SRB2's picking up news coverage... again.

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For what it's worth, I generally get nauseous watching other people play FPS games because the camera's whipping around all over the place and I'm not in control of it.
 
First think i did when i noticed the camera was hard to control was heading to Mouse settings and reduce sensitivity speed, However i'm not sure everyone would realize that so i'm just gonna repeat my earlier suggestion, reduce the default Mouse Sensitivity speed .
 
Not to pull you off your high horse, but I think what AJ is implying is that WASD+mouse makes it hard to WATCH, not hard to play.

Ding ding ding ding.
Watching the video OP linked was just nauseating and made the game look like garbage with how the 3rd person camera was behaving. It's not an issue for the PLAYER HIMSELF, because he's performing those actions to make the camera look in a certain direction.

All I'm advocating for is some kind of solution to this. Maybe when a user boots the game for the very first time, ask them what control scheme they would prefer -- 'Classic', or 'FPS' with an explanation of something along the lines of 'Classic -- good for traditional single player gaming', and 'FPS -- good for multiplayer deathmatches' and something about 'this can be changed at anytime in the control options'.

I know that if I had NEVER seen or heard of SRB2 before, and I watched this video, I probably would not even consider downloading the game. The strict and jittery movement of the camera also deprives you of seeing the other angles of the player sprite animation, and it feels a lot like playing with 4-frame Doomguy or Duke3D as opposed to a character with a lot more animation frames and angles. The physics also come off as looking extra weird when the player is strafing.
 
All I'm advocating for is some kind of solution to this. Maybe when a user boots the game for the very first time, ask them what control scheme they would prefer -- 'Classic', or 'FPS' with an explanation of something along the lines of 'Classic -- good for traditional single player gaming', and 'FPS -- good for multiplayer deathmatches' and something about 'this can be changed at anytime in the control options'.
The problem is that the FPS control scheme really is the best control scheme for the game in all modes. It's not the best control scheme for watching a video, and I agree with you there, but it's by far the most effective control scheme for playing the game. Directing players to a less effective control scheme at the start is a bad idea. I think we should be doing more to direct players towards the FPS controls, with or without the mouse, and do a better job teaching players how to use them so they can get the hang of them quicker.

While you see a video that's jittery, I actually look at this video as a great example of a guy figuring out how SRB2 works on his own quite effectively. He visibly improves his skill and understanding just in the 15 minutes he played, and that's a sign that for this guy at least, the FPS controls are quite effective.

I know that if I had NEVER seen or heard of SRB2 before, and I watched this video, I probably would not even consider downloading the game. The strict and jittery movement of the camera also deprives you of seeing the other angles of the player sprite animation, and it feels a lot like playing with 4-frame Doomguy or Duke3D as opposed to a character with a lot more animation frames and angles. The physics also come off as looking extra weird when the player is strafing.
While we haven't tried it yet, one of the things we've been planning to try out is making the character sprite face the control direction instead of the facing direction for all non-FPS modes. This would help players grasp what strafe is doing better while also using all of those sprites in normal operation.
 
Nah. It wouldn't change the way it controls in any way, it would purely be a visual change. For example, if you tapped S, Sonic would face the camera and you'd see his front frame instead of him still facing forward and walking backwards.
 
I think we should be doing more to direct players towards the FPS controls, with or without the mouse, and do a better job teaching players how to use them so they can get the hang of them quicker.

...Sorry, huh? FPS controls without a mouse? How does that work?
 
How about doing what Minecraft does and give you a pop-up-like message to press the key(s) that have been binded to a certain button.
 
...Sorry, huh? FPS controls without a mouse? How does that work?
Arrow keys for turning. Personally I just have strafe keys on the left hand and use the arrow keys for forward/backward movement as well, rather than WASD+left/right arrows.

Either that or he meant using one of those touch pads.
 
Arrow keys for turning. Personally I just have strafe keys on the left hand and use the arrow keys for forward/backward movement as well, rather than WASD+left/right arrows.

That's how I played Sonic R when I had it for PC. lol
 
I also told you guys when someone streamed SRB2. I think it was MatPat, but I can't remember.
 
The main problem I see is that these people either don't know that they CAN change the controls to analog mode or don't care enough to look through menus since they want to have it set up quickly (for streams and the like). Despite how terrible it can be at times and the hate it gets, analog is much closer to what you'd find in a 3d Sonic game such as Adventure through Generations, you press a direction, that character starts heading off in that direction relative to the camera. the FPS style camera, whilst much more precise, doesn't have that intuitiveness behind it that you can just pick up and play like other games and it doesn't scream "yeah! This is a 3d platformer!" to some people.
 
