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A word to the joystick-botherers


Verain

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The "friction" and even "class balance" threads have some comments on joysticks recently. These have popped up intermittently over the history of GSF.

 

By all means, post in that "friction" thread. It's clearly an issue for you, and the devs will see it.

 

 

But I want to rain on your parade from outside the thread.

 

 

SWTOR is a mouse and keyboard game. To add joysticks would require some technical debt that they would have to forever maintain. Joysticks aren't as uniform as mouse and keyboard (and they CERTAINLY do not "look like a mouse" as one poster claimed), and even in games that natively support joysticks, there's always people complaining about how to make them work. No one is asking how to work the pointer on even the cheapest of dumpster-dived mice.

 

Joysticks, if added, would be added terribly, badly, or correctly. Here's how each of those turn out (spoiler: all of them create drama for the game, and risk player participation to hook the joystick brothers):

 

 

Terrible Joystick Support

In this model, the joystick controls the mouse. You can have this TODAY, in fact! You can simply make your joystick into a type of virtual mouse, such that if you hold your joystick in the upper right position, it is the equivalent of moving your mouse up and to the right (or down and to the right, if you flipped Y axis), until, after some amount of time, it reaches the limit of the screen. I *think* there is another way to do it such that the joystick extents roughly map to the entirety of the screen, but I'm not sure how that could work.

 

The reason this support is TERRIBLE is that you are just controlling the cursor in a lamer way. The mouse is really good at controlling the cursor- it has acceleration and sensitivity values you can tune to your personal strengths. The weaknesses of the mouse control are basically that you don't control your ship immediately (your ship pitches and yaws to chase your cursor- very slightly if your cursor is mostly centered, much more dramatically if the cursor is far away), and also that your weapon gimbal is by necessity related entirely to your direction of pitch and yaw. You cannot, for instance, be pitching up sharply and shooting straight with no penalties to targets in the middle of your screen- you must be shooting at max deflection, your weapons gimballed up as far as they can go.

 

These are the same disadvantages everyone playing GSF shares, and you don't get the advantage of precise control over cursor location- the worst of the mouse world AND the joystick world. But if you want, you can have this terrible control scheme today- some have done it for the lulz.

 

 

Bad Joystick Support

With Bad Joystick support, the joystick is perceived as a separate religion from the mouse completely. The cursor is locked in the center of the screen, and you must rigidly move your ship correctly. This captures the field of fixed-weapon fighters, but puts the joystick user at a mix of advantages of disadvantages compared to the keyboard and mouse guy. He has lagless control over pitch and yaw with his joystick (roll is digital in this game- you are rolling left, rolling right, or not rolling, and there are no other choices, so roll would still be buttons instead of an axis on your flightstick), but he cannot ever make deflection shots. His capabilities are fundamentally different than those of a keyboard and mouse pilot, and they are generally worse. Given how weapons are balanced in part around their deflection penalties, this pilot must learn to fly differently, and will benefit from entirely different weapons than the keyboard and mouse pilot.

 

The players who live here already and love joystick games will use the joystick, generally come to the conclusion that it is fun but useless, and move on. But the players who would join just for the joystick would be furious- their world is much harder than it should be. They would pelt the forums with complaints, with suggestions about how to fix the joystick. They would also ask for tech support for why their newest whatever don't work, but whatevs.

 

So this solution ultimately makes no one happy.

 

 

Correct Joystick Support

In this model, the joystick controls pitch and yaw, and targeting is controlled by any of: analog hat, mouse, or some kind of auto-aim. In all cases, the joystick would correctly serve as a superior control solution to the keyboard and mouse, as you would have independent control over gimbal and lagless control over flight, delinking two items linked for keyboard and mouse players. If the "auto-aim" thing is implemented terribly, see the "bad" section. If it is implemented well, then it is the same sort of thing.

