SSR What if they had a classic control option for System Shock Remastered?

[673f64766a113ChickenHead]

Before you all attack me, let me explain.

What if as an optional mode, you could use the original controls in the System Shock remake?  Like as a hard mode or terror mode option.  In my stupid opinion, the original controls were very good at making you tense and terrified.

What do you think?  Is it something they should do, or am I a complete idiot?

I understand a lot of you all hate the original controls.

[673f64766a37eZylonBane]

They won't, because that would be a ton of extra effort for practically zero return. It would be even more useless than prone mode.

[673f64766a477ChickenHead]

Gotcha, then.  I'm an idiot.
Nothing to see here, folks.

[673f64766a7a7Briareos H]

I am among those who enjoy --or at least enjoyed-- the depth of the original control scheme and feel that traditional mouselook+crouch/jump takes something away from the game.
In addition, the fact that there were several different body stances contributed to the immersive feeling of being free to do what you want, that there was always more to the game than what was first apparent. Sure, it was too awkward to properly use and you could count on one hand the times where going prone was useful, but these being available as tools to the player felt really good to me.

As for the controls themselves, it's not surprising that the more streamlined, traditional FPS controls ultimately won as they really are more practical to use. But at the time, what UU/SS offered was an interesting way of doing things, mouselook was only in its infancy and felt awkward to most people.

That said, I don't think going back to the traditional control scheme would make much sense to add challenge. In my opinion, what would make sense would be to fulfill its original purpose in a modern and innovative way. That purpose was to give you more awareness and freedom of movement than the four keys of Doom and this can be done in two major ways today:

• using an Arma-like control scheme, with Alt to look around while walking and Z/X/C for the stances;
• putting all your money in VR, especially HTC Vive's room scale technology. System Shock is the absolute perfect FPS for demonstrating VR, in this case because its traditional, 'analog' body stances were just a crude way of representing exactly what you can do now with room scale.

As much as I love Arma-style controls and would like to see them implemented in every FPS, I doubt they are going to be a main focus especially from a small development unit. They yield a small return on investment in terms of immersion. On the other hand, I really expect them to go full steam on virtual reality and will be disappointed if they don't (disclaimer: I haven't been following recent developments of the remake).

[673f64766a904fox]

ARMA's controls felt pretty horrible to me.

[673f64766aa24Briareos H]

I don't know how much they have changed with the games, I only played Operation Flashpoint where the implementation was completely different and Arma 3. In the latter the controls are the same as a regular FPS, with two additional keys for crouch/prone, one key to raise/lower the weapon and one key to look around while running. I immediately fell in love with that in particular, but you don't have to use it. What was horrible?

[673f64766ab2cfox]

Can't really tell from the top of my head. I bought Arma I and II, tried and soon stopped playing out of frustration over the controls. They did feel unintuitive (not conforming to fps-standards) and overly convoluted. What exactly frustrated me, I can't remember. Things like y(/z)-x-c for prone-crouch-upright among many other little things that overall felt horrible to me.

[673f64766af9dJML]

[...] They did feel unintuitive (not conforming to fps-standards) and overly convoluted. [...]

Intuitive =|= conforming to set standards. Just clearing up this common misbelief. Libreoffice's Writer differs from Microsoft Office's Word in a few ways of layout and settings and probably also shortcuts, and I prefer the first for it's intuition (?).
Set standards like ctrl+c/v are familiar, but far from intuitive and lead to much frustration on my side. Copying by selecting text and pasting by pressing middle mousebutton is highly intuitive (Linux Mint). For keyboard only it would be wise to not use two keys next to each other for opposite jobs, as you shouldn't set quicksave next to quickload.

BTT (kinda): I remember playing ArmA 2 and being fascinated by the tactics, strategy and awesome map editor. The control tho were very unfamiliar and made it hard for me to get into it. Don't remember right now if they were really so unintuitive, but they sure as hell were not conforming to fps-standards.
I could argue now about the intuition(?) of those *cough*duckwithctrl*cough*, but that would probably lead to another split topic with 6 pages of mainly madness.

