how would you replace the keyboard for PC gaming?

[bystander]

that would explain it then. i figured that was the case.

the ergonomics on the nostromo are better though.

I agree, at least with the macro keys. The pinky buttons have a nice arch to it, which make them easier to hit. I tend to not use the pinky buttons on the G13 for major stuff, and often will skip down a line for them, but then again, the G13 has more buttons, and I like the Lua scripting.

The joystick was interesting. At first, I hated the G13, as I was used to the d-pad on the Nostromo, but after getting used to the G13 joystick, I could not use the Nostromo D-pad any more.

Keep in mind, I'm talking about the last Belkin Nostromo n52e. I believe Razer has changed the d-pad a touch. I believe it is still a simple button press deal, but they did change it to feel more like a joystick. I might like the new models better than the version I have, but I'm not ready to give up on the scripting I have with the G13.

 

[ssddx]

@bystander

when i purchased the nostromo to try out... i really did like the mechanical keys and the whole ergonomics of it but what i did not like was the fact that razer used a dpad instead of an analog stick (just like the original n52e had).

i know there are ways to mod the controller (ie using an xbox controller and modding the analog stick inside the nostromo and putting the bulk of the controller down under the desk) but this is alot of extra work and BS to wade through.

 

[jason41987]

so can we agree we as gamers should see an analog device of SOME sort become more prevelent for movement in PC games.. be it a nunchuck like navigation controller, a controller itself, or something like the G13, the feature for omnidirectional joystick movement really shouldnt be left out.. and id like to see cheaper keypads made that have an analog stick

 

[ssddx]

there are already nunchuck devices (you can use the ps3 move controller with pc), xbox and ps3 controllers for pc but what we really need is analog sticks on something like the nostromo. the g13 ergonomics just dont cut it while the nostromo is great except for no analog stick (its a d pad)

this i will agree on.. we need analog..

 

[jason41987]

well, a controller is significantly more comfortable for most people than any kind of keyboard or keypad.. someone could make a nunchuck like device with more buttons, but it seems it would be easier to get a gaming mouse that has more buttons, with the 10 on the navigation controller, plus an 8 button mouse or so should be more buttons than anyone should ever need.. developers just use so many buttons because theyre there and its easier..

most games made CAN be mapped to a single controller without leaving things out simply be developers being more creative with the interface.. so a nunchuck + even my 5 button mouse should be plenty i think

 

[bystander]

well, a controller is significantly more comfortable for most people than any kind of keyboard or keypad.. someone could make a nunchuck like device with more buttons, but it seems it would be easier to get a gaming mouse that has more buttons, with the 10 on the navigation controller, plus an 8 button mouse or so should be more buttons than anyone should ever need.. developers just use so many buttons because theyre there and its easier..

most games made CAN be mapped to a single controller without leaving things out simply be developers being more creative with the interface.. so a nunchuck + even my 5 button mouse should be plenty i think

Well, it depends on the games you play. RTS's and RPG's definitely need more buttons than a controller has for optimal play. There have been better methods put forth recently, but they have to dumb down the game or make an compromised UI for them to work (Skyrim's interface blows compared to Morrowind. Oblivion was somewhere in between).

For FPS games, the controller is comfortable for all but the aiming aspect (to me at least).

 

[jason41987]

skyrim interface isnt dumbed down.. its more efficient though.. but the gameplay of skyrim itself is a bit.. i miss making spells that allowed me to jump hundreds of feet in the air.. nothing like going from balmora to vivec in a single jump

 

[ssddx]

if the gameplay is stripped down then the interface will be as well hence "dumbed down" (which you call efficient)

pretty much the same thing.

 

[jason41987]

using the same button to go prone as to crouch simply by holding the button as opposed to tap it is not dumbing it down.. makes it more efficient.. having a different key for each is dumbing it down because it takes literally zero effort to create a control scheme then

some games have different keys to do the same things depending on what youre doing in the game at that moment without taking anything into consideration like contexts, whether or not youre in a vehicle, etc... i find keyboard interfaces to be incredibly dumbed down and developers like to brag about how many keys you "need" to play their game.. when take arma for example, a lot of those keys are useless animations, like a solute

 

[bystander]

using the same button to go prone as to crouch simply by holding the button as opposed to tap it is not dumbing it down.. makes it more efficient.. having a different key for each is dumbing it down because it takes literally zero effort to create a control scheme then

some games have different keys to do the same things depending on what youre doing in the game at that moment without taking anything into consideration like contexts, whether or not youre in a vehicle, etc... i find keyboard interfaces to be incredibly dumbed down and developers like to brag about how many keys you "need" to play their game.. when take arma for example, a lot of those keys are useless animations, like a solute

It's dumbed down in the way you can hotkey items. Back in Morrowind, you could hotkey a lot more, and it was as simple as pressing a button. Now you have to go through your menus, make them favorites to be capable of hotkeying them, and you have fewer hotkeys you can use. They also used to have shortcuts to open up different types of magic schools directly. You could also hotkey a weapon/shield combo.

