Sign in to follow this  
Timoca

Modernize the character controls of the game

Recommended Posts

What we can see on steam is that a lot of the players that try out the game don't even get past the tutorial and often in the negative reviews I then see it mentioned that they can't figure our the movement controls or that they are just to weird to get used to.

So, my idea:

 

Create a second controls template which gets set as the standard template for newer player.

Changes for the second template:

Get rid of the right click menu's as they (I think) all can be reached through other UI elements.

And then use the right mouse button instead to look around, like pretty much all other first/third person games do.

 

That's all you need to change to get rid of 1 of the 2 biggest complaints new players have, the other one being the game graphics looking bad(which they don't!)

Edited by Timoca
  • Like 2

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
2 hours ago, Timoca said:

they can't figure our the movement controls or that they are just to weird to get used to.

 

ASDW, up, down, left, right arrows... .hit your number pad key use those arrows, whats not to understand?  These keys have been the staple of movement since ... well, forever as far as I know at Least 40 years of computer game play.  Is it possible that they don't understand how to move withtout a control pad?   And see the last quote on how to set your own movement keys to your own peferance.

 

2 hours ago, Timoca said:

Get rid of the right click menu's as they (I think) all can be reached through other UI elements.

 

Sht dude, if you think new players have a hard time moving around on basic use movement keys since mosses played duke nukem, wtf do you think is gonna happen if they can't right click anything to open a chest, embark on horse, or hell even Eat or Drink something.  Don't think there's enough combo hotkeys on a standard kb to cover every conceivable variable that a person can do in wurm with out being able to right click menu some commands.

 

2 hours ago, Timoca said:

And then use the right mouse button instead to look around, like pretty much all other first/third person games do.

 

Cause gawd knows players have never Ever had to explore a games settings and adjust them...

 

uPNylNe.jpeg

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
4 hours ago, Stormblade said:

 

ASDW, up, down, left, right arrows... .hit your number pad key use those arrows, whats not to understand?  These keys have been the staple of movement since ... well, forever as far as I know at Least 40 years of computer game play.  Is it possible that they don't understand how to move withtout a control pad?   And see the last quote on how to set your own movement keys to your own peferance.

 

 

Sht dude, if you think new players have a hard time moving around on basic use movement keys since mosses played duke nukem, wtf do you think is gonna happen if they can't right click anything to open a chest, embark on horse, or hell even Eat or Drink something.  Don't think there's enough combo hotkeys on a standard kb to cover every conceivable variable that a person can do in wurm with out being able to right click menu some commands.

 

 

Cause gawd knows players have never Ever had to explore a games settings and adjust them...

 

uPNylNe.jpeg

 

WASD is fine, who would ever complain about that? 

I'm talking about the way we control the camera, And I can't think of any other game that does it like wurm does. The camera is standard controlled with the right mouse button as far as i know.

And right mouse menu's are not from this time, I myself hardly ever use them any more because we've got new ways to control the game now.

 

Pnim5Ig.jpg

 

Also I'm not asking to get rid of the current way of controlling the game, I know that many people prefer this way because they got used to it.

I would probably also stick with the system we have right now because I've been using it for 10 years and i'm fine with it.

 

The game confuses new players, they don't stick around and we could use some. The sandbox mmo genre is pretty popular atm, and quite a few other sandbox games with slow gameplay don't seem to have quite the retention problem Wurm has.

 

Another thing, in the tutorial you can ask the player to move the camera with the mouse, if they press the left mouse button they get put on the system we have now, if they press the right  mouse button they get their controls changed that way.

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

no.

 

HARD no.

 

Right click is for context-sensitive menus in so much stuff it is practically intuitive.  Likewise left click for mouselook, and WASD / arrow keys.  Certainly when I started, this wasn't even stuff that I had to read in the tutorial.  It just comes naturally. 

 

Oh: and not completing the tutorial is a different thing to quitting the game before completing the tutorial.  I created a steam character and skipped the tutorial because it wasn't needed.  I would expect a great many existing players who were creating new steam characters did the same thing.  As a stat "not completing the tutorial" is not much use.

