Topic #2: UI - mouse controls

Have you considered changing to WASD to move the camera?

My thinking is that once the features like battlegroups and unit AI become more fleshed out, players will not be spending as much time doing the same kinds of tasks they used to do in previous RTS games like selection management, and quickly finding units when you wish to give orders.

Instead, I think it makes sense to design the UI to give an effective, big-picture view of the entire war, rather than fine-grained control to facilitate micromanagement. Being non-standard is acceptable, I think, as long as the game plays differently enough to justify it.

I actually second the idea of using the WASD keys to move the camera around. This actually helps with using hotkeys as well since you could use the surrounding keys for queuing up units. You would have roughly 8 keys to use for queuing units and other hotkey options. Not only this but it puts your battle groups within fingers reach. If you continue using the directional keys to move the camera it causes players like me to go from directional keys to the other side of the keyboard to hit my battle groups or queue up units, before going back. It's extremely inefficient. I use the mouse to move the camera in a directional sense about 5% of the time so any help I can get for making camera movement more efficient is a huge bonus. This may not be the same for everyone though. As for the current mouse button layout, I think it's fine. I like that the right click can be used to scoot across small areas and is a little more coordinated than using the directional pad all the time.

Ooops, didn't do the right mouse thing for dragging the map around, sorry.  It's not intuitive, especially starting this right after playing some Civ V.  I guess I'll have to RTWFM.  Later on I'd suggest that having an option to use left mouse drag, just for the semi-brain dead players like me.

pek

ps, is it just me or is this forum really slow to post replies?

I disagree with the WASD buttons being used for camera movement with this reason: I'd like to be able to, eventually, select buildings from somewhere else in the field where I'm moving the camera checking on my units and be able to build new units or use an engineer to build something while moving from one spot to another. I really like the QWERASDF key usage for building units, structures, etc and would rather they be left alone so I don't accidentally build something while trying to move the camera.

That being said my main form of camera movement is a quick zoom out and a quick zoom in on the cursor (which would benefit from a larger zoom out distance) and my second form of camera movement is edge scrolling (which if I can pan this game on my three monitors like I want to will probably not be my number two later in development).

Another thing to consider is anyone with a specialized mouse (Logitech for example) might have to disable some feature that the mouse has assigned to the middle button in order to use it in-game properly.

I actually prefer right-mouse to move the map around. I'm probably in the minority though.

I'd say you would be surprised. Everyone has their preference, and with the ability to map keys we can really tailor the game to our own style of play. As long as the foundation is there we will all be able to play the way we want. That is why it's so important for everyone to provide feedback to the developers on this stuff.

Agreed, if we are given the choice to configure our controls everyone wins.

I am also not in favor of WASD scrolling for this game simply because you have a real good thing going now with QWERTY for building. Click-dragging with middle mouse was the first button that my brain wanted to try, but I think I can train it to use RMB, so it's not a big deal to me. I was not able to intuit how to tilt the camera.

I used to play the older RTSs where edge scrolling and minimap were the only ways to navigate. Somehow I seem to have gotten out of that habit and click drag is my go-to. I usually use scroll wheel for larger scale navigation, very rarely minimap. Of course, double-tap a control group is still well ingrained.

I don't personally like WASD for the camera, those are keys I would eventually like to use for building things.

Also I have one real argument against right click camera movements: It actually conflicts with giving move commands fast. You need to be careful not to make them a small right click drag, which will be interpreted as a camera movement instead of a move command.

So yeah I am all for middle mouse. But make it configurable, in PA it is not and people exist who are very upset about it.

I am definitely sensitive to wanting to use WASD for other functions. Those are among the most accessible keys on the keyboard, after all.

But the reason why I think WASD would be good for camera movement is that mouse ops are expensive. They take a lot of time during which you cannot be doing anything else. Moving the mouse to the edge of the screen is a very slow and ineffective method of panning.

