4 ms·

Fun is different things to different people. It’s common for many gamers to believe that fun for them is fun for everyone, but balancing fun for multiple partie

Fun is different things to different people. It’s common for many gamers to believe that fun for them is fun for everyone, but balancing fun for multiple parties in a multiplayer game, where losing has to be fun, too, involves a lot of tradeoffs. Inevitably, there will be some mechanic or feature that works against the long-term health of the game, despite being fun for some, and it’s either the game or the mechanic. One of them has to go. A good designer, though, should also be examining why that mechanic was fun, and how the same dynamics that led to it can be recreated in a way that’s fun for both the player and their opponent. Or even a different game built on different assumptions where those dynamics are accepted. There’s often a lot more that goes into removing something like bunny hopping than just a desire for polish. To any player out there angry at the removal of their favorite mechanic, my request is to consider the whole game and the enjoyment of all the people who play it, even at the expense of the thing that’s fun for you.

hmm123 7y ago
Well said. Good example of this illustrated through a classic CS:S montage video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNvDUO42Hys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNvDUO42Hys
jiofih 7y ago
I don’t know if you played CS at the time, but there wasn’t a single soul who didn’t enjoy bunny hopping or had mastering it as a goal Besides the standard bomb maps, and the fun game dynamics created by this “bug”, there were hundreds of servers running surf_ maps and others that relied on hopping mechanics. The update threw a massive community in a tar pit.
- aspaceman 7y ago
  > It’s common for many gamers to believe that fun for them is fun for everyone I never liked bunny-hopping.
- ergothus 7y ago
  > I don’t know if you played CS at the time, but there wasn’t a single soul who didn’t enjoy bunny hopping Loads game Sees people hopping like preschoolers "No thanks. I'm good. " A bit of a self fulfilling statement there. I understand and appreciate that others found it fun, but such mechanics have always reduced my enjoyment, and I tend to avoid such games. Nothing wrong with either side of that, but one cant then claim the unanimity of enjoyment as meaningful.
  - jiofih 7y ago
    Since that was the only way CS ever worked until then, what else would you expect? It was never marketed as a Rainbow Six.
    - ergothus 7y ago
      I don't expect ANY game where "run" and "jump" are options to make "jump" the primary form of movement. I get that "realism" is a silly thing to discuss, not because it's good/bad, but because it is meaningless to try and distinguish the "changes from real life we like/want" from "changes from real life that hurt our enjoyment", particularly when we all have different tastes. But all games that make gummy bear-style hopping over flat, unbroken land a common form of movement are personally visually jarring, and even as I welcome others to enjoy whatever games they want, I don't think my reaction is a terribly crazy reaction to have. ...Fortunately I'll likely die long before common human inhabitation of the moon, so I won't have to a reality I find jarring in this way :) (real life is jarring enough already. Too much realism)
      - jiofih 7y ago
        By that measure, Doom is a terrible game. No hopping, but people don’t move at 50km/h. It’s all about pleasurable game dynamics and realism plays an incredibly small role there.
- GreenJelloShot 7y ago
  > there wasn’t a single soul who didn’t enjoy bunny hopping or had mastering it as a goal Even someone who never heard of Counter-Strike could figure out that this is a false statement.
pingyong 7y ago
It should be noted that there are multiple mechanics at play here, and neither was removed completely. The first mechanic is that while jumping, when you either hold down the A-button and move your mouse left at the right pace, or hold down the D-button and move your mouse right at the right pace, you will accelerate slightly, plus change your trajectory. The second mechanic is that you don't just stop when you hit the ground, instead friction is applied to you in a very simplistic way. Also, when you jump at exactly the same tick at which you hit the ground, this friction won't even be applied. Both mechanics together mean that you can reach theoretically unlimited velocity. I'm not entirely sure what the changes in 1.3 were, but certainly both mechanics still exist in 1.6. The first mechanic you can easily test on a local server, by typing "sv_gravity 0" into the console, then jumping into the air and performing the motions mentioned above - you can still reach unlimited speed. The second mechanic is harder to test, but I'm pretty sure it still works. However, it might only work for a single time or something like that. There is also "sv_airaccelerate" which somehow controls how much you accelerate with mechanic 1, but I'm not exactly sure how it works. One thing though that I always mention when this comes up: Mechanic 1 doesn't just make gameplay better, it actually makes it more realistic too, and it should be implement in every shooter. "But I can't jump around corners in real life!" you might say, however I would argue that you actually can. We can do this because we can use both of our feet to manipulate our trajectory much more finely that we can in most games. All mechanic one does is give us this lost freedom of motion back.
- jerf 7y ago
  "We can do this because we can use both of our feet to manipulate our trajectory much more finely that we can in most games." This is another thing that I think game designers often forget. When trying for a "realistic" game, you have to account for the fact that in the real world we have a lot more "bandwidth" than our computer monitors, sound, and input devices can offer. It is perfectly fine for a "realistic" game to offer some counterbalancing capabilities to address the unrealistic constraints of the game space. A HUD being a classic example that is generally included; it's a cute idea to try to build a game that doesn't need one, but they've mostly been disasters (couple of exceptions), because a HUD is one of those compensations. Another example: I may not have a minimap in real life, but I do have proprioception, balance input as provided by my inner ears, a nearly 180 degree FOV (albeit with a lot of details and caveats, but I've got decades of experience dealing with those; my eyes saccade much more quickly and accurately than my mouselook even after quite of time working on the latter), tactile connections to the space even down to something as simple as feeling my feet hit the ground and the physical effort of walking. Staying oriented in real space is massively harder if we take those away (see also "people getting disoriented in zero gravity"). It's perfectly fine to have a minimap help me out. Being able to fudge a trajectory a bit fits right in to that idea. In real life I've got all sorts of extra inputs to help me jump accurately, and years of experience in my body to help me know the likely consequences. Even a realistic game can afford to help me out a bit as I remote-control around the feelingless, proprioceptionless, tunnel-visioned, aurally-challenged, and so on robot that constitutes my player.

