experimental said:
imo we have to let people move around, but punish them (via energy use) for needing to correct, hence the new players still have an edge over them.[...]
consider the new player that jets to reach a platform, but underestimates, they want to correct. they get annoyed if they cant. -- with our physics system, the new player can jet to the platform, mess it up in a minor way, and still have enough thrust (if they spend all their energy) to correct and hit the platform.
now to allow for this level of forgiveness at low end movement, and 'compression' of thrust boost to quickly get new players up to 35kph when thrusting (which is afterall, just running speed), without toasting it for vets, thats our challenge.
Agreed. After watching the video, and stalking you through the forums for a while (gotta love that "find all posts by experimental" feature
), here's my own perspective on the whole "floaty" issue.
1. Where's the gravity? Things don't appear to fall quickly enough...I understand that all the physics are correct, but the video really makes it look like you're flying around in a low-g environment. In order for the freedom of motion in Tribes to really
feel like freedom of motion, we need to feel like we need to do something to keep in the air.
I suspect that you could solve a lot of this by simply giving the armors more mass. Increase the thrust accordingly (so they still accelerate the same) but make them
feel heavier in the air.
The goal is not to feel like a fairy dancing in the clouds. This isn't Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, where you tiptoe gracefully across the treetops. This is Tribes, where you're wearing a ton of powered armor, a big heavy metal suit of protection that you couldn't even lift on your own. You should feel like the only thing keeping you up in the air is thrust, and the momentum you get from it.
THRUST. In T1, it's more important than the air you breathe. In T:V, I think it should be powerful (as it appears in the videos)...WHAM you hit the thruster, you get results. But when you let go, you should start falling a bit more quickly.
The main point I'm trying to make is that the freedom of vertical movement in T:V will seem even more liberating if the gravity is more pronounced.
2. Here's how I would solve the predictability issue:
Increase the player's inertia. (Which of course means increasing the player's mass...yep, same solution as #1.) Make it so that when you thrust in a given direction, you accelerate quickly. But if you want to counter that movement, and move in another direction, you have to first overcome the inertia.
Since you've stated that real physics are already involved, I'll assume that this is already happening. What I would recommend is to make it feel more pronounced.
This gives more strategic importance to the movements you make while in the air, because you need to plan your moves better if you want to keep your momentum. Once you jet to the right, you can't just instantly move to the left...you'll need to jet "through" your inertia if you want to reverse directions like that.
So, the new player who needs to correct at the top of a jump in order to land on the platform, is able to do so with no problems. But in a fight, that same ability to move easily in
one direction at a time means that it will be harder not to telegraph your moves.
The trick, of course, is not to increase mass/inertia/gravity so much that you feel overly limited by them. The key to that, of course, is balancing thrust amplitude and thrust availability so you always feel able to maneuver -- just not completely without discretion.
