Games Done Quick

For the love of GOD guys, PLEASE put the default controls back to the arrow keys. The evidence continues to pile up just how bad people are at FPS controls on a platformer.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/240171282

SRB2 starts at 01:47:35 for anyone wondering, and Man, SRB2 definitely isn't newbie friendly I agree.

Actually, this is pretty stunningly good by comparison. There are a couple takeaways that we did already know, but overall this is WAY better than most of the new player videos I've seen, mainly because they're using FPS controls and thus aren't having as much trouble as a lot of people have with just the arrow keys. Normally I see newbies die over and over and over to the DSZ3 boss but this guy beat it first try!

For reference, the things we've already learned but this video heavily reiterates:

• Our default mouse speed is too high. That was my bad, sorry :(
• By default, we should have vertical mouselook off. Players generally don't want to look up and down.
• There are a couple of places where players are likely to get lost we've tried to fix in 2.2.

I know you're using this to say that we shouldn't use FPS controls by default but looking at this just encourages me in staying the course. These players are doing WAY better than the players who streamed their first play using only the arrow keys or analog.

Honestly... this didn't seem too bad. By the end of the run both players were moving pretty well. Sure, it took a bit for them to get into it, but it's a blind speedrun... if they were playing casually and took their time through GFZ rather than blowing through it they probably would've gotten used to the movement a lot sooner; especially if they took the time to mess around in the settings a bit (okay yeah, most casual players aren't going to do this either :/ ). I think what this does show clearly is certain rooms of the game that are poorly designed and/or difficulty spikes... but I think everyone is aware of those by now.

Lol DSZ3 Boss, seconds most dangerous boss in the game, right after the camera.

I'm not sure if this is an issue that effects everyone, but the lower the resolution I set, the higher the mouse speed sensitivity, at least in the SDL2 builds in fullscreen. That's really a bug that needs fixing since the default resolution is usually lower than people's native monitor resolutions.

Them immediately saying the block maze is a bonus area that doesn't lead anywhere is hilarious and I can completely understand why someone would think that. The area really does need to go. :V

Really, the default resolution ends up being the same as the screen for me.

The block maze room isn't really good, and easy for newcomers to get lost in very easily.

Mystic said:

Actually, this is pretty stunningly good by comparison. There are a couple takeaways that we did already know, but overall this is WAY better than most of the new player videos I've seen, mainly because they're using FPS controls and thus aren't having as much trouble as a lot of people have with just the arrow keys. Normally I see newbies die over and over and over to the DSZ3 boss but this guy beat it first try!

For reference, the things we've already learned but this video heavily reiterates:

• Our default mouse speed is too high. That was my bad, sorry :(
• By default, we should have vertical mouselook off. Players generally don't want to look up and down.
• There are a couple of places where players are likely to get lost we've tried to fix in 2.2.

I know you're using this to say that we shouldn't use FPS controls by default but looking at this just encourages me in staying the course. These players are doing WAY better than the players who streamed their first play using only the arrow keys or analog.

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I'm in total agreement. When I was 12 and first played this game, I struggled to do anything with my controller with analog turned on. It was only once I switched to WASD, turned off vertical mouselook, and bound jumping and rolling to mouse that I actually learned how to play the game. It's comfortable, precise, and you never have to move your hands unless you're playing a wad with custom skills or multiplayer.

Swapping movement to the arrow keys would only result in right-handed players moving their keyboard to the extreme left, or hurting their left arm from having it crossed over for so long. And if you are playing a character with custom action buttons, you have far less options around the arrow keys than you do with WASD.

I didn't figure out to use FPS controls and put spin on "E" until I played Jazz Jackrabbit 3D (leak). the control in Jazz 3 just felt so natural and right, I replicated the experience in SRB2

By default, we should have vertical mouselook off. Players generally don't want to look up and down.

