Movement mechanics feedback

I wanted to start this thread to:

  1. Make people more aware about how movement mechanics is a big part about how tactical a game is and why Sandstorm might not feel as tactical right now.
  2. Make sure as many people as possible would start talking about this topic.
  3. My arguments about movement mechanics were originally posted inside some threads so this might improve the chances of devs seeing this discussion.

I will say what I have to say. I would like everyone to comment on these and give suggestions how the tweak the movement mechanics, to make the game more tactical.

Now when talking about a "tactical game" and "movement mechanics" some people might think about some games that have very sluggish and "clunky" movement mechanics, that really feel horrible, but this is not something I'm after with my post. I want the movement to be fluid and it needs to feel good for the player. I don't you have to choose either or. Question is, how can we have a tactical movement mechanic in the game, that still feels good for the players to use.

So to my point:

My original post:

There are issues in movement mechanics that make the game LESS TACTICAL at the moment:

  1. Instant acceleration to sprint speed
  2. You can zigzag and change direction without slowing down.
  3. When you are hit, your movement is not affected. Players can keep on running full sprint while taking a hit.
  4. Also MAYBE the maximum sprint speed with heavy armour. I really don't have a 100% opinion here at the moment.

These issues effect how people choose positions and paths in the game. They can get away from positional disadvantage more easily at the moment. They are not afraid to run in the open, because you can get away easily from that disadvantage even if you are hit once. They strafe in CQB, because it is possible with these movement mechanics.

Tweaking the points I mentioned would most likely change game to make positioning more important and making it harder for players to get away with huge positional mistakes (but not making it impossible to retreat from a minor positional disadvantage to try and find a better position) and rewarding better positioning and thus RAISING THE TACTICAL SKILL required

Some tweaks have been made since in the later patches. But 3 main elements that could use tweaking and testing are:

  1. acceleration (zigzagging goes under this I guess, sidestepping also? Or should it be a category of it's own?)
  2. how getting hit affects movement
  3. how weight affects max speed

How would you like these to work in Sandstorm? And why?

I know there have been some threads about this, but in my opinion this is so important that it deserves repeating/bumping here on the forum. The more I have been thinking about this, the more I'm convinced that movement mechanics is going to be super important if devs want to make Sandstorm more tactical, than it is currently.

First up I’d like the animations to line up with the movement speed.
The lean animation is almost instant.
The prone to standing/running animation has people shooting while at a 30 degree angle to the ground.
People can shoot at you without even looking at you, they can even appear to still be running sometimes.

I think the zig zagging can get a slight nerf. I think zig zagging is a legitimate tactic when taking cover. Just not at the current speeds.

I think the game gets more tactical the more punishing the player base is. As people learn the maps,spots and strats the tactical aspect will go up. I’ve already noticed I can’t run around as much as I used to now people are getting familure with the game.
Then you’ll end up playing a fresh wave of players and it’s back to sprinting all over the map.

As long as we're talking about motion, can the technicals turret get a max rotation speed? It's so dumb that that giant heavy machinegun AND literally 2 large sheets of thick steel can rotate at unlimited speeds (1:1 mouse aim)