12-20-2019, 08:23 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-03-2020, 02:41 PM by RussEfarmer.)
Since TTT was talking about the jump pack a little bit ago, I figured I could prompt some discussion about it here. Note that I'm not explicitly suggesting anything in this thread, I have no major gripes about the jump pack, but I just wanted to finally talk about something I've been wanting to talk about since I joined prophunt.
Specifically, I will be talking about the expense of the jump pack in the pointshop in contrast to a cheaper option/a global jump boost. The jump pack, the last time I saw it, costed 100,000 points, and I'm assuming it's the same price today. It's no small expense for a newer player, and has always taken at least 15 hours of competent gameplay without buying anything else to get it. Personally, I attribute this fact as a large part of prophunt's success in times where it wasn't as popular, along with the prop menu: they were utilities meant to capture the players interest and keep them working towards a goal during the initial retention period players go through when finding a server. However, what consequences does holding a jump boost item up on a high pole have for the newer players that can't get it?
A jump boost of any kind affects two major things: how many places you can get to on a map, and how easy it is to get to them. When the server jump height is higher (by the gravity being lower), you can get to more places on the map, and the places that you can already get to are easier to access. In contrast, a lower jump height restricts the number of places you can get to, and makes it more difficult to get to places you were already able to access. For an experienced player, these facts are hopefully obvious.
The problem the jump pack presents is that instead of having a fixed "map access level" for everyone on the server in the form of a universal server gravity, the server is divided into two groups with two levels of map access: people that have either donated to the server for points / gotten lucky in a crate drop, or played enough hours to afford the pack. This isn't a massive problem in a game like TTT, but in a game like prophunt where your success is very closely related to the places you have access to, you start to take notice as a new player.
In case that wasn't clear in the last paragraph, this is what I'm saying: You, as a new player to the server without a jump pack, will DEFINITIVELY NOT be able to perform as well as someone with the same / worse skill level that has a jump pack.
Now prophunt isn't a serious game by any degree, and people mostly play it to have fun rather than be competitive, but having fun relies heavily on actually being alive to play the game. You as a new player, as previously stated, will definitively not be able to hide and survive as effectively as someone who does have it. Someone with a jump pack is able to at least play on the same playing field as the high tier regulars that also have jump packs, while someone with, again, the same or higher skill level without a jump pack is at a definitive disadvantage. If prophunt was somehow turned into a competitive gamemode, this argument right here would be an immediate dealbreaker.
Except it's not competitive. Switching side here to defend the jump pack from this killer argument against it, the jump pack, along with the prop menu, provides a goal for the player to work towards in an otherwise completely linear gamemode, and thus retains the player to the server. Providing a universal jump boost would solve the problem of the huge divide between people with and without jump packs, but since the player already has the ability to jump higher, it could no longer offer a captivating goal to work towards. I wholeheartedly disagree that you should put someone on a massively lower playing field than the rest of the player base just so the player will stay on your server, but on prophunt, there's not exactly much more you can do other than the prop menu. I'm not leaving my explicit opinion on the argument here, this is a discussion thread, after all.
Now instead of considering a complete removal of the jump pack to solve the new player disadvantage problem, let's consider lowering the power of the jump pack back to what it was during the Pointshop 1 days. Me and an old co-owner, SluttyCrowofCainhurst, discussed doing this after the jump pack was unintentionally buffed as a result of the switch to PS2, but the idea was dropped due to Dink being MIA as usual during that time period. In case you're unaware, the PS1 jump pack was nothing like what it is now; the first time I equipped it, I thought it was broken. The jump boost was rather minimal, as opposed to the massive buff it gives you nowadays, and as a result, it actually created a very interesting gameplay experience.
The difference between current and PS1 jump pack is substantial, with the current PS2 jump pack allowing you to jump significantly higher and float around a lot more. The PS1 jump pack did that as well, but it was a significantly smaller change from the normal server gravity. A smaller change between normal server gravity and jump pack jumping height reduces the severity of the new player disadvantage problem, while still providing a tangible and advantageous goal for new players to pursue. In addition, map exploits on certain maps removed in the past would not be present with a less powerful pack, and those maps could be added back.
