Self- Flinging / Momentum Boost - Fun Technique or Bad Exploit?
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I appreciate everyone's recent inputs. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. (:
I see that the majority of people here, including those that don't necessarily agree with the entirety of my message, agree on one thing, which is - if more people start using this, then yes, it's going to become bad. Doesn't that... mean that if it becomes bad in numbers, then it's probably bad to begin with?
BugalugsNugget You're making a strong point there. Though the game has a lot of moments that don't necessarily relate to the real-time physics. The majority of them are simple, innocent fun (like the 1000 tonne hammer shenanigans), and probably absolutely should stay in the game. Phsyics-based games are bound to have some of that goofy-glitchy stuff, and as long as it causes no harm to the game, they should probably stay.
Anon Hi!
I'm glad this thread helped you discover this stuff and the ongoing discourse associated with it. I agree it can be fun here and there indeed.
I'm not sure what you mean by "how the game evolves" though. It's perplexing because you agree it is an exploit and that it will become bad if more and more people start using it, which is the only natural way for it to evolve(?).
"Veterans" don't have to resort to exploits to diversify their joy for the game. I don't really see any reason for "veterans" needing to have that kind of advantage over newer players.
DzL "Some people" might have a point at the end of the day. To me, for example, it's no fun seeing game design being bypassed or broken due to players resorting to exploits. Same as I don't want to see new players being obliterated due to these "techniques". I understand you find it fun, that's fair.
What I find fun is naturally getting good at the base game mechanics available to the player. I want to see people become actually good instead of finding various workarounds to the gameplay. Discovering interesting tricks and techniques is beautiful, but to me there's certain line that shouldn't be crossed, which in this case is the game/level design being violated.
¯\ (ツ)/¯
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jumping far doesn't make much difference but throwing the ball far makes huge difference in american football
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Igor I think jumping far on the sports levels could make a difference too, I think. Imagine how much faster you could get back to the goal if you were at the other end of the pitch and used the fling, for instance. If all of the other players were limited to rolls only then they'd be at disadvantage.
Also, I've not tried this, but I wonder if the fling would allow you to do a super-powerful kick in Soccer or Hockey?
BugalugsNugget it takes forever to get up from a jump kick. i have yet to witness it being useful. more testing needed
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komikoza Funnily enough, I did think of the hammer as I was writing that. I like the goofy nature of the 1000T hammer. I didn't mention some of the crazy things that happen with it because when you use it, it sounds like it's made of rubber (or is inflatable), so I'd expect it to behave a bit differently than, say, the baseball bat. Either way, I wouldn't want to lose it because it results in some truly hilarious moments (even if I'm the victim).
Also, for:
What I find fun is naturally getting good at the base game mechanics available to the player. I want to see people become actually good instead of finding various workarounds to the gameplay. Discovering interesting tricks and techniques is beautiful, but to me there's certain line that shouldn't be crossed, which in this case is the game/level design being violated.
I couldn't agree more.
komikoza
Games evolve with the playerbase and also when new content is added and/or discovered. When self-fling was discovered this game evolved. Now we can talk about SF'ing and it should be a thing. Every succesful game needs hidden mechanics which make the game more interesting in a long run.
I didn't mean that more experienced players need to have an advantage over newer players, but because in the end there's going to be mostly veterans playing against each other, an extra layer of complexity is a nice feature to have.
It's rare, but sometimes bugs are good for the long-term health of a video game. I think this is one of those cases where the benefits outweigh the possible harm it can cause.
Offtopic:
It's a good idea to keep track of the general consensus as you did in the beginning of your post.
(I'm going to take a break from the forum discussions. See you all next year!)
he couldn't take the heat. lol
I am all for the game evolving, just not via exploits or bugs that noticeably collide with the design. Take care! 
The body fling is tolerable imo; it's the absurd launching of the team-based objects (insta-fused flung bombs on Trebuchet, insta-scored Buzz Balls, insta-touchdowned Footballs, etc.) that become a problem and ruin the fun.
I wonder how this would affect the new game mode. I haven't played it yet, but from what I've seen your running on a conveyor and you die if you fall off. If you can just fling over and over again that would provide a large advantage to somebody who does not know how to...
