Why I use a mouse rather than a joystick

[SnowFlake]

I don't see that Frontier have a problem if its easier to control a ship with a Joystick than a mouse, IMO they've done their job properly if that's the case.

In Flight Sims you get the best out of them with dedicated peripherals, exactly the same in the Sim Racing world, it's the way it should be.

HI, brand new to the forums, hate to gate crash here and by all means shout at me if i have it wrong here.

by all means this is a space game, however can you really go as far as call it a sim? yes it has alot of aspects that a simuator game would have but i find it a bit more... arcade-ish (if thats even a word) if you know what i mean, this game is meant to be fun. an idea of what a free roaming, all that you want to be game set in space. so yes maybe it does mean and probably should be joystick orientated but there should always be a balance for those who do not wish to use a joystick? it's like saying (im a premium beta backer fyi) thanks for backing the alpha phase, if you don't want to use a joystick, you may as well not play.

i am a mouse and keyboard player myself and in all honesty, i am struggling to master the controls. there have been some excelent sugestions of how mouse and keyboard can be improved.

the idea of alpha and beta phases is to find bugs and improve the game mechanics + controls. if people like me finding it hard to use mouse and keyboard. then telling them to get a joystick is not helpfull at all.

if people can't play the way they want to play, then it will make them not want to buy the game and play at all. why should people who would have to go out and pay for a joystick because they find a game difficult to play?

i'm not trying to start a flame war mouse + keyboard vs joystick here or anything but i find those who tell people who want to play with mouse and keyboard being told to use a different peripheral to get the job done highly inconsiderate.

 

[k10]

keyb/mouse user myself and I have the use of X45, X52 and X360 for windows to choose from.

I know I've broke my own rules by posting but this seems like nothing more than picking a contentious issue, posting it and watching the poo fly.
we all know the arguments for and against and it always boils down to use what you're most comfortable with.
by all means read the pros and cons in the many other threads, make a decision and buy what you want. satisfaction however, is not guaranteed so consider that too.

 

[Spyder78]

HI, brand new to the forums, hate to gate crash here and by all means shout at me if i have it wrong here.

by all means this is a space game, however can you really go as far as call it a sim? yes it has alot of aspects that a simuator game would have but i find it a bit more... arcade-ish (if thats even a word) if you know what i mean, this game is meant to be fun. an idea of what a free roaming, all that you want to be game set in space. so yes maybe it does mean and probably should be joystick orientated but there should always be a balance for those who do not wish to use a joystick? it's like saying (im a premium beta backer fyi) thanks for backing the alpha phase, if you don't want to use a joystick, you may as well not play.

i am a mouse and keyboard player myself and in all honesty, i am struggling to master the controls. there have been some excelent sugestions of how mouse and keyboard can be improved.

the idea of alpha and beta phases is to find bugs and improve the game mechanics + controls. if people like me finding it hard to use mouse and keyboard. then telling them to get a joystick is not helpfull at all.

if people can't play the way they want to play, then it will make them not want to buy the game and play at all. why should people who would have to go out and pay for a joystick because they find a game difficult to play?

i'm not trying to start a flame war mouse + keyboard vs joystick here or anything but i find those who tell people who want to play with mouse and keyboard being told to use a different peripheral to get the job done highly inconsiderate.

If money's tight then I understand your frustration if you're struggling with K&M but theres plenty of people using those that can fly as well as somebody with a Stick or HOTAS ... You probably just need to get used to it.

This might not be a full on sim but conversely it's not an 'arcade' game either, it does require a bit of effort to get used to it.

For me I come from a Sim Racing back ground, I use a cockpit with wheel pedals and shifter. I like tactile controls which is why I went for a HOTAS for ED, I personally find it easier but also a lot more immersive.

 

[Makasouleater69]

Thanks for your thoughtful reply. But to correct your misconception (and potentially anyone else reading this thread) :

I now find myself doing OK with mouse control, but it took an unexpected amount of practice (compared to any previous space game I've played, and even any flight-sim-like game I've played) . I use "Mouse Mode = Absolute Pitch/Yaw" with keys for Rolling left/right (with Yaw into Roll=Off & Mouse Deadzone=0%), and suggest you fiddle with that if you don't get on with the default presets. If you still can't make it stay still, then try increasing the Deadzone (anywhere from 0% to 33% seems to be common). If you find you take too long to get an enemy fighter within your sights, then try adjusting Mouse Sensitivity (see point 3 below).