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I'm sorry, but no, that, I find, doesn't seem really intuitive.
Since the devteam's priorities don't exactly involve ringslinger and such, where being able to aim up/down is, quite obviously, very invaluable, so I shall focus mainly on the non-ringslinger gamemodes, with only a slight mention to ringslinger stuff.
Now, when you're running straight, yes, you do probably want a straight view. ...Which is provided by the center mouselook key in the form of Caps Lock
But in platforming, even in third person, you'd have to imagine that being able to control the camera to look more specifically would be more helpful than just being unable to do that, even being able to move the camera down would help with depth perception in platforming, something that would, presumably, be important in 3D platforming. And that's not to mention sections where you're moving up vertically.
Infact, it's a possibility that being able to vertically control the camera would help newer players get used to the jumping in platforming sections, especially if they're made aware they can center the camera.

Kitoko - Today at 8:48 PM
when i was new to the game i did indeed make use of the look up and down controls
it helped me look down to see what could possibly be below me
or up to see where i need to go

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I'm also aware that OpenGL has less problems with looking up/down than software, but even then, the problem with that is really only noticeable in first person, which I'm not even sure that newer players are aware at first they can switch between, especially for a feature only really made standard in 2.1, as you had to set a chasecam toggle bind in the previous versions.
And someone brought up in a Discord conversation this interesting moment, which mentions that new players being unable to move the camera vertically could enrage them:

PersistantRubine - Today at 6:54 PM
There is also... Well, I'll be honest.
I didn't know you could turn off the verticle movement.
Now.
I come back to the game after a few years, and notice the camera won't go up.
It infuriates me massively and I end up getting off.
That's the kind of thing that could happen with many players.

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Which would bring me to the next point, how many new players would try and change the options to make it better fit for themselves? As I'd imagine that a fair amount, instead of looking into the options, just jump straight into the game, and if they do happen to go into the options, what if they only change the keybinds with minimal attention given to anything mouse-related?
And imagine one of the new players which, with the silent majority arguement, would be a minority trying a netgame, let's also say they happen to join a ringslinger gametype server, they are instantly at a disadvantage because the experienced players are guaranteed to know about having to toggle vertical mouselook on, whereas there is no such guarantee for the newer player, the experienced ones would have to both know that it's a new player, and mention to them that it's a feature that needs to be toggled, which presumably would itself get tedious having to explain every time, and that's assuming said experienced players aren't tryhards that take every advantage they could get.

Along with that, I recall hearing that the control scheme the devteam is aiming for would be an FPS control scheme. Now, what feature do most FPS games, excluding some classic ones but i'll get to that shortly, have that, with that change, SRB2 by default wouldn't?
But as i've said, classic games like Wolfenstein or Doom don't have vertical mouselook, but the thing is, they can get away with it, because it isn't nearly as important of a feature for two reasons:

1. They focus more on shooting than platforming so being able to have vertical camera movement isn't as important.
2. In terms of ringslinger, those FPSes have a hitscan that doesn't care about height, but SRB2, even though it has one hitscan weapon, every single ring is restricted with height, including the rail that features said hitscan

And this next arguement doesn't have to do with anything gameplay related itself, but more-so the wording used in the specific sentence

Players generally don't want to look up and down.

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That right there, sounds like a very blatant blanket statement. If that really is the opinion that the players in general have, then how about someone makes a poll if the players find vertical mouselook to be useful? Because without it, this statement seems like it has a fair amount of bias sprinkled into it, especially knowing that Mystic prefers software and singleplayer, the former of which, as I've previously mentioned and we all know, has problems with looking up/down in first person.

That was literally the best I've ever seen new players play SRB2. Props to those guys.

NotablyPrettyCrazy said:

That right there, sounds like a very blatant blanket statement. If that really is the opinion that the players in general have, then how about someone makes a poll if the players find vertical mouselook to be useful? Because without it, this statement seems like it has a fair amount of bias sprinkled into it, especially knowing that Mystic prefers software and singleplayer, the former of which, as I've previously mentioned and we all know, has problems with looking up/down in first person.

