![[de]](/mwf/flags/de.png "Germany")
Right, it was inevitable. Here is another one of my approaches to iron out stuff from the current controls. Please note: I don't touch OC or any other clonk very often and especially didn't in the last time. My opinions and problems might resemble those of new players. ;)
The inventory, as it is of now, still feels like a huge step back from the one in previous clonk titles. Even in a settlement scenario, where I had "all the time" I'd need, I found myself spending lots of time in the backpack, because I had to puzzle around. I wanted to pick up a few stones, but my backpack was full with sulphur - so I exchanged my tools with sulphur and threw that away. Now I had picked up stones in both hand slots, and had to move them to the backpack - again exchaning against sulphur, which I could throw away. I ran in much more complicated situations when I wanted to dig while I was picking up stones, because that required me to get the shovel from my backpack... That's not really any more comfortable than the scrolling inventory in CR was.
I also noticed that interaction with items is done with the mouse, while interaction with things in the landscape is done by key presses. That's inconsistent and takes a lot of getting used to. I can tell my clonk to use his axe by clicking on the tree, but i cant tell him to grab the fallen tree the same way. It's especially annoying when things can be interacted with in both ways - example berry bush, I ended up chopping them down instead of picking the berries because I tried the mouse buttons first. If abstracted a little, you could say that interaction with landscape-objects has been moved into the hud, because I have to look for the right number to press. That's not very intuitive and disrupts the gaming experience where I do stuff directly on the map.
Next, I always clicked on the miniature HUD icons of my inventory, hoping for some kind of quick access.
So, what do I propose to change? Well, I thought about a few smaller, and also about a few radical changes. Lets start with the small ones.
Inventory merge
Right now, a lot of the puzzle-action described above happens because I have to think about items switching slots between two inventories - the one being my hand-slots, the other being the backpack. I propose to remove the physical space of the hand slots in favor of having all items in one storage. Hand-"slots" get demoted to hand-"views", just showing the current selection for each hand. Obvious markers show the current selection in the miniature-inventory in the hud as well as in the backpack-menu.
Direct Access
To set said selections, a simple left- or right-click on the miniature inventory in the hud is enough. Also, the backpack menu, currently on [q], shouldn't require the user to hover over an item, but rather chose the focussed item based on the angle of the mouse relative to the center of the menu.
Here's a picture, clonkonaut drew it for me:
These changes shouldn't be very big. So, radical changes time! I juggled around the next ideas for a while now, but I'm sure they'll still offend everyone.
Single-Wield
First of all, I want to remove the possiblity to wield two items at the same time! When I put advantages and disadvantages on a scale, it seems like the only reasonable thing to do.
Right now, there's this advantage:
- In close combat, players can raise their shield with a single click.
Disadvantages are:
- We lost a most intuitive interaction button
- Players have to keep track of their current "Hand Setup" (the combination of items)
- Inventory functionality is more complicated (e.g. swapping hands)
Now I'm sure there might be a few more item combinations that would make sense (windjar-boosted arrows?), but seeing it in the big picture, I can merely consider those as gimmicks - a bit like the old terajump. I still think removing the second hand slot could gain us much more:
Homogeneous Interaction
We'd free the right mouse button! That one could be used to interact with things in the landscape - by just clicking on them. We could make interaction more homogeneous and intutitive like that. I know that this doesn't cover the "I have 20 lorries in the exact same place and i need to access the 14th"-problem, but seriously, how does anybody GET into that situation in OC? (And, if somebody dares to answer: How often? More often than I just have ONE lorry that I could click on? ;))
Now lets pretend we'd accept the changes up to here. We would have freed the number buttons now - those could now be used to provide:
Even quicker access to items
We're in the swords fight again, I have my sword in slot 1 and my shield in slot 2 in the backpack. I can still change to the shield pretty quickly by pressing the according number button. Admitted: It's one click more. But as soon as I introduce a third item, it suddenly saves me many interaction steps - the cost to switch between a sword, a shield and my three flints would one button each, while the current system would need me to open the backpack, search&move to an item, and click.
