In defence of the controller over the mouse for online FPS

[DeadlyFred]

Uppity, but hardly biased. I have a PC as well as a nicely-stocked rack of gaming consoles. I don't dislike console gaming at all, even in the FPS genre, but I would by far prefer to be playing such things on a PC more times than not.

But its funny to call people uppity when their reputation is at least somewhat well deserved in fact of practice. Even in my personal experience, a friend of mine I play X360 with was watching me play something on the computer (not sure exactly what it was but it was something older, fast Deathmatchy-type stuff) and said, "Wow, now I know why you've got such bad-ass reflexes in Vegas!" (Rainbow Six, of course)

Hell though, its not even a product of the control scheme itself, some games are just faster than others. It simply stands that, through the rise of the console generation, the pacing of your average FPS game has dropped considerably since the days of Quake. Regardless of what mechanism is being used to control the action, some people just can't keep up with faster games.

I agree a with a LOT of what rossatdi Is saying.

I recently bought COD4 for PC
to play the game with some close friends,

Now I used to play this game on the 360 a lot
and was always scoring in the top 3 in every match
but it seems the PC version is plagued with people who camp, cheat, and exploit the game
Hardcore Team Death Match seems to be the only available game mode around.
and IMO the game just seems to turn into a TDM like UT on the PC.

Everyone seems to be out to get Uber precise kills Instead of completing objectives, it gets seriously boring being picked of the other side of the map with a gold desert eagle from a 16 year old with wankers cramp.

So play it with your friends and be happy. And don't assume everyone who kills you is a hacker.

 

[The Blue Mongoose]

i just suck at FPSing with a controller...

for me the mouse is for FPS, the controller is for 3rd person

 

[DeadlyFred]

I'm not that great a gamer, which is why I tend towards team-based and objective gameplay more than other styles. I find that in this setting I have far more fun and can enjoy myself much more than by matching my megre skills against a hardcore player in something to the tune of Quake.

I just don't understand the prevailing sentiment which seems to indicate one's personal ineptitude renders a game and its design inherently flawed and inferior to another.

If I suck horribly at something, I refrain from playing it and find something I suck less at.

Reflex is only part of it, the other is awareness. I know for my part that I have a damned fine eagle-eye when it comes to picking out targets. This fact alone helps me out greatly when playing the more accuracy-based games. Knowing where your targets are and being able to draw a bead on them quickly can make up for some lacking in the department of literal reflex acumen.

 

[rossatdi]

I love how uppity PC gamers are. The word asinine has been used twice, which is at least twice too many times for anyone posting in an internet forum, and itself asinine.

Asinine is a great adjective in the context of this discussion. With your own words you admit the lack of skills necessary to be competitive in PC gaming and then proceed to try and blame that fault on the hardware and how good it allows your opponents to be. That's life, my friend, and you can extend the analogy quite further to the realms of things which are more meaningful than video games.

However, let us draw another analogy from that: should guitarists be forbidden from using real guitars and have to use Guitar Hero controllers so that they don't intimidate the world with their prowess of a stringed instrument? Should a star runner have to wear lead shoes in order to slow him down enough for everyone else to keep pace?

It is a meritless and unqualified argument bred from nothing but your own discontent. I'm far from being a pro-level FPS gamer but I can usually hold my own to at least some extent and I certainly am not going to begrudge the fanatical clickers who best me simply because they are better at it than myself. You have a choice, not only in which platform you game on but in what style of games you play; there is no edict which requires you to play UT or CoD4 or anything else for that matter.

Claiming people should not be allowed to be good at a game and condemning the control scheme which affords them that luxury? Yes, that is an asinine argument my friend.

Where are you getting this discontent from? In any published setting you're frankly verging on libel. I stopped playing mouse + keyboard games when my PC got tired and old. I still fire it up for surfing and the odd game of Deus Ex, CSS or AvP2. So I moved, somewhat begrudgingly onto the 360 and actually found it very enjoyable. I also felt a lot of the people playing the games where enjoying it more too, some of the crapper players as well because they weren't being repetitively head shotted from a million miles away.

