![[de]](/mwf/flags/de.png "Germany")
Well, I didn't touch oc in a relatively long time, and playing two melees earlier this evening made me realize that some things, mainly the controls, are incredibly arkward.Here's what I think is wrong or at least annoying:
First off, the movement seemed kind of dull and slow to me, and I think this is because of the acceleration. It does not go well with all the small and quick movements you want - and need - to do with your clonk, especially in quick melees, especially in cluttered landscapes. I ended up pressing every button just harder and more often, which is, of course, stupid, but also a clear sign that my clonk just didn't move the way I expected him to move when I pressed that button the first time.
Next up is the item slots: The two slots at the bottom of the screen look exactly the same! With just one item equipped against a darker background, I couldn't figure out which hand slot was occupied and which one was empty. I always had to take a closer look. The visuals of the slots could use some work here. Maybe use the buttons of a computer mouse with mouse wheel as background for the slots?
Then, when aiming with weapons, I always tried to re-adjust my shooting direction after clicking. Because the clonk took so long to load the bow or whatever, my target moved, so I moved my cursor accordingly, but as I had already released the button, I had no chance of actually re-aiming. Maybe a second click before shooting could update the aiming direction? But for those fast-paced melees, I even think that the direction should always be where I aim with my cursor - I won't hit anything with just clicking on an opponent once anyways! So why even give me the chance to do it "wrong"?
And finally: Content controls. Ugh.
Open a chest by finding its number on the bottom screen, choose two items, click on them with different buttons to get them in your hands, close the chest, open up the backpack, click on two empty slots with different buttons, close the backpack with a button different from that one for the chest, open up the chest again and repeat up to three times - Sorry, no. This is crap. I so often ended up noticing that picking up the weapons I want to equip was unwise, because to pick up more stuff, I'd have to play towers of hanoi with my inventory between chest, hand and backpack. You definitely need to be able to put things from chest to backpack and the other way round directly via drag and drop or at least similarly easy.
You can open a chest by pressing space in front of it, so you don't need to fiddle with the numbers. But putting things from there to the backpack is complicated, I have to agree.But the aiming. It should be possible to "reaim" when clicking again... At least i once implemented it...
> space
Oh, okay. That is rather helpful, but still no excuse for the rest of the content controls :)
> But the aiming. It should be possible to "reaim" when clicking again... At least i once implemented it...
I just tested this again, you are right. Seems I must have done something else wrong during when I first tried that out, maybe clicked a tad too late.
>And finally: Content controls. Ugh.
I hate when people rant about something without offering any constructive solutions.
![[pl]](/mwf/flags/pl.png "Poland")
Well, sometimes you can consider something to be very bad, but have no idea at the moment.
Besides, if it stimulates others to think about it, it's not completely useless...
EDIT: Well, I'd suggest 'F' for using stuff on ground. If there is more than one thing, it picks the smallest one(or the one most in the front)
Besides, if it stimulates others to think about it, it's not completely useless...
EDIT: Well, I'd suggest 'F' for using stuff on ground. If there is more than one thing, it picks the smallest one(or the one most in the front)
You'll hate a lot after first release, then. Criticism comes in many forms, and I'd save the hate for those that only try to harm the games reputation by being untrue and insulting. Any other form can help the developers to see where possible flaws are, even if you have to read it from between the lines.You shouldn't expect every player to provide a prototype of his idea of the game. Most of the people that'll rant around later won't even bother to explain why they dislike something - maybe because they are lazy, but sometimes, they simply won't know what exactly bothered them. Still, their opinion will have some truth to it, and it would be unwise to ignore them unless they also provide a fix for every problem they stumple upon.
Also, I don't even think I was that unconstructive. I gave you a pretty detailed description why I had so much trouble with the system, and I told you what I'd have expected - Some kind of drag & drop interface.
So as long as you aren't madly in love with the current controls, this should do as a starting point for constructive discussions, shouldn't it?
But you are not some anonymous from the internet. I know you personally and I know you are a reasonable person. Yet you didn't take the trouble to express yourself respectfully but in a rant. And if you take the freedom to express yourself blantly, I do too by saying blantly that I don't like that at all. And that's all.Not a big thing, just wanted to let you know.
Yeah, but actually, he explained extremly well, how I felt during playing a melee. But I have actually an idea, how to solve this problem:
- You don't have a backpack anymore, you can cylcle trough the items of the left slot, like in any ego-shooter, with the mouse scroll. If it's mainstream, it's nice and intuitive.
