Bunny hopping
Encyclopedia
Bunny hopping, or bunny jumping, is a term used in video games to describe the basic movement technique in which a player jumps
repeatedly, instead of running
, in order to move faster.
s to refer to act of pressing the jump key while holding crouch and a movement key to move faster (especially when going down a slope) and/or to evade attacks more effectively. In several games based on Quake engines or their derivatives moving in a zigzag
pattern while bunny hopping (see strafejumping) is the fastest way to move around and increases length of jumps, making the player an even more difficult target. While a zigzag movement pattern may not be the fastest way to get from one point to another in other games, players may feel that the protection provided by bunny hopping more than compensates for this disadvantage. Bunny hopping might also be required to gain speed to perform a trick jump or to provide better movement control while in mid-air (especially after performing a trick jump).
, Tribes 2
, QuakeWorld
, Quake II
, Quake III Arena
, Half-Life, Team Fortress Classic
, Natural Selection
, Nexuiz
, Enemy Territory Fortress, Kingpin: Life of Crime
, Dystopia
, Half-Life 2
, Soldat
, Painkiller, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance
, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
, Counter-Strike
, and Counter-Strike: Source
. Bunny hopping was also an integral part of the game America's Army
, but jumping has been removed from the current version.
The execution, effectiveness, and limits of bunny hopping varies across different game engines and mods. For example, in Team Fortress Classic
, the way to begin the jumps is much different from the Quake series: it begins by strafing, then aiming in the strafe direction, then jumping and so on.
In Thief: The Dark Project
, bunny hopping can be used to reach incredible speeds as the player's speed increases with each consecutive hop, enabling them to out-pace even the fastest of enemies, or kill themselves spectacularly, depending on whether they collide with anything. As a result, the bunny hopping bug was removed in later Dark Engine
titles. In Starsiege: Tribes
, bunny hopping is remarkably effective at generating speed when performed on a downward slope due to an unintended effect of the game's physics model; the practice, known as "skiing" in the Tribes series, was so popular that the two sequels officially incorporated skiing as a simple held keypress and a part of basic A.I. movement.
sub-genre, the lack of realism introduced by this ability is often compensated for by limiting the effectiveness of consecutive jumps or by the introduction of limited stamina
. For example, in America's Army
, every jump consumes a large portion of CEM (in comparison to sprinting, which consumes it at a slower pace), and lower CEM results in slower, smaller jumps, and less accuracy. CEM is often confused with stamina in America's Army, though there is no actual stamina in the game (for example, unlike stamina, CEM has no effect on running speed). Thus bunny hopping can still be seen in those games, but it is much less effective and therefore, less common. Another way of limiting this ability is to slow down movement speed after landing. This technique is used in later versions of Counter-Strike
. It has also been implemented in Team Fortress Classic
, so that touching the ground while the player's speed is 170% or more of the normal speed, the player's speed will be set to the normal maximum run speed. Armed Assault
takes the extreme approach of not having a jump ability at all which is more realistic in combat situations but makes crossing obstacles or barriers, even small ones, all but impossible. This approach was also taken by the latest installment of the America's Army series, America's Army 3.
Bunny hopping in Counter-Strike is still recognized to be a very useful skill once the exact timing of the jump button is mastered, which is harder to achieve compared to other games. It allows the player to become a very difficult target to hit (besides, the AI always target the head, so this can reduce damage). By jumping in a zig-zag motion, the player can cut corners extremely fast, which also gives an advantage of surprise over the enemy. It can also be used to reach places usually not easily reachable by normal jumping.
, Counter-Strike
and Team Fortress Classic
use derivatives of the Quake engine
, so the techniques used to perform bunny-hopping in these games are nearly identical. QuakeWorld has "pogo stick
" jumping (you can release and repress the jump button while flying in the air), while in the other games you have to jump right as you hit the ground. An acceleration is experienced in-air while uniformly turning in the same direction as the player is strafing- The act of timing your jumps to the exact moment when you hit the ground prevents the player from decelerating to normal walking speed. The strafing should also be timed in a particular way to the jumping for greatest effect. Using this technique unbroken, allows a player to gradually accelerate to speeds many times the typical running speed.
