Poll: Control Schemes

[rossatdi]

Unfortunately TV's haven't quite been able to represent our field of vision including periphery.

Nor games the ability to flick our eyes quickly over a variety of directions in a realistic.

That's very true. But it would be impossible to simulate saccades to peripheral stimuli.

Well yes, but the point of the over the shoulder camera with tilting vision is to do a good simulation of it. By pulling back our few by a few feet the field of vision of a normal person is better simulated for certain effects (more likely to notice low level things and an increased periphery).

Generally speaking if I'm running away from someone I don't turn around and back pedal to check they're still chasing me, I look over my shoulder. You can't do that in a even vaguely natural way in an FPS.

You can't do that in just about any game though; it's a constraint on how much we can actually control a simulated actor. You'd need five joysticks; one to move your eyes, one to move your head/neck in X and Y dimensions, one to move your head/neck in Z, and one to tilt/extend your head in X and Z dimensions.

Well obviously eyes & heads can be fused in controlling since the actual direction of our head matters comparatively little outside of impact injuries and so on. A single analogue point cleverly controlled, so it tips and turns as our vision would, is about as close as we need to get before VR type stuff.

Also lots of games have something like 'press the R-stick in to look behind you', that's a classic. It's a pretty good way of pulling of the over the shoulder look.

Unless your spine is fused solid and your eyes glues in your skull the typical turn to look FPS stylee is very very very unrealistic.

Again, true, but just about every facet of control and data presentation/processing in an FPS is extremely unrealistic. It's all a matter of making tradeoffs.

Well yeah of course it is. But your statement about 3d games seemed to imply they all operated in a similar way to the FPS steering head type interface, which of course they don't. Obviously FP is the best interaction for shooting but other action games that require more spatial awareness (platforming, adventures, melee) benefit from the simulated periphery of the 3rd person view, especially when one stick controls movement and the other vision.

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Also this nesting is getting hasslesome to keep editing.

 

[CmdrGoob]

Generally, I'm happy with just the 8 directions 4 movement keys give instead of having analogue control over movement; as long as I have precise analogue control of the direction I'm facing, I'm happy with forward or forward right or whatever, and I never feel as though I wished I could go forward at an angle of 32 degrees or whatever. So I'm more than happy to trade off the ability to be able to go forward at 32 degrees for the faster and more precise analogue control of the mouse and all the extra hotkeys available on the keyboard.

The only exception is when the game has a fixed camera and the 4 movement keys are all you have to control the direction you face in, which probably means I'm playing a console port with a badly designed camera. Of course, then I just use my gamepad.

 

[almo]

useless poll: depends on the game. FPS: mouse/keyboard. Lots of other stuff: PS3 controller.

How open minded of you![/sarcasm]

Well, a question with no context IS useless.

Poll: Concrete, or water?

Useful? No. Unless you know that the context is "Which is better for floating ships in?"

The question of Mouse/Keyboard vs joypad is useless unless we know what we're using it for.

 

[Dante_Alucard]

PS3 Remote

 

[ElephantGuts]

I'm not really sure about the whole controller vs mouse/keyboard debate. Obviously a mouse and keyboard are better for RTSs and such. But for FPSs, I could really go either way. As long as the developers don't completely fuck up with the controls, that is.

 

[goodman528]

Mouse. Definitely the mouse, playing any shooter without a mouse is like running without legs.

I think Mirrors edge disagrees.

Mirror's edge is a platformer. You don't need pixel perfect aiming within miliseconds, you just need quick twitchy reaction times.

 

[FLSH_BNG]

Keyboard and mouse FTW!

Unless it's an flight combat simulator then joystick, but I'll still use a controller if none is available.

I just want them to start working on games (RTS's especially) that can be played between console 'tards and PC users. It would be nice to watch my little sister beat the crap out of someone while because they use a console while she has a mouse and keyboard. ^.^

 

[gerrymander61]

Screw using the mouse. WSAD for move, arrow keys for look. At least, that's what I do on my laptop in class because there's no room for a mouse.

 

[Dogeman5]

useless poll: depends on the game. FPS: mouse/keyboard. Lots of other stuff: PS3 controller.

How open minded of you![/sarcasm]

Well, a question with no context IS useless.

Poll: Concrete, or water?

Useful? No. Unless you know that the context is "Which is better for floating ships in?"

The question of Mouse/Keyboard vs joypad is useless unless we know what we're using it for.

I was mainly just teasing you about thhe fact that you picked out a single controller instead of the general "Controller"

 

[Quick Ben]

Adding my voice to the religion of Mouse and Keyboard!
What? Somone said controller? Burn them! Burn the heretics! *Raises pitchfork and torch and waves them about*

But seriously, M/KB is wastly superior in almost all cases. The only exeption i can think of is fighters. Its versatility is another thing in favour of M/KB, and come on; over 100 keys to use. Sure beats a controller.

 

[Anarchemitis]

[img_inline width="300" caption="Thus"]http://img397.imageshack.us/img397/4848/35253021ng6.png[/img_inline]I always use the ASWD configuration, but I think it would be cool to relax my pinkie and rest my hand on a more angular configuration.

looks like you need an ergonomic keyboard.

You mean like one that has a six inch space in-between G and H?

 

[Archereus]

i think by far the keyboard and mosue combo is the greatest wya to control most types of games, good for shooters RPG real time stretegies. THe mouse and keyboard offers awsome precision, quick menu acess with more then 26 hotkeys available to you. ITs alot better then any other remote controle with less then 10 buttons yu have a good 50 at least with the keyboard.

 

[742]

keyboard/mouse for shooters RTSs(i will not play an RTS without a keyboard and at least semi-functioning mouse-maybe a touchscreen would work, but i would still prefer a mouse, why havent they made starcraft DS yet for me to test this hypothesis?) and probably most other stuff.

platformers i like to use a controller.
FPS's i can do it without a mouse, but i need a pointing device of some sort (see: metroid prime 3)

 

[fix-the-spade]

I use the Power Glove!

Fear the Glove goodness!

 

[clarinetJWD]

thumbs will never be as acurate as your whole arm.

keyboard and mouse ftw!

That makes no sense, really. Your thumb is much more accurate than your entire arm, what with it being more flexible and able to make more nuanced and subtle movements. That's like saying "You'll never be able to cut a pizza with a pizza cutter as well as you could with a 2 man professional timber-clearing chainsaw".

Nope, it doesn't make sense. Most people use their fingertips and wrist to move the mouse, which is plenty accurate. Where it really gains its edge is here: On an analog stick, to keep the stick at an angle, you are constanyly overcoming tension in the stick that makes it want to return to the center, while a mouse glides more easily in any direction. (and doesn't try to move back when you let go)

Mouse and keyboard for nearly all games, gamepad for Mario style platformers, M&K for PoP style platformers, and I generally ignore racing and fighting games.

 

[almo]

useless poll: depends on the game. FPS: mouse/keyboard. Lots of other stuff: PS3 controller.

How open minded of you![/sarcasm]

Well, a question with no context IS useless.

Poll: Concrete, or water?

Useful? No. Unless you know that the context is "Which is better for floating ships in?"

The question of Mouse/Keyboard vs joypad is useless unless we know what we're using it for.

I was mainly just teasing you about thhe fact that you picked out a single controller instead of the general "Controller"

That's probably because you have not yet realized how horrible the 360 stick is. Or the Wii controller. I really hated programming for the Wii controller; fortunately I was just doing some prototyping with it. Didn't get stuck on the full project.

 

[gigastrike]

I use pc for shooters, mmos, and rtss, but controller for everything else.