- So, in the end, we'll have to put the zooming somewhere else. Maybe Shift + scrolling?
- A Clonk has, lets say, 4 left slots and one right slot. You can only pick up an item on the ground, if you've selected nothing. So, even if you have just 2 items, you'll still have 2 empty slots that you can select by scrolling.
- You can scroll trough your items any time. Even while having a chest opened, so you can fill your inventory completly, while opening the chest just once.
(- To the 3nd point: Or, we have [items you have in your "backpack"] + 1 empty slot ; this way we can save some scrolling-time for the player.)
I hope, this helps somehow.
- You don't have a backpack anymore, you can cylcle trough the items of the left slot, like in any ego-shooter, with the mouse scroll. If it's mainstream, it's nice and intuitive.
- So, in the end, we'll have to put the zooming somewhere else. Maybe Shift + scrolling?
- A Clonk has, lets say, 4 left slots and one right slot. You can only pick up an item on the ground, if you've selected nothing. So, even if you have just 2 items, you'll still have 2 empty slots that you can select by scrolling.
- You can scroll trough your items any time. Even while having a chest opened, so you can fill your inventory completly, while opening the chest just once.
(- To the 3nd point: Or, we have [items you have in your "backpack"] + 1 empty slot ; this way we can save some scrolling-time for the player.)
I hope, this helps somehow.
> - You don't have a backpack anymore, you can cylcle trough the items of the left slot, like in any ego-shooter, with the mouse scroll. If it's mainstream, it's nice and intuitive.
In fact, I think weapon switching via scrolling doesn't work well. In TF2 for example I prefer to use the numbers 1-3 for switching, as this is faster and more accurate.
Okay, but then, you exactly know, what you'll get if you press 1,2,3,etc. and thats not the case in Clonk, where the inventory changes.
Oh and if I play Battlefield 2, for example, I sometimes don't know what will help me the most in the situation I'm actually in, so I see the list of items while random scrolling and I'll get that what I want, intuitively. ;)
Oh and if I play Battlefield 2, for example, I sometimes don't know what will help me the most in the situation I'm actually in, so I see the list of items while random scrolling and I'll get that what I want, intuitively. ;)
This is a problem we are currently working on in CMC, with a QuickInventory. You can basically press the Inventory-button anytime, and immediately select any item. The bad news is know, how to you order these Items, if it could be any random item. By type, by collection-order, by value... That is a bit of a downsight in this direct selection for an unknown amount of objects (whereas in TF2 you will always find Primary, Secondary, Melee and/or PDA slots, but always roughly the same for one class no matter which equipment you choose), where scrolling through the inventory is just much more intuitive.
ew, ou are still working on it? In shadowblood it's solved pretty simple by fixing wich key is witch item. (Left -> First weapon, Right -> Second weapon, Throw -> Throwing knife, Dig -> Shooting Weapon (Bow), Up -> Consumables (Bread, Poision and stuff), Down -> Undefined Crap (Rocks, Flints, Arrows) )
Didn't read all replies, but if I could suggest something:
Backpack is shown on bottom-right side of the screen, and is usually transparent(inactive).
When a player scrolls mouse whee, it scrolls through inventory contents and backpack becomes non-transparent(active).
While backpack is active, clicking left/right mouse button switches content of highlighted inventory slot with left/right hand item.
Optionally, it could be activated by pressing Q/3 instead, so we can use mouse wheel for zooming.
If not, zooming could be done automatically basing on distance of mouse from clonk, or something :p
Backpack is shown on bottom-right side of the screen, and is usually transparent(inactive).
When a player scrolls mouse whee, it scrolls through inventory contents and backpack becomes non-transparent(active).
While backpack is active, clicking left/right mouse button switches content of highlighted inventory slot with left/right hand item.
Optionally, it could be activated by pressing Q/3 instead, so we can use mouse wheel for zooming.
If not, zooming could be done automatically basing on distance of mouse from clonk, or something :p
So if you scroll, you scroll 2 places further? (Cause there are 2 visible slots?) I currently can't imagine how this would look. Could you make a mockup?
Yep, here you go.
Note: There is always only the left slot, the right slot and the two slots that are over and beneath the left slot. If you scroll, the whole order of items goes up or down. So, if you have more than 3 items in your inventory, the other items are not displayed. And as long the inventory isn't full, there is always a single, empty slot between the items.