The speed at which one can bunnyhop is effectively limited by the turning radius: if too sharp a turn is made at high speed, speed is lost. In the old versions of Counter-Strike, the degree to which a player can make sharp turns while bunnyhopping without losing speed is regulated by the sv_airaccelerate server value. This value could be set to 0 to disable bunnyhopping, and had a maximum effective value of 20.
As of Counter-Strike version 1.6, bunny-hopping has been made harder to perform. Some players use scripts and even hacks to bunny-hop.
As a result of the incredible speed bonuses achieved by a competent Counter-Strike bunny-hopper and the very significant advantage it provides, many players consider the technique to be a cheat. Opponents of bunnyhopping claim it is an exploit unintended by the developers which probably explains why it was removed in the 1.1.0.8 patch (even though supporters still claim that it is simply a clever way to use the game's physics). In its day many Counter-Strike demos were recorded to demonstrate its incredible effectiveness in the form of trick jumps. Huge jumps could be performed, such as from building to building on cs_assault (sometimes sv_airaccelerate would have to be modified to perform such jumps, to allow higher speeds to be attained with smaller turning radii).
The sv_airaccelerate command was blocked in The Orange Box
Source engine
branch.
Bunny hopping/strafe jumping is very effective in Quake III Arena
and some other games that use its engine, such as Jedi Knight 2.
The exact purpose and benefits have evolved as EA has released patches and fixes for this tactic. A player could come around a corner, and, coming across an enemy, jump in an unpredictable direction while firing their weapon. Combining this with the far range a player could throw a C4 charge and the splash damage of the grenade launcher, the tactic gave advantages to the Special Forces and Assault classes. It was eventually seen as an unsporting and unfair tactic. This technique was eventually abolished with a game patch.
A similarly unsporting tactic was used with the Support class, with its light machine gun, which is meant to be very powerful, but with the drawback that it is very inaccurate unless the player goes prone. This drawback could be negated by "dolphin diving", in which the player goes prone in mid-air, in order to gain the accuracy advantage of being prone.
EA has made attempts to reduce the effectiveness of jumping during combat in Battlefield 2 and Battlefield 2142. For example, one update to Battlefield 2 made players unable to fire while in mid-air. However, it still remains an effective way to evade fire.
.
.
, this phenomenon is usually referred to as 'Trickjumping', and can be used to gain huge amounts of speed and by performing a trickjump on a slope players are also able to translate that speed to vertical speed and get to else impossible to reach places. On the default maps, most places are protected with so-called 'clip brushes', providing collision so the player can't reach it.
Jumping
Jumping or leaping is a form of locomotion or movement in which an organism or non-living mechanical system propels itself through the air along a ballistic trajectory...
repeatedly, instead of running
Running
Running is a means of terrestrial locomotion allowing humans and other animals to move rapidly on foot. It is simply defined in athletics terms as a gait in which at regular points during the running cycle both feet are off the ground...
, in order to move faster.
Concept
The term is most used in first-person shooterFirst-person shooter
First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...
s to refer to act of pressing the jump key while holding crouch and a movement key to move faster (especially when going down a slope) and/or to evade attacks more effectively. In several games based on Quake engines or their derivatives moving in a zigzag
Zigzag
A zigzag is a pattern made up of small corners at variable angles, though constant within the zigzag, tracing a path between two parallel lines; it can be described as both jagged and fairly regular....
pattern while bunny hopping (see strafejumping) is the fastest way to move around and increases length of jumps, making the player an even more difficult target. While a zigzag movement pattern may not be the fastest way to get from one point to another in other games, players may feel that the protection provided by bunny hopping more than compensates for this disadvantage. Bunny hopping might also be required to gain speed to perform a trick jump or to provide better movement control while in mid-air (especially after performing a trick jump).
Variations
Traditional bunny hopping is possible in many games such as TribesStarsiege: Tribes
Starsiege: Tribes is a sci-fi first-person shooter video game. It is the first of the Tribes video game series and follows the story from Earthsiege and Starsiege. It was developed by Dynamix and published by the company now known as Sierra Entertainment in 1998.-History:A sequel, Tribes 2, was...
