Howdy. I am amidst the production of an idea, an idea that I wish not to unveil until completed, I simply ask. What would be the best controls? Imagine playing Mortal Kombat on computer (no, that's not my idea, it's a situation for you to relate better) and there are four possible moves. High Attack (High Kick) Mid Attack (Punch) Low Attack (Trip) and Grab Leaving jump as spacebar, what would be the four easiest controls? I was thinking 'A,S,D,F' each one for no paticular move, this is because you can have four fingers easily on these keys, a thumb on the space, and your other hand working on the directional keys. However, I feel I may be over thinking this and that Joe Everyteen may not realise the convenience that I do in these controls. So discuss, whether it be 'Ctrl, Alt, Shift and z' or 'Q, W, A, S'

Setup It up however,

Just supply a keymapper so the user can set the controls to whatever they want.

Oh I would, but I'm very anal retentive, and I'd like the default controls to be perfect.

This is an MMOG and if I am going to get a team working on this project the idea has to be detailed, otherwise it will flop like so many other MMOG's.

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Original post by Timus Oh I would, but I'm very anal retentive, and I'd like the default controls to be perfect.

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However, I feel I may be over thinking this and that Joe Everyteen may not realise the convenience that I do in these controls.

Well as you already pointed out, 'perfect' is relative.

The best approach would be too worry about this once you have a game running and then through play testing you'll find something that feels nice.

And with a keymapper the user can always change it up.

Firstly, I agree that you should provide a key-mapper so that players can change the configuration if they don't like the default.

Now, ASDF... I don't really like having the four fingers on a level line like that - for me in just doesn't feel particularly natural.

Instead, my preferred keys (keeping the thumb on the spacebar) would be ZSET, which for me at least follows the natural positioning of my hand somewhat. As an added bonus, the index (or middle) finger(s) can very readily access the R key from that position, and the little finger can very easily access LShift. More specifically, I would assign High, Medium and Low to E, S and Z respectively, as Grab to T. I would prefer to have the right hand using the numeric keypad rather than the directional keys.

Once you've got a game up and running you could play-test different key-mappings though, you can't really be sure with these things until you try it out.

Hmm, you have a good point.

But despite perfection being relative I could still systematically research which controls are preffered.

I may as well take your advice, but this topic still has merit, discussing the preffered control system.

I doubt a poll will help you much. This is one of those subjects that is extremely unimportant but incredibly personal at the same time. Unimportant in the fact that there are tons of key patterns that could be used without much difference in effectiveness. This is also why it's so personal. Since it matters so little, everyone ended up choosing their own favorite key setup, which means there's a lot of variety.

You really can't afford to not allow total customization. The default keys won't matter much, considering you're likely to find less than 50% of your players will agree they prefer a certain setup. Depending on the game type of course. If you're developing a FPS or other mainstream genre, you definitely have a few popular choices that you should stick with. If it's something new, most players will have to invent their own preference anyway. Rarely will they just ride with the default setup, unless you have a motherload of controls.

I think most gamers are at least familiar with WASD, because it seems to be the industry standard for default controls.

Although, it's typically used for movement rather than combat, so even then it might seem a little weird.

In any case, a keymapper is almost essential, and this is a fairly minor detail in the overall design. It's also something that can easily be changed without serious code changes, so there's not much point setting it in stone until the end of the project when you have working code and a chance to play test with different combinations.

I'd worry about your game rather than this.

I also get caught up in pointless stuff (controls, names, etc.).

Can you use the mouse for the attack controls? Most mouses used in gaming anymore have at least three buttons. Some have more.

Ex:

Right Click = High Attack (High Kick)

Left Click = Mid Attack (Punch)

Middle Click = Low Attack (Trip)

Left Click + Right Click = Grab

The Grab attack would be somewhat difficult to do if it were Left Click + Middle Click (try it :P ), and the way a grab or throw works makes some sense to capture both attack controls, so it seems do-able.

Of note, however, I would switch the two animations (kick and punch) as normally a kick would hit lower than a punch. Yeah, I know you can someone in the head, but it's slower than attacking the middle or lower body with a kick.

If you wanted to stick with Keyboard only, I would use the Numeric Keypad. You could control all movement and attacks with only one hand:

Num8 = Up
Num5 = Down
Num4 = Left
Num6 = Right
Num0 = Attack 1
Num1 = Attack 2
Plus = Attack 3
Enter= Attack 4

-Greven