Overview
This guide will show you many ways in which the tab-menu (player’s in game menu) can be abused to your bennefit.Due to a recent update that removed double jumping and easy cliff climbing, it is likely that none of these abuses are availible any more.
Introduction
It’s pretty clear that The Forest still has many bugs to work out, and that most of them occur in multi-player. This guide will focus specifically on the bugs related to the Player Menu (AKA Tab Menu). In it I will detail the process for each bug and how it can be used to your advantage.
The Player Menu
The player menu, also referred to here as the tab menu is the modular-pop-up-menu in the Forest, which shows all the current players in game. The default button to open this menu is ‘Tab’ on the keybard, thus the name “tab menu”.
The guide herein focuses on the things you can do with this menu while it is open, such as: move through the air, and jump at roughly 1.5x normal speed and height respectivly, sprint-jump whlie consuming 0 energy, double jump from a stand still or while moving, triple-jump with the use of double jump and a dropable item, jump-climb near-vertical cliff faces, and more.
The simplest way to see for yourself, that which I am attempting to explain is to start or join a multiplayer game and do the following:
- Open the player menu.
- Press jump.
- Press jump a second time, before touching the ground.
– You’ve now double-jumped.
The Technique
The way I achieve speed/sprint jumping in The Forest is to hold shift + w to run forward, then within 0.1-0.2 seconds let go of shift, then immediately press tab. At any time while the tab menu is open, you can now jump to cause your player to ‘sprint-jump’.
You may skip the rest of this section if you think you’ll be able to get the hang of the button sequence and speed.
Most of us play The Forest on Steam, but Shift + Tab, which map to sprint and the player menu respectively, causes the Steam in-game overlay to appear. This is an issue which can make this bug challengint to master for those with slower fingers to. Fear not. You can either change the player menu hot-key, or deal with the steam overlay as explained further.
While holding shift, press tab, which opens the Steam overlay, continue to hold shift and press tab again to close the overlay. The player menu should now be open and you can press tab any time to toggle it. This technique will allow you to do any of the tab-menu tricks EXCEPT 0 energy loss, since you will be holding shift the whole time (you must let go of shift to achive 0 energy loss).
This means you can Run forward (hold ‘shift’ + ‘w’), toggle the steam overlay (holding ‘shift’ still + ‘tab’ twice), then while the player menu is open, let go of shift. You will stop running, but if you keep holding ‘w’ and press jump when you’re touching the ground, you will sprint jump at about 1.5x speed and 1.5x jump height. See #8 below for more clarification.
At this point, you can jump twice every time you touch the ground, (for as long as the tab menu is open) and jump an extra 1+ time(s) every time you collide with a prop (rocks, tents, plane, player structures) or cliff side.
Notes about Tab Jumping and Other Abuses of the Player Menu
1. While tab jumping all player motion is restricted except for your linear movement or sliding movement which follows the contours of the map.
2. Tab jumping can be done while crouching, however you can’t sprint in crouch. (This helps in games you’re trying to sneak from players but need that extra bit of mobility)
3. Double jumping can be done while stationary, walking, or running. The easiest way to see this in action, as explained above, is to press tab, then jump, then jump again before you touch the ground.
4. A third jump can be achieved by holding an animal’s head then doing a basic tab double jump then dropping the head and jumping a third time. (I have not confirmed, but I believe this is possible to do with most droppable items, including cannibal clubs, though I don’t think logs work.)
5. If you walk off or jump off a cliff but you were in the player menu before your feet left the ground, you will not take fall damage. (Start moving, press tab, wait to fall off the cliff, once you touch the ground at the bottom, press tab again to close the menu).
6. After any number of jumps in the tab menu, you can close the menu and press shift again to sprint at normal speed while falling back to the ground. Closing and opening the tab menu can be used to great effect for climbing cliffs because when you close the menu you can reposition yourself better (you’re not locked into linear motion), and as soon as you touch the rock and have a solid footing, open it again you get your two jumps back, (provided you’ve lodged yourself into the side of a cliff or your feet are touching the ground again.) I use this technique to jump into tree houses and to avoid having to climb ropes in caves. [There is a small rope in the Timmy-entrace for the Katana where you can jump and avoid climbing the rope, The rope at the top of the modern axe/sinkhole cave can be jumped past by using the small ledge next to it as a place to reset jumps]
7. You can attack while in the tab menu, this means you can double jump to attack flying birds that would normally be out of reach. (Double-jump is also very helpful for catching the feathers that float away)
8. Using sprinting tab jumps can help you clear bodies of water you would otherwise have to swim over. (You can jump all the way across Geese Lake with sprinting tab jump from the waterfall side to the lower side with out touching water). With any luck you can jump from the beach to the sailboat without swimming, but it takes a lucky landing on some coral to do precisely and is not something even I have mastered yet.
9. The Tabmenu is not just for sprint jumping. You can use the tab menu while pushing a log sled to slide and gain energy back by letting go of shift inside the menu. The slide is based on inclide and occurs on all inclines while in the tab menu. Pushing sleds up-hill slides very little before you stop and start sliding backward and can take some skill to abuse it most efficiently, This is best done by running with a log sled, pressing tab then letting of of shift. This works really well while going down hill and can cause your player to reach terminal velocity if the hill is long/steep enough. (Terminal Velocity in this case is the speed required to cause the player-camera to shake, not the actual definition of terminal velocity)
Using the same ideas of no. 9 you can slide down hills or even tree bridges, without a cart also. I was recently in a game with a tree bridge that went from a huge cliff down to a lower base by the water. Using the slide technique I was able to slide down the treebridge at high-speed and off into the water, as if it were some sort of amusement park water-slide.
10. MOST IMPORTANTLY: Sprinting uses a lot of energy and rapidly depeltes stamina. Using tab jump allows you to sprint-jump without holding shift, thus you consume 0 stamina. This is the single greatest use for this bug as you can clear the entire map from one side to the other without ever having to stop to catch your breath or drink a soda/eat food.
Closing Remarks
Be careful you do not abuse this in servers where cheating is frowned upon. You may be kicked, and that is not my fault.
I have been acused of being a hacker for using this technique, but as soon as you explain the tab-double jump people will see it is not a hack, but a glitch.
If you find other uses or bugs related to the Tab Menu, feel free to comment