597 replies to this topic

[Gendo]

i use a 20 jear old piece of losttech, but my gravis phoenix still works!

Edited by Gendo, 16 July 2012 - 01:04 PM.

[Cid]

Terror Teddy, on 16 July 2012 - 11:38 AM, said:

Mouse aiming might be easier but a good throttle with rudder flaps and a solid joystick gives so much more immersion - If i can combine that with TrackIR/TrackNoIR for HUD aiming then Im in heaven. Especially when I can use the below sticky.

i am not sure if headmovement tracking for aiming is such a good idea, especially with NoIR as there seems to be some delay in comparison to TrackIR, but maybe i am wrong here.

[River McCain]

Gendo, on 16 July 2012 - 01:02 PM, said:

i use a 20 jear old pice of losttech, but my gravis phoenix still works!

How do you plug it in to a modern computer?

[NoirJ]

I have a Naga so am hoping its playable with that, as theres no way in hell I can get a joystick out here.[/color]
For immersion, when I get back I'll probably plump for the Warthog.

Edited by NoirJ, 16 July 2012 - 01:06 PM.

[Soulvoid]

Gendo, on 16 July 2012 - 01:02 PM, said:

i use a 20 jear old piece of losttech, but my gravis phoenix still works!

Ahhh, yes the one I had to run out and buy before I would play MW2 mine quit working in 2003. Have since replaced with a Saitek x52 Pro and love it.

[Direalien]

Egomane, on 16 July 2012 - 12:43 PM, said:

It helps in that you get both direction and torso control in the same hand, leaving the other only for throttle control or other tasks. With a dedicated programmable throttle, you have every function you'll ever need in your hands and never have to let go of speed or directional control to access a different function on the keyboard.


It is different, because a twist on the stick will be directly connected to the torsos movement. there will be no reaction time. There will be no waiting for the torso to match up to were you aim, instead you move the torso faster or slower, into one direction or the other, in a speed depending on how far you twist your stick to either side.
In short: You don't wait, you act and control! It is much less frustrating (my opinion).

I liked this and then unliked it just so i could like it again. I played a light mech. The ability to torso twist to the degree i wanted and put the shot where i NEEDED it to go, NORMALLY center mass as i came around their front to rock there mech and make there shot go wide, was what kept me alive and was a great great great advantage. Now to that end i knew when i was facing a diashi pilot who was using a mouse. They could hit me after i have gotten off to there side. I find that mouse will be viable to those slow big assault boats that do not go fast or turn fast or need the reaction time the joystick gives (me at least).

ALSO IMMERSION!!!!!!!!

[Nian]

You people and your new fancy joysticks. I'm going to try to be Retro. I have several of these, figure they should do the job MAYBE Gotta love DB9 to USB adaptors.

Edited by Nian, 16 July 2012 - 01:11 PM.

[Egomane]

Harabeck, on 16 July 2012 - 12:49 PM, said:

I'm still not seeing an advantage. Unless there are as many hotkeys as a standard MMORPG, you can easily control everything without ever moving your hand.

I want to be able to cycle through targets forward and backward (two functions), cycle through friendlies forward and backward (two functions), adapt radar range (one or two functions), create and disolve weapon groups on the fly (unkown number of functions), ignite jumpjets (one function), and whatever else there might be to do. With one hand on keyboard, I have only two fingers available to do all these things. The other three are needed for throttle and directional control. Can those three be used for other functions? Sure, but what if it happens in a critical situation?

Harabeck, on 16 July 2012 - 12:49 PM, said:

I don't see how that could be any less frustrating. The torso is still moving in the same way. If anything, having to constantly readjust my joystick would be more annoying, instead of just sticking the mouse where I want it to aim.

It is not moving the same way, it is only with the same speed. With mouse it follows your aim, with stick it is the aiming itself. That is a big difference for the immersion factor. I do something to get my targeting reticle over the enemy. I am acting and reacting all the time with a stick. With a mouse I wait for my mech to catch up to my input. No matter how fast the mech reacts it will always feel slow and sluggish to me.