 

Now we have the veterans dusting off their HOTAS solutions, the casual players are getting farmed with keyboard and mouse (and immediately take to the forums claiming that the game is impossible without a HOTAS, maybe correctly, maybe incorrectly), and the "must have joystick" players have finally found a home, where they immediately get burst to death by scouts, sniped from railguns they don't see, and blown up by seismics that have gotta be nerfed now, bro, now.

 

 

Every situation doesn't help the game. All require initial cost. All put down permanent technical debt to be ported through every stupid subversion of Microsoft Windows, every Hero Engine modification that they make, every new driver with German documentation Saitek puts out. The joysticks are either crappy or mandatory, and the non-flight sim parts of the game- such as the roll being "left, right, or no" and the throttle being "off, low, some, yes"- stick out oddly in a world where you have a legit throttle and a third axis waiting to make you roll properly.

 

 

So while you are free to beg the devs for joysticks, and I would personally love if I could drag out my HOTAS in this game, I feel your odds of doing this are low, and it won't even just be because of the effort required. It would mean huge changes that would by necessity disorient at least some of the playerbase, permanently.

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Mouse and keyboard just doesn't feel "natural" for a flight game to me. I must always ask myself : "Are those people in that plane kilometres over my head [in RL] using mouse and keyboard to steer that plane, too ?"

 

It just doesn't feel "natural" for me, because I've grown up using a joystick for that.

 

Younger generations, I assume, which have never played any game with a joystick, would not understand how a game would require a joystick. My guess is that they would have the same problems playing GSF with a joystick like those who have problems playing GSF with a mouse.

 

To this day I refuse to play "Freelance" because of that. (apart from that really bad story).

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Mouse and keyboard just doesn't feel "natural" for a flight game to me. I must always ask myself : "Are those people in that plane kilometres over my head [in RL] using mouse and keyboard to steer that plane, too ?"

 

It just doesn't feel "natural" for me, because I've grown up using a joystick for that.

 

Younger generations, I assume, which have never played any game with a joystick, would not understand how a game would require a joystick. My guess is that they would have the same problems playing GSF with a joystick like those who have problems playing GSF with a mouse.

 

To this day I refuse to play "Freelance" because of that. (apart from that really bad story).

 

 

Mouse and keyboard just doesn't feel "natural" for a walking game to me. I must always ask myself : "Are those people on the ground kilometres around me [in RL] using mouse and keyboard to steer themselves, too ?"

 

It just doesn't feel "natural" for me, because I've grown up using my feet for that.

 

Younger generations, I assume, which have never played any game with feet, would not understand how a game would require legs. My guess is that they would have the same problems playing SWTOR with legs like those who have problems playing SWTOR with a mouse.

 

To this day I refuse to play the ground game because of that. (apart from that really bad story).

Edited by Greezt
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Yeah, I'm about as old as a gamer gets. I remember the old Atari joysticks, the ones with only one button awkwardly positioned in the corner of the square controller with a joystick jutting out of the center and a thick and always too short cord jammed in with a metal connector to the console. Anyone else remember those? The damn things couldn't even do Pac Man right. I have to say, I like the keyboard and mouse controls for PC. GSF was just designed around them.
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lol @close

 

That's a pretty good response. I'll go less snark though.

 

 

There's nothing "old school" about a joystick. It's the ideal control method for many types of games, and is a great input in general. The inputs available have greatly shaped how games are played: first person shooters reliably give you an almost infinite turning radius, because that is what your mouse naturally has, and as such feel "more natural" to players, not because there is anything realistic about a person revolving at 1000 rpm, but because the in-game avatar responds to their mouse commands immediately.

 

A game where you are controlling flight surfaces instead of the avatar directly- which GSF sorta counts as- should use a joystick naturally.

 

This creates a huge issue for the devs of any game- "what do my players have"? If your potential playerbase are all going to have mouse and keyboard, and a small fraction are going to have a flightstick, your priority becomes supporting the mouse and keyboard.