I meant to respond to this but got distracted:

The problem is that the FPS control scheme really is the best control scheme for the game in all modes. It's not the best control scheme for watching a video, and I agree with you there, but it's by far the most effective control scheme for playing the game. Directing players to a less effective control scheme at the start is a bad idea. I think we should be doing more to direct players towards the FPS controls, with or without the mouse, and do a better job teaching players how to use them so they can get the hang of them quicker.

While you see a video that's jittery, I actually look at this video as a great example of a guy figuring out how SRB2 works on his own quite effectively. He visibly improves his skill and understanding just in the 15 minutes he played, and that's a sign that for this guy at least, the FPS controls are quite effective.

I'm all for integrating players into the FPS control scheme as fluidly as possible, but if those controls are going to remain hard to get used to in future updates, then I don't think crowding out the other control options is entirely a good idea. As someone who started out using arrow keys and then experimented with WASD after some time, I sympathize with anyone who feels like they can't handle WASD Sonic in SRB2's environment, and I see no need to rush them into that. To me it feels like telling a first time Melee player "You gotta learn how to wavedash and shffl if you want to get good at the game" when really they should probably be focusing on the basics.

While that's probably not entirely analogous, the point is that I think we should be presenting all of the common options and listing their strengths and weaknesses, with arrow keys being presented as the most accessible option and WASD being presented as the most powerful. At least, that's what we should be doing unless we can tighten up the game feel enough to where WASD Sonic is intuitive and doesn't feel slippery.

While we haven't tried it yet, one of the things we've been planning to try out is making the character sprite face the control direction instead of the facing direction for all non-FPS modes. This would help players grasp what strafe is doing better while also using all of those sprites in normal operation.

That, on the other hand, is a neat idea. I can imagine that being slightly jarring to most of us who've played the game for over a decade, but in the long run I imagine this being more intuitive.
 
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I agree that WSAD is more powerful, but it's like playing like Sonic -- you have to master it.
I bucked the outcries of the community for YEARS and YEARS of not defaulting the controls to WSAD because whenever I would show SRB2 to some Joe Blow, they found the arrow key controls much easier to pick up. I knew that the 'experts' knew how to change their control preference, anyway... plus, SRB2 allows you to have both control options turned on at once through multiple key bindings.

While we haven't tried it yet, one of the things we've been planning to try out is making the character sprite face the control direction instead of the facing direction for all non-FPS modes. This would help players grasp what strafe is doing better while also using all of those sprites in normal operation.

I think you can implement this easier than you think -- just allow mouselook camera control in analog mode. Doing this will probably cause fewer unintended issues than having the character sprite face a strafe in 'analog off' mode.
 
telling a first time Melee player "You gotta learn how to wavedash and shffl if you want to get good at the game"
Git Gud
I think you can implement this easier than you think -- just allow mouselook camera control in analog mode. Doing this will probably cause fewer unintended issues than having the character sprite face a strafe in 'analog off' mode.
I agree with this since the mouselook doesnt work well in analog mode, but there should be a notice before you start the game asking for keyboard or WASD + Mouse controls so new comers know
 
I agree with this since the mouselook doesnt work well in analog mode, but there should be a notice before you start the game asking for keyboard or WASD + Mouse controls so new comers know

Or dare i say, a tutorial level ;o
 
The main goal here actually isn't making sure players use WASD and the mouse. The main goal here is to make sure players have and use strafe keys. To use the Smash Brothers analogy, if mastering mouselook is like using wavedashing, figuring out how to use strafe is like figuring out how to use a smash attack. You can technically play SRB2 without strafe, but you're severely handicapping yourself and you'll find the game far more frustrating. The basic idea isn't to emphasize the mouse (although we should indeed suggest giving it a shot because it's better overall) but to emphasize strafing as an important gameplay mechanic.

As dirty as a word as it is, we've even been considering a tutorial level purely to make sure that players understand strafing before letting them loose on the game, because it's the type of thing that I don't think we can teach without explicitly talking about it.
 
The main goal here actually isn't making sure players use WASD and the mouse. The main goal here is to make sure players have and use strafe keys. To use the Smash Brothers analogy, if mastering mouselook is like using wavedashing, figuring out how to use strafe is like figuring out how to use a smash attack. You can technically play SRB2 without strafe, but you're severely handicapping yourself and you'll find the game far more frustrating

Isn't it more of using the jump buttons instead of just pressing up
 
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