WASD Movment and why we do not need to reinvent the wheel

General
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Do you have a source for this by any chance? If this is true I totaly missed this and if this is the case and they aimed for making a twinstickshooter instead of a isometric H&S game then my critique is meaningless ^^.

Giving a bad option is moot for me. Do I want a Philly Cheesesteak sandwich or a poop sandwich? While both offer the same in beeing sandwiches they taste very different I’m sure. Giving the option to click arround like a mad man to badly mimic WASD is bad for my taste.

There you go… limit WASD heavily for fairness.

As said above they need to change a lot. Faster enemies, charging enemies, faster ability usage, less charge time for abilitys and so on and so forth. If such stuff isn’t implemented (or whatever they plan to implement to make up for WASD superiority) the whole matter will be a laughing stock for me.

Did you even play the game? Classes don’t care about the input method, weapons do. And while some mace skills are bad to use with WASD because they are coded like trash WASD makes every other weapon better. Sure I can play a Mace Totem toon with M/K and couldn’t care less but it is still worse then using WASD.

When I keep in mind how LE works aka standing still to use skills WASD will first of all look strange but will have a little bit of limitations because you can “only” stutterstep so to speak. In the end we need to see how EHG will handle WASD if they implement WASD.

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Fair, I can’t talk to this, since I haven’t engaged with legacy trade at all. Everything I have and play is CoF there.

I think you are referring to Legacy? Cause in the current cycle this wasn’t the case ~1 week ago.
I frequently buy and sell stuff ranged between 50k (most random stuff I find on good bases) and 800k.
Idols are where the money is at with regular sales between 20k and ~25 million (I think I underpriced a perfect lightning mage idol cause it was the only one on the market - oh well).
Good uniques with 1 to 3lp (depending on rarity) are between roughly 400k (stuff like falcon fists) to 6 million.
The really rare stuff with 1lp or so goes up to 12 million (like red rings the last time I checked but that has been a while).

And I made a good chunk of my money in the last month or so with sales adding up to roughly 40 million.

Agreed. I’m not a doomsayer as much as many others here, but the game has quite a few flaws that should be fixed.

Whoa, not at the top of my head. I vaguely remember them talking about movement in one of the previews but I’m not willing to go back and watch all of that, sorry.

I don’t think your critique is meaningless. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t mean to insinuate that they literally said “This is a wasd game and the old bones can use m&k if they want”. It was just what I got from most of it watching gameplay and hearing their explanations. Sorry if I didn’t made that clear.

For me it’s not about two kinds of sandwiches. But different kind of foods. WASD is you nice sandwich while m&k is just a banana or something. One that may be a little too ripe be enjoyable for most people but still perfectly fine for some that would even prefer it over the sandwich.

Yes both are control schemes, but in my eyes they work so differently that they aren’t really in the same category.

But then you lose all the good stuff WASD brings. The directness, the control and speed (as in reaction speed not movement speed). Most of it is inherent to how the this works (pressing a button causing movement in a single direction). And it’s the main reason for implementing it in the first place I think.
I don’t know how artificially making it worse would work without making it feel like ass. To use your terms they would be making a nice sandwich just to poop on it before giving it to the customer. And that does not sound smart.

To be fair to actually be talking about this we would need to establish benchmarks on what makes a good control scheme, what is too “powerful” (what does “powerful” actually mean?) and what means “weak” in this context, what makes the controls feel “good”, what limitations to movement are acceptable, attack while moving yes/no (huge point), how does it interact with skills, how do enemies react to different player movement patterns. And probably a few points I missed.

Just for clarity: everything I wrote up to this point was under the assumption of a PoE2 style implementation. I.e. you could be attacking while moving without stopping.

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No problem. I watched their takes on adding WASD but I never heared them saying that the game was mainly made for WASD but they intentionaly added WASD to evolve PoE. While they did and playing PoE2 with WASD is a major improvement they never mentioned they neglect M/K and primary aim for WASD. They even had some neat improvements for M/K but it still is trash comparing it to WASD. TBF I’m far more bothered by this then 99% of players I guess but for me a fair playing field is very important and every mechanic or imbalance that adds to this by a huge ammount is something I dislike a lot.

