Feedback Thread - Atom Gliding

[Fluffy]

This is the feedback thread for the currently testmerged atom gliding PR (https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/17215)

 

The PR substitute our mini-jumps with a smooth(er) transition between turfs/tiles

The effective movement speed (how much time a mob takes to move from turf A to B) is unaltered

 

Please, give it a couple of days to get a feeling on this different approach to movement and leave your feedback

[DatSamTho]

Not sure how to say this, but it just doesn't really feel right. Everyone's movements feel super slow and sluggish, like moving through water.

Other than that, a bunch of the janicart interactions are broken:

-sometimes it doesn't glide at all, and still skips like before (Not sure what causes it, I wasn't able to recreate it reliably. It happened to me with the janicart at the start of round, but evened out later, when I put everything on it.)

-it "jitters" a pixel or two back and forth when moving it

-running with the janicart skips your screen forward

[ReadThisNamePlz]

Hi Fluffy, let me preface this with the following. 

You are an excellent coder, and I greatly appreciate what you're trying to implement, and the time you're taking to try and improve the game for everyone. 

However, I am pretty against this. I just messed around with it, tried to give it a shot, and ultimately it is giving me an actual headache. I LOVE the running mixed with it, it looks great. But normal walking makes me feel like I am sliding around on ice and it is actually making me feel motion sick. 

I'd say make it slightly choppier for the walking? I dunno. I do not want to see this fully merged as is right now. 

[TheSleepyCatmom]

I've found that movement suddenly being smoother makes things a bit sickly for me. Everything looks like it's intended for a much higher FPS than the game actually runs in day-to-day. The slower you are as an individual as well (such as Diona, G2) the worse it looks and it only looks passable for speedier Tajara and sprinting as a human/'nathi/what have you. I feel like I'm trying to watch, as read said, something skim about on ice and it really doesn't make anything feel nice. Especially when used in conjunction with pathing onto doors to open them, it can become very jarring. Almost anyone in a voidsuit looks like they're sliding their way through an ice rink as well. It's something I honestly wish was not here anymore as I'm not really sure I can play full rounds with this unless I weren't moving.

[La Villa Strangiato]

I'll withhold full judgment until after a couple days, but right now I'm not really sold. For lack of a better word, it feels less like you're moving, and more like you're just pushing a character around the floor without any real feedback.

[rrrrrr]

This would be really, really nice for space/zero gravity... if it were limited to that? This would be awesome.

For actually moving around on the ship, it feels weird and off-putting. I have been informed by the server's best and brightest minds (OOC: William Murdoch) that it's not actually slower, it just looks and feels slower.

I think the fact that everyone's initial reaction is either correctly calling it out as slower (it sure feels like it is!) or apparently mass-hallucinating that it's slower is, uh, not great.

EDIT: For the record, I do think that it's just an illusory slowness, upon looking very closely at how fast I am going. That said, the gamefeel is totally off, now...

Edited September 27, 2023 by rrrrrr

[party]

Every species' base speeds would need to be increased for this to look and feel good enough to play with on the regular. The slow glide is uncomfortably sluggish at human walking speed and creates issues when trying to determine which tile a player is actually considered to be standing on when they begin movement. I'm not completely against gliding (the LRP server I started on has had it for as long as I can remember), but it doesn't feel great with Aurora's comparatively relaxed pace.

[ShakyJake]

I've seen this movement style elsewhere and I'm just not a fan of it personally, it looks wrong and uncanny to me. With the way we currently have it, it at least sort of gives the feel that you're stepping around instead of gliding or floating because there's a cadence to it that this just doesn't have.

[Fluffy]

I am aware it feels different than before, however I suspect it might have to do with us not being used to it, like when you get a new monitor for your PC, that's why I have asked in the OP to:

2 hours ago, Fluffy said:

Please, give it a couple of days to get a feeling on this different approach to movement and leave your feedback

That is done to iron out any first-impact sensation that might be due to it just being different than what we're used to; after that, we can see if it can be salvaged (as a side note, it's possible to set it not to apply below a certain movement speed, eg. walking), if it has to be scrapped, if it makes sense to keep it and increase the movement speed, or whatever else might come out of the conversation after this small test

 

So, please, give it a couple of days to get a feeling on this different approach

[Bear]

1 hour ago, ReadThisNamePlz said:

Hi Fluffy, let me preface this with the following. 

