[V. HOT TAKE] Bunnyhopping Killed the Arena FPS

[D4NUK1]

Sorry for the Derail on topic, but this also remind me of a game with more movement mechanics than the Normal Arena FPS and was a blast to play.
 

 

 

Like yeah, it's more niche but that also means than newer AFPS still going for a balance on how much speed we need in a arena (Like QC for example, where almost all are capped). My opinion it's still need to be on the game, we can't remove something that it's on the blood of the arena fps without a great change or something that remplaces it for all and no, not sprinting, becuase movement it something that atracts this kinda playerbase.

Edited September 17, 2023 by D4NUK1

[gibfrag]

Some of these responses sound like they have not played multiplayer deathmatch all that much, had a poor experience (they lost, badly), and now they have written it off as the game at fault and not perhaps that they didn’t try harder to get their footing by playing more. Deathmatch isn’t for everyone, but if you suck, you suck. It isn’t the game’s fault nor the fault of the players that are experienced. 

Edited September 17, 2023 by gibfrag

[mrthejoshmon]

46 minutes ago, gibfrag said:

Some of these responses sound like they have not played multiplayer deathmatch all that much, had a poor experience (they lost, badly), and now they have written it off as the game at fault and not perhaps that they didn’t try harder to get their footing by playing more. Deathmatch isn’t for everyone, but if you suck, you suck. It isn’t the game’s fault nor the fault of the players that are experienced. 

Had a lot to say, just deleted it because can't compete with this incredible wisdom.

 

You got me sir, I am the skill issue, that's absolutely hit the nail on the head.

[InfernalGrape]

8 hours ago, Azuris said:

Unreal Tournament 3 was very much a Arena Shooter without any jumping Tricks and was the most boring of the Series.

 

I have to disagree. Well, when it came out I sort of hated it (so much I played it once and never returned to it for many years), but recently I decided to give UT3 "a second chance" and weirdly ended up enjoying it. I think it's very underrated, actually. And when it comes to modes that feature vehicles, I consider UT3 to be an improvement over UT2004. Also... jumping tricks are there, even though not as elaborate as they were in UT2004 (which is the most technical UT movement wise). TL;DR each main UT game has reason to play it if you're fan.

 

Anyway, interesting thread here and discussion, meanwhile I'm happy to say I have enough players in Quake to have fun with :D

Spoiler

 

Edited September 17, 2023 by InfernalGrape

[gibfrag]

1 hour ago, mrthejoshmon said:

Had a lot to say, just deleted it because can't compete with this incredible wisdom.

 

You got me sir, I am the skill issue, that's absolutely hit the nail on the head.

At least you’re man enough to admit it, most would rather blame the game, hackers, etc. 

 

And yes, I know you were really just trying to be a smart aleck, but that’s okay. It is a skill issue as you’ve admitted. 

Edited September 17, 2023 by gibfrag

[Mr Masker]

2 hours ago, gibfrag said:

Some of these responses sound like they have not played multiplayer deathmatch all that much, had a poor experience (they lost, badly), and now they have written it off as the game at fault and not perhaps that they didn’t try harder to get their footing by playing more. Deathmatch isn’t for everyone, but if you suck, you suck. It isn’t the game’s fault nor the fault of the players that are experienced. 

I feel like there are some games where a death can genuinely be the game's fault and not the player.

 

Badly balanced/designed Deathmatch games do exist, they aren't all divine from sin.

Edited September 17, 2023 by Mr Masker

[gibfrag]

10 minutes ago, Mr Masker said:

I feel like there are some games where a death can genuinely be the game's fault and not the player.

 

Badly balanced/designed Deathmatch games do exist, they aren't all divine from sin.

Yeah, and bunnyhopping or getting decimated by experienced players isn’t one of those instances.

Edited September 17, 2023 by gibfrag

[Arrowhead]

On a slight side note:

 

Why do people think deathmatch is inherently more simplistic than other gamemodes?

 

This is something I've seen time and time again.

 

The human brain is very complex - a human player is also going to be very complex. Complexity leads to variability. No two deathmatch encounters are the same.

 

Yes, you can approach SP fights from different angles, but one thing remains: The monsters will still behave predictably. Human players do not behave as predictably - if you do play predictably, you generally lose. I can understand not wanting to master the nuances of movement in a game like Quake Live or Unreal Tournament, etc. - but comparing a deathmatch or an arena shooter to an on-rails experience just seems ill-informed. Not trying to start a flame war either - but arena-shooters (deathmatch / duel-centric games) are the exact opposite side of the shooter game spectrum, in my opinion.