If I look at it from the average Joe perspective all I could say is “Who cares about this crap I’m happy to stroll through the game.”.

As stated above if you don’t care about fairness everything is fine. But WASD in isometric H/S games is like IDDQD in Doom 2. For the people who never were bothered with Doom 2 I consider WASD a cheat over M/K ^^.

The main reason to implement it are people who cry EHG a river to implement WASD. If noone would’ve asked for it why implement it at all?

That’s the big issue with adding that kind of stuff to the game. You can’t even come up with an Idea how to keep both input methods in line. You can’t grasp any Idea how to do it because if you made WASD worse it’ll be ass. I can’t do this either but think about it. WASD is so potent you don’t even dare to touch it because it could be bad. Given the eperiences of
H&S games released with WASD in the past noone will even dare to make WASD balanced because if you do so all the WASD enjoyers who need their easier life will riot.

I’m lucky I’m not a game dev. I don’t emberass myself implementic complete crap in a game and show how unable I am to implement input methods that don’t breake my game. I can sit back and can say “WASD is superior to M/K come up with something because it will make your game a clownfiesta if you implement it bluntly.” because I’m a customer and I can speak my mind.

You can just compare how people handle tasks with M/K and WASD. If it’s far easier to kite with M/K for example you need to do something that counteracts this. If it’s to easy to get out shit compared to M/K you need to adress it. And so on and so forth. The main benefit of WASD is that it saves a lot of time and makes stuff trivial you might have a hard time with using M/K. If I see a red circle arround my toon I don’t have to move the mouse to get out and simply press WASD to get out in the shortest way or not even ending up in it even because you can circle and kite enemies far more effective.

If I think about the attack ranges in LE and how iffy they are I have another problem with the implementation. if there are skills with no attack range increase and weapon range indicators on weapons are mostly useless anyway then there is a need to rework this whole system as well. For example a Harvest Lich that has a big range melee attack would have an easier time then a Paladin using Multistrike.

There is som much game design added to M/K that only makes sense if you use M/K that WASD will most likely breake it anyway. Again… Lucky me I don’t have to come up with solutions to all this problems ^^.

You are kidding right?

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I disagree with your whole premise simply because different control methods will always be different.
According to your way of thinking, controller support should never have been added to games unless it was on par with M/K. And yet, without controller support in many games, lots of people wouldn’t play them at all.
M/K is by far superior to controller in many games, especially FPSs. But controller support allows console players (or simply players that grew up playing consoles and prefer to use a controller) to actually play a game they would otherwise never play.

Likewise, the fact that Elden Ring can be played with M/K, even though it’s an inferior method, allowed me to play it. I don’t like using controllers and if Elden Ring didn’t have M/K I wouldn’t have ever played it.
Also likewise, I don’t really enjoy WASD because of the extra buttons, so I didn’t use it in PoE2. Nor did I feel like I was missing out too much from it. Sure, WASD is easier, but being able to strafe with M/K allowed me to still move while shooting.

Games implement different control methods not because they’re the same (because they never are, even controller isn’t the same as M/K in LE), but because it allows more people to play it.

Which goes back to this:

There’s no effective difference between adding WASD to a game because a significant amount of players won’t play a game without it, and adding controller support to a game because a significant amount of players won’t play a game without it.

They are not equivalent in any game. In some games controller is superior (for example, driving games and many platformers), in others it’s M/K (most notably shooters, either first or third person). They are there to increase the playerbase.

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Even some competitive games, like Smite which is first-person game, allow cross-playing, so players from consoles can fight PC players, even though PC players clearly have advantage in control scheme and any advantage is a huge deal in competitive games. Though it allows console players to disable cross-playing if they don’t like it, but many of them don’t mind.

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I’m not sure they can. It feels like driving in Cyberpunk with mouse & keyboard versus a controller (or, heaven forbid, a wheel). Would you think that flying a plane should be as good with mouse & keyboard versus a joystick?