If mouse and keyboard work better for you, that's great. But please don't believe it will be in any way superior to a dedicated joystick setup. I said it before: At best they are equal and it comes down to what you are used to.

[$imon Osis]

frack the joystick haters, ima use my extrem 3D pro an pound on the mouse/keyboard user's

[Project_Mercy]

MechWarrior was originally designed for a joystick. The first MW2 tourney I won, the top 5 people got a Sidewinder as part of the prize package. While the machines that were setup all had K+M, they also all had a joystick (sidewinder) and pretty much everyone used it.

Now a days, people are too concerned about accessibility. Most games are designed around a laptop with a mouse first, and then anything you add onto it is considered "something only hardcore people do." Some sim games break this mold and don't do this, so you see racing and flight sims that don't do well with K+M.

MWO though is not a Sim. It's just an FPS with slightly slower controls. So the CoD kids have the right of it. It was designed as a K+M game that just allows you to use other controls if you wanted. But it's not much different than using a d-pad in an FPS. Sure, you can use it, but you will never be competitive with the people who use a mouse.

Maybe someday someone will man up and start producing sims again, but for now, using the joystick is just something you do because you find it fun, not because you're trying to win. In modern games, as you pointed out, winning and having fun are generally mutually exclusive. Fun ceased to be the primary purpose of games quite a while back when grinding and time-investment took over.

[StarfyrGuns]

Brien, on 16 July 2012 - 12:39 PM, said:

Having movement most other controls in one place is more convienant than using m/k having to reach all over keyboard for hot keys is just less efficient in mech combat in my opinion

Ok..heres how I do it............
Left-handed...Mouse-torso twist, aiming, firing.

Right hand...Joystick-legs, movement, weapon grps, JJ`s, and any of 10 other buttons I want to use.

It`s cake..

[Game_Overture]

Mouse and Keyboard users might also want to consider that they only have two analog axis's. This is the mouse's X and Y movement.

Mechwarrior titles can utilize three analog axis's (Torso, Pitch, Chassis). There is also the mech's velocity, but I think a keyboard can handle this no better or worse than an actual hand throttle.

So while it may feel jarring at first to aim with a joystick/rudder, the payoff at the end is enhanced analog precision on all three axis's.

I'm also under the impression that sustained constant input (only achievable with a joystick) will outweigh the the pixel precision of a mouse.

[Nachocheese]

MeiSooHaityu, on 16 July 2012 - 11:38 AM, said:

I think the accuracy issue comes into play more with a game controller (like the Xbox360 controller). The thumb sicks are pretty hard to use accuratly without some sort of snap-to auto aim.

that only depends on how used you are to the xbox controller. I beat friends in CSS with my xbox controller, but i cant play with a joystick at all.

[KuroNyra]

Terror Teddy, on 16 July 2012 - 11:38 AM, said:

Mouse aiming might be easier but a good throttle with rudder flaps and a solid joystick gives so much more immersion - If i can combine that with TrackIR/TrackNoIR for HUD aiming then Im in heaven. Especially when I can use the below sticky.

Iuse that one for playing at Flight Simulator X.

I already tested it for other's game.

But here, I think if I use the little joystick on the BIG joystick for AIM.
Use the BIG joystick for move the mecha on any direction.

And the speed controler for the... speed. It could be good.

[Zuri Prime]

Keep your joysticks. I'll just bring you down with the superior tracking and expanded button capacity that comes with the mouse and keyboard. If I can survive Tribes and MWLL in a spectacular fashion, there's no doubt I'll tear other players apart in MWO. Rocking a G9x and a G15 with a nice control mat from Steelseries. Come at me, bro!

[Foxmoan]

MechaDraco, on 16 July 2012 - 12:31 PM, said:

I pan to get the Artemis when it comes out, IF, i can afford it.