 

Sure, there are power-up cycles and 'repetitive' tactics, but on-rails? Hardly. If someone doesn't like the gameplay loop of arena shooters, that's totally cool - not everything is for everybody.

 

I get that deathmatch / arena shooter type stuff is not very popular any more, but I still think people should make an effort to actually understand the game mode before attempting to overly simplify it.

Edited September 17, 2023 by Arrowhead

[gibfrag]

3 minutes ago, Arrowhead said:

On a slight side note:

 

Why do people think deathmatch is inherently more simplistic than other gamemodes?

My guess is a vast majority of people mostly just play SP and have very little actual knowledge on DM/MP, so they spout nonsense instead.

Edited September 17, 2023 by gibfrag

[PKr]

I've spent A LOT of time playing Arena Shooters back in the day. I was really good at them too. The speed of the gameplay, the momentum based movement, the acceleration from explosions/powerful weapons (ie rocket jumps in Quake, Gauss jumps in Half-Life, etc) - the mastery of said mechanics was what I was after in these games. The CPMA style movement is imprinted in my memory and into my fingertips forever.

 

In the early 2000s I was hoping that Arena Shooters would evolve into something even more fast and ferocious. In my head the perfect AFPS successor would be a game where speed wouldn't be limited at all. Where every shotgun shot would give you extra momentum, not only rocket jumps. Where at high speeds you'd utilize level geometry to perform sick tricks. Where the Painkiller style music would kick in when you'd achieved mastery over the arena and your opponents.

 

That kind of stuff.

 

That imaginary game never happened.

 

That's what "killed" arena shooters for me personally.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EQ6eHeBrhM

[InfernalGrape]

Also I need to say that I only started playing Quake & UT versus real people around 2015, meanwhile in 00s I played them just with bots when I didn't have internet (though we had LAN games of Counter-Strike in my school haha), and when I got internet I was more into Half-Life Deathmatch and Day of Defeat (including Source version of both) before I gave up on online gaming for a while (was heavy into story-based single player games) which then changed when I got a circle of friends who were playing deathmatch and coop weekly with voice chat.

 

6 hours ago, camper said:

I don't think Bunnyhopping is bad and killed the genre. 

 

I'm sure when people talk about "dead genres", they always mean "mainstream appeal".

Like, they call everything that doesn't have CoD/Fortnite/whatever numbers of players as "dead" even though they have hundreds of players for "big" titles and douzens for more niche ones. 

 

7 minutes ago, PKr said:

That's what "killed" arena shooters for me personally.

 

Ha, you remind me of some folks which I know... many of them were great players in the past, but at some point they stopped playing versus and only ever play DeFRaG instead. They love exploring all those crazy maps, coming up with new creative routes for their runs and thinking how they improve. 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 17, 2023 by InfernalGrape

[mrthejoshmon]

43 minutes ago, gibfrag said:

At least you’re man enough to admit it, most would rather blame the game, hackers, etc. 

 

And yes, I know you were really just trying to be a smart aleck, but that’s okay. It is a skill issue as you’ve admitted. 

Ok kayfabe off.

 

3 hours ago, gibfrag said:

Some of these responses sound like they have not played multiplayer deathmatch all that much, had a poor experience (they lost, badly), and now they have written it off as the game at fault and not perhaps that they didn’t try harder to get their footing by playing more. Deathmatch isn’t for everyone, but if you suck, you suck. It isn’t the game’s fault nor the fault of the players that are experienced. 

 

20 minutes ago, gibfrag said:

My guess is a vast majority of people mostly just play SP and have very little actual knowledge on DM/MP, so they spout nonsense instead.

 

On 9/16/2023 at 7:32 PM, gibfrag said:

Skill issue 

 

21 minutes ago, gibfrag said:

My guess is a vast majority of people mostly just play SP and have very little actual knowledge on DM/MP, so they spout nonsense instead.

 

I'm mocking you because come across as an elitist who isn't worth an actual meaningful interaction, feel free to argue your points but you'd certainly be more pleasant to talk to if you weren't so condescending.

 

G'day.

[riktoi]

15 minutes ago, Arrowhead said:

Why do people think deathmatch is inherently more simplistic than other gamemodes?

 

That's a good question actually. I gave it a good think and perhaps my first thought would reveal 'why' the best:

 

Regular FFA deathmatch can seem extremely chaotic, and it can also be chaotic. Instead of having you execute strategies, you're most often reacting or doing split-second decisions. This kind of play is perhaps just not visibly impressive, as it is possible it is not showing a player's knowledge of the game, if that makes sense. Many consider it something casual that they play to warm up, which is probably also a part of it.

