[V. HOT TAKE] Bunnyhopping Killed the Arena FPS

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

3 hours ago, xScavengerWolfx said:

To me what i really think killed the arena shooter is the whole trend of "we need battle royal in gaming because it's the hot new thing" and also the micro transactions for gaming helped put the nails in the coffin for it as well.

I think the arena shooter genre was pretty much already dead by the time battle royale stuff took off.

 

4 hours ago, banjiepixel said:

Timesplitters 2 is the best arena FPS

This man knows whats up (although I never really thought of TS as an arena shooter, but I guess it works)! Future Perfect was also great.

[RonnieJamesDiner]

Bunnyhopping is a perfectly balanced mechanic, just ask phoon.

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

[mrthejoshmon]

7 hours ago, banjiepixel said:

Timesplitters 2 is the best arena FPS and it has no jumping at all.

 

And arena FPS games generally suffer from similar problems as fighting games, most people are not into pure skill competition and need distractions like team gameplay ja shop/money mechanics to keep them engaged. There has been also several waves of people expecting games to be more realistic and grounded that basically did has hurt arena FPS genre because they lean much heavily to arcadey side of things. Actual arcade style games are much more rare these days in general with mostly indie developers keeping things alive.

 

State of modern day Unreal Tournament is pretty similar to modern day state of Ridge Racer or NFL Blitz. Fighting games is one of only arcade based game genres that has actually survived and are still being made by big companies.

Struth.

 

No fancy techs, no bullshit backflip 360 rocket jump shit, just get the gun and bloody shoot em, cowboy style.

 

And I say this coming from a place where I grew up playing things I really shouldn't have like Quake, Painkiller and UT.

 

The fast paced shooter is always where I'm home but I found that whilst a bhop mess is always a giggle (Anybody talk part in Opposing the Bar the other day? That was a blast), I prefer it when I'm not having to focus on my momentum, trajectory AND accuracy like I'm piloting a ship.

 

I find strategic quick decision making is so much more fun when it doesn't involve manually catapulting yourself but it will always have an appeal on it's own.

[act]

7 minutes ago, mrthejoshmon said:

No fancy techs, no bullshit backflip 360 rocket jump shit, just get the gun and bloody shoot em, cowboy style.

This is the exact emotional kinda concept I was trying to quantify. I feel like the reason why Joshmon prefers the style of an arena-shooter without extremely fast movement is because it permits the gameplay to be centered around the guns, hence "cowboy style".

 

The benefits of this are more overall varied gameplay. Again, I'll reiterate, bunnyhopping, sadly, makes arena shooters glorified on-rails shooters. When you slow the pace of an arena shooter down, then you need to focus on the firearm you're using, and how you can use the environment to beneift your choice of weapon - whether intentionally selected or selected by respawn position. This kind of gameplay is a lot more magical than the quick burst and, in the description of a Titanfall 2 developer, "sugary" gameplay.

 

A great example of this kind of game is Fistful of Frags. That game is amazing, seriously, check it out. It's a Quake-like arena shooter, but everyone has a glorified albiet weaker railgun and there's no bunnyhopping. Rather, the game leans further into the environmental aspect of the arena shooter, and amplifies it by adding mechanics like being able to pick up in-map props and throwing them at your enemies, for example.

 

I do need to add that I feel like a lot of people in the thread are focusing on the "Killed" part of the title - focusing on primarily the death of arena shooters such as Quake in public popularity, which I am responsible for. But I really want this thread to be a discussion about the role bunnyhopping mechanics have in making arena shooters less (And arguably more) fun.

 

Spoiler

I will also confess, I may or may not have been absolutely maggoted when I made this thread. But I'm glad it hasn't devolved into a flamewar.

 

[mrthejoshmon]

Solid points, wonderful to see Fistful of Frags brought up (wondeful game, really scratches that itch).

 

I want to also add more to the rail shooter part, and yes I am absolutely in agreement with it. Having played them, the emphasis on moving quickly and sticking to an established route for specific items and weapons leads to feeling that you are just on a rail waiting to react to something and bhopping to the location in the exact same path in the exact same rhythm absolutely saps the fun.

 

You mainly just follow your route, wait for s to appear and then repeat, gets mighty cumbersome after a while.