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Controller support was always on the table so I couldn’t care less. Implementing WASD looks like a bad idea looking at the game systems in place. There is a reason why PoE2 was developed with a big focus on WASD implementation.

As said above :man_shrugging: WASD was never on the menue and seems like the next bandaid addition to the game if EHG will implement it that leads to more and more work. Think about the needed animations. They don’t even add 2 genders for each class because of the workload. Now they need to make a crap ton of animation work because if they don’t do it everything would look like trash.

Implementing one thing they have always wanted to implement is something different to implementing a system that has so many interactions most people can’t even grasp.

Yeah but you often mentioned it yourself that you think EHG should stick to what they deem important like no class changes and all that stuff or reduced XP ammounts needed to level that would increase the playerbase most likely. Why is it okay for WASD all of the sudden?

Sure I might be completely lost and overlooked that EHG talked about implementing WASD since kickstarter times.

This highly depends on the game I guess. In Freelancer for example everyone taunted me because I played with M/K but I never had any issues. Not in the story line, not in PvP or even the glorious multiplayer mod that was there and overhauled a lot of systems and implemented very unbalanced ships.
Is it better to fly a plane the intended way? Yes. Is it better to drive a car the intended way? Yes. Is it better to play a game the intended way? Yes.

So the intended way of playing LE was M/K and controller so given your example it should be worse using WASD in LE if I understood everything correctly? I simply say: Putting in a never intended controll method leaves to more work. More work on a product that is a huge construction site and not even finished is kind of a stupid Idea to me. If they come up with a smart thing and take their time and implement it after they catched up on the Roadmap then so be it. I think it would be a terrible idea and mess if WASD is implemented in the next 24 months given the tracktrecord of EHG up untill now.

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Lots of things weren’t on the menu when LE started. Factions and especially CoF was never on the menu. Should it not have been implemented?

That is why they are taking their time with WASD and not simply doing what the OP is suggesting. Especially because those that want that can already just use the script and have access to it.

Why? New ideas come all the time. There are plenty of things in LE that were not “something they have always wanted to implement” because they had never thought about it before. I very much doubt factions were in their mind at all before 0.9 and the players demanding a proper bazaar.

I never said EHG should do WASD right away. I don’t think it’s a priority. But EHG clearly thinks differently because they know how many people actually want this. Mike has said on stream that the success of WASD in PoE2 has caused them to reevaluate its priority.

As a sidenote, I never defended reduced XP amounts. I’m fine with the last levels requiring a long time, especially because, since there’s no XP penalty, as long as you keep playing you’re certain to get it.

Now, I do agree with you that WASD should not be released without doing it properly (which is why I have opposed the OP idea many times in this thread). But properly won’t mean that WASD won’t be superior to M/K. Because it will be. There is no way for it not to be. What EHG can do is close the gap by improving the mouse controls, that’s all.

The only real difference between adding controller or WASD to LE is that controller is an inferior control method (barring a few exceptions), so most players don’t care if it’s there, whereas WASD is a superior one. Which means that M/K players that are competitive will need to adapt to it in order to stay competitive.
But for the non-competitive ones, if the gap between WASD and M/K is the same as in PoE2, I don’t think most will mind.

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That actually doesn’t hold true in FPS games at times. Given that FPS precision isn’t making it very viable to play controller without some form of auto-aim it depends on how it’s implemented. There’s FPS games out where M&K is inferior to Controller outside of turn-precision simply because the auto-aim is badly handled. And some older titles which had no auto-aim where playing with a controller even against the fairly dumb AI back then is a frustrating situation.

To be fair ‘making 2 genders’ doesn’t improve how accessible the game is to a broad audience, nobody is physically unable to play a game because the character model doesn’t represent a specific gender. Some simply don’t like it. With input methods it’s a bit different. ‘classic’ M&K for ARPG games like LE has a high RSI rate (repetitive stress injury) because of the common positioning of the hands at the desk.

In comparison controller is for many people much more relaxing, but some have a natural ‘death grip’ which instead causes controllers to have the downside ‘classic’ M&K causes in the majority of cases.

