Crouch-jumping in Black Mesa: Source

[Kingjackl]

I recently started replaying Black Mesa and I'm annoyed that 9 months after the game's release, they still haven't done anything about the awful jumping mechanics. Basically, the default jump (space-bar) is completely useless, and every single jump you make requires a crouch jump (space-bar, followed by crtl in quick succession). Leaving aside the awkwardness of those controls, it begs the question of why they didn't just increase the default jumping height to make it actually worth a damn and save crouch-jumping for the really difficult platforming sections.

What's irritating is that fans of the game are defending the decision as being faithful to Half Life 1, which apparently also made extensive use of crouch-jumping. The thing is, even people who have played Half Life 1 have admitted that there is way more crouch-jumping than before and that the default jump is useless. You can't even call it a product of the Source engine; I've played plenty of Source engine games, Half Life 2 included, and have never had to use crouch-jumping. The Black Mesa guys are clearly willing to make changes to the original game in the interest of improving it where necessary, so it makes you wonder why they're being so stubborn over something as simple as the jumping controls.

What do you think? Am I alone in this, or are there others who find this is seriously hindering their enjoyment of the game?

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

The great things about PC games is that you can easily change the controls to suit your needs. Don't like having to press space bar and ctrl in rapid succession? Why not just remap jump and crouch to be right next to each other and easy to reach? Problem solved.

 

[Bertylicious]

Crouch jumping is totally rad. The only way it would be better would be if you had to press the strafe left and right keys as well in order to scissor your legs over stuff like when you did high jump in school.

Oooh! What if you had to do a circle with the mouse and then press W to do a fosbury flop!?

 

[Keoul]

I never really minded the crouch-jumping, after clocking in a few hundred hours on TF2 with rocket jumping it's practically second nature to me, though I do understand why you'd find it irksome.

Regardless though it's just a minor detail that shouldn't really irritate you at all, 2 buttons in rapid succession should be nothing to worry about at all, granted they could have just made the regular jump better but at a guess I'd say Black Mesa is cashing in on the nostalgia crowd and crouch jumping would probably be a part of that.

 

[DazZ.]

I automatically crouch jump in pretty much every source game when the jump I'm doing requires maneuverability, it's just habit and to be honest one I like.

Then again I like strafe jumping as well, but crouch jumping really isn't hard and makes sense it's in Black Mesa when it's in the HL1 tutorial.

 

[Kingjackl]

I don't see the point of it; it's just adding complication to something that should be simple. It's frustrating to argue this because everyone seems to find it so easy, but I personally find it awkward, unnecessary and outdated. I've seen similar threads debating this on other boards and virtually every one has ended with the complainer getting unfairly shot down because 'you should just know this, man'. Again, I've played plenty of Source games and Black Mesa is the first one where this has ever been a problem with me.

It's especially egregious here because the standard jump is so useless. They might as well have just made 'crouch-jump' the default and left it at that. How do you even crouch at the top of your jump when your jump barely takes you an inch off the floor and gives you about a two picoseconds of air time?

 

[Smooth Operator]

You see the best thing about old engines is that dev commands don't cost you $5 a piece.

Try playing with these:
bms_normal_jump_vertical_speed "200"
bms_normal_jump_crouch_vertical_speed "200"

 

[DoPo]

Well, you can open the console and make jumps higher, if you wish. Or make it atomatically crouch-jump. You can even drop the commands in autoexec.cfg in order to not open the console.

I really don't see this as a problem - it works like HL1 as was the intention - if they did away with crouch jumping that would have been fine, too, but I don't see any big reason to overly favour one or the other. And since you can easily customise it, it doesn't really matter, what they choose, either.

 

[Kingjackl]

You see the best thing about old engines is that dev commands don't cost you $5 a piece.

Try playing with these:
bms_normal_jump_vertical_speed "200"
bms_normal_jump_crouch_vertical_speed "200"

That has actually helped a fair bit, thanks!

Not to speak further heresy, but I don't suppose anyone knows how to bind commands in the autoexec for the long jump module? I couldn't find anything about it on the Black Mesa forums. I was hoping to maybe change it from space + crouch to space + space so it would function more like a double jump.

Oh, don't look at me like that, I grew up with consoles; I'm used to control schemes that make actual sense!

 

[Marik2]

lol this topic reminds me of what this guy went through

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

Well, you can open the console and make jumps higher, if you wish. Or make it atomatically crouch-jump. You can even drop the commands in autoexec.cfg in order to not open the console.

I really don't see this as a problem - it works like HL1 as was the intention - if they did away with crouch jumping that would have been fine, too, but I don't see any big reason to overly favour one or the other. And since you can easily customise it, it doesn't really matter, what they choose, either.

It was in HL1 but it's definitely more frequent in Black Mesa. It didn't bother me, personally, but I can see how it would be irksome.

 

[UltraPic]

I don't see the point of it

This may be a spoiler to you, but later on you will need to do a lot of something using the same command, so learn how to crouch jump.

