Advantage of mouse control

[rojo]

As a keyboard player, I find mouse to be very cumbersome. However, there is an advantage that mouse has that should be (at least) an option for keyboard users. What I speak of is the arrow/cursor that leads out of the front of the plane. I understand the reasoning for this is to dictate spead/thrust, however this also provides a scope, if you will, that allows easy aiming of long-range shots (especially advantageous for bip/randa), judging the length of the lazer (which is exactly the length of this arrow), and lastly provides easier aiming of shots in ball.

My suggestion is to provide this option for keyboard players (at least in controls), or eliminate it from mouse control users.

Before people begin flaming me for not being able to aim properly- I can aim reasonably well and can shoot reasonably well (except when I'm right in front of the goal, as guava can attest). I just think that there should not be such an advantage for certain control players over others. I do look forward to seeing what other people think about this particular aspect of mouse control.

[Spartan]

+1

it definitely helps when goal scoring, and i dont c why a mouse control should be able to use it and keyboarders cant. Unless its a balancing thing to "buff" mouse play because its thot of as being harder to use, i think keyboard control should have that option as well.

[Urpee]

I use mouse for steering only. I'd agree that it serves the function of aiming. In addition it serves the function of rapidly steering torwards the desired angle.

I tend to think that mouse+keyboard is still superior for fast precision scoring, but if people really don't want to steer with mouse that's a fine way to add something.

I think it's fine to give keyboard players the option to see the line, it would be about half the benefit only anyway.

Mouse has more of a learning curve so I do buy the incentive argument.

[Caz]

+1

keyboard <3

[Tekn0]

+1.

Definitely for keyboard shoot line.

[wolf'j'max]

my opinion is:

it is hard enough to steer already with mouse control already, showing how fast you're going which shows where you're aiming. it really isn't that big of an advantage, at some point you will crash anyway >.>

[leggomyeggo]

Eh, imo it's not that big of a deal. Personally, the little bar would just get annoying and I wouldn't even want to have it. Besides, there's so little people that use mouse that it's not causing too much catastrophe...

[mikesol]

I have mixed feelings about this.

On one hand:
Mouse control inherently seems to be a lot harder to play - but it seems to be like time anchor in the sense that if you can get through it and learn it you deserve to have some advantages. Donk plays mouse control and is one of the best players in the game. He clearly worked at it to get there and giving everyone else the advantage of that seems to be kind of a let-down for all the work he put into learning mouse control to use that. Keyboard is easy enough to play - no sense in giving everyone else the benefits of the mouse without giving them any of the downsides.

On the other hand:
It is kind of lame that you can aim so much better with mouse control. The game originally started with keyboard and asking players to switch to mouse control to gain the advantages of that is a bit of a let down.

[rojo]

@Mike-
Maybe I inappropriately worded my suggestion when I originally typed it, but I did not intend to imply that mouse control = EZ mode. Nor did I intend to take anything away from those who play it and have mastered it.

[Stormich]

I mostly agree with Mikesols statement. Even though mouse is harder to learn, having an aim bar extend for 2-3-4 plane lengths is just making you that much closer to an enemy making it possibly to snipe from farther away. Maybe if the bar was behind the plane and not in front.

[mikesol]

Originally Posted by rojo

@Mike-
Maybe I inappropriately worded my suggestion when I originally typed it, but I did not intend to imply that mouse control = EZ mode. Nor did I intend to take anything away from those who play it and have mastered it.

I didn't mean to imply either. I simply was saying that in a way by giving other players the benefits of it - it would make mouse control even less worthwhile to play because it's so much harder to learn / master.

[Tekn0]

Originally Posted by mikesol

I didn't mean to imply either. I simply was saying that in a way by giving other players the benefits of it - it would make mouse control even less worthwhile to play because it's so much harder to learn / master.

So it comes down to what the devs answer to -- Should choosing a particularly controller offer certain advantages like this?

[elxir]

Originally Posted by mikesol

I didn't mean to imply either. I simply was saying that in a way by giving other players the benefits of it - it would make mouse control even less worthwhile to play because it's so much harder to learn / master.

I think it's a little silly to give someone a sniper rifle line of doom just because they're using a different control setup. I don't think the intent of mouse control implementation was to give someone a ridiculously great shooting advantage if they could master the quirkiness of the mouse.

What I mean is, it's a little counter intuitive to implement an inferior control system, and in effect massively 'buff' people's desire to use it with this line thing. The controls being used should not ever affect in-game play. That's ridiculous.

