View Poll Results: What Kind of Player are you? (Read descriptions in the post before voting.)

Voters
37. You may not vote on this poll
  • Sloppy

    12 32.43%
  • Precise

    23 62.16%
  • Neither (post and explain what you do)

    2 5.41%
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Thread: Pushing Buttons: Intelligent Solutions for Ambiguous Player Controls.

  1. Thumbs Up Pushing Buttons: Intelligent Solutions for Ambiguous Player Controls.



    Quote Originally Posted by http://www.gdmag.com/homepage.htm
    Pushing Buttons
    By Mick West
    Developers can dictate how controllers interact with their games, but they cannot control the way players play. Different styles of button pressing can lead to confusion, frustration, and an unhappy player, something every game desperately tries to avoid. How can you better plan and map your player controls for the sloppy thumb crowd?
    I'm not going to post the whole article, but it is a great peice on designing controls for the different ways gamers interact with a controller. It goes over button layouts and the two major ways gamers press the face buttons with their right hand: Sloppy and Precise.

    Sloppy: The player's right hand thumb is touching all the buttons as once (using Xbox as an example), butt of the thumb on the A, tip of the thumb on the Y and the sides of the thumb touching X and B. The player shift the weight of the pad of their thumb to press the buttons.
    PROS: NON-A-button press responses are much faster, as are transitions from button to button (pressing A then Y etc.)
    CONS: Often the user will hit X or B when going from A to Y and so forth.

    Precise: The player's right hand thumb is hovering over all the buttons or just pressing X with the tip of their thumb. As they want to press a button they move their thumb and press the button with the tip of their thumb.
    PROS: Very few errant button presses while transitioning from button to button, but sometimes the wrong button is pressed.
    CONS: Reaction time is slower as the thumb has to move before the press is initiated.

    The article goes into much more detail and explains how to design games and tighten control with this knowledge. This was written by the guy in charge of controls for the THPS games, and those has some of the tightest control, period.

    So, to make this thread more fun, which are you? Please read the descriptions above.


    Oh, I'm sloppy. And check this article out if you are in a magazine section that has it. Some great pictures, graphs and it is a good read. Don't buy the mag for it as you should be getting the mag in the mail for free, but check it out.

  2. I am a precise player I suppose. Does anybody else use their index fingers to press buttons when playing fighting games? It makes it more like the arcade, and makes it easier to pull off combos. Everybody that has seen me play that way says it's weird though.

  3. I guess...precise? I dunno, a lot of games I played back in the day were RPG's, and if you don't have precision you're just not doing the right moves. I would say that has bled into my increased time spent with action games.

  4. Precise, probably.

    That was the first issue of the magazine that I've read. It's pretty interesting stuff.

  5. It varies a bit. I'm usually precise, although some games work better with a "sloppy" hand position.
    matthewgood fan
    lupin III fan

  6. sloppy for sure.

    same way I use a D-pad. The ball of my thumb rests in the center and rocks in the desired direction.

  7. #7
    I'm sloppy...but on certain games I definitely change my style a bit.

    The gamecube controller seems made for sloppy players.
    Pete DeBoer's Tie
    There are no rules, only consequences.

  8. I'm definitely precise.

    Quote Originally Posted by animegirl
    Does anybody else use their index fingers to press buttons when playing fighting games? It makes it more like the arcade, and makes it easier to pull off combos. Everybody that has seen me play that way says it's weird though.
    I've seen a lot of people do that. I'll sometimes do it on a controller with six buttons on the face (not counting Xbox); if there are four buttons I have to use my thumb or else it's kinda hard for me to hit the shoulder buttons/triggers.
    All is well.

  9. Niether. I'm so used to playing games like Mario on the NES were you held B to run (with the tip of your thumb) and then jumped by flattening your thumb over A. So my thumb is usually hovering over B (NES, GCN), Y (SNES), Square (PS) and X (Xbox), etc.. I'll flatten my thumb to press "A" (the bottom button), and for the top and right buttons i'll press them the precise way.
    Quick zephyrs blow, vexing daft Jim.

  10. Quote Originally Posted by AstroBlue
    Niether. I'm so used to playing games like Mario on the NES were you held B to run (with the tip of your thumb) and then jumped by flattening your thumb over A. So my thumb is usually hovering over B (NES, GCN), Y (SNES), Square (PS) and X (Xbox), etc.. I'll flatten my thumb to press "A" (the bottom button), and for the top and right buttons i'll press them the precise way.

    I'm the same. I remember calling "A the "jump button" and B the "attack button" because so many games used that scheme... not that they had much choice, really.

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