[PKr]

1 hour ago, InfernalGrape said:

Ha, you remind me of some folks which I know... many of them were great players in the past, but at some point they stopped playing versus and only ever play DeFRaG instead. They love exploring all those crazy maps, coming up with new creative routes for their runs and thinking how they improve.

Well, what can I say... My experience with afps these days is pretty much limited to defrag as well. 😅 Guess it's the closest thing to my vision of arena shooters, so that's why.

Edited September 17, 2023 by PKr

[camper]

25 minutes ago, PKr said:

I've spent A LOT of time playing Arena Shooters back in the day. I was really good at them too. The speed of the gameplay, the momentum based movement, the acceleration from explosions/powerful weapons (ie rocket jumps in Quake, Gauss jumps in Half-Life, etc) - the mastery of said mechanics was what I was after in these games. The CPMA style movement is imprinted in my memory and into my fingertips forever.

 

In the early 2000s I was hoping that Arena Shooters would evolve into something even more fast and ferocious. In my head the perfect AFPS successor would be a game where speed wouldn't be limited at all. Where every shotgun shot would give you extra momentum, not only rocket jumps. Where at high speeds you'd utilize level geometry to perform sick tricks. Where the Painkiller style music would kick in when you'd achieved mastery over the arena and your opponents.

 

That kind of stuff.

 

That imaginary game never happened.

 

That's what "killed" arena shooters for me personally.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EQ6eHeBrhM

I'm sure you'll love War§ow
https://www.warsow.net/

[gibfrag]

29 minutes ago, mrthejoshmon said:

Ok kayfabe off.

I'm mocking you because come across as an elitist who isn't worth an actual meaningful interaction, feel free to argue your points but you'd certainly be more pleasant to talk to if you weren't so condescending.

G'day.

Right, I’m an elitist because I’m calling out that most of the complaints here are personal problems, not an issue with the game itself nor a “genre killer”.

My whole point is that act said tactics such as camping, not using bunnyhopping at all, etc. are not possible when bunnyhopping is an option. That is absolutely false. Plenty of people have won matches without resorting to bunnyhopping. There’s a reason that some people have a really strong hatred for campers; they lost to them. There are people who run around like a headless chicken and still win matches. 

 

To put blame on bunnyhopping for why the genre is “dead” is outright silly, and yes, it is a skill issue if you are incapable of combatting against people who overuse bunnyhopping to their advantage. It isn’t a magic cheat that makes it to where they are invincible. 

Edited September 17, 2023 by gibfrag

[InfernalGrape]

Just now, camper said:

I'm sure you'll love War§ow

 

It was reborn as Warfork though.

 

 

[PKr]

18 minutes ago, InfernalGrape said:

 

It was reborn as Warfork though.

 

That looks amazing.

 

P.S.

45 minutes ago, InfernalGrape said:

 

 

Those defrag music videos are simply brilliant.

https://youtu.be/1nmngte-d14

Edited September 17, 2023 by PKr

[act]

58 minutes ago, gibfrag said:

Right, I’m an elitist because I’m calling out that most of the complaints here are personal problems, not an issue with the game itself nor a “genre killer”.

my brother in christ the game genre we both enjoy has almost zero players and i'm literally just trying to start a discussion on why that could be

 

i know it, you know it, the dog knows it - and I ain't even got a dog; bunnyhopping is a bad mechanic. The fucking Titanfall 2 devs knew this, and had to slow down their game's movement and overall gameplay to make their game "stick".

 

You can repeat all you want "Well uh some people haven't bunnyhopped!" or say "Well anyone can bunnyhop!" all you want, but that just means that you can only play the game in one way: bunnyhop down the same meta-defined path. No advanced gunplay, no gamesense and tactics, just pure reaction.

 

And it's fine to enjoy that. But at the same time, I, and many others don't enjoy that. Now please for the love of the good lord and his royalty, be quiet

[gibfrag]

18 minutes ago, act said:

And it's fine to enjoy that. But at the same time, I, and many others don't enjoy that. Now please for the love of the good lord and his royalty, be quiet

No, I will not be quiet. You’re the one who started this “discussion” in the first place by making this thread, so don’t try to shut people up that disagree. Deathmatch is far more complex than you’re making it out to be. If you think it’s just mindless circling around and can only be approached one way then you have not played enough matches with a wide variety of players. 

Edited September 17, 2023 by gibfrag

[InfernalGrape]

Titanfall 2 was fun...

