/v/ - Video Games

I'm curious about a breakdown of the controls in Odyssey. From what I've seen and heard they're super tight and really well done.

Oh, also a secondary question that will no doubt make people mad for various reasons: how would one design good controls for a touchpad that weren't just limited to selecting items on the screen and accounted the player's finger(s) rather than the DS stylus?

>>14111106

They took the controls from 64 and some how made them even better.

>>14111106

>>14111117

I think this kind of undersells what they've done with the game, because, when you think about it, despite the skeleton of SM64's controls, Cappy and the sliding-bumping mechanics implemented were pretty much deliberate and changed Mario's movement type. Usually it's a mix of horizontal and vertical, but in Odyssey it's almost universally horizontal.

>>14111153

I'd agree with that. The question now is, where do you go from here?

I can't even imagine a game without tight Cappy controls. It'd be a couple steps backwards.

>>14111080

>>14111106

>>14111116

Playtesting, level design, and outside experience. The game designer of Tony Hawk used his experience with skating combined with Mortal Kombat to design the game.

If you don't have outside experience, then you'll likely copy an existing formula.

>>14111106

>>14111117

They felt either stiff or slippery as fuck without any middle ground. Is that just the GameStop display being shitty?

>>14111302

>>14111308

>They felt loose and slippery as fuck to me

Not sure what to say. I felt as if all the moves I wanted to do happened as I wanted them to 99% of the time.

Especially doing moves in the air felt really on point.

Maybe I'm exaggerating but I wouldn't know of another console game that has done controls this well.

I tried it out with the joycons, maybe gaystop had another controller which was ass or something.

>>14111239

Thanks for the video, love THPS. And you bring up good points.

>>14111117

>some how

That wouldn't be hard considering mario slips around like he's permanently standing on ice in mario64.

>>14111318

Maybe the control stick is too fresh or something?

>>14115623

Not sure. With the joycons you also had the motion controls which could be used to enhance some abilities. I don't know about the feeling with any other controllers.

>>14111106

Controls are good, but it's sometimes hard to wrestle the camera when trying to precisely go in one direction. I'd rate them a small step down from Sunshine, but the hat gives some decent recovery options.

>>14111153

>Usually it's a mix of horizontal and vertical, but in Odyssey it's almost universally horizontal.

This, also. Vertical locations usually have few possible routes and that limits fun a bit.

Mario 64 controls were just Mario in a bare bones room with some obstacles and props.

If you can make the controls fun with just how they let you move within a room like that, then you've made great controls.

How exactly to do that, requires trial and error plus study into what sort of game you're making.

Responsive character controls are one half of fun gameplay. The other is a good camera system. Just try slogging through the japanese version of spyro.

>>14116055

The GameStop Switch and JoyCons just seem to handle like shit and for some reason the control sticks almost seem to lag. Probably because they're not supposed to be hooked up the way they are.

>>14111080

Well making controls "so good Modders wouldn't want to change them" generally isn't how it works. Usually what ends up happening is changing the controls ends up being too much of a hassle because of how the game's engine is designed, if you wanna change the controls you have to change other things as a knock on effect. The key lies in how objects interact with each other and even how you go about making the maps. As an example despite all the praise Republic Commando gets for instance, it's really just a bunch of interactive set pieces plopped down all over the place and your teammates relies on a finite state machine to co-ordinate between different states as determined by which orders you give them, that's why they react to your orders in real time and why they go retarded when you order concentrated fire on an enemy. They also probably have a decision tree they operate under independent of the finite state machine but the is besides the point (and topic) the controls of the game is essentially "interact with this set piece" and "change state X to state Y" for otherwise autonomous bots. But the whole game is set up so that you have to basically solve fire team themed puzzles to proceed through the map so people love it.

>>14111239

>Playtesting, level design, and outside experience

Seems like a great combinations for actions that have to be repeated over and over and are grounded in reality.

Though there's a bunch of things that I think should be considered when making a great control system, especially regarding movement options: if some option gets overused unintentionally i.e. the combat rolls in Zelda or that annoying Billy Hatcher dash, then it needs to be reworked into the main movement option and rendered less broken. One thing I notices is that in games that have charging/dashing mechanics, there should be an equal amount of risk and reward for using either the normal options or the advanced, charged movement styles, or you risk having your player rely on them too little or too much. I.E. Sonic's spindash in 2 and 3 is an example of a good charged move that offers more speed for a short burst, charges comparatively fast, trades acceleration for handling and overall gives you a hard time if you're not accustomed to the game. In comparison, shit like Sonic Adventure's charging to get through ring chains is slow and bothersome, while shit like the combat roll in Zelda are bothersome to keep doing and offer just advantages compared to moving normally since they're short and can be chained with more precise turning.

Also, for games that rely a lot on vertical mobility, there need to be more than just two ways to jump real high. It's great to see people use different tech for clearing out different obstacles.

>>14113270

But aren't you just limited to a joystick and a single action button? Have we gone so far back that the Atari 2600 is the new standard for portable controls?

Though I do agree that onscreen buttons are garbage, but it just seems like you're limiting yourself unnecessarily with that scheme. There's this one game, PES 08 Wii, which really opened my mind to how a game as set in stone as sportsball sim #1000 can still play the same if you stretch things a little bit. Essentially, you waggle for shooting or tackling, but ever other action is performed by pointing the remote at the screen and pressing a button once, twice, holding it or dragging a player to that area with that button selected. In a way, this could save you from using a joystick and just limiting the on screen button to a row of three or four of them for a combination of moves. Obviously there was more to that than just waggling but that's not really the point.

One other thing, I don't think that removing features can be copyrighted, but then again I'm not real good at spotting new Jewish tricks.

>>14116218

That is also true. Though you can get around that by either making the game "seemingly easy" by having floatier controls on jumps/bigger areas to land on/moves that don't require too much space to execute etc. or just put a fixed camera and get around technical limitations.

I spent time writing what I believed was a good post yesterday, but it was deleted. My main point was to work on the controls until they could be perceived as good, since a human will actually be the one using them. Reducing latency is an obvious way to start and then testing with a wide range of other people should help.

Here's the interview I linked to in my much better post: http://shmuplations.com/mario64/

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