UT Movement Mechanics Design

[Mll]

After your second dodge, your velocity is directed downwards for a dodge, bots seem to break this.
It is impossible as a player to do what the bots can do, and I am certainly not in favour of a cool down for a walldodge.

[chicken-]

Does anybody actually believe this is a pre-alpha anymore? If this were actually a pre-alpha we could be experimenting with completely different movements but we all know it's pretty nailed down where it is other than smaller stuff like perhaps wall slide being changed. The moment they meshed up Titan Pass was the nail in the coffin for the movement as far as dodge distance and the important stuff.

[TotesAmaze]

Does anybody actually believe this is a pre-alpha anymore? If this were actually a pre-alpha we could be experimenting with completely different movements but we all know it's pretty nailed down where it is other than smaller stuff like perhaps wall slide being changed. The moment they meshed up Titan Pass was the nail in the coffin for the movement as far as dodge distance and the important stuff.

I really hope this isn't true. Please experiment with the movement more Epic - I think its pretty far from being final.

Actually that sounded whiney sorry. Its definately heading in the right direction, but the pacing feels a bit off - or something. Need that movement prototyper mutator back so we can experiment with values

[catnipZ]

Old ut99er, CB cup winning bunny tracker, who moved to Q3A cpma then Nexuiz (before it was ruined and went to steam) and is now in QL vql

I am all for a lot of movement skill, but I am against "too much" movement skill as this tends to make the learning curve too steep and in the end reduces the player-base,it can also take away too much from the skill of making good choices and reading your enemy.

There should be some extremely hard ramp dodges/corner to corner dodges to take short-cuts in maps, these should have indirect benefits (i.e. not directly resulting in an important item pickup, more like moving from one important area of a map to another, offering position and or awareness as the reward) but there should be ways to punish people using these moves, if the enemy can bait them into using them and predict they will be used, however punishing the use of these dodges should not be "novice level" when the dodge is "expert level".

To encourage and reward using the movement system, all maps need to be littered with easy to medium difficulty ramps and dodges.
Punishing failed dodges needs to take into account what a punishment is for different level players... the best idea would be to make punishments which seem like nothing more than the punishment of not getting the item to a newer player (so they do not suffer from loss aversion which will stop them practising their dodging skills) but which are far more significant to better players because of lost position. The punishment of certain death for failure needs to be avoided (though I personally would like lots of stupidly hard dodges with extremely harsh punishments for failure, I realise this is not something that keeps new players playing.)

Movement speed should be the same in all directions, there is no reason to mess with this, slower back-pedalling would merely result in everyone spinning 180 and 360 all the time. You cannot stop +back play styles when maps favour/allow it, you can only end up changing it to +forwardspinning which seems just quirky and pointless.

Unresponsive movement sucks and is for MMS ****. Fast acceleration please.

Air control is a hard balance.. you don't want people rooted to the ground all the **** time because going air born is the same as being a stationary target to a decent player with low air control, but you also do not want to totally remove important decisions about when to be airborne and when not to be airborne which too much aircontrol + overall movement speed can do, the right balance would probably be a lot less than cpma quake has, but a lot more than vanilla quake has.

Wall dodges and double jumps should probably be left out of the main game but they should be included in some kind of "fun mode" (if only because I want a community run bunnytrack/speedrunning scene that makes use of these features xD)

Jumps at the apex of a dodge should work so that you still have a decision to make mid dodge and are not totally commited to landing in one place, these should give more depth to some mind games but not allow you to default to always doing long dodges or always doing short dodges apart from the 1% of the time that the other is clearly favourable.

In short, movement skills should be fun, should not give a **** about realism and should be there to give the game more depth. Movement skill should also be accessible but very hard to master. One should never forget that movement, dodge (avoiding being hit... not double tap) and aim are all part of the same whole and need to work together.

Reload times and weapon change times have a huge impact on how movement is used, there should be safe windows for fast movement. Different movement strategies should be favourable vs different weapons and in different positions.

[myxomatosis]

what about walking in the surface of the water for a while if you first step in the right speed or angle?

[1LL]

Just want to toss in some opinion here even though I believe Epic has made up their mind on much. At least they are allowing people to actually say things about the game even if negative instead of banning everyone that spoke down on the game like they used to do.

