makes everything more spectacular and gets longer and much much funnier. man, all that combined with the gameplay, the modes and the weapons, and of course the multiplayer harcore gaming makes this game one of the best games. if the agility and the adrenaline wouldnt be here, this will be Counter Strike like, very slow. and that would suck a lot trust me.

[legacy-Kronon]

As i said, I would also miss those jumps (although not the double jump), but I would miss new players and a strong community even more.

Besides, those extra jumps are a bit strange. After all, how can anyone perform a double jump? The second jump is done in the air after all. This is not something I care about, but I can understand why new players would find it strange, especially with all the 'realistic' shooters out there.

A game does not become less fun just because there are a less jumps, it will just require a little more 'getting-used-to'. And the important thing here is that its us, as in the experienced players, that have to get used to it, not new players from CS/Q3/BF1942.

[The_Deacon]

"UT without all those jumps would be crap, trust me."

"I agree with DoMiNaToR on that one. I can't live without double-jump. I especially love wall jumps. They can make fights so much more spectacular."

You guys ever play UT? I mean the game Unreal Tournament

Dodge jump? Not there.
Double jump? Not there.
Wall jump? Not there.
Combinations thereof? Not there.

Dodge? There.
Crap? No.
Spectacular fights? Hell yes!

Some people need to get a better idea of UT's roots I've noticed. All the fancy far flying pinball moves caused UT200x maps to be scaled very large in comparison to most UT maps. This was one of the things that brought up the player scale issues a lot of people had. In fact, it was more a map scale problem.

Now, I'm not saying that the crazy extra moves aren't good at all. I wouldn't still be playing UT2004 if I thought they were crap. I'm very glad Epic are planning to tone down the effects of these moves though (NOTE: Double jump etc etc ARE STILL IN at time of post).

In my opinion, what would be best, is to remove the double jump (therefore dodge jump too), but keep the wall dodge, and of course standard dodge. I don't like the concept behind the 'random inexplicable mid air boost' that the double jump is. It goes against the entire physics system in the game (nothing else has weird unexplained boosts). Wall dodge is perfectly logical and it would mean there's still some neat tricks to be done, without bouncing around like a freaking rubber ball.

Like I said though, Epic toning down the effects of the extra jumps is a good idea, and since they're going to be there, I hope they're not toned down so much that it's almost not worth using them. I trust Epic to get it at least nearly perfect :D

[legacy-VickissV3]

yeah im glad they are changing the acrobatic style of play to a more grounded , in your face type of game.Like is was said in the mag article. double jump is still in but , no more matrix-esque manuvers

[legacy-DoMiNaToR]

thats crap, i dont like that lot UT99 because theres no wall jump, no double jump, and its not that spectacular and fun. I dont like the games that dont require much skill, i prefer UT2004, it needs a lot of skill for fight in there, thats what makes the game great. well, i like UT1999 and how is it made, but seriously i love adrenaline pumping games like UT2004. i think the next tournament wont sell that lot. (just my opinion)

also the f***ing kralls replaced the Skaarj... :(

kralls = suxor medieval creatures

EDIT: vickiss, you know my style of fighting in UT2004 and you know i cant live with it :(

[legacy-Rubberhead]

quote:Originally posted by Zynith
IMO the perfect balance would be something like this:

1Dodge, but no Dodge-Jump
1Jump or 2Jump, this actually doesn't bother me. Tough there should be a logical explenation to that second jump, like boosters in the side of your boots. That did bother me a bit in UTX.
No Walldodge-Jump.
Movement speed could vary, but should still be way above mainstream movement. I think it's good as it is.
Other than that the animations could be more realistic, with more sence of weight. Like you could nearly feel the power the character needs to build up to nail that walldodge.



This guy has got almost the exact same opinion as I've posted a few times before

What I would be most happy with:
Dodge
Wall Dodge
Movement Speed roughly as is.

