Just hold the left mouse button all the time, hold shift to attack.
Just hold the left mouse button all the time, hold shift to attack.
I really think this would be more of a cause of frustration than an innovative control style. Point and click to move in Diablo games has never bothered me.
As far as the "error" goes, I'm thinking of a feature where if you click on the terrain while you have this automatic movement, the click supercedes your mouse movement, and thus if you absolutely want to click while this system is on, you can override the movement by clicking a waypoint like you do now. The same goes for monsters, if you would want to target a specific monster and make absolutely sure you're on target, you could click it. However, most of the time you could just wave your mouse around while killing irrelevant trash and running through dungeons.
The shift system would be less troublesome in this case, as you could push down shift and your character would stop moving. Then if your cursor would be above a monster, your character would shoot at it. Same as it is now, but without having to do the left click. So the movement suppression would be there, just as it is now. Also, you wouldn't be "having" to do anything, since this is still an optional control system that the game would have.
What it boils down to is that I'm saying it would be nicer to play when the vast majority of the game could be done without the incessant clicking, or pushing the left mouse button which as I've said many times before, is for me at least more uncomfortable than repeatedly clicking.
Also, how far away is it exactly that we will be automatically collecting items as well? We already collect health globes and gold automatically just by running over them. It's not like collecting items automatically is so far off.
Mouseover macros in WoW are pretty much a must if you want to have any chance of counterspelling something in battleground or 5man arena play where you've got more than a couple targets. Also, it's the same as not binding your attacks. One way is faster. In Diablo-style games though that wouldn't be the issue. More of a quality of life thing.
Health potions are bound to a button in pretty much all Diablo-style games I think.
Pushing down the mouse button is, as I've said before, at least for me much more uncomfortable than clicking. You're applying force downwards which increases the resistance between your mouse and pad or table, as well as having a constant exert on your muscle in your hand. It's not that it tires my hand or anything, but I hate it when my mouse doesn't feel light as a feather.
Also, in case it hasn't been clear the hundred times I've said it before, I'm not talking about playing Diablo 3 specifically. I'm fine playing Diablo 3 just the way it is. I'm just talking about a hypothetical Diablo clone, which does not exist, which might one day exist.
Last edited by mmoc3ff0cc8be0; 2012-04-24 at 03:24 PM.
So your basic idea is that clicking is part of low quality of life in games, and you want to reduce the amount of clicking to improve said "QoL".
I'm not sure if clicking itself should be considered low quality of life, unless the click rate you need to do the things you want to do is too high or the clicks themselves feel unneccessary. To illustrate with D3, I can move a whole screen with a single click, or I can even move further by just holding down the a single mouse button and move the cursor. As for moving, I do not feel that I need to do a lot of unnessary clicking to get my character where I want it to be. As for attacking, each click corresponds to an attack, so the faster my character can attack, the faster I need to click to get those attacks out. I can imagine that at very high attack speeds, one needs a very high clickrate to make most use of the attack speed. Correct me if I'm wrong, but those specific attacks could be bound to a keyboard key instead and the use of a mouse click to attack is not mandatory for playing the game (nor is getting such an attack speed where such a high clickrate is needed). But fair enough, let's continue with your idea.
Let's look at the first part first, moving your character towards your mouse cursor. Seems ok, it's similar to holding down your mouse button in D3 and move. So far so good, the problem for me is that it's "automatic". But I'll let that slide for now. The big no-no is the 2nd part where you suggest linking distance to the cursor with speed related abilities. If characters were to run faster when the cursor is far away, it would pretty much mean that everyone is encouraged to have his mouse cursor at the edge of his screen at all times. Why walk when you can run? By itself it's not too much of a problem until you think about all the other things besides moving: attacking mobs, looting items etc. Where do all those things usually happen? That's right, in the middle of your screen.
Now, imagine playing a game where you have to move your mouse from one edge to another to move around, if you want to change directions quickly you'd have to be really fast with moving your mouse and whenever there's something you need to do that's not moving, you'd have to bring that mouse cursor back to somewhere close to the middle.
And now imagine either clicking to move a character across the screen, or clicking more rapidly to take a few steps every time, or even click and hold once and then pointing the character in the direction you want it to go. And when there's something you need to do that is not moving, your cursor is already close the middle where you want it to be.