Using the above control set-up, it took practice to learn that I cannot yaw left/right very fast, and instead must roll until the enemy ship is above/below me & then yaw up/down. aka "planes in space" (if you feel like being derogatory to Elite Dangerous).

I put the difficulty of mouse control down to several reasons:

1. The "Keyboard and Mouse" preset is "Mouse Mode = Absolute Pitch/ROLL", which I find completely counter-intuitive, as it is too easy to end-up spinning madly. Less than half of mouse players use that method. I have suggested "Absolute Pitch/Relative Roll" as a possible solution Frontier should try.

2. Elite Dangerous's flight model was (seemingly) mostly designed & tested with joypads (Xbox 360 Controllers) in mind, and in particular yawing left/right has been heavily nerfed. This makes it tricky to get used to, because mouse players naturally want to yaw left/right, when they should be rolling left/right. But with practice you can learn not to.

3. Even when I switched to Absolute Pitch/Yaw, it took some fiddling with Mouse Sensitivity to get it to work well in dogfights. If not sensitive enough, then you take too long to target an enemy fighter, while if too sensitive then you tend to overshoot past an enemy fight (zig-zagging).

Thank you very much, I will give that a try.

 

[Frobitz]

I'd have assumed most PC gamers have at least a console style controller due to the number of games that are made for console and PC.

Is keyboard/mouse only even a sensible baseline?

 

[prasak]

I have a bad experience with games, which prefer mouse as their main controller, only to be more accesible to majority of players. Namely MWO and War Thunder, where joystick users are disadvantaged over mouse users. There is probably no chance to ballance the controllers without sacrificing something and I hope this time mouse will be sacrificed for real stuff.

 

[X2Eliah]

There is probably no chance to ballance the controllers without sacrificing something and I hope this time mouse will be sacrificed for real stuff.

That is the current state, yeah.

 

[Abel]

Interesting topic, because the last days I thought about alternatives to mouse control, also at work. Thought of trying a trackball or something like that but still have to dive a little bit deeper to gain a better understanding of what the market offers.

As far as I found out from user comments, track balls seem to be less precise then mice.

 

[Helios]

I ended up buying a cheap Thrustmaster T-Flight HOTAS X after trying keyboard+mouse, PS3 controller and Xbox controller.

Since the T-Flight improved my performance by magnitudes and from my own observation:

For me personally the reason why other control methods don't work for me is only a single aspect: I need the three axes pitch, roll and yaw accessible with a single hand. I can not coordinate the movement well enough if it's split between two hands.

One example: I roll to the point where I could get an opponent into my target by purely using pitch. While I pitch into the according direction he only slightly goes to the side, requiring me to yaw just a bit. That's the point where, for me, everything collapses.

I might just try how it works if I put yaw on the left and right components of my mousewheel. So: Thanks to the OP for pointing out the idea to do stuff like that for testing purposes.

On a sidenote: Do later Alpha versions allow one to save custom control presets? I'm still on 1.1. For testing purposes I'd very much like to switch between the different control methods, but when premium beta starts I most certainly won't want to reassign all the stuff every time I do that.

 

[Arbanax]

I think that the intention of the original poster (so far as I understand it) to flag up that most people playing (like me for instance) might not normally play any games on their pc. But bought into the Elite from nostalgia and so on. For such as us, keyboard and mouse might be all we have. Therefore making the game accessible to us, is an important consideration to its eventual success and access to many a casual user, as the OP said.

I too moved to a Xbox controller and finally got a Thrustmaster X for my birthday - which with limited time I am still finding hard to master, but I am getting better.

So what I notice is as the game stands a) its not easy to play with a KB&M, that is important and might make the game less accessible to many. b) you can buy other stuff, but not everyone has the chance/can afford to do so (it took me ages to save up enough just to build a computer capable of running the game let alone stuff to play it with) but not everyone wants/can do. Playing the game with just a KB&M should be a viable option, as the OP said, I see nothing wrong with this suggestion and applaud them trying to learn what is involved. I think the DEV's need to hear this, because if all they get is the fanboys (of which I am one) telling them how good the game is, having spent a fortune to get the best out of it, then commercial release might tell an unexpected and unforeseen story.

I really hope it doesn't but you've got to remember what the average casual user, used to playing "flappy bird" or "lost winds" etc, will make of a game. Especially if to play it 'properly' requires such a lot of large initial investment to enjoy. I think the OP is right to flag this up, its in Frontier's commercial interest to be aware of this as well.

