60 replies to this topic

[Gorthaur]

Amechwarrior, on 15 November 2011 - 04:30 PM, said:

I would love to see unlocked arm weapons, but I am unsure if there is a way to do it without marginalizing joystick users. Anyone got ideas?

i used to play mouse/JS sometimes in mw3. i remember for a while i had it set up where i torso twisted/turned with my stick and free aimed with the mouse. it took a lot of getting used to but it was fun, although i never got good enough at the setup to use it when playing competitively.

[Amechwarrior]

Mouse and joystick is a possible solution.

Hand On Mouse And Stick - HOMAS, would invalidate everyone's (insanely expensive) two handed HOTAS joystick systems however. This alone is a fatal blow the HOMAS idea regardless of how much I like saying that acronym in my head. Other methods posted mess with immersion, like assigning joystick - stick to reticle X/Y, torso Z instead of stick to turning X, torso Y/Z like posted above it might feel weird and disjointed. With that method, your stick would not feel like piloting a 'mech anymore, you would be driving the reticle across the screen.

[Cake Bandit]

Nobody else mapped the floating reticle to the joystick so it snapped back to center when you weren't actively aiming?

[Amechwarrior]

Cake Bandit, on 15 November 2011 - 05:04 PM, said:

Nobody else mapped the floating reticle to the joystick so it snapped back to center when you weren't actively aiming?

I may need more details, can you explain how that works? What does torso X/Y, turning X and the rest get assigned to? I am not sure if I am visualizing your concept correctly.

[Cake Bandit]

Mapped torso turning to some buttons, I think it was the numpad. Then the joystick move the cursor in proportion to how far you pressed the stick.

So if you wanted to aim a little to the right you only moved the stick a little. As soon as you were done fighting/targeting/whatever you let go of the stick, the reticule moved neatly back to center and you had both hands available for keyboard commands if you needed 'em. It was a while ago, but I think that's how I had it set up.

If I'd had a POV hat I probably would have either assigned weapon groups to it or used that for torso controls.

[Amechwarrior]

Cake Bandit, on 15 November 2011 - 05:31 PM, said:

Mapped torso turning to some buttons, I think it was the numpad. Then the joystick move the cursor in proportion to how far you pressed the stick.

So if you wanted to aim a little to the right you only moved the stick a little. As soon as you were done fighting/targeting/whatever you let go of the stick, the reticule moved neatly back to center and you had both hands available for keyboard commands if you needed 'em. It was a while ago, but I think that's how I had it set up.

If I'd had a POV hat I probably would have either assigned weapon groups to it or used that for torso controls.

You did not mention where you turn your 'mechs legs, but I am assuming they are buttons like torso twist (probably next to or under them.) This is somewhat similar to Steel Battalions, 2 joystick set up, your left joystick only could move left or right, it was for turningX, the analog stick on it was for your view port camera (not torso but for the sake of MW, the torso twistY/Z) and the right joystick controlled the reticles X/Y. I loved how this felt, but then the controller and game are built for just that kind experience.

While I might not personally like the idea of turning and torsoY being on the keyboard, it does have merit. But again, take this system and apply it to a HOTAS system and it becomes much harder to map turning and torsoY in a logical fashion when the stick is dedicated to reticle X/Y and torso twistZ

[Gorthaur]

Cake Bandit, on 15 November 2011 - 05:04 PM, said:

Nobody else mapped the floating reticle to the joystick so it snapped back to center when you weren't actively aiming?

i preferred the floating retticle on the mouse, it was more accurate imho.

[TheRulesLawyer]

Amechwarrior, on 15 November 2011 - 04:30 PM, said:

Because this system gives such a disadvantage to the joystick player. Most common, non enthusiast joysticks have a crude 8-way hat-switch analogous to a bad D-pad on the joystick. This would never allow the kind of precision necessary to hit anything. The domination of key/mouse players over joystick users was too much and it was the stated reason the MW4 dev team took that function away

They seriously said it was because it marginalized joystick users? Wow. I would have expected that nonsense on consoles, not on PC. Control hardware is the players choice. I'd expect them to cater to kb/m as primary control and not what has to be an extremely small minority that own a hotas setup.