So WASD is a good middle-ground, the amount of mouse-clicks are drastically reduced (because movement isn’t handled with a single finger but several on the keyboard) which reduces the RSI risk substantially.

That’s a big thing why different input methods have become such a big thing over the years, simply because it allows more people to play overall.

Because they’re quite different things you’re talking about.

A input method is a accessibility function, first and foremost. It has effects on balancing and a high footprint of needed implementations to support it, but it’s ‘broadening the audience’.

In comparison the class-changes are a fundamental game design aspect. Having 15 distinct classes which have an overlapping part so they’re UI-wise clustered together is providing a variety of content and different potential build options. Having then non-interchangable is a part of replayability simply. Too little replayability and people wait on updates because ‘they’re 100% through’ with all their goals… and that shouldn’t happen in a live-service game easily since long-term players are direly needed. Only D3 showcased an exception to that in the history of live-service ARPGs, and only because the franchise is one of the strongest world-wide with a backing company that can afford throwing out PR without end and does so.

And XP amounts… is a balancing aspect. I agree that - in the current state of 1.1 - the increase in the need of XP is fairly unfitting though and shouldn’t have been done, doesn’t align well with the game’s state overall at the moment, given provided content as well as feeling of it. Those that care about reaching 100 find the last levels a chore since they craaawl along and those not caring about 100 can completely ignore them given they have such little impact for far far too much effort needed. And since we have no form of death penalty in the game to reduce XP gain and hence allow skill to play a factor during that time (rather then pure persistence) it makes it a generally unpleasant experience to focus on the leveling itself.

Not a universally true comment.

Halo was majorly created as a console game for example. It’s a FPS shooter. Hence it was created for controller first and foremost. Nonetheless M&K are clearly superior for obvious reasons.
Many other games fall into the same issues. GTA with multi-input method (controller + wheel setup) for example is a very enjoyable way to play that game… but GTA was never made with a wheel in mind. Still you drive so much that it’s simply superior to use one during those times.

For mech-games like Mechwarrior as an example the best input methods are a mixture between pedals and dual joystick, which is by no means a ‘normative’ input method of any kind, but given the hip-based movements and hence detachment of acceleration and deceleration for the ways commonly used simply doesn’t fit well.

Specific titles don’t get made with the universally best control method in mind… but for the main audience playing it. There’s simply a side-effect on how they’re designed which can lead to deviating optimal methods of control.

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You must have skipped over the gender lock threads. There have been plenty of people that said they couldn’t play some classes at all because of this.
Just because you have no problem with it (much like I don’t), doesn’t mean no one will skip the game because of it.

Much like having no offline mode means that some people with social phobias won’t play the game, even if you can play without interacting with other people. For some, simply having other people running around in town is enough not to play.

Granted, neither is a common issue that will affect the majority of players, but it is an issue for a portion of the playerbase. Whether that portion is significant or not is something only EHG can evaluate properly, since we don’t have enough data for it. All we know is that such people do exist, not how many.

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Yes, in FPS it can be somewhat balanced. But still, people have different aim with M/K while pretty much the same with auto-aim, so it affects different people differently and can’t be perfectly balanced, jusl like in ARPGs it can’t.

Smite is a MOBA game with only horizontal aiming, which makes controller somewhat viable, and also auto-aim wouldn’t make sense because projectiles are quite slow and you need to predict enemy movement in order to land a shot. So I guess it couldn’t be balanced there.

Or people with poor internet connection. For me, one of very important advantages of LE over POE is that it doesn’t lag because of ping. I’m am traveling all the time and usually don’t have reliable ping.

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Obviously. But I didn’t mention that because that is simply a technical issue and my point was that people can have personal hangups which can cause them to not be able to play because it has an online component. Or that there is no gender choice.

Just because most people would be fine with either doesn’t mean that no one will have that issue.

Much like there are people that won’t play a game if it has spiders of any kind in it.

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Well yeah, if there would be plenty of people who would not play because of spiders, then removing spiders is almost the same as adding controller support, in general. Improves accessibility. Same with genders if it’s really a thing.

