Many modern console titles -- be they first-person
shooters (FPS), role-playing games (RPG), strategic
games or games of a completely different genre --
present themselves from a first-person perspective.
While PC first-person titles are blessed with a mouse
and keyboard for input control, console games must
make use of standard game controllers which are more
naturally suited to different modes of presentation.
This goal of this article is to motivate designers
and programmers to make view control and targeting
easier for the player, in a way which suits the style
and the gameplay of the title. The main body of the
article presents some solutions to the problems faced
in designing these controls, some of them used successfully
today in games such as Halo and Unreal Tournament,
and others which attempt to innovate within first-person
presentation.
Although the first-person perspective is usually referenced
in the text, most of this article also applies to
third-person games in which the camera is permanently
locked directly behind the player.
View Control, The Lazy Way
Too many games on the shelves today ship with a basic
view control implementation which does little to aid
the player. A game's control system is extremely important
to the user interface design. It is how the player
conveys intention to the game. As such, control should
not be the main challenge for the player, this should
be the game itself.
Typically, the mapping of the two axes of an analog
stick to pitch and yaw is done with little thought.
It is assumed that the best approach is to apply movement
of the stick in a linearly proportional manner to
the change in view angle. I shall argue throughout
the article that this isn't sufficient. Gamers need
additional help if the standard console controller
is to become anywhere near as intuitive as the mouse
and keyboard solution.
Design Goals
Before I present some solutions which can be applied
to the individual components of the control system,
I would ask the reader to think about his/her design
goals for the controls. Not all of these solutions
will be applicable to your game, and you must consider
the context -- and thus the suitability -- of the
solution.
For example, if the game is essentially an FPS with
the emphasis on shooting, your control system will
be very different than a role-playing game in which
combat is turn-based. For the FPS, your design goal
will likely be to make shooting and evading the enemy
natural and intuitive. For the role-playing game,
you may want to optimize the control set to allow
the player to search the environment for objects and
clues. Even within a specific game genre, each game
has its own needs and emphasis on certain player actions.
Think about your genre, typical level topography, enemy
behaviors and game context in general, and design
appropriately.
1. Yaw acceleration. The yaw speed, or rate
of turn by the player, is an important facet of first-person
control design. The player must be able to turn in
precise amounts to allow accurate aiming, but must
also be able to turn quickly to face an opponent who
has outflanked the player, or even surprised the player
from behind.
Many FPS games simply map the yaw speed to the control-stick
offset. But there simply isn't enough subtlety in
the typical console control stick to give the player
both precise and fast turning using this mapping.
The solution is make the yaw speed accelerate when
the player is pushing towards the extremes in the
X-axis, up to a maximum turn speed. This means that
the player can have precise aiming, but can turn fast
by pushing the stick fully left or right. This is
extremely natural and transparent player. With a well-tweaked
system, a player may not be aware of any acceleration:
all he perceives is that he can turn both quickly
and accurately.
It's important to note that the acceleration only kicks
in when the control stick is at full tilt. This enables
the player to make smaller aiming corrections without
acceleration.
2. Reduce pitch sensitivity. There is no reason
why the pitch control should be the same speed as
the yaw control. In many games, players spend 99%
of their time looking at the horizon, within perhaps
a 30-degree arc. Compare this to yaw control, where
the player needs 360-degree movement, and it is immediately
apparent that yaw and pitch control are two different
problems requiring different solutions.
A common complaint made by beginners is that they get
stuck looking up or down, spending most of a firefight
targeting their feet. This is easily rectified by
simply reducing the pitch sensitivity. Since players
usually target enemies within this 30-degree pitch
arc, we don't need pitch speed to be as fast as yaw
speed.
3. Non-linear pitch and yaw response. We can
further aid the player in both pitching and yawing
by applying the control stick offset non-linearly.
This is another trick that provides fast and quick
aiming. A similar aid is often presented to laptop
computer users who have a touchpad in place of a mouse.
Quick movement across the surface of the device yields
a much bigger pointer movement than a slow sweep across
the same distance. Again, when implemented correctly,
this should be transparent to the player.
4. Soft lock. Some games employ a locking button,
which locks the player's view to center around a specific
target while the player is free to strafe and move
freely. For a typical FPS this goes too far, removing
much of the challenge from the player. Furthermore,
in most such games, the player should be rewarded
for making head shots, or hits on other critical parts
of the enemy's body. A hard-locking system does not
allow this.
Fortunately, there is a less explicit, less limiting
option. With a "soft lock", there is no
lock button. However, as the player sweeps the target
reticule over an enemy, the pitch and yaw rate decreases.