Your now claiming you can't be good with a controller, which is bullshit and you must know it. A good console player is never going to lose a match to a bad one. When the games are very close the difference between the winner and the loser is less likely to be sheer accuracy on a controller, it will be from other skills in the game.

And also your analogy is faulty on the basis that no one gives a crap if you're really good at FPS games. Guitar players are paid for their talent and runners are celebrated for it. Unless you live in some kind of freak country, S. Korea (just kidding), society doesn't care that you are great at games and will not pay you for it. The point of a videogame is to kill time, relax, have fun or any of the above. If you get your fun from completing something on 100% thats great. If you get it from healthy competition (like I do) then controller FPSs online are great. I find that fun.

All 'games' from computer to sports are designed to operate within a system of rules. All team sport is essentially ritualized violence, and a great many solo sports the same. The point of these rules being to reward skill, wit and host of other skills over the person with the biggest physique and the best weapons and armour. To create a level playing field for all competitors to excel on if you will. Accuracy is very much the online FPSs brawn developed by continual repetitive training and good hardware.

 

[DeadlyFred]

@rossati: Libel? By virtue of making statements based upon your own posts and input on the fact? I've not made a point upon any article or assertion which you did not present first. In addition to that and in light of those statements, I have been working to dispel the sentiment of your original post, claiming console FPS games are somehow superior than PC FPS games due to the nature of their control scheme and how it "evens" the playing field for participants.

If that's your bag and that's what you enjoy then by all means, enjoy. In fact I believe I've been encouraging you to do just that, though unfounded opinions are what they are and I believe I've quelched the substance of yours well enough and to my own satisfaction. Though you obviously do not agree. But you're entitled to that luxury as well. Though don't think that evading counter-arguments and rephrasing your existent stance on the matter is going to win me over.

That's still a physical ability, though. I think when they OP wrote 'dexterity vs. brains' they didn't mean it so literally, that they meant something more like 'physical aptitude vs. mental aptitude'.

It's not physical at all... unless you are counting the electrical sparks in your brain that say "Hey, shoot that guy right there! See him?" As physical...

 

[DeadlyFred]

I still am not understanding how you can claim the sum and total of physical and metal facilities exercised in gaming are not equally applicable to either medium.

 

[rossatdi]

I think the better analogy is of Indy car to Stock car in auto racing as far as mouse vs. controller.

Mouse is more like rally racing than anything else.

Oh and about the aluminum bat thing: http://openmike.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/05/19/1040531.aspx

And also your analogy is faulty on the basis that no one gives a crap if you're really good at FPS games. Guitar players are paid for their talent and runners are celebrated for it. Unless you live in some kind of freak country, S. Korea (just kidding), society doesn't care that you are great at games and will not pay you for it. The point of a videogame is to kill time, relax, have fun or any of the above. If you get your fun from completing something on 100% thats great. If you get it from healthy competition (like I do) then controller FPSs online are great. I find that fun.

Woah, woah, woahhhhhh....That does not invalidate his analogy at all.

Try again.

And I think the point of any game is to do whatever you want in it; not have some bitter casual gamer narrowly define it and validate it for you.

I just don't understand how you keep setting up these false dichotomies again and again. I'd address all of them, but I'm afraid I'd be 35 posts too late by the time I finished taking care of a handful of them.

No, going on, hit me with your dichotomies, false or otherwise, I think I can take it. The thing is it does invalidate the analogy completely. The best guitarist are paid because other people can't do it. Good guitarists are paid because not a lot of people can do it. Standard supply vs. demand. There is a demand for good musicians, there is a restricted supply therefore money. There is no demand for good FPS players. Unless we develop war robots that are controlled by mouse and keyboard, and although that would be totally fucking awesome, I think it's unlikely to happen any time soon.

Similarly athletes are celebrated as being the best at a particular physical exertion. The day society start laying on the praise for some kid who can move his hand that much faster and more accurately and chooses to channel that into a game is the day we need to re-examine ourselves.

It's not being a casual gamer to define a game as being fun. If you get fun from depth of gameplay, great. Also what's with the casual gamer thing dude? It'd almost hurt my feelings if I was a more pathetic human being, or respected your opinion, or if this wasn't the internet and thus being meaningless twaddle used to help the hour roll faster to home time.