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minmay

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Joined: Aug 2002

Posts: 1,184

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Dec 19, 2022, 01:19 PM
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The sticking to slopes fix is buggy with speed destruct scenery, increasing the speed you can plummet downwards in survivor28.

I ardently support all of these changes except 1 (faster poles), which I dislike, and 4 (sticking to slopes) which I skeptically support. So my answer is "never" for 1 and "always" for the rest. Details:

1 (faster poles). This is the only change here that I just don't like. Levels with poles - the levels good enough to actually get played, anyway - usually use them because you stick to them for a second, or are at least designed with the delay in mind. The original delay also feels more appropriate for the animation and sound in my opinion.
Furthermore, any level designer or server admin who does want faster poles can already get them with a few lines of Angelscript, no?

2 (one way sidekick). Yay bug fixed. I can't think of any level that relies on the current behavior, or any other downside.

3 (running up slopes against walls). Yay bug fixed. While the current behavior could be useful in levels with bouncer or electroblaster ammo, it's not really interesting, and I don't think any level uses it intentionally.
If you want to be really paranoid about it, one alternative would be to keep the player getting stuck in the running position, but make jumping work. It wouldn't make much physics sense anymore, but would avoid breaking any obscure level that does rely on this behavior.

4 (sticking to slopes). I support fixing this bug, but there are also strong cases against it. It feels weird to have this bug gone as a long-time player, and in this construction of tiles, crossing the gap is easier with the glitch around. One can also imagine sucker tube/pole/spring constructions that are broken by this fix, but I doubt any such system is used in a competition-relevant level.

5 and 8 (double jump/copter ears fix). In contrast to sticking to slopes, I got used to this change immediately, despite 24 years of vanilla Spaz double jump muscle memory. It's just so obviously the natural way for these things to work, and while we may all be used to working with the current behavior, it's an awful learning curve for new players.
Yeah, it makes Spaz slightly stronger, but we adopted fireball, seeker bug fixes, other things that change multiplayer balance, it's fine. Can always give some other advantage to Jazz and Lori if needed.
and I've definitely seen a hundred of us 10+ year players complain that the game "ate my double jump" in Survivor so let's not act too high and mighty

6 (buttstomp bounce fix). Yay bug fixed, nothing to complain about here. I was sure the fix would break survivor28 but I tested it and it didn't!

9 (easier special moves). Fantastic change, improves flow when playing as Jazz and it's a nice increase to the viability of special moves in multiplayer.