In my personal experience, gameplay with the lower powered jump pack was much more interesting than the current one. The difference, while small, made spots that were already accessible a little bit easier for players of all skill levels to access, and thus made the spot a more reliable and effective option to hide in as opposed to just completely walling the spot off via a jump height restriction. That wasn't to say the change was that tiny, there were definitely spots accessible that weren't before as a result of the jump pack, such as the cliff spot on restaurant. Skilled players even could utilize advanced techniques such as prop boosting and strafe jumping to stretch the pack to the limit and access spots like the islandhouse windows or the gas station cigarette box (is gas station still even in rotation?)
A concluding point I would like to make about the old jump pack is that it implemented breakable limitations. You had to innovate and find new ways to get places in order to survive and break new grounds, and it establishes a greater sense of impossibility on maps that resulted in people more being more surprised when the boundary was broken. With a high powered jump pack, the boundaries of the map are broken by default; you can already access to just about everything.
Take this example of the palm tree left of the islandhouse balcony. With the old jump pack, the procedure was very specific: climb to the balcony railing and turn into a boat, strafe crouch jump to the edge of the tree, locate the center of the tree, and turn into a more suitable prop (or just stay as a boat and be funny.) To perform the same action with the new jump pack, you climb to the balcony railing, hold forward, and press the space bar. That's not interesting. It doesn't take any creativity to discover how to get up there, it isn't remotely difficult, and it's boring.
I've been hard on the PS2 jump pack in this thread, so I have to be fair for it: the new jump pack feels really good to use. You have a very open feeling of movement, and it feels good to float and strafe around the map and blast props. Movement in a game is make or break for me, and if the server I play makes the gravity feel like I'm on Jupiter, I get bored either because most creative map spots are physically inaccessible or I get annoyed because literally just moving around the map is exhausting either due to fall damage as a prop or lack of movement options as a hunter. What the higher power jump pack lacks in gameplay complexity, it makes up for in good feeling movement and generally being a fun accessory to equip.
As a reminder, I'm not explicitly suggesting anything, though you probably already know which way I swing just because of the way I structured this post. Let me know what you think about what I discussed!
~RussEfarmer
Specifically, I will be talking about the expense of the jump pack in the pointshop in contrast to a cheaper option/a global jump boost. The jump pack, the last time I saw it, costed 100,000 points, and I'm assuming it's the same price today. It's no small expense for a newer player, and has always taken at least 15 hours of competent gameplay without buying anything else to get it. Personally, I attribute this fact as a large part of prophunt's success in times where it wasn't as popular, along with the prop menu: they were utilities meant to capture the players interest and keep them working towards a goal during the initial retention period players go through when finding a server. However, what consequences does holding a jump boost item up on a high pole have for the newer players that can't get it?
A jump boost of any kind affects two major things: how many places you can get to on a map, and how easy it is to get to them. When the server jump height is higher (by the gravity being lower), you can get to more places on the map, and the places that you can already get to are easier to access. In contrast, a lower jump height restricts the number of places you can get to, and makes it more difficult to get to places you were already able to access. For an experienced player, these facts are hopefully obvious.
The problem the jump pack presents is that instead of having a fixed "map access level" for everyone on the server in the form of a universal server gravity, the server is divided into two groups with two levels of map access: people that have either donated to the server for points / gotten lucky in a crate drop, or played enough hours to afford the pack. This isn't a massive problem in a game like TTT, but in a game like prophunt where your success is very closely related to the places you have access to, you start to take notice as a new player.
In case that wasn't clear in the last paragraph, this is what I'm saying: You, as a new player to the server without a jump pack, will DEFINITIVELY NOT be able to perform as well as someone with the same / worse skill level that has a jump pack.
Now prophunt isn't a serious game by any degree, and people mostly play it to have fun rather than be competitive, but having fun relies heavily on actually being alive to play the game. You as a new player, as previously stated, will definitively not be able to hide and survive as effectively as someone who does have it. Someone with a jump pack is able to at least play on the same playing field as the high tier regulars that also have jump packs, while someone with, again, the same or higher skill level without a jump pack is at a definitive disadvantage. If prophunt was somehow turned into a competitive gamemode, this argument right here would be an immediate dealbreaker.