[mikesol]

Originally Posted by elxir

I think it's a little silly to give someone a sniper rifle line of doom just because they're using a different control setup. I don't think the intent of mouse control implementation was to give someone a ridiculously great shooting advantage if they could master the quirkiness of the mouse.

What I mean is, it's a little counter intuitive to implement an inferior control system, and in effect massively 'buff' people's desire to use it with this line thing. The controls being used should not ever affect in-game play. That's ridiculous.

You're missing me playing devil's advocate here. I already agreed with you a few posts up. :X

[elxir]

Well, no u.

[deno333]

Two scenarios to even planefield:

Scenario 1(take away cursor): The main purpose for the cursor line is to help control throttle/brake, which in turn gives that advantage with aiming. What if there was a way to eliminate the line and have something else control the th/br(i.e. the scroll wheel on the mouse; don't know if it's possible, just an idea) No throttle line=no aiming advantage.

Scenario 2(add cursor): Controls would probably stay the same.

With or without cursor, I think mouse will still be slightly more precise than keyboard - similar to an FPS on PC vs. FPS on console

Thoughts?

(I prefer Keyboard, btw)

[blln4lyf]

Well tbh I don't think mouse is really any more difficult.. People just assume it is because they have already gotten used to keyboard and it is awkward until you play it a bunch. Both have advantages and disadvantages but even without the aimer I think the mouse is strategically better by a slight margin. My take is you remove it for both or give keyboard only the option to have it.

[andy]

If you added a line of fire to the keyboard setup it would lower the skill ceiling so much i dont even think it would be still worth playing this game.. On the other hand i dont see why you can have easier shooting if you use another control method.

[rotflolocopter]

Originally Posted by blln4lyf

Well tbh I don't think mouse is really any more difficult.. People just assume it is because they have already gotten used to keyboard and it is awkward until you play it a bunch. Both have advantages and disadvantages but even without the aimer I think the mouse is strategically better by a slight margin. My take is you remove it for both or give keyboard only the option to have it.

+1

Players who are used to mouse+keyboard combo probably will bring that experience from FPS games to Altitude and be happy. Those with a ZX Spectrum bias from now on will be allowed to excuse themselves with the aiming line as a reason why they were pwned by Donk & Co.

[Aero_Beast]

Originally Posted by rotflolocopter

+1

Players who are used to mouse+keyboard combo probably will bring that experience from FPS games to Altitude and be happy. Those with a ZX Spectrum bias from now on will be allowed to excuse themselves with the aiming line as a reason why they were pwned by Donk & Co.

i play mouse and come from a fps comp background and i do the keyboard for speed and mouse for turning and i seem to do really well it owns with hc

[trendy11one]

So u guys think, that mouse>keyb? I mean, mouse has only advantages like cursor?Without any disadvantages?There lot of problems with mouse.
Main problem is - mouse cursor dont change position. This is really annoying sometimes. I explain.
2 situations.
Keyboard user.
1)I wanna land. I turn plane so its become parallel to base, drop speed and land.
2)I wanna change direction with miranda. I press D.
Mouse user.
1)I wanna land. I turn plane so its become parallel to base, drop speed...oh****, plane not parallel, i have to move mouse with plane.I some situations when base orient with 15-20 degrees counterclockwise u just drop out from base before it "catch" u and repair.
2)I wanna change direction with miranda. I press D. Ohno, mouse still looking to old direction and plane try to circle to old one. Quick, move it to new. So i have to rapidly move mouse every time when i wanna rev with miranda.
I agree with lazer on randa and aiming for HC. I personally dont play HC lot, but for lazer its really help. But it still superiorly hard to flight on randa with mouse.
My suggestion dont remove any from mouse. Do anything u want with keyb, but dont touch mouse users. Or learn mouse and make vid like "this is me with keyb" and "this is me with mouse", where 2nd flying and killing will be better.
Add this line for keyboard QQers users and add ability to change cursor place with reversing.

[Aero_Beast]

randa is really hard to learn with a mouse and that bar doesnt help after you have been playing with the mouse for a while you dont even notice its there anymore and if i remember you have a cursor and that would help more then anything

[VipMattMan]

Originally Posted by Aero_Beast

randa is really hard to learn with a mouse and that bar doesnt help after you have been playing with the mouse for a while you dont even notice its there anymore and if i remember you have a cursor and that would help more then anything

I dunno. I think the bar helps tremendously with orientation. When you're using mouse aiming as it is right now you don't really watch your plane or only the crosshair, you watch the action ahead. Having the bar there keeps you from having to focus directly on the cross hair going all over the place because you always have that extra visual cue showing your orientation in relation to the crosshair.

