Feedback and thoughts.

[El Maco]

I hope I'm not hijacking the thread but I don't want to make yet another topic for this.

The following (not at all uncommon) scenario is probably the best example I can give to describe the issue I'm having with the control scheme in Exanima. I want to perform the simplest of tasks, walk through an open door.

If I was playing some other game, I would expect to pull the analog stick towards Left and then Up and I would walk through the door.

In Exanima, however, I hover the mouse all the way to the left side of the character, hold down RMB, wait for the character to slowly rotate and start walking, hover the mouse back to where it was, hold down RMB, wait for the character to slowly rotate and start walking again. If I'm lucky I didn't over/undershoot and I actually walk through the door. If I'm being chased, I probably die before I can make it.

It must be these kind of things, combined with the exaggerated intertia associated with all the movement in the game, which is the reason why the controls feel "tanky" to me.

The way I play now is different from the default setup. WASD movement happens relative to the direction to the mouse pointer. So the previous scenario becomes "press A to walk Left, then press W to walk through the door". The inertia is still there, its still a bit slow and cumbersome, but I think its a big improvement nonetheless. The price for this is that I lose the ability to perform mouse acrobatics and walk at the same time without affecting the direction I'm walking towards. I'm sure this issue could be resolved somehow if such an ability is really essential to have.

Personally I can cope with the character relative WASD movement during combat which most people seem to complain about. I think a system that was built around a camera that automatically follows the character could work but its difficult to say without prototyping it. However, the system we have now is decent. Its not intuitive but its not frustrating either after you learn it. I'm not in a position where I can collect my diploma yet, I tend to spam spacebar a lot during the combat but I guess its manageable in any case.

 

[Tony]

In the situation above what I do is press and hold 'W' to walk forward while also holding down 'A' to make my character rotate enough that he won't walk into the door. After I'm past the door I then continue to use 'RMB' to keep walking/running. I believe situations like this is why they enabled movement keys to control your character while out of combat mode instead of solely relying on RMB.

EDIT: I also just wanted to note that you can use right mouse button to click once in any direction and your character will immediately turn to face that direction. It does not have to be a slow or gradual process. An alternative method to the one I previously mentioned would be to position the cursor to the left of the character, click 'RMB' once to turn your character that direction, then hold down 'RMB' to keep walking through the doorway.

 

[El Maco]

In the situation above what I do is press and hold 'W' to walk forward while also holding down 'A' to make my character rotate enough that he won't walk into the door.

In other words you switch to the tank control mode temporarily and then back to the mouse mode again. I guess that works, but IMO its not very intuitive and if you're close to the door you will also need to stand still and wait for the character to rotate. Overall this means that the game expects the player to learn a total of 3 completely unrelated control schemes and apply each of them when the situation demands it. The cognitive load becomes quite big, only to perform the very basic tasks such as walking around in the dungeon.

 

[Tony]

In other words you switch to the tank control mode temporarily and then back to the mouse mode again. I guess that works, but IMO its not very intuitive and if you're close to the door you will also need to stand still and wait for the character to rotate. This means that the game expects the player to learn a total of 3 completely unrelated control schemes and apply each of them when the situation demands it. The cognitive load becomes quite big, only to perform the very basic tasks such as walking around in the dungeon.

I edited my previous post to clarify that you can do the same thing using just the mouse. But what the movement keys allow is to interact with objects while simultaneously moving. A great example of this is holding "W" to walk through a doorway while simultaneously using the mouse to close the door - very handy for quickly avoiding zombies .

EDIT: all of the different parts of the control scheme were designed to enable as much functionality as possible in as many different situations as possible. In your previous example if I was too close to the door I would not sit and slowly rotate. I'd press "S" to take one step backwards then continue onwards through the door. Or if you just wanted to use the mouse and you were too close to the door: position the cursor behind your character, click 'RMB' once to turn your character in that direction, then hold 'RMB' and continue on.

 

[El Maco]

I tried the method you suggested, its still clumsy at best when I try to switch between the control styles on the fly. I didn't realize you could turn quicker by clicking RMB shortly, this kinda enables a fourth way to move, clicking RMB everywhere while pressing 'W' to walk.

Sure, I need to stop running in order to be able to close a door behind me. Its difficult to see this as a problem because while I concentrate on the door I cannot pay attention to where my character is headed anyway.

