 |
||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Let's talk about the weapon selector. Here's my angle: it sucks. by Dream Cast 05/26/2016, 9:39am PDT | ||||
 |
 |
|||
| Quake 4 allows you to carry a full arsenal of nine weapons at once and choose between them using the D-pad. So far, so standard for PC to console ports. But the specific WAY it does this is one I've never seen anywhere else, and for excellent fucking reason.
Weapon icons are organized into a cross-shaped grid in the lower left corner of the screen. From top to bottom: BFG, pistol, blank space (free parking), shotgun, rocket launcher. From left to right: nailgun, grenade launcher, machinegun, blank space (the same one we crossed going the other way), hyperblaster, lightning gun, railgun. This cross-grid is navigated with a cursor; whichever icon the cursor is on, that's what's in your hands. Most of the time the cross-grid is invisible. Pressing a direction on your controller's D-pad causes the grid to appear for precisely one-half second, with the direction you push corresponding to the space your cursor begins on: up is pistol, down is shotgun, left is machinegun, right is hyperblaster. From this point until the cross-grid disappears again, your D-pad inputs will only move the cursor relative to its current position. This is probably a good time to break for an example. To select the nailgun, press left once on the D-pad to select the machinegun, then quickly (before the cross-grid disappears) press left twice more to move the cursor two spaces left, such that it ends up on the nailgun. In a small concession to usability, the game DOES buffer D-pad inputs, so you can select the nailgun near-instantly by simply triple-tapping left. However, assuming that for some reason you HAVEN'T memorized the absolute position of each weapon on the cross (let's face it, they're not exactly sorted intuitively), you will probably end up tapping a direction at random to display the grid, then navigating your cursor space by space in relative fashion, like so: down to select shotgun, up to free parking, left to machinegun, left to grenade launcher, and finally left to nailgun (if you try to move directly left from shotgun, nothing will happen - you need to follow the grid up and over). If you hesitate for even one-half second the grid will disappear, forcing you to start all over again. Weapons without any ammo can't be selected, but still occupy their position on the grid - they're basically "lose a turn" squares. Needless to say, this is all the stupidest shit in the world. Here's how it should work: Weapons should be divided into four sets, each corresponding to a different cardinal direction. Single-pressing any direction should select the first weapon in that set; single-pressing the direction corresponding to the weapon you're already holding should cycle to the next weapon in that set. Up set: pistol, machinegun, BFG. Down set (high rate of fire): nailgun, hyperblaster, lightning gun. Left set (low rate of fire): shotgun, railgun. Right set: (splash damage): grenade launcher, rocket launcher. I know what you're thinking: the machinegun is your bread and butter, won't you have to cycle through the useless pistol every time you want to select it? This is where the game has to get a little bit smart. I'm not talking HAL 9000 smart, just smart enough to remember the last used weapon in each set. So if you're holding the second weapon in the up set, and you switch to something in another set, pressing up once will give you back the same second weapon in the up set you had before. This would allow you to pre-select your favourite weapon in each set, then toggle between them using only single D-pad presses. And isn't that the sort of braindead simplicity we're all looking for, when we're surrounded by cyborgs and the frame rate is tanking? A really boss game could even let you go into the options menu and choose which weapons go in each set. Ha ha, now I'm just wishing for ponies. I wonder if it's too late to go back and title this post PACIFIC AMERIBANK IS CHANGING THEIR CREDIT CARD PROCESSING FEE SCHEDULES by FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT READ :( |
||||
 |
 |
|||
|
I'm shocked how badly they fucked this up, even from a purely visual perspective by 05/23/2016, 7:34am PDT  Thanks to the SJWs we will never see tits like that in a game ever again NT by 05/25/2016, 3:41am PDT Not only that, back then they had the guts to show the actual vagina bones NT by 05/25/2016, 4:36pm PDT Quake 4 misses the point as much in the character models as the environments. by 05/25/2016, 6:51pm PDT Let's talk about the weapon selector. Here's my angle: it sucks. by 05/26/2016, 9:39am PDT Re: Let's talk about the weapon selector. Here's my angle: it sucks. by 05/26/2016, 10:44am PDT I want to say you missed out, but that would be a lie. by 05/28/2016, 7:06am PDT I always wondered what happened to Kevin Long after he stopped illustrating the NT by 05/28/2016, 6:37pm PDT |