 

Once THAT decision is made, then the rest of the game is built around it. Because the mouse is so terrible for controlling the flight surfaces, it instead has to control multiple things at once. As long as the players are all stuck with the same limits, it is fair, even if it doesn't feel nearly as much like flying as it could, even if your ship is greatly limited in what it could accomplish if you had a proper control scheme.

 

Given that the game is fully pvp all the time with no exceptions, homogeneity of input takes precedence over superior control, or even more fun control.

 

I'm not here to poop on flight sticks, I'm just here to say why adding them to GSF is both unlikely and risky.

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Here's the rub though, if they don't add controller or joystick support, how are you going to entice those players who are willing to play gsf into the game mode without it?

 

I'd play, but lack of controller support essentially means I really will not bother. It's not something I would play with keyboard or mouse, period. Regardless of whatever "reasoning" you may want to come up with to justify the lack of support for controllers or joysticks that has been requested since the game mode was introduced.

 

BioWare said they would look at that when feedback was given, but to this date nothing has been said further by them about it. I'd link the thread but it isn't coming up on forum search for what I'm searching under.

 

TL;DR - No controller and joystick support essentially kills GSF for many players. Nothing else changed is going to make a difference.

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Here's the rub though, if they don't add controller or joystick support, how are you going to entice those players who are willing to play gsf into the game mode without it?

 

I'd play, but lack of controller support essentially means I really will not bother. It's not something I would play with keyboard or mouse, period. Regardless of whatever "reasoning" you may want to come up with to justify the lack of support for controllers or joysticks that has been requested since the game mode was introduced.

 

BioWare said they would look at that when feedback was given, but to this date nothing has been said further by them about it. I'd link the thread but it isn't coming up on forum search for what I'm searching under.

 

TL;DR - No controller and joystick support essentially kills GSF for many players. Nothing else changed is going to make a difference.

 

That sums it up pretty well for a lot of us.

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Did you two not read Verain's post at all? There is simply no way to implement it correctly. If you have any suggestions I'd love to hear them, but all I'm seeing is a bunch of head-in-the-dirt naysaying in the face of a well reasoned and thoroughly thought out post by someone with a vast amount of experience in this area.

 

Joystick/Controller support may get a couple people interested at the start, but they would find it to be a bad time and would litter these forums with a whole new slew of complaints levied against the M+K users. Its zero-sum folks.

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Considering SWG implemented it 'correctly' in their mouse and keyboard MMORPG for Jump To Lightspeed about 13 years ago... the entire argument of "it cant be done" is pretty much null and void.

 

I tried the GSF, and went ... nope, not gonna care. Its no better than SWTOR's original 'space flight on rails' garbage they released with. Just... off the rails, so to speak.

 

Since this entire game has been pushed towards the solo-play-easy-casual-market... its really no bother. I won't ever be resubbing or paying for anything in this game due to the clear lack of improvements over the last 6 years. :rolleyes:

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Did you two not read Verain's post at all? There is simply no way to implement it correctly.

 

I mean I could ask you the exact same question about reading couldn't I? Doesn't exactly help though does it?

 

Regardless of whatever "reasoning" you may want to come up with to justify the lack of support for controllers or joysticks that has been requested since the game mode was introduced.
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Here's the rub though, if they don't add controller or joystick support, how are you going to entice those players who are willing to play gsf into the game mode without it?

 

Presumably you mean, "How will they entice joystick-only players to play GSF?"

 

The probable answer is, they simply won't.

 

I'd play, but lack of controller support essentially means I really will not bother. It's not something I would play with keyboard or mouse, period.

 

I get that. But if you read my post, it isn't about that at all. It's about what adding disparate and unbalanced control schemes will do to a FULLY PVP game.

 

J2L had a bunch of farmable idiot mob-ships. It had actual PvE.

 

J2L wasn't a space sim with support for multiple control types: it was a HOTAS game that supported mouse and keyboard, technically. It takes almost no effort to find a BUNCH of pilots casually remarking that K+M is generally inferior, frustrating, etc.

