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.