, Tribes 2
Tribes 2
-Legacy:On November 20, 2002, Sierra released an update for Tribes 2. This update contained two new game types, new maps and updates to address several issues. Sierra, which is now part of Vivendi SU, licensed the franchise to Irrational Games for a third installment; Tribes: Vengeance was...
, QuakeWorld
QuakeWorld
QuakeWorld is an update to id Software's seminal multiplayer deathmatch game, Quake, that enhances the game's multiplayer features to allow people with dial-up modems to achieve greatly improved responsiveness when playing on Internet game servers...
, Quake II
Quake II
Quake II, released on December 9, 1997, is a first-person shooter computer game developed by Id Software and distributed by Activision. It is not a sequel to Quake; it merely uses the name of the former game due to Id's difficulties in coming up with alternative names.The soundtrack for Quake II...
, Quake III Arena
Quake III Arena
Quake III Arena , is a multiplayer first-person shooter video game released on December 2, 1999. The game was developed by id Software and featured music composed by Sonic Mayhem and Front Line Assembly...
, Half-Life, Team Fortress Classic
Team Fortress Classic
Team Fortress Classic, also known as Team Fortress 1.5 or simply TFC, is a team-based multiplayer first-person shooter video game developed by Valve Corporation. It is a remake of the Team Fortress modification for Quake. Team Fortress Classic was originally released for Windows on April 7, 1999 as...
, Natural Selection
Natural selection
Natural selection is the nonrandom process by which biologic traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution....
, Nexuiz
Nexuiz
Nexuiz is a free first-person shooter video game developed and published by Alientrap Software. It is free and open-source software and is distributed under the GNU General Public License . Version 1.0 of the game was released on May 31, 2005. The current version, 2.5.2, was released on October 1,...
, Enemy Territory Fortress, Kingpin: Life of Crime
Kingpin: Life of Crime
Kingpin: Life of Crime is a first-person shooter developed by Xatrix Entertainment and published by Interplay Entertainment in June 1999. The game begins with the player character wounded and beaten up by the Kingpin's henchmen, and the story follows his thirst for revenge...
, Dystopia
Dystopia (computer game)
Dystopia is a team-based, objective-driven, first-person shooter video game, developed as a total conversion modification on the Valve Corporation's proprietary Source engine. It is based on the cyberpunk literary genre; somewhat based on popular role-playing game Shadowrun, created by an amateur...
, Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2 , the sequel to Half-Life, is a first-person shooter video game and a signature title in the Half-Life series. It is singleplayer, story-driven, science fiction, and linear...
, Soldat
Soldat
Soldat is a Polish 2D multiplayer game for Windows. It is a side-scroller inspired by Liero and Scorched Earth, combined with elements from Counter-Strike and Worms. The game is shareware...
, Painkiller, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance is an action role-playing game developed by Snowblind Studios for the PlayStation 2; later released for the Xbox, Nintendo GameCube and Game Boy Advance. It was re-released on the PlayStation 2 as a Greatest Hits title...
, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is a single-player action role-playing video game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks and the Take-Two Interactive subsidiary 2K Games...
, Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike is a tactical first-person shooter video game developed by Valve Corporation which originated from a Half-Life modification by Minh "Gooseman" Le and Jess "Cliffe" Cliffe...
, and Counter-Strike: Source
Counter-Strike: Source
Counter-Strike: Source is an FPS video game developed by Valve Corporation. It is a complete remake of Counter-Strike using the Source game engine. As in the original, Counter-Strike: Source pits a team of counter-terrorists against a team of terrorists in a series of rounds...
. Bunny hopping was also an integral part of the game America's Army
America's Army
America's Army is a series of video games and other media developed by the United States Army and released as a global public relations initiative to help with recruitment. America's Army was conceived by Colonel Casey Wardynski and is managed by the U.S...
, but jumping has been removed from the current version.