 

[Tony]

I tried the method you suggested, its still clumsy at best when I try to switch between the control styles on the fly. I didn't realize you could turn quicker by clicking RMB shortly, this kinda enables a fourth way to move, clicking RMB everywhere while pressing 'W' to walk.

Sure, I need to stop running in order to be able to close a door behind me. Its difficult to see this as a problem because while I concentrate on the door I cannot pay attention to where my character is headed anyway.

I can sprint through the entire map at full speed, navigate doorways, obstacles, etc. with no problems. What exactly is giving you issues?

 

[El Maco]

I can sprint through the entire map at full speed, navigate doorways, obstacles, etc. with no problems. What exactly is giving you issues?

I don't doubt that you can. To some extent I can too, but with the default control system its not very smooth. The root of my "problem" is most likely that I'm used to playing games with a game controller which is basically the ideal device to control character movement in the 3rd person view. Being forced to adapt a more clunky/unintuitive/inconsistent control scheme wakes up the nonconformist in me Since you asked for ideas of how to improve the control scheme I couldn't resist describing my solution once more, even though Madoc already shot it down based on similar reasoning with you. I know the mouse-relative WASD movement alleviates a lot for me, but would it help anybody else, that I don't know.

 

[burgzaza]

I can sprint through the entire map at full speed, navigate doorways, obstacles, etc. with no problems. What exactly is giving you issues?

Me too, in my last run I even opened all doors of the first level without fighting ( just to see the undeads roam everywhere until I return ) I was chased sometimes but just ran away.
The thing is, it takes some practice. At first too I bumped in doors like a blind zombie ^^

 

[Anthony Obilor]

Pls guys do not waste your breath, he admitted himself that his choice is controllers and 3rd person view and even shot down our control scheme multiple times in the same thread as if it would make the magic of 3rd person and control view the revolutionary best choice. Pls he is a kid that only knows how to play with a controller, trying to promote his way on the game. You have advised him and yet he either behaves too dumb or is simply too dumb to even bother to try. He wants insta-move controller game. It is really starting to annoy me. and madoc even replied him personally, so he knows, he is simply just throwing a tantrum to get his way by bashing what others love.

Acting like Moses came and gave you the golden control method.

 

[Ruusunpuna]

Pls guys do not waste your breathe, he admitted himself that his choice is controllers and 3rd person view and even shot down our control scheme multiple times in the same thread as if it would make the magic of 3rd person and control view the revolutionary best choice. Pls he is a kid that only knows how to play with a controller, trying to promote his way on the game. You have advised him and yet he either behaves too dumb or is simply too dumb to even bother to try. He wants insta-move controller game. It is really starting to annoy me. and madoc even replied him personally, so he knows, he is simply just throwing a tantrum to get his way by bashing what others love.

Acting like Moses came and gave you the golden control method.

Are you talking about Hariwulf? Man, that guy is the definition of a difficult person...

 

[El Maco]

You have advised him and yet he either behaves too dumb or is simply too dumb to even bother to try.

A friendly tip for you: simply because someone has a different opinion, it doesn't mean that the person is automatically "dumb". It merely means that the person has a different view on things than you do. If you can accept this, maybe even try to have a look from the new perspective yourself instead of dismissing it, you might learn something. Just saying...

 

[Anthony Obilor]

A friendly tip for you: simply because someone has a different opinion, it doesn't mean that the person is automatically "dumb". It merely means that the person has a different view on things than you do. If you can accept this, maybe even try to have a look from the new perspective yourself instead of dismissing it, you might learn something. Just saying...

What do you call a person who cant use a system and keeps bashing it while others seem to be doing just fine? Even the person with highest authority here has told you why your system cannot work, but you keep dissing a system that works in a cry for attention to what you want. It seems you intentionally don't want to like the system because it isn't your preferred choice. And this is not a new perspective, this has been tested,this has been found wanting, yes tested exactly like you suggest, and you have been told this but yet you keep digging the carcass out. So by my great powers of deduction, I concluded that you dont want to learn or like the system because it is not your prefered choice of view and control, instead you bash the system with untrue words like "clunky/unintuitive/inconsistent control scheme ". You love what bare Mettle are creating but you are just too immature to respect the reasons they have given you for why what you keep proposing doesnt work.