I know these suggestions might feel like they put a few "drawbacks" in, but that's the point I'm making: I want to give up a few "luxury controls" in order to make the overall game more intuitive. It's not a problem if some special, seldom-used controls are slightly more complex; But it's a huge one if new players ragequit because they can't throw away their sulphur.
First I was like "fuui" but then I tried to think of a situation where two hands are actually truly useful. And I couldn't think of one.And I usually am a fan of fast access to everything - But being able to click on landscape objects does not neccessarily exclude having the number keys or space bar for "quick access"
>I also noticed that interaction with items is done with the mouse, while interaction with things in the landscape is done by key presses. That's inconsistent and takes a lot of getting used to.
I don't think its inconsistent at all. Obviously you wouldn't want to grab a tree or enter a building while trying to shoot with your bow. That is why the mouse buttons are always reserved for using stuff your are interacting with and [space] is for interacting with something.
>"I have 20 lorries in the exact same place and i need to access the 14th"-problem
How about a cannon on an airship? A lorry on an elevator? A lorry in front of a building? We don't need extreme situations to justify direct access via hotkeys.
>That is why the mouse buttons are always reserved for using stuff your are interacting with and [space] is for interacting with something.
I guess it's a matter of perspective. If I want to complete the task "bring tree to sawmill", there is no obvious reason for me why i would assume that one part, "chopping the tree" is "using" the object and the "grabbing and moving" is "interacting".
>Obviously you wouldn't want to grab a tree or enter a building while trying to shoot with your bow.
That's why I sugggested the other mouse button. Left-clicking would always shoot my bow, while right clicking would select the object I want to grab/interact with.
>How about a cannon on an airship? [...]
We don't really have many of these situations now, but as I understand it, it'd work like this:
- move lorry to airship
(- press button to release lorry)?
- look for airship button
- press airship button
Using the RMB to interact/grab, it'd go like this:
- move lorry to airship
- Right-click on airship
The real important part is that I don't need to search the HUD for the right button. I can just point and click at what I see. This is important, since the button in the HUD even changes from situation to situation - one time, the airship is on 1, the other time, there is more stuff and it is on 3. Basically, as it is now, players can't really learn how to interact with certain objects, because it could work differently every time.
>Using the RMB to interact/grab, it'd go like this:
Where is the part where you want to grab the lorry but the blimp is in front of it? :)
For me everything you said sounds like valid concerns - but I would alwaysalways keep the buttons as an alternative and a short cut.
I don't know about you, but I am a lot faster with the keyboard than with the mouse. I believe I could type "get berry" faster than reliably(!) click a berry from a reasonably far zoomed out perspective.
> Where is the part where you want to grab the lorry but the blimp is in front of it? :)
True, this poses a problem. But that smaller objects can disappear behind larger objects is stupid anyway. The same situation (lorry on blimp) could behave differently because of the engine-interal order of objects. Players can't smell that and might wonder why pressing "space" (or RMB for what it's worth :P) on their otherwise identical blimp-setups produces different results. Coming from a non-coder-viewpoint, I'd suggest something like "Sort objects by their size on screen"
for selecting only to ensure that no larger object can be "in front" of smaller objects. Or clicking would have to check which mesh the click "hit"..> I believe I could type "get berry" faster than reliably(!) click a berry from a reasonably far zoomed out perspective.
True enough, but I can't think of any other object that is so small and needs interaction. Buildings and vehicles are big enough to click on them even when zoomed out..
But, well: I don't mind having the interaction bar as additional help. But it shouldn't have to be used as excuse for something like "internal object sorting obstructs your lorry otherwise", players won't understand that ;)
> I'd suggest something like "Sort objects by their size on screen"
Using Planes we can pretty much do that. Numbers are large enough so that we can have fine control over the ordering, so that Lorries always appear before blimps both in drawing order and in the order in the HUD. For objects with the same Plane the engine takes already care that objects with the same ID are not "mixed" in order, so that you won't have Lorry-Blimp-Lorry for example.
> but I can't think of any other object that is so small and needs interaction
Mushrooms, objects to pick up and what there is yet to come.
