The movement....it's all in the movement

[Mr-Fusion]

So i was thinking about FPS games that i've played endlessly and the list was Haf-Life , Opposing Force, Jedi Knight, Mysteries of the Sith, Quake 2, Doom 2, Counter-Strike and Day of Defeat.

Story and atmosphere aside, a large reason I played those games over and over is for the ownage factor. They put you in a semi-realistic setting , with semi-realistic movement characteristics and weapons that can be utilized to deliver extreme levels of destruction. When i load up Counter-Strike it just feels "right". Some things look and behave realistically but after enough practice and learning i'm suddenly jumping with the awp hs'ing a guy 100 m away, whipping a deagle out hs'ing a few guys running at me.....i find that variance in gameplay awesome. Skillful players can peak at dizzying heights.

Whereas a game like CoD, MOHAA or BF1942 has restrictive movement. Skillful players are held back by clumsy bobbing of guns/viewpoint, random bullet spread of weapons, slow , unresponsive strafe speeds all in the name of 'realism'. You can practice and practice and practice but only reach a certain level of skill due to those factors. The depth of gameplay is very shallow and I find it incredibly hard to become addicted to the gameplay of games that restrict my potential. Inversely a game like Painkiller which is straight out carnage at fast speeds is not interesting to me because that's the game's only dimension. Your only option is to spam.

Half-Life 2 looks like it's going to carry on this great feeling of movement. The strafe speeds are perfect, the movement speeds are fantastic, there's a great selection of 1-shot kill weapons. Judging by the coast bink if you have the skills and knowledge of the map you can play the game at a ferocius pace and get extreme adrenaline rushes from the ownage.

And that's all i gots to say about that...

 

[Sparta]

Yeah, CS and HL is one of those games where everything just feels "right". STALKER and HL2 look like they're going to be like that as well

 

[Tiddalick]

Yes, its what I have always said.

To play a FPS well its 2 things:
70% Movement
30% Aiming

Even if your not the best of shots, you can always dodge in move in for the kill, or come up behind them, etc etc

 

[Adminslimited]

The maps are going to be huge. The time limit for the maps might increase too with the size.
I just can't wait until we get some water fighting mods or car fighting mods.

 

[Lazlow]

Oh, you're so right that you don't even know how right you are. HL2 will control like a dream.

 

[P43.2/1Gig/X800P]

Half life 2 is like that movie Never Ending Story lol Except it should be called Never Ending MODS

 

[iamaelephant]

Hhhmm, never thought of it this way, but I think you're right. Must be why I love UT2k4 so much.

 

[Dead-Inside]

Yes, its what I have always said.

To play a FPS well its 2 things:
70% Movement
30% Aiming

Even if your not the best of shots, you can always dodge in move in for the kill, or come up behind them, etc etc

How about me? I always come up behind, and I rarely miss their head, even if I do I still hit their body.

 

[Styloid]

I know exactly how you feel. I kind of see it like this:
HL and other games with 'good' control let you control the focal point of your character; what your eyes are looking at. In real life your eyes can jump from one object to another very fast and very precisely moving your head just a little.
Other games seem to let you control where the character's head is aiming. If you try looking from one thing to another moving only your head and keeping your eyes focused straight ahead of you, it feels awkward and slow; but that is sometimes what I feel like I'm doing in other games.

 

[dis]

I hate it when games add (what I perceive to be) exaggerated head bob and lurching that occurs with each step. That's one reason why I've disliked games based on the Unreal engine. ALsp, for those that have played Thief 3 (I loved the game), but the movement in that was a little annoying. I understand what the developers are trying to achieve, but to me it just comes out kinda lame and makes a game less appealing. It tends to draw me out of the experience because it makes moving so awkward when in my daily life I do not experience this. Somestimes it reminds me of playing Tombraider - like when you want Lara to just creep up to a ledge and you would hit the wrong button and she would take a full step (and fall to her death). That always irritated me how she took a full step like that unless you hit another button. In closing, just give me fluid and simple movement please...

 

[Hunchback]

...sure, headbob if over-exagarrated is extremly off putting, but not to have it at all...watching the binks it just looks wrong, though that not to say it will feel that way when actually playing it...

also, the effect of being shot in doom 3 was the best i've ever seen in an fps, an visual 'rumble pack' effect if u will...yet again, there seems nothing like like from HL2's binks....

hmmm...

 

[-UGC-Commando]

yes,for me also its ALL about the 'feel' of the game and its weapons..its gotta be just right,or i don't want to play.Some games..it feels like your skating along or something,others,like your char is stomping up and down rapidly as he runs,making the screen bounce up and down rapidly-i hate that.The guns have got to have a good feel to them too,sometimes it feels like you are firing a supersoaker or something,in better titles guns have a good,'meaty' feel to them.

 

[Beast206]

....The guns have got to have a good feel to them too,sometimes it feels like you are firing a supersoaker or something,in better titles guns have a good,'meaty' feel to them.

I hope they eventually do an automatic weapon correctly in a game. I think all game programmers should have to go to a shooting range and fire a few hundred rounds through the guns they are portraying in-game. THEN.. sit back and watch the pros use them. Then maybe we won't see this 45 degree cone of accuracy from an automatic weapon at 5 meters. That always pisses me off.