In other games like Dragon Age, they went to a wheel system for what to say, and they just give you a general idea of what you'll say, rather than letting you pick exactly what you want to say, and knowing ahead of time. They removed the overhead camera that was moveable for a fixed from the player perspective.

In generally, as time goes on, all these RPG's are losing their customizable options, and the ability to hotkey 10+ items, because console controllers can't.

 

[jason41987]

100 buttons isnt necessary, not even for hotkey.. i know a lot of games are capable of doing it quite intuitively.. like holding a reload button to bring up a menu of hot key items relating to your weapons and using the d-pad to select 1 of 8 as an example.. the reason elder scrolls keeps getting dumbed down is because bethesda keeps pandering to the lowest common denominator and making their games generally simpler as dumb people were complaining morrowind was too complicated.. i played morrowing mostly on the original xbox and it worked fine, and i found the interface to actually be far more intuitive and quicker than the PC version

but yeah.. if i have to add hot keys to a controller profile in xpadder, like morrowind for example, ill have the weapons hot keys pop up when im holding the draw/sheathe weapon button simply by using xpadder to also make it a set switch.. put 1-8 on the 8-way d-pad, and if theres some kind of button to ready your magic, ill set another set switcher to that button too so i can change magic hot keys by holding down that button.. thats 16 hotkeys and not just random and all over the place.. but organized and easier to find depending on what i want to use

so in total i have 17 buttons on my controller (two shoulder, two trigger, two clickable thumbsticks, four face buttons, a d-pad, start, select, and the PS button.. four more if i add diagonals to the d-pad for other uses, which i can, so a potential of 21).. with a ready weapon or ready magic button converting that d-pad into hot-keys it adds another 16 buttons.. for 37.. how many buttons you need?

so you see the key here to making a controller work is a good, clever, intuitive, organized control setup.. xpadder helps big time for that, but such control schemes can be built into the game, problem is it just seems a lot of developers have a "why bother" attitude about it

 

[bystander]

It is far easier on a PC than on a console. You are sacrificing your d-pad to use those hotkeys, and you have to use all of them from a single thumb, which makes errors a lot more likely than having hotkeys on several different buttons under several different fingers.

I also find it a lot more intuitive to have a couple rows of hotkeys under my fingers, than having them all over a controller in random locations, or using a d-pad where all those buttons are controlled by a single thumb. I'd rather have that thumb used to move and the mouse to aim (or in a controller case, another joystick to view). They instead require you to pause to go through a menu to use them.

That is one of the biggest issues I have with them making these games more console friendly. Things are filled with pauses to go through menus.

There are always sacrifices being made to make games console friendly. Games interfaces used to be a lot more PC friendly than they are now. They had far more shortcuts and far less menu searching.

Another thing you may not realize is they also make the console version easier on difficulty to make up for the more difficult controls. Dragon Age games are much less forgiving on the PC, because it is just easier to handle all the views and combat. At least the Dragon Age Origins. Dragon Age 2 was even further dumbed down on both platforms.

Edit: It seems all your experience comes from consoles, so you really have no idea how PC's used to handle RPG interfaces. One of the biggest changes in RPG games is having to load skills before using them. You used to just click a hotkey and it happen. You didn't have menu's to search through to use skills either. If you earned 20 skills, all 20 where instant cast, you just had to hit a hotkey and it worked.

 

[jason41987]

using a single thumb for those hot keys is a good thing.. gives me more fingers to work with.. and dont tell me you can pretty 4-5 different buttons at once because for normal game play you use 3 fingers for WASD alone, a fourth to sprint, and often the thumb to jump.. i can do all that and have fingers left over.. and how is doing anything to a d-pad going to sacrifice it?.. what else did you plan to use it for?

and even then its not sacrificing anything as, using morrowind for example, the hot keys only become hot keys while the raise weapon or raise spell button is pressed.. when not pressed all 8 directions on the d-pad can be mapped to something entirely different

so bystander, considering the assumption you just made about the controllers interface.. wrong assumptions, maybe youre the one unfamiliar with other control devices?

 

[bystander]

using a single thumb for those hot keys is a good thing.. gives me more fingers to work with.. and dont tell me you can pretty 4-5 different buttons at once because for normal game play you use 3 fingers for WASD alone, a fourth to sprint, and often the thumb to jump.. i can do all that and have fingers left over.. and how is doing anything to a d-pad going to sacrifice it?.. what else did you plan to use it for?

and even then its not sacrificing anything as, using morrowind for example, the hot keys only become hot keys while the raise weapon or raise spell button is pressed.. when not pressed all 8 directions on the d-pad can be mapped to something entirely different

so bystander, considering the assumption you just made about the controllers interface.. wrong assumptions, maybe youre the one unfamiliar with other control devices?

