experimental said:
yep. and we get to the crux of the matter - thanks for the explanation, because this hang time at the end of the thrust is just a result of being able to achieve vertical speed more easily via thrusting than in t1 (for all armors).
consider this, currently if you hold forward and thrust at the same time from standing still on the ground, you'll end up going about 45 degrees up. while in t1 you go pretty much flat for a good bit, then start arcing up a bit.
why did we do this instead? because it really REALLY freaks out new players, even worse is when you have to do platform jumps, and you thrust up first to get the height, then thrust forwards to go to the platform -- do it any other way in t1 and you wont make it.
you guys are so used to this, i understand how this change could be a bit of a shock - i even see why for veteran players, its actually better to have a flatter arc at times, because when you are going down and you want to adjust horizontally to hit the entry for a ski route, the last thing you want is for massive vertical thrust to be kicking in *slowing* you down.
my suspicion is that its this high vertical thrust while adjusting when travelling down is giving you this 'soupy' feel. and you know what, i agree with you, it annoys me too (personally), and i'm not even a tribes player.
but one thing it certainly isnt, is too low 'gravity'. so can we get this straight please, in the future *everybody* just tell us exactly what the negative effects you are experiencing are, without jumping to conclusions (although feel free to suggest them), and we'll see what we can do about it.
Thank you for the reply. Again, this will be easiest to handle with a hands on experience (makes me wish I was at E3), but I'm willing to give it a go.
I think visually, I'm seeing players rocket upwards too easily. They regenerate a little energy, and then get a large aerial boost, minimizing their downtime, and causing them to be in the air constantly.
As a corrollary, the players are probably using this higher jetpack thrust to hover too easily. In T1 and T2, a player's ability to fly begins to "fail." He goes over his peak, and begins to drop. At this point, not even a full burn will reverse the player's fall. In the video, I'm watching players arrest the start of their drop, and maybe even gain some good height. In other words, the inevitability of the fall is being disrupted by the higher thrust of the jetpack. This contributes to a floaty feel, because it looks like players are having no problem maintaining their height.
Only when a player has really begun to fall (and there we see the gravity kick in to high speed) does he seem to reach inevitable touchdown. Unfortunately, instead of thumping hard against the ground and losing his momentum, he seems to bounce very slightly, maintaining some of his lost momentum. In other words, maybe the player is being punished less for landing badly, because of the bounce.
In addition, the air control seemed relatively extreme. There are several points where players turn around corners at a steady height. While this level of control is very pretty, it's also been (thanks to mods in T1 and T2) historically found to make it difficult to score hits.
Combine this with the lowered downtime and the loss of punishment, and players seem to be too free to move. The game theoretically loses much of its predictability, which is actually what T1 and T2 gameplay depended upon. In these older games, when a player lands, he is punished severely for landing, unless he lands into a ski.
If a player can get back off the ground into a high jump too quickly, and has so much air control, and can recover from his fall, then we've removed part of the predictable core.
Again, this is mostly assumption built up from observations and experience with T1 and T2 classic physics, so chalk anything incorrect in my post up to a lack of experience with T:V.
I might consider, from my distanced viewpoint, lowering the severe upwards thrust, causing a bad landing to stunt your movement (rather than bounce you), adjusting the lateral thrusting ability to give far less horizontal impulse, and maybe even lowering gravity a tiny bit after making those changes.
That's just a vague start. I can't do much better until beta. Good luck experimental. You ought to sit down with KP some day, and work completely on physics.
As a further note, I know this sounds really cruel to the newbies, but maybe some of the beneficial physics features for the new players should be reduced (or in extreme cases, removed, though I doubt this would possibly be necessary). For example, you mentioned this current horizontal movement is intuitive, while old Tribes lateral movement is not, or something along those lines. While this may be true, the gameplay effects of more powerful lateral movement are detriment. It basically makes careful player positioning less important, and it cuts down on the predictability of players.
One more thing. So called "noobification" (ugh I hate that term) or "easy acceleration while in low speeds" affects the vast majority of gameplay for everyone, because even the veterans spend much of their combat time at below 30 kph.
If this "predictability as an important gameplay element" is something you haven't heard, either ask KP (he'll know) or ask me to make a big post about it.
Edit: I apologize if any of this post was difficult to read or presumptuous. Blame it on the fact that I wrote it hours after I'd normally be asleep.