[Shepardus]

If bunnyhopping killed the arena FPS, what happened to all the games that aren't Quake?

[OniriA]

I like to wear my bunny ears whenever I play a 90's/2000's FPS cause I know I'm going to hop my way through D-Day or the Battle of Stalingrad and the jungles of Vietnam, or through various infernal fortresses in Painkiller while I impale hordes of cultists.

 

Hoppidy hop, that's how I make 'em drop. 

 

Except when I choose the highest difficulty that is, I'll be made roasted rabbit-meat in no time..

Edited September 16, 2023 by OniriA

[lazygecko]

Competitive metas always lead to real weird and off-putting attitudes from their communities, like people sincerely arguing against improving RTS pathfinding because that lowers the skill ceiling in micromanagement.

[Hebonky]

Is this bait?

[act]

48 minutes ago, Hebonky said:

Is this bait?

how did you even remotely come to that conclusion, im dearly curious now

[Hebonky]

38 minutes ago, act said:

how did you even remotely come to that conclusion, im dearly curious now

Because it's such an insane take! It feels too wacky to be true!

[act]

4 minutes ago, Hebonky said:

Because it's such an insane take! It feels too wacky to be true!

but like dude, read the thread. me and another guy are substantiating eachother's opinion and it seems to resonate with an - albiet small - section of people mang

 

i dont wanna come off as preachy man but you seriously gotta start like, considering alternative viewpoints mannnn... like...

[gibfrag]

My issue with this “take” is that you’ve mentioned tactics that you believe can’t be utilized when bunnyhopping is an option, yet that is entirely false. Every tactic you mentioned has been utilized for decades and bunnyhopping hasn’t stopped people from using said tactics to great effect and winning matches, with or without bunnyhopping themselves. 

Edited September 17, 2023 by gibfrag

[act]

35 minutes ago, gibfrag said:

My issue with this “take” is that you’ve mentioned tactics that you believe can’t be utilized when bunnyhopping is an option, yet that is entirely false. Every tactic you mentioned has been utilized for decades and bunnyhopping hasn’t stopped people from using said tactics to great effect and winning matches, with or without bunnyhopping themselves. 

I dunno man, in my experience the usage of bunnyhopping has pretty much made every strategy outside of "Bunnyhop down a meta-optimized path per map depending on your spawn, and try to hit everyone that you pass by - or passes by you." nigh unviable. Someone moving at 600mph theoretically can be baited and subsequently trapped, but realistically? No.

 

Bunnyhopping is a definitely powerful - hell, overpowered - strategy and tool, and it naturally has choked out every other way of playing the game. That's simply how game balance works. Look, it's fine if you enjoy bunnyhopping as a mechanic, but it's really silly to actively deny the point I'm making; bunnyhopping has killed off every other style of playing "arena shooters" that it's present in, particularly by being too powerful.

 

Now, is that a bad thing? I'd say so - but it's your personal opinion to believe that's not the case. But it is certainly true that bunnyhopping is so powerful that it's drowned out other methods of playing Quake.

[gibfrag]

How many matches have you played?

[act]

decent bit of matches mate, spread across quake og, quake 3, quake live, openfortress, fistful of frags, and zdaemon if it counts since I was 13

[Maribo]

11 hours ago, xScavengerWolfx said:

Bunny hopping is fine and dandy in single player but my issue is the halo jumping bullshit. Halo jumping and tea bagging is so cancerous now in this gen of fps games.

Do you make a point of going into every thread and immediately try to derail into completely unrelated topics? Because you do this with shocking frequency. I have no clue what you mean by "halo jumping", is this just a term for the floatier jumping feel that Halo games have? And teabagging.... lmfao dude, bunny hopping is a mechanic and "halo jumping" is at least a kind of jump movement(?), are there games out there that give you bonus stats for teabagging dead opponents now or are you once again whining for the sake of whining?

 

1 hour ago, act said:

I dunno man, in my experience the usage of bunnyhopping has pretty much made every strategy outside of "Bunnyhop down a meta-optimized path per map depending on your spawn, and try to hit everyone that you pass by - or passes by you."

I think that this is kind of just how it shakes out in the end - The person who can control the power-ups/weapons controls the flow of the game, with the extreme movement potential being one of the main factors for control. I think there's more to it than just taking whatever the best path is, but I dunno, I haven't been playing Quake descendants for 20+ years like some people.

