Bounding boxes provide a solution to the problem as I pointed out but it is far from the best possible solution. The inherent problem, that you have three types of movement but only two input mechanisms, remains. This problem is all but unsolvable as the only way to reduce the necessary types of movement to two requires the use of a hemispherical game interface, and while such a thing is technically possible the enormous cost makes it impractical to say the least.boholikeu said:
You can argue this until you are blue in the face. You might be able to play a game comfortably with a motion controller but many other people have not mastered this as of yet.boholikeu said:
The same argument still applies to analogue sticks. It has not gone away; instead, people have simply adapted. The mouse still offers a skilled player better speed and greater precision than an analogue stick. This remains a common point PC elitists use when arguing their platform is superior.boholikeu said:
Better design and the inclusion of a degree of auto-aim has helped mitigate the problem but it does not eliminate it as the root cause of the issue lies in the control mechanism.
If we take the Wiimote as an example, we can see that your argument here has a problem. While the total number of buttons is similar, their placement on the wand ensures that some portion of them are going to remain out of reach. Thus to use all the buttons requires regular shifts of the wand - a difficult prospect when the other hand is holding the nun chuck. This is a problem of ergonomics and again it is inherent in the controller. The obvious solution is to design a game that makes use of only a certain portion of the controller, a move that gives access to a d-pad, the trigger and a pair of buttons. This is still four buttons fewer than the competing gamepads offer.boholikeu said:
I tend to prefer text based chat if only because I am not bombarded by the irritating voices that populate FPS games. Voice Chat is my preferred solution when I know the people I'm playing with however.boholikeu said:
I never stated that accuracy was the problem but rather that it was precision. Wii Motion+ and the Playstation Move have more than sufficient accuracy of input but this accuracy can, itself, lead to problems such as the trembling hand syndrome.boholikeu said:
Yes, the problem can be mitigated with software but that does not mean it ceases to exist. When your input solution requires software assistance to function, this is an indication that something is inherently wrong with the device. But, as you said, this is not relegated to just motion controls as most console FPS titles use some amount of auto-aim. By contrast, auto-aim has traditionally been reserved for cheating in PC games.boholikeu said:
A reviewer here and there can be bought, certainly. They are simply human after all. But when you consider the game received middling scores all around, that implies that the problem was with the game itself. You are, of course, free to enjoy the game. I liked Alpha Protocol. That doesn't mean I'm blind to the notion that the game had problems. I recognized them, they just weren't deal breakers for me. As a notable curiosity regarding this very point, the Conduit has a very respectable user score on metacritic that is nearly 20 points higher than the critical scores. We could discuss why the delta is so wide for hours I'm sure but at least it demonstrates you are not alone in enjoying the game!boholikeu said:
For my part, I found it to be the second best FPS on the Wii which seems like praise until I point out that I actually didn't care for it much at all. It was mechanically functional which is more than most Wii FPS games accomplish. The actual game part was uninteresting at best.
The problem with precision is the direct result of having two different motion types bound to the wand. The bounding box is equivalent to an analog stick where the actual aiming is similar to a mouse. In order to transition to a target, the player must aim, then turn, then aim again. By contrast in an FPS on the PC, the aiming and turning functions are one in the same.boholikeu said:
This is not to say that it cannot be functional or that a player cannot grow accustomed to it of course. So long as each player is wrestling with the same inherent limitations of their input device, there really isn't a problem when it comes to competitive play, and so long as it is functional for the design there is nothing damning about using it in a single player space either.
You are one person. I would point out that my post was nothing more than the basic list of reasons why people do not care for motion controls in FPS games. Never once did I assert problems of comfort were universal; indeed, all controllers will induce fatigue given time. It is almost certainly a problem of familiarity that causes this to be a commonly cited problem. People who are perfectly comfortable with a mouse would probably complain about comfort and fatigue if they were suddenly asked to use a trackball.boholikeu said:
Functional is the word I would use. The simple fact that I had to spend 20 minutes tweaking various settings is what keeps it from being excellent in my book. The default control scheme technically works but it introduces hilarious problems. For example, by default the player will have difficulty looking upwards, a problem exacerbated by placing plenty of enemies above the player. The game almost literally ships with the controller set to "broken".boholikeu said:
Eclectic Dreck said:
These two statements seem contradictory. In one case you imply that motion controls don't have the speed/accuracy trade-off that analogue sticks do, yet they clearly do in the "bounding box" control method you outline above. Good motion control games (like the conduit and metroid) allow the user to customize the bounding box, much like good controller games allow you change the stick sensitivity.[/quote]Eclectic Dreck said:
They are not at all contradictory. My entire post relating to issues of speed and precision pointed out that analog and motion controls require this very same trade off. The last bit simply pointed out why the issue is more obvious with motion controls: you are asking one input to pull double duty.
It is precisely because the player must use one device to turn and aim as discreet functions that most motion shooter problems exist. The unfortunate fact here is that there are only two ways to resolve this inherent problem with the device. The first is to use a hemispherical (or better still fully spherical) screen an interface so that aiming and turning become the same function. This is obviously not a reasonable solution. The second is to remove one type of motion. The latter is reasonable enough to do and the most obvious example is the rail shooter.
It is the rail shooter that demonstrates the fundamental truth of the matter. The motion controller is superior as an aiming device when compared to a joystick. It is only when the motion controller is asked to perform multiple distinct duties that problems arise.
And, on an unrelated note, I believe that it is not the general concept of the controller that is at fault but rather the specific way that these controllers track motion. A mouse is, after all, a motion controller and it manages to avoid the dual motion problem in an incredibly simple way: if you lift the mouse slightly, a motion is no longer registered as a motion thus allowing one to reset the position of the mouse without altering the status or disposition of the character in the game. Were a similar function available with other motion controllers, the inherent problem is resolved.