There's just something about 'random inexplicable mid air boost' that goes against my logical gamplay brain. Make the boost justified (i.e. built in boot booster) and I'll not complain. Then again, I probably won't complain at all unless the next game movement is totally ballsed up

I'll mention this point as this type of thread always needs someone to say it.
The original Unreal Tournament did NOT have the extended movement features derived from the double jump. Only a standard dodge. I am not saying we should go back to UT directly though.


--------

My response to this matter on INA.
-Zynith

...blah :P

[legacy-nELsOn]

i don't epic will go straight back to what UT with ENVY.

okay, now they said they'd make it a little less acrobatic.
so this (imo) reads like the double-jump won't be as powerful as in ut2k4 - i can live with that as long as it's still in the game!
i could just as well live without the dodge-jump (as long as this doesn't mean dodging up planks will be cut). it's not necessary to be able to have spectacular fights.
i WOULDN'T like to play a slower game like the already mentioned counter strike... that would suck cause UT has always been fast!
dodge-jump however WAS in UT and should definitely be in ENVY too!
i'd also like an explanation for the double-jump (rubberhead's idea was c00l).
epic should keep adrenaline moves since this stuff requires some skill to master.

i think there's quite a bunch of points that can bring back a bit of the 'old' UT feeling and at the same keep the feeling of UT2k4 (which already was more like UT).

anyway, making the game less acrobatic might result in a different way to create custom maps (not that much actually... but a bit)

[fuegerstef]

>> UT without all those jumps would be crap, trust me.

Compare the player numbers of UT and UT2004, Substract Onslaught from the UT2004 numbers and you get a rough idea what Kronon means.

Oh and you can do a lot of tricks in UT. It'S just not soo easy for you n00bs to click a button twice and then another button to make a trickjump and then call it "more skillz needed for UT2004"




BTW: I loooove the UT2004 movement. But I love the different (not inferior) movement of UT too.

[legacy-DoMiNaToR]

theres only one n00b here, and thats you.

i can actually do a lot of tricks in UT. ive been in Unreal since 1998 the first one. so dont call me n00b because you are f**cking wrong.

[legacy-broez]

my opinion is that movement like the doublejump and walldodge are overrated, it doesn't make you a better player or more skillful it's nice if you can do them, but in competitive play walldodges and jumps are all very predictable so you'll be easier to frag. wich is bad;)

BUT, exploring maps for cool jumps and tricks is one of my favorite things to do in ut2k4. maybe EPIC should implant some kind of trick mode.

its a catch22 i tell you...:p

[legacy-DoMiNaToR]

and i tell you if you keep moving and jumping and doing acrobatics you hardly get fragged and it also needs skill.

[legacy-Retodon8]

"I loved the movement in UT2003. Boost-dodge (...) (for example, you could get from one end to antalus to the other with just one trick jump).

You could react in one of three ways: 1. They use some sort of cheat"

I don't know any tricks to fly across Antalus, but I suppose it uses a variant of the boost dodge.
If a new player would see others do that, the first option you offer would be the correct one.
Boost dodging is cheating, it is exploiting a bug in the code that was never meant to be exploited, never meant to be there... by the very definition of bug.
Of course if all people agree upon incorperating the exploit into the matches, it's all good, but you can't expect newbies not to realise it's actually cheating.

As for the next UT, I have mixed feelings about hearing the Dodge Jump being removed.
I won't form an opinion until I actually played the game, or at least see some footage of the thing in action.
I do hope there will be some more advanced movement tricks for the more experienced player to master.

[legacy-DoMiNaToR]

next UT is crap.

- kralls replacing Skaarj OMFG!!!
- moviment limited, WTF?!?

my god, more reasons for not to buy this game.

[fuegerstef]

Thanks for the info... ...oh, and please learn to read the tone of a post. It wasn't meant to be too serious, but I think that's something beyond you capabilities...

