Click & drag ...
So, there have already been plenty of comments about this "interesting" UI decision.
Just one question:
I really hope somebody from Telltale can answer this question, because I haven't seen any official answer to any other complaints about this issue.
Let me just list the reasons why I think it's a terrible control system (and this is a considered opinion having played four episodes using it, I have really tried to give it a chance!)
I don't get it ... I know you introduced the new mechanism for translation to XBOX and WII platforms, but why not also leave the old control system in place? I really hope this is a decision you can reverse for future titles, I just wish you had already done so in EP2, or even better, during playtesting!
Just one question:
- In what way is Click & Drag better than Point & Click?
I really hope somebody from Telltale can answer this question, because I haven't seen any official answer to any other complaints about this issue.
Let me just list the reasons why I think it's a terrible control system (and this is a considered opinion having played four episodes using it, I have really tried to give it a chance!)
- Guybrush frequently gets stuck on bits of scenery, breaking the flow of movement (this is probably the most serious issue)
- Sometimes on boundaries where the camera changes, Guybrush gets locked up (obviously getting stuck in a loop moving from one camera to the other and trying to move both ways at once!) The place I particularly noticed this was on the Screaming Narwhal when De Cava's crew were tied up, the spot where the camera switches to Morgan.
- The idea of streamlining an interface is to reduce the amount of actions the user has to perform to achieve a task. What you have done is increase the actions I have to perform. Previously if I wanted to walk somewhere I just had to click. (In S&M S2 you refined this further with Click & Hold.) Now, I have to click and then move the mouse. You have increased the complexity of that most basic of actions - walking!
- It's inconsistent and doesn't make sense. If I want to walk to someone and talk to them, I click on them. If I want to walk to an object and pick it up, I click on it. If I want to just walk somewhere, I have to click and drag. Mentally switching between these two interface paradigms can sometimes be confusing and disorienting. Yes, I'm hung over this morning - that doesn't help - but really, I think I should be able to play a cartoon adventure game in any state.
- It's a drag! Ho ho.
I don't get it ... I know you introduced the new mechanism for translation to XBOX and WII platforms, but why not also leave the old control system in place? I really hope this is a decision you can reverse for future titles, I just wish you had already done so in EP2, or even better, during playtesting!
Sign in to comment in this discussion.
Comments
My god there were many discussions about the controls in this forum even before the game was released. The Arrow-keys were first used in Wallace & Gromit and in the discussion in the forum for this game you will find your answers.
Get used to the new controls (i tprefere the arrow-keys, click & drag really feels a bit weird) and then go back to a modern point & Click adventure. I hope you notice that there are some more then strange cammera angles in places with low space (some games even use top-cammera for some scenes).
After playing ToMI and wallce & Grommit this just feels and looks so wrong.
Another problem (that maybe only I had) in older Telltale-Games was missing the clicking spot. This resulted in the characters to move across the whole screen without me wanting it.
In ToMI I personally prefer to click and drag over using the W,A,S,D keys. When playing adventure games I like to sit back in my chair and only have my hand on the mouse. Click and drag is not perfect but you get used to it. It takes a little practice but I'm fine with it now. A little while ago I started a thread asking people what control method they preferred (from the options in the game). The split between people who mouse drag and people who use the W,A,S,D keys is surprisingly close.
Is four episodes not enough to get used to a control system? Will I really feel different after one more? I've adapted to them - but I still haven't got used to them. They just feel clunky, and wrong.
I don't mind keys. I've played FPS games for years so WASD feels fairly natural. I actually didn't mind Grim Fandango's controls. But having to use keys and mouse is really unneccesary. And my left hand is a hook so I'm, like, being discriminated against for being an actual mighty pirate.
I did.
Since starting ToMI, I bought the Telltale uber pack and have now played thru two seasons of Sam and Max, and started Strongbad. Point & Click is just way better. Having played those other games recently, now I'm on Ch. 4 Click & Drag just feels really bad and I keep trying to click places to move there, that's why I noticed it so much more that I felt I should comment.
I can't say I've noticed this problem. Can you give a specific example? Either way, I find Click & Drag harder to navigate cramped areas, because of the collision problems (Guybrush just stops walking when he collides with solids, rather than carrying on walking around them)
I know what you mean. But I think they could have worked on fixing that problem, rather than attempting to reinvent the wheel.
