14 replies to this topic

[Koniving]

My suggestion is really quite simple. Joystick support needs to improve beyond what Paul Inouye called "Basic Support" back in 2012/2013, which is really about all we seemed to have received ever since.

My reasoning for this, as can be seen here, is that in addition to this fact shunning players away... take a moment to really think about this. Instead of some cheap 10 dollar mouse and keyboard, these players have peripherals that are worth anywhere from 50 to several hundred dollars. This means Disposable Income, which means Money, which means a strong potential income for PGI. Its a market that needs to be tapped.

I'm aware that PGI got into TrackIR, which is neat yet not; it's not commonly used because of the problem of turning your head requires having a harder time to look at the screen. Requires three monitor setups which to my understanding MWO doesn't support, at least I can't get it to support it.

However, joysticks are common because many games support them. And support doesn't even have to be terribly complicated because it really is just the basic functionality of Analog Turning + Analog Aiming + A Look Spring Functionality.

And really that's what it boi
ls down to. Look Spring, for those who have never played a console game before, is when if you press the stick up and look up, your head/aim moves as far up as you pressed the stick where 100% up is 100% of the vertical up you can look, and 50% up is 50% of the vertical up you can look. But here's the magic! You let go of the stick, and it returns to center.

In MWO, this would mean that if you have Lookspring on (remember to keep this as a switch in the options), and turn 75% left with Armlock on, your mech would twist 75% to the left of its total torso twist, allowing you to increase or decrease how left to make that shot as well as add vertical adjustment with slight but holding movements.

With Armlock off, the joystick would (just like the mouse) control Arms first and the torso would follow (unless holding the "Look" button, default left CTRL and can be assigned to a mouse button) in which the torso will not follow the arms.

In essence, this would give players with first order controls (i.e. well over 80% of joysticks on the market) abilities akin to zero order controls (less than 6% of joysticks and 100% of standard mice), which would in turn allow them to compete on much closer terms.

Oh. My. God.
I just gave you a basic functionality plan for how to use joysticks in MWO.
So, "On backburner while working out a concept" would be a terrible excuse.

There are mini-whales with plenty of cashflow and some gadgets that if they could be realistically usable in MWO would really make them happy.
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(As a reader, if you have questions, concerns, or suggestions relating to the suggestions here or on other measures that can be taken to improve joystick support such as being able to assign a third stick for independent arm aiming without holding down look, respond below.)

[Wintersdark]

I agree completely.

A small fyi, though: TrackIR doesn't require a multi monitor setup, nor does it particularly benefit from one. A trackIR setup works by amplifying head movement, so you can look around d with smaller head movements thus keeping your eyes center screen.

[Ozzy Stormlight]

I have always used a joystick to play Mechwarrior games. Started with a Logitech 3d pro for MW:O. That worked well enough with a bunch of tweeking on the settings and whatnot. Then i broke it

Luckily, I had my old Saitek x45 HOTAS sitting around since MW4 Mercs days. Figured I'd try it out here. as it turns out ( for me) it was easier and more precise to use the throttle and the mouse. The stick just didn't "feel right".

But i do agree w/ Koniving. There is a "simulator" part of this game that is being overlooked and a market of people that would play this more if they could use their expensive toys to potential.

[Elendil]

I do think that improved joystick support would steer the game back towards the simulator role, but joysticks are provably worse than mice for quick and accurate aiming.
That being said, moving and steering with a joystick (rather than aiming) is better than with a keyboard. But most people aren't used to doing that.

But in the end, even if they improved joystick support a lot, I still wouldn't use it... I'm too used to mouse and keyboard, and it would be a huge handicap to switch.

The reason I voted against lookspring is that mechs have vastly different max torso twist (and speed, and arm movement, etc), so switching between them would really screw up your muscle-memory with lookspring.

Also, gaming mice aren't cheap, nor are good keyboards. Claiming that joysticks have a corner on that market is highly inaccurate.

Edited by Elendil, 19 May 2016 - 10:31 AM.

[VXJaeger]

Joystick support should be removed from game totally, and users banned.

[BROARL]

I have tried Saitek X52 throttle and joystick, razer tartarus V2 and mouse, sidewinder and mouse, razer/Xbox control pad, ball and mouse, VR motion control, and so on. I was building a mech pod to live in, and still yet may, so trust me if it's possible and I've had it available then I've tried it.
the bottom line for me boils down to:
1) without the old mechpods back in the day I wouldn't be so hooked at present, this is the experience I want, minimum.
2) when i'm playing faction I use mouse and keyboard or tartarus. there are many players better than I am and I prefer not to make it any easier for them than it already is.
3) this is a game. if you are not playing for prizemoney then you may want to have fun, get a joystick and roll a number or have a few drinks and hit quickplay.

those who say use a keyboard, ask them if they use a keyboard to play car games too...?

[Jennkryst]

So I have dual flightsticks set up for space sims, but when I'm in a stompy-robutt mood, I leave them hooked up because why not?

The more I play, though, the more I wish that I could just... like... free-arm/pitch with one stick, and use the other to drive (forward/backward, turn, and torso twist). Even having it as an option would be neat.

[Honeybadgers]

The problem is that this game just ain't tuned to be competitive with a joystick. The arm lock and general precision required for this game's more fast paced, slightly more "Arcadey" feel just means that you'd be gimping yourself at the level of trying to play high level competitive counter strike with a playstation controller.