  • Like 2

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

uh, No. You can't reach all things thru other elements other than right-click. The choice to swap mouse buttons is already there.

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
On 4/24/2022 at 7:55 PM, Timoca said:

often in the negative reviews I then see it mentioned that they can't figure our the movement controls or that they are just to weird to get used to.

Are you able to give us some links for this?  I have to say I find it hard to imagine people finding Wurm movement impossible to figure out or weird to get used to.

 

Even some quotes, if not links.  Is it even really a problem that needs solving?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
4 hours ago, TheTrickster said:

Are you able to give us some links for this?  I have to say I find it hard to imagine people finding Wurm movement impossible to figure out or weird to get used to.

 

Even some quotes, if not links.  Is it even really a problem that needs solving?

Here you go Trickster:

 

Spoiler

 Section of a Review by mac_xvii

 

Quote

The first thing you notice is the mouse sensitivity is set to 10 (extremely high) by default. You can bump your mouse and spin all the way around. It is so twitchy that you easily get turned backwards until you lower the sensitivity in the options menu (press escape). Cool, fixed that.

 

Well, can it be worse? Yes. The movement is keyboard based. You can use the mouse to hold-click and look around while moving. Mostly, the mouse is a free-floating cursor that highlights tiles. Once a tile is selected, it appears in your tile target window (which is like a normal target window, but dedicated to land tiles or other interactive objects). So, your 'immersion' is really a constant scattering of blue square outlines of whatever your mouse cursor is hovering over, with words on it like "Grassy field, Raspberry Bush, Press F: forage Press R: Repeat action". So yea, there is a large chunk of text floating on everything your mouse hovers over, while you move, and the grid outlines bounce around. It is like being constantly stuck in creative mode in other games. 

 

Review by UncleAgent3

Quote

The controls are clunky and disorganized. You can't even crouch or sprint in the tutorial and I look for good combat mechanics that are more self explanatory. I don't want to spend 30 minutes on a tutorial if there are not good controls.

 

Section of a review by Correctivet9

Quote

3. Add a setting where i can just toggle mouse movement (looking around) on and off, i get tired of holding down my mouse button just to look around. also if you do this just to be safe until it toggles off you have 2 mouse buttons left click to swing sword, right to throw up shield. simple.

 

Review by Argondrey

Quote

the controls need a lot of work before i will give this game a shot to move u use wasd to look u use the arrows like what were they thinking if it wont for that i think the game has a lot of positive ideas

 

Review by Pagan

Quote

This is not a game you see when you watch the video.. all first person view and the movement is very rudimentary. Tutorial is meh. Graphics are also meh. I went through the tutorial and uninstalled. Just not my cup of tea.

 

Review by Oatmeal God

Quote

It's gotta have THE MOST unusual controls I have ever seen and basically made it impossible to play.

 

Review by MalachiteValkyrie

Quote

I never made it past the tutorial.. this game is like a delivery driver who was given conflicting storage instructions, then forgot what their job was supposed to be. Ok so here is my take, I was dumped in a pit with no idea what i was doing and told to climb a small slope by pressing Z.. Except it for got to say weather i was to hold down z, tap it once or press it continually.. when i got out.. i was told to go into my inventory and chop down a tree.. except the game forgot to say that Inventory was accessed by pressing I.. anyway got the tree done but the game forgot to say don't pick up the tree.. then it told me to dig Dirt.. except the game forgot to say what the point of this was, and don't pick up the dirt.. this went on and on into mining ore with no explanation for what the Ore was for in an area where there was an anvil.. then came the combat section.. ran through the area with no sign of combat to a sign touched the sign and was teleported to the most random area full of statues and ore all over the ground.. that's where the uninstall came into play..
I'm Serious do game develops forget that not everyone is on the same page and some simple instructions that would go a long was go missing, for a 2012 game this game has had nearly 10 years to get its act together.. The Controls Are a mess and i struggled to figure out what did what and when
Positives..
For a Game that's so old the Graphics are not actually that bad, for a second positive the sound and music was kind of ok i guess.
Do i Recommend this.... NO, but if you can get through the confusion go right ahead.
That's all

 

Review by damIThurtz

Quote

Sure looked fun. But..... an open world game with clunky movement and interaction. Worse off to me is no jump????? Really?

