Much Needed Adjustments

[Rabcor]

Rather than reviving my https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/38392-improvements-that-should-be-made-and-should-be-easy-to-make/#entry362218'>old oversized thread i decided i should start a new more refined one instead.

 

If you want to read all that stuff from the old thread, go ahead it's got a lot more content in it. I'm doing this to point out the most important and the most easy stuff once again.

 

First i'll make a numbered list to say "what" and below for those who are interested i will write "why" and often also "how i would do it" this i do for readability mostly. You only need to read the description for the things i said you need to read the description for, most of the other stuff is fairly self explanatory.

 

 

1. Remove DOF/Motion Blur or make it off by default.

2. Make Bloom off by default.

3. Change default keybindings (read description, if you're a player that hasn't changed keybindings yet, try these!)

3.5 Fix player movement getting locked down inappropriately(read description)

4. The default resolution of the game should be your monitors "Native" resolution OR the resolution of your desktop.

5. Don't simply unlock missions a player was pulled into by a higher level one.

6. Computer bound settings rather than account+computer bound.

 

--------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

1. Motion Blur

is an effect most people do hate, and most people do know that most people do hate it i believe.

 

So you know... bad move to add it to the game, without doubt it both makes the game feel bad right from the start and what's worse is that it also reduces the performance quite a bit on some computers when its on (i saw my friends laggy computer with it on and i told him to turn off and all the lag just literally disappeared!)

 

What i'm saying is, it might hurt someones pride to remove it from the game, but how bad would it be to make it be off by default?

 

 

 

2. Bloom

is a similar deal as DOF, it's a clumsy lighting effect that can sometimes be blinding, it messes up your abilities to see any details of any objects that lights are shined on and should only be used if the details are so horrifyingly badly done by your texture crew that they should not be seen! which they are not in this case. It should at least default to "off" but it couldn't hurt to have it there since it might make the game a bit more "photogenic" for the "artists" (people who like to take a lot of cool screenshots.) after playing with it off, if i turn it on now it feels like large parts of the game (including my warframe) shine blinding and uncomfortable amounts of light all over my screen, which wouldn't surprise me if it caused someone a heart attack or some sort of seizures.

 

 

 

3. Key Binds

The default key-bindings are terrible!! so bad! so damn bad! i mean... "X" to activate? are you guys serious? here are some better keybindings i thought of:

 

F = Activate (Fairly Basic)

TAB Caps-Lock = Switch Weapons (Halo anyone?) (Not TAB simply due to steam users, if sprinting and changing weapons they'd open the steam overlay)

Mouse 5 (AND) E = Melee attack (F For those who don't have M4)

Mouse 4 (AND) Q = Block (Q for those who don't have M5)

ALT = Item Popup (AND) Show player list (This almost gives you a legit excuse to lock up player movement while checking other player's HP)

C = Toggle Crouch

V = Voice Chat

 

These keybindings are nothing revolutionary, but they're good enough so that no matter what computer i was on i would never bother changing them myself. and i'm pretty picky with keybindings too. Since writing the original post i have been using these keybindings and i got used to them very fast from what i had been using before (which was more personalized than this)

 

 

3.5. Player movement issues

Maybe you first want to know what rather than why this one time? It's 3.5 because it's related in some ways to 3. It's silly how melee attacks lock down your movement to the sides, it's also equally silly that showing the fellow player's health menu will stop your character from being able to move with WASD. it's also rather silly that accessing your equipped consumables does the same (and the consumables should be keybindable and default bound on the numpad or something like that)

 

So what to do about it is fairly simple. For the first one, as a temporary hotfix unlock side movement while attack animation is on (The "Ancients" certainly have no problems with doing this, nor attacking in any direction either, it may look a bit silly but it doesn't feel as silly as it looks when you're doing it yourself) then later on when you have the time, add sidestepping animations for when your character is walking to the side and swinging a melee weapon, and even later on you could add (on top of all that) "attack to the side" animations, that sounds way more ninja than what they did in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rune_(video_game)'>Rune or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morrowind'>Morrowindwhere sidestepping could be used to change what attack animation would be performed or from where the attack would come. (but those games were centered around melee combat. doing that wouldn't fix this thing, using the sidestep button + attack button to do an attack to that side if no other buttons are pressad are way more fitting for this one.) i also recommend removing "wall-run attack" temporarily, and adding it back once you've made it usable. (Firstly it needs to be possible to aim with it)

 

For the next one, give us an option in the menus (default off, just so the game looks more shiny for the newcomers) to toggle "player hp menu" always "on" or "off unless button press" (ALT in this case as its bound to the same key as Item Menu) 

 

For the last one, while the consumables (Gear) menu is open, disable mouse left click (also right click if you so choose). but keep melee attacks and WASD usable!!!