The execution, effectiveness, and limits of bunny hopping varies across different game engines and mods. For example, in Team Fortress Classic
Team Fortress Classic
Team Fortress Classic, also known as Team Fortress 1.5 or simply TFC, is a team-based multiplayer first-person shooter video game developed by Valve Corporation. It is a remake of the Team Fortress modification for Quake. Team Fortress Classic was originally released for Windows on April 7, 1999 as...
, the way to begin the jumps is much different from the Quake series: it begins by strafing, then aiming in the strafe direction, then jumping and so on.
In Thief: The Dark Project
Thief: The Dark Project
Thief: The Dark Project is a 1998 first-person stealth game developed for Windows by Looking Glass Studios and published by Eidos Interactive...
, bunny hopping can be used to reach incredible speeds as the player's speed increases with each consecutive hop, enabling them to out-pace even the fastest of enemies, or kill themselves spectacularly, depending on whether they collide with anything. As a result, the bunny hopping bug was removed in later Dark Engine
Dark Engine
The Dark Engine is the computer game engine used for the Looking Glass Studios games Thief: The Dark Project , Thief II: The Metal Age , and the Looking Glass/Irrational Games title System Shock 2 .-Features:...
titles. In Starsiege: Tribes
Starsiege: Tribes
Starsiege: Tribes is a sci-fi first-person shooter video game. It is the first of the Tribes video game series and follows the story from Earthsiege and Starsiege. It was developed by Dynamix and published by the company now known as Sierra Entertainment in 1998.-History:A sequel, Tribes 2, was...
, bunny hopping is remarkably effective at generating speed when performed on a downward slope due to an unintended effect of the game's physics model; the practice, known as "skiing" in the Tribes series, was so popular that the two sequels officially incorporated skiing as a simple held keypress and a part of basic A.I. movement.
Use in tactical shooters
In the tactical shooterTactical shooter
A tactical shooter is a subgenre of shooter game that includes both first-person shooters and third-person shooters. These games typically simulate realistic combat, thus making tactics and caution more important than quick reflexes in other action games...
sub-genre, the lack of realism introduced by this ability is often compensated for by limiting the effectiveness of consecutive jumps or by the introduction of limited stamina
Endurance
Endurance is the ability for a human or animal to exert itself and remain active for a long period of time, as well as its ability to resist, withstand, recover from, and have immunity to trauma, wounds, or fatigue. In humans, it is usually used in aerobic or anaerobic exercise...
. For example, in America's Army
America's Army
America's Army is a series of video games and other media developed by the United States Army and released as a global public relations initiative to help with recruitment. America's Army was conceived by Colonel Casey Wardynski and is managed by the U.S...
, every jump consumes a large portion of CEM (in comparison to sprinting, which consumes it at a slower pace), and lower CEM results in slower, smaller jumps, and less accuracy. CEM is often confused with stamina in America's Army, though there is no actual stamina in the game (for example, unlike stamina, CEM has no effect on running speed). Thus bunny hopping can still be seen in those games, but it is much less effective and therefore, less common. Another way of limiting this ability is to slow down movement speed after landing. This technique is used in later versions of Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike is a tactical first-person shooter video game developed by Valve Corporation which originated from a Half-Life modification by Minh "Gooseman" Le and Jess "Cliffe" Cliffe...
. It has also been implemented in Team Fortress Classic
Team Fortress Classic
Team Fortress Classic, also known as Team Fortress 1.5 or simply TFC, is a team-based multiplayer first-person shooter video game developed by Valve Corporation. It is a remake of the Team Fortress modification for Quake. Team Fortress Classic was originally released for Windows on April 7, 1999 as...
, so that touching the ground while the player's speed is 170% or more of the normal speed, the player's speed will be set to the normal maximum run speed. Armed Assault
Armed Assault
ArmA: Armed Assault , also known as ARMA: Combat Operations in North America, is a tactical military first- and third-person shooter which was developed by a 40 member team at Bohemia Interactive , an independent game developer based in the Czech Republic.ARMA is the spiritual successor to...
takes the extreme approach of not having a jump ability at all which is more realistic in combat situations but makes crossing obstacles or barriers, even small ones, all but impossible. This approach was also taken by the latest installment of the America's Army series, America's Army 3.
