Control Frustration

[Scion Dracos]

Hey all, 

 

I'm an old gamer. I've been gaming since I was a little kid and I now have grandchildren myself. Back around 2001-ish I spent countless hours playing GTA3 and loved it. GTA IV, however, started to frustrate me. I felt like challenges were based on overcoming the limitations of the game engine and interface, which highlights those limitations in a very negative manner, instead of being given challenges based on my skill. Or, said another way, I was presented with hideously limited controls to navigate challenges requiring pin-point precision. I remember falling off narrow beams quite a bit as Niko Bellic and I never finished the game. I found the controls to be an obstacle rather than a conduit to my will. As a consequence I never purchased GTA V, despite the hype. I just wasn't interested in revisiting that particular brand of frustration. Well, I just purchased Red Dead Redemption 2 for PC and I both love it and am remembering why I stopped playing GTA IV. 

So I decided to come here to offer both some gratitude for these enormous, interesting and progressively more beautiful sandboxes in which to play in while simultaneously offering some encouragement to the development team and ask them to make an effort to refine the controls for these otherwise great games. Specifically: right now I constantly feel hampered by my inability to communicate with Arthur Morgan. I have, on far too many occasions, found myself asking Arthur through the screen, "Why aren't you [fill in the blank]?!" It could be running, jumping, mounting a horse or, most annoyingly, aiming a weapon. There just always seems to be an extra step to getting anything done... and it's one that I didn't realize I needed to take because the game state subtly changed without me realizing it or there's an animation that hasn't completed or... whatever. There's just always seems to be something preventing Arthur from taking whatever action I'm trying to get him to take... and it is maddening. 

So.... do you think you folks could pay attention to making the controls feel more intuitive? And, PS, waiting for animations to complete before I can tell my avatar what to do next kinda sucks. It's annoying... especially when being attacked. Same goes for menus. Being stuck in a menu or animation (skinning an animal for instance) when being attacked is a doorway to hell. There's nothing you can do but watch Arthur and all your progress get killed. That sucks. Now to be clear: I don't want the game to be easier. I'm simply asking for a reliable, intuitive interface that doesn't feel like an obstacle course. 

Okay, I'm done. Thanks for reading all that if you did. 
Cheers and carry on.

Edited December 25, 2019 by Scion Dracos

[Scion Dracos]

EDIT: I re-thought this argument and realized it was flawed. 

Edited December 25, 2019 by Scion Dracos

[trip]

Let's just use your one topic.

 

 

Edited December 25, 2019 by trip