 

 

 

4. Resolution

Does this need to be explained? i'm surprised if they haven't fixed it already! the first time i launched the game, it looked ugly as hell because of this not being in it yet. I hope it's already been fixed, but if not.... dear DE please make it so for your own sake.

 

 

5. Harder to access new planets/missions with help of other players that already have them.

Don't unlock missions the player was pulled into if there were no missions you had already unlocked connected to it. This will keep it possible to slide through the planets skipping every other mission with a good friend that's doing it with you that already has it all unlocked, but it wont make it as easy as it is now. Theres also more things that could be done, for example the mission could be marked as finished upon completion and then when the player gets to the mission he already got pulled into, he can jump over it to the next behind it. and instead of a "lock" icon the mission would have an "unlocked" icon but still not be selectable as any other unlocked mission (just so one could see what missions they already did).

 

 

6. As the game is right now, the visual settings (not the keybinding settings, i don't know about sounds either) are bound to the computer you're on locally, and bound to the account you've logged into on said computer. It'd actually be best if this option was optional, on family computers this is probably pretty great if some people like Bloom and some other people don't, some like high FOV others like it normal, etc. But for personal computers, i sometimes for example log into friends account to do alerts for them when they can't do them themselves and such, it gets a bit annoying to need to set the video settings again everytime you change your account.

 

(Edit: added 6)

Thank you for reading. :) 

Edited May 10, 2013 by rabcor

[crow-k]

For 75% or more of those items you can spend 5 min in the menu to adjust it. Why re-code things for options the player can adjust to his or her own liking? 

[Rabcor]

Crow, that is because unlike us more veteran or hardcore gamers, a lot of people just pick up the game and play without ever ever EVER looking in the options menu, this largely (for example) goes for kids, and these "casual gamers" as they're called (it's a silly name in my opinion though).

 

A lot of people will dislike a game because of bad default settings, simply because they don't open the options menu because they know beforehand that even if they did open the options menu, they don't know what all those buttons do or mean, and people are often afraid of experimenting.

 

 

These are adjustments i think should be made, not exactly big changes... Easy to make adjustments so that it'll be easier for new players to get adjusted to the game. How many people do you know that spend a lot of time thinking about how to improve their key bindings? i know that i know 1 or 2 at most (out of the very many gamers i know)

 

Also. re-coding 1-3 would probably only take 5 minutes.

Edited May 10, 2013 by rabcor

[crow-k]

It doesnt take a hardcore gamer to look at options. This isn't the 90's. most people have grown up with computers. My 3yr old can play gameboy and unlock my phone, go to the games and play songs she likes. And if they don't there are a lot of ways to learn, I would also point out that tthe defaults are 90% of what I use. They are a fair enough setup that they needed almost no changes. I would be surprised to learn if more than 10% of the entire game base would change more that 2-3 buttons.

[Rabcor]

You're also forgetting that not all people have english as a mother language, thus are less likely to understand what is written in the options menu. It's also a lot easier to teach a 3 year old child to do something than a 20 year old person too. They'll simply catch on sooner, and they have a chance to get better at it than you even if you give them a few extra years.

 

Even my friend who never changes the default key-bindings on his own initiative couldn't handle the default ones in this game. Like i mentioned in the original post, try the keybindings i mentioned, you might like them more than your current setup (i'm curious, what is your current setup apart from defaults)

Edited May 10, 2013 by rabcor

[crow-k]

Doesn't this game have multiple language clients? I know the forums do and assumed that the game does, not sure though. you said it yourself, you are picky about you bindings. For most people, they are fine and configurable. They could change it, and that would be fine. But why? Thats all I am saying. Good luck.