I hereby license the following file(s) under the CC-by license
Note: There is always only the left slot, the right slot and the two slots that are over and beneath the left slot. If you scroll, the whole order of items goes up or down. So, if you have more than 3 items in your inventory, the other items are not displayed. And as long the inventory isn't full, there is always a single, empty slot between the items.
I hereby license the following file(s) under the CC-by license
What about the right inventory slot? I can't scroll through that?
No, you can put any item in there, but as far as I know, the right slot should represent a slot for items, that you have to use intensively, like the shovel. You could still drag and drop items into this slot or exchange it with items from the left slot.
So, in the current system, you can change your items from/to both slots "relatively" fast after some practise - now you are promoting a system where you are actually more handicapped in some way (while maybe the changing of the first slot is more intuitive). I mean, I am not against changing the system if we have a very good alternative, but I guess we have not found that alternative yet :)
But in the current system, interacting between hands, backpack and chest is... yeah, lame. But I think another advantage of this system is, that you can better decide what to pick up and what not. You have just to scroll a bit to pick up that javelin or whatever on the floor and you can quickly switch back to your previous weapon, that was in your hand.
The backpack<->chest is another thing that is going to be changed asap.But the current backpack<->hand is not too slow with a bit of practise. In the last round I didn't have much of a problem switching from my bow to my LifeGem and using it all while I was midair during one jump
>But the current backpack<->hand is not too slow with a bit of practise
I don't know. Do we really want the player to practise how to control the game? Selecting items is no fun game experience that would justify that. It's something you do more or less out of a need, so it should be as easy as possible.
Of course, you might adjust to it after a while - people adjusted to the Clonk Rage controls, after all. That still does not mean that there is no room or reason for improvement. :)
>Do we really want the player to practise how to control the game?
Nope, not at all. What I was trying to say is: We have a "halfway decent" control at the moment. I would no replace it with another only "halfway decent" control (which also brings some disadvantages).
But if we really can find a solution that is fast and without disadvantages I would of course be the last one to say anything against it :)
>(which also brings some disadvantages)
I still can't see a particular disadvantage in the system, I've thought of. Is it a problem this big, that we can't put zooming to Shift + scroll?
>I still can't see a particular disadvantage in the system
Well:
-you have one hand with easier access and one with even harder
-a scrolling inventory means that you have to remember the relative position of each item ("I have to scroll how far now to get to my shovel??")
-having a continuous inventory means the relative order actually changes(!) when you collect/drop something and you have to worry about where your items are every time you collect/drop something
-probably more I already mentioned but forgot now ;)
Well, it's the same as in CR (and you can see the item thats above and below). :o
>Well, it's the same as in CR (and you can see the item thats above and below). :o
I don't see how "it is that way in CR!!!!" justifies anything ;)
I remember I had huge problems when playing Stylands and having ten objects in your inventory: You want to change rapidly back and forth between your bow and that spear? Too bad, you have five items between them
Scrolling trough an inventory than pressing a button repeatedly is waaaay faster. So it's not exactly like in CR.
I also had that idea earlier, but only come to write about that now; but, it my version, you can, by holding the mouse scroll, move the "reserve inventory" tower to the right hand slot, so that slots content will be changed. This way, you could even reorder the items in your inventory, to bring those ugly 5 items out of the way.
It has to be decided, if the tower should only be moved until the release of the middle mouse button (what looks a bit cooler i think ;) ), or if it should be toggled by a single press.
You could of course combine this, so you toggle, if you only press the scroll button, and its brought back to is original position, if you, holding the scroll, scroll through your inventory.
Additionally, you could maybe, if it is toggled, swap the hands instead of moving the tower, so it wouldnt distract that much and wouldnt land at a place more in the center of the screen.
Sorry for terrible grammar.
Edit to make it more understandable:
Like http://forum.openclonk.org/topic_show.pl?pid=10857#pid10857 , but if you hit the mousewheel the hand slots swap places, or the backpack slots go to the other hand slot, or either one only until the mousewheel is released. Advantage: Inventory resort possible.
It has to be decided, if the tower should only be moved until the release of the middle mouse button (what looks a bit cooler i think ;) ), or if it should be toggled by a single press.
You could of course combine this, so you toggle, if you only press the scroll button, and its brought back to is original position, if you, holding the scroll, scroll through your inventory.
Additionally, you could maybe, if it is toggled, swap the hands instead of moving the tower, so it wouldnt distract that much and wouldnt land at a place more in the center of the screen.