Except it's not competitive. Switching side here to defend the jump pack from this killer argument against it, the jump pack, along with the prop menu, provides a goal for the player to work towards in an otherwise completely linear gamemode, and thus retains the player to the server. Providing a universal jump boost would solve the problem of the huge divide between people with and without jump packs, but since the player already has the ability to jump higher, it could no longer offer a captivating goal to work towards. I wholeheartedly disagree that you should put someone on a massively lower playing field than the rest of the player base just so the player will stay on your server, but on prophunt, there's not exactly much more you can do other than the prop menu. I'm not leaving my explicit opinion on the argument here, this is a discussion thread, after all.
Now instead of considering a complete removal of the jump pack to solve the new player disadvantage problem, let's consider lowering the power of the jump pack back to what it was during the Pointshop 1 days. Me and an old co-owner, SluttyCrowofCainhurst, discussed doing this after the jump pack was unintentionally buffed as a result of the switch to PS2, but the idea was dropped due to Dink being MIA as usual during that time period. In case you're unaware, the PS1 jump pack was nothing like what it is now; the first time I equipped it, I thought it was broken. The jump boost was rather minimal, as opposed to the massive buff it gives you nowadays, and as a result, it actually created a very interesting gameplay experience.
The difference between current and PS1 jump pack is substantial, with the current PS2 jump pack allowing you to jump significantly higher and float around a lot more. The PS1 jump pack did that as well, but it was a significantly smaller change from the normal server gravity. A smaller change between normal server gravity and jump pack jumping height reduces the severity of the new player disadvantage problem, while still providing a tangible and advantageous goal for new players to pursue. In addition, map exploits on certain maps removed in the past would not be present with a less powerful pack, and those maps could be added back.
In my personal experience, gameplay with the lower powered jump pack was much more interesting than the current one. The difference, while small, made spots that were already accessible a little bit easier for players of all skill levels to access, and thus made the spot a more reliable and effective option to hide in as opposed to just completely walling the spot off via a jump height restriction. That wasn't to say the change was that tiny, there were definitely spots accessible that weren't before as a result of the jump pack, such as the cliff spot on restaurant. Skilled players even could utilize advanced techniques such as prop boosting and strafe jumping to stretch the pack to the limit and access spots like the islandhouse windows or the gas station cigarette box (is gas station still even in rotation?)
A concluding point I would like to make about the old jump pack is that it implemented breakable limitations. You had to innovate and find new ways to get places in order to survive and break new grounds, and it establishes a greater sense of impossibility on maps that resulted in people more being more surprised when the boundary was broken. With a high powered jump pack, the boundaries of the map are broken by default; you can already access to just about everything.
Take this example of the palm tree left of the islandhouse balcony. With the old jump pack, the procedure was very specific: climb to the balcony railing and turn into a boat, strafe crouch jump to the edge of the tree, locate the center of the tree, and turn into a more suitable prop (or just stay as a boat and be funny.) To perform the same action with the new jump pack, you climb to the balcony railing, hold forward, and press the space bar. That's not interesting. It doesn't take any creativity to discover how to get up there, it isn't remotely difficult, and it's boring.
I've been hard on the PS2 jump pack in this thread, so I have to be fair for it: the new jump pack feels really good to use. You have a very open feeling of movement, and it feels good to float and strafe around the map and blast props. Movement in a game is make or break for me, and if the server I play makes the gravity feel like I'm on Jupiter, I get bored either because most creative map spots are physically inaccessible or I get annoyed because literally just moving around the map is exhausting either due to fall damage as a prop or lack of movement options as a hunter. What the higher power jump pack lacks in gameplay complexity, it makes up for in good feeling movement and generally being a fun accessory to equip.
As a reminder, I'm not explicitly suggesting anything, though you probably already know which way I swing just because of the way I structured this post. Let me know what you think about what I discussed!
~RussEfarmer
![[Image: horizontal-design-element-3.png]](https://fg-a.com/lines/horizontal-design-element-3.png)
I CRAHSED MY CAR 