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There is some difference though — opinion about spiders or genders can be changed depending on the mood, so someone can say that he will never touch such game and play next day, while if he physically can’t play it won’t changes by itself. Or, if I can’t enjoy playing with click-to-move, even if I try it will never change, there is just not much to enjoy for me in such gameplay (though for the most players it’s optional and depends on the mood).

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I think you’re underestimating phobias and other psychological issues. Most people that have phobias don’t stop being afraid of whatever the phobia is “depending on the mood”. Most don’t even ever get over it.

It’s a lot easier to get over the technical issues, like getting a stable internet connection (depending on where you live) than it is to get over phobias.

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There is no fobia of playing different gender.

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I did say phobia or other psychological issues. Some people need to identify with the game characters and can’t do that if it’s a different genre from them. Others don’t need that, don’t care, or are able to identify with a transgender version of themselves.
In this case, it could even be an aesthetic issue for them. Much like some people can’t play games with crappy or old school graphics.

Not everything needs to be a phobia to prevent you from doing something.
You don’t have mouseandkeyboardphobia and yet you’ve said you can’t play without WASD.

And, much like some players can’t play strategy games or FPSs because they don’t like them, some players might also not play a game without gender choice because they don’t like them.

Personally, gender choice makes no difference to me, but I would rather have it. Whenever I play a game, if there’s gender choice I pick a female model, because if I’m going to be looking at a model for hours on end, I’d rather be watching a woman.
I’m not alone in this either. It’s just that for most people this is just a nice unimportant feature to have, for others it’s a dealbreaker.

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It’s not that I can’t, there is just no point of playing for me if I can’t have interesting enough fights. While if game would have something interesting enough, but also some thing I don’t enjoy, like gender or hundred of other possible things, if there is something to enjoy I could enjoy it, even it has only androgynous characters, tons of spiders, outdated graphic, bad control scheme and other scary things.

We can say, that there are problems which can be compensated by making game more interesting and which can’t. If someone doesn’t want to play because of gender, if game will be interesting enough they still will play it. But if someone doesn’t have PC or console to play, he can’t play LE regardless of how interesting it is, until it will be released as a board version :slight_smile:

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If they can’t use a mouse, a keyboard or a controller because the gender is a specific one then that would be a first.

What you’re talking about is a matter of preference, which is 100% fine and agreed, I’m all for options in general. But they are and will always be that: A preference.

Input methods are not necessarily (at many times they are though) a preference, they are sometimes a necessity. As mentioned, actual physical hindrances, be it RSI, be it years and years of muscle memory. That’s quite another issue there.

It never is. Never was. Likely never will be either.

There’s always a superior and a inferior method, related to the setup the developers have made.

And as you mention… in other genres it’s the same. MOBA, RPG, RTS… all of them have a optimal input method, one which not always aligns with the one they’re actually programmed for. Be it through a mess-up from the devs or simply because the respective game-type causes it to lean towards one heavily by design.

Yes, and that’s also something I wholeheartedly agree with. It hinders people from accessing the game because they physically can’t.

Much like input methods do. So they’re generally a good thing to implement.

What DJ mentioned though with the gender lock… that’s not a physical hindrance, it’s a mental one. And taking those into consideration unless it’s a dangerous life-threatening issue (addiction based ones hence) it has no place in a video game to be anywhere near top-priority. Yes, including it is nice… after everything else has been handled and made better… then it can be tackled.

Mind you, I’m generally for options, I’m against comparing apples and oranges though and I’m also against rushing into stuff without properly taking into consideration what they’ll change going forward.

Or because there’s no auto-pickup, or because there’s no mastery-change, or because… that’s a position which needs a completely different thought-process compared to removing physical limitations.

Offline mode removes a physical limitation related to online status. Input methods do related to physical limitations of different bodies. Gender lock is a mental barrier, and hence we also have the opposite side of people which want their character to have a fixated backstory. So the question there is ‘either/or’ and ensuring to align with the personal preferrence as well as the overall amount of people preferring a specific choice to make a product flourish, which is a vastly harder thing to deal with (which is why the discussions there tend to go awry).

