I really, really, like this. I'm sorry if I've "Ressurected and old thread", but this could really enhance the feel of NS and alien movement. I'm an opponent of Bhopping, but I see it's necessity. This idea would be a built it feature available ot anyone with out instructions, but could be deadly if used right.

Imagine, you're a marine on eclipse. You are moving on Triad, and as you pass the balcony you see a skulk by the alien RT. He sees you, and jumps quickly to the pillar between you and him. As you round the corner and stand on the ladder, he jumps to the ceiling and in the vent. You keep the gun trained on the vent, waiting for him to pop his head out so you can take it off. But he's too quick. He dashes across to the pillar on your left, then to your right. You're firing trying to trace his path, only landing bullets behind him, he lands behind the Resource node, off the right pillar, and then on you. You emptied a whole clip, and died. He leaves unscathed.

A directional jump, much like leap, with a minimal speed increase, and toward your POV, without adren use would make skulk a strong base unit, but an amazing weapon in skilled hands. Bunnyhopping does this very thing, but it's completely destructive to the atmosphere, and it's a trait you either know or you don't. Adding this jump to NS would be so amazing. Zunni, weigh in here.

Haha, unkillable skulks, yeah right. Like anyone got MC at first hive anyway. And at second hive, people got shotties, which fails rarely, even against BHopping celerity skulks.

It seems like you're basing my comments on pure pub experience. In competitive play, MCs get used a lot. Celerity skulks, especially in a pack is hard to counter even if the person has a shotgun. The good skulks don't run up towards you from a long hallway, something you are probably experiencing to say that celerity skulks are worthless.

Two hive skulks tear it up a LOT. Leap is an amazing skill and add celerity to it, a pair of skulks will own a shotty marine.

I bet it's quite hard to kill skulks running (on the floor, walls, etc) at 600+ units/seconds.

A pair of skulks should own a shotty marine. Just like a pair of shotty marines should own a leap/celerity skulk. It's that whole teamwork h4x thing.

The situation we should be more concerned about is when the numbers are even.

I don't understand, however, how you say "bunnyhopping is used to avoid bullets" and then say "speed shouldn't be increased because it'll help skulks avoid bullets" when the subject is removing bunnyhopping. If bunnyhopping is removed, and it's used to avoid bullets, and speeding up the skulks helps them avoid bullets, that looks like a wash to me.

Personally, I don't know if the speed increase would be necessary either, though. I think the added mobility this would give to wall and ceiling walking, and especially to jumping would be enough of a benefit right there to handle what dodging that bunnyhopping brought to the table before.

When I'm skulking, I always try to use walls and stuff when I'm attacking a marine, but with the current system, I often find myself suddenly in mid-air, falling in a predictable line. When that happens, I'm just splatter on the wall behind me. If I don't fall off or get stuck though, I can usually get up to the marine and do some damage, and I don't bunnyhop (though I'll admit I'm lousy at getting that second bite in.. I always seem to lose track after the first bite. You can usually tell where I've been though because I wound a bunch of them and the skulk behind me gets 3 or 4 kills in a row.)

The only thing I'm concerned about is map control -- the skulks are expected to be anywhere on the map extremely quickly, and at the high levels the game is balanced around the ability to bunnyhop to get there (which, in my personal opinion, is a poor way to balance it, but I'm not the devs). Would the extra wall/ceiling mobility make up for this? If it doesn't, are there other ways this could be addressed? Say by raising the health of the alien structures, thus requiring marines be there longer before being able to take it down.

Haven't we heard that if you have to rush camping marines as a skulk, you're playing poorly?

If marines are camping in combat, they lose via time limit.
If marines are camping in NS, they lose via map control.

I never said they shouldn't, in fact I said that they should. I was just speaking of the fact that the person I was responding to thought that getting MCs first would of course fail and marines with shotties, even if the aliens have 2 hives, are invincible. I've always advocated that teamwork should always be a main factor in balancing anything.

Balance concerning even numbered engagement varies. At ranged, of course skulks will get destroyed, or should get destroyed. At close range, marines will be dominated. However, if marines get shotguns, then I believe marines should have the favor in the situation, since they are invested with more resources.

I'm talking about midrange, bunny hopping is a way to dodge bullets due to the fact that they're not running directly at marines which I see a lot of inexperienced players do. As for added speed, I'm speaking of close range encounters. At medium to long range, increased speed skulks who can't bunny hop will still be dominated. Straight line running is always a lot easier to aim at. However, when you have skulks ambushing around corners or out of vents, with increased base speed, it makes it extremely hard for the marines to make it out alive. Though the advantages are on the alien side in ambushes, they should not be unkillable.

I'm not talking about bunny hopping at marines down long hallways, of course they will get owned against a good marine. I'm talking about bunny hopping around corners or in close engagement situations, bhopping around corners when they hear you approaching, stuff like that.

But I'm not implying, nor the creator of this post, I think, that running speed should be increased. It's the directional jumping speed. Think of it as a leap with no sound or adren, and only SLIGHTLY faster than jump is now. It doesn't work like a normal jump. Yes, when on the ground, you do jump up, but mostly you "dart" in the direction you are facing. On walls, if you are on one wall, and you want to jump to the other wall across from you, you look at the wall, press jump, and you "dart" across to the other wall. You don't cover a ton of distance like leap, you just move a bit faster than jump. This gives skulks the ability to jump from a wall.

This could help rushing a marine by jumping from wall to wall instead of a straight line, faster than current movement so it isn't as easy to train on. Skilled marines will have better aim following this tactic, but better skulks will be able to master this technique with great accuracy.

It also comes in handy in other ways. At Subspace on Veil, the hive can be a bit tricky to get on top of without leap for some players. A directional jump from the wall beside the hive will allow the alien to hop over to the hive without requiring leap, hurting the hive with leap if FF is on, and is easy to do.

I don't base speed should be altered much, if any, just the JUMPING speed should give a slight forward increase. Just make it so you can jump do three consecutive ones in a row, then a short puase, to keep it from being abused.

Gotcha. That makes perfect sense.

I think the new wall-climb/directional jump would address both these issues so a speedup may not be needed. At midrange, skulks could dodge by jumping onto and off the walls and ceiling as they run, in effect becoming even less predictable than a high-speed bunnyhop. Also of use when coming around corners.. no longer stuck to the floor or the outside wall, they could also come around on the inside wall or the ceiling.

As I said before, the only thing that worries me about no speedup is the issue of map-control. But, also as said before, this could be addressed in different ways.

I'm still all thumbs up for this idea. I just hope the coding is possible.