[legacy-Nosnos]

I'm definetly with kronon on this one... I love the movement in UT2003/UT2004 but for the better of the game and it's community I would remove doublejump and dodgejump... be sure to keep walldodge though ^^

And to claim that it wont require any skills to play the game without those special moves is just crazy... Learning the moves the first time is easy but once you learn them they arent hard, it just makes the initial learning curve incredibly steep... so steep that a lot of players shy away from it... play against a pro in UT and you will get just as owned as you will get in UT2003/UT2004...

[legacy-DoMiNaToR]

im not starting a flaming war with you, so ill stop this now. im not giving any argument.

[legacy-Bitter-Pill]

As far as removing double jumping goes. Why not just use a very old gaming concept: hold the jump button down longer, to jump higher/farther? This would seem to have a few advantages over current double jumping. New players would be helped by it, since they wouldn't have to time the second button press for an extended jump (making some tricky jumps more manageable) and it would give veteran players more flexibility on the length of each jump they make (making fights a little more dynamic). Not to mention, far more realistic looking movement (not that that bothers me much, but I like things to make sense).

[legacy-Xipher]

If you read the artical, you would notice Double jump is still there.

[legacy-fts]

dominator you are an idiot. get your head out of your ass and stop this bias attitude towards ut99. i doubt you've even played it since it was probably before your time. I play both ut2k4 and ut still and ut's movement makes for better gameplay. you have never played outside atari dm/ons pubs so your opinion doesn't matter.

[legacy-Kronon]

Someone mentioned mapscale, and the more I think about it the more I see this as a huge problem.

There are all kinds or problems related to the mapscale in UT2003/UT2004:
1. Larger maps makes player skins smaller, which was the first thing I noticed when I started UT2003 for the first time.
2. Larger maps makes hitscan weapons the dominating weapon, even with toned down hitscan weapons. Its simply to easy to keep away from flak/rl.
3. Ping becomes more important, since hitscan weapon are more important.
4. Intense in-your-face fights becomes less common.
5. Designing maps becomes much harder, which results in worse maps overall.
6. Since every doorway is twice the height of a player skins, the feel of the game becomes a bit surrealistic, which is something that most new players definitely dont like.
7. Small and intense maps like Turbine and Codex from UT99 is simply not possible to play on in UT2003/UT2004.
8. The speed of the game feels slower, even if the running speed is higher.

And the issue of mapscale is just one of the problems caused by the extra jumps.

/Kronon

[legacy-DoMiNaToR]

of course i played UT99, and i have it, and i still play it online too, you are the idiot. i still play oldschool coop in UT1999. so stfu.

[legacy-Shambler]

Expanding on Rubberheads idea: I had seen the double jump etc. in UT2kx as a kind of partial substitute for the lack of jump boots....how about in the next UT the jump boots are another pickup which allows you to take advantage of these extra jumping moves? (would be a nice mix of both games IMO and would make a bit more sense)

[legacy-fts]

"of course i played UT99, and i have it, and i still play it online too, you are the idiot. i still play oldschool coop in UT1999. so stfu."
ig and assault servers don't count son, give it up your opinions carry no weight. You have no clue what your talking about, gb2 counter strike newb.

[legacy-Kronon]

Putting the extra jumps in a powerup would solve some issues, but it would be a somewhat strange powerup unless the boost in height was very big (like jumpboots on Deck16 in UT99).

Whatever the solution, I just hope Epic has learnt from the mistakes in UT2003/UT2004. It should be clear to everyone that something has to be done, and I think the best way to solve it would be to simply remove the extra jumps.

/Kronon

[legacy--pure-Destruction]

Someone mentioned mapscale, and the more I think about it the more I see this as a huge problem.

There are all kinds or problems related to the mapscale in UT2003/UT2004:
1. Larger maps makes player skins smaller, which was the first thing I noticed when I started UT2003 for the first time.
2. Larger maps makes hitscan weapons the dominating weapon, even with toned down hitscan weapons. Its simply to easy to keep away from flak/rl.
3. Ping becomes more important, since hitscan weapon are more important.
4. Intense in-your-face fights becomes less common.
5. Designing maps becomes much harder, which results in worse maps overall.
6. Since every doorway is twice the height of a player skins, the feel of the game becomes a bit surrealistic, which is something that most new players definitely dont like.
7. Small and intense maps like Turbine and Codex from UT99 is simply not possible to play on in UT2003/UT2004.
8. The speed of the game feels slower, even if the running speed is higher.