 

[Jakeic]

i dislike headbobs because when i move around in real life, my head doesn't bob, well, it moves, but my eyes stay focused on what i'm looking at, despite my head moving. Games with head bobs feel fake.

psh, the effect of being shot in Doom 3 was one of the most annoying features of the game, and there were many in that game. it literally made it impossible to do anything.

Another annoying feature in some games is the aiming down the sights. you look down the gun, and half the screen is then the gun, making it impossible to see anything, as well as the muzzle flash blocking out a good portion of the viewable screen as well.

Playability should never be sacrificed for realism.

 

[Beast206]

Yeah.. the only iron sight feature I ever really used in a game that I liked was the one in "Blackhawk Down". And that was only for the aimpoint sights. It worked nicely.

The method you described always felt pretty intrusive to me also. That's the main thing I dislike anout Stalker at the moment.

 

[boomyak]

that's all fine and good, but you can't knock CoD. The theme, not the engine dictates the primitive automatic weapon's inaccuracy, but this is to encourage you to burst shoot, plus all weapons have ironsights with added zoom, this is particularly why i can't play CS, because you can't bring the gun to your face. Oh and you can crouch and go prone which offer different enhancements to stealth and weapon steadyness.

 

[affen]

I kinda dislike crouching and proning, it makes camping more easily. If there's one thing I hate, it's camping. Action should be quite fast, movement should be fluid and simple and shooting should be accurate (based on skill).

 

[Doofus]

Another annoying feature in some games is the aiming down the sights. you look down the gun, and half the screen is then the gun, making it impossible to see anything, as well as the muzzle flash blocking out a good portion of the viewable screen as well.

Although I'll agree with you here in 90% of all cases, I have to defend Call of Duty. The ironsights in CoD were amazing. They actually made it useful to use them, and they didn't interfere with the screen too much. I think CoD is one of the only games that actually has pulled off the ironsights with good results. (The only other I can think of is a mod for Quake 3 called "True Combat")

Call of Duty was mentioned in the first post as one of the games that didn't feel "right". I would beg to differ. Although the player models may bob when moving, there wasn't any bob when you were moving, in your first person perspective. The movement was very good, and very fluent.

I might just be a CoD fanboy, but I find CoD to be a much better game than CS, or DoD for that matter. And with the expansion pack (United Offensive) coming out on Wednesday, they'll have tanks and jeeps in multiplayer, adding a new element to the game. I can't wait to see if they can pull it off as well as they pulled off the first game.

 

[DarkSonic]

Whereas a game like CoD, MOHAA or BF1942 has restrictive movement. Skillful players are held back by clumsy bobbing of guns/viewpoint, random bullet spread of weapons, slow , unresponsive strafe speeds all in the name of 'realism'. You can practice and practice and practice but only reach a certain level of skill due to those factors. The depth of gameplay is very shallow and I find it incredibly hard to become addicted to the gameplay of games that restrict my potential.

You do realize that the games you mentioned are TEAM based, right? It isn't supposed to be unrealistic like CS where you can take out a whole team by yourself.

 

[A.I.]

Well, CoD revolutionised my tactical movement a lot. Since then movement in HL feels like ice-skating And I believe that comparing HL, Quake 2, and other FPS with CoD, MOHAA or BF1942 is like comparing apples and oranges. They have different philosophies in gameplay, you just have to get used to it.

 

[Ecthe|ioN]

The "feel" of Half-Life was right for ME, but maybe not for everyone. The "feel" of CS is also right for ME, but not everyone. I don't like to much realism, and I don't like a game that's too actionpacked. CS/HL/DOD is somewhere in the middle. Maybe that's why I don't like Battlefield and Unreal Tournament. I just feel that something is missing, or something is "over-done" when I play those games.

Half-Life has always been the game for me. CSS has the same "feel", and it looks like HL2 will have it too.

 

[Mr-Fusion]

You do realize that the games you mentioned are TEAM based, right? It isn't supposed to be unrealistic like CS where you can take out a whole team by yourself.

It's only my opinion of what 'feel' an FPS has to have for ME to become addicted to the gameplay. I can look at the stats now and see a lot of people share my opinion. Half-Life and it's mods still totally destroy the popularity of CoD , BF1942 and MOHAA combined.

There's just something about the movement that just feels right for a lot of people.

 

[Glo]

I hope they eventually do an automatic weapon correctly in a game. I think all game programmers should have to go to a shooting range and fire a few hundred rounds through the guns they are portraying in-game. THEN.. sit back and watch the pros use them. Then maybe we won't see this 45 degree cone of accuracy from an automatic weapon at 5 meters. That always pisses me off.

Degrees do not change on distance.