 

6 hours ago, RonnieJamesDiner said:

Bunnyhopping is a perfectly balanced mechanic, just ask phoon.

 

  Hide contents

 

 

 

Best post in this thread and also one of the greatest videos of all time. <3

[xScavengerWolfx]

34 minutes ago, Maribo said:

Do you make a point of going into every thread and immediately try to derail into completely unrelated topics? Because you do this with shocking frequency. I have no clue what you mean by "halo jumping", is this just a term for the floatier jumping feel that Halo games have? And teabagging.... lmfao dude, bunny hopping is a mechanic and "halo jumping" is at least a kind of jump movement(?), are there games out there that give you bonus stats for teabagging dead opponents now or are you once again whining for the sake of whining?

If your trying to start a flame war with me i am not going to humor it. Because flame wars get nowhere and there lame.

 

I am not going to get the op's post locked because some ass came in and started shit with me. If you want to start a flame war go to like reddit or twitter or 4chan where that belongs, not here.

 

To the OP i am really sorry someone came in here and tried to start a flame war with me.

Edited September 17, 2023 by xScavengerWolfx

[dasho]

So does A/B routes make Counterstrike de_* maps glorified rail shooters?

 

Is Capture The Flag a rail shooter because you are trying to get to their flag and back until you have to react to something?

 

I really feel like you are trying to force this term to the detriment of your other points. "On rails" is something like Area 51 or House of the Dead.

[Thomased22]

6 hours ago, mrthejoshmon said:

Solid points, wonderful to see Fistful of Frags brought up (wondeful game, really scratches that itch).

This game's good, it's many alternate gamemodes put a great spin on what the real problem here is, arena deathmatch. 

I've put a fair bit of time into Quake 1 but had the most fun playing Quake Team Fortress. Because running around a map, taking loops around power ups and weapon ammo, is, not optimal. Not a gameplay loop enjoyed by most people if we're being real. Otherwise quake champions would have a playerbase lol. I had my fun with quake 1, and I think it's better with something mechanically demanding like Bhopping I guess. Halo is the only modern game that gets away with "run circles around the map" because Halo tends to give you two really good weapons when you spawn, and all of the "Power Weapons" have very limited ammo or require precision. Also objective based modes help a bit to reduce the monotony. But then again Halo is dying so idk if even that is something wanted by modern audiences. 

 

The benefit of bunnyhopping is that it adds nuance to what would otherwise amount to holding W. I feel a similar way about Hollow Knight. To make my long and nuanced list of grievances really short and related to my point here, it has no little movement thing you can partake in when going from place to place. So when you aren't fighting a boss, the actual fun part of the game, you're just walking around, and it's not very stimulating to say the least. Unlike Symphony of the night with it's backdashing. Is backdashing a little dumb in that game? Yeah, maybe. But it's at least something. Keeps my brain and my hands busy so I don't become so bored that I want to do anything else with my time. 

 

Back on topic though, I will also not hear any Titanfall or Fortnite slander. The quality of it's players I can't argue but they are two evolutionary lines off of this metaphorical prehistoric creature. The game design is, for the most part, a natural evolution and also kind of really good. At least a good bit of the time. Idk fortnite is always changing a lot so it's not the most consistent in quality. But when it's good, shit is good. The biggest hoot and holler to have with friends.

 

No game is perfect but I think people like to willfully turn a blind eye to things that are an evolution of something they claim to enjoy, because after all that time they like the idea of the game they are loyal to. What it represents to them and it's place in their life. Maybe more than they actually like the game itself.

[riktoi]

4 hours ago, act said:

I dunno man, in my experience the usage of bunnyhopping has pretty much made every strategy outside of "Bunnyhop down a meta-optimized path per map depending on your spawn, and try to hit everyone that you pass by - or passes by you." nigh unviable. Someone moving at 600mph theoretically can be baited and subsequently trapped, but realistically? No.

 

Bunnyhopping is a definitely powerful - hell, overpowered - strategy and tool, and it naturally has choked out every other way of playing the game. That's simply how game balance works. Look, it's fine if you enjoy bunnyhopping as a mechanic, but it's really silly to actively deny the point I'm making; bunnyhopping has killed off every other style of playing "arena shooters" that it's present in, particularly by being too powerful.

