Everyone who played in 1.04 or previous grew to love and hate the 1.04 blink. Instant transmission with some... technical difficulties. Nothing was quite as fun as engaging a fade, only to have him disappear, then reappear a few miliseconds later with his aft end sticking out of the wall in front of your face

It was an awsome ability - you are 100% immune to damage while you blink, but you HAVE to be skilled at it. Otherwise you got stuck in stuff.

Once I had mastered it, I was all but invincible... except for one thing. It took a BUTTLOAD of adrenaline to use. It also gave a very distinctive sound (much louder than the current fade blink), so every marine in a few hundred unit radius knew you had it and were using it. This made silence that much more effective. Even with MT, you saw a blip, then nothing. Then a blip a few dozen meters away. Then nothing.

Now... blink is like lerk flight, just suckier

I propose we bring back the 1.04 fade blink FOR A SINGLE TEST BUILD run. Release it to the public, give them time to figure it out. Then get feedback. I know it was hard to use, I used it a lot. If was the perfect ambush tool - using it took about 2/5 your energy bar, so you had enough to blink in directly behind or in front of an unsuspecting marine, swipe two or three times, then blink out.

Right now, it's blink+swipe, Blink +swipe, blink + metabolize, blink+swipe... yarghly that isn't what they were meant to do is it?

So, to recap:

Bring back old Blink. It uses 2/5 to 3/5 your energy bar no matter HOW far you go (anywhere within visual sight instantly)

If you aim poorly, you get stuck inside a wall/person/structure untill you have enough adren to blink back out.

Used correctly, it makes fades feared as ninja-stalkers, not the OMG it's a bird, it's a plane, it's a dead fade! that they are now

Yes, the learning curve is high... but the rewards are even higher!

Oh my...1.04 blink was...frustrating. I think you would have a lot of new players getting furious when they were stuck in things. I don't think Flayra ever intended low skilled blinking to have this result. It was probably just too buggy to fix so he made it into a more simple movement.

I would say try old school blinking again but ONLY if the wall stuck bugs are eliminated. Otherwise its going to come off as very unproffesional.

Still, I do agree that current blink is just glorified lerk flight. It would be nice to have it more unique again.

I think the whole stuck thing kinda made sense - you dde-materialized, then re-materialized at the destination. If you screw up the destination area, you get put together inside of something, which doesn't work real well

I remember one time I clipped outside the map... that was fun 0o'

The old blink was sexy and really blew this new blink out of the water atmosphere wise. I don't understand why Flayra doesn't jus tmake it so that the fade disappears completely when he blinks now, you get the same effect. :\

agreed. and add some bloody speed back.
like ppl said before. Make the blink travel instant

Blink never really worked the way we wanted because of technical problems; we don't want to have players get stuck in the wall because it's unpolished and not fun for players. We've been brainstorming some new ideas for blink for NS2 that are more in line with the 1.04 behavior and also pretty interesting, so stay tuned.

Max

Now that +movement makes blinking a lot easier, I don't see what's to hate about it. It makes the fade go from here to there. If blink were any harder to use, people would do worse as fade and it would be harder to take down jps. I'd say instant blink would be harder for both the fade and the marine shooting him.

Yes, we like "atmospheric" stuff, but a lot of this stuff gets us nowhere. We have that Jeremy Soule music. But it's a pain when you can't hear foosteps in the game. We have dark hallways. Then we have people that ramp up gamma to see better. We have that revolving door in bast. It makes getting in/out of MS a pain.

Atmospheric stuff is nice, but when it restricts gameplay, it should be set aside.

I'm not saying this is a bad idea. I like the current blink because it's the easiest to use.

But what I'm saying is that changing something proven because of some atmosphere isn't. So I'd like to see how this new blink would improve on the existing one other than just looks.

Improvements? You got em!

1) Usefullness

The current blink... well... it sucks. It's slow, it's clumsy... it's just bad all around. It takes time to get up to speed, the screen jerks around like wild making it hard to see properly... it sucks down energy like a sieve. It also leaves you fully exposed to anyone with half a wit of sense in em. The old blink was point, click, go baby go. If you mucked up, you got stuck or ran out of adren and died. With new blink... half the time you just die anyway.

2) Polish

Current blink... it's jumpy, jerky, and looks horrible. The whole crouch-run animation is retarded to see and makes the fade look like a wading bird more than anything. The old blink was a cool little *fssshwhap* poof you're there.

3) Atomsphere

Current blink is more funny than it is scary. You see a fade basicly pulling a luigi (running full speed mid air and going nowhere fast). The 1.04 blink... it was a noise, and everyone looks around wildly trying to find the fade before it zero'ed in on it's target. Suddenly it appeared and shots went wild as it sliced it's hapless victim. Without some serious teamwork, it wasn't counterable without comparable tech (lvl 2 or 3 weapons and armor and a shotgun or HMG)

Now? A single L2 shotgun with L1 armor can own a blinking fade. Pistolwhip it as it blinks towards you, pull the SG, fire two rounds before it even gets into melee range, then finish it with two or three more shots at MOST. And thats even with regen or carapace. By the time the rather slow blink has you in range (you're honestly better off b-hopping most of the time) you're at half health at best and has only half your adren... you can either finish off the rine and hope he's alone, or run. Either way, you will most likely die UNLESS you are very skilled.

4) Balance

As is now, a very skilled player / script user can basicly infinite blink+metabolize+swipe all around the place. Either with quick fingers or keybind hacks o' dewm. It makes the gap between noob and pro huge, and between decent and skilled very large. I have seen a single fade completely rape a group of six shotgunners thanks to the blink+metabolize binds. Likewise, I have seen three fades die to a group of three shotgun HA's thanks to their inability to get into range quickly.

The 1.04 blink was hard to learn to aim, but once you did you were set. With this one... it's about learning to script or use multiple attacks at once

Nostalgia.

I think the blink is perfect as it is. I do not like "point and click" styles of blink.

Isn't that what the fade is supposed to be? The hit and run ninja assassin? As it is now... it's like a hit and run carnaval clown of death.

The current blink would be almost okay if celerity sped it up a little... but it's just so ungodly slow

Actually, the original term coined for it was 'the Bladed Jesus of Death' due to the pose when blinking, but you're nearly there.

@ Max : Innnnttterresting. PT news any time soon?

i think if you wouldn't get stuck with 1.04 blink, some ppl would master it so much that they would be invicible and the gameplay itself unbalanced, dominated by aliens especially by fades :|.

IIRC fades had less health and armor back then.

Not that anyone meleed much anyway, acid rocket was way superior.

not to mention the Gorden Freeman no-head-shrunken-hitbox

oh man playing on the alien-bot servers when the fades could blink like that..

pure terror...