Actually, they fixed that in Sam & Max season 2. You could keep the mouse held down and Sam would just keep walking. I think it was mentioned in the Options screen, or perhaps the tutorial (which I did just for giggles).
All in all, I still can't say I've seen any compelling reason behind Click & Drag, and I think all my original points still stand. Even if it were better for consoles (which I can't comment on since I haven't tried it) I don't understand why Point and Click was removed, since you still have to point & click to interact with stuff.
I also didn't mention the other bad side of Click & Drag, which is that the circley halo arrow thing around Guybrush looks awful, could there at least be an option to hide that? It really spoils the style of an otherwise amazing-looking game!
The word your looking for is "augmentifies."
It took me 4 chapters to discover it lol
But it's a matter of opinion. Everyone has their own tastes and it's good that the desginers gave us both options.
It's true, the point and clicking in Sam & Max Season 2 was the best I've ever used. Though, if you think about it it is a variant of the click and drag. The difference being you have to point at where you want to go rather than on the character. Because you had to point to were you were going you still had the screen scrolling issue somewhat. (Instead of constantly clicking you had to hold the cursor at the edge of the screen.)
I still thing that point and click should have been an option but I'm used to the click and drag now and I'm fine with it.
Hey, some new people must have voted since I last looked as that thread. The last time I saw it Click and Drag was roughly the same as W,A,S,D and arrow keys combined. The point is however that the percentage of people who point and drag is far higher then one would expect (or, at least the very least, that I expected.)
But it's not a question wether the click and drag feature is better than using th keys, but wether it's better than the point'n'click method. How many would choose click and drag over point'n'click if they had the choice? I suspect, not many. And that's the issue here, if point'n'click is the better option, why change it?
Have you even tried the WASD system?
The new control scheme is to make cinematic camera angles possible, but those sometimes make it hard to see where you are going (bridge at le-Singe's house, far-away shot of the docks).
I prefer the arrow keys. When I was playing on my desktop computer, it felt very natural to use the arrow keys with my left hand and the mouse with my right, so using both didn't bother me. Of course, this is a bit more difficult now that I'm playing on my laptop, but that's not Telltale's fault.
The point I was making was that there is a fair percentage of players who use click and drag, which means they like it enough to use it or at the very least like it better than using the W,A,S,D keys. I obviously can't comment on the amount of players who would use point and click because they didn't include that option in the game.
Maybe I should start a poll on whether my comments were relevant :rolleyes:
But sometimes I use the arrows with my spare hand if I need to walk somewhere precise, as sometimes you get stuck using the draggage.
Yeah, Club 41 would have been pretty lame without changing camera angles and depth.
Yup. The problem is that sometimes paths are curved, and WASD doesn't let you walk smoothly along them. I prefer to just click where I want to go and let the character navigate. And as I said, using two hands is just unnecessary - why make a tried and tested control system MORE complicated?
I appreciate what people are saying about funky camera angles, but this ignores my point that sometimes when switching cameras, Click & Drag has issues.
I think on some scenes with a long distance to walk on (Flotsam High Street, or the main street in Sam & Max, for instance) the camera should actually be a little further out, and maybe zoom in a bit closer whenever you look at something or interact with stuff. This could feel more dynamic, and allow you to walk further with one click.
The only other thing I'd change is the inventory panel. Item combining should be performed by clicking one item with another; the whole charade of putting items in the slots and clicking + is a little ridiculous. Also I sometimes miss the tab thing that opens up the inventory, because I have dual screens. I accidentally click on my right-hand screen and am switched back to Windows, which is a bit annoying. I'd prefer having inventory come up from the bottom of the screen, and actually have a few more verbs like original MI. (And click verb FIRST, not last! But that's just preference...)
I like it because I use one hand to move and click on things, and while point and click also uses one hand, I find I prefer the direct control movement the drag gives you over the character.
Plus, the drag allows easier diagonal and curved movement than using WASD like I had to in Wallace and Gromit, so I felt like I had more control.
And I didn't have to practice using it either - I instantly was able to use it in Chapter 1. Somehow they made it seem intuitive and natural, and it still feels this way after 4 chapters.
More than happy to keep going with this as a control scheme.