This. For all you guys swearing up and down that MWO wont be made for joysticks, then why would Piranha have this thing made at all? Seems pretty counter intuitive because it would just end up hurting the sales of the blasted thing.-
As for me ill be using my v1 Cyborg X joystick. Love it. Never used a HOTAS before though and I'd love to get the Artimis if able. I'd wanna try getting foot pedals too though for the full effect.

Hmm... I wonder if its possible to set mouse pointer control to the joystick hat... then map looking left and right (swinging your arm to the side like MW4) with torso twist still on joystick twist. With that much movement range, there would be no target a stick user couldn't track to. Gray for brawling in close range while on the move.

[Egomane]

Cid, on 16 July 2012 - 12:57 PM, said:

actually, it seems some stick-users are trying to convince him of theirs ideas...

We do not want to convince him of our ideas, we just want to show him that they are as valid as his.

Ok, on second thought, maybe that is trying to convince him.

[Eagle Bear]

thontor, on 16 July 2012 - 11:44 AM, said:

I've had this thing for years.. this is what I choose to handicap myself with:


sad i know

but i'm poor

Honestly though, as much as it it feels wrong to use a mouse, I'll probably try both ways and see if the mouse precision outweighs the "precision 2" immersion factor

i have a force feedback version and that one you have there never used anything different

[Harabeck]

Egomane, on 16 July 2012 - 01:16 PM, said:

I want to be able to cycle through targets forward and backward (two functions), cycle through friendlies forward and backward (two functions), adapt radar range (one or two functions), create and disolve weapon groups on the fly (unkown number of functions), ignite jumpjets (one function), and whatever else there might be to do. With one hand on keyboard, I have only two fingers available to do all these things. The other three are needed for throttle and directional control. Can those three be used for other functions? Sure, but what if it happens in a critical situation?

A WASD configuration has about 18 keys in easy reach (not counting WASD keys, shift, and alt). That seems like plenty for all of that to me (and I think you're really stretching it with messing with weapon groups on the fly). I'm just not seeing an issue at all.

Quote

It is not moving the same way, it is only with the same speed. With mouse it follows your aim, with stick it is the aiming itself. That is a big difference for the immersion factor. I do something to get my targeting reticle over the enemy. I am acting and reacting all the time with a stick. With a mouse I wait for my mech to catch up to my input. No matter how fast the mech reacts it will always feel slow and sluggish to me.

I don't see it as immersion breaking at all. Why wouldn't a mech be capable of such a thing? And again, if the torso is moving at the same speed in both cases, how can one feel more sluggish than the other? The only difference I see is that in once case I'm just placing the cursor where it needs to be, where in the other, I'm twisting my wrist and moving my arm constantly to get the same effect with less precision.

Quote

If mouse and keyboard work better for you, that's great. But please don't believe it will be in any way superior to a dedicated joystick setup. I said it before: At best they are equal and it comes down to what you are used to.

Sorry, but I will believe that. When it comes to aiming your weapons, joystick is going to run into the exact same problem as control pads have versus mouse, even with the reduced pace of MWO.

[Whip]

Considering it is a "Simulator Game" I would prefer the joystick over a mouse.

The people who preach the mouse over the joystick, thats fine, but you are really having to move your hands over a keyboard to issue commands as well as move as well as aim.

Even in MW4 with a Thrustmaster I still didn't have enough buttons for all the commands that were sometimes required, but I know it was a damn sight easier than using a mouse and keyboard.


One thing I did know, most "Alpha" shooters were mouse and keyboard players, because in the end they didn't have th ability to cycle through the weapons properly, They were good in close range combat situations, but when it came to slectively using weapons in medium and long range, were sometimes (ableit, most times) I outplayed them with the Joystick.

I also found it easier to lead moving targets with a Joystick, especially when from Aussie, with server lag, The good Aussie pilots swore by a decent joystick for the increased ablity to "Lag Shoot" their opponents over the mose / kb players.