[SUGGESTION] new game mechanic: Flash Steps

Back in the day, I hooked up a foot pedal to a firewall rule that would discard all outgoing Quake Live packets as long as the pedal remained pressed. This way I could for example freeze myself in mid-air to avoid projectiles shot to the ground, or freeze then magically teleport a short distance behind players in close combat.

This is also something featured in some anime, like Bleach.



I am not sure which computer games also feature short distance teleportation, but I guess it has been done before more than once.

It was so much fun to use and added so much to the game. It was like a brand new skill to learn and art to master. Imagine Doom 1 vs Quake 1: now you were able to jump and aim vertically. That's how much difference flash steps make. It adds on top of all the other things, like stave jumping and rocket jumping.

But it was just a weird hack back then. And it didn't give me any real advantage. It was almost impossible to predict reliably how the engine would process the packet loss. Half the time it worked well, half the time it froze me 1 second too much and I just became a very easy target, stuff like that. 

If it was a real intentional game mechanic, you could tune the freeze/invisible times precisely to not cause too much chaos or unfair advantages. Like strafe jumping, it should be a skill that is very hard to master and that comes at a penalty to use (i.e. the freezing). It sounds a bit lame to call it freezing. In "actuality" the player would be shown to kneel down to take a jump from some translucent supersonic-something plane into ether space and fade in and out of sight with a cool sound effect like in the Bleach GIF I embedded.

So basically, you would momentarily pause where ever you are on the ground or mid-air, and then transition into ether space (invisible) with a jump in whatever direction and that jump is not really influenced by the original vector of movement before the flash step. Then if you exit the ether it could maybe resume the old vector of movement in addition to the vector of movement from the flash step. Or maybe we could just discard the old vector mostly.

So it would be a sort of teleport double-jump. Or maybe you could still get shot from normal space in the ether, but only on every other frame.

How much momentum you can fabricate inside the ether with a single flash step could be the same as with regular momentum. In addition it could also recharge over time, or depend on different variables (like getting stronger if you have a surplus of health). It makes sense that you move faster inside the ether, maybe twice as fast. And maybe you could also jump higher or somehow move beyond the laws of physics in ether space (like being able to jump off walls as if jumping off the ground). The colors in ether space could be slightly distorted, like a faint grayish tint with increased contrast.

Now the bad news: I found it is just a nightmare to use without the foot pedal. Maybe that is part of what makes it so awesome: the damn foot pedal. You can only operate so many things with mouse and keyboard at the same time. The foot pedal enables you to do yet another thing, on top of everything else, without scheduling it in-between other operations.

Though, with a 5 button mouse I think it wouldn't be as bad for most people. USB Foot pedals are only $5 on Aliexpress, if you really needed the edge. Considering people buy 144Hz monitors for $300, and a lot of people are happy with 60Hz which also is a sub-optimal solution like using the 5th mouse button instead, I think the foot pedal wouldn't be such a huge deal. The game would be so much more intense. If you are a top-league player, which other arena shooter has such an unique and sophisticated mechanic?

Maybe I can do the programming work myself. But I guess it needs engine modification and modding in QuakeC is not enough.

What are your thoughts though?

My thought is that it's on the edge to cheating. I wouldn't want to fight a player who uses lag to gain an advantage rather than playing the game as intended.
You know I think I predict your movement and calculate my shot just for my opponent to start lagging when he wants. I would play some shooter with such abilities implemented when i wanted them. Like natural selection 2 or overwatch.

Foot pedal sounds like an interesting thing to have tho.

I think you misunderstand the game mechanic I proposed, because you only read the first couple of paragraphs.

The games you mentioned (which I don't really know) don't seem to have such a mechanic at all. Maybe you can show a video of the mechanic?

In Quake Champions, you can pick a guy that has short-distance teleportation as a special ability:



This kind of short-distance teleportation is to flash steps what jump pads are to strafe jumping. It does a similar thing in principle, yet it would mean something entirely differently in gameplay.

I suppose it is really hard to fathom what it means to have this mechanic. That is why I wrote such a detailed description.

hmm ok i see.
There's g_dodging that makes you accelerate fast in one direction when you double press a movement key.
g_nades with a special nade that can teleport you like this i think (if you also enable special grenades)
Then we got g_multijump with the option to change direction with the mid-air-jump.

Not teleporting directly behind an enemy but rather abilities that make you faster than other classes.
In natural sellection there's a 'fade' that can fly though the air while holding right mouse or dash in all directions
and overwatch has a class that can cloak, and teleport to a safespot where you deploy a tele exit (sombra)

Today I setup my server to test some agile movement mechanics and tried to make them work together while only having th overkill shotgun(blaster alt fire). Search for "speedy shotgun" in the server browser. You got double jump, wall jump and dodging as well as the blaster to move around.
It's more balanced so you have to outsmart your enemy with movement. Else you will fight forever as every shot also steals health.

Nice, thanks for the server demo.
Flash steps are something *entirely* different though. It is like a whole new dimension of movement.

I guess I have to program it first to show what it is all about.

Nice, thanks for the server demo.
Flash steps are something *entirely* different though. It is like a whole new dimension of movement.

I guess I have to program it first to show what it is all about.

I like the description of your footpedal, sounds like it would have been fun lol
I feel like Gunz has the closest mechanic to what youre describing. It doesnt make you disappear and reappear however, but in gameplay its fast and useful for quick peaking around corners. Very fun
[yt]http://https://youtu.be/8gNXXgVB1fw?t=35[/yt]

I wired the blue IBM key to the pedal. Works like a charm.