Feedback On The Movement System

[Sealgaire]

When I first started playing Warframe, I was glad to see it allowed for more freedom and speed of movement than most shooters. When wallrunning was introduced I kind of flipped my S#&$ a little. I'm been practicing parkour for several years now and it always bugs me when a character in a game can't do something that even I can do easily, so the vague feeling that the devs are reading my mind and creating my dream game just got stronger. I know that the movement system is still being expanded and polished, but I thought I'd throw a few ideas out in case they might be of use.

First off, I'm glad the game includes some contextual vaults when jumping over objects, but I'm never able to perform them reliably, and you can't do them in some situations that beg for them. I've seen my frame do a speed vault occasionally for example (

). This is a great, practical move that has a wide variety of applications. I think you should trigger one of these guys when doing a running jump in front of an object at chest height or lower rather than awkwardly mantling it as you do now. Some examples of objects that scream to be speed vaulted:

Another huge thing in parkour is conservation of momentum. This lends movement the flowing, effortless look you get from highly skilled practitioners. You guys incorporate some of this, such as a rolling out of a fall, but it's the transitions between movement types that are a little clunky at the moment. For example, coming out of a roll there's a brief slowdown before you're able to sprint again. This kind of defeats the purpose of a roll (converting downward momentum into forward momentum) and it would feel and look much better if the roll itself was faster and you could launch directly into a sprint from a roll. It would also be nice if not letting your character roll would damage you depending on how far you fell. Currently it's actually faster to land in a slide. This works fine for small drops but looks silly and disincentivises the use of rolls after falling. Another thing that bugs me is the pause when mantling. In reality, only the best can mantle without a pause, but as Space Ninjas we should be able to climb up over a wall as soon as we reach the top in one smooth motion. As such:

As of the latest update, I think I've seen a simple vault where your character jumps over something around knee or waist height without doing a full jump, thus conserving speed. This is the kind of thing that I would love to see more of. Ideally, if we're sprinting we shouldn't lose speed when we vault over things, and if were holding our sprint key during the end of an animation we should transition into a sprint very quickly and fluidly when it ends.

Many of the animations in the game are slower than the corrosponding moves would be performed in real life as well. If they were sped up some it would look more natural and befitting of our space ninjas.

Wallrunning is actually pretty smooth considering it sounds like you guys threw it in without testing it a bunch first. Jumping off of a horizontal wallrun is a little jerky though. It looks too much like a rubberband effect due to lag at the moment. It would be nice if you could aim your jump with a little more finesse as well, especially with the melee off of a wallrun, which is too clunky to serve much of a use right now. The biggest thing I hope yo guys addess with it is allowing more sections of existing walls to be runnable and allowing more use of it in future levels, which you seem to be doing based on the new Grineer rooms.

Basically, my main point with all this rambling is that the movement system would be even better if the transitions between different types was smoother and didn't cause us to lose as much speed.

As far as new movement types go, you have all the basics covered and then some. The wallrunning is great because it extends beyond what normal humans are capable of, and I can't wait to see what other crazy super human ninja stuff you guys have in store for us.

Edited February 15, 2013 by Sealgaire

[neKroMancer]

A fine post.

Smoother movement is something I really want to see in Warframe. The biggest offender is the short stop where all your momentum seems to lose to the void and running-jumping doesn't have any momentum it supposed to have.

Wallruning is a fine addition and considerably speed the game up when properly used. I think that this addition will become the 'style' of Warframe. The new 'grab the wall' move is awesome. However, I believe there is room for improvement but frankly, I'm totally not into parkour IRL so I can't really comment much on this matter.

From gamer's perspective. Wallruning should be more than a travel method. Cooperating smooth defense/offense into wallruning would make this mechanic 'key' to increase skill ceiling in this game and prolong player's interest in the game.

[Sealgaire]

Yeah, another aspect I forgot to mention is the use of movement for offense and defense. Things like slides, rolls and wallrunning already decrease the amount of fire you take, and that's awesome. It seems they've increased damage on enemies across the board with the latest hotfix, so I'm hoping they're trying to encourage people to rely more on mobility to stay alive than just tanking damage. It's a great way to increase challenge while still allowing you to compensate with skill.

Offensively, the slide attack is perfect and it's hugely important to master it if you want to rely on melee as your primary weapon, but things like jump attacks need their animation sped way up and the pause where you can't move at the end removed. A damage and AoE boost based on the height you fell from would be great, as currently my jump attacks don't even do as much damage as a regular one. I don't think they're affected by melee damage frame mods. I covered melee wallrun attacks in the OP, but they need some work too. It's nice evading a bit of fire while closing with enemies, but I feel they should do more damage as well to compensate for the additional challenge of pulling them off.

Edited February 15, 2013 by Sealgaire

[Sealgaire]

A couple more addendums. The wall slide at the top of a wall run is great, but it's far too slow at the moment and there should be a way to initiate it before you've reached the limit of your height. I like how the crouch cancel works right now, so that's not ideal. As it is letting go of w acts the same as letting go of jump, so maybe letting go of your forward key while still holding jump could initiate a slide.

When wallrunning vertically, you should automatically do a mantle instead of a backflip or just falling back down when you reach a ledge. It seems you do this already sometimes, but it's not reliable. It's frustrating seeing my character reach a ledge but being unable to pull myself up it. In case anyones not aware what mantling is; it's just when you pull yourself up and over the top of a wall.