But with physical stuff it’s kinda hard to argue ‘well, ignore it’… can hardly ignore something which actively stops me from engaging with something. You can still engage with a mental barrier, you can’t with a physical one, it’s impossible or worst-case actually harmful to do so after all.

No, he doesn’t actually.
A phobia can be gotten under control. Not always, sometimes it needs decades, for others it never works… but it has the option to be solved. Same with any other stance. Thought processes can and will change over time. What you see as mandatory today will not even be a major nuisance tomorrow… and the other way around.

A physical limitation though doesn’t change. Your internet connection won’t improve because you change your stance towards it, you’re reliant on the infrastructure and not your own doing there, it’s not in your personal power to change anything. Same with how your body is built up. I’m for example watching a streamer which can’t use M&K because of a nerve issue, causing severe pain when used for extended amounts of time. I personally have a muscle buildup which leans towards RSI, cramps, inflammation. So I personally can’t deal with repetitive clicks too much (which is why I need to pause playing the game for weeks at times despite wanting to play it). That’s a difference. You keep the want to play it, you are just hindered to do it. A psychological aspect reduces or removes wanting to do something until you don’t do it.

Then those games aren’t for those people, simple as that.

If you don’t enjoy playing a female protagonist you won’t play ‘Tomb Raider’. It would be nonsensical to make the main character anyone else besides Lara Croft.

If you don’t enjoy playing a male protagonist you won’t play ‘Serious Sam’, because Sam’s the protagonist there simply. Wouldn’t make sense to give it a random character as a choice, or gender-change him simply. Wouldn’t be ‘Sam’ anymore.

Including a option to switch a gender is automatically pushing those people away which rely on immersing into a specific role and needing the rigid background hence to do so. It stands in direct conflict with that mindset hence. So it’s a ‘either/or’ situation. It doesn’t improve things but simply changes them. Including options to remove physical limitations won’t hinder people from engaging in the game, it enables them to do so.

Which is why I’m arguing it to be a completely different topic, even if overlaps exist.

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That is not what I said. What I said is that some people won’t play LE at all because it’s gender locked. And some have also said they can only play a couple classes (the ones that are in their gender) and can’t play the other ones. There were plenty of cases like this in the huge gender lock thread, for example.

This doesn’t have to be a preference. It can simply be a psychological issue, as I’ve explained already, like an inability to place themselves in the place of a character that is too different from them.
Might seem silly to some, but it’s an issue for others nonetheless.

A physical limitation can also be overcome, oftenly more easily than a psychological one. You can contract with a better ISP, you can buy a mouse with lots of buttons and use only the mouse and not the keyboard, you can setup to use mouse only for aiming and use the keyboard for clicking instead (Autohotkey is a thing).

Phobias are something that is deep seated and much harder to get rid of. As I said (and you seem to agree) most people don’t ever get over their phobias, even with professional help.
There’s a reason why there are so many mods in Skyrim for Arachnophobia, either removing them entirely from the game or replacing them with another mob.

That is exactly my point. Those people don’t play lots of games because of this. But there are games where you can have the option to choose this and let them play it. D4 does this. They probably play D4. LE doesn’t, so they don’t play LE.

You lost me there. People can’t play LE because it doesn’t allow them to choose gender. If LE had the option to do so, they would play. Gender customization doesn’t push anyone away. Quite the contrary.

I agree, it’s a completely different topic, which is why it has several threads dedicated to it. And, to be clear, I don’t think it’s a priority right now. Much like I don’t think WASD is a priority unless done right.
But both will bring more people in, not away.

Also, as a sidenote:

This implies that you think that phobias and phychological issues are simply a matter of changing your stance towards it, which is highly dismissive and oftenly offensive to people with these issues. It’s the equivalent of saying, to someone with a depression, “There, there. Just stop being sad and it will be fixed”.

Psychological issues are, more often than not, outside of your control. Much more so than physical ones.

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