But I could probably also type "get chest" faster than clicking it - my point was: nothing against making the game more intuitive (and being able to click everything IS pretty intuitive), but for those who are faster without or who don't need it anymore: why take away the possibility to interact with objects comfortably? Because when I stand in front of a chest and want to open said chest - you can say anything but hitting Space instead of clicking the chest bhind you will always be more comfortable for me
Yes, it's a valid point. I agree to keep (at least) space to interact with the object directly behind the clonk ;)
![[us]](/mwf/flags/us.png "United States")
Iagree with this, i mean i would like the chance to play a hotseat game with my friends/family, (though i'm unable to do this currently) and being able to do actions in the previous games simply with the keyboard and a few keys(least to me) is a very important aspect to clonk i would like to have stay. i'd say having to rely on the mouse too much to do things makes this not seem possible to do much else other than single player. i think that the mouse already has a pretty in-depth purpose as it is, i dont think we should make it any more complicated, at least any more than what you can do on the keyboard/controller seeing as their can only be one mouse at a time.
aherm, first time checking up on openclonk since last year, just downloaded the REAL LATEST Openclonk and it blew my mind. scratch what i said about not being able to hotseat and whatever else my headfirst assumptions lead me to believe x)
I see, except for the problem with gamepads mentioned by boni I see no flaw in the control concept. I'd even suggest to make the scroll wheel cycle through the items as it is a well-known concept used in many other games. Zooming on Shift+wheel or something else then. The design might very well turn out to be much more simple, faster and easy than the current one.This should be tested in play, though. I suggest you (or those who help you) to go forward with this independent of the current settlement development - so, in a separate branch. For that, I'd like to know who would like to help Matthi to realize the concept; it might be pretty hard for him to get into the details of c4script handling the controls alone - also, we need his rendering hand for settlement development ;-)
>I'd even suggest to make the scroll wheel cycle through the items as it is a well-known concept used in many other games.
Remember that that sucks with smooth scroll wheels.
![[at]](/mwf/flags/at.png "Austria")
some games are using Triangle (Dreieck) Button + direktion key/wheel
![[ie]](/mwf/flags/ie.png "Ireland")
I tried to convince Matthi before posting that two hand slots are very useful and wanted to prove that the concept is very handy. But the only two item combinations I could come up with were "melee weapon & shield" and "bow & jar of winds". The jar of winds may give rise to other combos (throw flint + boost it) but I can't say that this is superior to a system with 1 slot and a quick changing mechanic.I really like the interaction bar, too. So personally I would prefer to keep it intact. To change your selected item we can rebuild the backpack menu to a more quicker access: Hold down q (menu closes on release) and move the mouse nearest you the item you want to select. That's more or less like Matthi's direct access. If you have time to do stuff, you can drag'n'drop items here to rearrange your backpack.
Obvious next thing would be the mousewheel but it's very imprecise.
Or shift + number key.
A counterproposal to interacting with rightclick would be to have 2 item uses on the two mouse buttons. Like for the axe it's chopping with left click and attacking with right click. The sword has attack and block. The shield has block and shove. And so on...
> Inventory merge
> Right now, a lot of the puzzle-action described above happens because I have to think about items switching slots between two inventories - the one being my hand-slots, the other being the backpack. I propose to remove the physical space of the hand slots in favor of having all items in one storage. Hand-"slots" get demoted to hand-"views", just showing the current selection for each hand. Obvious markers show the current selection in the miniature-inventory in the hud as well as in the backpack-menu.
Speaking of this, what annoys me as well is that we have both the backpack menu and the contents menu, to show the contents of the Clonk. But you can do different things with the two menus and so you need to remember to open the "correct" one. I wonder if we could extend the contents menu a bit in order to make the backpack menu superfluous. This extension would include something like always having 7 slots hardcoded for Clonks, having the hard markers as proposed by Matthi and allowing drag+dropping between the slots in the same menu.
We could just make the permanent HUD backpack clickable. Then you wouldn't need the backpack on Q (except for gamepad users maybe?)
