rustic junco
So, one of my friend just got into gaming a few days ago, he got access very fast at the 0.9.2 release, so I've decided to throw him onto momentum mod to get him familiar with bhopping.
He's never played much any video games before, especially not on computer so I had the opportunity to get a double opinion (very begginer and more advanced) on bhop learning practice, so here's what we could note together as a feedback on the bhop learn section :
Specific stuff :
-> It would be awesome to offer a practice environment (like very basic playground) at the beggining of each sections.
Like a wide flat space where he can just jump around and mess with stuff; like spinning in a circle to discover how speed gain actually works, or bhopping platforms without getting trigger reset after any failed jump.
-> At Basic Bhop exercice, the platforms are too tight and widespread which makes it very hard for someone that hasn't ever airstrafed flat before. My friend spent more than 30 minutes without even reaching the first one, even with all the tips I could share with him. He ended up giving up fairly.
-> Would be nice to have an exercice breaking down this timing before introducing to bhop platforms with triggers :
1st step would be to start off while holding only w until reaching a line that automatically trigger autohop, so they could focus on the very first strafe step (pressing a or d and moving the mouse)
2nd step would be to do the same without the autohop stuff on a close enough platform.
3rd would be to do it with a further platform without any kind of assistance.
4th to add the bhop parcours which gets harder after 2nd hop.
5th to add the triggers in case you don't land the platform (doing it beforehand is quite frustrating).
More global stuff :
It's probably planned for the future, but showcasing the w-release on jump option for the first bhop exercises might be a good idea (while also letting them know that disabling it after learning basics will be a good QoL change)
Something that might also help begginers would be to spawn a bit lined-up aside of where they have to go rather than in the middle. Taking into account that they will only be able to land a single strafe before the first platform; without any kind of prestrafing (this can apply before Basic Bhop).
The tip/text overlay in practice is kinda overkill, overlapping anything on the screen, even the speedometer or the map itself.
Fading it out after an arbitrary time/letting people disable it might be a fix.
You could also just display it higher on the screen (where no useful informations are displayed).
Another way to go around would be displaying it on a panel (like it's done on surf_progress) rather than enforcing it onto the overlay.
So the player can focus on the exercice rather than getting spammed by that message, he actively complained about it.
I'll try my best to keep this updated as he gets further into the learn section.
PS : I apologize about the heavy wall of text you had to go through :x
regal path
A bunch of this has already been mentioned both inside team and out, but it's good to hear feedback from an actual direct experience of a new player. The bhop learn section was already being remade with some of these problems in mind, though some things you mention such as a playground is already a part of it at the bottom, though you bring a good point that we should let the players feel out the controls for themself before throwing them into a learning enviroment, so a slight rehaul of the playground section with a flat area beginning could be good and placed at the top of the list.
Difficulty curves will always be a thing, though the idea is to always allow players to skip around to any part, so they never will be locked from progress, other than a simple check for beginner stuff into advanced. However the current implimentation does offer some problems with difficulty that I'm addressing.
Text is an issue in general, I don't need a title for each level like that, and I'd rather use images to deacribe the level where it's generally more universally understood, like Portal in that way. With on-screen text, there isn't much control right now where it's placed on the screen and that should be changed, probably have own UI stuff for practice.
Some other stuff you mentioned gives good ideas though your specific idea of implementation isn't great, but gives good example of what seems good. For example the idea to create a section for getting the pattern down is good but having it automaticly jump would be confusing for players and create bad habbit, instead I could create a section for just practicing jumping and releasing W before anything bhop related comes up in the linier order of things, then expand on that with the next level having to strafe to the left or right after the jump, and only then letting them attempt strafing in a bhop.
So overall, good ideas though the full idea of it wouldnt be implemented but certainly used to some degree, good feedback.
If you could provide more feedback of their direct feelings or struggles specificly, that could be helpful also, to know how a player is feeling trying to learn some specific part and what they feel is going wrong from their perspective.
or what might be going right, if anything.
rustic junco
Obviously the stuff we can witness in the playtest version is kinda outdated compared to the dev build.
