For the uninitiated, crouch jumping is a mechanic where you can increase the height of ledges you are able to jump on by holding crouch after jumping, like a simulation of pulling your legs up in real life.

I never really thought much about it growing up, some games had it, some didn’t, but it always felt natural/intuitive, and today I feel like it is a way to increase the ceiling of player movement by a simple combination of two existing movements.

However I’ve heard that some people dislike it, and some actively hate it. Some of the arguments I’ve heard is that if a player needs to be able to get somewhere, then ledges should be lower and not gated, and that the whole mechanic is useless and just introduces an extra button press for no reason.

I can see the merit in some points, and others I feel like are nitpicky, but I’m interested in broadly knowing how Lemmy feels about it.

Codex
link
fedilink
27M

It never bothered me in Source games, but I don’t really care for it as a mechanic. Specifically in Half-Life, I don’t like how it overlaps with long jumping either. (Jump then crouch to crouch jump, crouch then jump to long jump.)

But I wouldn’t want it in other games because manteling is a superior mechanic. Mantelling is usually when you can hold down the jump key close to a ledge to grab it and pull yourself up, rather than jumping. In most games that have it, mantelling into a smaller space (a vent or pjpe) auto-crouches as you enter.

It allows for making longer jumps, exciting last moment saves, pulling yourself up into small spaces, simpler climbing mechanics, and more. It’s just a better, more intuitive mechanic that replaces long jumps and crouch jumps and requires no extra key presses.

I actually really dislike Manteling it feels like a quick time event, it’s easy and takes away any skill from the jump. The animation quickly gets repetitive. In some games where cinematics and being epic are the focus it definitely shines.

Crouch Jumping isn’t great either. It’s janky and should remain in source games only. However I’m so used to it that I try crouch jump anytime I jump onto a crate or something.

If you want two seperate jump distance have normal run speed jump and sprint + jump. Or slide jump

I like that Black Mesa changed the long jump to just double-pressing the jump button

Create a post

Sub for any gaming related content!

Rules:

  • 1: No spam or advertising. This basically means no linking to your own content on blogs, YouTube, Twitch, etc.
  • 2: No bigotry or gatekeeping. This should be obvious, but neither of those things will be tolerated. This goes for linked content too; if the site has some heavy “anti-woke” energy, you probably shouldn’t be posting it here.
  • 3: No untagged game spoilers. If the game was recently released or not released at all yet, use the Spoiler tag (the little ⚠️ button) in the body text, and avoid typing spoilers in the title. It should also be avoided to openly talk about major story spoilers, even in old games.
  • 1 user online
  • 61 users / day
  • 187 users / week
  • 326 users / month
  • 1.47K users / 6 months
  • 1 subscriber
  • 1.45K Posts
  • 15.3K Comments
  • Modlog