UnseenMind we can test later today with people who know how to do this shit
the cunts in quick are already abusing it. it does help on this map. miserable people
leave this shit for custom and play against fuckers like yourself. if you are playing quick, there's already a high chance you may be playing against people, who are new to the game, and then you decide to cheat on top of that. pathetic
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@Igor @UnseenMind It must be a huge advantage on Conveyor Belt. I played a couple of times tonight and you've got to keep rolling. I kept forgetting and died a lot. If you can fling then you can save a lot of energy while also remaining at the top. No-one did it in my game, thankfully. We had a number of players at < Level 10 and it would've been very unfair.
BugalugsNugget It will be a huge advantage if you use the spots that are between the belts. The ones that don't drag you back like the belts do. Then the full momentum of self-fling is gonna propel you way forward; However, if you try this on any belt, it won't be as effective. It is true that it depletes less at least twice less stamina than a roll would, yes. I would also consider it part of the reason why it's problematic.
Wrayyne As I mentioned in the OP back then, self-fling isn't just to hurl yourself over large distances. It generates a lot of momentum and can affect just about anything you can touch. You can use it to boost the Hockey Puck or Soccer Ball in the according modes, or even KO people point blank stronger than ever. So... yeah.
But even then, regarding the distance coverage. Take a look at this couple of videos. Newly discovered out-of-bounds-god-spots. On its own, it's great stuff like this gets tested and reported, however... You see how those spots are accessed? Yes, by the self-fling. Now try the same without using it and you will never get there (unless it's very rare occurrences of getting launched by weapons and you just happen to be grabbing the wall).
komikoza Good stuff as always komikoza 
Let's hope these out of bounds areas get fixed quickly. It seems that the devs (and Chinese people in general) do not know abt the "fling" and so have not designed the maps with this in mind. I'm worried that sometime they will release a map that will get absolutely broken by the fling, because I'm not sure how they could prevent the fling without completely changing the movement physics of the animals. If any of y'all have any ideas though...
Nice work, @komikoza
What you’ve shown is pretty much game-breaking for Conveyor Belt, as in the latter stages of the map the conveyor goes so fast that you’re almost guaranteed to fall off. If you can instead camp out in the area you’ve shown then that’s a guaranteed win, right?
One thing I’m curious about is how these moves are treated in tournaments, especially if there are prizes. Are they allowed? I personally don’t use the fling because I feel guilty if I win a match that way. It’s just not as satisfying to me. (Hell, I feel guilty if I win just by using the nunchucks. I’ve been known to drop them and go hand-to-hand with the last man standing in those instances - usually losing!)
@UnseenMind, for preventing the fling, if they wanted to do that, it’d probably depend on how the physics engine is implemented and whether they’re using their own or an off-the-shelf one. It’s a tough problem to solve though as by changing this you could easily break other areas of the game (as you hinted at), and lose some of the more goofy things we see happen - which can still be a lot of fun (e.g. a player getting launched into orbit from the 1000T hammer).
One idea is to ensure that, when calculating the result of a player’s action, the forward momentum is capped to a sensible level. With the fling, the calculations seem to be coming up with a large value.
For instance, detect the button combination that leads to the fling (i.e. a heavy punch followed by a drop-kick). When the final button press is detected (the kick), if that would result in a fling, then still allow it to happen, but with a more sensible momentum. For example, do the calculations based on 50% of your stamina (or whatever). The drop-kick appears to be the main action that results in flinging, and with a normal drop kick, that’s already heavily affected by your stamina (i.e. if it’s low then you cannot do a good drop-kick). If it’s a fling, still use the stamina in the calculation but at a significantly reduced value.
Thing is though, I feel like I’m stepping into a minefield here. There will be those that love the fling, and it’s become a big part of their game. I feel the problem is more when it’s a) not a level playing field and you just use it to “wipe the floor” with those who don't use it, b) it’s used against less experienced players to constantly win, or c) is used to cheat the game mechanics. That last point is shown by Komikoza’s excellent video on Conveyor Belt, where they ended up completely out of bounds.
I'm thinking that your suggestion of preventing out of bounds movement might be the way to go initially, as that's the safest approach without potentially breaking the entire physics. It doesn't solve the problem of people using the fling against less experienced players, but it's a start, and can be done by refining the design of the levels slightly. There appears to be an invisible area in which you're allowed to move around (this can be seen on Ichiban, where if you stray too far then you die immediately). They could just shrink the invisible area slightly.