Hey all, I'm a standard beta backer and recently had the opportunity to try the Single-Player Combat Build.
I really want this game to be successful, so I thought I'd share my impressions and some of the challenges I encountered so that we can maximize the accessibility of the game and perhaps diminish the learning curve.
My background: I played FE2 but never found the Thargoids. Software developer by trade (UI specialist).
High level thoughts:
Control Attempt 1: Gamepad
I was excited to hear that ED can be played on a Gamepad, and was encouraged with the sensible set of default controls (and nice graphic depicting them).
I set up an old Dualshock 3 I had lying around, and spent the first night trying to get through some SP missions.
The second night, my initial excitement had faded, and frustration set in - I simply could not get precise enough with my targetting with the DS3 analog sticks. I'm not sure if it was my sensitivity tuning, or the yaw/roll hybrid setting, or what - but I soon gave up this control approach as hopeless.
Control Attempt 2: Mouse/Keyboard (Nostromo)
The next night I set up at my desk with a Razer Nostromo on my left hand and a mouse on my right.
I tried to map the throttle to the Nostromo's mousewheel, but couldn't get it working properly. I did find there was potential in using the Nostromo for strafing (lateral thrusters).
On the other hand (heh), the mouse wasn't effective for me - the delta constraints on yaw, in combination with low sensitivity, in combination with a seemingly large dead zone made the ship turn very sluggishly.
I think there is probably some adjustments I could make here, but I didn't bother, because I had ordered a Joystick on Amazon to try with ED - a Logitech Extreme 3D Pro.
Control Attempt 3: Logitech Extreme 3D Pro / Nostromo
This is where it clicked for me - I finally had control of my ship where I could make sudden turns and moves, and then precise adjustments to get on target.
(I did have a small hiccup where I selected "Joystick Defaults", but none of the defaults actually seemed to "take" - even though Joy X Axis was indicated as mapped to roll, I had to manually go and explicitly map Joy X to Roll to get it to actually work)
I also sorted out the Nostromo mousewheel throttle (the key is not to map it to "Mouse Z Axis", but rather map the up/down flicks individually to throttle+ and throttle- respectively).
As a result, I have a poor-man's HOTAS setup that works really well for me, and I was able to really get into the game and start to develop as a pilot.
Potential Improvements
Hope this is useful. I realize that there are adjustments etc. that other players have made to make better progress with the other control schemes, but I'll say that I work full time and have two kids, so I don't have a lot of time to monkey with settings and search for a potential fun configuration.
I feel the game and Frontier will be best served by default control scheme options that are as accessible and intuitive as possible, while also scaling up to an extremely high / unlimited skill ceiling.
I think we're close!
I really want this game to be successful, so I thought I'd share my impressions and some of the challenges I encountered so that we can maximize the accessibility of the game and perhaps diminish the learning curve.
My background: I played FE2 but never found the Thargoids. Software developer by trade (UI specialist).
High level thoughts:
- I was really impressed with the quality and reliability of the build - I had no issues on my Bootcamped Macbook Pro, nor with any input device - except for a minor one when I set up my Joystick, more on that later.
- I liked the structure of the tutorial missions - although a little more HUD help would be nice.
- My primary struggles were related to getting in control of my ship - something I think will be very common with new/unfamiliar players. I'll go into this further below.
Control Attempt 1: Gamepad
I was excited to hear that ED can be played on a Gamepad, and was encouraged with the sensible set of default controls (and nice graphic depicting them).
I set up an old Dualshock 3 I had lying around, and spent the first night trying to get through some SP missions.
The second night, my initial excitement had faded, and frustration set in - I simply could not get precise enough with my targetting with the DS3 analog sticks. I'm not sure if it was my sensitivity tuning, or the yaw/roll hybrid setting, or what - but I soon gave up this control approach as hopeless.
Control Attempt 2: Mouse/Keyboard (Nostromo)
The next night I set up at my desk with a Razer Nostromo on my left hand and a mouse on my right.
I tried to map the throttle to the Nostromo's mousewheel, but couldn't get it working properly. I did find there was potential in using the Nostromo for strafing (lateral thrusters).
On the other hand (heh), the mouse wasn't effective for me - the delta constraints on yaw, in combination with low sensitivity, in combination with a seemingly large dead zone made the ship turn very sluggishly.
I think there is probably some adjustments I could make here, but I didn't bother, because I had ordered a Joystick on Amazon to try with ED - a Logitech Extreme 3D Pro.
Control Attempt 3: Logitech Extreme 3D Pro / Nostromo
This is where it clicked for me - I finally had control of my ship where I could make sudden turns and moves, and then precise adjustments to get on target.
(I did have a small hiccup where I selected "Joystick Defaults", but none of the defaults actually seemed to "take" - even though Joy X Axis was indicated as mapped to roll, I had to manually go and explicitly map Joy X to Roll to get it to actually work)
I also sorted out the Nostromo mousewheel throttle (the key is not to map it to "Mouse Z Axis", but rather map the up/down flicks individually to throttle+ and throttle- respectively).
As a result, I have a poor-man's HOTAS setup that works really well for me, and I was able to really get into the game and start to develop as a pilot.
Potential Improvements
- If I'm cruising at 40% throttle and tap a key for some instantenous forward thrust, when I release that key, my throttle position is reset to 0%. I wish it would reset to the previous setting.
- I bound my joystick's hat switch to head look U/D/L/R - instantaneous, not cumulative. This works great, but unfortunately I have to map another key to "toggle head look" - it's a toggle that's useless as my hat switch is bound to nothing else ever. I wish it would just always head look regardless of toggle state - also wish that I could tune the angle up that it looks at.
- Temperature indicator is not obvious that it's temperature; a simple icon would help
Hope this is useful. I realize that there are adjustments etc. that other players have made to make better progress with the other control schemes, but I'll say that I work full time and have two kids, so I don't have a lot of time to monkey with settings and search for a potential fun configuration.
I feel the game and Frontier will be best served by default control scheme options that are as accessible and intuitive as possible, while also scaling up to an extremely high / unlimited skill ceiling.
I think we're close!
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