![[gb]](/mwf/flags/gb.png "United Kingdom")
> Inventory merge / direct access
Sounds like the right direction. Would it make sense to have adjacent/opposing items to automatically map to left/right hand? That way you could set up "kits" in your backpack that you can swap in and out fast.
> - We lost a most intuitive interaction button
I'm not convinced the mouse should be used for interaction. After all, we have to restrict interaction closely around the Clonk (or implement - eww - pathfinding). That seems like the wrong task for the mouse.
And while current items might not use the second mouse button enough, this could well change.
> - Players have to keep track of their current "Hand Setup" (the combination of items)
> - Inventory functionality is more complicated (e.g. swapping hands)
The player is free to just not use one slot, to get the same complexity and utility as with your single-wield solution. That's actually how I imagined this working: Leave the right-hand slot with some background functionality (shield, digging, whatever), and do most work with the left-hand slot.
> After all, we have to restrict interaction closely around the Clonk (or implement - eww - pathfinding). That seems like the wrong task for the mouse.
Yes, but that's already a problem, it won't be introduced by my changes. Take the axe, for example: To chop a tree, I must stand in front of the tree, else, just nothing happens. (Unfortunately, right now, you actually have to stand next to the tree - too close or too far from the trunk will result in the clonk doing nothing...). I also mentioned to clonkonaut earlier, that situations like these could use pathfinding, but then I thought of the kind settlement scenarios that you would design, where the clonk would certainly die in lava or acid or fire on his way to the perfect tree-chopping-position :P
So, yeah - it's a problem, and we ought to solve that anyways, unrelated to whether we introduce my changes or not. Unfortunately, I'm fresh out of ideas except "restrict interaction" - but that doesn't seem too bad to me, after all. Right now, I also can only interact with objects that are close to me, visually represented by the appearing buttons in the HUD. RPGs often manage the same problem by changes in the mouse cursor - there is one "interaction"-cursor, and when you /could/ interact but are too far away, it gets greyed out. I think something this could work okay enough in this case, as well.
Well, I object to path-finding on a more fundamental level: We shouldn't try to play the game for the player. That will come back to bite us whenever we try to make the game more interesting. Scenarios with deep chasms or lava pools are just one example.
I understand that the mouse isn't really perfect for objects that have very limited reach like the axe. We could try to change the mouse cursor or display a symbol in order to show that the axe when swung in the given direction would actually end up chopping a tree. After all, I feel we are using the mouse in the Soldat way: What you click on doesn't matter, only direction (and possibly distance) really matters. Maybe we could reinforce that in the interface somehow?
Oh yeah, and the obvious change here is to increase the interaction region for trees. I don't see a reason why it should have to be fiddly, realism be damned.
I understand that the mouse isn't really perfect for objects that have very limited reach like the axe. We could try to change the mouse cursor or display a symbol in order to show that the axe when swung in the given direction would actually end up chopping a tree. After all, I feel we are using the mouse in the Soldat way: What you click on doesn't matter, only direction (and possibly distance) really matters. Maybe we could reinforce that in the interface somehow?
Oh yeah, and the obvious change here is to increase the interaction region for trees. I don't see a reason why it should have to be fiddly, realism be damned.
>I'm not convinced the mouse should be used for interaction. After all, we have to restrict interaction closely around the Clonk (or implement - eww - pathfinding). That seems like the wrong task for the mouse.
That's also my impression. You win nothing except making it a bit more intuitive and easier to learn for new players - but that little "except" is a huge point.
On the other hand that's why I am against replacing the current interaction functionality by the mouse instead of making the mouse a bonus (it could for example open a context menu with help-text on right click "pick berry"/"see description of berry"
PS: and obviously the description would be available for far-away objects too :)
I'd avoid the menu, if it's only to display a description. You'd probably want to read that one once and never after, so opening a menu - thus introducing one more click before I can "pick the berry" - every time will do more damage in the long run.
>I'd avoid the menu, if it's only to display a description. You'd probably want to read that one once and never after, so opening a menu - thus introducing one more click before I can "pick the berry" - every time will do more damage in the long run.