 

Turning GSF into this is a demand to throw away the K+M players. For a game where I have seen people come up with ANY excuse as to why it is unbalanced, ranging gear to grouping to experience, adding "have a two hundred dollar HOTAS or play at a disadvantage" would just be one more biting criticism aimed at the game.

 

Regardless of whatever "reasoning" you may want to come up with to justify the lack of support for controllers or joysticks that has been requested since the game mode was introduced.

 

I like that you put reasoning in quotes, like I didn't have actual reasoning, or like I wouldn't know what that looked like.

 

BioWare said they would look at that when feedback was given, but to this date nothing has been said further by them about it.

 

Hint hint.

 

TL;DR - No controller and joystick support essentially kills GSF for many players. Nothing else changed is going to make a difference.

 

Would GSF gain more players by adding joystick support? Would it even gain YOU? If you play GSF, you'll quickly realize how wildly integrated the mouse is, and how different it feels compared to J2L.

 

Considering SWG implemented it 'correctly' in their mouse and keyboard MMORPG for Jump To Lightspeed about 13 years ago... the entire argument of "it cant be done" is pretty much null and void.

 

They absolutely did not, though!

 

They made a joystick game, and then threw some bones to K+M players. A mouse guy who wanted to fly in pvp was at a serious disadvantage. In this game, that's literally ALL you do, is fly pvp against other pilots. You can't treat that as a secondary thing.

 

And I went over all those possibilities. J2L falls into the third category: it had correct joystick support. With the mouse and keyboard guys not really getting a fair shake.

 

 

Given that the game is fully pvp, you always require pilots queuing up. If you put a superior control scheme gated by hardware access, that will definitely have the stink of favoritism, definitely discourage people from queuing.

 

I mean I could ask you the exact same question about reading couldn't I?

 

No, you couldn't. Or at least, it wouldn't make sense. Because we are addressing your points, and you're ignoring ours.

 

 

 

 

When I mean that the mouse is well integrated, I mean exactly that. You are often unable to put a pilot under your crosshairs, unable to make a shot without gimballing. This occurs on nodes quite a bit, but in other places as well. The limitations of the controls are universal, as are the advantages. Add joysticks, and you have a completely different (and impossible to balance) set. In J2L, the answer was: use a joystick. I get why the devs are unwilling to make such a concession, and more importantly, I draw out the three ways that joysticks could be added, with their likely results.

Edited by Verain
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Considering SWG implemented it 'correctly' in their mouse and keyboard MMORPG for Jump To Lightspeed about 13 years ago... the entire argument of "it cant be done" is pretty much null and void.

 

Also I was able to find 17 pages of players trying to get joysticks to work on a SWG forum. I sure can't wait to see that happen here lol.

Edited by Verain
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Look, I played JtL and GSF since their respective betas. Did any of you, who demand joystick support be added to GSF, or you will take your ball and go back to your room?

 

Because if you did, you would remember that it was almost always superior to use a mouse to control a turret in a POB ship. Using a joystick in a turret was clunky. Just like using a mouse to pilot the ship was awkward, compared to using a joystick to fly.

 

That's because the turrets were gimballed and the guns controlled by the pilots was not.

 

JtL was a fundamentally different control scheme and if you ever sat in the turret of a POB ship you'd understand why joystick controls in THIS game would be inferior to K+M.

 

I get it, really I do, I lobbied for joystick support during GSF's beta and even tried to get my x52 pro working in GSF. But the time to drastically change the control schemes was back in beta, not now.

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Here's the rub though, if they don't add controller or joystick support, how are you going to entice those players who are willing to play gsf into the game mode without it?

 

I'd play, but lack of controller support essentially means I really will not bother. It's not something I would play with keyboard or mouse, period. Regardless of whatever "reasoning" you may want to come up with to justify the lack of support for controllers or joysticks that has been requested since the game mode was introduced.