 

My settings are close to default with one or 2 adjusted for carpal tunnel issues. put block on a different button than mouse, moved camera change so i didnt hit it when trying to mark a mod.

[Rabcor]

It does have multiple languages support to some extent at least. But that's never enough for everyone.

 

I don't see support for my native language for example, Icelandic (not that i'd actually use it if it was there, i hate software translated to my mother language)

 

For who is it fine to have "use" on X? it's just standard to have "use" on E or F in games. although i think it was space in morrowind.

 

You want buttons you use a lot to be accessible with minimum effort. index finger is usually best for that purpose, hence E, F and R are the best buttons to use for the most common tasks you'll do, X and Z, are ugly because to use them you must remove your thumb compltetely off of spacebar.

 

C is usable because you can use it without completely letting go of space, same with V and B and ALT but if you want to use N you're stretching too far.

 

Q is conveniently placed for the ring finger so it's very usable.

 

T and G are barely usable, the issue with them is that you need to stretch your index finger a bit far from it's default location which should normally be D.

 

Caps, Shift and CTRL are the only 3 buttons you can use without letting go of any of the W,A and D buttons (arguably for some people also </>) since you'll be pressing them with the little finger.

 

1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 are convenient. 6 is stretching too far.

 

The best keyboard layouts make sure that when pressing buttons, you only need to move one finger no matter which button you're going for, rather than a finger and your entire hand (This is mostly so that you can keep your hand properly positioned for W/A/D). A lot of the more hardcore players (especially in PVP games and such) will remap W/A/D to E/S/F because by doing so, you get 2 extra buttons to bind (W and A) and some of the previously unviable buttons become viable. (like 6, T, G, N, </> and possibly Z)

 

The button behind 1 (~) is also a viable button (it's placement is similar to 5, but in the opposite direction) however it's generally not used. it's probably not used a lot because in older games (and an occasional recent one) it tends to be used for opening the in-game console.

 

 

EDIT:

With the keybindings i recommended in the post, i find it's amazingly comfy to have toggle crouch on C, i always jump and press C to do "flying kick" rather than jump and hold CTRL, i rarely use CTRL at all anymore, but it is useful for sliding attacks at least. Obviously it's just comfy to have use on F instead of X, having switch weapons on caps is ok, but i do admit it can get annoying how it'll sometimes cause caps to be on when you want to chat in-game. I don't use E and Q for melee attacks, having the "Gear" menu bound to ALT is also quite comfy.

 

I'm considering moving switch weapon from Caps to ~ in my game. i think it'd be more convenient.

Edited May 10, 2013 by rabcor

[liavalenth]

I would very much like it if they would bind Block to Q as he suggested. I do not have a mouse 4 button, so I did not know I could block until I read a post about it a few days ago.

[Rabcor]

You're (sadly) not missing out on much liavalenth, currently block is pretty much (completely and utterly) useless :)

 

I think it'd be nice if they'd change the glaive though so that you could use it as a normal melee weapon with the normal melee button, but throw with the block button (so press block to do a quick throw, hold block to do a charged throw attack)

 

Another cool function to replace block could simply be "kick"

 

Or they could just make block useful in some way.

Edited May 10, 2013 by rabcor

[aavvdkdk]

How do you feel about toggle aim? It's much more comfortable (just like toggle crouch) and I never seem to get used to holding down right click (hurts like a bugger when I play more than 1 hour). I simply can't understand why it isn't at least available. Otherwise i agree with most you say, finally got around to change my bindings to what I prefer, which turned out to be surprisingly close to yours. 

[crow-k]

I will not argue that those may be best. The only thing I argue is hand holding required

[crow-k]

How do you feel about toggle aim? It's much more comfortable (just like toggle crouch) and I never seem to get used to holding down right click (hurts like a bugger when I play more than 1 hour). I simply can't understand why it isn't at least available. Otherwise i agree with most you say, finally got around to change my bindings to what I prefer, which turned out to be surprisingly close to yours. 

You can not toggle aim on and off but you bind it into normal key, anf if your willing to o a bit further to avoid messing your hands up you could probably cook up a macro to do that.

