Relative Mouse mode

[Arguendo]

Then again, because you seem to have missed it:

If you don't let go of the joystick but pull it back with your hand, can you feel/see when the stick has reached the neutral position again? I bet you can.

Mice don't have this kind of a neutral position, I mean there's no visible/tactile feedback whatsoever whether you've reached it or not, hence the need of the relative mouse mode.

Ofcourse I didn't miss it. Since a mouse is so superior it shouldn't be necessary to add such a crutch to it as well. That's just making the best control method even more superior, right?

 

[Morbad]

Ok but what about a petition to get Fdev to add the relative mode for joysticks ?

How exactly do you envision such a mode working?

Mice don't have this kind of a neutral position, I mean there's no visible/tactile feedback whatsoever whether you've reached it or not, hence the need of the relative mouse mode.

This depends on how one uses the mouse.

I'm a claw/finger tip-grip, high sensitivity, mouse user and my wrist almost never leaves the pad unless I'm picking up the whole mouse to reposition it. I move the mouse with my fingers and there is a definite neutral position for me. As I also run with no acceleration and a 1:1 dpi to pixel curve in Windows, returning my hand to it's neutral position also returns the mouse to almost the pixel it was on.

Of course, there are more ways to use a mouse than a stick.

The mouse widget also provides a visual indicator of the return to center, though I do acknowledge that it's rather obtrusive at times.

 

[galahad2069]

Ofcourse I didn't miss it. Since a mouse is so superior it shouldn't be necessary to add such a crutch to it as well. That's just making the best control method even more superior, right?

What would you like to achieve by removing relative mouse mode? Have you ever tried to use FAoff without it?

If you feel that this is the only reason you keep losing to M+KB users, why don't you just use M+KB yourself? Everyone and his dog has a mouse after all, and even the most sophisticated gaming mice are much cheaper than a high quality HOTAS.

Sorry mate, but insisting on removing/nerfing mouse+keyboard as an input method in a computer game is a pretty idiotic idea.

Just out of pure curiosity: have you heard of virtual joysticks? You can remove not only relative mouse mode but M+KB altogether from the game, and I can still use my mouse and I can have even fancier things than the current ingame implementation of relative mouse. So what's the point?

 

[BL1P]

How exactly do you envision such a mode working?

When Jstick is held in position for the same amount of time as for the mouse it auto centres.

EG
Move up - hold pos auto centre - return to mechanical centre = apply opposite - hold at mechanical centre for auto centre.

 

[Arguendo]

Sorry mate, but insisting on removing/nerfing mouse+keyboard as an input method in a computer game is a pretty idiotic idea.

I don't, as I've stated earlier in the thread

The rest of your post is nowhere near anything I've ever said, so I'll just ignore that.

 

[galahad2069]

How exactly do you envision such a mode working?



This depends on how one uses the mouse.

I'm a claw/finger tip-grip, high sensitivity, mouse user and my wrist almost never leaves the pad unless I'm picking up the whole mouse to reposition it. I move the mouse with my fingers and there is a definite neutral position for me. As I also run with no acceleration and a 1:1 dpi to pixel curve in Windows, returning my hand to it's neutral position also returns the mouse to almost the pixel it was on.

Of course, there are more ways to use a mouse than a stick.

The mouse widget also provides a visual indicator of the return to center, though I do acknowledge that it's rather obtrusive at times.

Sorry, but what you describe is not feedback.

 

[Arguendo]

When Jstick is held in position for the same amount of time as for the mouse it auto centres.

EG
Move up - hold pos auto centre - return to mechanical centre = apply opposite - hold at mechanical centre for auto centre.

That wouldn't work well with a joystick, as it has limits to how far you can move it. If you don't always go to the extreme, you will lose the ability to go to the extreme in that direction after it has "centered" itself.

eg. I want to start a slow rotation in the upward pitch direction in FA OFF. I move the joystick a short amount downwards then stop. The joystick "re-centers" at that point. I now find that this wasn't enough and I need to add more rotation, but that doesn't work as I've already used up the amount of movement needed and all that is left is equivalent to what I have already done. That means I now need to move the stick upwards to re-center the joystick in the original position, which effectively stops my rotation. Then I can add more rotation, but only after I've already stopped my ship, basically placing me even further behind the power curve.