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You do realize I'm not saying that vertical mouselook should be removed, right?

I'm saying that for new players, who are already struggling with our game's controls and camera, having the extra variable of being able to control the camera vertically has proven to be problematic. Just take a look at how often these players have the camera go significantly off of level when they gain no benefit from it. Neither of these players are using the vertical mouselook to check down or up. It's accidental. This isn't the first video to demonstrate this issue, either. If we want to introduce looking up and down, the mouselook key toggle is still a thing, but I think the use in third person mode is minor enough that it's not even worth talking about the feature at all. Any situation where the player is encouraged to look down to check that they can jump down is a level design flaw, not a reason to enable vertical mouselook by default.

If you're enough of an expert that you want the ability to look up and down by default, great! Change your control settings to enable the feature. Newbies already have enough to worry about without the potential to stare at the floor accidentally.

Sryder13 said:

I'm not sure if this is an issue that effects everyone, but the lower the resolution I set, the higher the mouse speed sensitivity, at least in the SDL2 builds in fullscreen. That's really a bug that needs fixing since the default resolution is usually lower than people's native monitor resolutions.

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IIRC for some reason mouse speed is actually coded to be directly affected by resolution in SDL2 builds. I would have changed this already but I dread forcing everyone to have to reset their mouse sensitivity options in a 2.1 patch. =P

That and I haven't figured out yet if there was some sort of sensible reason for that "feature" in the first place.


EDIT: also, what's this about crossing my arms in order to move with arrow keys? this is falsely assuming the left hand has to do the movement. I personally use arrow keys and for that I use my right hand instead. I use my left hand to instead do all the other actions. And yes, I'm right handed before you ask. And no, I don't move my keyboard to the extreme left either.

EDIT2: Here we go, this is the point in the source code the resolution affects mouse sensitivity: https://github.com/STJr/SRB2/blob/SRB2_release_2.1.20/src/sdl/i_video.c#L853

(note: it used to be a different line before I changed some of the mouse movement code here to fix Windows 10 issues)

I wonder if it would be enough to considerably lower just the vertical mouse sensitivity a bunch by default instead of completely removing it?

Monster, the only reason I could think of right now is that maybe it fixes mouse movement speed in windowed mode? At least windowed seems to work right at lower resolutions for me. I can't see why it would be done otherwise.

Sryder13 said:

Monster, the only reason I could think of right now is that maybe it fixes mouse movement speed in windowed mode? At least windowed seems to work right at lower resolutions for me. I can't see why it would be done otherwise.

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...see, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me since, for windowed mode, wwidth == realwidth and wheight == realheight unless I'm mistaken (wwidth and wheight are the window's actual size, while realwidth and realheight are the game's resolution). This results in windowed mode sensitivities being all the same unless there's some edge case I'm not considering.

Mystic said:

You do realize I'm not saying that vertical mouselook should be removed, right?

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Yes. And I'm bringing up points why it shouldn't be turned off by default, even for newer players.
And I do find it interesting how that reply features the only quote from my post. Despite it probably not even making up just about 1/8th of it, not exactly ideal behaviour to dismiss most of a post if a certain part looks like nonsense.

I'm saying that for new players, who are already struggling with our game's controls and camera, having the extra variable of being able to control the camera vertically has proven to be problematic. Just take a look at how often these players have the camera go significantly off of level when they gain no benefit from it. Neither of these players are using the vertical mouselook to check down or up. It's accidental. This isn't the first video to demonstrate this issue, either. If we want to introduce looking up and down, the mouselook key toggle is still a thing, but I think the use in third person mode is minor enough that it's not even worth talking about the feature at all. Any situation where the player is encouraged to look down to check that they can jump down is a level design flaw, not a reason to enable vertical mouselook by default.