And the issue of mapscale is just one of the problems caused by the extra jumps.

/Kronon

tags prolly arent gonna work.

neway. kronon, have my babies?
very fine points about UT1 that people just dont understand about the 2k* series. couldnt have worded it better myself.
To me, ut1 maps were tight. You didnt have a shield gun to defend yourself and run like a chicken from someone. You had to run the best you could. But the maps, they helped in escaping due to being tight with sharp corners, boxes and **** to hide behind. Most 2k maps are too open like you said and rely on low ping and high hitscan efficiency. Even though you have extra jumping abilities to maneuver, sometimes it isnt quit enough since the other dude most likely can keep up with you. Not to mention lockdown from certain weapons that render you immobile while trying to escape. Quite boring for me. Player models blended in with the surrounding map textures (before brightskins and utcomp) And much much more crap to deal with. I have had to try to attempt at getting passed a huge learning curve coming from UT to 2k3 and I still have my old ways of playing that makes me vulnerable in 2k4 at times. But still Im smarter from being a ut1er when I want to be. I could go on, but theres no use really. Its all been covered before.
peace*

[legacy-Retodon8]

About the list of points...

Point 1: Larger maps don't make skins smaller.
I assume you really meant characters (smaller skins just means lower resolution skins, like in UC2), but even then it's not true.
Bigger rooms make characters seem (not be) smaller, and especially outside areas.
If you're going for an outside map there's really nothing you can do about that, it works like that in real life.
The more hardcare DM maps in UT2004 make you feel like you're running a lot faster than big, outside maps, but that only means the game's true to reality.

Point 2, 3 and 4 I all agree with, and Epic already mentioned they are planning on doing something about 4... see the less-frantic-jumping quote.

I don't agree with 5, it won't necesarily be harder to make bigger maps, it'll just take more time.

Point 6... just takes me back to when I was mapping for Doom.
In short it's impossible to make doorways look right, basically because the game camera isn't at the same height as the 3rd person's model's head.
Open UnrealEd, add an addition brush like a table or something, and make it so high you can only just look over it, along the surface.
Now check out somebody else standing where you were standing, and notice how it doesn't seem to agree with what you just experienced, at all.
You can't just raise put the game camera in the correct position of the model either, even if the model was scaled realistically (hard to say, since there aren't really things like metres in game engines), because then things would still look wrong.
Humans have a very wide range of view (talking about FOV here), computer monitors do not.
When making a game, and therefore maps, there are always tradeofs to be made.
Well, until we get to the place where graphics are directly projected into our eyes, or when the data is transmitted directly into our brain.

Point 7... no, some maps simply don't work with the new physics, running speed, jumping/dodging abilities.

Point 8, game speed also has to do with the height of the game camera; closer to the floor makes the game feel faster.
Then there's the FOV I mentioned earlier that also makes a big difference.

What I'm trying to say is, it's just impossible to make everything work perfectly.
There are people that prefer the playing style of UT to UT2004, so if those are the majority, Epic would be wise to try and get that game's feeling back of course.

[legacy-Kronon]

Retodon, I think you are missing my point. Most things in the maps has to be made larger due to the extra jumps, which means the maps themselves becomes larger, which makes the skins look smaller, and so on.

Take stairs for example: every single stair in UT2003/UT2004 is 10 meters wide. There isnt a single normal 1-2 meter wide stair in the whole game.

Every doorway is 3-4 meters high (and atleast 3 meters wide), every walkway is atleast 4 meters wide, and so on. And all these put together gives the impression that you are playing in a world made for larger people.

