Poll: How much do you customise game controls?

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I tend to spend a little while customizing things at the start, and then stick with it. First thing I do with every new FPS is invert the aim, find a comfortable sensitivity, and if it's on the PC, set up the communication controls so it's something I can actually use (e.g., V for push to talk, T for general text chat, Y for team text chat...). Beyond that, it depends on whether I need to make the change or not; some really early mouselook FPSs default to arrow keys for movement, which means I have to spend quite a while setting them up. Other games I pretty much leave default; it varies.

Edit: Oh, also, for console games which have multiple presets for controls, I tend to go through them and find one I like. For example, on Halo Reach I always use the setting that was the default on the old Halo games, whatever it's called.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

usually default for everything, unless it's a game similar to a bunch of other games but they end up switching two controls (like between Mass effect 1 & 2, they switch sprint/pause from shift and spacebar, respectively, so i switched them back as that was what i liked better and it kept it consistent.)

when i'm playing with a gamepad i always switch everything to non inverted and usually in the middle for sensitivity, otherwise it's probably default everything else.

plus i don't play MMO's or RTS's, so all the macro junk is not needed at all.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

And no matter what the game, I always switch the 'crouch' button to 'ctrl'. I can't use anything else

ah my mistake, this is one that i do also, idk which game defaults it or where i got it from, but having crouch as ctrl feels more natural than breathing.

 

[Voodoomancer]

Ever since I played Crysis, every game gets their action button remapped from "E" to "F". Then there's usually a few buttons that are uncomfortable, I usually switch the movement keys (sprint, walk, crouch) around a bit, never could get used to "c" for crouching.

 

[DementedSheep]

I usually change things like mouse sensitivity and aim assist but the rest I only change if it?s annoying or impractical.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I usually go with default settings, because I think that is how the developers thought it was meant to be played.

I usually find the developers' taste in controls to be really dumb.

Why MAG, why can't I fire with R2?!

I'm in on the other side of the fence as it is precisely because R2 is so "trigger like" that I find a poor trigger (that is by trigger; a method of firing a weapon).

A real firearm trigger has virtually no travel, is stiff and has a clean break. R2 does not have that, you can't tap it anywhere near as easily and in games where semi-auto is important it becomes more a matter of fluttering the trigger back and forth between the activation point.

The triggers are best for when you want a continuous (rather than discrete) input, and analogue input, like the gas or break of a car though it's honestly not hugely important there as in racing you either have the brake on full or the gas on full, doing either by halves is a waste of time.

Replaced the L2 and R2 buttons on my dualshock controller like a boss, so my triggers feel crisp and perfect.

Then bough MAG and found out that it didn't allow for control customization to use R2 to fire. Got pissed, bought a new 3rd party controller that allowed me to swap the L1 and L2 functions, and the R1 and R2 functions in the controller instead of in the game.

Then played MAG, realized the game was crap and took it back. Kept the controller.

 

[Treblaine]

I usually go with default settings, because I think that is how the developers thought it was meant to be played.

I usually find the developers' taste in controls to be really dumb.

Why MAG, why can't I fire with R2?!

I'm in on the other side of the fence as it is precisely because R2 is so "trigger like" that I find a poor trigger (that is by trigger; a method of firing a weapon).

A real firearm trigger has virtually no travel, is stiff and has a clean break. R2 does not have that, you can't tap it anywhere near as easily and in games where semi-auto is important it becomes more a matter of fluttering the trigger back and forth between the activation point.

The triggers are best for when you want a continuous (rather than discrete) input, and analogue input, like the gas or break of a car though it's honestly not hugely important there as in racing you either have the brake on full or the gas on full, doing either by halves is a waste of time.

Replaced the L2 and R2 buttons on my dualshock controller like a boss, so my triggers feel crisp and perfect.

Then bough MAG and found out that it didn't allow for control customization to use R2 to fire. Got pissed, bought a new 3rd party controller that allowed me to swap the L1 and L2 functions, and the R1 and R2 functions in the controller instead of in the game.

Then played MAG, realized the game was crap and took it back. Kept the controller.

Wait... how?

I got the snap-on concave triggers like everyone else (you're a fool if you don't, IMNSHO) but that doesn't change the fact that internally you have a weak spring, a LONG travel against an analogue sensor and from game to game it varies at what depth it activates the fire function. That, I don't like. Certainly not "crisp". I got it because I was fed up with my finger slipping slightly and as it does the trigger changes drastically by intended depression, honestly I couldn't be as confident. But this was for games that needed precise analogue input... not snappy discrete input.

