By default, we should have vertical mouselook off. Players generally don't want to look up and down.
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
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.
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:
- They focus more on shooting than platforming so being able to have vertical camera movement isn't as important.
- 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.
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.