Some FPS games already invented a perfect formula for movement. COD Warzone, Apex Legends, Destiny 2 etc.
This formula pays attention to timings of states and allow players to cancel some, so movements feels uninterruptible.
For example in Darktide, after you toggled sprint and then made jump, sprint cancels and you can toggle it back only after landing animation ends. Movement in Darktide consists from such small and annoying nuances.
My advice - just copy and paste movement from any game that has no such problems. I mean copy timings and principles.
Was thinking about making a thread like this as well. There is little to no queing of movement. Sprinting to sliding back to sprinting is difficult for me. The timing has to be perfect, and it still feels like there is always a bit of a lag, at least using a controller. It makes the game feel unpolished and old school.
On lower difficulties you don’t even need to dodge, so you can ignore it, but on higher difficulties the dodging, vaulting, jumping, and sliding that are needed to clutch make the lack of polish feel clumsy. I track other players and they seem to be able to do it, but they have clearly been playing for months. For me, blocking a horde, dodging and sliding to the side then dodging back, then spinning and sprinting is a pretty big risk. This is a skill check in the end, but it feels more difficult than it should be.
Apex is a great example, it just feels great start to finish, so you can just focus on what you are planning and try to execute it.
Another annoying situation is when being ressed, or ressing an ally, you can’t “que up” your first action(usually blocking). So there’s often a small window where you get hit by multiple melee attacks without having block up.
Then there’s the whole can’t switch weapons crap. Literally spamming the button to switch weapon, and you don’t have time to sit there and stare at the screen waiting for your char to switch weapon, you have muscle-memorized the switch-attack or switch-block combo (it NEEDS to happen fast), but the game overrides the switch command because you pressed attack or block too soon after pressing switch, so it just discards the switch command and you stand there like an idiot trying to initiate brainburst repeatedly on some infested wailing away on you. Still hasn’t bene fixed. I cannot fathom how they haven’t fixed this obscene and gamebreaking bug.
Then there’s how character physics interact with uneven terrain. Tiny things on the floor, like uneven floor plates, door frames, or what have you. Anytime there’s a ramp, stairs, a door frame, or a change in the type of material you’re walking on (from sand to metal plates). In some places you can’t dodge or walk slowly across the uppermost step on a staircase. You either have to run across it, or as you come to the top of the stairs, jump. Somehow the dodge action has a different type of collision physics than just walking or running. Often times you also can’t walk up the ramp into the transport Valkyrie, you get stuck on the bottom edge of it so you have to jump over it.
Door frames on the floor, train tracks, any sudden change in degree of slope of terrain can all weirdly destroy fluid movement, get you stuck, make you slow etc. Particularly noteworthy on Chasm Logistratum when you are fighting down along the two parallel train tunnels near the end, and you are trying to stand in the middle between the two tunnels. That small elevation in the terrain can’t be dodged across, and you can’t slow-walk across it. So you’re in half-cover, but you can’t dodge into cover to avoid sniper shots, dogs, muties etc. You have to sort of “jump” into cover.
Switching to the ogryn was an adjustment because of their lack of vaulting. My Ogryn is short, and I can’t just tap jump to to get over a railing. I have to hold jump to get the extra 10% height to clear it. Coming from the vaulting in Back 4 Blood really makes this game feel awkward. Such a good game, but, you’re right, little weird oversights.
Yes.
And such things are heart of any game.
Darktide has good shooting and movement but it could be excellent if they ever fix these lags.
I think they just wait until animation reaches specific key after which it can be cancelled and if you press button earlier it wont place your comand on a queue and just ignore it instead.
Many little mistakes like 1 week to polish and done.
Well one week is a bit generous, but they put so much work into other areas that it feels like the movement is lagging behind. The dialogue is hilarious and they added skill trees, then added 450 more interactions. They are clearly not afraid of hard work.
Tech Game Designer could do the mane job for a few days, talented one ofc. Maybe few playtests with folks from studio. A few day for QA to test it out and done. Ready to release.
Judging on game’s core loop Farchark have enough talented game designers to do this. Question of desire.
They likely use a mouse or keyboard macro. I do for sliding. And also for light melee so that I’m not mashing my mouse button in hordes.
Switching weapon lag for me is the most annoying, where the server ignores your key press and instead of switching to melee for a block you end up aiming down sights and getting a smack to the head.
But I also get run lag: I have toggle sprint rather than hold key, and I’m often tapping it several times as my avatar keeps stuttering in to and out of sprint, I assume for micro collision reasons as mentioned here.