I've fired enough guns in my time and I'd say a mouse-click is the closes to emulating the feel and FUNCTIONAL INTENTION of a firearm trigger. Shooting is all about timing, having a trigger that makes a short+clean break and can be reset with minimal (and I mean minimal) movement is vital.

 

[Treblaine]

And no matter what the game, I always switch the 'crouch' button to 'ctrl'. I can't use anything else

ah my mistake, this is one that i do also, idk which game defaults it or where i got it from, but having crouch as ctrl feels more natural than breathing.

Me too except for one exception: games where crouch is the only way to tighten your aim.

See, when I play COD on PC I have SHIFT as my "Hold to use sights" function as I find it disturbs my aim less that having to hold down right click.

So when I go to play Left 4 Dead or Counterstrike (that have no aim-down-sights yet a crosshair of variable size) I have SHIFT as my crouch function (instead of Ctrl) as I use it in the same way: slower movement for tighter aim.

And in the inverse, M2 is the default melee button in Left4dead, this has bled over into playing COD as I always have right-click as melee and both serve me well, I find I'm surviving many more head to head encounters where a quick melee will score you victory.

Very similar control approaches but the games couldn't be more different, no?

Bioshock is very different in controls, I don't have aim-down-sights mapped anywhere, I don't bother with it.

I SURROUND the WASD keys with binds for each weapon (E R T, F G, X C V B), 1-6 as plasmids, Q for wep menu, Tab for health, Shift to crouch.

I suppose I prefer shift for everything, looking at my hand in WASD position my middle finger is fully stretched to reach W yet my pinkie is curled to rest on SHIFT. I have to completely curl my pinkie under to reach CTRL.

PS: small REALLY anal-itical question, where is the leftermost-edge of the space key on your keyboard? In other words, the key diferctly to the left of the space-key, could you comfortably reach it with your thumb? I have to curl my thumb in a bit to much to press ALT but i'd really like to put my thumb to more use. On console I use it for 7 different inputs PLUS aiming yet on PC it's purely for SPACE key (that I'll be damned if I map Space to do ANYTHING other than Jump).

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

And no matter what the game, I always switch the 'crouch' button to 'ctrl'. I can't use anything else

ah my mistake, this is one that i do also, idk which game defaults it or where i got it from, but having crouch as ctrl feels more natural than breathing.

Me too except for one exception: games where crouch is the only way to tighten your aim.

See, when I play COD on PC I have SHIFT as my "Hold to use sights" function as I find it disturbs my aim less that having to hold down right click.

So when I go to play Left 4 Dead or Counterstrike (that have no aim-down-sights yet a crosshair of variable size) I have SHIFT as my crouch function (instead of Ctrl) as I use it in the same way: slower movement for tighter aim.

And in the inverse, M2 is the default melee button in Left4dead, this has bled over into playing COD as I always have right-click as melee and both serve me well, I find I'm surviving many more head to head encounters where a quick melee will score you victory.

Very similar control approaches but the games couldn't be more different, no?

Bioshock is very different in controls, I don't have aim-down-sights mapped anywhere, I don't bother with it.

I SURROUND the WASD keys with binds for each weapon (E R T, F G, X C V B), 1-6 as plasmids, Q for wep menu, Tab for health, Shift to crouch.

I suppose I prefer shift for everything, looking at my hand in WASD position my middle finger is fully stretched to reach W yet my pinkie is curled to rest on SHIFT. I have to completely curl my pinkie under to reach CTRL.

PS: small REALLY anal-itical question, where is the leftermost-edge of the space key on your keyboard? In other words, the key diferctly to the left of the space-key, could you comfortably reach it with your thumb? I have to curl my thumb in a bit to much to press ALT but i'd really like to put my thumb to more use. On console I use it for 7 different inputs PLUS aiming yet on PC it's purely for SPACE key (that I'll be damned if I map Space to do ANYTHING other than Jump).

ah yeah, i don't play COD on the computer so i don't have that problem, but i can see why you would move it to shift, as my pinkie also sits comfortably on that spot (in fallout new vegas i use the project nevada mod, which adds the sprint function to the game, so i usually have that sit at the shift key.)

also to your question, i have to reach for it enough that it is a tad bit uncomfortable, and most games i play i have never found the need to use "alt" for it's own function other than "alt+tab" out of the game.

my pointer finger and my middle finger do most of the "stretching" for other keys, while my ring finger gets the "tab-caps-q-a-esc-1-z" keys

(you made me think about it and my pointer finger gets 15 different keys...holy jesus-_-)

like i said in my other post, i don't play mmo's or any rts's, so having to hotkey everything isn't a necessity at all, so my hand(s) aren't trained to use massive amounts of keys.