I get the idea, but due to movement limitations that don't exist in a mouse on a desk, it's not practicably applicable for a joystick which has those limitations.

 

[galahad2069]

I don't, as I've stated earlier in the thread

The rest of your post is nowhere near anything I've ever said, so I'll just ignore that.

The rest of my post was nothing but a few questions you apparently cannot answer, so yes, ignoring it is the easiest option.

 

[Arguendo]

The rest of my post was nothing but a few questions you apparently cannot answer, so yes, ignoring it is the easiest option.

They were questions based on things I've never said, nor come close to saying. Aka irrelevant questions

 

[Bortas]

Ofcourse I didn't miss it. Since a mouse is so superior it shouldn't be necessary to add such a crutch to it as well. That's just making the best control method even more superior, right?

I wouldn't say M+K is generally superior to Joystick setups. If that was the case, surely nobody would spend hundreds of $/€/£ for an obviously inferior control method, when they have the superior one already on their desk.

It's a matter of personal preference more than anything else, I just don't think one control method should be entirely excluded from using FA Off... Since - as this thread has shown - it can be emulated using third party software anyway, I don't see why a simple keybind to switch between relative and normal mouse mode should not be implemented.

 

[Arguendo]

I wouldn't say M+K is generally superior to Joystick setups. If that was the case, surely nobody would spend hundreds of $/€/£ for an obviously inferior control method, when they have the superior one already on their desk.

In FA OFF with Relative Mode M+K is superior to pretty much any joystick setup, due to the accurate control of movement available. Just the way it is.
I believe for most, the feeling of using a joystick is more important to how well they perform in PvP, which is why people choose joysticks. It just feels wrong to use K+M for this game for me, and I expect others as well.

 

[galahad2069]

They were questions based on things I've never said, nor come close to saying. Aka irrelevant questions

"So just removing the relative mouse mode in its entirety shouldn't be an issue then..."

This was their context.

 

[BL1P]

I wonder what company's like Thrustmaster etc could come up with if they knew that Hotas and Jstick is made sub par because of relative mouse mode in Elite dangerous.

I have quite a few friends who no longer use their Hotas set ups because mouse + relative is better.
And one or two who wont buy one because of relative mouse.

 

[Bortas]

In FA OFF with Relative Mode M+K is superior to pretty much any joystick setup, due to the accurate control of movement available. Just the way it is.

So you are advocating to deny M+K users the ability to use FA off because joystick users could potentially lose their advantage over them?

 

[Morbad]

Ofcourse I didn't miss it. Since a mouse is so superior it shouldn't be necessary to add such a crutch to it as well. That's just making the best control method even more superior, right?

I'm not keen on the idea of using barriers to input to balance the game. The game should strive to remove as many barriers to control of the ships as possible, not reinforce them. Some control methods will have intrinsic advantages in some tasks, but that's not a reason to handicap them.

I don't have any objections to the existence of relative mouse, and I'd much rather see more enhancements and options for other inputs, than an attempt to balance the game around joystick input at the expense of other options.

Sorry, but what you describe is not feedback.

The 'mouse widget' is explicitly visual feedback, that's why it exists. In my case, I also have tactile feedback from my mouse pad and my own anatomy; I can tell the position of my arm, hand, and fingers without looking at it or needing to feel any outside forces being applied to it; because I don't use any acceleration, the positional relation ship between my mouse and the cursor in game are very consistent.

Regardless, I do agree that removing relative mouse would not be practical with the current systems in place. The explicit feedback mechanism provided is obtrusive and unsuitable for combat, while 1:1 dpi/pixel mapping is not even close to the default and cannot be guaranteed.

When Jstick is held in position for the same amount of time as for the mouse it auto centres.