 

 

 

Quote

No advanced gunplay, no gamesense and tactics, just pure reaction.

 

Not sure about which games the phrase above talks, but it says more about person who says it rather than game itself.

 

 

 

http://panjoo.tastyspleen.net/downloads/quake2-theory-guide-by-myrmidon.pdf 

 

[Dreamskull]

The real culprit was of course Doom 3 flopping and handing over the market to Halo and CoD. The players didnt quit because of specific mechanics, but instead quit because there was painful realization that old design wasnt going to continue forward because they flubbed out against competition. That trade made for a certain type of player conditioning against ours that shifted all design one way and ours had a die off away from our games. Just look at design in Halo and CoD, it isnt that good, yet people play it. There are these things called plantations that snag up newer generations that come into the gaming landscape and they settle in. Enough settled on that side of the track that we can say the potential for any design is either mainstream or not.

 

Who owns Doom today? 

Edited September 17, 2023 by Dreamskull

[act]

1 minute ago, gibfrag said:

You’re the one who started this “conversation” in the first place by making this thread, so don’t try to shut people up that disagree.

You're not "disagreeing", you're just outright wrong here. I wish you weren't, but you are. It's something that's been noticed, looked into, and then agreed upon by many people who enjoy arena FPS games that usually have bunnyhopping that there is indeed a "best playstyle" - and that "best playstyle" is to use bunnyhopping to acquire the best possible equipment as quickly as possible, and proceed to pick off your enemies by moving in a preset path using bunnyhopping.

 

16 minutes ago, gibfrag said:

If you think it’s just mindless circling around and can only be approached one way then you have not played enough matches with a wide variety of players. 

I seriously need to ask like, I've been playing arena shooters vaguely for 5 years, and have played a whole schmorgousboard of them - why the hell are you focusing so much on me "not playing enough matches"?

[gibfrag]

2 minutes ago, act said:

You're not "disagreeing", you're just outright wrong here.

 

I seriously need to ask like, I've been playing arena shooters vaguely for 5 years, and have played a whole schmorgousboard of them - why the hell are you focusing so much on me "not playing enough matches"?

1) If that were the case, then there would’ve been no reason for this thread in the first place if the majority agrees upon it. 
 

2) Because your point of view screams “I played multiplayer a few times and lost, then saw a couple of random YouTube videos and here I am to tell you why the genre is dead”. 

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

48 minutes ago, act said:

i know it, you know it, the dog knows it - and I ain't even got a dog; bunnyhopping is a bad mechanic.

I thought this was an interesting thread, and I was in disagreement with people claiming that you're pretty much trolling, but now it seems like the point of the thread was actually "I hate bunnyhopping". For the record, I still highly doubt you made this thread to troll, but when you start stating your opinions as objective facts it makes it seem like you just wanted to argue with people who disagree with you. I'm not saying that was your intent, but that's what it's turned into at this point.

 

Another thing I don't understand: You say you've been playing arena shooters for five years, and you claim that you don't enjoy bunnyhopping (and you insinuate that bunnyhopping is required when playing arena shooters) and that bunnyhopping ruined arena shooters. Why did you play a genre for five years if you don't enjoy what you're making out to be the absolute central mechanic of the genre? I'm asking this in good faith, I'm not trying to argue with you or anything.

Edited September 17, 2023 by TheMagicMushroomMan

[gibfrag]

I’m not trying to start a heated argument, and sure maybe I was a bit baity to say “skill issue” initially and have been condescending at times. I just disagree with the notion that bunnyhopping is the only way to win and that multiplayer deathmatch is one-tracked style of gameplay. I have been playing games like Q3A since their release, not just for 5 years when the majority of players have long since moved on, and the industry itself has mostly moved on from legitimate deathmatch anyhow when many shooting games don’t even have multiplayer or do not have a dedicated deathmatch mode of play. I find titanfall 2 to be a pretty weird example to use against games that came out decades prior, too. 

 

Edited September 17, 2023 by gibfrag

[Dreamskull]

You could argue that ID used to be in the same category as Valve long ago, but they made mistakes that cost them the hegemonic position. With Valve winning out, you could frame Counter Strike as a key factor in the shift, but thats unfavorable because Valve and Counter Strike are beloved. I would rather this remain a PC vs console fight. The huge influx of people hopping over after Doom 3 shit the bed cannot be overstated. Master Chief is a Doomguy ripoff with more story afterall. It could have really just been a younger generation coming in to play an easier, slower and sanitized series of games as opposed to gory hardcore variants. You could even be bold and blame 9/11 if you REALLY wanted to press the "mother of all hot takes" button for the shift into straight military shooters. Put all of these reasons next to your gripe with the bunnyhopping mechanic. Does it hold up in your mind?