Quick reference - played UT99 faithfully for many years. I'm talking all night bingers.Much love for it but once I tried 2k4 I was hooked and couldn't go back.Spent a couple of years in UED making 20 maps or so.
Lets not even mention 2k3 but yeah I played it. Ran crappy so I went back to 99.
2k4 raised the bar by capitalizing on something that was widely ignored in most shooters - advanced movement. It was a game changer. Perhaps you weren't an eagle eye shooter...well the moves helped balance that out.Very challenging as you didn't know if your enemy was going to dodge,wall dodge,dodge jump,double jump,wall dodge jump,etc. Then add lift jumping or jump pads into the mix and it made for a harder to hit enemy. Of course 30% to 35% say that made you an easier target but even if 49% say that it doesn't matter because that's not the majority and doesn't make it true.

As per thread I want to comment on a few things even if a waste of time. I do love the game and miss it so I just would'nt feel right if I didn't at least stop in and say I tried - just as I did with UT3.

Run Speed - it's ok I guess. They raised the speed to account for no dodge jump. I believe this to be a mistake. Faster run speed just means a sloppier feel and more spamminess.

Acceleration - seems ok to me - not a deal breaker

Air control - doesn't matter because you cannot jump more than 1 ft off the ground. If we're talking lift jumps then you should have some control but not be able to do cork screws. If low grav then it should be controlled via mutator.

Jump Height - it's too low now. So watered down it's useless. Why jump at all? You're not gonna jump over anything or evade much splash damage. But then again I feel as though thats the point u guys are going for. You want people to be able to damage
others more and having movements that can evade are not good for mainstream. Everyone cannot be Godlike in a month and I wish u guys would see that's ok. If noobs do not want to put in the time to get better then let them run back to halo or cod.

Gravity - slightly less than 2k4.

Dodging - sorely needs dodge jump. OR AT MINIMUM a mutator - then mappers will build maps scaled accordingly. This will be a deal breaker for many I feel. Everyone I talk to would rather slow run speed to get DJ back.

Double jump - why not? It's not like it's a game changer. To me it just adds another basic move to the game. Better than wall running. Wall running - really? lol. Cannot do a proper dodge jump but you're gonna allow wall running.

Wall dodge - nerfed. Why even do it other than to get to a ledge slighter higher than a standard jump? If you do it for defense/evasion it wont help you much,especially in tighter maps. Again I feel this is to keep movements down so they are not a factor when fighting.

To simply all of this I'd say if I had to sum it this is what I see. UT3 was dumbed down to appeal to mainstream. You guys took most of what was fun out of UT. A lesson should have been learned since it tanked. Now no offense to 99ers as I am a 8 year 99er myself but UT3 was closer to 99 than 2k4. It failed. So the way I see it is UT4 should now be closer to 2k4. Lets give that ago and see what happens.

Epic needs to stop trying to please everyone. ITS NOT GONNA HAPPEN. The UT99 community was more united back in the day because there were less games out at that time - and to its credit it was the baddest game out. Better than slow *** CS and although quake was great,everyone I knew who saw and played UT left quake to never return. Even back then the community was somewhat fragmented tho because everyone was broke into DM,CTF,IG,etc. Accept that you will not UNITE all UT'ers and noobs - NEVER.

Nowadays you have consolers and manchildren wanting to be Godlike in a month. You have all of these games saturating the market that have no moves and are easy to get good at quick. Stand,crouch,prone,maybe a small strafe, and shoot. Boring.
Stand out from the crowd and make something that someone isn't doing which is making a game that has movements.You do not need to ONLY use weapons for fast and furious gameplay.Moves will help with this too. I do not mean making us run faster or skidding on my a$$ either.
I hate to sound negative but I think I am trying to help and you cannot say I am wrong because IT HASN"T BEEN TRIED YET. Real FPS'ers are craving a challenging and fun game where they do not have to be worried about being handcuffed or penalized for putting in the time to improve. I want the game to succeed. Many 99ers helped me in my noob days so in turn all thru my years I tried to help noobs - not beat them down and chase them off. I always tried to get more players in.
BUT NEVER DID I THINK IN A MILLION that I would have my favorite game ruined because of them. Now I say screw em if they do not want to put in the time. We all know how lazy and spoiled so many are nowadays.