[673f64766b0ecfox]

Hm, while it's correct that "inuitive" is not synonymous with "familiar", a case could be made about how the practice of familiar standards can segue into intuition over time. But ok, should've written "unfamiliar" instead - point taken.

I googled the controls of ARMA I and II today and on first glance they don't seem to stray as far from fps-standards as I thought (although they use many additional keys). I'm not quite sure what exactly felt so uncomortable about them.

[673f64766b4eaJoin2]

They won't, because that would be a ton of extra effort for practically zero return. It would be even more useless than prone mode.

Hey, Shock butcher: games with prone: http://www.giantbomb.com/prone/3015-622/games/ (107 results).

such a hardcore, convoluted and useless concept widespread in the games industry.

It's not useless just because you fail to perceive what measures as worthy design or not.

[673f64766b605chickenhead]

I guess you could say you....

dropped a bomb.






I'll go kill myself, now. 

[673f64766b6dcJoin2]

List is missing System Shock and the STALKER series too.

[673f64766b9abKolya]

Hey, Shock butcher:

ZylonBane isn't making or de-making the game. Just like you are not actually protecting the holy grail of immersive gameplay.
We're all just discussing on an internet forum. Let's not forget this.   

[673f64766baceJoin2]

You're pointing out the obvious and nobody has forgot. It's an insult I can use while skirting around the rules, just as ZylonBane somehow manages to pull off on a consistent basis. An insult I know has an effect as he, like me, is adamant about staying true to the original concepts and spirit of Looking Glass (as modders) where it is logical to.

[673f64766bbbcZylonBane]

It's less effective than you might think. Somewhere around the emotional impact level of being yelled at by a crazy homeless person.

[673f64766bca4Join2]

Well, you don't give a lot of ammo to shoot with beyond your mediocre game design perspective and extreme sociopathic tendencies. That's both a compliment and an insult.

[673f64766bd90Kolya]

Instead of trying to skirt around the rules (unsubtly) try acting like you would with someone in the same room. While your mum is watching.

[673f64766be7aJoin2]

Advice best reserved for ZylonBane. I'm perfectly capable of being civil. In fact civility is what I desire, but I like to give the guy a taste of his own anti-psychotics that he doesn't bother to take.

[673f64766bf4dZylonBane]

Projection is such a fascinating, amusing thing to observe.

[673f64766c03cJoin2]

State it as you like. We all project something about ourselves in our posts, and you project as described above. Dr. Psy.D Bane

[673f64766c16bGawain]

 

[673f64766c2e2JosiahJack]

So many frivolous posts these days.

My two cents on topic: I think the controls should be customizable.  I think the controls should allow for the keyboard to turn the player view side to side or up and down.  They don't need to be assigned, but simply available.  I just implemented it in Citadel and it only took me 22min.

[673f64766c72echickenhead]

My two cents on topic: I think the controls should be customizable.  I think the controls should allow for the keyboard to turn the player view side to side or up and down.  They don't need to be assigned, but simply available.  I just implemented it in Citadel and it only took me 22min.

They won't, because that would be a ton of extra effort for practically zero return. It would be even more useless than prone mode.

A ton of extra effort.  Really?  I'm pretty sure that if a small team can do it easily for a project they're making for fun,  I'm pretty sure the experienced team making a game for their livelihood most certainly can do it quickly.

[673f64766c863ZylonBane]

A small team working for fun isn't being held up to the same work standard as a professional team. They'd have to design interface art for the posture controls, design the interface to accommodate the posture UI, code the posture UI itself, add UI to toggle the classic controls, then QA the whole thing to make sure it worked and rendered correctly. And for what? To satisfy a tiny handful of grognard weirdos.

A team that's drawing a salary has many, many better things to be spending dev time on.