I don't think the line is intended as a buff to incentivize using mouse. I think they just play tested and decided it helped with control.

It does become a buff once you've mastered mouse control (or mouse + keyboard for thrust in my case), because now you can do everything you could do before, with a little more control, AND you have a line. However, if you were to remove the line, a mouse user still has the crosshair which could be considered just as cheap for shot aiming and the player loses that visual frame of reference in all other situations which might make control harder. If you were to do away with both the crosshair and line the player's focus would change from the action, as it is right now, to nothing but their plane.

IMO the solution is to give keyboard/controller only users an option to use the line too. I think when i made the switch from controller to mouse/kb my shot success rate didn't increase THAT dramatically. If people are making 10-20% more of their shots than they had before it's not going to upend the gameplay.

[Aero_Beast]

if anything i think they should just take it out of the game when i was using mouse for speed also i didnt have to watch the bar anymore after i played with it for just a few hours

[VipMattMan]

Originally Posted by Aero_Beast

if anything i think they should just take it out of the game when i was using mouse for speed also i didnt have to watch the bar anymore after i played with it for just a few hours

You may not "watch" it, but it's always in your vision. It stretches across the screen. Pretty hard to not see it . Only having the cross hair on screen means one less visual indicator of its position.

Honestly, without knowing of a command to disable the line and since the line is so prominent, i can't really tell how feasible it would be to still use mouse control the same way. It just seems like the cross hair alone would be easy to lose in your peripheral vision in certain situations.

Regardless of all of that, you still would have the cross hair which is exactly what the line points to in the first place. Removing the line alone doesn't seem to me as if it'd remove the aiming advantage of the mouse. Just means instead of being focused on the line on a shot, you're focused on the cross hair position that points to the exact same thing.

The only way to remove that advantage is to remove them both. If you removed them both then mouse control isn't feasible in the same way anymore.

Keyboard/controller works well without the line/cross hair because their more mechanical nature (press a button for a certain length of time, release and button position resets) allows you to glance at your plane's orientation and then look ahead while controlling using your motor memory. Something with the precision of a mouse requires more frame of reference to use in the same way.

[elxir]

would it work if the line was under the plane like the direction line in debug mode?

[VipMattMan]

Originally Posted by elxir

would it work if the line was under the plane like the direction line in debug mode?

How bout this. Reduce the line length from this:

http://img839.imageshack.us/i/oldline.jpg

To something like this:

http://img80.imageshack.us/i/newlinet.jpg

Discard the cross hair and maybe put something like an arrow or something visible at the end of the line so that people can still see it in their peripheral vision.

[trendy11one]

How about stop touching mouse control?

[Urpee]

The reason why the line is the way it is, is because of mouse-only control. It's the length of trottle and to be honest I don't see it being possible to shorten for that purpose. The cross-hairs cannot be removed because it is exactly the throttle-point on the line.

Perhaps the argument is what people who use mouse(steer only)+keyboard, should see. They do need direction. I personally think that a shortened line changes really very little, and we do need the cross-hair because else it's impossible to know where the mouse-center is and it becomes hard to avoid accidentally crossing it (with bad effects).

The more I read this the more I get the sense that a minute thing is made big.

[Stormich]

Originally Posted by Urpee

The more I read this the more I get the sense that a minute thing is made big.

Try shooting a goal from an 80° angle with and without this line and then be the judge if it's minute or not.

[VipMattMan]

Originally Posted by Urpee

The reason why the line is the way it is, is because of mouse-only control. It's the length of trottle and to be honest I don't see it being possible to shorten for that purpose. The cross-hairs cannot be removed because it is exactly the throttle-point on the line.

Perhaps the argument is what people who use mouse(steer only)+keyboard, should see. They do need direction. I personally think that a shortened line changes really very little, and we do need the cross-hair because else it's impossible to know where the mouse-center is and it becomes hard to avoid accidentally crossing it (with bad effects).

The more I read this the more I get the sense that a minute thing is made big.

You could keep the cross hair but limit its range to the shortened line. For mouse thrust people perhaps the color of the line/cross hair would change or grow darker the further they attempted to pull beyond the line limits indicating higher/lower thrust. Would require some relearning for the mouse thrust peeps, but could work.

Just throwing stuff out there to see what people would actually agree with. I know alot of the "old" players are kind of upset about the whole line deal because of its implications in ball. Personally i think the easiest and best solution is just to leave the mouse control stuff as it is and give the keyboard/controller only people the option of having the line.

