Strafing (video Games)
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Strafing is the act of moving sideways in a video game relative to the player's forward direction. Strafing allows a player to keep the camera focused on a target such as an enemy, while moving in a different direction.


Techniques


Circle strafing

Circle strafing is the technique of moving around an opponent in a circle while facing them. Circle strafing allows a player to fire continuously at an opponent while evading their attacks. Circle strafing is most useful in
close-quarters combat Close-quarters combat (CQC) or close-quarters battle (CQB) is a tactical situation that involves a physical fight with firearms involved between multiple combatants at short range. It can occur between military units, police/corrections offic ...
where the apparent motion of the circle strafing player is much greater than that of their stationary enemy, and thus the chance of making the enemy lose track of their target is higher and/or the enemy is required to lead the target when firing. The effectiveness of circle strafing is mitigated when the opponent's weapon fires projectiles that travel instantaneously (also referred to as a
hitscan Hitscan in video game design, most commonly in first-person shooters, is a type of hit registration system that determines whether an object has been hit or not simply by scanning if the item used was aimed directly at its target and then applie ...
weapon), or fires at a high rate, e.g. with a
machine gun A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles) ar ...
. Circle strafing is especially effective when
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negatively affects the players' ability to hit their target. When latency is high and the game doesn't have client-side hit detection, this can lead to two players circling each other, both missing all their attacks. Many shooters will allow players to aim down the sights of a gun or use a scope, usually exchanging movement speed and field of vision for greater accuracy. This can make a player more vulnerable to circle strafing, as targets will pass through their field of vision more quickly, they are less capable of keeping up with a target, and their slow movement makes dodging more difficult.


Strafing in melee combat

Circle strafing has also spread to some 3D action and adventure video games that involve
melee A melee ( or , French: mêlée ) or pell-mell is disorganized hand-to-hand combat in battles fought at abnormally close range with little central control once it starts. In military aviation, a melee has been defined as " air battle in which ...
combat. Circle strafing in melee combat can be made easier with a lock-on system that snaps the
camera A camera is an optical instrument that can capture an image. Most cameras can capture 2D images, with some more advanced models being able to capture 3D images. At a basic level, most cameras consist of sealed boxes (the camera body), with a ...
's (and the player character's) focus on one particular target, guaranteeing that most of the player character's attacks will land a direct hit on the target. It enables the player character to concentrate on moving around the enemy to dodge their attacks while staying automatically focused on the enemy. This can be a crucial strategy against bosses and powerful enemies, and is notably employed in many ''
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'' titles, starting with '' Ocarina of Time''.


Strafe-running

Particularly in early
first-person shooter First-person shooter (FPS) is a sub-genre of shooter video games centered on gun and other weapon-based combat in a first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action through the eyes of the protagonist and controlling the p ...
s, strafe-running (known as speed-strafing among players of '' GoldenEye 007'' and ''
Perfect Dark ''Perfect Dark'' is a first-person shooter developed and published by Rare for the Nintendo 64 video game console in 2000. The first game of the '' Perfect Dark'' series, it follows Joanna Dark, an agent of the Carrington Institute research ...
'', and as trichording among players of the ''
Descent Descent may refer to: As a noun Genealogy and inheritance * Common descent, concept in evolutionary biology * Kinship, one of the major concepts of cultural anthropology **Pedigree chart or family tree ** Ancestry ** Lineal descendant **Heritag ...
'' series) is a technique that allows a player to run or fly faster through levels by moving forwards and sideways at the same time. The game combines these actions and the player achieves roughly 1.4 ( square root of 2) times the speed they would moving in a single direction. The method used by the game can be demonstrated using
vector Vector most often refers to: *Euclidean vector, a quantity with a magnitude and a direction *Vector (epidemiology), an agent that carries and transmits an infectious pathogen into another living organism Vector may also refer to: Mathematic ...
addition. ''
Pathways into Darkness ''Pathways into Darkness'' is a first-person shooter adventure video game developed and published by Bungie in 1993, for Macintosh personal computers. Players assume the role of a Special Forces soldier who must stop a powerful, godlike being ...
'' was one of the first games to allow strafe-running. The games in which strafe-running can be employed treat forward motion independently of sideways (strafing) motion. If, for each update of the player's location, the game moves the player forward one unit and then moves the player to the side by one unit, the overall distance moved is \sqrt. Thus, in games with such behavior, moving sideways while simultaneously moving forward will give an overall higher speed than just moving forward, although the player will move in a direction diagonal to the direction being faced. This feature is even more enhanced if moving along three axes (e.g. forward + left + up), providing \sqrt (roughly 1.73) times greater speed, in games such as Descent. This technique is not possible in all games; most and especially modern games would clamp the player's speed and acceleration to a uniform maximum when moving in any direction.