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First of all, you could just try to just fix/adjust the mouse sensitivity with the first idea you and Sryder mentioned, see how well new players handle the vertical mouselook like that, and then make conclusions based on that.

And we can agree, that leaps of faith are bad level designs, but what about situations where looking up is helpful? Or maybe jumping on small platforms in later levels where you really have to precisely land on them, like the CEZ2 platforms to the checkpoint with the ring arrow before the grapple tower as an example since CEZ is getting reworked in 2.2 anyway and the Megaman-platform section in ERZ2 that comes right after the lazer section with the crushers?

Along with that, since I've already mentioned that few games nowadays lack vertical mouse control and that there is a clear possibility that a worrying amount of new players don't look into options like in the GDQ video and/or they wouldn't have an idea you could turn it on/off ...Which was mentioned in one of the quotes in my post so that's one indication that atleast a part of my post was just dismissed so a newer player would probably expect that vertical camera movement just isn't a thing in SRB2, all the while remembering the other games they've played that did have said vertical camera movement, while, again, probably not even looking in the options menu.

Infact, along with the quote of an older player that mentioned looking up/down helped him back when he was newer, here are quotes from others that find looking up/down was still helpful, preferably without anything getting dismissed.

DPEV Tails - Yesterday at 9:23 PM
to be honest like why would you want it off in the first place. like if a player decides they wanna try match after playing vanilla srb2, for a little while they are not going to hit anyone easily without it on and it's gonna add a slight barrier until the player can get used to playing while being able to look up and down and knowing when to apply that skill.
page keys disrupt the flow of gameplay since you'll literally have to take your hand off the mouse to press those 2 buttons
tough platforming-heavy stages will punish that
~~i played with analog off, and controller since i despised mouse at the time, so basically it was up to go down to back up and left and right turned the camera, couldn't look up or down, so basically what mystic is saying how new players should play minus the controller aspect
news flash....it's not fun~~
my roommate played srb2 with wasd and arrow keys and he struggled as knuckles until deep sea zone and gave up because of the difficulty

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.Jazz. - Yesterday at 11:42 PM
Geez even when I played in software, peeking up and down was helpful

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Now then, onto the last part.

If you're enough of an expert that you want the ability to look up and down by default, great! Change your control settings to enable the feature. Newbies already have enough to worry about without the potential to stare at the floor accidentally.

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If they're staring at the floor accidentally, they would have had to pull the mouse back, so either it is, again, the sensitivity issue, or just human error.

Sryder13 said:

I wonder if it would be enough to considerably lower just the vertical mouse sensitivity a bunch by default instead of completely removing it?

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The basic issue is that we're expecting players to handle a control scheme they're not using for a platformer for a platformer. The more variables we can remove from the equation, the better. While I'm sure lowering it would help some players, removing it entirely is likely to help more players than just lowering it would.

NotablyPrettyCrazy said:

Despite it probably not even making up just about 1/8th of it, not exactly ideal behaviour to dismiss most of a post if a certain part looks like nonsense.

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Just because I'm not directly responding to a specific part of your message doesn't mean I didn't read it. I simply didn't think that responding to all of it would be particularly useful to the conversation. Your opinion is pretty clear, after all.

NotablyPrettyCrazy said:

And we can agree, that leaps of faith are bad level designs, but what about situations where looking up is helpful? Or maybe jumping on small platforms in later levels where you really have to precisely land on them, like the CEZ2 platforms to the checkpoint with the ring arrow before the grapple tower as an example since CEZ is getting reworked in 2.2 anyway and the Megaman-platform section in ERZ2 that comes right after the lazer section with the crushers?

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I'm not saying that adjusting the camera vertically is useless. I'm saying it has limited use. I think the key thing you're missing here is that the less things a new player needs to handle at once, the better. If we can remove gameplay mechanics with limited use, this means that the gameplay mechanics that are actually important are brought to the forefront.