I used a sidewinder dual strike (that joystick/controller hybrid) to play competitive online MW4 in vengeance, black knight and mercs, and I was a pretty high level player because the game was tuned to feel floatier and the lack of free arm movement made the game as good with a joystick as it was with mouse and keyboard (this also had the effect of increasing TTK and making precision aiming much more difficult, so things like pinpoint shots were much harder, despite the 6 ERLL meta). I actually liked it better because the shift + button let me run all the weapon groups effectively.

I would honestly prefer if MW5 had the floatier, slower, harder to control feel versus the feeling of ultra precise snapshots that are capable now. I'd prefer MWO with it too, but that would require the biggest rebalance in the game's history and for a game with such a low population, that just ain't happening. Though it would pretty much single handedly deal with the clan laser vomit builds being able to so precisely rip off components.

Tl;DR, using a joystick is actively hurting your team with the way this game is tuned. It's not gonna change. The most we can hope for is a more joystick friendly feel in MW5 and whatever sequel comes for MWO, if that happens.

Edited by Honeybadgers, 04 October 2019 - 12:46 AM.

[Jennkryst]

Honeybadgers, on 04 October 2019 - 12:45 AM, said:

Tl;DR, using a joystick is actively hurting your team with the way this game is tuned. It's not gonna change. The most we can hope for is a more joystick friendly feel in MW5 and whatever sequel comes for MWO, if that happens.

Bold of you to assume that my **** piloting with WASD and a mouse doesn't EQUALLY hurt my team.

[C337Skymaster]

I enjoyed MW2, MW3, and MW4 (and all of their expansions) so much, in large part BECAUSE I could use a joystick. It's been my dream since I finally got a computer that could play MWO that I'd be able to use a VR headset to control ONLY the arms/freelook, and simultaneously use a joystick to control the torso/legs/throttle, a la MW2/3/4. My wife very nicely got me a VR Headset for our anniversary last month, after I built VR capable computers for each of us last Christmas, only to discover that MWO doesn't support simultaneous independent control of the arms/torso. That right there is a large part of what's hurting Joystick use in this game. If you could control the torso with the joystick, and the arms/freelook with the hat switch, it would bring it much closer to on-par with keyboard/mouse setups, and with much more of a HOTAS feel.

This game is riding on the popularity generated by its predecessors, and its predecessors were simulators.

[FireDog]

Ever since MW5 came out with decent Joystick support I am finding it hard to come back to MWO's poor joystick support. I mean it was gimply enough playing MWO when I was use to it but now switching back and forth is almost impossible now because of MWO's JS play. Please improve MWO's JS play to at least MW5 level if at all possible.

[Alreech]

FireDog, on 27 April 2020 - 01:11 PM, said:

Ever since MW5 came out with decent Joystick support I am finding it hard to come back to MWO's poor joystick support. I mean it was gimply enough playing MWO when I was use to it but now switching back and forth is almost impossible now because of MWO's JS play. Please improve MWO's JS play to at least MW5 level if at all possible.

No, Mechwarrior 5 didn't have had decent Joystick support.
Yo literally have had to manually edit your game setting to use your Joystick.

[Alreech]

Jennkryst, on 03 October 2019 - 10:26 PM, said:

So I have dual flightsticks set up for space sims, but when I'm in a stompy-robutt mood, I leave them hooked up because why not?

The more I play, though, the more I wish that I could just... like... free-arm/pitch with one stick, and use the other to drive (forward/backward, turn, and torso twist). Even having it as an option would be neat.

Moving the Mech with a Joystick and Aiming with a Mouse works in MWO.

By it's mechanics a mouse is much better for aiming:
Mouse movent is directly translated in xy movement on the screen.

Joysticks are better if you have to hold a specific control over a longer time in a precise range.
Like thrust, pitch & yaw in flight sims.

[Peace2U]

FireDog, on 27 April 2020 - 01:11 PM, said:

Ever since MW5 came out with decent Joystick support I am finding it hard to come back to MWO's poor joystick support. I mean it was gimply enough playing MWO when I was use to it but now switching back and forth is almost impossible now because of MWO's JS play. Please improve MWO's JS play to at least MW5 level if at all possible.

My response - WHAT???

MW5 native joystick support, how can I say this in a nice way? - ? - ? - - - SUCKS EGGS.
I am forced to utilize not one but two third party utilities just to use my Force Feedback Pro stick in MW5.
Oh, and my stick works flawlessly in MWO without any add-ons.
I suspect MWO is able to utilize the operating systems device support functionality, and MW5 Unreal engine seems to ignore it.

Sorry FD, not trying to beat you up, just trying to understand your perspective.
Peace.

Edited by Peace2U, 06 May 2020 - 09:45 AM.

[Alreech]

Peace2U, on 06 May 2020 - 09:42 AM, said:

MW5 native joystick support, how can I say this in a nice way? - ? - ? - - - SUCKS EGGS.
I am forced to utilize not one but two third party utilities just to use my Force Feedback Pro stick in MW5.
Oh, and my stick works flawlessly in MWO without any add-ons.
I suspect MWO is able to utilize the operating systems device support functionality, and MW5 Unreal engine seems to ignore it.

IMHO it's the same thing with the Unreal Engine as with DICEs Frostbite Engine:
It's just build for two controllers: X-Box & Playstation.
Having to use a tool to map my Saitek X52pro to a fake X-Box Controller to use it in Star Wars Battlefront or Battlefield 1 for flying (and even then without analog thrust axis) was one big reason to not buy / not play those games.