Suggested changes to Jumpjets

[Dam13n]

With the current changes to have gliders on demand as an ability, Overthrust and many other movement abilities to follow, it is clear that Em8er is embracing mobility as one of its main selling points.

Firefall's Jumpjets were special. Where do i begin.

The way that the current Jumpjets in Ember are implemented drain very slow and recharge very slow, this gives the player the ability to jet very high and hover in the same place for long periods of time. This however is, imo, boring in terms of engaging gameplay. Once the player runs out of jet energy, he is "out of options".

Tweaked Jumpjets in Firefall drained "relatively" fast but also recharged very fast. Jumpjets also recharged while gliding, using an ability, falling (there is strategic value in being able to fall fast) and jumping.

Ember currently doesn't recharge jumpjets under any of these conditions.

In combination with movement abilities this allowed the player to never need to stay in one mode of movement for extended period of times. It was all about creating a "flow" of movement. (Running, jetting, falling, bursting, falling, jetting, jumping, running, etc)

Soaring afterburner was often seen as the ability that in combination with other abilities allowed you to stay in the air for extended periods of time. This however was not its most useful and engaging use in combat. The main benefit of SAB, just as regular afterburner was to be able to be in one place one moment and in an instant at another.

To be on the ground, then immediately after in the air. He/she either had some useful amount of charge in their jets or a movement ability on cool-down. They never at one point dropped out of options for keeping the flow of their movement going.

Hoversprinting, sigh. How do i explain this.

Hoversprinting....

This little bounce at the end before dropping to the ground may seem like just something cute.

However cute i may look, it was deadly. This was the cherry on top of the designs of Firefall's Jumpjets, there are many reasons one could give why Firefall's jet design was the most superior ever, but in my humble opinion it was this little bounce right at the end there, right there before you hit the ground that made the difference between a great design and purrfection.

Long story short, it's all about keeping a flow of movement.

 

[Wyntyr]

It will be interesting to see what the base speeds and ability cool downs for movement will be v/s top end.

 

[Dam13n]

It will be interesting to see what the base speeds and ability cool downs for movement will be v/s top end.

Yeah.

I actually liked that diagonal progression system FF had when increases in tier meant shorter cool-downs, more tweaking of jumpjet energy, faster run speed, etc. THAT made you feel as if your frame became more powerful over time.

 

[Dam13n]

Forgot to add that pressing the sprint key in combination with jump and forward, created let's call it "jetsprinting". This feature is missing too in ember

 

[Pandagnome]

Most times i like to stay on the ground and sprinting is fun for me, i like the gliding and sliding down hills too at times but this jetsprinting with little trails on the feet.

just imagine it was like the flash but not really like the flash otherwise would end up hitting a tree or wall and that would probably be way too fast !

 

[Dam13n]

i like the gliding and sliding down hills too at times but this jetsprinting with little trails on the feet.

just imagine it was like the flash but not really like the flash otherwise would end up hitting a tree or wall and that would probably be way too fast !

Oh trust me, it was fun.

 

[Omnires]

I said this lots of times before. I love playing as stealth units in games and I both love melee and long range fighting (sniping). With that said what really makes or breaks a good stealth character in games is their freedom of movement and how much that movement can effect the things around them. Be it moving to avoid something, or moving to line up an attack on a weak spot, or lure enemies into a trap, or using environment to your advantage (setting a building on fire while you are inside of it with the enemy(s) before running out as fast as you can while also blocking the path behind you.). Stealth game play is always about having options and having different ways of doing something.

In FireFall the Nighthawk class has the fastest baseline unaided (without the use of abilities or jets) movement speed of all the classes on top of having the highest stealth abilities and highest DPR (Damage Per Round) in the game. Sure the class is designed to be used as an anti-tank sniper and boss killer. But because of the high movement speed and ability to turn invisible or confuse the enemy I had just as much fun running around using melee as I did sniping. Even before things like SIN Blade was added into the game I was one of those people running around killing things with the scan hammer just because I could.

