Slashdot Mirror
Overwatch Director Speaks Out Against Console Mouse/keyboard Adapters (arstechnica.com)
Striek quotes a report from Ars Technica: Regardless of where you fall in the long-running debate between keyboard/mouse and analog stick controls, you could historically be relatively sure that everyone on a single platform would be playing with the same control scheme. Recently, though, third-party adapters have started allowing console players to use a mouse and keyboard effectively on dedicated consoles, throwing off the competitive balance in a way that Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan doesn't appreciate. "The Overwatch team objects to the use of mouse and keyboard on console," Kaplan wrote on the Battle.net forums. "We have contacted both first-party console manufacturers and expressed our concern about the use of mouse and keyboard and input conversion devices. We have lobbied and will continue to lobby for first-party console manufacturers to either disallow mouse and keyboard and input conversion devices or openly and easily support mouse and keyboard for all players," he continued. "I encourage you to reach out to the hardware manufacturers and express your concerns (but please do so in a productive and respectful way)." Kaplan is talking about products like the XIM4, a $125 hub that lets certain USB keyboards and mice work natively with some Xbox One and PS4 games (as well as PS3 and Xbox 360 titles). IoGear's $100 Keymander does much the same thing, claiming to be "compatible with all console games." These devices essentially emulate a standard controller through a combination of hardware and software settings, disguising the keyboard and mouse inputs in a way that makes them hard for a developer to detect. This is a problem in competitive online games like Overwatch, where the quickness and precision of mouse aiming can give a decisive advantage over players using a slower and clunkier analog stick.
Why complain about people handicapping themselves?
Controller adapters should absolutely /not/ be banned, since they'll take assistive devices out with them. That, and I have friends who play xbox fighting games with mouse/keyboard because they're hardcore pc players, and I play all my xbox games with a Dualshock 2 -> xbox360 adapter.
The best move here is to add keyboard and mouse support, and separate matchmaking by device type used.
It must be "can't even be arsed to read teh fucking summary" day on Slashdot!
They said the EITHER want to block those products working, OR have open development support paths so that EVERYONE can use keyboard/mice with support from developers.
You know, exactly like it is on the PC????????
Jesus.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No, because a keyboard & mouse is a far superior for playing an FPS than a controller. I'm not sure how anyone can consider that a topic of debate as the summery implies. A keyboard and mouse allows you to independently move and aim with greater ease and higher precision than a controller. The issue here would be that people using a keyboard & mouse against console gamer using a controller puts the controller users at a severe disadvantage.
well, you just invalidated your personhood. how's it feel to be not a person?
the preferences of objects doesn't count.
congratulations, you've turned back the clock on civil rights.
PC master race.
You're the same as a friend of mine who'd get pissed at you if you suggested he use a controller for a third person brawler. "If I wanted to use a gamepad, I'd buy an Xbox!"
Your unwillingness to use different tools for different jobs is no reason to water down the experience for others, which this would do. If you make the PC version of the game easier to play with a controller, it'd be about a week before the scene is dominated by mouse and keyboard players using scripts or some other nonsense that makes their input look like a controller.
Mandate QWOP style controls for all players on all platforms.
Perhaps for Overwatch that'd be a bad plan, but there are games designed for controllers that don't map well to mouse and keyboard.
Try playing the Metroid Prime Trilogy made for the Wii controller on a PC through an emulator w/ just a keyboard and mouse. Heck, even with a pretty standard controller it's clunky... you really need the Wiimote and IR Bar to play it properly.
3D motion can be handled much faster with controllers or cameras to map to your own 3D motion.
I propose Overwatch make their own damned controller for PC and console and make a ton of money selling it by billing it as "the best way to play"
Indeed.
You could have a stick with a good 6 to 12 inches of play in every direction, allowing for a similarly wide range of speed and precision, though you'd still be losing the ability to transition almost instantly from high speed to nearly stationary, which is extremely important when rapid turning and precision aiming are implemented through the same controller.
So you'd need to also transition from a relative to absolute position tracking on the stick. Of course that rapidly runs into the physical limitations of the joystick's range of motion.
Of course, with such a huge range of motion you won't be able to mount this thing on a handheld controller anyway, so perhaps some method could be devised to operate it in both "active" and "repositioning" mode - perhaps a "reposition stick button". Or maybe instead we could do away with the dual-axis mechanical stick altogether, and instead put an optical scanner on the underside of the grip - then it could detect motion across a surface, and by picking it up you could easily reposition it without sending any movement signals to the game.
You know, I'm amazed no one has thought of creating such a precise and convenient input controller before...
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I think because it doesn't really matter.
Basically, the reason you can't have both PC and console gamers playing together on the same server is because the games are all intentionally borked to prevent it. Numerous companies have done play testing, and despite the console players getting all the aim assistance, etc. available on the console, even mediocre PC players will still mop the floor with them. The difference in controller speed and precision really is just that dramatic.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
No, it isn't.
It's a matter of using small muscle groups on the controller versus large *and* small muscle groups with the mouse. Pay attention to someone using a mouse sometime - you typically see large-muscle motion from the shoulder and wrist for fast movement (turning) as well as small muscle motion from the wrist and fingers for precision aiming. And the transition between them is seamless and intuitive, as it's a combination you use every time you pick up or manipulate anything in the real world.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Yeah. I played Quake, Quake 2, Descent, and the like with keyboard and mouse. I remember when the much-promised Spaceball Avenger finally came out and even with the buildup the collective response was, "meh," when early-adopters were disappointed with their purchases. A buddy of mine that played Descent with a fairly fancy joystick tried one at a consumer electronics event and didn't feel there was any improvement over his Logitech joystick.
My wife's MIT alumni club brought in for a presentation one of the principal engineers behind Canadarm2, and he brought a pretty high-end simulator with him that uses the same control interface that the arm itself on the ISS uses. We all got to have a go with it, and its control surfaces were essentially modified aeronautics controls. There was about as much commonality with a console video game controller as a keyboard and mouse has with a console video game controller.
Keyboard/mouse isn't the only game in town for great interfaces, but there are few that work as well (like the flight-control type of joystick) and few that work in as vast a number of situations. I remember when games like Doom and Quake came out for consoles and they just felt terrible compared to the keyboard interface on the computer, and it sounds like in twenty years the situation has not improved.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
...and most Slashdotters have no experience with them.
*rimshot*
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
the industry learned that back during the closed beta of BF3 when xbox and PC could play on the same servers and the PC players wrecked the absolute shit out of the console players in every match.
Easy Solution:
Delete the Leaderboards.
Then balance doesn't matter.
People who have a problem with this can get a Special-Ed version of the game that only displays a leaderboard, with their name on top.
"Handicapped" is an interesting word. I use an adaptive keyboard to overcome some physical disabilities. Fuck you, Overwatch director snob-shit.
Handicap is a perfectly fine word to use. Just because you might be disabled in some way doesn't give you automatic ownership of a bunch of words. It doesn't even mean disabled people, a handicap is something that acts as an impediment or makes progress more difficult, as a disability does but it's far from exclusive to that. Get over yourself.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u