Does your solution improve the quality of life, or only add more problems?
Auto-attacks do not fit in a hack and slash game. So the mouse-over to auto-attack thing is not a solution. Push and hold is something that is interesting, but it has nothing to do with left clicking for moving or attacking, because characters already move towards a mob when it's out of range, and you wouldn't need to do a basic attack if you're doing a special attack.
And about the looting, again moving your cursor from the edge to the center for everything that's not a move command is tedious and not an improvement at all.
These are fixes for problems you introduce.
Well, it would add the need to move the mouse frantically across the screen to get the character moving fast and back to the middle to do all sorts of things, like looting items, targetting mobs. The auto-attack feature would take the hack and slash away from the... well hack and slash nature of the game, which for some people I understand could be considered a good thing but I'm pretty sure the hack and slash fans don't want the hacks and slashes to be taken away. Difficulty is hard to say, it's different for sure, I think it would be harder to precisely control the movements of your character.
It can save mice, that I agree with, BUT good mice shouldn't have any problems at all with clicking, they are in fact designed to be clicked with. And the other thing is that while it might save mice, it will most likely injure a lot of wrists, elbows or shoulders depending on the type of mouse user you are due to the highly increased need for moving the mouse around from side to side to get the cursor across the screen the whole time.
Nice idea but sorry your solution adds more severe problems than it actually solves.
Let me tell you there's nothing more frustrating than arguing with someone that fails to see the flaws in his logic :P. So I'll just let it go. But you didn't convince me at all. The system you praise is flawed in a lot of way. No matter how hard you try to convince yourself of.
That being said, I still feel like I should precise some things:
Your system constantly ''clicks'' every milliseconds. It does it automatically. It does remove the ability to control the clicking. There's really no way it provides MORE control. For the same reason guns don't automatically detonate when you aim at someone in FPS. Control. And Skill-based.
Mouseovers and macros is a must in WoW for most people since it's allowed to use so and makes everything more easy. But at the same time, it gives you less control over what you do. I know what I'm saying, I used to heal on my priest with mouseovers and 1 2 3 Macros. But I ended not using anything else than focus macros in the end. You lose a lot of control over what you do. You're limited to what the macros are designed for and can't go out of the box.
Finally, with your system, you still get to push the right click button. So how does removing the left click makes it a quality of life convenience since you're still sticking with the same ''problem'' ? Maybe you should change mouse if constantly clicking tires your hand. There exists some mouse where the buttons are pretty sensitive.
Or build up those finger muscles, iono :P.
Maybe I fail to see how your system is revolutionary and effective after all.
Or maybe I just think it's a silly way of overcomplicating a system that's already praised.
>>Because having a signature is so mainstream.<<
Exactly. My idea allows you to do just that, but removes the need to have that single click, or hold down the mouse button. Just move the cursor and your guy follows. Move the cursor on top of a barrel or a monster, and your guy executes your left mouse button attack. Exactly the same as it is now, except you need not click anything.
This isn't correct. You can hold down your attack button and your character will execute the attacks as fast as he can. The speed at which you click doesn't - or at least shouldn't - affect the speed at which your character attacks.
It wasn't really a part of the main idea, just an additional thought that I had. Doesn't really have anything to do with the main idea.
We already have autoattacks in D3; just keep your left mouse button pressed down and your guy automatically attacks constantly. Dungeon Siege has automatic attacking, and it's a hack n slash, so clearly they fit in the genre. What I'm suggesting wouldn't be automatic attacking like in DS, but rather the same sort of system as in D3, just without the need to hold the mouse button down.
It would only remove the need to click to use the left mouse button ability. There's still other bindable abilities that you use quite often in most games. Keeping the mouse button pressed down already eliminates the incessant clicking, just like this system would. Just without having the need to keep the mouse button pressed down.
No more frustrating than trying to explain something to people, just to have them imagine what you're explaining in a completely different way than what you're seeing, and having them manufacture flaws where none need exist. Just because you think the idea has a flaw, doesn't mean it does. Most people on any forum just shoot things down for the fun of shooting things down. Pointing at flaws, whether they exist or not, is a common pastime among the anonymous of the internetZ.
In any case, I should think I've tried to reply to most if not all of these so-called "flaws" people have brought up in this discussion. Pretty much everything that has been brought up has been along the lines of "if a car is green, it's a shit car", even if it could very easily be painted red or whatever color you like.