 

BioWare said they would look at that when feedback was given, but to this date nothing has been said further by them about it. I'd link the thread but it isn't coming up on forum search for what I'm searching under.

 

TL;DR - No controller and joystick support essentially kills GSF for many players. Nothing else changed is going to make a difference.

 

 

You refuse to play without having a perceived technological advantage over the common player(KB&M)...gotcha

 

If that is not the case then I have great news. Many people have figured out how to play GSF with joysticks and controllers. It's just not as good as KB&M and the KB&M people will have an advantage...is that okay?

Edited by Lendul
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You refuse to play without having a perceived technological advantage over the common player(KB&M)...gotcha

 

Let me know where I implied that. I'll happily wait Lendul.

 

This isn't about which control scheme is "superior" or which control scheme is "inferior", this is purely (on my part) about preference of controller for a type of game mode. Heck, I couldn't give a flying monkeys rear end if controllers were deliberately made to be inferior in GSF, it's still something I would prefer to use to play the game mode.

 

Yes, balance could be thrown out of whack, but from the sounds of it (from reading in this very forum) that is the least of GSF issues right now. I mean you can all carry on in your own little bubble world if you like, but feedback was asked from BioWare and some of us have given it.

 

You don't have to like it or agree with it.

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Let me know where I implied that. I'll happily wait Lendul.

 

This isn't about which control scheme is "superior" or which control scheme is "inferior", this is purely (on my part) about preference of controller for a type of game mode. Heck, I couldn't give a flying monkeys rear end if controllers were deliberately made to be inferior in GSF, it's still something I would prefer to use to play the game mode.

 

Yes, balance could be thrown out of whack, but from the sounds of it (from reading in this very forum) that is the least of GSF issues right now. I mean you can all carry on in your own little bubble world if you like, but feedback was asked from BioWare and some of us have given it.

 

You don't have to like it or agree with it.

 

I can't believe I'm going to agree with Lendul, but...

 

If that is not the case then I have great news. Many people have figured out how to play GSF with joysticks and controllers. It's just not as good as KB&M and the KB&M people will have an advantage...is that okay?

 

It's 100% possible to play with a joystick or a controller right now. We can help you get that set up, if you really want. It won't be as good, but it's what you want. Want us to help you with that?

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Let me know where I implied that. I'll happily wait Lendul.

 

It's pretty much the part where you ask joysticks to be added to the game.

 

Right now, you can make a joystick work in GSF. Use xpadder. There are other solutions, but here is a generic xpadder instruction video:

 

You will, of course, be controlling the reticule with your joystick.

 

 

Because you can ALREADY control the reticule with the joystick, and you are STILL asking for joystick support, I can only assume you are asking for a BETTER way to control your ship in GSF with a joystick. You might want to control the ship laglessly- throw the stick back and be pitching fully up immediately. You might want to be controlling the ship in such a way that you can be turning at maximum speed and also shooting 0 deflection, no penalty shots out the middle of the screen, which you cannot do with the mouse.

 

GSF already has terrible joystick support. You want correct joystick support, which is a large buff for joystick users.

 

This isn't about which control scheme is "superior" or which control scheme is "inferior", this is purely (on my part) about preference of controller for a type of game mode.

Xpadder

 

Heck, I couldn't give a flying monkeys rear end if controllers were deliberately made to be inferior in GSF

Xpadder

 

it's still something I would prefer to use to play the game mode.

 

Xpadder is that way ------>

 

Yes, balance could be thrown out of whack, but from the sounds of it (from reading in this very forum) that is the least of GSF issues right now.

 

It's a pvp game, we always want more balance. There's several viable ships and styles, we want more. We'd like them ALL to be viable tbh.

 

I mean you can all carry on in your own little bubble world if you like, but feedback was asked from BioWare and some of us have given it.