Edited September 17, 2023 by Dreamskull

[act]

6 minutes ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

I thought this was an interesting thread, and I was in disagreement with people claiming that you're pretty much trolling, but now it seems like the point of the thread was actually "I hate bunnyhopping". For the record, I still highly doubt you made this thread to troll, but when you start stating your opinions as objective facts it makes it seem like you just wanted to argue with people who disagree with you. I'm not saying that was your intent, but that's what it's turned into at this point.

 

Another thing I don't understand: You say you've been playing arena shooters for five years, and you claim that you don't enjoy bunnyhopping (and you insinuate that bunnyhopping is required when playing arena shooters) and that bunnyhopping ruined arena shooters. Why did you play a genre for five years if you don't enjoy what you're making out to be the absolute central mechanic of the genre? I'm asking this in good faith, I'm not trying to argue with you or anything.

Yeah honestly mate, it's mostly due to gibfrag basically going "DUH-NUH" to everything. And when you're arguing with someone like that, your only option is to double-down, and that's what I did. Don't have the player, hate the game.

 

And I mean... what the hell is the point of the second paragraph? Like, I played arena shooters because I think they're fun. Why? Because they present a sandbox of combat. What I've noticed, however, from all of these games - sans Fistful of Frags, which I played the most consistently and frequently out of all the options - is that bunnyhopping is like a parasitic leech on the meta of the games. When you bunnyhop, you really have no choice but to play the game around the bunnyhop, and the problem is that due to the intrinstic nature of the bunnyhop - with its high speed, relatively low controllability, etc. - the game just becomes a one-trick pony. That's why people just... stopped playing Arena Shooters. Compare this to Fistful of Frags, an Arena Shooter without bunnyhopping but rather its own set of advanced mechanics like the aforementioned throwing of in-game props? People can play that game for hours at a time, and it kicked and screamed away from death for years now.

 

I think the worst part of it, honestly, is how people within the community of those who do enjoy Arena FPS games are very scared of disliking the bunnyhop. They see it as almost their little secret handshake, a sacred aspect of their game - and as gibfrag has displayed, they'll actively perform mental gymnastics and Dollar Tree-gaslighting to defend the bunnyhop. But it's like, that's not what Arena FPS games are all about. And sure there is a way to make a game that works well with bunnyhopping and the like, but as it's currently implemented, I feel like it takes away from a series of potentially seriously deep combat sandboxes, all in the name of flashy and gimmicky overly-fast movement.

[InfernalGrape]

About enjoyment. The way I personally got hooked into playing Q3A over the web, was playing with friends and friends of the friends. For a while I only ever played it just inside such a circle where everyone knew each other, there were no much skill gaps, we played it on private servers and had voice chat (it started as skype conference, later we moved to discord). Only later I started playing "with random people", but that led me into a community where I got aknowledged with a bunch people, and so kinda I made new friends and tried to stick with them. Later I found myself "ready" for going into playing with unknown people much more often, and that led me to "friending" around 150 people in steam who were basically "random people i played with". Some of them were my skill, many of them were higher than me but they were helpful and often ready to help with advice and what not. There was an year when I tried to get competitive, tried out some tournaments and what not. Then IRL stuff crawled to me and I abandoned genre again... just to continue it later once again. I dont play with "serious" people much anymore, but  I still have friends/friends of friends/whatever guys whom I can ask to make a deathmatch party once in a while without caring much about adcanced movement or something. With them I had evening in Duke 3D, Blood, Doom but also Quake, Unreal Tournament, Xonotic etc. etc. The only thing, if you play just with friends and dont want some super high skilled veteran to step in and ruin the evening for you, play on your own servers or even use radmin/zerotier for LAN over Web, lol.

[InfernalGrape]

I still can't understand idea that bhop is the thing that wins the game for you. I'm better with bhop than with aiming, but I very often loose to people who shoot me better regardless of how fast I go. Even then, movement/bhop and aiming are not the ultimate key to game. You must know the map you are playing on (which kinda means you can imagine it in your brain with closed eyes), you must know when to use which weapons (and when NOT TO use), you must know which items to prioritize etc. etc. etc. There is enough intricate stuff like baiting your opponent, luring them to go where you want to. It's "6d thinking" as some people say. But, of course, if you choose to play for mindless fragging, it's also fun and you can enjoy it if you want to.