In fact I have no issues at all with the interface of ToMI and am thoroughly enjoying it!
I guess if you only want a pure point-n-click interface for your new Monkey Island game you'll have to hang on a bit longer until Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island comes out :P
Talk about ruining the nearly perfect scheme in S&M : S2.
There was never any internal comparison between Point+Click or Click+Drag, because Point+Click was already excluded based on our design requirements. If you need further clarification, please do a search. There are several control scheme threads floating around with 15 or so pages of comments each.
Anyway, I'm finding Click&Drag more and more compelling with each episode. Granted, in some situations I use the WASD scheme (particularly when GT becomes stuck on something) but that is nothing more than fine tunning the code that handles the control (or path finding).
The only thing I find irritating as h*** is dragging for too long, but that is mostly due to some puzzles forcing us to go back and forth to some locations (sometimes too distant)
An idea to solve that particular problem:
If the location is known, maybe some sort of icon (a map, globe, whatever) can be made available so if the user clicks on it, an interface with the locations (or a map) can be used to select the new destingation (if it isn't locked by a puzzle or event). Then the player goes into auto-pilot mode (maybe with the option of speeding up the travelling or warping completely). On that mode, the player can cancel the mode and go back to normal with a click (for example). If there is something that the player should be aware of, the mode can be cancelled too (e.g.: A character appears and talks to the player while on auto-pilot)
Of course, the player should be able to use click and drag if s/he chooses to. But getting around could be made a lot easier (This would kill some puzzles, but the icon could be locked if it interferes with a puzzle)
And therefore "click and drag" is already excluded from my buying requirements
Anyway, sorry but your "serious cinematic product" doesn't convince me.
You cut corners regularly on the production value for budget and downloadable episodic reasons, don't try to make us believe these cinematic cameras are the gem of these games. You have better assets.
One day I'm going to snap and perma-ban everyone who puts that smiley after a passive-aggressive statement.
If you believe that we got rid of Point+Click for some malign reason and not because it was incompatible with our desired cinematography, I'm not sure what else I can say.
Point and click, even in Sam & Max season 2, was starting to get really annoying because of the camera angles. I actually believe that had point and click still been included in the game I still would click and drag when traveling between screens and the like.
I'll admit I'm not a click 'n' drag user really. The compass around Guybrush is a bit distracting and I never quite got used to the way he moved with it, it always felt a bit wonky to me. WASD is great though, and I'm happy not to be staring at the ground looking for places to click all the time.
Is WASD/click 'n' drag slated to be part of the control scheme for S&M season 3? Just curious. I'm sure it will start this argument all over again...
According to this, Sam & Max will be changing away from point and click. I'll be fine with it as long as they include click and drag as an option. (That's an oldish article btw, since before Telltale even conceived click and drag.)
I don't think we can be friends anymore. Do you have a cat I can hate?
Okay, fine, I'll be serious.
You're probably right, but to me it's very similar to the touch screen movement controls in Super Mario 64 DS. Maybe over time you can get used to it, but in the end it's just no substitute for an actual joystick, so I'm gonna have to stick with WASD, and that honestly doesn't bother me that much. It could be much worse.
It could be the controls from Escape from Monkey Island.
Just use the D-pad. Like click and drag it takes a little getting used to but it really works fine once you get adjusted :P Telltale certianly shouldn't make click and drag the only option, but for people like me who like to lean right back in their chairs and use only one hand when playing adventure games I hope they keep it in for all future games. Some people don't like it and that's fine but for me the positives outweigh the negatives.
Also, you're talking about SM64DS, right? I do use the D-pad in that.
Most of like to pretend it never happened
I'm completely with you on that.
Well, not completely. There's two instances where I hate that game every time I play it (all two of them so far!), and surprisingly, neither of them are Monkey Kombat. I'm talking about the scene after the Mysts o' Tyme Marshe when Guybrush gets off the raft (for me, Guybrush puts down the stick and then it suddenly appears back in his hands and he rows in place instead of getting off), which I suppose makes me hate the Marshe, because as clever as it is, I don't like having to do it 50 times. The second time I played, though, I was smart and made a save immediately after getting off the raft.
And the other one is the boulder puzzle. Screw the branch "indicators", the only way I ever manage to solve that one is with a stopwatch.