 

Review by Mr_Sands80

Quote

Games dated and lags (there is a stutter in frames while walking real noticeable in 3rd person). Starts you in a tutorial server with an inventory full of crap then asks you to do things while restricting other functions (tutorial areas are meant to learn not be restricted) oh, and the tutorial is terrible. There were these signs with terrible font and pop up helpers.....

The thing that really made me uninstall this game is left click to turn camera, I just couldn't handle it man. Why couldn't it be right click to turn left click to open menu on objects... The entire open menu on objects thing was a bit mmmMMM yea NO...

Character ran like it had something wedged in there ya know.....Bad controls, clunky movement, stuck in tutorial world I have to admit that uninstall button was looking pretty great when I clicked it.

 



 

 

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Thanks for that @Zexos.

 

I would note that really only one of those is complaining about having difficulty figuring out the controls.  But then, they had difficulty figuring out the difference between "press" and "hold", and complaints about what the tutorial didn't tell them NOT to do.  Make of that what you will, but to me it seems to be what we used to call "pre-keyboard error".

 

"Oatmeal God" did say that the controls made the game impossible to play because they are "THE MOST unusual controls."  Er... I played it and so did thousands of others, so ... not impossible at all.  Also, WASD for movement and arrow-look / left-click mouse-look THE MOST unusual controls?   In which universe?  

 

The other complaints are as follows (with my reaction after - snarky, but I think understandably so);

  • mouse sensitivity is high by default - so not proposing an actual change just a dial-back in sensitivity, and mentions default so probably knows how to find settings
  • movement is keyboard based - ooookay......   my neural interface unit must still be in the mail, but I still use a keyboard.
  • controls clunky and disorganized -  well now, they ARE organized and the tutorial shows that organization.  I honestly don't really know what that complaint means.
  • no crouch or sprint - crouch why?  And it is ALL sprint.
  • holding down a mouse button is tiring - I just.... you ...   oh, it hurts!
  • a combination of WASD and arrows for movement and direction, "what were they thinking".  -  I can't take that as a serious objection.  WASD and arrows are the fundamentals of keyboard movement control
  •  movement is rudimentary - so therefore NOT difficult to figure out
  • no jump - jump would be an improvement, but that is a gameplay issue not a control-set issue, and it certainly wouldn't be affected by killing off ALL right-click menus
  • an actual complaint about left button mouse-look and right-button menus - I have not ever come across main-button context menus, and find left-click mouse-look to be intuitive, BUT given the opposite for a given game, I would simply use that game's controls.  I have played at least one game where mouse-look and item-interaction are toggled by mouse click (left, not right - as right was for context menus) and while I found it un-intuitive and a bit grating, I quickly got used to it and got around just fine.  Left click to select and right click to pull up a context menu are almost universal across computer applications.  They are part of the basic language of end-user control of applications.

So of the actual problem this suggestion purports to solve, there is very little genuine sign.   The suggestion would solve ONE of those review complaints (the last one) by making menus going away, because that review complained about even having those menus.

 

Still a solid "no" for me, then.

Edited by TheTrickster
  • Like 2

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
On 4/24/2022 at 2:55 AM, Timoca said:

Create a second controls template which gets set as the standard template for newer player.

Changes for the second template:

Get rid of the right click menu's as they (I think) all can be reached through other UI elements.

And then use the right mouse button instead to look around, like pretty much all other first/third person games do.