 

[Faelivrin]

Not my call.. but I personally find commendable when someone that is not satisfied with a system (even if it works for others) makes a effort to understand the positive and the negative points about it, and proactively attempts to improve it with concrete actions and not just feedback. Because there is not such a thing as a infallible system and there is not a single solution for everything.

 

[Elaxter]

The camera-oriented control scheme sounds okay at first, but when you really get into practice it's kinda eh. Think about it. If you play with the camera a lot, like some folks do, the camera-oriented WASD system would be a drag. One moment, your character is walking forward, and the next they are side stepping into the wall because you were adjusting to the new angle. With the current system, you can spin the camera 360 degrees and your character will always go forward. It's the same way of learning how to work a camera-oriented system, but you're looking at it from your character's perspective.

 

[El Maco]

To me it seems that a lot of people are indeed struggling with the controls (just an example, the "most frustrating thing I've tried in years" thread about the controls on Steam has 240 replies and counting*). Because I actually took the time to prototype and test some alternative control methods, I just thought I'd share the findings. That's all.

I would not stop here if I had the chance. I would like to try to reduce the movement inertia to "tighten up" the controls a little bit. An action RPG with strong emphasis on player skill should be as accurately/tightly controlled as possible. However I'm not sure if doing this would be easy to even BM themselves because of the physics engine and possibly some other reasons.

In somewhat related news, I need a mod which adds a dead horse to the spawn room of Exanima. That way I can go beat the horse with a wood plank every time I feel like complaining about the control scheme at the BM forum. I'm hoping the upcoming modding kit will make this dream a possiblity.

***

*) actually I'm not sure if this is a real problem at all. Marketing is such a strange sport. If you can establish that your game is "hard core" in a good way, people will want to learn it and play it even if they need to overlook a few quirks to do so. Maybe Exanima is such a game. I certainly hope so.

 

[Anthony Obilor]

To me it seems that a lot of people are indeed struggling with the controls (just an example, the "most frustrating thing I've tried in years" thread about the controls on Steam has 240 replies and counting*). Because I actually took the time to prototype and test some alternative control methods, I just thought I'd share the findings. That's all.

I would not stop here if I had the chance. I would like to try to reduce the movement inertia to "tighten up" the controls a little bit. An action RPG with strong emphasis on player skill should be as accurately/tightly controlled as possible. However I'm not sure if doing this would be easy to even BM themselves because of the physics engine and possibly some other reasons.

In somewhat related news, I need a mod which adds a dead horse to the spawn room of Exanima. That way I can go beat the horse with a wood plank every time I feel like complaining about the control scheme at the BM forum. I'm hoping the upcoming modding kit will make this dream a possiblity.

***

*) actually I'm not sure if this is a real problem at all. Marketing is such a strange sport. If you can establish that your game is "hard core" in a good way, people will want to learn it and play it even if they need to overlook a few quirks to do so. Maybe Exanima is such a game. I certainly hope so.

I see you are still misinformed, first off this is not an action rpg.the Devs have a vision and it is isometric. Secondly, just because you are bad at the game doesn't mean it is bad. That thread has alot of posts cuz sensible people keep giving you the reasons why such system can't work and wanna-bes keep crying "but why". I think u shud buy a dead horse and put it in ur living room to beat cuz i think u wud miss the horse completely in game fall on ur face and blame the game again cuz u suck. Accept maybe the game is just too sophisticated for u,but u love the look and combat of the game so u can watch videos of us be awesome,simples.

Pls stop trying to make the game darks souls 3,go to their forums and tell them how crap their game is cuz it doesn't have physics like this MMaybe u will have better luck there.

 

[ShaolinG]

Added a few changes to topic. I left suggestion about controls to maybe new folks see it and understand that devs are aware of it

 

[El Maco]

Pls stop trying to make the game darks souls 3,go to their forums and tell them how crap their game is cuz it doesn't have physics like this

I'm sure there would be fewer personal insults thrown if I did that. As far as I know the Japanese are pretty polite people.

 

[ridikyuhlus]

Someone should make a general bugs / glitches / feedback thread for everyone to report in on and not have people argue back at them.


EDIT: Made a general thread for everyone. I moved my entire post there!

 

[Faelivrin]

This thread over steam is getting really interesting ^^ since BM is taking feedback i figured i'd share
http://steamcommunity.com/app/362490/discussions/0/620712364045322018/