This! In Shadow of Mordor, jump, climb, roll and run are all the same key! Stupid!

Even better when they are all bound to some key that's difficult to hit, and there's no way, short of Autohotkey, to rebind the controls. Seriously, even when a PC game is an unashamed console port, throw us a bone here.

This! In Shadow of Mordor, jump, climb, roll and run are all the same key! Stupid!

Actually, if you design levels so you can always only either jump or climb or roll, that is an igenious thing. Makes it much easier for casual non-nerd gamers (also, elderly people). Only have to remember one "special move" key.

What about where they bind an analogue control on consoles to a keyboard key on a pc?

Like in The PC port of GTA San Andreas where acceleration was bound to a keyboard key or mouse key and it was either full on 100% or all off 0%. On xbox, it was one of the trigger keys. It made some of the cars really hard to drive... You had to modulate the key, on off, on off... To maintain a constant non full throttle speed.

Without a good joystick you were up poo Creek without the rowing stick...

lol stories like this are the reason why I still use my consoles. I play the more PC specific games on my PC.

I played Shadow Of Mordor on the PC with an xbox contoller. No issues whatsoever.

If a game is clearly designed for a gamepad, you're just torturing yourself trying to play it with kb/m.

Movie based games that are rushed out the door are never going to be good.
I always wait a few years, than read the honest ( unpaid & unhyped ) reviews before buying "new" titles.

Except that Shadow of Mordor wasn't a movie based game and it was actually pretty good. The publisher had some idiotic "youtube early access for positive reviews" nonsense, that was actually completely unnecessary as the game got good reviews on its own.

Oh yeah... I forgot to add to the original post... FORCED CUT SCENES ARE EVIL! I pick a battle with a captain... Wait for a minute so that the captain can insult me... Lose the battle with the captain... Start the battle over with the captain...Wait for a minute so that the captain can insult me... Lose the battle with the captain... Start the battle over with the captain...

:)

Only thing that gets my blood to boil even more than lengthy cutscenes you cannot skip, is lengthy cutscenes you cannot skip WITH QT EVENTS IN THEM!

No, that doesn't increase my attention to whatever story you are trying to pull off during that cutscene. And no, that is not a good shortcut to make that bossfight look superawesome without investing the time to make that boss work in the game WITHOUT crutches.

It will only lead to one thing: stop playing, deinstall game, and scratch that game series of my "must play" list forever. I don't play a game to watch an interactive movie, and I am not interested in playing a simple mobile whack-a-button mobile game with awesome desktop style graphics.

But I digress.... heard SoM should be pretty good, never heard any complaints about the controls before... could it be a misconfiguration on your side? You sure other players faced the same problems? Hard time beliving that about a year after its release.

Only thing that gets my blood to boil even more than lengthy cutscenes you cannot skip, is lengthy cutscenes you cannot skip WITH QT EVENTS IN THEM!

No, that doesn't increase my attention to whatever story you are trying to pull off during that cutscene. And no, that is not a good shortcut to make that bossfight look superawesome without investing the time to make that boss work in the game WITHOUT crutches.
It will only lead to one thing: stop playing, deinstall game, and scratch that game series of my "must play" list forever. I don't play a game to watch an interactive movie, and I am not interested in playing a simple mobile whack-a-button mobile game with awesome desktop style graphics.

QFT!

But I digress.... heard SoM should be pretty good, never heard any complaints about the controls before... could it be a misconfiguration on your side? You sure other players faced the same problems? Hard time beliving that about a year after its release.

Multiple controls are mapped to a single key press. I can change that key, but the issue will still exist.

Multiple controls are mapped to a single key press. I can change that key, but the issue will still exist.

It's always been a problem in this sort of game. The control scheme is lifted pretty much straight from Assassin's Creed (as with most of the rest of the gameplay, minus the Nemesis system).

And Assassin's Creed is famous for using one button to turn on free-run/auto-climb/auto-jump, and then also using that button to commit the crime of pickpocketing whenever you encounter a group of armed guards...

I've just never heard of context-based controls. I don't game much. It seems good on paper, but is flawed in the implementation. It may seem like a good idea to couple the run, jump and climb buttons together, but when your character is surrounded by orcs and you have no chance of winning AND you're pinned against a wall, the context would be to climb the wall to get out of danger, not try to flip over the orc carrying a shield, who then promptly throws you into the middle of the crowd of orcs!

Hmm the only game with 'one button do all' I can remember is the Zelda: The Minish Cap, The same button would roll, pick, throw, talk..maybe more, it showed the name of the action in the top right of the screen depending on what youre facing/touching.. I liked it, but I remember having to get the chickens in time was a pain, since you would end rolling trough it instead of picking, delaying you more.

Gba had only 4 buttons, and now I thinking, this sounds like it would be much more of a problem in consoles than in PC due limited buttons.

I like that kind of control, its about clarity of what you can do. If everything is in the same key, than its clear you can only do one of those at a time, the player dont need to test fancy combinations like "What if I press roll while climbing? Will it perform a special move? What about X,Y,Z..", with only one key than you can only test pressing it again.

I also like when you can force a context, like entering "battle mode", where your controls change, I think Soul Reaver was the first to do that so awesomly. In Battle the jump becomes a dodge/dash thing. Pretty cool.

(A Link to the Past also had 'one button do all', I didnt remember)

Yes, Context Sensitive controls are a good thing, but only if they're used correctly and in a logical manner.

Will your game design be such that while in a given position there will only ever be a single logical option to choose? If I'm standing somewhere, will your game design be such that there couldn't possibly be a reason why I would want to use Option A rather than Option B? If so, then congrats, having a button for 'event', which triggers Option A or B based on where you are can make sense.

However, if your game design is such that I could be standing next to a wall, and at any given time I, as the player who is supposed to be in control, may want to:

Hold against the wall for cover in a gun fight

Climb the wall

Sprint away from the wall to cover elsewhere

Lob a bomb over the wall

Roll on the ground from that wall to a wall on the other side of a small gap

go prone and shoot around the corner of the wall

Apply first aid to regain health

Etc, etc, etc

Then there had bloody well better be distinct control for all those things, otherwise they're not actually CONTROLS, it is throwing bloody dice!

Now excuse me while I go find friends to play boardgames with.