This makes the enemy "sticky" to the view
control, aiding rapid targeting. This technique doesn't
substantially lower the skills required by players
-- they must still target the correct part of the
enemy for a good take-down. Don't forget that we're
playing catch-up with the mouse and keyboard control,
and the player is entitled to a little help.
Again, there is an analogy with laptop touchpads. Many
drivers for these devices give a user the option to
make buttons and window controls sticky. This makes
these controls easier to press, much in the same way
as we have made targeting enemies easier.
Besides tweaking the speed reduction in pitch and
yaw controls, it is also worthwhile to experiment
with the amount of screen area surrounding the enemy
that we make sticky. It may pay dividends to increase
this area beyond the outline of the enemy.
5. Hard lock with fine control. This is an alternative
to soft locking, and it's more applicable to certain
titles. The idea is that we provide a lock button,
as dismissed in the above solution. However, when
locked on, we allow the player to move the reticule
within the screen area of the enemy, permitting the
player to make headshots and target other strategic
points. Again, the context of your game will make
your design choice for you, whether you choose this
solution, soft locking, or some other aid.
6. Jump pitch compensation. Earlier I mentioned
the situation where the beginner player spends much
of the fight looking at his feet. Even experienced
gamers can end up doing this if they use a lot of
jumping in their evasion tactics. They attempt to
track the enemy by pitching downwards, but because
the speed of the jump is faster than the speed at
which they can pitch to compensate, they lose track
of the enemy. During the firefight, they can become
confused as to where the player is looking, and they
end up dying, often while looking at their feet. This
can be very frustrating for the player, who knows
the problem is the controls, not their skill.
The answer is to auto-compensate. If the player jumps
while the reticle is over an enemy, pitch the view
automatically to keep the enemy in view. This is much
more natural. In real life, we would have no trouble
jumping while looking at a target, so why should we
face this challenge in the game world?
7. Intelligent auto-aiming. Many console FPS
games employ an auto-aim system, which is often adjustable
in the game options. The idea is that the player does
not have to be totally accurate when targeting in
order to shoot the enemy. As long as the reticule
is within a certain boundary around the enemy, an
accurate shot is made. However, as with the hard-locking
system, this takes the option of shooting a strategic
sub-part of the enemy away from the player.
Let me offer a more intelligent auto-aiming system.
If the target reticle is directly over any part of
the enemy, we don't modify the shooting direction.
If the reticle is within the auto-aim distance but
not over the body, we auto-aim for the player. This
system makes targeting easier, but does not take the
advantage away from the skillful player, who can still
make those headshots unhindered. Auto-aim is a matter
of personal preference, so I'd advocate keeping it
as a adjustable game option.
8. Auto-peek. Some games require a stealthy
approach. In these games, it is not uncommon to allow
the player to peek his head around a corner, either
to avoid raising the attention of the enemy, or if
in a firefight, to present a minimal target. Current
games employ an extra button for this use. However,
it's entirely possible to do this automatically for
the player, in a manner which is potentially less
unwieldy. Remember that the control system is supposed
to convey the intention of the player in an intuitive
and efficient manner. We don't need the extra button.
To use our auto-peeking system, the player moves along
flush to the wall, approaching the corner which they
wish to peek around. Just before they reach the corner,
they turn using the yaw control to look in the direction
in which they wish to peek. In previous games, this
would leave the player looking at the wall, which
is not very useful. However, our system senses that
the player is approaching a corner flush to the wall
and turning to look around the corner, and automatically
makes the player's character lean out to peek.
While turning in this context, the amount of lean should
always ensure that at least over a half of the screen
is taken up by the wall. As the player turns back,
the player's character leans in again. The player
already has to deal with remembering which button
is used to reload, and while under fire, having a
second button for peeking is asking a great deal of
the player's dexterity.
A further improvement would allow the player to decide
to cancel the lean and move around the corner. If
the player is peeking around the corner and presses
forward on the control stick, we pull the player character's
body straight in line with the head's position, and
the player can carry on as normal.
Is All This Really Necessary?
While reading this article, you might be thinking that
some of these solutions are over the top - design
overkill. However, to my knowledge, all except two
of them - "auto-peeking" and "hard
lock with fine control" - are already implemented
in shipping titles. It would be a worthwhile exercise
to examine a few console games in your collection
and see which methods they use.
When it comes to first-person control using dual analog
sticks, we are still breaking ground. In fact, different
games require different solutions, and there is no
single optimal solution that will work in every game.
But hopefully this article will help you consider
the many possibilities which are available to you.
In time, perhaps we will no longer have to play games
where the only control available to the player is
changing the sensitivity of the control stick.
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