How do you approach critiquing control schemes? Do you often change control settings? Do you think certain control schemes like motion or touch are inherently bad or is it just that most devs don't design around them and instead try and retrofit them to established designs? (Or dumb down
"established designs to fit those control schemes.) What about playing fighting games with keyboards/hitboxes or playing shooters with analog controls?"
I change control settings for a lot of first person shooters, like I recently changed the melee attack button in overwatch to F instead of V. I frequently switch crouch to control instead of C. I rebound the jump button in Dark Souls 2 to be the same as the dodge/run button.
I frequently use xpadder to bind screenshot keys to my controller in various games, or so I can play non-FPS games on PC that lack proper controller support, or don't let me double bind buttons.
Critiquing control schemes is generally about figuring out the best way to map buttons so that none of the buttons interfere with the use of any of the other buttons or inputs on the controller, and maintains a suitable controller metaphor.
For example, Dark Souls maps its attack buttons to the shoulders, which is rather unconventional, because it wants you to move the camera as you move around and attack, and because it maintains the left hand/right hand metaphor set up in the equipment menu.
Conventional action games map their attack buttons to the face because it's more readily accessible, and because their levels generally have wide open arenas for fighting instead of more careful level design that the camera can get caught on (except MGR, and the camera suffered there), so they don't need to worry as much about the player having active control over the camera.
Nioh is inspired by dark souls and has very similar gameplay, but does not maintain this same control scheme, in part because it has no 2 hand metaphor for its weapons, and because it has a new stance system metaphor. Stances are changed using the R1 button as a modifier, then pressing a face button. R1 is a shoulder, making it perfect as a modifier button, because it does not conflict with the face buttons, where the reverse would not be true. It's hard to use face buttons as modifiers for other face buttons, except pressing two buttons at a time. You could use a single button for this like DMC does, but the R1 here has a function for regaining Ki too, so you don't always want to switch stances.
I don't think Motion and Touch are inherently bad, I just think they're good at different things than conventional interfaces, and most games made with those control schemes don't leverage what they're capable of. Wii Sports is the best selling Wii game because it literally could not exist in any form but motion controls. You can't really do games like Bowling and Golf nearly the same way. 99% of the other games on the system didn't deliver in anything close to the same way.
I change control settings for a lot of first person shooters, like I recently changed the melee attack button in overwatch to F instead of V. I frequently switch crouch to control instead of C. I rebound the jump button in Dark Souls 2 to be the same as the dodge/run button.
I frequently use xpadder to bind screenshot keys to my controller in various games, or so I can play non-FPS games on PC that lack proper controller support, or don't let me double bind buttons.
Critiquing control schemes is generally about figuring out the best way to map buttons so that none of the buttons interfere with the use of any of the other buttons or inputs on the controller, and maintains a suitable controller metaphor.
For example, Dark Souls maps its attack buttons to the shoulders, which is rather unconventional, because it wants you to move the camera as you move around and attack, and because it maintains the left hand/right hand metaphor set up in the equipment menu.
Conventional action games map their attack buttons to the face because it's more readily accessible, and because their levels generally have wide open arenas for fighting instead of more careful level design that the camera can get caught on (except MGR, and the camera suffered there), so they don't need to worry as much about the player having active control over the camera.
Nioh is inspired by dark souls and has very similar gameplay, but does not maintain this same control scheme, in part because it has no 2 hand metaphor for its weapons, and because it has a new stance system metaphor. Stances are changed using the R1 button as a modifier, then pressing a face button. R1 is a shoulder, making it perfect as a modifier button, because it does not conflict with the face buttons, where the reverse would not be true. It's hard to use face buttons as modifiers for other face buttons, except pressing two buttons at a time. You could use a single button for this like DMC does, but the R1 here has a function for regaining Ki too, so you don't always want to switch stances.
I don't think Motion and Touch are inherently bad, I just think they're good at different things than conventional interfaces, and most games made with those control schemes don't leverage what they're capable of. Wii Sports is the best selling Wii game because it literally could not exist in any form but motion controls. You can't really do games like Bowling and Golf nearly the same way. 99% of the other games on the system didn't deliver in anything close to the same way.