Stunts: How Could They be Changed?

[Hadji|DP]

Simple enough. We do not want to see this game as some sort of The Specialist remake. But we want to see stunting in the game. Since everything is game for revision and refinement, how could we change stunts? What was the point of stunts? Were they simply all flash, or do we want to see a real mechanical difference to stunts? Should we stick with the high/mid/low mindset of stunts? Or should there be a new way for stunts? Should movement even be suspect to change?

Post your ideas of ways stunts could be different/what the goal of stunts are in this game.

[Dan]

I feel stunts should have a different control scheme, and we can remove some of them.

I'm not sure we need a stunt button anymore. I would trigger dives by double tapping the WASD key, like UT3 does with the strafe-dash thing. I don't really think we need wallflips or wallhumps, maybe some sort of simple climbing system instead. I'm not sure about flips, since they serve the same function as dives. I can't think of anything to replace flips, though.

I would like to see a crouch roll, or even better, some kind of slide move.

[LazyDog]

Sorry to take the conservative side again but I absolutely adored the stunt mechanic in TS. I used them, dreamed about them and probably would have made sweet love to them if I felt worthy. If someone comes up with a totally mind blowing new idea thats cool but until that happens I say: why fix something that ain't broken?

[Wish]

Double tap crouch roll is a must, as are directional dives, which I'd like to see convey a sense of weight without being clunky. (Black Ops sort of did this.)

I like the low flips from TS.

Wall flip, wall dive, matrix dodge, I can do without. The high flips were very useful in a locomotive sense, but never really did it for me in terms of style. Wall climbs were the same way. Useful, but not at all cool. A nice, efficient mantling system might work. Forward roll could be a slide.

I don't think the fundamentals need much changing.

Having one contextual stunt key ala TS seems like the most streamlined way to go; one simple input that you can make while doing other things that can be bound to anything.

[Dan]

Oh yeah, that's one thing I forgot. Definitely remove the matrix bullet dodge. I accidentally did that one all the time while I was trying to dive.

[Afion]

There is something else you need to consider when talking about stunts and that's air control. We all know TS had boosting and while some of us loved it, most others loathe it. I fully support the decision to no longer have boosting since you alienate most of your players, but I should consider keeping the mobility you had in mid-air without giving speed boosts or bunnyhop ability. If you want to have vertical gameplay then it really adds to fast-paced gameplay like TS had.

There shouldn't be any exploits at all, just the ability to change direction in mid-air when not stunting to make to make the game more fluid.

[Antagonist]

While I like the stunt key in TS, I think that we could make something more clever using the inputs that are already in UT. UT has the double jump, double tap dodge move and shit.

Also:


People talking about the matrix dodge made me think of that shit. Any dodge move that doesn't make you fly is basically a broken design.

[Shogi]

Double-tap direction = dive?

[Tilaron]

Double tap and shift or something, I could see accidentally diving to your death happen often if you like to weave about.

[Antagonist]

Something that occurred to me right now is that it would be pretty hard to dive diagonally if it was made by double-tapping

[Wish]

Double tap directions are bad because you can do them inadvertently, and when you do want to do them, it's less smooth than a one-key toggle. Remember, I want to stunt while moving - but if I have to double tap a movement key to do it, that takes extra manual dexterity, I may have to stop moving [I'm holding W to run, if I want to dive forward that's WW, so I actually have to stop running before I can initiate the dive], and still takes longer than just clicking mouse 3, or whatever I have bound to stunt. Even a small pause is a problem in a fast game. And like Antag pointed out, your diving directions become limited.

Smooth controls are tight controls. Tight controls are efficient controls. That's not to say some kind of double tap stunt isn't in the question, but for something as fundamental as dives, it's not right.

[Hadji|DP]

I agree that matrix-esque stunts are kinda stupid, but it wouldn't be an action themed game if we took out an element of action films that was dominant during the late 90s/2000s.

What if crazy matrix stunts were one of the abilities you take as your "meter" skill? you build meter in order to do crazy backflips? That way, the entire game isn't everyone doing matrix backflips, and tying them to the meter makes them even less of an occurrence? You aren't required to do them unless you REALLY wanted to make it part of your overall playstyle?

[Antagonist]

Yeah like really. Backflips and shit are really cool and all but it becomes a bit much. I think that the low jumpflip reminds me of a move that Nick Cage pulls off in the church shootout in Face/Off, something like that could be cool to see once in a while.

[Afion]

I just found this Mirror's Edge style mod for UT2004. It has a lot of moves I would love to see in this game





And also a UDK wallrun. Now I'm certain UDK is the best choice engine

[misanq]

Double tap crouch roll is a must.

I always thought that this was kind of a bad idea since the button combination is pretty uncomfortable if you have small hands (think of the 12 year olds). I ended up having to rebind my crouch key to shift in the end. Ideally, I'd like to see the roll replace the low dive on the stunt key, not only because of the finger thing, but also because low dive was kind of junk. Low dive could just be shunted onto the weight system, in that heavy loadout people who did medium or high dives could do low dives instead.
Of all of the rubbishy matrix novelty moves that appeared later on, I thought that the wallflip was pretty decent if not especially useful. What I think really brought it down was that you had to wallhump for like three seconds to get enough air for it to be worthwhile. Speaking of which, a assassin's creed style vertical wall run would be a good replacement for the wall hump, 'cause seriously, wallhumping was stupid.