 

[-JeZ-]

While I agree that movement should always be fluid I don't think that speed is always a good thing. Sure, Quake 2 was deathmatch and that type of game requires speed from it's players but CS is a different game and while the running speed is managable some of the moves that the so-called pinnacle of CS players pull off are a little dodgy. The AWP and the Deagle are the only two weapons in the game with decent enough damage for these one-shot stunt kills to be viable. You find someone owning on a server and 90% of the time they'll be using this combo. I hope that CS:S, when it's released, does away with the ability to fire a high calibre sniper rifle in midair with any predictablilty. Deagly flying headshots are fine though :thumbs:

 

[Yellonet]

Don't hate me, but I like realistic games. *throws himself behind cover*

 

[A.I.]

It's only my opinion of what 'feel' an FPS has to have for ME to become addicted to the gameplay. I can look at the stats now and see a lot of people share my opinion. Half-Life and it's mods still totally destroy the popularity of CoD , BF1942 and MOHAA combined.

There's just something about the movement that just feels right for a lot of people.

Wrong argument. These people don't like playing the game only because of its movement. There are many more reasons and probably far more important than movement why so many people play HL.

 

[Mr-Fusion]

I didn't say it was the only reason....inversely i didn't say it was the reason they play. I thought it was implied it was ONE of the reasons they played.

If it's not implied, then i meant to say the feel and movement is ONE of the reasons they play.

 

[ferd]

I agree to what you say, but to all the ppl saying CS also feel's "just right" --> it doesn't

 

[Eon Blue]

Day of Defeat + Walls + Strafing + Kar98 + 12 allies who just freshly spawned, about to run calmly up to recapture their first flag on Anzio, not realizing I'm standing right there = Adrenaline rush.

 

[PvtRyan]

Yeah, HL has the best movement 'engine' ever, and that's a fact.
I was pretty good at BF1942, but I always felt 'trapped' inside that virtual body, it was slow and unresponsive. But imagine BF1942 with the fluidness of the HL/Source engine!

 

[Mr Neutron]

I agree with your general thesis, but you're wrong to lump CoD in with the BF series. BF has a horible lag induced by the physics (which was introduced to accomodate the vehicles). CoD is very responsive and all the weapons are very accurate if you aim down the sights. True, you won't be moving quite as fast when sniping people, but the restricted movement isn't that different than CS. And CS frankly feels a bit floaty like BF.

Movement is something CoD does very well. Prone is integrated better than any other game I've played, and it has just enough delay between hops and transition time going from running to aiming down the sights and back again.

 

[Mr Neutron]

I kinda dislike crouching and proning, it makes camping more easily. If there's one thing I hate, it's camping. Action should be quite fast, movement should be fluid and simple and shooting should be accurate (based on skill).

Somehow, they avoided much camping in CoD. At least, it doesn't feel like camping, because the hiding spots all are vulnerable from another direction, and the few often used one's, you know where to anticipate them anyway. CoD somehow can have an entire building of enemies lining the windows of a three story building, and you still have a chance picking them off.

 

[NeptuneUK]

Day of Defeat + Walls + Strafing + Kar98 + 12 allies who just freshly spawned, about to run calmly up to recapture their first flag on Anzio, not realizing I'm standing right there = Adrenaline rush.

DOD balances out realism and action perfectly

 

[ShadowFox]

TFC has the best of both worlds. You can be as fast or slow as you want.

 

[kush]

I agree that HL and HL2 have perfect movement. A lot of developers nowadays are trying to get away from the feeling that you're just a floating gun; which was shown by The Chronicles Of Riddick. I think HL2 has the perfect aiming swing and strafe speed to feel like you're a real person, without the need to look down and see your feet. Sometimes Riddick feels 'heavy' but that does put you very much into the character of Vin Diesel.

 

[Jakeic]

DOD balances out realism and action perfectly

i wouldn't say that it is perfect. For some reason they slaughtered the BAR while giving a huge boost to the german machine pistol. I hate Unteroficers.

 

[poseyjmac]

everything after 1.3b was not worth playing. it was perfect in 1.3b

 

[MrBongo]

Whereas a game like CoD, MOHAA or BF1942 has restrictive movement. Skillful players are held back by clumsy bobbing of guns/viewpoint, random bullet spread of weapons, slow , unresponsive strafe speeds all in the name of 'realism'. You can practice and practice and practice but only reach a certain level of skill due to those factors. The depth of gameplay is very shallow and I find it incredibly hard to become addicted to the gameplay of games that restrict my potential.

So by "skillful players", you mean "people against realism"? Honestly, the things that you are complaining about are the things that make these (awesome) games more true-to-life, which is the point, right?

I hate to be the one to crush your fantasy world, but in real life, people don't move 200-mph Unreal Tournament style, can't jump through the air the way Master Chief does, guns do not fire straight, and people don't have the reaction time like a housefly to a magazine.

*sigh* Go play Counterstrike with the other legions of babbling morons and hackers, I'm sure they'll be in complete awe of your "skills"... :hmph:

 

[Jakeic]

guns fire straight.

 

[GuNzABlaZiN]

I totally agree with the first post, the movement in HL&mods just feels so..."right". You just have so much control over the player, but in games like BF1942, the movement feels very laggy and just lame. It's as if you're controlling a sumo wrestler rather than a highly trained soldier. Also, UT2k4 has pretty good movement, very easy to control, but then again, it is a game based around movement.