You are an excellent coder, and I greatly appreciate what you're trying to implement, and the time you're taking to try and improve the game for everyone. 

However, I am pretty against this. I just messed around with it, tried to give it a shot, and ultimately it is giving me an actual headache. I LOVE the running mixed with it, it looks great. But normal walking makes me feel like I am sliding around on ice and it is actually making me feel motion sick. 

I'd say make it slightly choppier for the walking? I dunno. I do not want to see this fully merged as is right now. 

I have to echo this, especially on the motion sickness.

[ReadThisNamePlz]

4 minutes ago, Fluffy said:

So, please, give it a couple of days to get a feeling on this different approach

I am telling you right now, I had to log off bc I began feeling genuinely sick. 

I am not giving this "a couple of days"; a game shouldn't make a player feel sick.

[ATGiltspire]

Honestly, I had the same reaction. Observing and following people was dizzying, and watching a single sparring match in the holodeck made me have to step away from the game. I can't imagine playing a whole round, or even part of one, like this, unfortunately.

[Yonnimer]

Echoing what a few people have said in ooc and that a preference toggle would be preferred over this being the standard option, if it's not possible then this shouldn't be our movement system. It feels awful to play like this, it makes you feel incredibly sluggish to the point where it is a bit frustrating, the normal system isn't exactly smooth but it feels right for the way the game is, not really the case with this system.

I am almost completely certain movement is actually slower with this system as well, if it's due to sever lag or something else i'm unsure, but, movement speed feels like its been cut in half and it's painfully obvious as a first responder.

This needs to be reverted asap, I don't want to play any role with movement until it is and it seems the sentiment is shared.

Edited September 27, 2023 by Yonnimer
adding more to this

[Captain Gecko]

Smooth is good for fast games. It's good for CM, for TG, it's good for SS14 even... but it really doesn't feel right with Aurora.

First I really, REALLY feel like we're actually slower, and not that it's just an impression. My Unathi cannot actually sprint as far as they used to, perhaps something to do with the stamina going down faster, I don't know how it works, but something has changed gameplay-wise.

As far as the smoothness goes... Yeah as people said before, it's actually frustrating to play like this. I find this unbearable on my end, I feel super sluggish playing a lizard, and I can't imagine how G2s and Dionae must feel. Even if there are no actual changes in speed it just doesn't feel good.

[Fluffy]

I have requested to un-testmerge it, and I will look into if it is worth to leave it only at higher speeds, or just drop the idea of using smooth atom gliding movement

[Fluffy]

Next round it will not have it, as of now it's un-testmerged

Come and play!

[HanSolo1519]

I wanted to say that I enjoyed it. Made incredibly slow movement (offworlder in a voidsuit and a duffelbag, lol) a bit more enjoyable to watch, and I personally didn't suffer any of the nausea people reported, though I could see how that could happen.

Thank you for coding this, and I hope your work gets utilized somehow . 

[GeneralCamo]

It might be ideal to bring our base movement speed up to what other servers have. I do believe that other servers with atom gliding have a higher base speed and that might be ideal to bring here

[wowzewow]

I think this is still worthwhile to pursue.

There was also a definite adjustment period to the 3/4ths update with adjustments to the tiles and general look and feel, and it was pretty jarring at first.

 

I think this update is a net positive. Just give this a week to get used to.

[ImmortalRedshirt]

I don't think there is any adjustment to this. It doesn't play nice with a lot of systems, the motion sickness makes the game actively less accessible, and all for something who's sole reason for being added is because every LRP fragfest on the hub uses it too.

[Carver]

23 hours ago, GeneralCamo said:

It might be ideal to bring our base movement speed up to what other servers have. I do believe that other servers with atom gliding have a higher base speed and that might be ideal to bring here

I’m entirely against this, I play Aurora precisely because of the relaxed and thoughtful pacing where I don’t need to stress about reaction time and fine aiming or worry about people walking off at lightning speeds while I’m trying to say something.

[Fluffy]

After consideration, I will not proceed with this project, increasing movement speed across the board does not seem ideal and the effort to have this only for running is disproportionate to its utility.

Closing and archiving.