I stated in the past that I would like to see two key abilities in Em-8er for movement, skiing/sledding and over boosting also known as after burning. Given how after burning is going to thing in the game all that leaves is skiing. You see mecha comics, moives, and games do this all the time it is when they use their jets not fly in the air but to push them horizontally over the ground and/or water. It faster than running and less of risk of being spotted by the enemy (given how most things like radar is pointed more to the sky than it to the ground you can high from it by being as low as possible to the ground. Hence why the phrase, "Flying under the radar." exists in the first place. Plus having the ability to slide across the ground at will helps with dodging attacks as you could use your jets to boost off to the side out of the way. I tactic I used a lot to help me avoid things like homing weapons in games, as long as I can turn faster or change directions faster than the homing missiles I can always move in a way as to never be hit by them.

It is no secret that the Armor Core games is one of my personal all time favorites. So here are some examples of how movement is done in those games. It is because you had a lot of movement options by default that is possible to have a lot of lock-on and homing weapons in the game without it feeling unbalanced or unfair. Because there was always ways to counter such things, even if you had no weapons and just moved in a basic zigzag pattern.

 

[Dam13n]

Epic stuff

Couldn't agree more.

 

[Dam13n]

Found a nice short video of a person explaining the benefits of flow state inducing movement in a game using Mirror's Edge as an example.

"Mirror's Edge is a game about perfection and in a game about perfection you don't need an incredible amount of content to get an incredible amount of playtime out of it. All you need is a bit of content that's worth perfecting."

 

[Omnires]

That reminds of this video and back when I was a kid playing bullet hell games and the like. Having hundreds, if not thousands, of things on the screen at once moving all directions and in that total chaos is just flowing with the game. It way even to this day when I'm teaching other people how to play a game/class or teaching them how to fight in real life I tell them the same thing. "If you always have to think about what you are doing, than you are doing it wrong. You should be able to do it without thinking about. Because in the time it takes you think about stuff is more than enough time for the situation to change."

Here is a video about that using bullet hell games as an example. About how you can enter into a meditative state while in middle of chaos.

 

[Pandagnome]

Fast moving games are certainly fun just like in racing but i also like the slower paced aspect from stealth /tactical type games with that option to change the pace.

As an example when i played the game Synthetik i see people play it super fast looks very cool but i rather at times explore every inch of the map find secret stashes even hubs to update weapons/items i have.

If i am about to get swarmed that dash is amazing finding cover to set a trap or auto turret
Using my suppressed weapon and add additional modules to improve its effectiveness.

To have a lower threat detection, to spy, and analyse the weak points and find another route.

Sometimes going fast you can miss alot for me, then looked into the map and i love the map especially getting the gps module to see the whole map and where the enemies are.

So for the flow em8er's movement is going to be amazing, from gliding, sliding, dashing, running, jetting, jump pad, vehicles

I'd hope they also focus on movement on the ground too because much of the fun speedy things is in the air.

To be able to dash on the ground, could we even roll or is that just weird on a mek?
Those options gives us more for movement air or ground i am mostly likely going to be a ground kind of person although going in the air is very dreamy carefree and going through clouds perhaps that is how i imagine like in the flight of the navigator that talking ship and the way it changed shape when it went super hyper drive hmm.


Another thing i just started playing a free game called walking simulator its funny but the exploring is fun i thought having a jetpack would be great but ended up rag dolling down a hill and losing my fuel package which rolled down the mountain was far away then ending up with strange folks with weapons walking slowly so used the snow mobile and forgot about the fuel package anyways exploring is fun when you remember stuff !

 

[Omnires]

What if there was 2 or more settings on your jets in the game? Like one setting is for normal once and other setting is for energy efficient mode. In energy efficient mode you jets are less powerful so you don't move as fast but the trade off it they use less energy and can be used for much longer time. This would be great for when going into a hover mode where you give up speed for stability as you hover around in the air for a long time.

It would like the difference between sprinting and jogging. Sprinting using out a lot of energy in short time but you also get a lot of power and speed out of it. While jogging uses up energy over a slower over a much longer time, it is no where near as fast or powerful but can be done for much longer.

