Skiing
From TribalWar
Skiing(sometimes referred to as skating) is a method of movement in Tribes. It was an unforeseen side-effect of the game's physics.
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What is Skiing?
Skiing is the accumulation of speed through jumping on the downslope and jumping in conjunction with jetting on the upslope. It can be performed in any armor, though it is most forgiving in light armor. It's used primarily to traverse large distances quickly and gain momentum, but can also be used to gain altitude.
Origins
While members of the original dev team claim to have known of skiing, it was limited to very crude forms. Skiing did not develop overnight. It was not a well-realized skill from the outset that matured over time. Players were timid at first when confronting large downslopes and wide-open areas, fearing that a clumsy fall would result in a loss of health and a long trek back. Some intrepid early players noticed that they could gain some (relative) speed if they jumped from the top of a slope instead of the usual running, or falling with jet assistance. The more the player would jump on the downhill, the more quickly the descent became. They also noticed that the resulting slide would give them inertia. The combination of creating momentum through jumping downhill and jumping while jetting uphill was called skiing.
Ski Scripts
The first public ski scripts were available in the summer of 1999. It is thought that individual players and individual teams had ski scripts slightly before this. For the most part, ski scripts were a requirement for most competitive players by the end of 1999. Ski scripts made skiing much easier, as it replaced the process of hitting a key repeatedly with holding a single key. The effect of ski scripts was greater than any other single entity.
Effects on Gameplay
Although while in its infancy skiing was very difficult, with the newly available scripts, skiing was accessible to everyone. Although applicable to all gameplay styles, CTF was revolutionized by it.
The most obvious effects were demonstrated by cappers. Cappers found new routes to the flag, for a short while annihilating the, to then, standard forward-facing defenses. Deployable turrets, a mainstay in early defenses, would become less and less effective at stopping the increasingly speedy flag thieves.
Skiing, and especially the cappers who used it, lead to an arms race. To remain relevant against the cappers, light defenders had to increase their awareness. They too would find it imperative to ski. Body blocking was used by the LD against the cappers, who in turn found quicker, more stealthy cap routes. The light D employed the use of mines through mine-discing and mine fields. With the increased time cappers spent in the air, chainwhoring became necessary and much more prevalent. The skill involved in both capping and defending would increase exponentially in tandem.
Heavy armor was also affected by skiing. Where before skiing, heavy offense was a nuisance that few could execute properly, it was now a force that dictated the entire map. The sheer number of HO on any given map gave rise to alternate strategies, including the cluster.
Did Skiing Ruin Tribes?
There's no debate that skiing fundamentally changed the game of Tribes. But were the effects negative? Skiing's effects were not seen instantly. It was a process that, while profoundly significant, took more than a year to be realized. The height of Tribes' popularity was summer/fall of 1999, before the effects of skiing were in play. By then the game was more than 6 months old, which is about the time interest begins to wane. Tribes' popularity steadily declined through 2000. The effects of skiing also increased steadily through 2000.
The learning curve that skiing presented was intimidating for new players, especially the more advanced skiing became. This could have deterred such players from establishing themselves in the game. Formerly established players who could not ski or did not want to ski may have begun to leave. Some of these players may have realized they could not keep up with the evermore demanding competition, or preferred the more docile Tribes skiing left in its wake.
Some players contend that ski scripts were the culprit, as skiing was nearly impossible to use to its full extent without a script. They felt the skill was replaced with automation, making it artificial.
It is clear that skiing may have, directly or indirectly, lead a number of players to abandon the game. However, skiing was vital for any continuing presence it had. The speed and gameplay style it offered in Tribes were unmatched in any other game, before or since. The type of exhilaration from using such a unique skill made the, perhaps growingly monotonous aspects of the game tolerable. Without it, the game would have been abandoned by everyone.
Modern Skiing
Modern skiing is extremely diverse. Players use specific techniques to perform different jobs with skiing.
Cappers can use a quick low trajectory ski to avoid attention, they can use a very high trajectory ski to avoid taking damage, or in coordination with a disc jump, attain previously unfathomable speed. These methods opened new strategies and techniques of their own.
A light defender has different, often more challenging goals with regards to skiing. A chaser starts a ski, often from a dead stop, and follows the route of the capper while attacking, or they can use a very quick cutoff route to intercept their target.
Modern skiing is also exhibited in Team Rabbit, where specially sculpted maps and spawn points makes it quite a spectacle.
Abominations
There have been a number of attempts to recreate skiing in other games or even modify skiing within Tribes. One such disaster was Base plus plus, a mod for Tribes designed by the Tribes 2 development team. It was intended as a precursor to Tribes 2. It featured less inertia and slower energy regeneration rates for an overall slower gameplay experience. It was widely criticized and dismissed by the Tribes playing community.
Tribes 2 attempted to duplicate the Tribes skiing experience in a new engine. This however resulted in a clumsy feel. Many mods tried to correct this, but none with much success.
Tribes:Vengeance abandoned any effort to recreate an authentic ski feel.