Agreed. The description thing would only make sense if there was some sort of context menu anyway
I really like your proposals. I had a lot of fiddling around changing hands and accidentally throwing flints while I wanted to dig...You could also make some combinations of the two mouse buttons for some object combination.
For example if you have the sword and shield you could get the shield up by clicking left (sword) and then additionally the right button...
Okay. I'm gonna do a huge post on usability and my thoughts here now!Note: I'm assuming that every gamepad has 4 shoulder-buttons, like every xbox/playstation gamepad has. 2 of these buttons are mapped as mouse-buttons.
Inventory
First off: Matthi got the right general idea imo. At the moment the inventory system is pretty unusable in my eyes - simply because you have to click stuff. Also basic stuff has to be as easy and intuitive as possible.
I propose a simple design rule here: Everything the mouse does is a luxority. For basic design, the mouse should be treated as DIRECTIONAL device (rather than position) and a button - a gamepad. The reason behind that is that it's hard to make stuff too complicated that way, if the restrictions are that it has to work fast on a gamepad.
For example:
>To set said selections, a simple left- or right-click on the miniature inventory in the hud is enough. Also, the backpack menu, currently on [q], shouldn't require the user to hover over an item, but rather chose the focussed item based on the angle of the mouse relative to the center of the menu.
This. This. This and this again. On a gamepad, this is done pretty much instantly. Press button, chose direction, press button. Same goes for a keyboard - You press Q, select direction with up/down/left/right OR the mouse (again. optional. luxury) and click with the mouse. Additionally to that, you can simply click on it with the mouse, making it accessible for everybody.
Easy. Fast. Simple. Although I'd use 8 slots instead of 6.
Problem: Moving items around. I guess it should be possible to position the item in the slot you want. I guess this could easily be done by selecting the item via direction, but instead of pressing the button to equip it HOLD it (or another button) then move into the direction where you want to have it, and release - swapping the 2 items. Or - of course - drag'n'drop with the mouse. ;)
TL;DR
Matthias approach to the inventory itself is superb imo.
Selection via direction allows fast access to every inventory item from every control device.
Selection via mouse allows luxus.
Selection via keyboard-shortcut is even faster (and needed for combat situations, imho).
Note: If you throw the selected object, the previous slot would be selected by default.
Controls
>Single-Wield
Highly situational imo. We have 2+ mouse buttons, and every gamepad has at least 2 shoulder buttons.
>Do stuff by clicking on it with the mouse
Again, if implemented this should be an luxury, not a neccessarity. Everything has to be doable without mouse point'n'click. The effect would be the same as going there and pressing the interaction-button, turning it into pathfinding, as Peter already said. However we don't have to sacrifice the 2nd mouse button for that, a 3rd/4th mouse button or the mouse wheel for example (of course everybody could re-map the key for himself).
> the X lorry problem
As you've already discussed, it's very very unlikely to have 20 lorries, but very likely to have a few items stacked behind each other. The first big thing here is CONSISTENCY. Having them sorted like ck/matthi said is neccessary, imo. The procedure has to be the same every time: You start at the foremost item and work your way to the sternmost.
From a gamepad perspective, it'd be the easiest to have one button for "next object" and one for "previous object". I'd use the non-mouse shoulder buttons for that.
From a keyboard perspective, next/previous buttons AND quick-access via number would be good. The problem here is that we already mapped numbers to inventory-slots, so that's not really possible anymore. (You'll want to select other inventory slots to put objects into containers/etc).
From a mouse perspective, the only possible solution is clicking on it. This does NOT solve the overlap-problem though. Good thing it's only a luxury, right? ;)
Considering our possibilities in the game, solving the "I want 14th lorry" problem directly seems pretty impossible. However it's very likely to assume that there are 5 objects stacked at max. (For example: Workshop, Blimp, Lorry, Catapult, Something). Having the consistency part we can judge easily how many times I have to press "next" (just like the old CR inventory with inventory shifting). This approach seems reasonable to me, agree/disagree?
TL;DR
Objects are SORTED CONSISTENTLY!
Interact with foremost object. Interact with next/previous object button.