Bunny hopping in Counter-Strike is still recognized to be a very useful skill once the exact timing of the jump button is mastered, which is harder to achieve compared to other games. It allows the player to become a very difficult target to hit (besides, the AI always target the head, so this can reduce damage). By jumping in a zig-zag motion, the player can cut corners extremely fast, which also gives an advantage of surprise over the enemy. It can also be used to reach places usually not easily reachable by normal jumping.
In Quake engine and GoldSrc engine games
QuakeWorldQuakeWorld
QuakeWorld is an update to id Software's seminal multiplayer deathmatch game, Quake, that enhances the game's multiplayer features to allow people with dial-up modems to achieve greatly improved responsiveness when playing on Internet game servers...
, Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike is a tactical first-person shooter video game developed by Valve Corporation which originated from a Half-Life modification by Minh "Gooseman" Le and Jess "Cliffe" Cliffe...
and Team Fortress Classic
Team Fortress Classic
Team Fortress Classic, also known as Team Fortress 1.5 or simply TFC, is a team-based multiplayer first-person shooter video game developed by Valve Corporation. It is a remake of the Team Fortress modification for Quake. Team Fortress Classic was originally released for Windows on April 7, 1999 as...
use derivatives of the Quake engine
Quake engine
The Quake engine is the game engine that was written to power 1996's Quake, written by id Software. It featured true 3D real-time rendering and is now licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License ....
, so the techniques used to perform bunny-hopping in these games are nearly identical. QuakeWorld has "pogo stick
Pogo stick
A pogo stick is a device for jumping off the ground in a standing position with the aid of a spring, used as a toy or exercise equipment. It consists of a pole with a handle at the top and footrests near the bottom, and a spring located somewhere along the pole...
" jumping (you can release and repress the jump button while flying in the air), while in the other games you have to jump right as you hit the ground. An acceleration is experienced in-air while uniformly turning in the same direction as the player is strafing- The act of timing your jumps to the exact moment when you hit the ground prevents the player from decelerating to normal walking speed. The strafing should also be timed in a particular way to the jumping for greatest effect. Using this technique unbroken, allows a player to gradually accelerate to speeds many times the typical running speed.
The speed at which one can bunnyhop is effectively limited by the turning radius: if too sharp a turn is made at high speed, speed is lost. In the old versions of Counter-Strike, the degree to which a player can make sharp turns while bunnyhopping without losing speed is regulated by the sv_airaccelerate server value. This value could be set to 0 to disable bunnyhopping, and had a maximum effective value of 20.
As of Counter-Strike version 1.6, bunny-hopping has been made harder to perform. Some players use scripts and even hacks to bunny-hop.
As a result of the incredible speed bonuses achieved by a competent Counter-Strike bunny-hopper and the very significant advantage it provides, many players consider the technique to be a cheat. Opponents of bunnyhopping claim it is an exploit unintended by the developers which probably explains why it was removed in the 1.1.0.8 patch (even though supporters still claim that it is simply a clever way to use the game's physics). In its day many Counter-Strike demos were recorded to demonstrate its incredible effectiveness in the form of trick jumps. Huge jumps could be performed, such as from building to building on cs_assault (sometimes sv_airaccelerate would have to be modified to perform such jumps, to allow higher speeds to be attained with smaller turning radii).
The sv_airaccelerate command was blocked in The Orange Box
The Orange Box
The Orange Box is a video game compilation for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, Mac OS X and PlayStation 3. The Windows and Xbox 360 versions were produced and published by Valve Corporation and released on October 10, 2007 as a boxed retail copy...
Source engine
Source engine
Source is a 3D game engine developed by Valve Corporation. It debuted in June 2004 with Counter-Strike: Source and shortly thereafter Half-Life 2, and has been in active development ever since...
branch.
Bunny hopping/strafe jumping is very effective in Quake III Arena
Quake III Arena
Quake III Arena , is a multiplayer first-person shooter video game released on December 2, 1999. The game was developed by id Software and featured music composed by Sonic Mayhem and Front Line Assembly...
and some other games that use its engine, such as Jedi Knight 2.