Instead of thinking about it as "where can this be helpful?", think about it as "where is this really necessary?". Removing or hiding unnecessary features is a good way to reign in complexity, which is exactly what we're trying to do.

NotablyPrettyCrazy said:

If they're staring at the floor accidentally, they would have had to pull the mouse back, so either it is, again, the sensitivity issue, or just human error.

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This here is the key thing I think is important. Yes, it's human error, but it's human error that they wouldn't have at all if the feature was disabled. I'm taking the view that between the benefits of having the feature enabled or disabled by default, having it disabled by default will benefit more players, and yes, I'm taking into account all the things I didn't directly reply to here. Disabling vertical camera movement by default prevents human error causing the camera to be pointed in an unhelpful direction, and in doing so makes it more likely that a beginner player will have a good first impression and stick with the game long enough for the controls to make sense. This is WAY more important than the occasional situation where looking up and down can be beneficial.

Mystic said:

The basic issue is that we're expecting players to handle a control scheme they're not using for a platformer for a platformer. The more variables we can remove from the equation, the better. While I'm sure lowering it would help some players, removing it entirely is likely to help more players than just lowering it would.

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I do wish that this would have been elaborated on a bit more as to how that is the conclusion that was achieved, so there could have been extra input on it.

Just because I'm not directly responding to a specific part of your message doesn't mean I didn't read it. I simply didn't think that responding to all of it would be particularly useful to the conversation. Your opinion is pretty clear, after all.

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Alright, fair enough then. I suppose I can get behind that.

I'm not saying that adjusting the camera vertically is useless. I'm saying it has limited use. I think the key thing you're missing here is that the less things a new player needs to handle at once, the better. If we can remove gameplay mechanics with limited use, this means that the gameplay mechanics that are actually important are brought to the forefront.

Instead of thinking about it as "where can this be helpful?", think about it as "where is this really necessary?". Removing or hiding unnecessary features is a good way to reign in complexity, which is exactly what we're trying to do.

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Do wonder how detrimental it is to not have it in said situations where its "limited use" comes in handy, but I'd imagine that'd involve playtesting either way, or atleast the levels to be designed around it.
But the other thing I wonder is if if the new player is used to being able to control the vertical view of a camera in other games, expecting to be able to do the same in this game, but finding that they can't, and again, there's a distinct possibility the new players or maybe even long-returning veteran players won't think that it can be changed via the options.
Noticing that, if the vertical mouselook being off by default idea passes, I do also atleast suggest that, if a player with vertical mouselook off ends up joining a ringslinger game, there should atleast be a warning for them to go in the options to turn it on.

This here is the key thing I think is important. Yes, it's human error, but it's human error that they wouldn't have at all if the feature was disabled. I'm taking the view that between the benefits of having the feature enabled or disabled by default, having it disabled by default will benefit more players, and yes, I'm taking into account all the things I didn't directly reply to here. Disabling vertical camera movement by default prevents human error causing the camera to be pointed in an unhelpful direction, and in doing so makes it more likely that a beginner player will have a good first impression and stick with the game long enough for the controls to make sense. This is WAY more important than the occasional situation where looking up and down can be beneficial.

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But maybe the human error aspect could be curbed down enough with a slower default speed for mouselook to the point of being a minimal issue? Especially considering that for more severe cases looking way too high up/down, in situations with low enough sensitivity, would have to amount to a massive jolt backwards/forwards with the mouse, and not causing the oddity of some new players being generally unaware that vertical mouselook is an option unless the warning idea from earlier in the post is implemented anyway.

I mean if Mouselook were to be disabled by default you could just toggle it so its on and save it to config :v

MK.exe said:

I mean if Mouselook were to be disabled by default you could just toggle it so its on and save it to config :v

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...We've went over this already, but there's a fair likelihood that a portion of newer players either won't go to the options or won't be aware that it could be turned on/off.