[Amechwarrior]

TheRulesLawyer, on 15 November 2011 - 11:11 PM, said:

They seriously said it was because it marginalized joystick users? Wow. I would have expected that nonsense on consoles, not on PC. Control hardware is the players choice. I'd expect them to cater to kb/m as primary control and not what has to be an extremely small minority that own a hotas setup.

Yes, I remember the developer posts on dropshipcommand back in the day. I am trying to find first-hand sources via google, but all I get are more dropshipcommand threads saying the developers said this. The archive does not seem to go back beyond 2002. I would need archives from 2000 or earlier, or maybe gaming news site interviews.

Remember, sims were dying back then, MS Flight Sims and the like where waning from the mid '90s high but you could still find serious gaming joysticks at a compusa or circuit city. If I remember right, the core team for MW4 came from the recently updated Tesla Pods. T.J Wagner was the lead dev I think who came from the pods. I could easily see why Pod developers would have a bias against the mouse and keyboard setup. I might be wrong about some of the names or dates, but I do distinctly remember why unlocked reticle was taken away. Can anybody else confirm or deny this? All I got is 2nd hand DSC forum posts.

[CyBerkut]

Amechwarrior, on 15 November 2011 - 04:30 PM, said:

Unlocking the reticle has many, many good reasons that correlate with the fiction and good game-play mechanics. But you have one big problem. The control scheme. This is a perfect control scheme for the mouse and keyboard. This is the death knell for joystick users, who the developers stated to support extensively and even linked threads to their mind blowing self made cockpits. Remeber the MW3 demo? The reticle was unlocked from the torso, when you moved the reticle over to the edge of the field of view, it moved the torso for you to keep your target in view. This was perfect, intuitive and allowed a much easier and natural flow of torso twisting, torso elevation and greater fields of fire. If you have ever played any of the Metroid Prime series, it works like that. MW3 launched. What did you find... moving your mouse to the edge of the screen did not move your torso anymore. What happened? Look at MW4, they removed it entirely. Why? Because this system gives such a disadvantage to the joystick player. Most common, non enthusiast joysticks have a crude 8-way hat-switch analogous to a bad D-pad on the joystick. This would never allow the kind of precision necessary to hit anything. The domination of key/mouse players over joystick users was too much and it was the stated reason the MW4 dev team took that function away. You would need the hat switch to be like a console systems analogue stick, the cheapest joystick on newegg that may have that(description is vague) and costs $56 dollars, a sizable investment for a free game. Most joystick users are also running older models that do not have that and have no desire to buy a cheap $55 dollar model or spend the hundreds necessary for a full-kit setup. Even then, the accuracy difference between analogue sticks and mouse aiming are well known to gamers and developers so that is still an issue. I would love to see unlocked arm weapons, but I am unsure if there is a way to do it without marginalizing joystick users. Anyone got ideas?

1 big factor (in my mind, at least) would be limiting the speed that the reticle moves to the speed of the weapon's actual (so to speak) alignment. Whatever the weapon being controlled is pointing at is what you see under the reticle, and you have to swing the arm and/or torso to bring it on to the desired point of aim. Most likely, the mech's abilities to turn, etc. will be considerably slower than what a mouse cursor would do. I would think that a joystick could keep up with the mech's abilities as well, which should largely equalize the joystick and the mouse. That still potentially leaves the precision issue. The game's option settings section for controller inputs should include the ability to tweak the curves for the input devices. (Recent combat flight sims include this). Of course, some joystick software has that too, but MWO should have it's own. Individual pilot's could then tweak their input curves to suit their own preferences on speed vs precision. The game should still not allow the target reticle to traverse any faster than the mech's arms/torso can though.

Coming up with a control scheme for multiple reticles divided up between the various weapons would be tricky to implement, to be sure. MW4's side look reticle for arm mounted weapon shooting worked pretty well. (I'm hoping MWO will support multiple monitors though, so that potentially gets trickier...). It may be a place to take a cue from the combat aviation world, where there is a Sensor Of Interest for various targeting, and whichever SOI is selected determines what can be slewed to target and fired. I suspect that while some of us would welcome/enjoy the challenge of the added complexity, it's likely that many would not. Maybe some sort of option to enable/disable an advanced targeting mode, with appropriate advantages provided by using the more complex method...

