Control Method

[Proteus]

Hi,
I will post this under the BUGS since it IMHO is as good as a bug.
I purchased Starmade since I it has great potential and I wanted to support it. I have not tried it until recently.
Now I have tried it and wow did the control methods turn me off. They are honestly the most gamer hostile controls I have come across in a long time. Nearly nothing is intuitive and works the way one thinks. I had to experiment and read and still I did not get it right. I know I do not give much examples but that is due to the fact that I am so dissapointed at the moment. I simply wanted to share this. Probably I will get answers that dismiss my complaint in some form or other.
But honestly this has to change. I realize this is an alpha so no time is like this time. Are there really no others that has
reacted on this? Am I alone?

 

[canadianchuck]

What do you mean by control method?
like how you move the character outside the ship or how you build a ship?

 

[Proteus]

I do understand I was a bit short in my descriptions. I will try to get a more detailed list later on. But this has to wait since it late where I am at.
By control method I mean the overall way the player control the game. Keyboard, mouse etc. In other words how the player interacts with the UI.
That is perhaps the most crucial part of any game (or other software). It simply do not matter if the rest is golden, which it is in this case. I think the general idea behind "Starmade" is extremly promising. But the ways I was given to interact with it was bad. Really bad. So bad in fact that I simply turned it off after some 15 minutes from pure frustration.
I so do not want this game to fail. After all it has some brilliant things in it. Like space, block world and such. Fantastic. But it all is for nothing if this part is poorly made. There are so many testers listed. Is it really no one who has stood up and said "this do not work"?
I will get back to this subject at a later date and give more in depth details. As soon as I have listed them parallell to giving the game another try. I will steel my self and do that since I like the premise Starmade presents.
Bye for now...

 

[schema]

Hi,

sorry, that you had a bad experience playing StarMade

if you tell me exactly, what you don't like about the controls, and what you have problems with, I'll do my best to improve on it!

cheers,
schema

 

[DoomAngelBlade]

Ban dat sonofabiach spammer and delete mine and his post!

 

[socramazibi]

At first it is a bit strange handling, then I agree that it is like the mcedit (Editor Minecraft) or similar control and you get used to. Give time has to be improving gradually. Remembering is an Alpha. What I notice is that when the white doll flies like a rag doll



greetings

 

[CrazyVulcan]

The movement of the Player Character is fine for me. WS to move in and out, AD to strafe, QE to rise and sink. In the Adv. Editor they are, while taking some time to get use to, functional. Also having (R) be the active toggle for any interactive block is fine but I strongly suggest it is made clear from the beigning. A help menu will come with time.
The biggest control issue I have is in piloting the ship itself. Making any kind of complex turn to get a barring is dificult with a mouse when the retrial wants to keep moving back to center. You start to move the mouse to the edge of your mouse pad and maybe get 30* or so turning out of it. This I have found has led to 'fly by, drag, pick up, drag, pick up, drag, pick up....'
Could we try this, you have the circle retrial, you move the cross hairs off and you begin to turn that way and keep turning that way till you move it back to center. The farther away form center the faster the turn. i have a feeling this is what is 'meant' to be in place now but on my end it does not work. Holding ctrl to turn on your axis is fine but as with the turning is there a way to make it more sensitive with out making everything else over sensitive.
Any one else have anything to add?

 

[oryan]

So let me preface this with the fact that I love this game.

I find it extremely frustrating to play, however. I get excited watching others play and then as soon as I turn it on, I want to turn it off. Most of my frustration stems from the controls.

The WASD based movement controls work and are pretty intuitive. My issue comes that every action has a different key. R to get into the object. SPACE to fly or sometimes use some weapons. Or was it R to use weapons... Now that I am in my salvage canon how do i get out and fly my ship again? Is it R or SPACE? wait I\'m not even in my ship... I\'ll select my ship and hit SPACE... Now I\'m in edit mode... Space again and I\'m in my Salvage cannon... nope actually I\'m still free floating... what the heck is going on?

Now, as an interface designer I understand the complexities and difficulties of coming up with an intuitive way to offer control to a user. I hope this doesn\'t come across as being crass or a jerk. Because like I said I love this game and the concept. I even love that surviving and general game play requires skill and is challenging. But the controls stand in the way of me enjoying and understanding what is going on.

I\'d like to propose a more universal activation control.

For example: In minecraft items and blocks that can be interacted with are all triggered by the right mouse click. It\'s common, predictable and intuitive. I know that when I see a block that I can do something with all i need to do is right click on it and from there I get a predictable response. Chests open and allow me to interact with it, levers lever, switches toggle, doors open.

If I am going to open a shop it should be the same action i would do to interact with most other things. Lets say we stick with the SPACE bar for now. (I realize other actions may be attached right now)

I target a shop and hit SPACE - it opens and I can interact with it.
I target a core and hit SPACE - I enter it
?I target a weapons controller and hit SPACE - I can enter it
So on and so forth

The SPACE bar may not be perfect but it illustrates my point.

SPACE to activate or interact
I to bring up the inventory
F to focus or select (in build or flight)
Number strip to select weapons while flying or materials while building.
WASD to move



The point is every successful game has intuitive controls for certain tasks. Building and piloting ships and such in space is a complicated matter. No questions there. But every action does\'t need it\'s own key. And you certainly don\'t need to reinvent the wheel (unless your new wheel is amazingly better than the old one)

I know there are games out there that are successful and have a steep learning curve. EVE comes to mind. And while I love the concept of EVE... I will probably never have the chance to actually learn it and thus enjoy it.

Blender is a impressively powerful tool. It has amazing capabilities and the fact that it is free boggles my mind. But the reason Blender isn\'t so widely used is the interface is the epitome of bad user experience and layout. Nothing is straight forward and everything is hidden in menus and secret. Those who have have managed to climb the unrelenting cliffs that are the Blender learning curve, will fight to the bitter end to see it go unchanged. Not because it is usable and good but because through years of trial and error they have programmed themselves to work the way blender works instead of Blender understanding how people work and helping them work more efficient. So Blender will continue to have a horrible interface that newbies continue to give up on and the grizzled ancients will fight to the bitter end to protect their way of working. This guarantees that Blender\'s market share will be steady but low. Which is sad, considering the incredible things that can be done with it.

I\'d love to offer more in depth feedback and suggestions on the controls (and maybe even the UI) but I still don\'t know all the functions and actions very well. And I really hope this doesn\'t read as though I am trying to be an ass. I do think the game you have created is pretty spectacular!

 

[YiddoPhil]

It would be nice just to open up the control bindings to accept any input, currently I am unable to bind my mouse buttons OR my joypad to what I would like.

When I play a game I like to use my mouse for movement (buttons 1 & 2 for fwd / back) and the keyboard for everything else.



Loving the game so far though, keep up the good work.