Sorry for terrible grammar.
Edit to make it more understandable:
Like http://forum.openclonk.org/topic_show.pl?pid=10857#pid10857 , but if you hit the mousewheel the hand slots swap places, or the backpack slots go to the other hand slot, or either one only until the mousewheel is released. Advantage: Inventory resort possible.
![[ca]](/mwf/flags/ca.png "Canada")
From what I recall in my semi-lucid IRC chatting, it sounded like a fine idea (with shift+scroll zooming and such).
Being able to move the tower fixes the first point here. What about the others? ;)
2. & 3. in return, you can for different situation set up different constellations for your inventory.
4. examples?
4. examples?
>2. & 3. in return, you can for different situation set up different constellations for your inventory.
How can you setup anything?
The items will be sorted automatically when collecting/dropping stuff.
With 2 slots you can put your stuff in, you can hanoi-like (ok, not really hanoi-like) resort your inventory.
Okay, you forgot the explanation about how that is user-friendly. Please add it.
Its rudimentarily intuitive if you only have to use the middle mouse button for scrolling your inventory, and it forces your brain to work to have your items in a proper order :)
>Content controls.
They are just provisional until we have the engine-side possibility to have multiple menus open at the same time.
I was actually planning to mention we had plans for a much better content system for the chests than the ring-menu (good for small inventories and such; not so good for chests though). However, I wasn't sure on the details and couldn't find the original discussions about it.
Another problem I'm having lies with the ring menu itself: I don't have a really quick and discrete way to select a specific item from the backpack, I rather have to "aim" at it first, and to do that quickly, I'd have to remember exactly in what spot I put it (not that easy because of the way the 5 spots are arranged, a simple "down" or "left" is not enough), or I have to recognize it quickly after opening the backpack. That is some unneccessary difficulty, I think. I don't want to be bothered with "organizing" my inventory. I know I'm carrying a flint, I picked it up and put it on a specific spot for a reason - so I want to be able to use it pretty much right away without searching for it.
I'm not sure how to fix that, though - To remove that 'visual' component from the item selection process, you'd have to use more quick access buttons, and I can't really find good ones for that.
>I don't want to be bothered with "organizing" my inventory. I know I'm carrying a flint, I picked it up and put it on a specific spot for a reason - so I want to be able to use it pretty much right away without searching for it.
The problem is that with a content system like CR you actually have to care about your inventory a lot more: You have to remember at any time how much slots you would have to scroll back/forth to select item X - and the relative positions of the items actually change if you drop/collect something!
How about if the contents of the backpack were also displayed in the HUD - at the same position as they are displayed in the ringmenu.
So, I juggled a few quick ideas with Zapper today, here's what came out of it:I want to make the backpack slots accessible via number buttons. Those are currently used to access objects in the landscape, but seeing how managing items happens a whole lot more often than having more than one chest in one place (especially in melees, where speed matters), I'd leave the object access to the spacebar and rather implement the following:
- pressing a [number] key changes the left hand item with the according backpack slot.
- pressing SHIFT-[number] key changes the right hand item with the according backpack slot.
- when in a content menu as, for example, the chest, hovering over an item and hitting STRG-[number] switches the hovered chest item and according backpack item.
We also thought that this works even better with a permanent display of the backpack somewhere, which you already proposed.
I predict some "Oh noo, even more buttons"-reactions to this, so I want to stress that this is merely a first idea. I don't like it completely yet myself, because we'd still have different controls for content objects, the backpack and the hand slots. To put Items from the hand slots to a chest, you'd still have to click.
Except for the number keys - which are not really used until now - all of this would only be an extension of the current system. You could still use the system as you do currently, so it might be worth a try.
To simplify this some more, we could (and, in the long run, really should) try to think of ways to treat hand slots and backpack exactly the same. Then, we could use the same controls for every contents menu. The most simple way I can think of is to keep all items - including the equipped ones - in the backpack, but this might not be the silver bullet just yet.
>Except for the number keys - which are not really used until now
Huh, what? They are used for object activation. Why they are better than space is that you can choose to grab up to 10 (?) different objects that are all at the same spot (ie: cannon on blimp).
Yes, I know:>> Those are currently used to access objects in the landscape, but seeing how managing items happens a whole lot more often than having more than one chest in one place, [...]
I just think "Cannon on blimp" is much more rare than "I want to choose item 1". I'd rather hit space twice when on a blimp once in 10 games than struggle with my inventory in every game.
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