I try to keep that in mind while sharing the full insight of my scope, since some details can be forgotten in the process of making the game on multiple versioning.
I've personally spent some time in the playground a lot and I love it, though I believe you need some experience before enjoying it.
I'll tell my friend to spend some time on it to see if it's noob friendly before he get good at bhopping, might get some weird feedback ^^
In the meanwhile, removing the speedcap + having more space at the start of exercise zones should be enough of a temporary fix.
Post edit : Game doesn't let you jump in startzone until "bhop basics", might also be something to look into for the temporary fix if it ever happens in between.
I assume that's something already planned for the future, but making it possible to switch between exercises without having to esc->exercise->start and adding the possibility to switch with a door instead (as going between bonuses at the beggining of a map), would feel way more user friendly from what I noticed.
When I'm talking about the text, I was more about the tips on a specific exercise rather than its name, maybe I got your msg wrong tho.
Here's a picture to describe the spam I was about !
When I'm talking the automatic jump, I had the first exercise in mind where the game stops you from going forward until you release the w key, maybe it would make more sense to modify my first msg about it
regal path
I talked about both the world text and on-screen text
and yeah playground might be a bit too compact and require a bit too much movement and not enough area of free use of the controls
making it need more experience to enjoy fully
I don't much know what you mean with speedcap to be honest, and if you are referring to the set speed of the exercise, that won't be changed and as I mention I will likely just create a better free environment to let the user play with the controls themselves before jumping into the exercises in the first place, I believe that to be a more ideal solution
rustic junco
making it need more experience to enjoy fully
Btw I was wondering when I was playing on it, is there some kind of secret hidden? Noticed some weird stuff hiden above hard to reach platforms
rustic junco
I don't much know what you mean with speedcap to be honest, and if you are refer...
At bhop basics, it behaves like a basic startzone where if you reach something like 300-350 units the game taunts you back to 0 or smth like it, noticed it when I told my friend to spin around to gain speed
regal path
there are flags around the level you can choose as your objective to get to, or find your way to collect all of them, if you find them, so essentially yes. also there is a duck.
regal path
At bhop basics, it behaves like a basic startzone where if you reach something l...
oh the jump cap, no that's very intended so you can't cheat the exercise. it's not nessaserally meant to prevent cheating intentionally but moreso unintentionally where the player might not understand that there might not always be the option of jumping to gain speed in the area, and gaining speed isn't the point of that specific exercise.
it's to more force the specifics of the exercise and not have them accidently think they did it because they hopped an extra time in the startzone
and the solution to that is just to give an area without those limitations before the exercises
rustic junco
oh the jump cap, no that's very intended so you can't cheat the exercise. it's n...
Stupid users and their weird ideas to break the game 
regal path
as I say, they may not even realise they are breaking it and may think that's a legitimate way of doing it
making the practice of the exercise lost to the user
rustic junco
Yeah now that you mention it, it makes perfect sense
regal path
(also if you really want to cheat it you can delay pressing jump to avoid it resetting your speed)
regal path
moreso just letting friction take you for a second before trying to jump again, it's some broken logic with the way I prevented it
and not intended
rustic junco
Lol just tried it, it's dumb af 🥲
regal path
the way I prevent it is by like checking speed and if you are bhopping, but if you stop bhopping and land you can jump again and that won't think it's a bhop
rustic junco
Quite tricky to land tho, I doubt a begginer will ever manage to take advantage of it
In that case why not preventing it by doing a check of speed and kill it (if it's too high) as when you leave a zone in surfing for example? (I guess it's not the same for bhop)
regal path
a better way to prevent it is just checking on the 2nd air-time
preventing it with just speed is problamatic if people jump too early in the area, they may strafe and get that speed and it just kills it
so I need to check they attempted to bhop at least once
rustic junco
preventing it with just speed is problamatic if people jump too early in the are...