Love the attempt at fixing New Player Experience. Something I think is the biggest bane of this game. I def agree that camera movement should be defaulted to right click and that anyone who's using left click shouldn't get effected if the change is made. With that change alone I don't believe you need to redo the UI elements, but I do think those need some work too. However, we need to discuss what those alternatives could be. Keep the gears in your brain turning. I look forward to any future posts you make about this massive issue. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
2 minutes ago, Zuelatak said:

New Player Experience

 

Totally agree that this should definitely be a focus, as well as Retention of those new players.  Incentives really don't work, or fit in with a game like Wurm ( meaning absolutely new player incentives )  Defeats the purpose of playing wurm long term to see those rewards.

 

Some folks 4 hours in to the game, love it, or hate it, but the focus should be on why do they hate it. Yes controls can be a lil clunky and confusing, but honestly is not a reason to not play a game, unless you have to be a pretzel flexible gymnast to use the controls.

 

The tutorial, it's been reworked, worked, redone, over hauled.  Honestly for a game like wurm, it's almost impossible to have some kinda of 'intro' that would give you an overview of Everything.  The basic essentials are somewhat covered, but because of the complexity of how to do something while playing wurm, like, make a campfire, takes different actions that to cover them might be meaningless to some folks that just want to get started and jump in.

 

You see it plenty of times in CA or even global, how do i light a forge.  Then the usual response of did you do the tutorial?  answer is, No, it didn't make sense to me.

 

Some folks refer to videos to see how to start and what the play style is.  Me personally when i check out a new game, i google 'Gamename Screenshots ingame play' or somethingl ike that to see what the ui looks like, graphics, first person over the shoulder, or watch a video of actual game play.  I hear more and more folks doing the same with wurm and skipping the tutorial, perhaps adding a link to a Video of someone ( staff ) doing the tutorial from start to finish would be helpful as well, and Official Video.  Just a thought.

 

There are suggestions on character appearance, lack of diversity in how your character looks, beeing looked at and hopefully worked on by the Team.

 

There's been a suggestion of a Mentoring System, where a new player can be 'joined' or 'linked' with a older player to sorta like priests share favor, they would be able to share a skill pool of the older player. Limited time and range, but would give them the benefit of actually Trying out some skills they might not normally be able to do while non-premium or as a new player.

 

Wurm unlike other games, has not real set A-B-C-Ending way to play unlike other games where you watch a full play through video from beginnig to end and see the whole game.

 

In the past there have been those that have streamed their play time from beginning as a new player to settling to building their deed.  This would go to promotion of the game and hopefully a inventive to retain new players by showing them what they can accomplish.

 

Wurm is a hard work game, it is Not a gimme game where you go raid a boss and get gear, or do dungeons and get experience.  You skill up, you grind, you work and you build.  You participate with the community to build your reputation up as either a good guy or bad buy or a however you want folks to perceive you as, or you can just go be a hermit in the mountains.  The variety of playstyles is almost limitless with Wurm, but the end is the same, YOU did it, no one else, You accomplished this.

 

 

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, Stormblade said:

Wurm is a hard work game, it is Not a gimme game where you go raid a boss and get gear, or do dungeons and get experience.  You skill up, you grind, you work and you build.  You participate with the community to build your reputation up as either a good guy or bad buy or a however you want folks to perceive you as, or you can just go be a hermit in the mountains.  The variety of playstyles is almost limitless with Wurm, but the end is the same, YOU did it, no one else, You accomplished this.

Ofc. We're not discussing how the game is played. We're discussing New Player Experience and why people can't get into this game. I don't feel like it has anything to do with the complexity, but how that complexity is presented. The game also has so many small problems that add up to being a massive nuisance.

 

For instance, I did some terraforming yesterday and was using levelling. If I was mining I could hit level and look away no problem and check back in after a minute. However, with digging for some reason the dirt goes into my inventory so I have to constantly be dropping dirt in order to make sure the action timer finishes or at least gets as far as it can before I run out of stamina. That can easily account for 1,000's of extra clicks that are not needed. It's stuff like this that I wish Wurm would take more time to refine on.

 

If these tedious problems were resolved, the controls becoming more standardized, and the UI becoming more clean I strongly believe we'll start to at least see an incline in the playerbase.

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this