Holding right mouse button for camera view: Game breaker for many

In the various comments on the pre-alpha release of SOTA several people have criticized the fact that you have to hold down the right mouse button to pan the camera with the mouse.

This "feature", if not changed, will unfortunately be a game-breaker for anyone who suffers from repetitive strain injury in the hand, and having to hold down this button so frequently can also be a cause of acquiring an RSI condition. I personally cannot navigate for longer than 10 minutes in the game without experiencing pain in my hand because of holding the right mouse button.

I hope the devs will change the controls so that merely moving the mouse (without having to hold down the right mouse button) will pan the camera (such is the case in Skyrim, for example).

 

The way it's implemented is pretty standard for MMOs. Some, like WoW, allow the other button to turn camera independent of facing.
I personally prefer the FPS like controls, which are really the standard for modern games (TERA, NW, ESO), where the mouse does targeting, facing, and camera all in one, freeing the buttons up for actions. But what they've done is pretty standard.

 

As was said above, these are standard controls. They actually should probably also let you hold the left button to pan your view without changing your direction.

Having said that, they could put in a toggle key to switch to mouse look mode; maybe tap Alt or something and then mouse look without holding down a key.

But how it works now is pretty standard and seems to work well in just about every other game out there.

 

I've never played an MMO with the controls as they are. But I've only played 16 of them, so I could be mistaken.

I don't care what the 'standard' is, as long as SotA can be changed from what it is now to something that doesn't require a constant mouse button down to change direction, move, or adjust the camera. As FanofIolo said, this is a dealbreaker for anyone with RSI, myself included. Gotta have the option to change it.

To be excruciatingly clear: It would be a shame if SotA launched with less camera and movement customization than NWN. At least a chase cam would be ten times better than the way it is now, for me.

 

Well, I think the current behavior should continue to work moving forward. As I said, adding a keyboard toggle option couldn't hurt and would address the OP's concerns.

 

The problem I see right now is not that you have to hold down B2 to pan/tilt the camera, its that you need to do so to turn your character! Thats why the OP finds they are holding it down constantly. This should not be. A and D should turn your character, not cause them to walk towards the left/right of the current camera view, just as S should make you back up, not cause your character to turn around and walk towards the camera. I think we can all agree its convoluted as is.

Personally I would favor what Lotro has done: WASD work classically as forward, back, rotate left, right, while mouse+b2 pans the camera (independent of your characters facing). That way B2 presses and/or holds are sporadic at best, not constant.

 

Use of the right mouse button to turn the direction of your character is normal. Not also being able to do it with the WASD keys is unusual (A and D in this case), though. Movement independent of the camera direction is something that will really take some getting used to. Maybe I'll love it with more practice and experience, but right now it just feels clunky to me.

I'm used to A and D turning the character, and Q and E "strafing" or sidestepping without changing the direction you (and the camera) face.

 

Good point. The "standard" behavior would be the following. With no buttons held down, WASD move and TURN your char. So you can walk around without any mouse buttons and turn with the AD keys. If you're holding the right button, moving the mouse should turn you and AD should strafe. If you're holding the left button, moving the mouse should rotate the camera without affect in your char's direction.

I think that is a pretty standard setup.

Adding a keyboard toggle for mouse look in addition to the above wouldn't hurt anything and would address the OP's concerns.

 

Some, old games did this by default. So that people had to remap their keys. Keyboard turning is a terrible habit and strafe is a much more natural default. I agree that people should be able to remap the keys to whatever they want though.

 

This is 100% the setup standard on most MMOs and FPS games since about the last half decade.

I am all for "improving" things, when they improve. Currently, this interaction setup is a step backwards (no pun!)

 

Well, the thing is, even if it's a more "natural" interface to move with one set of controls and turn the camera with another, we don't have three hands. If moving around and changing the direction of view requires two hands, how are we supposed to move around in combat? We might need a third hand to press the button to cast an instant spell or use a special melee attack.

In most games now you can do all the moving and camera turning with *either* the WASD keys *or* the mouse. You need to be able to do all of this with one hand if you are going to be able to engage in combat while moving around.

 

Again, this is why we've been complaining about the combat system from the start. It doesn't work with where your hands have to be to move around. This has been evolved and tested over 20+ years of real time games (FPS and eventually MMOs). While you can theoretically turn without the mouse, you can't see anything without all that camera control. Until you strap on VR goggles and a bunch of new motion control sensors, you're stuck using two hands...one on WASD and one on the mouse.

 

Or both hands on the keyboard, ya know, like old school games?

 

I dont see it as a problem, but a fundamental right-mouse button control. Keep it or be able to toggle it off in controls, but wow....the thought of suggesting that many are criticizing it just seems false to me.

 

Not everyone uses a mouse. Some people use a trackpad. This game is unplayable with a trackpad atm.

 

I have to say, I don’t have a personal preference on the mouse controlling the camera. I have played it both ways in MMO's Standard WOW type like it is here and the newer Neverwinter Online. I like both styles neither one bothers me. I slightly prefer the newer NWO where you click the alt key and that frees up the mouse. Either way, im okay with whatever ones added.

 

I completely agree with this. I know that it would help out immensely to those who may have disabilities or may be handicapped. I think the easier it is for someone to control their Avatar, the better. The way it is, we are alienating anyone who cannot simultaneously use both hands proficiently.

 

In order to right click, you have to make a gesture involving holding 2 figures, one usually your thumb down. Holding down right click means holding your thumb down every time you look around, permanently.

In many games I play with the trackpad, this isn't an issue. In fact this is the first game where it is I have played. Many games support looking via 2 finger swipe gesture. That is the usual way.

 

In general I use a trackpad because, I don't have space for the mouse, I use a Macbook Pro for work, and when I come home to my immobile computer, I want to be able to use the same gestures on my macbook as on my main computer.

Yes, I use macs. Yes, I've been testing the game using a virtual machine.

I play a lot of games on the Mac. Not latest gen games with super high resolutions - that's what my PS4 is for. But I do play Civ 5, Collin McRae DIRT 2, Call of Duty 4, Star Wars old republic, fairly decent games.

I also play a lot of older games via VMWare Fusion 6. You know, games I used to like for windows.

One of the things that I like about SoTA is that, it's not a game that requires cutting edge hardware, It looks pretty good for what it is and I can play on a machine with a Radeon 6630, or a Geforce 440 M.

I hope you can understand it's not just people with GTX Titan Rigs out there who want to play this game.

 

No, I know. I'm not actually expecting any support for this at all. In fact I was amazed I could play as well as I could in a VM. I did have some issues that were obviously VM or lower end hardware related other people didn't have, but in general it was playable.

I used to build hardware rigs as a hobby about 10 years ago. In 2006, when macs went intel, and I became a web developer, everyone in my field uses macs for the Unix tools. Once I was given a nice Macbook by my job at the time, I never looked back.

(As a PC User, you know I'd never buy a Macbook myself lol !)

There's a lot of things PC users take for granted, and that is that everyone uses a Mouse. In the Mac world, OS X has really great support for the 'Magic' Trackpad, so many people use that instead of a Mouse. I find it to be better, honestly. It's more modern looking for a start, and you have finer control.

There are a couple issues, and holding down "buttons" is one of them - usually you don't have to do it for anything. It wouldn't be so bad if you didn't have to hold it down for such long periods of time in SoTA.