 

Right, and this is part of the discussion on that. They didn't ask you to give your feedback privately, or without comment. If they wanted that, they wouldn't have posted discussion threads in their discussion forum and asked for discussion.

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It's pretty much the part where you ask joysticks to be added to the game.

 

So asking for joystick support in-game provided by BioWare (without resorting to third party programs) implies;

 

You refuse to play without having a perceived technological advantage over the common player(KB&M)...gotcha

 

When I said this;

 

It's not something I would play with keyboard or mouse, period.

 

Let me see now. Nope. Not seeing it. I guess if the title of the topic is "A word to the joystick-botherers", then I really shouldn't expect to have a reasoned conversation. It's clear you'll all defend your point regardless of logic or reasoning or even being able to read correctly at what players are asking for. I'm done here.

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On the up side maybe Joystick control would tame the Gunship snipers ;)

 

Never understood the calls for joystick support, GSF is a subgame within a KB&M game it should use the parent controls or as close to it as possible.

 

Been playing Elite: Dangerous with KB&M since launch and it handles fine having a very similar flight mechanic to GSF.

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So asking for joystick support in-game provided by BioWare (without resorting to third party programs)

 

Wait hold up, you don't get to move that goalpost. And why is a third party joy2mouse program a big deal? You're ok with the joystick having it's own special doofy driver, that's third party software. First you wanted a joystick, then you wanted a joystick even if the controls were crap, now you want a joystick that doesn't require xpadder. We actually solved your problem for you, but that's not good enough.

 

 

I guess if the title of the topic is "A word to the joystick-botherers", then I really shouldn't expect to have a reasoned conversation.

 

Given that you won't be pleased no matter what happens, no, you aren't really gonna be able to bring that. I literally linked you a tutorial that will let you do exactly what you want, right? But suddenly the devs have to add that support to their game. But that won't make you happy, because you know that will be a goofy experience.

 

It's clear you'll all defend your point regardless of logic or reasoning or even being able to read correctly at what players are asking for.

 

I don't think there's going to be just one thing you are "asking for". I think you are up to two or three now anyway.

 

I'm done here.

 

...Unless the devs add joystick support, in which case you'll be a forum regular asking for autoaim and demanding sweeping component nerfs for components that don't work well for your chosen input method.

Edited by Verain
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You anti joystick guys are entitle to your opinions... but what you are failing to understand is a majority of people who aren't playing don't want to use a mouse and keyboard to play GSF... it doesn't feel like a Star Wars space game using a mouse... it ruins the immersion... it's why we don't play it and we are telling Bioware that because they want feed back...

I can pretty much guarantee that if Bio hadn't asked for feed back we would be letting you stew in your toxic pot by yourselves while you watch GSF die from lack of attention.

You should be grateful that people are even bothering to post feed back on GSF because most of us know that Bioware won't do anything to change why we don't play it. We know they won't add joystick support which means we won't bother playing GSF.

But Bio wanted to know our feed back and we are telling them why.

Nobody who wants a joystick, wants it for the stupid reasons you are spouting. None of us want an advantage, it has nothing to do with it. As far as I'm concerned you should be able to use what ever type of control input you like and none should give an advantage over another.

Your continued attacks on people who want joysticks are doing you no favours and are more likely to turn people off even trying GSF because they don't want to play with elitists.

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You anti joystick guys are entitle to your opinions... but what you are failing to understand is a majority of people who aren't playing don't want to use a mouse and keyboard to play GSF...

 

So don't. See Verain's post above. You can play with a joystick right now if that's what you want.

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So don't. See Verain's post above. You can play with a joystick right now if that's what you want.

 

Good luck with that as it's not real joystick support.

But I'm not going to continue to argue about it. I've made my point in my previous post.

You guys can now wallow in this thread knowing that people who want joystick support to play GSF can see through your elitists views.

Just know that your attitude won't encourage any of us to play GSF with you and it will die off.

 

Have fun /ignore thread and GSF till it gets real joystick support,

Edited by Icykill_
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