AVWW2 - Controls

[Misery]

I absolutely hated the controls too, but I didn't have enough time to play around yesterday to rebind keys to my liking, so I can't actually comment on how the controls handle themselves when properly bound. However, I do lack one feature: "Lock Aim" key. Super Metroid had a button you pressed and Samus would then no longer move, but instead just aim according to how the D-pad was moved. Something like this would ease up diagonal aiming a lot, as I find I'm mostly just frantically flailing around while trying to aim anywhere by straight forwards.

Once I get more time to rebind my keys, I'm going to comment on how the game actually feels, controls wise. The character feels a bit a wierd and sluggish, but as I said, I need to play around more with it before I can really comment.

I couldnt remember Super Metroid ever having such a thing, so I went and fired it up.... what it has is an option for "moon walk".  It doesnt lock you in place, but causes you to be able to walk slowly backwards while firing;  it prevents you from switching horizontal direction at all while firing as well.    Moving FORWARD while holding that down causes Samus to just move forward at her normal rate while firing, regardless of angle.   

....and that's it.   That's the extent of the special controls in the game.... it actually doesnt have much in the way of options menus, period.   


Firing at angles while NOT moving, in Super Metroid, works exactly the same as in this game:   Special buttons that simply aim at an angle, which are the shoulder buttons.  L for up-angle, R for down-angle, like that.  You could use them to fire at angles while standing still, or while moving/jumping/whatever.



I dunno how it is for everyone else, but to me this game controls pretty much like I expected it to.... though, that's WITH everything bound properly and the controller not doing anything particularly insane.   Angled firing though, it never occurred to me even once to use the d-pad for that.   If someone IS used to using it to that for whatever reason, then yeah, I can see it feeling pretty off as a result.

[timebomb]

The default controls were pretty poor. I modified them quickly to what I prefer, and it has been working quite well for me. Here is what I changed:

North/Left/Duck/Right = W/A/S/D
Action = F
Primary/Secondary/Special/Slot 4 Abilities = 1/2/3/4

The most notable thing here is that I have a 12-button keypad on my mouse. For the people without the ability to macro abilities to their mouse, I'd suggest finding whatever ability buttons are most comfortable to you - perhaps try using the numpad. That should give you a comfortable left/right hand setup.

[Mánagarmr]

Meh, so much for memory. I remember it having a button to press to shift your angle, but maybe that was one button for up and one for down...can't remember.

[Chemuel]

My first post, so just generally spamming, thank You for a bunch of amazing games, and thanks for dropping AVWW2 on my Christmas tree for free...

Yeah. On the tree. Aiming difficulties. General suggestions for the controls from my humble side:

1. Map the default keys for angled shooting to somewhere else, like putting all movement on the numpad or change the movement keys do WSAD and put the abilities somewhere around "k" - as far as I remember a lot of console-gone-keyboard games did that in my time... the defaults are frightening.

2. Maybe give the game a "lock" function for keys, while You have "up" pressed, the movement keys for right and left could let You shoot at an angle, and same for duck/down, while standing or flying. I'd imagine that to be more intuitive.

3. Mouse control. Who said Mouse means 360° aiming? It's a helpful input tool and it would make gameplay a lot less clonky without destroying the tactical depth of choosing spells that curve or the like. Simply make it lock in one of the eight directions, maybe with an indicator for where You are currently aiming. That way it's mouse comfort, no broken fingers and still not much of an advantage over having to aim by puzzle-style combinations.



Thing is, I really love the world, the sound... the new strategic game seems awesome, but as many others I feel the controls to be horrible and game-breaking even. Made my propositions and would like to... well, strongly suggest to try out the eight-way-mouse idea. It would be sad to see a well designed game drown because the controls had to be balanced for hardcore-oldscool Dhampyre-spacesuitgirl fans. Better even then to give the option to return to the controls of the first part, if no other solution turns up. So what if it is unbalanced? Add mouse control, lock the combat based achievements and call it dumbazz mode. Let me enjoy my game, not fight it.