Ab

 

[psykokow]

Now if i am not mistaken.. James Vigor (Onevigor) used keyboard and mouse to quite good effect in Alpha 1.1 way back

Im not sure if he has invested up to getting a controller yet or not..

He found it managable

 

[the-monk]

Now if i am not mistaken.. James Vigor (Onevigor) used keyboard and mouse to quite good effect in Alpha 1.1 way back

Im not sure if he has invested up to getting a controller yet or not..

He found it managable

Maybe worth while asking such a player how he thinks that method of control could be improved.

 

[insanephoton]

Personally, I'm doing okay with k/board mouse. Some of it is a matter of just getting used to it. Someone did post a very good video about setting up the mouse controls some time back. I did try my ancient MS Sidewinder joystick during Alpha 1, but by the time we got around to docking, the lack of buttons made it less useful. It's one of these things that is very subjective

 

[Patrick_68000]

I will do the tourist in the premium beta with the mouse and keyboard. If it is convenient for me, I will keep. Otherwise I will buy a XBox 360 controller and I'll play the gamma with the controller and the keyboard if I need to enter text or other things. I do not think that I will buy a joystik like a X52 / 55. I prefer to spend my money in a graphics card of quality

 

[CMDR Texas Stu]

Okay, I'll chime in since this topic is solely about KB & Mouse.
I've been using KB & Mouse until I bought an Orbweaver (gamepad) which replaces much but not all of the KB (still multiple keys on KB). So now I use Gamepad, KB & Mouse. I racked up over 6,000 kills during A3 and I choose to use it versus a stick.
When I first tried alpha (mid-Jan.) I wondered if I could ever use a mouse as the sensitivity and dead-zone defaults made me feel sorely inept. Then I found a few tutorial videos in those early days which raised my hopes and after making some adjustments I felt pretty capable.
Now, there have been some very good suggestions to improvements and I'd really HOPE Frontier will take notice and hopefully (eventually?) implement the ones they deem usable.
Currently I have taken my 'credit injection' and traded extensively with the 'space cow' that is the Lakon Type 9 Heavy and am now flying an Acaconda that I was able to purchase last night so I believe it is fair to say the mouse does indeed work. I continue testing with it.

 

[Arbanax]

Since a number of folk have mentioned videos that helped set up KB&M it would be great if we could have some links, as its worth finding out if changes in the game, with those suggestions, still work/work as well/or have other aspects that highlight improvements that could be made.

Ab

 

[prasak]

Fortunately, when I was poor student, I did not have to buy all those expensive iphones and ipads so I was allways able to have a solid stick for my computer. I would support all the improvements for keyboard and mouse, but only in case they will not have any negative influence on joystick controll of the game.

 

[Phil^]

In PC land, we have to assume at a minimum a keyboard and mouse.

What about removing the mouse from the major control axels? It's how the original was played.

Thats like treating a bee sting with fire. It'll further punish people who do not have / cannot afford a joystick to play the game with.

 

[Tonberry]

the idea of alpha and beta phases is to find bugs and improve the game mechanics + controls. if people like me finding it hard to use mouse and keyboard. then telling them to get a joystick is not helpfull at all.

if people can't play the way they want to play, then it will make them not want to buy the game and play at all. why should people who would have to go out and pay for a joystick because they find a game difficult to play?

Although I agree with the sentiment behind ironing out control issues before launch, your follow-up statement reads more like a 'selfish' complaint.

Please dont take this as an attack of your post, as that is not what this is intended to be, however realistically the developers can do whatever the hell they want. If the game favours joystick control over mouse and keys, then that is how the game should be accepted... i.e. if you cant play it you may find the need to adapt. It is all very much a matter of preference.

Elite is far from a mainstream game - it is very much targetted at the sim crowd and should be considered as such. Its just a shame that right now the buy-in to determine if it works well for people is so high. That being said, it means only the enthusiasts are buying and imho if you can afford to pay in excess £100 for ANY game you can also afford to buy a £30 peripheral to really enjoy it... If people counter argue that they struggled to find the £100 to buy-in but still took the plunge, then that is you own burden to bare as there was always the option to wait and/or save.

Realist aside, I wish you all the luck in arriving at an optimal m/k configuration and hope that FD make an effort to improve the experience for those using this means of playing!

 

[NeoRacer]

No the original was played on the keyboard. But I DEMAND they support trackball mouse I will only play it with that, or boycott the whole game and FD development.

Thats like treating a bee sting with fire. It'll further punish people who do not have / cannot afford a joystick to play the game with.