Mouse-point'n'click = Pathfinding + Selecting right object luxury.
Wall of Text crits for 9999dmg. But there is more! I just felt that this should be seperated as it kinda concerns a different topic.Picking stuff up
The whole "Digging-up-earth-chunks" discussion has brought me to another design related question: How do we pick up stuff?
As far as I see there 2 options: Automatically or by button/command.
Again, picking up by clicking on it with the mouse would be a luxury and it's the same pathfinding + do something as the interaction-stuff.
I assume that the bucket-sollution will be implemented for earth, however, let's ask ourselves "what do we want to pick up" and "how do we handle it in our inventory"?
I could think of the following situations:
- Picking something up, that's lying on the ground. (Gold,...)
- I want to dig something out. (Flints)
- I want to mine Sulphur/Coal/...
- I want to exchange the thing I'm holding for something different.
- I don't want to pick X up
- I want to dit through Sulphur/Coal/... and not pick up stuff
Automatic collection is the easiest for the first three points and the 4th one only occurs in a full inventory, however NOT picking up stuff seems to be a problem here.
Pressing a button to pick an object up seems ok too, however it's pretty troublesome if you want to pick up more items or mine coal etc.
Pressing and holding a button allows you to decide what to pick up, and how much.
Having a combination of tipping a button to pick up 1 object, and holding it to pick up several looks like a good compromise to me. Holding the button practically equals automatic collection. The only problem here is digging out stuff in materials that produce objects. But Flints and the like should hopefully never be placed inside of coal/... by the engine or mean scenario-developers.
Still leaves the "I want to exchange something" problem. If the inventory is full, tipping the pickup-button could drop the selected inventory slot to the ground, and pick up the other object.
>Wall of Text crits for 9999dmg
Yes, sorry I didn't read it all. As he brought it up, I suggest you get in touch with Matthi for redesigning the controls with him and join the "task-force" that is hopefully going to form around him to create a prototype for that.
It is really not a long-term commitment/project so that's why I just called it task-force. I think it makes the most sense to develop this parallel to the main development team that is working on the settlement.
I dont know where or if this "Taskforce" is already plotting cuz im new to this Forum (hey everybody)but i had to place my thoughts somewhere so:
I would really like a button to switch between picking up all you run over with your hands (if empty) and picking up all you run over with your backpack (if theres place for it).
This doesnt have to be a new button on the Keyboard but more like a context button when showing your backpack for example. Like a checkbox or switchable button that appears along with your backpack-menu with either an easy understandable Picture or some kind of mouse-over description.
Why?
- This would allow easier transportation of lots of stuff (like resources lying around in a dug out Coalmine, ironmine, goldmine or just much wood lying around) and most importantely of all:
- It would allow to somewhat get over the digging for flintstone - getting earthchunk problem by having two free spaces in your backpack, switching on the option and just dig for the flintstone.
- You could also use this for digging out lots of earthchunks for... lets say big projekts :)
(im not shure how far youre yet with your bucket idea but i defenitely dont want a new Item for just moving some earth from A to B - maybe for doing so faster but not as necessity... )
i´ve got another idea for that earthchunk problem but i guess this isnt the right place - cheers
Hi there and welcome to the forum!In fact the development of the new control scheme is already advanced to a well-engineered level, so no basic changes are feasible. Picking up stuff into your backpack is possible manually by standing/scaling/hangling at the item's position and pressing the direction key 'directed towards the wall' (down when walking, left/right when scaling, up when hangling). And yes, you get no hint whatsoever about this (so far). But if you know it once, it's extremly helpful.
The only real remaining problem is about earth chunks indeed. But we should rather focus on solving this particular problem which in fact we did here instead of introducing a very artificial GUI element like a checkbox. The most popular idea would be the bucket (mentioned by Matthias).
I really like that idea. I've messed around with collection a bit anyway and am not 100% happy with the results yet anyway, so I'll probably integrate that somewhere and we'll test it.I prefer a key-solution to a gui-element, because it's way faster and often you'll want to pick up a few objects lying around (like, after blowing up that gold vein) -> Hold key and run over it vs. fiddling around to hit some button/checkbox. However I can see the possibility to have the option to enable it permanently somewhere, and holding the key only enables it temporarily.