hmm123 7y ago

Well said. Good example of this illustrated through a classic CS:S montage video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNvDUO42Hys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNvDUO42Hys

jiofih 7y ago

I don’t know if you played CS at the time, but there wasn’t a single soul who didn’t enjoy bunny hopping or had mastering it as a goal Besides the standard bomb maps, and the fun game dynamics created by this “bug”, there were hundreds of servers running surf_ maps and others that relied on hopping mechanics. The update threw a massive community in a tar pit.

aspaceman 7y ago
> It’s common for many gamers to believe that fun for them is fun for everyone I never liked bunny-hopping.
ergothus 7y ago
> I don’t know if you played CS at the time, but there wasn’t a single soul who didn’t enjoy bunny hopping Loads game Sees people hopping like preschoolers "No thanks. I'm good. " A bit of a self fulfilling statement there. I understand and appreciate that others found it fun, but such mechanics have always reduced my enjoyment, and I tend to avoid such games. Nothing wrong with either side of that, but one cant then claim the unanimity of enjoyment as meaningful.
- jiofih 7y ago
  Since that was the only way CS ever worked until then, what else would you expect? It was never marketed as a Rainbow Six.
  - ergothus 7y ago
    I don't expect ANY game where "run" and "jump" are options to make "jump" the primary form of movement. I get that "realism" is a silly thing to discuss, not because it's good/bad, but because it is meaningless to try and distinguish the "changes from real life we like/want" from "changes from real life that hurt our enjoyment", particularly when we all have different tastes. But all games that make gummy bear-style hopping over flat, unbroken land a common form of movement are personally visually jarring, and even as I welcome others to enjoy whatever games they want, I don't think my reaction is a terribly crazy reaction to have. ...Fortunately I'll likely die long before common human inhabitation of the moon, so I won't have to a reality I find jarring in this way :) (real life is jarring enough already. Too much realism)
    - jiofih 7y ago
      By that measure, Doom is a terrible game. No hopping, but people don’t move at 50km/h. It’s all about pleasurable game dynamics and realism plays an incredibly small role there.
GreenJelloShot 7y ago
> there wasn’t a single soul who didn’t enjoy bunny hopping or had mastering it as a goal Even someone who never heard of Counter-Strike could figure out that this is a false statement.

pingyong 7y ago

It should be noted that there are multiple mechanics at play here, and neither was removed completely. The first mechanic is that while jumping, when you either hold down the A-button and move your mouse left at the right pace, or hold down the D-button and move your mouse right at the right pace, you will accelerate slightly, plus change your trajectory. The second mechanic is that you don't just stop when you hit the ground, instead friction is applied to you in a very simplistic way. Also, when you jump at exactly the same tick at which you hit the ground, this friction won't even be applied. Both mechanics together mean that you can reach theoretically unlimited velocity. I'm not entirely sure what the changes in 1.3 were, but certainly both mechanics still exist in 1.6. The first mechanic you can easily test on a local server, by typing "sv_gravity 0" into the console, then jumping into the air and performing the motions mentioned above - you can still reach unlimited speed. The second mechanic is harder to test, but I'm pretty sure it still works. However, it might only work for a single time or something like that. There is also "sv_airaccelerate" which somehow controls how much you accelerate with mechanic 1, but I'm not exactly sure how it works. One thing though that I always mention when this comes up: Mechanic 1 doesn't just make gameplay better, it actually makes it more realistic too, and it should be implement in every shooter. "But I can't jump around corners in real life!" you might say, however I would argue that you actually can. We can do this because we can use both of our feet to manipulate our trajectory much more finely that we can in most games. All mechanic one does is give us this lost freedom of motion back.

jerf 7y ago
"We can do this because we can use both of our feet to manipulate our trajectory much more finely that we can in most games." This is another thing that I think game designers often forget. When trying for a "realistic" game, you have to account for the fact that in the real world we have a lot more "bandwidth" than our computer monitors, sound, and input devices can offer. It is perfectly fine for a "realistic" game to offer some counterbalancing capabilities to address the unrealistic constraints of the game space. A HUD being a classic example that is generally included; it's a cute idea to try to build a game that doesn't need one, but they've mostly been disasters (couple of exceptions), because a HUD is one of those compensations. Another example: I may not have a minimap in real life, but I do have proprioception, balance input as provided by my inner ears, a nearly 180 degree FOV (albeit with a lot of details and caveats, but I've got decades of experience dealing with those; my eyes saccade much more quickly and accurately than my mouselook even after quite of time working on the latter), tactile connections to the space even down to something as simple as feeling my feet hit the ground and the physical effort of walking. Staying oriented in real space is massively harder if we take those away (see also "people getting disoriented in zero gravity"). It's perfectly fine to have a minimap help me out. Being able to fudge a trajectory a bit fits right in to that idea. In real life I've got all sorts of extra inputs to help me jump accurately, and years of experience in my body to help me know the likely consequences. Even a realistic game can afford to help me out a bit as I remote-control around the feelingless, proprioceptionless, tunnel-visioned, aurally-challenged, and so on robot that constitutes my player.