And it would make sense given how we do have these options for things like cars and trucks in real life. You have normal driving move, cruise control, energy efficient mode, turbo, and so on. If you need more power there is a setting or gear for that. If you need more speed there is setting for gear for that. If you want to lock you speed or location in place there is a setting or gear for that. So why not do that for the jets on our mecha too? Adjusting the energy use and power output with the push of a button.

 

[Wyntyr]

Or possibly just a hover button that's a little floaty but low energy use?

 

[Omnires]

Personally I would love to have hover mode just be button we can use like sprint in the game. One of the things I like doing in games what allow for it is to fly high up into the air, hover in place, and snipe enemies long before the notice me or get to me. And if they do try to fire back at me I just drop down behind a large object that can block missiles and other AOEs. Or I switch over to boost mode and fly at the enemy at high speeds dodging missiles and bullets so I can melee them. Funny how a good number of people never think that a sniper is going to charge at them and melee them with something like an energy sword able to kill them in one strike if they hit the right spot.

Anyone having a high freedom of movement is key for anyone who uses fire style and/or air style fighting martial arts because blocking attacking is not something we really do. We really only dodge or counterattack. Having to try and block an attack is seen as failure because that is damage you could have avoided or energy you could have redirected to something else. But since I have as of yet played a game where I count grab and throw missiles back at the person who fired them at me. I'll just stick to being able to dodge them.

P..s.
If we can freely do things to dodge missiles and other homing weapons in this game. I would love to play a mini-game with everyone. It goes by many names but I like calling it "missile carnival". It is game to see who can dodge missiles and other homing attacks the longest. Here is an example of people playing a few rounds of it.
For people who never played Armored Core games before. The mini-map and radar is in the top right. All the pink dots and triangles on the radar are incoming missiles and rockets.

 

[Pandagnome]

Personally I would love to have hover mode just be button we can use like sprint in the game. One of the things I like doing in games what allow for it is to fly high up into the air, hover in place, and snipe enemies long before the notice me or get to me. And if they do try to fire back at me I just drop down behind a large object that can block missiles and other AOEs. Or I switch over to boost mode and fly at the enemy at high speeds dodging missiles and bullets so I can melee them. Funny how a good number of people never think that a sniper is going to charge at them and melee them with something like an energy sword able to kill them in one strike if they hit the right spot.

Anyone having a high freedom of movement is key for anyone who uses fire style and/or air style fighting martial arts because blocking attacking is not something we really do. We really only dodge or counterattack. Having to try and block an attack is seen as failure because that is damage you could have avoided or energy you could have redirected to something else. But since I have as of yet played a game where I count grab and throw missiles back at the person who fired them at me. I'll just stick to being able to dodge them.

P..s.
If we can freely do things to dodge missiles and other homing weapons in this game. I would love to play a mini-game with everyone. It goes by many names but I like calling it "missile carnival". It is game to see who can dodge missiles and other homing attacks the longest. Here is an example of people playing a few rounds of it.
For people who never played Armored Core games before. The mini-map and radar is in the top right. All the pink dots and triangles on the radar are incoming missiles and rockets.

Could we have stealth mini game i like the idea not just for the meks but for the pilot too

-retrieve vital info/data without getting caught
- escaping a room/area
- Make all the enemies sleep and put them in one room
- researching a variety of different holographic/camouflage choices e.g. totem, rock, box cat, etc etc

 

[Grinstone]

What if there was 2 or more settings on your jets in the game? Like one setting is for normal once and other setting is for energy efficient mode.

The hover & snipe is one option, of course.* The first thought I had is that it could allow one person to be a spotter when thumping, so that they could announce incoming enemies before they're visible to the others. But, yeah, I'm definitely in favor of having burst-ier movement available.


* I could definitely see this being made more challenging, depending on the kind of advantage it provides. E.g. You burn extra fuel to remain stabilized, or it throws you around a bit so you're not like a turret in the air.

 

[Omnires]

I would like there to be passive effects for when you are low to the ground or high in the air. Like if you are low to the ground you can kick up dust and dirt to make it harder for enemies to see you.

One of the things I rarely see games that having flying or gliding them get right if the ground effect. Because if they did those of us who know about could use it glide or fly father without to using extra fuel. He is a really basic way of explaining what the ground effect is.