There is a serious argument that rages within the Rec Room community, and it's quite a divisive one. Many people are against teleportation because they are incredibly hard to deal with in PvP games like Paintball, Laser Tag, or Dodgeball. Others say that teleportation is a necessary inclusion to make locomotion better for those with motion sickness, making the game more accessible. I would like to suggest an idea for a reworked teleportation system that not only addresses the issues for PvP, without buffing/nerfing teleportation, and allows for better movement.

[(=|] "but like what's even the issue though" [|=)]

Teleportation in Rec Room is frowned upon because of how hard it is to hit people in PvP games. As the great CGP Grey said, solutions that are easy to implement and think up usually are ineffective solutions and will cause severe suffering. Lemme to explain why:

The problem isn't that people's aim sucks, it's that teleporting players, so long as they've waited a bit, essentially can blink away from their attacker with a single button press.

Movement in PvP games is an utterly CRUCIAL thing to get down, otherwise, a large portion of the player base WILL complain, and we're already seeing that happen. To take out a teleporter, you either have to a) be laser-focused and look for a person's movement indicator, assuming they hold it down for long enough and predict their movement, b) outsmart them and make it impossible to evade an attack or c) catch them off guard by going behind them. As a result, it takes more effort from the attacker to accurately hit their target.

This also has a slew of issues for the teleporter themselves too. If you need to dodge an attack, you best make that teleport absolutely worth it, because otherwise, you're a sitting duck. As a result, now the teleporter needs to disproportionately think more about how they dodge their attacks.

One would say these two cancel each other out, but that isn't the case. If they did, the player base wouldn't be complaining so much. Dodging, while a bit weaker for teleporters, is still easier due to the fact they can essentially vanish without a trace.

For a visual example of what I mean, see the top part of figure 1 (yes, seriously).

[(=|] "okay, you got a better idea" [|=)]

Yes, actually. Implementing it may take a bit of work, but once it's done, it should not only benefit both the attacker, but also the teleporter themselves.

Instead of the teleport delay coming AFTER you teleport (ie: you can teleport as far as you want instantly so long as you've waited beforehand), have the teleport 'charge up' before you can teleport the full distance. Basically, if you press the teleport button once, you only get teleported a very, very small distance in your chosen direction. But if you hold it down and allow it to charge up all the way, you can go the full distance of your teleport. This adds much more control to a teleporter's arsenal, and it also somewhat eliminates the issue of teleporters being able to instantly woosh away from their attacker's FOV in the blink of an eye.

In games like Paintball, this comes in handy. Since bullets take time to come to you, you can make slight adjustments to your position, something that is typically only doable with joystick controls, without actually being joystick controls. This allows for much fairer dodging; If you need to dodge something but don't need to move very far, now you have the ability to move a short distance. For the attacker, it's much less frustrating knowing that "oh, I almost had it that time" and that "maybe I'll get him next shot".

For a good example of this, see the bottom part of figure 1.

[(=|] "wouldn't that just break the game more tho lmao" [|=)]

Not if it's implemented correctly. Obviously, this is something that requires a bit of testing to get right, but here is a good way to start it off.

See figure 2 to see what I mean.

Using the proposed teleportation system doesn't give you extra distance, or makes you go faster, nor does it make you go slower and unable to go the same amount of distance you normally would with normal teleporting. Both systems allow the player to go the same amount of distance in the same amount of time; so long as we're considering when a player has a teleport ready.

In the old system, you teleported, then had to wait for your teleport to cool down. With the new system, there's no cooldown, but you have to wait for the teleport to charge up all the way to get the maximum amount of distance. Once you teleport, you're already able to teleport again.

The player was to spam the teleport button instead, they won't be going very far with each teleport, but you would still be going a small "step" of distance in a short amount of time, which in total would be about the same time if you were to hold the button all the way down.

This basically turns teleportation somewhat into joystick controls without actually being joystick controls; meaning you get the benefit of more comfortable teleportation whilst making the game fairer on PvP games.

In places where there is no teleport cooldown, there's no teleport charge with the new system, meaning essentially places like the Rec Center doesn't change in the slightest for teleporting players, they'll still be able to woosh around quickly as nothing had ever changed with no issue.

[(=|] "pros and cons, list em amigo" [|=)]

The most glaring pro is fixing PvP teleporting and reducing toxicity in lobbies because of players berating teleporting players. Not much else to say there.

On the other hand, another pro is to have more control over your movement. Because you can make small adjustments without having to worry about a delay, it allows teleporting players to make more adjustments to their position without being kneecapped by the teleport cooldown.

The only con is that it will take a bit of work to implement.

[(=|] "any other bright ideas" [|=)]

Perhaps an update to visual and sound cues would be nice too, if not the proposed teleport system. See figure 3.

For short teleport distances, little to no whoosh sound is heard. This would make stealth actually possible for teleporters in a way.

For maximum distance teleports, the woosh is a bit louder, indicating a large jump. Seeing as how you're going to be moving pretty far anyway, it makes sense more noise is made.

This might already be in the game. I'm not entirely sure.

In addition to audio, perhaps make the outsider's perspective of a visual indicator for teleportation more clear. This means making the teleport trail much more visible, perhaps even making the trail last a bit longer for longer teleports, but for small teleports harder to see.

And that is all. I hope this idea seems like a good one.