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Anyone else grow up not understanding the concept of "bad controls"?

J_C

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I'm gonna level with you guys here. When it comes to controls in games, I'm on god teir untermensch level. You see, I developed fine motor skills, and also have a pretty decent brain (shocking, I know) which lets me do a magical thing called l e a r n i n g.

So when I sit down to play any games, I just use these two to learn the controls of the game, instead if hitting the keyboad like a breaindead person shouting "wWwhhy Dooessn't thHHiiss playyy LIkkeEE tHHee Wayy I wAAANNtt!!!" So while others complain about not being able to use a 3D camera or use tank control, I just learn it and use it.
 

Grauken

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I'm gonna level with you guys here. When it comes to controls in games, I'm on god teir untermensch level. You see, I developed fine motor skills, and also have a pretty decent brain (shocking, I know) which lets me do a magical thing called l e a r n i n g.

So when I sit down to play any games, I just use these two to learn the controls of the game, instead if hitting the keyboad like a breaindead person shouting "wWwhhy Dooessn't thHHiiss playyy LIkkeEE tHHee Wayy I wAAANNtt!!!" So while others complain about not being able to use a 3D camera or use tank control, I just learn it and use it.

Sure, but if you have a lot of comparison examples in a genre with a very standardized sets of controls, FPS or platformers for example, you can easily see whether somebody tried out something new (and maybe it didn't work out well) or somebody tried to reinvent the wheel (and managed to make it worse than the usual baseline). Sometimes changing controls is good, but very often it's because the designers are new to making games and don't get why certain control standards have evolved.

Though we have it much better these days than in the early computer and console games, some of those had really terrible control schemes
 

J_C

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I'm gonna level with you guys here. When it comes to controls in games, I'm on god teir untermensch level. You see, I developed fine motor skills, and also have a pretty decent brain (shocking, I know) which lets me do a magical thing called l e a r n i n g.

So when I sit down to play any games, I just use these two to learn the controls of the game, instead if hitting the keyboad like a breaindead person shouting "wWwhhy Dooessn't thHHiiss playyy LIkkeEE tHHee Wayy I wAAANNtt!!!" So while others complain about not being able to use a 3D camera or use tank control, I just learn it and use it.

Sure, but if you have a lot of comparison examples in a genre with a very standardized sets of controls, FPS or platformers for example, you can easily see whether somebody tried out something new (and maybe it didn't work out well) or somebody tried to reinvent the wheel (and managed to make it worse than the usual baseline). Sometimes changing controls is good, but very often it's because the designers are new to making games and don't get why certain control standards have evolved.

Though we have it much better these days than in the early computer and console games, some of those had really terrible control schemes
Sure, I was just making a joke. In all seriousness, I know that sometimes controls just don't click with the player, but unless it is some borked abortion, gamers should just get used to it instead of complaining all the time. I've seen so many games where gamers where bitching about not being able to play because of bad controls. Just think about the "legendary" Gothic controls which are perfectly servicable, yet it is in memory as bad control.
 

PulsatingBrain

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I just learn it and use it

Is this supposed to be a positive attitude? I've never encountered a control scheme that I was unable to learn and use. But if it's bad, then it's fucking bad lol. Being the primary way to interact with a video game, it's pretty important that controls make sense and feel good
 
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Thac0

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Well there can be objectively bad controls. Like putting all of the most important control options in the lower left corner of the keyboard, and then forcing you to press multiple of those at once to perform various functions.
Or console games like Kingdom Hearts 1 having rotating the camera mapped to L2 and R2. That makes platforming really tedious.

But we see less and less of that as development costs raise and the ability to remap buttons becomes more and more common. Pretty much every game offers you more than one control scheme nowadays, even if it's console trash.
 

RolePlayer

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Highly intellectual individuals like you and me are often misunderstood and suppressed for our opinions. Dont fret about these people, they will never get it.
I tip my fedora to you, my good Sir!
How did you like the driving mechanics in Gothic? I used my Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog and it was a treat.
Underrated post.
I can't even began to describe how many places ive been banned from (reddit subs, twitter, other forums, etc.) simply for having an independent thought and stating it unapologetically.
 

Grauken

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Highly intellectual individuals like you and me are often misunderstood and suppressed for our opinions. Dont fret about these people, they will never get it.
I tip my fedora to you, my good Sir!
How did you like the driving mechanics in Gothic? I used my Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog and it was a treat.
Underrated post.
I can't even began to describe how many places ive been banned from (reddit subs, twitter, other forums, etc.) simply for having an independent thought and stating it unapologetically.

What thought was that?
 

Bad Sector

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The OG Tomb Raider games are infamous for their tank control scheme, however the rigid controls are what make the simplistic level design challenging and engaging, the shitty combat also depends on it. The controls are such an integral part of the games' design that you cannot do without them, adding modern controls would just ruin them.

Allowing for turning Lara with the mouse would be an improvement though since Tomb Raider's tank controls allow for precise controls (that the grid-based levels take advantage of) and the mouse allows for more precision than the arrow keys. A few months ago there was an MS-DOS game jam and i made a Tomb Raider-like game (or at least it started as a Tomb Raider-like game, but TR needs too many animations so i just made it more of an adventure game, but it still has tank controls, jumping, grabbing, etc similar to TR1 as well as grid-based levels) which has very similar (though clunkier since everything was made in essentially five weeks) controls to TR1. Recently i decided to do an OpenGL port and also add mouse support) for turning, activating and jumping and the game feels much better and more precise to control using it (this is just a video because i haven't released the new version yet since it has some glitches - in case you want to check how the game plays originally without trying it yourself, check this video by the FreeDOS guy who plays the first level for a bit). I'm certain that TR1-TR5 could have similar support for mouse and it'd be an overall improvement.
 
Last edited:

flyingjohn

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Camera was usually the problem with older games,not the controls.Especially in the early days of 3d.
For 2d there was no problem you couldn't adjust to easily.

The only control problems i can think are 8 bit computer strategy games that control with the num keys clockwise.
SSI was notorious for them.
 
Unwanted

Horvatii

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What thought was that?
ekwS9Cf.jpg
 

Gerrard

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'Bad' controls can add a lot of depth to a game. The OG Tomb Raider games are infamous for their tank control scheme, however the rigid controls are what make the simplistic level design challenging and engaging, the shitty combat also depends on it. The controls are such an integral part of the games' design that you cannot do without them, adding modern controls would just ruin them.



My personal favorite example of this is Armored Core for PS1, a game which I still replay to this day. AC is a third person shooter that was made before analog controls were standard, you control your mech like a tank with the d-pad and strafe with the shoulder buttons(L1, R1), to move the camera up and down to aim you need to use the trigger(L2, R2) buttons, press X to jump and hold to boost. This absolute disaster of a control scheme takes some getting used to since it requires full utilization of six of your fingers and the entire controller, but the feeling of accomplishment you get when you finally master the controls and are able to make your mech fly is amazing.


So what you're saying is that if your game is shallow as fuck just add shitty controls to it so autists like you will think it has deep gameplay? Noted.
 

Nifft Batuff

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I remember playing all the DOOM 1&2 and Quake levels using the mouse for movements forward/backward and horizontal rotation (with second button to toggle strafe), i.e. the default settings. And it felt completely natural.
 

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