[Garviel]

Couple of quick thoughts:

• I like the idea of pilots being able to fine tune their game at high skill levels
  
• Maybe hold down a mouse button to move reticule independently (snap back to centre on release)
  
• Maybe make this only doable while the mech is stationary (possibly as an upgrade). Joystick users can pilot the mech into place with the stick and then switch to mouse once in position for fire support.

Could call it support/sniper mode or something - locking the mech in place so that you can accurately aim the weapons. Gives a trade off for the increased accuracy by making you an easy target yourself (hopefully helping balancing issues).

Let me know what you think chaps - im interested to see how this turns out

Edited by Garviel, 16 November 2011 - 09:11 AM.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

I prefer the fixed reticule for centre torso, not sure how you wouold enable moving arm reticules. Maybe you could have a key press that would enable you to put a crosshair over a target and the targetting computer would then mpve the arm/reticule until it lined up with the crosshair and you could then fire?
Useful also when a mech is down e to legging or knocked over.

[MaddMaxx]

If they could assure that the reticule movements would be such that either a Stick or Mouse had identical control speeds when moving to target, independent of the device used, an unlock would be OK. Otherwise a fixed reticule should be implemented.

I would say, from experience, that a M/K setup in fixed is tougher to get used to, but a floating (without artificial constraints) makes pin point fire with M/K a huge advantage over a Stick.

Yes one could use a combo, but that is not what a Stick user bought a Stick for.

[Amechwarrior]

The ideas posted for slowing the reticle to match the 'mechs torso/arm/whatever traverse speed seems it would prevent the mouse of being any faster. With that, you might even be able to return to the MW3demo/Metroid Prime model of when the cursor hits the edge of the FOV it starts torso twisting as appropriate. That would simplify and combine reticle control and torso axis control for the joystick user. Again, at the loss of the stick handeling the 'mechs overall motion.

The system becomes less elegant if this free reticle only represents arm motion. Unlocked arms is a slightly different beast then unified unlocked reticle. With it only representing arms, the stick user would still need something like a WASD keyset unless he wants to throw his arm reticle all the way to the left to adjust his torso reticle, denying him the use of arm weapons. As MaddMaxx points out, that might not be what stick users bought it for.

I cannot recall and youtube vids are blurry, but I think MW3 the unlocked reticle was unified for all weapons. Was it for all weapons or just arms? I think it was every weapon, but it has been a long time. I am not too worried about the joystick/mouse balance. Todays QnA:

"This includes updated HUD displays, cockpit displays and if you have the toys, force feedback and more!"

The "if you have the toys..." and other developer comments tells me they are building this game with complex joystick users in mind. I do not think the end results will favor K/M users regardless of what kind of reticle options we get. I would love to see it unlocked, and I think the capped traverse speed is on the right track.

Edited by Amechwarrior, 16 November 2011 - 08:23 PM.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

I used to love using my Strategic Commander http://www.neoseeker...tegiccommander/ -still can't understand why they bought the product then dropped it. With its ability to map any keyboard commands and even string them together it was a great back up to the mouse.

Edited by Nik Van Rhijn, 17 November 2011 - 12:57 AM.

[Daneiel]

The free reticle in MW3 was a great leap from MW2 , MW4 made that step back and the details really poor compared with MW3 . Don't forget that the free reticle in MW3 was closely connected to the zoom system in the game - everything depends what detail level will be chosen for MWO - yes most of the old players like me prefer - MW3 targeting system , but some of the people who started with MW4 and prefer joystick for control system will be unhappy with free targeting system , but i think if we want MWO to be a grteat game it must go forward not backward , so lets learn from the mistakes made by MW4 and don't go backward .

Edited by daneiel varna, 17 November 2011 - 10:35 AM.

