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IDProjectCategoryLast Update
0005599Valley 1Suggestion - UI IdeasFeb 3, 2012 7:12 pm
ReporterBluddy Assigned ToChris_McElligottPark  
Status closedResolutionno change required 
Product Version0.569 
Summary0005599: Control Issues
DescriptionI love the game, but I feel I can't find a good control scheme. What really clicked in my mind was hearing that Keith doesn't use the default control scheme either. Additionally, trying to come up with a good control scheme is a lot of work, when there should be a default for people who don't have a multi-button mouse.

Basically, it seems like there's too much stuff to handle in the game. Moving with WASD is fine, but once you insert the mouse into it, things get pretty hairy. Unlike an FPS, you have to be much more aware of your spatial location. In an FPS you mostly move forward or strafe, which is pretty simple to handle. Here you have to constantly be on the move around the screen.

The biggest problem though is pressing the buttons to shoot. I game on my laptop -- I don't even have a desktop. As such, I only have 2 mouse buttons. In an FPS, you select your weapon either with a number or the mouse wheel and then shoot with the mouse button. Here I constantly have to use the numbers to shoot, and that gets very hard. There is a configuration option for selecting the active weapon, but the gui's not really built for it. In an FPS, I can see what gun I have selected very clearly -- it appears prominently at the bottom of the screen. Here, I have to look back at the bottom bar to find which weapon is selected. It's not practical. What's needed is a big image at the top of the screen showing what I have selected, and possibly what the next and previous weapons are. Also, once I configured the gui for selecting the active spell, I suddenly found that all my numbers were not referencing spells directly, but were an offset from the selected spell. I imagine that I can rebind all the numbers as non-shifting, but it's a lot of work for something that should probably be an automatic configuration option.

I really don't like the tab-targeting option. It feels like a cheat -- like auto-targeting in early console FPS games. And it creates a completely different way of playing the game, which I don't think is a good thing. It's a different experience. Trying it for just a bit, it seems to make the game much easier, since you're juggling only half the stuff that you normally need to. That means you're balancing 2 different difficulty levels: when people give difficulty feedback, you have to ask them which control scheme they're using since they're wildly different. If Chris balances difficulty, it'll be incompatible with Keith's balancing since they're playing 2 different games. This is not good (IMO).

What do I think should be done? Option 1: the fps-like weapon system should be improved so that the active/last/next spells are clearly visible, with an easy to load configuration for people who don't have a mouse with many buttons (I think this scheme is what terraria uses). Option 2: I'd be happy with reverting to the default control scheme that sidescrollers use, where you can only shoot straight, up, down or diagonally. Do the few degrees granted by the mouse really make a difference? I doubt it. Since I can jump and move around, and need to do so anyway to dodge, I might as well just use that to position my shots as well.
TagsNo tags attached.
Internal WeightNew

Activities

Chris_McElligottPark

Feb 3, 2012 4:45 pm

administrator   ~0018575

What you're looking for is "Movement Directed Keyboard Aiming" in the settings menu, I expect. If that's popular enough, potentially it should become the default. But for your average mouse user on a desktop (not a trackpad), I think that the default controls as they are is probably the way to go. I've not heard much in the way of grumbling about that aside from people who naturally tend not to use the mouse much.

Bluddy

Feb 3, 2012 4:56 pm

reporter   ~0018576

Wow. Amazing that you already had that in there! That option makes all the difference from my perspective. Really great control -- I can now handle all the number keys easily, and I don't feel that it's cheap unlike tab-targeting.

Chris_McElligottPark

Feb 3, 2012 4:58 pm

administrator   ~0018577

Awesome! You have Cyborg to thank for that control scheme, actually -- he and Keith went through a ton of iterations to find that.

Issue History

Date Modified Username Field Change
Feb 3, 2012 4:41 pm Bluddy New Issue
Feb 3, 2012 4:45 pm Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0018575
Feb 3, 2012 4:45 pm Chris_McElligottPark Assigned To => Chris_McElligottPark
Feb 3, 2012 4:45 pm Chris_McElligottPark Status new => feedback
Feb 3, 2012 4:56 pm Bluddy Note Added: 0018576
Feb 3, 2012 4:56 pm Bluddy Status feedback => assigned
Feb 3, 2012 4:58 pm Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0018577
Feb 3, 2012 7:12 pm Chris_McElligottPark Internal Weight => New
Feb 3, 2012 7:12 pm Chris_McElligottPark Status assigned => closed
Feb 3, 2012 7:12 pm Chris_McElligottPark Resolution open => no change required