[Urpee]

Well I'd argue that the main advantage to shoot these angle goals is the precise angle-setting of the mouse, not really the line.

So yes, if you want to shoot 80 degree angle goals, playing mouse give you the edge, giving keyboard a line or removing/reducing the line for mouse is a minute thing.

Perhaps the real problem here is that people who want certain advantages just don't want to go through the effort of learning it. It's not like mouse, keyboard and joystick controls will ever be on par. They by construction have different advantages and disadvantages. If you want to be great at FPS you too have to learn to use the mouse. You just won't be able to rapid-turn with keyboards.

And there too the main advantage is the rapid turn and precise setting, not some vis-aid.

[Spartan]

Originally Posted by VipMattMan

You could keep the cross hair but limit its range to the shortened line. For mouse thrust people perhaps the color of the line/cross hair would change or grow darker the further they attempted to pull beyond the line limits indicating higher/lower thrust. Would require some relearning for the mouse thrust peeps, but could work.

Just throwing stuff out there to see what people would actually agree with. I know alot of the "old" players are kind of upset about the whole line deal because of its implications in ball. Personally i think the easiest and best solution is just to leave the mouse control stuff as it is and give the keyboard/controller only people the option of having the line.

Agree. I think the current line is too long for mouse and would be for keyboard. Just reduce the distance required to afterburn n a shortened line wouldnt be a problem. But i do think keyboard should have the option to use the line.

[Boko]

If you fly straight into the line they can't c u.

Zing! Advantage.

[Ribilla]

I use mouse for everything (though recently I have been using w for randa warp only and that really seems to help, as with mouse if you have enough energy for two warps, you cannot help but do both with the current control scheme).

You cannot remove the line, because otherwise a mouse player does not know how high up the throttle they are and whther they are about to afterburn/warp. Similarly you cannot remove the crosshair (I think everyone agrees with that) and so the mouse player would still be able to see in the direction they were aiming.

The only feasible solution is to give the keyboard players a line, though, TBH I don't think it would make that much difference to decent players who have a feel for the game, though it might help new players learn.

I haven't ever tried keyboard, so I have no idea which one is better.

[VipMattMan]

Originally Posted by Ribilla

You cannot remove the line, because otherwise a mouse player does not know how high up the throttle they are and whther they are about to afterburn/warp. Similarly you cannot remove the crosshair (I think everyone agrees with that) and so the mouse player would still be able to see in the direction they were aiming.

(click for animation)

I think something like that would allow you to remove the crosshair and reduce the line length for mouse users. The distance you moved your mouse to thrust could be the same, and you'd be able to tell where the zero point was. You'd just be relying on color differences as opposed to full line length and visible crosshair location.

It'd certainly be less convenient than always having the full-length line and crosshair everywhere you look, but doable.

Again, i don't think the mouse system should be uprooted. I'm a mouse and keyboard user. To me it's the best and most fun control method. Just throwing out middle ground possibilities since there are so many people who feel like the line changes gameplay significantly.

[Boko]

I've got a solution!

Remove this mouse control abomination from the game already, I don't know what you were thinking when you implemented this monstrosity. Something in the direction of: "oh this would be fun to make". This freak of nature should never have even been considered.

It looks ugly.
It plays like ****
It has no added value
It looks f-ing ugly
It apparently gives players an advantage too.

Worst mistake you guys made with alti yet imo. Together with all the new art, you could've also kept the old ones you know. If someone shoves 4 year old kiddy like style buttons in your face and goes like: "Hey I put a lot of effort in this, put it in!", you don't have to give in and put the ugly stuff in. If you didn't think it was ugly/unapproriate I'm not gonna try and reason anymore.

[elxir]

Originally Posted by Stormich

Try shooting a goal from an 80° angle with and without this line and then be the judge if it's minute or not.

p much this

I never thought the mouse was a big deal until I learned, via this thread, that by HUGE COINCIDENCE the best runner, donk, and arguably best baller, VIPmattman, both use mouse.

what are the odds huh...

[Urpee]

Well I learned mouse precisely because I wanted to improve scoring and yes it is superior, in my view, for that purpose. But the line is hardly the reason.

I don't use thrust with mouse, but I pity the fool who spend hours learning the old mouse-to-line length ratio on mouse-thrust, if those things are indeed changed now.

Really the line is no big deal. Just give it to keyboard and they'll quickly learn that they are still disadvantaged shooting 80 degree goals. Mouse is a continuous controller, while keyboard is not, it is really that simple.

[Aero_Beast]

screw keyboard users even if it does help quit being whiners and learn mouse its nicer when you learn it neway