In the Battlefield series
Traditional bunny hopping (gaining continually increasing speed during repeated jumps) has never been possible within the Battlefield series. However, there are several variations of bunny hopping depending on the game.The exact purpose and benefits have evolved as EA has released patches and fixes for this tactic. A player could come around a corner, and, coming across an enemy, jump in an unpredictable direction while firing their weapon. Combining this with the far range a player could throw a C4 charge and the splash damage of the grenade launcher, the tactic gave advantages to the Special Forces and Assault classes. It was eventually seen as an unsporting and unfair tactic. This technique was eventually abolished with a game patch.
A similarly unsporting tactic was used with the Support class, with its light machine gun, which is meant to be very powerful, but with the drawback that it is very inaccurate unless the player goes prone. This drawback could be negated by "dolphin diving", in which the player goes prone in mid-air, in order to gain the accuracy advantage of being prone.
EA has made attempts to reduce the effectiveness of jumping during combat in Battlefield 2 and Battlefield 2142. For example, one update to Battlefield 2 made players unable to fire while in mid-air. However, it still remains an effective way to evade fire.
In Soldier of Fortune 2
Although not considered true bunny hopping by many people, this technique, only possible due to the unique crouch-lean movement available in Soldier of Fortune 2, is a mid-level technique specifically used by SOF2 players to take advantage of the hit box issues present with some weapons within the game (MP5, USAS, M590). Its done with a command in console /com_maxfps 333 . Thus increasing fps makes graphics smooth. These weapons, unlike the other weapons in the game, calculate damage based on the location of a hit box, rather than the actual body, meaning that the actual target would not correctly match the visible model during leaning. By combining the traditional zig-zag pattern of bunny hopping with a period of crouch-leaning after each jump, it was thus possible to combine this visual confusion with the drastic vertical and horizontal movements of bunny hopping to make it much harder to get a good hit on a player. While this movement was also effective against the game's other weapons, with the increased vertical and horizontal changes possible with crouch-lean, the effects were noticeably less disorienting. While attempts to fix this issue were attempted by several mods (most noticeably OSP), these fixes never smoothly solved the issue within the game, and no official fix was ever forthcoming from the game's producer, Raven SoftwareRaven Software
Raven Software is an American video game developer. The company was founded in 1990 by brothers Brian and Steve Raffel. In 1997, Raven made an exclusive publishing deal with Activision and was subsequently acquired by them...
.
In Crossfire
In the multiplayer online computer game, Crossfire, in its 'ghost mode', players are able to bunny hop or 'B Hop', when playing as a ghost on the Black List team. Players use this as an advantage to move around while still be remaining invisible.This gives players huge advantages, being able to reach close enough to the Global Risk team and 'knifing them' or can be used as a quick manoeuvre to get away. There are many ways to 'bunny hop' in Crossfire. Some players hold 'crouch', 'back' and repeatedly press 'jump', this increases the length of the jumps every time you touch the ground whilst still remaining invisible, by having a speed increase. Others prefer doing it 'slowly', holding crouch whilst tapping jump and 'back'. Bunny hopping also can be used to get to higher places impossible to get otherwise, by jumping slightly before you hit the ground, and crouching while you're in middle air. Bunny hopping has been adopted as a 'skill' in the game's ghost mode, and not an exploitExploit (online gaming)
An exploit, in video games, is the use of a bug or design flaw by a player to their advantage in a manner not intended by the game's designers. It is often colloquially abbreviated sploit. Exploits have been classified as a form of cheating; however, the precise determination of what is or is not...
.
In Wolfenstein - Enemy Territory
In the online multiplayer PC game, Wolfenstein - Enemy TerritoryWolfenstein: Enemy Territory
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory is a free and open source multiplayer first-person shooter video game set during World War II...
, this phenomenon is usually referred to as 'Trickjumping', and can be used to gain huge amounts of speed and by performing a trickjump on a slope players are also able to translate that speed to vertical speed and get to else impossible to reach places. On the default maps, most places are protected with so-called 'clip brushes', providing collision so the player can't reach it.