[richardboegli]

Single Tap Dodge is AWESOME.

Thanks to whomever put that in UT4.

As of a few months back, I've changed single tap dodge to space and jump to shift, as there is no walk at the moment.

[Reless]

The only thing I really miss is the dodge jump. It was a great risk/reward mechanic! You could get around the maps faster but it made you an easy target for the above average player
Thanks for bringing back UT! (and dodge jump? )

[Andriushka]

About wall run. Maybe increase movement speed of 25% until the last wall run. This is a good reason to use wall run when it is not necessary. It balances time required to approach the wall and gives a small bonus.

[richardboegli]

The only thing I really miss is the dodge jump. It was a great risk/reward mechanic! You could get around the maps faster but it made you an easy target for the above average player
Thanks for bringing back UT! (and dodge jump? )

There were a lot of heated threads about this in the past. I would suggest searching and having a read. Lots of interesting pros and cons.

[150fps]

There were thousands of die-hard UT99 fans.
There were hundreds of die-hard UT2K4 fans.
There was one die-hard UT3 fan.

The movement, mechanics, and scale of the original Unreal Tournament was superb. Why elaborate on something that worked so well? It was simplistic in nature. It was easy for beginners to learn, yet difficult to master via competitive play - much like the Quake series.

This is simply my own opinion.

Agreed 100%. Start with ut99 and tweak from there as needed.

I used to play the vanilla DM servers. Hated all the instagib and servers with speed turned up. It turns the game to mush. Mechanics are zero-sum; you can't just make the game more exciting by turning up the speed knob. So please find the balance that allows the player to get into that fast twitch groove and leave it alone. UT99 mechanics were nearly perfect.

Focus on feel, not on visual aesthetics, realism, or how it looks to someone on Youtube. I believe that any compromise that moves toward console territory (slower acceleration, motion blur effects, etc.) is a step in the wrong direction. At the end of the day, users who tune their machines for top FPS should be allowed to feel an advantage.

I think the gentleman who said the game should be enjoyable to watch at 30 fps is just putting the cart before the horse here. Gameplay first, please.

[frickE]

I will wait for UT5 maybe we got better movement then this **** .

[Sati1984]

Agreed 100%. Start with ut99 and tweak from there as needed.

My biggest gripe after 4 or so hours put in the game right now with UT4 is the floaty movement.

Let me explain the main issue: my character is not heavy enough, gravity doesn't pull my character down fast enough after a jump or a dodge giving UT4 an unnecessary floaty feel.

This is not just a feeling of a player who has been playing UT99 for 14 years (I still play iCTF and random DM to this day!). I can give you objective reasons on why it's bad: when I'm on the defensive side and want to avoid getting hit either by projectile weps or hitscan, my movement is a tad late compared to UT99. Meaning I have the reflexes to avoid the flak secondary, since I can see the arc, but oh, no, I'm in the middle of a dodge, which lasts a bit too long, and SPLAT! I'm shredded.

I can imagine the reason for this: if jumping and dodging isn't that fast, the game is more noob-friendly and it doesn't take that much skill to hit a floating character. But I think it's not rewarding not being able to use your reflexes. The worst feeling in a game (in any game) is to see that you could avoid getting hit if it were for your reflexes, but you don't have the right (necessary) amount of control over your character... and get hit. This causes frustration after a while, even in newbies.

So... I think UT99 movement needs to be implemented in regards of dodging and jumping. I don't mind wall run and wall-dodge (but the latter feels just as floaty as normal dodge now), if the normal jump and normal dodge is implemented more UT99-like.

That said, the game is fun and addictive as it is now, and I'll soon enter into the iCTF scene

[Komkommer]

Is dodge-wall-walking a bug? (Wall walking on a sloped wall, with almost the speed of the dodge)

[NoBrainsNoAims^]

Is dodge-wall-walking a bug? (Wall walking on a sloped wall, with almost the speed of the dodge)

This is a movement feature. Dodge or jump against a wall, then hold your jump button down, and you will run along the wall for a limited amount of time. The speed of your wall run is determined by your momentum as you hit the wall. Doesn't need to be sloped, standard walls work too. I think the sloped walls just allow you to extend the run distance.