Strafe-jumping

Strafe-jumping is a technique used to increase a player's movement speed in computer games based on the
Quake engine The ''Quake'' engine is the game engine developed by id Software to power their 1996 video game '' Quake''. It featured true 3D real-time rendering and is now licensed under the terms of GNU General Public License v2.0 or later. After rele ...
and its successors, most of which are
first-person shooter First-person shooter (FPS) is a sub-genre of shooter video games centered on gun and other weapon-based combat in a first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action through the eyes of the protagonist and controlling the p ...
s.


History

Strafe-jumping was a result of a bug in the code base of the 1996
first-person shooter First-person shooter (FPS) is a sub-genre of shooter video games centered on gun and other weapon-based combat in a first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action through the eyes of the protagonist and controlling the p ...
video game '' Quake''. In Quake's sequels it was decided to be kept intact, as it had become a standard technique used by players. The exploit relies on an oversight in acceleration and maximum speed calculation: when pressing a movement key, the game adds an acceleration vector in that direction to the player's current velocity. When the player has reached a maximum speed value, further acceleration is prevented. However, the movement speed limit is only applied in relation to the acceleration vector's direction and not the direction of the overall velocity, meaning that precisely manipulating the angle between overall velocity and this acceleration vector lets the player break the intended speed cap.


Method

Strafe-jumping requires a precise combination of mouse and keyboard inputs. The exact technique involved depends on the game in question. In several games, there are entire maps devoted to this, much like obstacle courses. The controls are typically as follows: # The player holds the move forward key, accelerating to the maximum walking speed. # The player jumps and simultaneously starts holding either the strafe left or the strafe right key, in addition to the move forward key. # While airborne, the player moves the mouse slowly in the direction they're strafing. This turns the character and directs the acceleration to an angle that lets the player break the speed cap. # To prevent speed loss from ground friction, the player immediately jumps again on landing. # Strafe-jumping this way will slowly curve the player's trajectory, so to compensate the player can switch the direction of strafing and mouse movement to the opposite side. Done correctly and continuously, this will gradually increase the player's speed. Mastering this technique requires much practice. Sustained strafe-jumping is mainly a matter of
muscle memory Muscle memory is a form of procedural memory that involves consolidating a specific motor task into memory through repetition, which has been used synonymously with motor learning. When a movement is repeated over time, the brain creates a long-t ...
, as both the required range and precision of mouse movements increase as the player builds up speed. In ''
Quake III Arena ''Quake III Arena'' is a 1999 multiplayer-focused first-person shooter developed by id Software. The third installment of the ''Quake'' series, ''Arena'' differs from previous games by excluding a story-based single-player mode and focusing prima ...
'' and some games based on its engine, such as '' Call of Duty'' and '' Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory'', slight increases in jump height can be achieved by playing the game at specific frame rates.


Circle jump

The circle jump is an action performed by the player at the start of strafe-jumping, giving an initial burst of speed. It uses the same mechanics as strafe-jumping, but on the ground before the first jump, and requires faster mouse movement. The controls are as follows: # The player stands facing 90-135 degrees away from the direction they desire to eventually move in. # The player starts holding both the move forward key and the strafe key towards the desired direction, and also moves the mouse in the same direction. This turns and rapidly accelerates the player. # When the player is facing the desired movement direction, they jump to preserve the gained speed. # The player can now start strafe-jumping and continue accelerating.


Bunny hopping

Bunny hopping is a broadly used term for different kinds of movement in games. A player who simply jumps up and down to be more difficult to target is sometimes called a bunny hopper. Jumping on sloped surfaces to gain speed is called bunny hopping in games such as ''
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''. Some games feature more technical exploits known as bunny hopping which allow the player to move faster or more nimbly than normal. In games utilising the Quake or
GoldSrc GoldSrc ( ) is a proprietary game engine developed by Valve. At its core, GoldSrc is a heavily modified version of id Software's ''Quake'' engine. It originally made its debut in 1998 with ''Half-Life'', and would power future games developed b ...
game engines or their derivatives, bunny hopping is a technique related to strafe-jumping that lets a player accelerate beyond the speed cap and change direction quickly mid-air. The kind of advanced bunny hopping that utilizes strafing controls exists in '' Quake'', the ''
Quake III Arena ''Quake III Arena'' is a 1999 multiplayer-focused first-person shooter developed by id Software. The third installment of the ''Quake'' series, ''Arena'' differs from previous games by excluding a story-based single-player mode and focusing prima ...
'' mod '' Challenge ProMode Arena'', and their derivatives such as '' Warsow'' and ''
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''; ''
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'' (version 1.1.0.8, released in 2001, introduced a speed cap limiting the effectiveness of bunny hopping) and many of its mods and sibling games such as ''
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'', '' Dystopia'', and the ''
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'' series; ''
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'', and ''
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.''


References

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