[edited to clarify. There is ingame- mouse support for some of the menus. Sorry for the bad choice of words.]

Suggestions entered in Mantis.

[Mánagarmr]

Aren't there mouse support already? Or maybe they don't work for the in game interface. That should ABSOLUTELY be there in that case.

[Misery]

Aren't there mouse support already? Or maybe they don't work for the in game interface. That should ABSOLUTELY be there in that case.

For whatever reason you cannot use the mouse on the menus and stuff.   I think Chris gave a reason for this in a different topic, but I dont recall what it is.


It seemed annoying at first, but.... after more time with the game, I'd actually find it much MORE annoying to switch from the controller (or keyboard if I was using that) to the mouse just to click stuff.  Menu navigation currently works pretty much the same as it does in console games.

But yes, you should probably be able to click stuff in the menus and such.

[MouldyK]

As much as I feel for people who keep asking for mouse-control, I think it might actually never happen because this conversation has happened before I think and they said it was not the way they wanted to go with the new game.


And as Misery said, Twin-Stick (also mouse for aiming) is generally for fast-paced games, which this game is not. I believe the main problem people are having is with the angled shooting using the keyboard, but I don't think that should be much of a problem and need the mouse to be fixed as that would raise more issues, like where you put the 4 spells for easy access and other things.

ALSO:

It would be sad to see a well designed game drown because the controls had to be balanced for hardcore-oldscool Dhampyre-spacesuitgirl fans.

- Most/All Megaman games.
- Many Contra Games, even in 2010.
- Gunstar Heroes.
- All 2D Castlevanias.

So many use the set-up that is here in Valley 2 and no-one complains about them. I think the issue here is that the game has become more controller-friendly in some parts when it comes to aiming and things, which is an issue when the first one was more suited for the mouse.

It seemed annoying at first, but.... after more time with the game, I'd actually find it much MORE annoying to switch from the controller (or keyboard if I was using that) to the mouse just to click stuff.  Menu navigation currently works pretty much the same as it does in console games.

But yes, you should probably be able to click stuff in the menus and such.

What I originally asked for was separate controls for the strategy and platform sections, but they kinda fixed that when they made the "s" button go into a menu on what you would like to do on the tile. I would still maybe think that switching controls to thinks like "Start to pause, A to click on things and B to back up in menu" would be handy, but not really needed.

-is waiting for an Arcen guy to come in to explain things to us-

[tigersfan]

There's no mouse control in the game play, because, as we've said, that's too hard to balance. With the vastly different experiences that M/K vs. Gamepad/K only give with this kind of game, there is no wy to balance for both.

Why doesn't the mouse work in (some) of the UI? Well, because eventually, the plan is to have it work in NONE of it (except for maybe the settings menu). It really is annoying to go back and forth in a game between control methods, so we're re-doing the UI so that it can function without the mouse.

[Mánagarmr]

There's no mouse control in the game play, because, as we've said, that's too hard to balance. With the vastly different experiences that M/K vs. Gamepad/K only give with this kind of game, there is no wy to balance for both.

Why doesn't the mouse work in (some) of the UI? Well, because eventually, the plan is to have it work in NONE of it (except for maybe the settings menu). It really is annoying to go back and forth in a game between control methods, so we're re-doing the UI so that it can function without the mouse.

That's probably a better idea, in that case, but I know of quite a lot of PC-players that will go absolutely ballistic if menues can't be navigated with a mouse (I'm one of them )

[Misery]

There's no mouse control in the game play, because, as we've said, that's too hard to balance. With the vastly different experiences that M/K vs. Gamepad/K only give with this kind of game, there is no wy to balance for both.