EG
Move up - hold pos auto centre - return to mechanical centre = apply opposite - hold at mechanical centre for auto centre.

I don't think this would prove to be broadly useful for the reasons Arguendo mentions.

However, if this were manually controllable, it might be interesting. Like a toggle to set the current x/y inputs as 0/0 that you release to restore the standard calibration.

Hard to evaluate it's actual utility without being able to experience it though...

 

[Arkadi]

Why not use everything the game gives?

My favorite setup is HOTAS, with mouse in the middle between thrust and stick - also the keyboard is on the table in front.

I can pretty easyly swap between m&kb and HOTAS as the situation demands.

I think the throttle control is the big advantage of HOTAS. I never could adjust throttle that intuitive and fluidly wiht m&kb or gamepad as with HOTAS.

Aiming and sniping is for the mouse. I think most agree.

Now FA off feels a bit easyer with Mouse in that relative mode. But I think it's not that much better since I tend to use thrusters more then roll and yaw/ptich in FA-off anyway.

I bound the laterals trhusters to WASD and forward/back to space/ctrl (have them on the hotas too) It's not that much of a difference if I do those littel yaw/pitch adjustments with mouse or stick. Aiming as usually is much easyer with mouse. So I tend to do defensive maneuvering with the stick, and aim-orbiting with mouse.

I think the systems work pretty well. But since I am not an overly ambitious combatant maybe I don't see the fine issues some seem to see.

 

[Morbad]

I believe for most, the feeling of using a joystick is more important to how well they perform in PvP, which is why people choose joysticks.

I'm not using the control setup I'm using for flavor or immersion, I'm using it because a minor deficit to fine aim for fixed hitscan weapons and a little more tiring FA Off control is a small price to pay for having nine analog control axes at my disposal.

I'd rather see a mechanism to make digital thruster input more useful than to nullify the advantages of relative mouse, for example, because I feel I have a tangible advantage over most KBM users in most aspects of combat...and again, I'm more about removing barriers to control than erecting them.

 

[Poseidal]

I got used to the game with relative FA-On, which feels somewhat more like the control used on Tachyon the Fringe, the flying vehicles of Planetside 2 and the Archimedes Elite (with damping on). FA-Off was quite alien to me when I started using it. I also used to have mouse-roll, but I have switched it to yaw now as FA-off I could not get used to it with roll.

I have never used relative-off.

Are there many that actually flew like this? I thought relative-on (with FA-on) was pretty normal because of how it behaved in other games (like those mentioned) but I was surprised to learn that it wasn't.

 

[Arguendo]

So you are advocating to deny M+K users the ability to use FA off because joystick users could potentially lose their advantage over them?

Nope.
And joystick users never had an advantage over M+K users to start with (talking FA OFF)

 

[galahad2069]

The 'mouse widget' is explicitly visual feedback, that's why it exists. In my case, I also have tactile feedback from my mouse pad and my own anatomy; I can tell the position of my arm, hand, and fingers without looking at it or needing to feel any outside forces being applied to it; because I don't use any acceleration, the positional relation ship between my mouse and the cursor in game are very consistent.

Regardless, I do agree that removing relative mouse would not be practical with the current systems in place. The explicit feedback mechanism provided is obtrusive and unsuitable for combat, while 1:1 dpi/pixel mapping is not even close to the default and cannot be guaranteed.

The mouse widget, albeit a coarse and pretty useless one (I don't even use it because of how annoying it is), is indeed some kind of a visual feedback, but your wrist/hand position is not - it's trying to make up for the lack of the feedback coming from the device itself.

As for the dpi/pixel settings, I don't really understand what pixels you are talking about in this context (yeah better mice allow you to change the dpi of the sensor of the mouse, but with no mouse pointer present it makes little sense to speak of pixels IMO). I guess you mean that you use no further software amplification (minimal position of the ingame mouse sensitivity slider)? Something like when you use only analogue zoom on a camera, without adding any digital zoom (which would only "enlarge" the image without being able to bring out more details anyway)?