[MaddMaxx]

daneiel varna, on 17 November 2011 - 10:34 AM, said:

The free reticle in MW3 was a great leap from MW2 , MW4 made that step back and the details really poor compared with MW3 . Don't forget that the free reticle in MW3 was closely connected to the zoom system in the game - everything depends what detail level will be chosen for MWO - yes most of the old players like me prefer - MW3 targeting system , but some of the people who started with MW4 and prefer joystick for control system will be unhappy with free targeting system , but i think if we want MWO to be a grteat game it must go forward not backward , so lets learn from the mistakes made by MW4 and don't go backward .

And the reason they went back was the disparity between target tracking between the game controlled Joystick and the OS controlled Mouse when both where used with Free Floating reticules. You don't think they went back just because.... right.

As already noted. Make tracking speeds the same and no worries. Set it up otherwise and it will just have to be changed back, again. A Mouse with a Reticule glued to it is not comparable. With ZOOM it became the catalyst for PIN-POINT all weapons firing CT destruction.

[Daneiel]

MaddMaxx, on 17 November 2011 - 12:14 PM, said:

And the reason they went back was the disparity between target tracking between the game controlled Joystick and the OS controlled Mouse when both where used with Free Floating reticules. You don't think they went back just because.... right.

As already noted. Make tracking speeds the same and no worries. Set it up otherwise and it will just have to be changed back, again. A Mouse with a Reticule glued to it is not comparable. With ZOOM it became the catalyst for PIN-POINT all weapons firing CT destruction.

I don't think the reason given by them was the real one , i still think they wanted to release the MW4 for consoles , but even it can be budget and other factors , but thats no matter , MWO will be release only for PC so we want full game advantages not simplification , more details , i hated the zoom system in MW4 and loved MW3 the free targeting system combined with zoom in the reticle give you precision without losing overwatch for surprises .

Edited by daneiel varna, 17 November 2011 - 12:25 PM.

[Alistair Steiner]

AT1, a sort of overhaul for MW2 that comes from MekTek, the same guys that released the free MW4: Mercs has the floating reticule for arm-mounted weapons, but a static reticule for torso-mounted weapons. I could track with the lasers on my arms, but had to get the enemy right in the middle for the torso-mounted Gauss Rifles to work. It was neat, but I sorta prefer the torso-twist only. Made targeting a little simpler.

[Amechwarrior]

daneiel varna, on 17 November 2011 - 12:24 PM, said:

I don't think the reason given by them was the real one , i still think they wanted to release the MW4 for consoles

MW4 was launched and entire year before Microsoft's Xbox, and about one year after Microsoft officially acquired FASA Studios. The development team was part of the tesla pod team and even re-used pod engine assets(scroll down). They are the last kind of people who would want to see it moved to a console. T.J Wagner, the executive producer for MW4 and a tesla developer also quotes the main development time as 18-20 months. All of this shows that MW4 was a branch off of the Firestorm series engine from the Virtual World Centers. In no way was it developed for for an existing console of the time (PS2 came out same time MW4 did) or near future consoles like the Xbox.

For reasons why MW4 came out more "actiony" then previous games, you can thank this guy. Some of the things I hear come out of his mouth in that interview make me cringe. But that is a different issue then why the reticle was returned to a locked configuration. Sadly, sites like badkarma.net and the older versions of dropshipcommand.com are no longer available and I admit I still have not found a first person source stating the reasons for locked reticle. However, you can find a common theme in posts where forum users simply say "the devs said it was unfair to joysticks" like in the link I provided in my first post. They state it like it was common knowledge. This circumstantial evidence, combined with the documentary material provided above does not support your case.

As for "yes most of the old players like me prefer - MW3 targeting system , but some of the people who started with MW4 and prefer joystick for control system will be unhappy with free targeting system"

MW3 as "old players" lacks hindsight. It ignores the massive impact of MW2(a DOS release) and expansions that were released in a time when the mouse itself was a new gadget and complex joysticks ruled the field. Look at the MW2 instruction manual, it showcases the many types of joysticks available at the time. It was MW2 players who were the ones who felt miffed at MW3s floating reticle and that older core fanbase was the reason MW4 returned it.

For its time, it was the right move. We have the capabilities and know-how to let it return if that is what the MWO team wants. Please do not take this as a attack on you or your ideas, I was just addressing the factual claims in the post.

Edited by Amechwarrior, 17 November 2011 - 03:30 PM.