Why doesn't the mouse work in (some) of the UI? Well, because eventually, the plan is to have it work in NONE of it (except for maybe the settings menu). It really is annoying to go back and forth in a game between control methods, so we're re-doing the UI so that it can function without the mouse.

That's probably a better idea, in that case, but I know of quite a lot of PC-players that will go absolutely ballistic if menues can't be navigated with a mouse (I'm one of them )

It could be worse, it could be Dwarf Fortress menus.

Omigod that game took me SO freaking long to learn.  And that interface does not help one bit.


For THIS game, I'm just glad they fixed the strategic map.   Everything else, I dont care about.  Just, agh, that original interface for that was SO freaking annoying.

[Professor Paul1290]

I guess to add another suggestion, it just occurred to me that you don't use your pinky finger much in the current default.

You could bind "aim up" to Shift and "aim down" to Ctrl and separate them from the shooting keys entirely.

Other than that, it might make more sense to most to move the "aim up" and "aim down" on top of each other and don't mix them too much with the spell keys. Maybe move them to one side so they're used by one finger. (maybe "E" and "D" for aim up/down while QWAS is used for spells, or something similar?)

[MouldyK]

There's no mouse control in the game play, because, as we've said, that's too hard to balance. With the vastly different experiences that M/K vs. Gamepad/K only give with this kind of game, there is no wy to balance for both.

Why doesn't the mouse work in (some) of the UI? Well, because eventually, the plan is to have it work in NONE of it (except for maybe the settings menu). It really is annoying to go back and forth in a game between control methods, so we're re-doing the UI so that it can function without the mouse.

From LayZboy on how to use gamepad to make it like mouse control: "How is it hard? All you have to do is make buttons select the spell, then right analog fire in the direction you push it."

[Mánagarmr]

It could be worse, it could be Dwarf Fortress menus.

Omigod that game took me SO freaking long to learn.  And that interface does not help one bit.

I don't DF really counts. It's the uncrowned king of obtuse and unhelpful interfaces. It's to games what VI is to text editors. Completely and utterly retarded to anyone who hasn't learned it by heart. And those who have swear to it's usefulness

[zaaq]

Link to Chemuel's Mantis report: http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=10091

I intend to file one w/ my feedback as well, but that will have to wait until 6:00 EST.

Now, as for aiming with the stick.... you dont have to do that, you know.  Super Metroid style controls.... you assign buttons that aim at an angle so long as you hold them.   It actually works very well.  Hold those to aim, and then fire, and you need not move.

My problem with these buttons is that both need to be remapped from their default configuration. Q/E on the keyboard and select-start on "XInput" style controls are simply not usable.

And the controllers, well..... unfortunately, when it comes to PC games, controllers are probably always going to be a bit wonky.   I can think of very, very few PC games that have native controller support that is super easy to use.   

I agree, but you should acknowledge that many if not most PC games are mouse-driven. When your gameplay eschews the mouse for a controller or keyboard, you'd better make sure the controls feel right. These don't.

There's a default mapping called "XBox 360 conttroller" in the settings menu. The mappings provided for that default are practically unusable. They don't operate consistently with Microsoft's guidelines, nor to they map consistently with other 'metroidvania' style titles.

There's always SOME way of getting it to work.   For games where it's really giving you trouble, but you want to use it, consider looking into side programs that allow you to do things like change the controller input to keyboard/mouse/whatever, or other more advanced things.   I've yet to run into a game that I cant use that controller for, specifically in whatever way *I* want to.

I agree, but I shouldn't have to do much work for a standard controller interface. The differences between XBox 360, logitech, and PS3 controllers are pretty minimal. Even if the signals are mapped differently by Windows, it isn't out-of-the-question to provide reasonable defaults for each.

[chemical_art]

I, for one find the controls very enjoyable. The current setup makes it very comfortable on my fingers, allowing me to play an extended amount of time without eventual pain.

In addition, the fact.that at the beginning of a new game the control menu pops up let's players know they can customize the controls to fancy.