One of the main issues I had during alpha with this game was the default joypad controls. I recently deleted the input bindings files (hopefully the correct
thing to do) in order to test if the defaults had changed much since then, but apart from the loss of the bizarre angled shooting buttons on start and
select, they don't seem to have changed at all. They are still very poor. Not sure if this is on the cards or not, but these defaults need changing before
full release. Yes, the player can always rebind, but forcing the player to rebind their controls will have a negative impact on user reviews. Having
everything working nicely out-of-the-box will have a positive effect. For the minimal (as far as I can see) programming resources required to make these
changes you will make a significant positive impression on the user. Bit of a no-brainer.
Just to confirm, if everything’s correct on my end, the current defaults controls are:
Analog Stick for Movement
A for Confirm/Interact
B for Jump
X for Ammo attack
Y for Special Ability
LB for Primary Fire
RB for Secondary Fire
Walk -- not even mapped
Open Menu/Cancel -- right analog stick click
Look Ahead -- not mapped
These as I understand it are the default controls. I shouldn't really have to go into too much detail as to why these controls are bad as it's fairly
obvious, but I will touch upon it as I present my optimum controls. Here they are:
Analog or D-Pad for movement -- Let both work, ideally. If this is not possible then Analog stick should be fine given that the 360 d-pad is universally
despised (although I prefer d-pad myself over analog for this game).
A for Confirm/Interact/Jump -- It is imperative that jump be on the A button for this game. Jump on A allows you to easily then press the B,X, and Y buttons in conjunction with it. With jump on B as it is now it is very difficult to press the X button in conjunction. Confirm and interact also works well on the A button aside from a couple of flaws that I will go into later. This also avoids the need to have a separate confirm button.
B for Secondary/Cancel
X for Primary -- as the primary attack it should be on the button it's easiest to press in conjunction with jump
Y for Special
(Notice that the three most used attacks are now on the most easily accessible buttons rather then the current default set-up of having the two most used
attacks on the bumper buttons).
LB is free
RB for ammo attack -- Since ammo attack is a significantly less used ability it works well here rather than on one of the main buttons. RB preferred over LB just to keep it nearer the other attack buttons
LT is walk -- Trigger buttons seem more suited for holding than bumpers so walk seems to fit more nicely here.
Start button for open menu -- right stick click in for this is strange.
RT is look ahead -- Haven't actually used this button much, seems OK here, though.
I believe this is the optimal default controls aside from two flaws.
1) Just read this Mantis report:
http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=10385Just an aesthetic thing this really, although pretty vital in terms of polish.
2) Situations like in my attached screenshot:
Notice that with confirm and jump on the same button it is impossible to jump up here as attempting to do so will always result in you using the entrance. To jump up here I had to use the space bar. This small, but significant flaw is preventing this from being the perfect default controls in my eyes. Any ideas for solutions to this problem most welcome. One simple idea is to decrease the width of this cave's active enterable area. There seems to be at least a little room to do so.
That's about it actually. I'd like to hear other people's preferred control schemes too, to see if any further improvements can be made. Maybe we could together brainstorm the best default controls. Might just have wasted my time if my default controls are wrong for some reason (they certainly seem like it).