 

You're completely ignoring the nuances of spawnpoints and how maps are generally designed to allow for multiple routes to a powerup or point of interest. Still, I see absolutely no reason why bhopping would be the culprit of this.

 

Bhopping is a vital part of the games you are playing and choosing to ignore it is like choosing to not use grenades in Counter-Strike. It is added complexity beyond just aim at head, shoot at head, win. People like that their competitive games aren't one dimensional like that. Myself included.

 

Choking less optimal playstyles is what happens naturally. When players get better and better, the most instrumental kind of play reigns supreme. And I do get not liking that.

 

[act]

2 hours ago, dasho said:

So does A/B routes make Counterstrike de_* maps glorified rail shooters?

 

Is Capture The Flag a rail shooter because you are trying to get to their flag and back until you have to react to something?

 

I really feel like you are trying to force this term to the detriment of your other points. "On rails" is something like Area 51 or House of the Dead.

Are A/B routes just one singular corridor you go down?

 

Is life just a rail shooter because you wait to react to something?

 

It's really obvious where the comparison comes from, because you have a hilariously high speed in Bhopping games, you end up having to generally travel in a set and planned path. There's no real sense of "gamesense-influenced microdecisions" that are as complex as per se, Team Fortress 2. Let's say in that game you're wandering through the halls of ctf_2fort, Red Engineer. You just spawned, no buildings are up yet. All you know is theres a soldier whose taking the intelligence, and has picked it up right now. Do you choose to place down a building, and if so, where? Do you choose to push in with your shotgun to kill the soldier? Maybe even switch off Engineer? These things don't happen in Quake, or a BHopping AFPS [Arena FPS].

 

Now you can say "Well, one has way more mechanics!" but let me try to equalize the examples. When you're playing a BHopping AFPS, the main concerns to you are firstly your speed, secondly your positioning, and thirdly your armaments. Speed is literally just determined by what can be quantified with one number. Positioning is literally as complex as 3D space is complex, plus a myriod of different attributes. Armaments are equally as complex. Sure, speed does have to do with actual movement movement, yes, but the movement you're worried about in bunnyhopping is primarily on a sort of "macro" scale, which is more common sense than skill. And because in BHopping AFPS, BHopping - as in, Speed - is king, the main chunk of BHopping AFPS gameplay is boiled down to focusing on your rather linear movement, trying to keep as much speed as possible. This also really tones down the room for gunplay, as due to the extremely high speeds and mobility, weapons like the Grenade Launcher and Plasma Gun of Q3A fame have become nearly worthless, but if movement was slowed down a bit, I'd bet they'd become far more popular.

 

 

35 minutes ago, riktoi said:

Bhopping is a vital part of the games you are playing and choosing to ignore it is like choosing to not use grenades in Counter-Strike. It is added complexity beyond just aim at head, shoot at head, win. People like that their competitive games aren't one dimensional like that. Myself included.

@ me again when grenades in cs are basically like tactical fucking nukes kthxbaiiii

[Thomased22]

31 minutes ago, act said:

@ me again when grenades in cs are basically like tactical fucking nukes kthxbaiiii

???????????????????????????????????????????

The sheer depths as to which this statement can be deconstructed limb by limb know few bounds. And I'm not smart enough to do it justice. However, take this anyways:

#1: Nades require objectively wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy more knowledge and skill. On a per map basis. A different set of skills entirely too mind you. Precision and knowledge, as well as formerly execution, valve implemented a bind to make optimal grenade tosses better for CS2 last I heard.

#2: Nades are better and more centralized to the game's meta than Bhopping is. Bhopping really is just a nerf to the grenade launcher and nailgun and shit. Centralizing the rocket launcher and lightning gun/railgun. Bhopping alone doesn't do anything. It just magnifies the power of these power weapons even more. Stretching the gap between them and other lesser weapons. Thus facilitating the need to follow routs and whatnot anyways. But you're arguing that bhopping killed arena shooters while I'm arguing that deathmatch is just kind of boring. Two different things that just so happen to have a fair bit of crossover.

#3: Grenades are so central to the game that without them, the game would basically become deathmatch with no respawns. Grenades are what allow the Ts to use strategy to get themselves into advantageous gunfights and OBJ positions. And nades are one of the tools that the CTs need to use well in order to close the gap between them and the T's AKs.