[Xanezz]

So to summarize your entire post: "My opinion is the best opinion for everybody, you HAVE to change it DE!"

 

As already said, 75% of those things are easily fixed by going into the options menu. If people are not forced to adjust the game to their liking (I for one would disagree with 90% of the keys you claim are so much better) they will never learn to check the options menu before playing.

 

I am by no means saying all of your recommendations are crap (the moving while having the consumables tab open for example is a great idea), but most of them are by no means "Much needed adjustments" in my opinion.

 

 

Bloom and Motion blur are most likely not going to be turned off by default. Many people (such as me) actually like the effects and believe they enhance the game. Apprently so do the devs, which is why they added those features in the first place. Just because more people actually "complain" about bloom, motion blur and DOF, does not mean they are the majority.

 

tl;dr 

 

For 75% or more of those items you can spend 5 min in the menu to adjust it. Why re-code things for options the player can adjust to his or her own liking? 

^

[Rabcor]

Yes Xanezz, i realized just after posting that i should've named it better ;) (like i did my original one) but unfortunately i couldn't edit that at that point.

 

I don't think toggle aim belongs in this game because you're usually "ninjaing" all over the place and if pressing the right mouse toggled aim, it'd get annoying pretty quick. the only scenario where i consider it might be useful is defense missions or some of the bigger rooms, where you might set yourself up in a nice location and "snipe" things.

Edited May 10, 2013 by rabcor

[stacey69]

Rather than reviving my old oversized thread i decided i should start a new more refined one instead.

 

If you want to read all that stuff from the old thread, go ahead it's got a lot more content in it. I'm doing this to point out the most important and the most easy stuff once again.

 

First i'll make a numbered list to say "what" and below for those who are interested i will write "why" and often also "how i would do it" this i do for readability mostly. You only need to read the description for the things i said you need to read the description for, most of the other stuff is fairly self explanatory.

 

 

1. Remove DOF/Motion Blur or make it off by default.

2. Make Bloom off by default.

3. Change default keybindings (read description, if you're a player that hasn't changed keybindings yet, try these!)

3.5 Fix player movement getting locked down inappropriately(read description)

4. The default resolution of the game should be your monitors "Native" resolution OR the resolution of your desktop.

5. Don't simply unlock missions a player was pulled into by a higher level one.

6. Computer bound settings rather than account+computer bound.

 

--------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

1. Motion Blur

is an effect most people do hate, and most people do know that most people do hate it i believe.

 

So you know... bad move to add it to the game, without doubt it both makes the game feel bad right from the start and what's worse is that it also reduces the performance quite a bit on some computers when its on (i saw my friends laggy computer with it on and i told him to turn off and all the lag just literally disappeared!)

 

What i'm saying is, it might hurt someones pride to remove it from the game, but how bad would it be to make it be off by default?

 

 

 

2. Bloom

is a similar deal as DOF, it's a clumsy lighting effect that can sometimes be blinding, it messes up your abilities to see any details of any objects that lights are shined on and should only be used if the details are so horrifyingly badly done by your texture crew that they should not be seen! which they are not in this case. It should at least default to "off" but it couldn't hurt to have it there since it might make the game a bit more "photogenic" for the "artists" (people who like to take a lot of cool screenshots.) after playing with it off, if i turn it on now it feels like large parts of the game (including my warframe) shine blinding and uncomfortable amounts of light all over my screen, which wouldn't surprise me if it caused someone a heart attack or some sort of seizures.

 

 

 

3. Key Binds

The default key-bindings are terrible!! so bad! so damn bad! i mean... "X" to activate? are you guys serious? here are some better keybindings i thought of:

 

F = Activate (Fairly Basic)

TAB Caps-Lock = Switch Weapons (Halo anyone?) (Not TAB simply due to steam users, if sprinting and changing weapons they'd open the steam overlay)

Mouse 5 (AND) E = Melee attack (F For those who don't have M4)

Mouse 4 (AND) Q = Block (Q for those who don't have M5)

ALT = Item Popup (AND) Show player list (This almost gives you a legit excuse to lock up player movement while checking other player's HP)

C = Toggle Crouch

V = Voice Chat

 