No, and no. What I'm suggesting has nothing to do with clicking. There's no clicking happening "every millisecond". The character simply moves towards the cursor, and if something happens to appear under the cursor, a function is run, which will cause a certain action to take place. Namely attacking. Also, if you read my earlier responses, I said at one point that you could still have the ability to click even with this system, which would allow you to override the movement. For example, click on the ground, and the character walks there regardless of where you move the cursor. Click and hold on a monster, and the character will keep attacking that monster.
Well, healing in WoW is obviously done via Grid+Clique or Healbot, or a similar setup where you simply click a frame and a heal goes off; leftclick a frame to fast heal, rightclick a frame to slow heal, thumbclick a frame to cast a bubble, and so on. Selecting frames and healing with a keyboard button is so 2005. Mouseovers in WoW are mainly for PvP.
One less button to constantly click.
My hand doesn't tire at all. That's not really what this was all about. If I had some personal issue regarding my gaming, the forums here wouldn't be the place where I'd be asking for advice.
I think quite a few people are failing to see what I'm saying, not that I'm trying to come up with something revolutionary or innovative. Just some random musings about whether we even need to leftclick anymore.
We're moving toward a world where consoles and PC's are used in the same games, Diablo-style games included. The system I'm suggesting could work with analogue pads or at least be reminiscent of such a control system.
Last edited by mmoc3ff0cc8be0; 2012-04-24 at 06:34 PM.
I said at the end of my post that I didnt read carefully your post I just leave my comment there cause I do not "erase" my mistakes.
seems you too "skimmed" the important part and preferred to simply argue to points I admitted where wrong used on this post to begin with ^^
---------- Post added 2012-04-24 at 08:44 PM ----------
I'm reading your post again to have a clearer idea, so here it is.
I start from the assumption that you want a system that:
- You do not have to keep your left click pushed in order to move
- You do not have to keep your left click pushed in order to use your basic ability/autoattack (what should be the left click)
- Some additional twists like movement speed the further the mouse is away from you
This is your answer to my point, but maybe I explain myself poorly in that statement I will be more clear: still need a keyboard unless the character have just one ability, even the use of "quickbutton" unless they are button actually appearing on the screen for which you have only to mouse over them.
oh and
My point was another, I was talking about the "possible" sprint abilities related to your
the part about mouse gesture was an "addition "as should have been evident from "If you want to do" but I'm the first in admitting that I'm not the best at explaining myself.
To summarize: basically you want a system that can be (except or the "sprint" abilities) simulated by sticking a piece of paper on the side of your "pushed" left mouse button in DIII, with a few added twists of course.
PS. I do not actually know if it works for DIII I'm gonna try right now.
PPS. yeah tested this need to "re click" for monsters. To be honest there's another thing I noticed that would make the system a bit annoying. Is what if in a crowd of mobs I would like to target a specific one? With this system it will fire the ability on the first mob I mouseover, so should we use another keyboard button in order to stop the "attack on mouseover" or something similar?
(above PPS answered in previous topic I missed)
Last edited by mmoc89084f456c; 2012-04-24 at 10:29 PM.
No. Just no.
Bind your move key. Problem solved.
Fair enough, but I could counter with that the fact that you do not see the flaws do not mean they're not there.
But you asked for thoughts and thoughts have been given if you wanted to just get people nodding and saying "good idea" well then would have been better to just not do it.
Overall the system *sounds* good enough especially as something that can be toggled on and off so as something optional, as most of the thing in design though in order to make a *valid* observation we would really need to have our hands on it.
I'm trying to imagine in my mind using this mix of "forced" clicks and automatic moving around and looks a bit awkward and clunky.
Ok, so you take away the clicks, what's next? I have to press a button to use Health Pots, it should automatically use a pot when my health drops to a certain %. When I have 4 or more enemies around me I have to press 1 to do an AoE stun, it should automatically do that when there are 4 enemies around me. I have to move my wrist to move and attack, I should just go after the closest enemy and attack it automatically. If you don't want to use controls in a game, you may be better of watching videos of people playing and just put your hand on the mouse and pretend you are playing. Wait, to do that you would need to click your browser to open it, oops, too much work.