[greenblazes]

Honestly, just 2 small changes would greatly improve the movement system:

You should be able to control the direction of the jump after you wallrun. That would open up a lot more platforming opportunities and make the wallrun more skill-based and useful in combat.

Also, being able to actively control the direction of the rolling animation that happens when you land a jump would help. You could roll to cover, roll around a corner, etc. This would keep you from just hitting the ground and rolling linearly into a wall or off the edge of a cliff (been there.... done that).

Edited February 20, 2013 by greenblazes

[-Basic-]

I'd love it. Frankly it still feels a bit stiff between the different motions, which is more than noticeable when using volt's speed.

You've just got those blur lines everywhere and you feel super fast with the icnreased FoV but then you have to climb something and you become a tortoise. A shiny tortoise.

[nullcore]

I'd like to chime in on this post, because it's very well thought out and pretty close to what I had wanted to express in a post of my own. I found this via the search, so I'll place my particular suggestions here.

Specifically, the one animation transition that causes me the most amount of ire is the transition from slide to sprint. Namely, there isn't one. I really, really want there to be. You know, for ninja reasons. It should, I think, function more like a sprint-jump-sprint currently does. While sprinting, if the jump button is pressed, the character jumps, falls into a roll, and then (as long as the sprint button remains pressed) exits into a sprint. If you try this with a slide, you get sprint->slide->default (as in the default movement speed). It would be preferable if more animations would exit into a full sprint as long as the sprint button is depressed as they are ending. As another example, you cannot go default->jump->sprint either (though you can go default->fall->sprint as long as your forward momentum forces you into roll, which appears to be the key to whether you can exit into a sprint). If I decide in midair during a non-sprinting jump that my current speed is insufficient, I should be able to transition into a sprint upon landing by holding the sprint button. Currently, what happens if you hold down sprint while doing any of these non-roll actions, is that you exit into the standard movement speed, and cannot begin to sprint again until you have removed pressure from the sprint button, and re-applied it, causing it to feel clunky (in comparison to some other games - Warframe is still slicker than a dolphin's t*t). Basically, I would like to see nearly every animation able to exit into a sprint if the sprint key is held during the action. There should be no go->slow->go to break up the flow of things if I don't want there to be, and I possess the requisite stamina to make it so.

I'd also like to second the suggestion that rolls be directionally controllable to some degree. It breaks immersion and feels unpolished when my instincts tell me I need to head in one direction upon landing, but my warframe refuses any direction but forward, occasionally into a wall or bottomless pit, as was mentioned above. Now, an immediate and non-transitioned shift in direction would be equally jarring, so I think that upon landing, the roll should deviate towards the camera direction with a threshold set to limit the maximum speed at which that roll-angle can deviate, creating a smoother transition into your desired heading. Setting that angular speed limit would also limit the maximum total degree of deviation from forward over the time it takes to complete the roll animation, say somewhere between 60 to 90 degrees total.

One more thing on that, in the interest of preventing accidental cliff-diving. What if pressing the backwards movement key during a jump forced a flat landing? If I see myself about to land on an edge, I could hold S while descending, and land flat-footed, feeling super relieved that I was ninja enough not to jump into an abyss. This could also be used as a quicker alternative to angling my roll if I wanted to pull a full 180. It would have a quicker animation than the roll, but at the cost of forward momentum, becoming temporarily stationary (and incoming-bullet-friendly).

Other ideas I liked:

Making vaulting more reliable. Perhaps simply sprinting into a vaultable barrier should trigger the animation. If I didn't want to go right the hell over it, why would I run at it like a madman? If I don't want to vault, I release sprint before I contact said barrier. Things like barrels should be vaultable from any angle, but other obstacles like railings you would probably want to limit the angle-of-attack to prevent accidental low-angle vaulting to your death while zig-zagging down a catwalk at high speed. To vault those, you'd have to hit them somewhere within 15-30 degrees of perpendicular. I'm pulling these numbers out of my a*s, by the way. May require testing. :D Maybe longer surfaces (i.e. many barrels, or any long, low obstacle) should enter a slide animation once on top of them, transitioning into the vault landing animation upon reaching the end, or ending on that surface exactly as a regular slide would (hint: in a sprint!).

I also put one down for directionally exiting wall runs. This goes for the vertical wall run backflip as well. I should be able to run up a corner, and grab a wall to my side if I want.

Regardless, I hope if this sounds critical, it's in the constructive sense. In all honesty, the rather superb early animations in Warframe is one of the things that really drew me to it, as seems the case Sealgaire, the OP. I really do appreciate a really slickly animated game, and the animation team's passion for the same shows through in their work. It's coming along fantastically, but hopefully some of these suggestions from player and fan perspectives will help just a bit.

Cheers, and happy animating.

[Sealgaire]

Agreed on all counts. One thing though, you can already land without rolling if you hold the backwards key, unless that's changed for some reason.

Your post made me realise I may not have stated my issue with rolls clearly enough. It's not that you can't sprint out of them, I'm aware that you can. It's that the roll animation itself and particularly the end of it are too slow relative to how fast you begin sprinting. It seems like it's set up to lok and feel natural if you're just transfering into a normal run after the roll, but if you're holding sprint, the end of the roll should be as fast as the sprint speed. I hope that makes more sense, it's difficult to verbalize how movement should feel sometimes.

[AngryNarwhal]

love these posts, keep it up.

theres also the weird little thing that happens when you jump to a ledge low to the ground. you stop, grab the ledge, sink into the ground and then jarringly shove yourself onto the ledge all while taking gunfire from behind your slow buggy behind.