Stairs... Not quite the final frontier. But certainly the bane of my gaming life (I have 2 lives. Gaming is a life. k?)


Why is it that almost every game I can think I play, has stairs which hinder me to the point of madness? In order of 'major' (games I've spent most time on as a kid) that I've played over the years:


- Day of Defeat 1.3 (and previous version)
This game was a WW2 style counter-strike. Essentially it was a Half-Life mod which combined Call of Duty with Counterstrike movement etc. Being a guy who cba with ironsights etc and coming from CS1.6, I loved this game as a kid (and still play it occasionally now).

The trick to this game is that 90% of the time, you need to stand perfectly still to hit accurately. Canceling movement is incredibly important and if you don't, then chances are you're gonna hit jack shit. Doing this for years has made me a pretty damn accurate shooter in games whereby you need to stand still quickly to accurately fire. However, if you're moving, spot an enemy and stop to fire, whilst you're on stairs, a ledge or any other gradient? gg, wait for respawn brah. It's with this in mind that you get used to avoiding any sudden changes in height or bumps/ledges. They're fucking annoying to put it bluntly.


- CounterStrike 1.6
Much the same as DOD1.3, CS1.6 works with the same physics and canceling movement can be pretty important with most weapons. However, just like DOD, come across some stairs, and your accuracy is gonna go down pretty fast. Of course, if the enemy is close, it's not such a worry since you just ignore the canceling movement shit and glide down the stairs in a Matrix style awesomeness which is hard to describe, holding down mouse1 and aiming for the head. Whatever right? They're so close you're bound to hit them. However, going down stairs is still a pain in the ass


- Team-Fortress Classic
Ever done a flag run with some awesomely timed conc's, great bunnyhopping only to hit the bottom of a stair? I have. Too many times. Oh fml seriously. I'm not a flag runner, so it's not the biggest pain in the ass in the world, but it's so damn irritating bhoping across a map only to have to stop and walk when you hit a set of stairs


Getting the picture yet?


QuakeLive
I must say, going up and down stairs is not the problem when it comes to QuakeLive, it's battling on stairs. Seriously, I hate it more then going up a jump-pad or LG battles underwater. At least then you know the enemy can say "ah well, that was basically a freebee" With stairs, you're on level ground, just that you can't fucking dodge to save your life would gliding like a greased up sloth floating in predictable ways.

Am I just missing something here? I am actually kinda new to Quake (infact, QuakeLive was the first Quake I really started playing properly. I played QW and shit as a kid but not seriously). I picked up QL movement etc pretty fast but stairs are still the bane of my life. I've come to accept it as "well, stairs in all games are just evil) but I'm now thinking is there an answer to this?!

Lets take one example (Heartless or any other CA pro can help out here)
You're playing CA 4v4 or whatever on Trinity. Both teams move up to the top point of the map (where the long sort of half-circle staircase is). Should your team somehow back down a bit so you're more towards the staircase, you're fucked in an LG battle (which explains why most of the time I just go rockets - what can I say, I don't play too much CA anyway). As soon as you dodge backwards into those stairs, it's a slippery slope to death. I know from being on the other end, that when I'm on the higher ground LGing down onto someone near the stairs, as soon as they hit those stairs, BAM - Toxjq style accuracy (ok not quite, but still). They're screwed basically. It never really factors into my head though that "oh well, they were on stairs, they couldn't dodge as well". Maybe a little bit, but it's just a passing thought.





Anyway, what I'm getting at here, is that stairs are evil, and I am not petitioning that all stairs in all games (and possibly in real-life) be replaced by gentle slopes and/or Stannah Stair-lifts.


Included a very useful diagram picture to illustrate my point. I feel the artistic merit alone deserves a blowjob