 

[Treblaine]

Consoles don't have a whole lot of control change options, and even if they did I normally don't change them. Why? Well, because on a console the controls have already been placed where the developer spent a year or two thinking about placing them. Usually, there's no reason to change what's been perfected over a year or two.

I used to have that attitude till it finally realised: "My god, I'm no better than a George Lucas apologist"

See, the creator doesn't necessarily know everything, they may not have gotten everything right, and at some point you are going to have to take what you can from their vision and have it serve YOUR vision of the game. Sometimes creators can really go off the deep end and you have to do what you know it right with whatever work as you can't lose track of how you are investing your time and money into this game.

Some developers make decisions on control layout that make me cringe, COD on 360 drives me up the wall, one of several reasons why I always try to play on PC if I can.

Things like why can't I have this layout on COD:

LS = crouch->prone
LB = jump
RS = melee
B = Sprint (because it only has to be pressed once)
A = throw-tactical (or switch RB function between Lethal and Tactical)

Then I could drop-shot AND melee with ease, also jump-shooting is much more practical as you don't have to take your thumb off aiming.

IMHO, almost nothing is perfect. Though that's a definite improvement with the 360 controller as-is. I'd really REALLY like a game that used the sixaxis controller for aiming in a really useful way.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I usually go with default settings, because I think that is how the developers thought it was meant to be played.

I usually find the developers' taste in controls to be really dumb.

Why MAG, why can't I fire with R2?!

I'm in on the other side of the fence as it is precisely because R2 is so "trigger like" that I find a poor trigger (that is by trigger; a method of firing a weapon).

A real firearm trigger has virtually no travel, is stiff and has a clean break. R2 does not have that, you can't tap it anywhere near as easily and in games where semi-auto is important it becomes more a matter of fluttering the trigger back and forth between the activation point.

The triggers are best for when you want a continuous (rather than discrete) input, and analogue input, like the gas or break of a car though it's honestly not hugely important there as in racing you either have the brake on full or the gas on full, doing either by halves is a waste of time.

Replaced the L2 and R2 buttons on my dualshock controller like a boss, so my triggers feel crisp and perfect.

Then bough MAG and found out that it didn't allow for control customization to use R2 to fire. Got pissed, bought a new 3rd party controller that allowed me to swap the L1 and L2 functions, and the R1 and R2 functions in the controller instead of in the game.

Then played MAG, realized the game was crap and took it back. Kept the controller.

Wait... how?

I got the snap-on concave triggers like everyone else (you're a fool if you don't, IMNSHO) but that doesn't change the fact that internally you have a weak spring, a LONG travel against an analogue sensor and from game to game it varies at what depth it activates the fire function. That, I don't like. Certainly not "crisp". I got it because I was fed up with my finger slipping slightly and as it does the trigger changes drastically by intended depression, honestly I couldn't be as confident. But this was for games that needed precise analogue input... not snappy discrete input.

I totally replaced the triggers, and the mechanism for them, didn't just add the little add ons to them.

I actually took apart the controller and changed out the mechanism for the triggers (it's slightly more complicated than the spring just being weak), and got a third party PS2 controller from a friend of mine that had L2 and R2 buttons which fit perfectly into a dualshock 3, and were concave instead of convex so my fingers wouldn't slip out.

edit: Yeah, I care THAT MUCH about customizing my controls. lol

 

[Signa]

I usually swap r-click with Space, since those usually are secondary fire and jump. I can't imagine a better button for jumping than R-click. There are games where R-click makes more sense as something else, because you use it more than the need for jumping. Thief and Morrowind are greats examples because of the need to grab things in the environment. Sanctum feels weird using L-click to buy and Space to sell, just as Portal would feel weird having the Blue/orange portals separated on different hands.

 

[altobizzaro]

I always change to invert Y, and make sure its left shift to sprint and space to jump. and if USE is either E or F I will leave it be

 

[SUPA FRANKY]

I find in PC games, I just can't stand CTRL being crouch. it was only good in oblivion since you can just click it once and your char will stay that way until you turn it off. My finngers can't make it all the way back there.]

Also Tab shoulkd be inventory, E use, and F for my special or whatever.

 

[Takolin]

A few things here and there for PC games. Oh and half the games requires a change for movement keys because WASD doesn't work on a azerty-keyboard.

 

[dark-mortality]

I basically never change controls on games, except with the Devil may cry 3-4. I MUST change the gun and sword button, or else I suck >_> I also change if it's completely strange, or if my computer does not have that button for some reason.