 

[Evil Moo]

Yes, I found this to be pretty annoying. It isn't that I don't want crouch jumping where appropriate, it would just make more sense to me if it was more consistent with Half Life 2. In Half Life 2 I can jump on near chest height things without needing to crouch jump. In Black Mesa I feel like I need to crouch jump for anything more than ankle height. I particularly remember not being able to jump what seemed to be a small, knee height step while running from the giant flame thrower alien who's name escapes me, resulting in my death. It feels like there is almost no curvature to the bottom of the collider used for the player, so there is no lenience to the height of objects you can jump on, unlike in Half Life 2, which seems to let you slowly slide up jumps that are nearer the threshold of maximum jump height.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

Well. I have to disagree. Crouch-jumping is what makes a Source game... a Source game. If Half-Life 3 were to come out today and crouch jumping had been done away with, I would feel as though I was robbed. (When they got rid of bunnyhopping I felt like I was robbed.)

It sort of has importance with more arcadey Source games like TF2 where you really, really need to have a good idea of your various jump heights, the difference between a crouch jump and regular jump, in order to control your explosion jumping.

I was hoping to maybe change it from space + crouch to space + space so it would function more like a double jump.

I would suggest trying not to make things too complicated and bind crouching to some other key you don't use but is close at hand, like MOUSE3.

 

[Raggedstar]

Since this was my first FPS in 10 years (and myself being a bigger fan of 3D platformers), a lot of the jumping felt awkward in Black Mesa. As you mentioned, the crouch jump was such a bother. I was trying to hop up somewhere, but I just couldn't make it. Couldn't stack up things to get up there either. Watched a walkthrough, an the guy jumped up there without issue. Drove me insane until I looked up that "crouch jumping" was a thing in this game. Oh sure, it's a thing in other platformers too (like Jak and Daxter) but since crouching has a bit of a different use in shooters, I was confused. And damn straight it was awkward to use. Got used to it (managed to figure out a special rolling rhythm with my thumb and pinky), but it was annoying. Thank GOD for quicksaves.

 

[senordesol]

I think the crouch-jump exists for the same reason the whip delay on the original Castlevania existed: to make the user approach each situation cautiously, and deliberately. Half-Life was all about thinking your way out of situations, rather than rushing in gunz-ablazing. Careful precision and execution were the orders of the day (thus the tagline: Run. Think. Shoot. Live.)

There needed to be an element of apprehension to a lot of the jumps (thus the added complexity of including 'crouch') until the user attained a sense of mastery when the command became second nature. It's simply a progression brake; very common in a lot of titles of the time - I was actually very pleased with the BMS team's decision to keep it.

(btw: my jump/crouch is mapped to [x]/[c], respectively...in fact I do this for all my games)

 

[GoaThief]

Right mouse button as jump, space for crouch. ;-)

I can't play a FPS on mouse and keyboard without rebinding the controls to at least that.

 

[Kingjackl]

Well. I have to disagree. Crouch-jumping is what makes a Source game... a Source game. If Half-Life 3 were to come out today and crouch jumping had been done away with, I would feel as though I was robbed. (When they got rid of bunnyhopping I felt like I was robbed.)

It sort of has importance with more arcadey Source games like TF2 where you really, really need to have a good idea of your various jump heights, the difference between a crouch jump and regular jump, in order to control your explosion jumping.

I was hoping to maybe change it from space + crouch to space + space so it would function more like a double jump.

I would suggest trying not to make things too complicated and bind crouching to some other key you don't use but is close at hand, like MOUSE3.

I've played plenty of Source games and I've never had to do it before. Half Life 2 got it right, you'd think a Half Life 2-inspired remake of Half Life 1 could do it as well. Also, preserving bad gameplay design in the name of tradition is not a good thing; there's a reason that Xen is not as fondly remembered as the rest of Half Life 1 is.

The Black Mesa devs have gone on record to say that they won't release the Xen portion of the game until they get it absolutely right; if they realized that simply tweaking the long jump controls is more efficient than redesigning the entire level to fit with their awkward control scheme, they wouldn't have had to delay it.

 

[Vigormortis]

Wait...this is a thing? Crouch-jumping is a "game-breaking" bug now?

Seriously?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Okay, in fairness this isn't the first time I've heard this complaint. However, it still seems like nonsense to me. If anything, crouch-jumping makes platforming easier, as it provides better control of jump height, distance, and movement speed upon landing.

Besides, many of the people I've heard gripe about crouch-jumping being an overcomplication of a simple game mechanic are the same people that insist FPS games without ironsighting are "stupid".

Because there's such a huge difference between pressing two keys to make a precision jump and pressing two (or more) keys to just fire a gun.

However, I do agree with the OP. In regards to Black Mesa Source, anyway.

Even though I enjoyed the mod, I had many issues with it. One of which was them overdoing the limited jump mechanic. They took it to a bit of an extreme, even compared to the original game.

The movement mechanics of SourceGold games like Half-Life 1 don't translate directly; i.e. 1-to-1; to the Source engine.

 

[DoPo]

It was in HL1 but it's definitely more frequent in Black Mesa. It didn't bother me, personally, but I can see how it would be irksome.

Eh, yeah, the jump wasn't as high, but I can't remember using normal jumps in HL1 that much. There were the little boxes and...that's about it, I think, I crouch-jumped over everything else by default. It's a habit. I crouch-jump in pretty much every FPS, though with very low degrees of success. I always feel let down when I can't overcome some obstacle I clearly could do a crouch-jump over.