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Movement Glitches and Skill Ceiling
Hi everyone,
In the beta we found movement exploits such as drop boosts, damage boosts, and coil jumping. These all contributed to some very advanced routing and created a very high skill ceiling for the trials/dashes.
In the final build it seems these have all been removed, and understandably so—they were glitches and unintended. However, I can't but help see a somewhat grim outcome for the trials/dashes in Catalyst. This outcome is that once you find the most linear route from start to finish, that's it. Everyone will end up with nearly the same time, because there is largely no skill barrier preventing people from using the most optimal route. It's run here, jump over that, and roll down there.
I do have hope though that we will continue to find unintended routes that don't utilize movement glitches that will eventually push the skill ceiling higher and higher, but it seems that the skill ceiling will always stay rather low because of the movement being so passive—meaning you can simply hold the forward key and you are at max speed.
I am very much enjoying this game and it's made insane progress since its predecessor. I just don't want the game to die off because of the relatively low skill ceiling when compared to the original Mirrors Edge.
Thanks!
In the beta we found movement exploits such as drop boosts, damage boosts, and coil jumping. These all contributed to some very advanced routing and created a very high skill ceiling for the trials/dashes.
In the final build it seems these have all been removed, and understandably so—they were glitches and unintended. However, I can't but help see a somewhat grim outcome for the trials/dashes in Catalyst. This outcome is that once you find the most linear route from start to finish, that's it. Everyone will end up with nearly the same time, because there is largely no skill barrier preventing people from using the most optimal route. It's run here, jump over that, and roll down there.
I do have hope though that we will continue to find unintended routes that don't utilize movement glitches that will eventually push the skill ceiling higher and higher, but it seems that the skill ceiling will always stay rather low because of the movement being so passive—meaning you can simply hold the forward key and you are at max speed.
I am very much enjoying this game and it's made insane progress since its predecessor. I just don't want the game to die off because of the relatively low skill ceiling when compared to the original Mirrors Edge.
Thanks!
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Comments
But that's the way it should be. Running IRL is definitely not faster when you're hurt or jumping. It makes sense that the only way to improve your time should be finding the best route. Also, the devs have said that shifting around corners and such will help create the skill ceiling. And besides, the game is about the story anyway. I wouldn't care if they took out the time trials altogether.
But about the topic itself, I must say that I'm very pleased that common glitches, especially coil-jumping, are gone, finally. Thanks a lot Dice. Now we'll see real runners with real skills, not the ones who know how to cheat the engine. Thanks again, Dice.
For example, if you land on a the edge of a platform or on a rail from a heavy fall height, Faith will stumble forward and maintain speed, It takes very precise moments to do this at all, and when there are multiple ledges you can chain together, it's very rewarding. (found from the beta but I'm pretty sure it's still the same)
Theirs also a mechanic were you can jump up onto the ledge before you reach the top of a pipe
And also, I don't have a video, but when vaulting from a low object, if you come at it from a certain angle to either side, you jump a bit further, which allowed me in some situations to get a speed vault over a fence higher up, or to get a better landing on a platform. In some situations this is very hard to do.
I'm sure there are other things we will find later too...
In short, the skill ceiling is not as low as you think ^^
Perhaps there is more that I did not find in my 6 hours of the game, but I'm fairly certain the stumbling has been nerfed from the beta and you do not benefit from doing so anymore.
I ended up with 3 WR's on Xbox One before my time ended, so I do think I understand the movement pretty well, but I'm sure there is stuff that I did not find and therefore led to me underestimating the skill ceiling.
I can't wait to find more stuff on Tuesday!
[edit] Just been watching some dash wr's from a mirrors edge speedrunner, it looks really boring now...
and I was kinda looking forward to speedruning this game...
Yes, the WR times are much more tame as of now. Instead of movement mastery, its more based on route discovery. This is where my original sentiment towards the skill ceiling comes from.
[edit] I should add that by tame I mean little variation between runs—everyone can hold the forward key and do the exact same thing. A PERFECT example of this in action is the Dash “Nomad's Run.” Upon removal of glitches from beta and added magpull, the dash is literally a straight line. The player must only run straight and jump over a couple obstacles before reaching the magpull and then the end. It's going to quickly reach a maximum level of optimization where the time cannot be improved. I managed to get 17 something seconds on this, and I truly believe it cannot be improved by more than a tenth of a second at the most.
What you showed here IS skill, because in order to succeed, you must be precise .
Again, coil jumping is not skill, because you don't have to be precise, you just have to hammer your button (and it's NOT funny to do or to watch).
@Stephen_yen : For me, watching a runner doing coil-jumps instead of running is terribly boring. Really. (but I don't know what stumbling means in this game)
There was skill in coil jumping because the timing needed to do it in the fastest way was very precise, if you were off the timing, you would still go faster, but not as fast as if you timed it perfectly. Ontop of this, there is skill involved in knowing when to use the coil between other moves, if you are off, you will misstime the next jump etc..
ButI understand why they removed it though, and I expected it, as it has been demonstrated online, that most people don't like it, and it looks like poop in time trial ghosts for other players. I am one of the few who enjoyed it in the beta.
The stumbling thing is what was on the video I posted before.
here's a wr without coil jumping and stumbling
Of course, I'd say that the most skillful players will still be on top, even if the skill ceiling is lower than before.
That's what I want for free-running. People say that's it's boring ? I don't think so, frankly.
(and thanks to explaining me what stumbling is)