For starters, I use a thumb button to move (remember, G13 here). I use a mouse, which also has extra buttons. Also, do not forget that you do not need to use A or D, as the mouse is used to turn, though they can occasionally be used to strafe. I use a joystick, but many other people use mouse buttons for moving forward and backward, rather than using their left hand.

The problem is, even if it were possible, there are no console games which use this magical setup you envision without sacrifices, such as going into a menu, rather than just firing off a spell. Most RPG and RTS reviews of games which are console ports all complain about the UI. Some games have completely different UI's for PC's. There is a reason.

Before consoles, the Elder Scrolls did not have you load a spell into a left or right hand. You simply pressed a spell and it fired (I played Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim).

You are viewing things in the perspective of how games are today, setup for consoles, not how they used to be, before consoles tainted them.

I have played both. You don't appear to have.

Controllers aren't all bad, and they have advantages in different settings, but not at a desk, and not in RPG's or RTS's, unless you count hack and slash RPG's, and even then, they sacrifice in some versions of those games.

 

[ssddx]

controllers are greatfor hack and slash rpgs.

diablo iii, sacred 2, dragons dogma... those sort of game.

you do lose out on some features compared to a keyboard and mouse variant but it is much more comfortable to play as and gameplay is not significantly affected unlike what it would be on a more in depth rpg or fps game.

 

[bystander]

controllers are greatfor hack and slash rpgs.

diablo iii, sacred 2, dragons dogma... those sort of game.

you do lose out on some features compared to a keyboard and mouse variant but it is much more comfortable to play as and gameplay is not significantly affected unlike what it would be on a more in depth rpg or fps game.

I agree that controllers are good for most hack and slash RPG's (I had noted in previous post at end as well).

 

[jason41987]

well.. i got the PS3 navigation controller, motioninjoy driver works without a problem.. so ive been playing the battlefield 4 demo on this and i can run and jump and move as easily as i did on a controller, but i use the mouse for aiming and shooting.. i have the best of both worlds.. downside is that itll take a bit getting used to using these two interfaces together

 

[ssddx]

its buggy but the motioninjoy software is awesome. it even works in bluetooth mode if you have a bluetooth adapter on your pc (i do) which is sweet!

i love mouse and keyboard input but i'll have to give it a try sometime.

--

similar post to this one is located here:

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1717629/mouse-keyboard-gamepad.html#11694291

i found a youtube video which explains why console players beat alot of pc players. i couldnt agree more completely. read my post (at the end of the thread) if you want.

---

good luck and happy gaming!

edit: do you play rpgs such as diablo iii on ps3?

 

[jason41987]

nah, i dont own a PS3.. i use their controllers for PC gaming because as of now they are the most advanced controller out there.. allowing me to map things to the tilt of the controller, or map the buttons to axis' for the pressure sensitive buttons.. very useful if i want to use a face button for throttle, or the shoulders for rudder control

the other reasons are obvious, PS3 goes wireless with a bluetooth adapter, and the build quality is much higher than that of the xbox controller.. and as its a bit smaller and a lot lighter controller its very comfortable to hold in a position that allows me to have my index and middle fingers on the four shoulder buttons/triggers at the same time.. its a lot more akward feeling with the xbox controller

in short, the PS3 controller is superior and it can always emulate the xinput controllers on windows for games with built on controller support

my biggest regret was buying an xbox 360 for gaming..but when i bought it it was because everyone i knew was on the xbox. i took a long hard look at the upcoming consoles and figured i could either build a gaming PC that was just as good for the price, or one that was a hell of a lot better for just a bit more.. sure enough $200 more than a PS4 or xbox one and i have a PC that doubles the performance of either one.. and i prefer the PC exclusive games like civilization, sims 3.. sure they make console versions but they absolutely suck on console.. and lets face it, user mods is what makes the elder scrolls games so much more awesome

 

[mouse360]

just use xpadder and map the buttons to a 360 controller. hold the 360 controller in your left hand and the mouse in your right. i've been playing like that since bf3. granted you have to tweak it and mess around with it a little bit, but it beats having your hand hurting from using the keyboard. i set reload,spot, and get in vehicles to select, jump with LB and get on the ground and get back up with LT. you also have access to the d pad so all in all while holding a controller with one hand you have access to 12 buttons EASILY. more than enough for average fps.

 

[ssddx]

you do realize this thread is from 2013 right?

please do not necro post.