[An Open Letter/discussion About The New Movement...]

SO.. A vent about the new movement system. It was bound to happen at some point, right?

 

Preface: I'm a software engineer for a large international company who sells software to other large international companies. I'm a product owner so the software I work on is my responsibility (and I regularly get feedback from my customers).

 

Anyway, I'm trying to decide: what is going on? Why is bullet jump a thing? And why the hell is aim glide a thing?!!?! For a player with a mere 700 hours in the game this is an odd thing to happen. Actually, this has happened to me in another game once before and I'll tell that story shortly. 

 

For me this new movement system is a bit odd. It was marketed to us (the players) as something to be more accessible for new players. Something that would stop players having issues with mashing multiple buttons to move around the environment. Something that would be more ergonomic or stop cramp or carpel tunnel (I've never had any physical issues playing this game, maybe others have. I don't know) but what has really changed? I want to sprint so I'm still holding shift all the time. I'm probably holding shift even more now stamina has been removed. I also want to use the new bullet jump thing so I'm mashing CTRL+space. Before u17 I was sprinting holding shift and mashing CTRL+E so the only thing that has changed is that I'm retraining 700 hours of muscle memory to try to forget the E key and now mash space instead. Not only that but I'm moving through the environment much, much slower. How is this fun? Why has this changed? Retraining muscle memory from the E key to Space bar for slower and less rewarding movement isn't exactly what I had in mind for an 'improvement'.

 

Thinking about it from a user (and a software dev) point of view, what is the reason that the old and new movement systems couldn't operate side by side? Copter and wall hang? Copter and bullet jump? Maybe no coptering at all if you didn't choose to? I would love to see fast paced rewarding gameplay with the new movement dynamics. It would be genuinely interesting to have a CHOICE as a player for moving around the environment. Instead we have what I and many other players have grown accustomed to being ripped out and being forced to use a replacement which is awkward and slow. This isn't an improvement, this is a change in user workflow which for a user base with multiple hundreds of hours using the software is a dangerous thing to do. People, users, are now faced with retraining their actions which isn't natural.

 

I said this happened to me in another game once, this game was GunZ: The Duel. An emergent style of play evolved in this game where players could use melee weapons to cancel animations and gain an advantage. It was a similar movement to coptering where you could dash with a mele weapon but also pull out a weapon(shotgun/rifle/pistol) mid-air to damage opponents. This style of play was removed by the game's developers until the community revolted because it was so incredibly rewarding to play in this way. To be able to move around quickly and damage enemies while flying past them (fast twitch muscle movements) was rewarding and it's something we as players have just lost from Warframe. For example, fast twitch gameplay is a play style prominent in Tribes Ascend and Counterstrike. There have been some other instances of software change in the past which has broken user workflow and had positive developments come of it (for example: Windows 7 -> Windows 8 -> Windows 8.1 and now Windows 10 is an example of "where'd my start menu go?!"). 

 

Since I started playing Warframe anyone asking me about the game would get the response: "it's fun to move around in." Maybe it's early days still but I really don't feel this is the case any more. I just hope this isn't the end of fast paced Warframe gameplay..

 

TL;DR:  1) Muscle memory is important. 2) Shift+CTRL+E (copter) and turned in to Shift+CTRL+Space (bullet jump) and how is that any more ergonomic? 3) Goodbye fast paced gameplay 4) Tenno be slowwww.