Controller Feedback

[Cauldrath]

With the PS4 version of the game on its way, it seems like the controller is going to eventually become a full-featured way to play. There's the obvious issues right now like hacking and ui not having controller support, which will obviously have to be fixed for the PS4, but I'd like to see some adjustments to what already exists.

1) movement - when playing a shooter with a controller, the left stick is just as important to aiming as the right stick, so it needs to be just as smooth. Right now if I try to change directions while I'm not zoomed in, especially from an angle in one direction to an angle in the other, my Tenno will freak out and get briefly stuck spinning around to face the direction I'm trying to move, and won't move in that direction until he's done spinning. He'll also often shoot in whatever direction he's facing instead of the direction I'm aiming.

2) power selection - right now you can't change the equipped power while CCed. Changing your power should be considered a purely UI interaction and should be completely unaffected by what is happening in the game itself. Also, if you die and respawn, your power is automatically reset to the first power, but the UI continues to display as if your old power was selected. Respawning should just leave your current power equipped.

3) remapping controls - last I checked, with the default controls you can press B during cutscenes to bring up the skip dialog box, then you can press A to activate the skip. If you remap your controls, none of the buttons with bring up the dialog anymore, but the A button will still activate the skip.

4) the new autoaim - right now it looks like the implementation of autoaim is to lock your aim at a point in space when you are strafing if you are already aiming at an enemy. There are 2 problems with this. First, the volumes for determining when you are aiming at something are way too big. I was trying to aim at a camera and it locked onto it when I was pointed 2 feet to the left, so I was unable to use the left stick to make fine adjustments to actually get on target. Second, because this game has critical points (like headshots), locking onto the far left or right side of a target isn't very helpful. Currently I just have to turn the autoaim off. This particular implementation of autoaim could be fixed by only rotating the aim if your movement would make your crosshair leave the area of an enemy, but it would still only work for hitscan weapons because it would make moving targets much harder to hit with bolt weapons. Unless you want to implement some sort of predictive aiming calculation for those, I would make it so you can choose no autoaim, autoaim with non-bolt weapons, or always autoaim.

There's couple other types of autoaim that I know of: snapping on zoom and reducing sensitivity when on top of targets. I've personally never found the former one satisfying and most of the games that have this type of autoaim snap to center of mass when you zoom in, even if you've already lined up a headshot. If you implement this one, please make it so that if you are already aimed at a critical area, it doesn't snap away from that point.

Reducing sensitivity when on top of targets works well on hitscan weapons, but can making it really hard to lead moving targets with bolt weapons. If this is implemented, I'd like to be able to turn it off specifically for those, as well.

All in all, I'd like to be able to shut off each aspect of autoaim individually (assuming other kinds are put in) and be able to turn them on for only hitscan weapons.

EDIT:

5) I think there was some talk about allowing you to map reload and use to a single button, with use taking priority. That would really help free up some prime real estate on the controller.

Edited June 18, 2013 by Cauldrath