Goblin Squad Member
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As the topic has not risen, as far as I know, I thought I would start a thread on how we see the movement controls working in Pathfinder Online.
I think the most common assumption has been when the player presses and holds the W key they will start jogging forward and when he or she releases the W they will come to a stop again.
An alternative might be that pressing W once and releasing it will start the character walking slowly and the effort expended will be less that the refresh rate of stamina. Press W again and release it and your character picks up the pace a bit, lengthening stride, and the effort expended will equal stamina refresh rate. Press W again and the character starts jogging, and so on, until with enough W presses the character will be sprinting, expending stamina much more quickly than it refreshes. When stamina is depleted then the character has to stop or reduce to a slow walk to replenish stamina.
I would assume that the amount of stamina will be represented with some sort of stamina bar that is filled when full and empty when depleted.
How do you see movement working?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would like it to be a simple pressing and holding of W and start jogging and then maybe a skill or a combination of buttons for sprinting along with an energy bar to keep it separate from stamina. Perhaps even a walk jog toggle. It seems pretty standard and acceptable for the feel of a game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The main issue I see with the second option is that it takes to long for me to go from standing still to sprinting. If I am sprinting between covers I don't want to have to mash the W key four or 5 times to get to sprinting. Also how would I slow down or stop? Do I have to mash the D key to do that? This method works great on vehicles with a large mass that takes a bit to speed up and slow down. But on a human it only takes 2 or 3 steps to go from standing still to full out sprinting and not many more than that to slow down.
I prefer using something like the shift key to sprint. Only problem with that is there isn't various levels to it. You either are sprinting or your not. A lot of games have a run walk toggle, but with out the stamina hit to running, everyone just runs everywhere so the walk ability is useless unless you are a hardcore RPer, or if sneak is affected by whether you are running or not.
I'm for a stamina system for one main reason. It would pretty much eliminate the bunny hop.
Walking, aside from real RP, has pretty much vanished from the MMO world. It would be nice to see it brought back to usefulness. One way that might help would be to make a character who is walking automatically check for secret doors, traps and hidden objects. Walking could also increase the chances of achieving "stealth". It would mean when fleeing an encounter you would have to cease sprinting and walk, then enter stealth.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yeah, I would agree with that. Having some sort of throttle system requiring tapping of keys and whatnot seems overly complicated. WASD should move you around on key press and stop on key lift. Maybe a run/walk toggle or sprint button would help immersion; but just base sprint-time on a set number of seconds and refresh at a set time as well, not based on stats or encumbrance (although that would be nifty). I would assume a stealth/crouch toggle as well.
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Goblin Squad Member
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This is how I would like to see it.
Yeah, I would agree with that. Having some sort of throttle system requiring tapping of keys and whatnot seems overly complicated. WASD should move you around on key press and stop on key lift. Maybe a run/walk toggle or sprint button would help immersion; but just base sprint-time on a set number of seconds and refresh at a set time as well, not based on stats or encumbrance (although that would be nifty). I would assume a stealth/crouch toggle as well.
Hold down W to walk toggle to jog, this will be the regular move speed with no time limit.
For a faster pace hold shift+W and your running with a 25% speed bonus with say a 100 second timer, if that timer reaches 0 you can't run again until it recharges one second at a time, so as long as you keep it from hitting 0 you could use your run about 50% of the time.
Now say you need a sprint with a 50% speed bonus to save your good buddy Nonexistent, a very noble goal, Hold shift and double tap W and you’re sprinting but this makes the counter go down by 5 every second, totally worth it and Nonexistent would really appreciate the save.
Make jumping while the counter is going down cost 5 seconds to keep down the jumping PVP beans and still make movement a bit more interesting than the standard MMO.
Also tying this to constitution would be kinda awesome.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Kusuriurite - I too would like to see gamepad support. It depends on how they set up the battle system as to whether Id use it or not. But I hate it when the option isnt even given. I dont want to get into a Mouse/KB is better than Gamepad argument. The fact is they both have their strengths and everyone has a personal preference, if they choose what you consider to be an inferior control scheme then thats thier decision.
As for speed and jumping. I think I have seen mention before in the dev blog about boots of speed and such. So why not just let equipment and mounts take care of increased travelling speed. And if this isnt an "actiony" game, why not just eliminate jump as a command, but let it work like a special action at certain points. Ex: You are in a dungeon, and come to a collapsed bridge. Your character comes to the edge of the collapsed portion and then a "hit spacebar to jump" bubble comes up. You could even tie it to strength stat, so that not everyone could jump it. I know a lot of people might be against such an idea, but out in the open world area, there is no real reason to need to jump. And it would eliminate Bunny Hop PvP encounters too.
As a leftie WASD is a nightmare.
I always use the numeric keypad for movement. It's also great when the arrow keys are usable and distinctive from the numeric key pad. My thumb rest on the down arrow key and I use all four arrow keys as well.
Over all bottom line is people play games differently; so make every thing key bind-able and include every option available.
Fixed
+1
For me, it's always felt more comfortable to have my movement keys on the right (number pad or mouse, which I use with my right hand) and ability slots on the left. I hope we'll get at least limited keymapping functionality to account for preferences like these.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I really so no reason to reinvent the wheel here, sorry but if you use the controls like other games (yeah WOW) you get a system that is familiar to a lot of players. Of course you can expand on that, but I always get annoyed, when games controls are created for crab people with substantially more appendages than me.
EDIT: A key to toggle walking slowly does have its uses, but in combat most players might want to use the maximum speed.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Linking exertion to stamina would have effects.
If you have high stamina you can run farther than you can with low stamina.
If you were encumbered, running would cost even more stamina than if you weren't. Someone in plate couldn't run as far as someone wearing light armor or cloth, all else being equal.
There will be something like a stamina bar because stamina is what you use in combat to make an attack. I'm thinking strength and constitution will be the primary attributes for stamina.
Dex and Str might affect how fast you run.
My sentiment is that it might be good for the game if running uses up stamina. I realize that having to conserve stamina would be inconvenient, but 'more convenient' isn't always a guarantee of 'better'.
Besides, then we could have meaningful footraces.