That's why my friend couldn't reach the first platform I believe, he was trying to strafe too early
regal path
if they just jumped without a bhop first the trigger shouldn't active, but regardless I'm making sure that logic is a lot more solid for the new version
rustic junco
If he stumble across something like it in the future I might try to record him, pictures speaks better than words 😄
regal path
adjusting the start zone to be more clear you only need a single jump and such also
a lot that needs to be done with a learn section is protecting the users from their own mistakes, and in a lot of cases I didn't do that well for that first build
rustic junco
Btw since you want to prevent people to cheat exercises, is he meant to be able to bhop twice a platform? That's an advice I gave him which he never got a chance to try, tho it would be kinda op like taking speed in start
regal path
you can't bhop twice on the bhop platforms anyway, if they are then our triggers are broken, though actually I think we got rid of the triggers that uses recently for a better system
so its probably just borked from outdated stuff
rustic junco
You can, just tried it
regal path
yeah then we already removed the triggers that uses
we're replacing it with funcs instead of triggers
so the triggers were removed probably last update
and no longer function to stop you jumping twice on it
but they did stop you at one point
rustic junco
Btw, I just notice something dumb, the prevent of holding w takes quite some time to happen (when you start going down), I believe it would be better for it to pop earlier than this late, cause when it happens, it just makes you fail afterwards
rustic junco
but they *did* stop you at one point
If it's just an outdated thing then nvm me ^^
regal path
yeah I've already thought of that, it doesn't make much sense where it's placed
I wanted to place all the triggers and events in one place but afterthought I realised that doesn't really work well
we have a lot better systems in-place too now, to help with that in general
rustic junco
yeah I've already thought of that, it doesn't make much sense where it's placed
If you enable release w on jump setting, it's even more useless, it really makes sense only on the exercises before bhop basic
regal path
I forgot about that setting, I think I disabled it myself and forgot it was a thing
rustic junco
we have a lot better systems in-place too now, to help with that in general
Can't wait to see all this stuff poppin in 🙂
regal path
we don't really have a way of checking the difference between pressing the button that's bound to +forward, and pressing +forward its-self though
which is why that would be a problem
rustic junco
I forgot about that setting, I think I disabled it myself and forgot it was a th...
It seemed quite helpful for my friend tho, I'd recommend to keep it for very begginers until you reach the bhop part
regal path
I'd want to keep it in the bhop part, but have some fix for the check of it, to only enforce it if forward is actually being used
rather than just if the key it's on is being used
rustic junco
we don't really have a way of checking the difference between pressing the butto...
?
Like if begginers would type +forward in console you mean ? Or I don't get it?
regal path
basically like, you can press a key that does +forward, keep it held, then press another key that would do -forward while still holding the other key, it would then still show the warning to release it even though it's not doing anything. I think.
so we're only checking if the key it's bound to is being held, and not if the action is being done
rustic junco
I'll try it
regal path
yeah that's just my theory there, otherwise I don't know why it would still warn them with release-w enabled
rustic junco
So I bound -forward on M2 then pressed it as the alert pops in, and alert disappeared while I was still holding w
regal path
strange strange, perhaps its more complicated in that you never released any key to do with it and it just fired the internal command to release it.. will have to investigate.
rustic junco
But I doubt a begginer would mess with that kind of stuff that early unless he already know what he's doing
regal path
I think it's enabled by default (?)
rustic junco
I find it weird that you can't detect only the keypress rather than the action 🥲
The nulling?
regal path
I find it weird that you can't detect only the keypress rather than the action �...
source engine stuff is dumb
regal path
The nulling?
no, the realising W on jump thing
rustic junco
That's also what makes it so fun 😄
rustic junco
no, the realising W on jump thing
I couldn't tell, first thing I did before playing was setting up my cfg and checking all the settings, I'm pretty sure it was not enabled for my friend but it might be cause my config was set (I'd estimate 75% disabled by default)
It made me think about the fact that begginers shouldn't be able to mess with every settings until they know a lil bit more about the game (so they don't enable options like this one before it makes sense) tho seems tough to enforce it
regal path
yeah that's more why I'm thinking it would be better to throw them into a flat or non-complicated environment first before they start learning
rustic junco
yeah that's more why I'm thinking it would be better to throw them into a flat o...
With some button you gotta reach to set up basic settings might be a fun way to deal with it