Gonna be frank you've gotten to the point where from the outside looking in it just looks like you're picking fights and looking for attention. What's the point of all of this? Granted I think bhopping is way more 2 dimensional than nades, and they aren't directly comparable. But their effects can be measured against one another for sure.

I think if you argued: "bhopping resulted in reductive gameplay that seems to keep arena shooters out of the mainstream" you'd have been much better off here. But the shock value is obviously more important to you.

[Azuris]

Just also to add.

 

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

 

It was Consoles and their Upcoming of Gameplay Style that "killed" Arena Shooters.

 

Halo and similiar Style of Gameplays that adopt well to Controllers just were better suited for the Limitations of such Devices.

(Goldeneye and other N64 started the Way here)

The Success of it brought others to replicate it, be it Call of Duty or Killzone.

 

Overwatch has very diverse Options for Movement that can go very vertical and Doom 2016 and Eternal showed that Arena Shooter like Movement isn't really death and can be successful.

 

We hadn't really a standard Layout for Controllers during the Xbox/PS2/Gamecube Time, Devs were still figuring out how to adopt to all of this.

Changing between 10 Weapons was difficult for fast paced Games and there was no Weapon Wheel.

Having limited Weapons and a slower paced Game was a "Solution" to it.

 

Nothing bad about it, you can have Fun with it.

But its not that one is better than the other, it really depends on the singular Game and your personal Preferences

 

Quake Champions was dead on arrival because of bad Marketing.

It seemed as they wanted to make an Hero Shooter, an "Genre" that got nearly every Week another Title announced.

They should have showed it more as a badass Arena Shooter, that would have brought more Attention to it, as it would be a better Contrast to a exhausted Market with Fortnite and Overwatch having the big Part of the Cake.

 

Btw. also techical Limitations brought Devs to make Games different.

The loading Times of Quake 3 on the PS2 are comparable to the C64 loading from Tapes.

[riktoi]

2 hours ago, act said:

@ me again when grenades in cs are basically like tactical fucking nukes kthxbaiiii

 

I'm sure you can do better than that fella.

[dasho]

4 hours ago, act said:

When you're playing a BHopping AFPS, the main concerns to you are firstly your speed, secondly your positioning

 

Exactly, neither of which you control when you are on rails, hence why it is a bad choice of phrase.

[Kinsie]

I don't necessarily buy that complex, overcomplicated, unintuitive gameplay mechanics are the reason why certain genres struggle, because if that were the case Dota and League of Legends probably wouldn't have more active players than New Zealand has people at any given time.

[BGreener]

“Bunnyhopping killed arena-styled FPS” feels very misplaced. It lead to creating fun movement mechanics for various shooters, and isn’t unlike Street Fighter inadvertently creating fun and feel-good combos and cancels.
 

5 minutes ago, Kinsie said:

I don't necessarily buy that complex, overcomplicated, unintuitive gameplay mechanics are the reason why certain genres struggle, because if that were the case Dota and League of Legends probably wouldn't have more active players than New Zealand has people at any given time.

 

That can be a dangerous can of worms to poke, the one labeled “MOBA vs RTS complexity”..!

[camper]

I don't think Bunnyhopping is bad and killed the genre. There is a good example: UrbanTerror. Yes, it is very niche and there are not many players, but it has been around for quite a long time. Although it claims to be realistic, it is actually a standalone quake 3 arena mod.
Here you can estimate how many players are playing right now: https://www.urbanterror.info/servers/list/

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

Even if bunnyhopping is a "tactical nuke", it hardly matters when all players have access to the tactical nuke. You could certainly argue that bunnyhopping is unintuitive, and it looks stupid as hell, and sounds stupid as hell in theory. But i never thought of it as anything other than adding verticality and speed to combat. Plenty of multiplayer shooters have jump/dash/wallrun mechanics that play a big part of combat and leave players who don't use those abilities at a disadvantage. Bunnyhopping is hardly any more difficult to pull off. It's like arguing that players who don't straferun in DOOM are at a disadvantage - so what? Is someone going to make a video about how straferunning killed DOOM's deathmatch popularity as opposed to the fact that it's just old?