All this also makes it much harder to make maps, since as a mapper, you try to make the map to look as normal as possible, and yet it has to support the extra movements. And since the maps HAS to be scaled up to support the extra jumps, the running speed will feel lower, and the game experience feel slower.

The extra jumps also makes the game harder to learn, with a steep learning curve. Put together, the extra jumps simply isnt worth all these drawbacks (especially if you are a new player).

/Kronon

[legacy-fts]

i agree with kronon

[legacy-DoMiNaToR]

lol its funny how you post FTS.
You always agree with kronon in everything.
rofl, this funny.

[legacy-Nosnos]

A lot of people probably agree with Kronon I know I do, at least for the most part ^^ I don't Epic should try to make the game like UT99 though, not so that it is a sort of a remake... Keep the best part from UT2004: the overall weaponbalance/weaponswitch, walldodge, LG and the shieldgun although perhaps not as over the top useful as it is now. Then blend it with the best of what UT99 had to offer like the gameplay>eyecandy when it comes to maps, the scale, the music, weapon sounds and ofc dodge... I know I would buy a game like that ^^

[legacy-fts]

"lol its funny how you post FTS.
You always agree with kronon in everything.
rofl, this funny."

wow jealousy is spreading through this forum like wildfire...

dom admit it, you're obsessed with me. its ok, chicks dig the long ball

[legacy-DoMiNaToR]

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOL! dude, you have to grow up seriously, the only obsesed here is named fts...

[legacy-Ictus]

Yes, the increased player mobility in UT2003/4 causes the maps to be gigantic, which TENDS to make players look very small, and not suited for their environments.

Scale is a weird thing because everything is relative. Your eye takes in things like small details and trim thickness, and cieling height to establish a mental scale, and when something doesn't fit, it really stands out.

If things are well designed with visual scale in mind, these problem can be avoided. If you take a door that is meant to be a realistically sized door, and then make it 30 feet tall (which is not uncommon in ut2004) something will look very wrong when you see a player standing in that door.

This problem is partially caused by the modular static mesh system, since level designers can scale things however they want, and artists lose some of the control necessary to make things look the right scale. The solution is for everybody to communicate how things are going to be used to avoid crimes against scale (travesty-of-scale is another good term).

Some of this is also caused by the fact that scale is very difficult to guage in first person due to some optical illusions inherent in rendering from that perspective with such a large FOV, on such a small screen (try playing UT with an FOV of 180 with your nose up to the screen; that is pretty awesome if you can stand the eye strain!)

But in general the maps in UT2004 are also overscaled from a gameplay perspective also, maps maps take a long time to traverse if you aren't constantly dodge jumping.

[legacy-Netsurfer733]

Lol you know that you're supposed to keep your eyes 3 ft. away from the screen at all times, right Ictus? :) (just a disclaimer for the easily influenced kiddies lol ;) )

[legacy-Retodon8]

Getting off-topic a bit more, you can use a fresnel lens in front of your monitor, making the resulting virtual image be very far away, which should be more relaxing for your eyes.
Also with it you can make 1 image from 2 regular monitors, at least with a supposedly invisible edge inbetween your 2 images.

Googling... can't find what I was looking for, but this seems a good link as well:
http://www.rickleephoto.com/rlcoll.htm
I don't have any experience with using fresnel lenses for this myself.

[legacy-Kronon]

FOV 180 and eyes close to the monitor sounds l33t. Have to try that :)

About scale: the problem with UT2003/UT2004 is that its not possible to do a normal indoor map with a 'correct' scale, unless you want to seriously affect gameplay.

When UT2003 was released, there where all kinds of conversions from UT. And while some where playable (barely), the conversions from the smaller maps like Turbine and Codex where awful due to scale problems. Either they had the scale from UT, which was much to cramped for UT2003, or they where scaled up to support the new movements, which made the maps look and feel very wrong.

Its also important to realize that we get used to scale. For example, if I play UT2004 I don't think it 'looks' wrong, but I am pretty sure most players from other shooters notices it at once, althought they might think its because FOV, eye-height, etc.

/Kronon