These keybindings are nothing revolutionary, but they're good enough so that no matter what computer i was on i would never bother changing them myself. and i'm pretty picky with keybindings too. Since writing the original post i have been using these keybindings and i got used to them very fast from what i had been using before (which was more personalized than this)

 

 

3.5. Player movement issues

Maybe you first want to know what rather than why this one time? It's 3.5 because it's related in some ways to 3. It's silly how melee attacks lock down your movement to the sides, it's also equally silly that showing the fellow player's health menu will stop your character from being able to move with WASD. it's also rather silly that accessing your equipped consumables does the same (and the consumables should be keybindable and default bound on the numpad or something like that)

 

So what to do about it is fairly simple. For the first one, as a temporary hotfix unlock side movement while attack animation is on (The "Ancients" certainly have no problems with doing this, nor attacking in any direction either, it may look a bit silly but it doesn't feel as silly as it looks when you're doing it yourself) then later on when you have the time, add sidestepping animations for when your character is walking to the side and swinging a melee weapon, and even later on you could add (on top of all that) "attack to the side" animations, that sounds way more ninja than what they did in Rune or Morrowindwhere sidestepping could be used to change what attack animation would be performed or from where the attack would come. (but those games were centered around melee combat. doing that wouldn't fix this thing, using the sidestep button + attack button to do an attack to that side if no other buttons are pressad are way more fitting for this one.) i also recommend removing "wall-run attack" temporarily, and adding it back once you've made it usable. (Firstly it needs to be possible to aim with it)

 

For the next one, give us an option in the menus (default off, just so the game looks more shiny for the newcomers) to toggle "player hp menu" always "on" or "off unless button press" (ALT in this case as its bound to the same key as Item Menu) 

 

For the last one, while the consumables (Gear) menu is open, disable mouse left click (also right click if you so choose). but keep melee attacks and WASD usable!!!

 

 

 

4. Resolution

Does this need to be explained? i'm surprised if they haven't fixed it already! the first time i launched the game, it looked ugly as hell because of this not being in it yet. I hope it's already been fixed, but if not.... dear DE please make it so for your own sake.

 

 

5. Harder to access new planets/missions with help of other players that already have them.

Don't unlock missions the player was pulled into if there were no missions you had already unlocked connected to it. This will keep it possible to slide through the planets skipping every other mission with a good friend that's doing it with you that already has it all unlocked, but it wont make it as easy as it is now. Theres also more things that could be done, for example the mission could be marked as finished upon completion and then when the player gets to the mission he already got pulled into, he can jump over it to the next behind it. and instead of a "lock" icon the mission would have an "unlocked" icon but still not be selectable as any other unlocked mission (just so one could see what missions they already did).

 

 

6. As the game is right now, the visual settings (not the keybinding settings, i don't know about sounds either) are bound to the computer you're on locally, and bound to the account you've logged into on said computer. It'd actually be best if this option was optional, on family computers this is probably pretty great if some people like Bloom and some other people don't, some like high FOV others like it normal, etc. But for personal computers, i sometimes for example log into friends account to do alerts for them when they can't do them themselves and such, it gets a bit annoying to need to set the video settings again everytime you change your account.

 

(Edit: added 6)

Thank you for reading. :) 

Turn off motion blur and the game goes pitch dark so no we don't want it off at all. Stopped reading there sorry.

[Xanezz]

Yes Xanezz, i realized just after posting that i should've named it better ;) (like i did my original one) but unfortunately i couldn't edit that at that point.

 

I don't think toggle aim belongs in this game because you're usually "ninjaing" all over the place and if pressing the right mouse toggled aim, it'd get annoying pretty quick. the only scenario where i consider it might be useful is defense missions or some of the bigger rooms, where you might set yourself up in a nice location and "snipe" things.

 

It still wouldn't hurt to make aim toggle available. You are dismissing legitimately good ideas (for some people) again because they don't match your opinion of what is good.

[Rabcor]

i didn't dismiss it, i said that "i don't think it belongs" i never actually stated that "it doesn't belong" ;)

 

And stacey did you have to quote the entire post? seriously?

Edited May 10, 2013 by rabcor