From a usability perspective, I'm missing a key to assign that to. The Backpack-menu is completely gone now in the Controls branch (see here at the left side for an older revision of the new inventory). That means we could use Q, but I don't want to waste such an important key for such a specific purpose, and it's really weird in combination with walking left (A).
Shift would be a possibility, but it'd be a break in consistency, because the Shift key is used for every drop-action. Space is used for interaction.
Any suggestions?
Oh yeah, and I wouldn't consider the earth-chunk-problem specifically, as it's less a control problem and more of a general interaction problem (which should be solved with the bucket, as Clonkonaut pointed out).
I knew Clonkonaut would be the first one countering my idea - even though i thought he would do so by pointing out something about not beeing intuitive or something similar ;DOk for the one that wants to try this: as keys the only options (because as you stated already, we want to be moving while holding the button - if the holding part is important) would be x/y, alt (which is at the moment used for some wierd kind of pause?) or just holding the down button (s) while moving. That wouldnt even be much difference for the user because tipping down is already picking something up into your backpack. why not extend it to holding = picking up all you run over. Using the last option would still need a button for *switching between permanentely picking all stuff up into backpack and picking up with hands* which then could be one of the second-most important buttons like r, f, c, v, strg/ctrl(?or is it used already?).
I wouldnt assign lower priority buttons that are further away because using your backpack properly will be one of the most important points in OpenClonk, due to the few clonks you intent to use per Scenario. Thats actually why i thought about the option itself at all: The easier using you clonk gets the less time gets wasted by fighting with your clonk itself ^.^
ps: you could also use doubletabbingthe specific button for putting everything in your backpack on the ground.
Ooh, I didn't know that I had this kind of reputation :oAs a matter of self defense: sometimes I'm just summing up some discussion ideas or general opinions that came up in #openclonk-dev but never made it to the forum to people whose nicks I don't recognise from the chat (and thus I assume that they don't know what has happened in there).
So, I'm not really against every change in the control system ;) In fact, I helped Matthias by theorising what he suggested in this thread.
Regarding the collection problem you mentioned, this came up a lot by different people. I, myself hated it until I learned about the way I mentioned in my post. Because you get never told until someone else does (so not in the game) I again assumed that are not aware of this. Many people thought this so convenient after learning about it, that the matter of some kind of new control is often forgotten.
The general problem with GUI buttons then is that they are fine but never a standalone solution because they are only accessible if using mouse control (as opposed to gamepad control). Making new keys is a difficult thing. It's very easy to include them in the game but you have to ask yourself if this really makes things easier or more complicated. Is it okay for the player to memorize key combination for all kind of stuff especially when there already is another way to it. You already have to use WASD, E, the number keys, Shift, Space, the mouse, F and maybe some other keys to play the game. Now it's another key for toggling collection and - mentioned in the other thread - a new key to toggle the secondary item function. What comes next and then afterwards? ;) You really have to stop somewhere and think about what makes sense and what does not.
Well i was studieing the forum for a while already and made myself quite a good picture of your opinion about new buttons, and im not against it - quite the opposite. But thats just why i was shure that you would make a statement in that direction :> i dont know if you got this reputation in the other members eyes too but even if thats the case, its not a bad reputation anyway :)Its more like that you made your opinion that clear multiple times that i got it in the back of my head all the time when thinking about new options.
Btw "f" has a function?
This new toggling button is a button which could maybe only be accessable by keyboard users, since its just a surplus function to the former mentioned "holding down key while moving sideways" idea, which wouldnt need a new button. Because i hate having a keyboard with so many buttons but im only allowed to use a small part of them.
Date 2012-03-13 02:42
>I propose a simple design rule here: Everything the mouse does is a luxority. For basic design, the mouse should be treated as DIRECTIONAL device (rather than position) and a button - a gamepad. The reason behind that is that it's hard to make stuff too complicated that way, if the restrictions are that it has to work fast on a gamepad.
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