Directional arrow keys are also not a good option. It's fine if the arrow keys are assigned to do this job, but for serious players those four keys might as well not exist. Actually removing your hand from the main keyboard to go to the arrow keys and then to go back, is significantly worse than mouse movement. Picking up the mouse hand to go to the arrow keys is, similarly, very slow and wasteful.

Strategic zoom is the other viable option, allowing a very distant zoom out, followed by a cursor movement, and a rapid zoom in to a different position. Strategic zoom is why SupCom does not need camera movement keys at all.

The current right click drag pan is workable. But right click is also used to issue orders. So using it for camera movement raises two possible errors; accidental orders when the player intended to pan the camera, and "missed" orders when the player intended to issue orders and accidentally panned the camera a tiny distance instead.

Additionally, right click drag has historically been the go-to button assignment for complex orders, such as line-drag in Spring or formation draw in SupCom and other games. Because RMB is traditionally used to issue orders, it makes intuitive sense that holding RMB is used for more complex, abstract orders, and also makes those orders speedy and opens up the possibility of using the keyboard at the same time.

I personally like middle mouse button to drag the map, I feel that while you can get used to using right mouse you end up with times where you accidentally issue attack commands when you are just trying to move. 

I think WASD movement can work great in some games (I love the implementation in total war) however with the macro focus here I really think these keys need to be reserved for Hotkeys. 

I like the middle mouse button to drag the map.  The middle button on my mouse is also the mouse-wheel that I use to zoom in and zoom out; so using it to drag the map as well keeps all of my perspective navigation (not sure that's even a term) on one button.  

I like wasd and it was discussed but we are using qwert for all unit and building hot keys.

Frogboy is specifically talking about the qwert keys used for building units and buildings. I agree with the several others who would like these keys dedicated to make building simpler.

As a suggestion the left ctrl button could be used to change the mouse into "camera mode" and then even the left click could be used to pan and the right click could be used for angle.

Well it does allow more hot key options if camera control is tied to the mouse. Also give me a reason to shamelessly plug my UI discussion.

I like the middle mouse button for moving around, keep qwert for all unit and building and use the right mouse button for unit movement or attack.

those are my thought.

Personally I don't like the middle button the mouse because on the mice I have the middle button is annoying to say the least. The action is never clean and consistent. Right mouse is much easier with WASD as an alternative.

Custom key binding? Anybody can have it how they want then, change it later or whatever.

In a way this is already an option for people with programmable mouse keyboard set ups.

First thing I'm doing is swapping left and right buttons on the mouse at this stage.

One small suggestion:

When you command a unit / group to move or attack, you get a little blue icon where you clicked. Its really hard to tell whether the unit will be moving or attacking.

How about a system more like Homeworld? When you click to move / attack you get a dotted red or green line (to indicate attack or move respectively) leading to the target. This could also show the unit's path to the target. What do you guys think?

Well I agree a better visual for action is probably warranted, but are you sure the current implementation isn't already attack-move?

I agree with the suggestion (in fact I even mentioned it on the "questions and suggestions" post) I like the red icon idea.

Even if it is attack-move I would personally prefer a red icon with a little symbol next to the icon that indicates that it is an attack-move instead of just an attack command.

My preferred pan action would be zoom in/ out.

I like the RMB at the moment more than I would like the middel Mouse button which is also the scroll button and i always seem tot scroll a bit while pressing this button.

I have no problem with the "missing" icins. But tot be not able tot zoom out completely is something i really miss.

Just so everyone knows what I am talking about, here are the current two icons:

http://i.imgur.com/WRaleUH.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/hVNgyq4.jpg

The latter image is the "attack" icon.

I was suggesting a system a bit more similar to Homeworld:

http://i.imgur.com/WsxfqhR.png

http://i.imgur.com/6rRRM3Y.png

Again, the latter image is an "attack command.

I think this is already implemented at some level.  I do not remember how I managed it (I either held down the shift, alt, ctrl, or space bar), but I was able to see green lines (movement/manufacturing) vs. red lines (attacking).  I think it was ALT or CTRL, but play around with it a bit and let me know.

I'm not sure why you don't see the lines without holding down another button -- maybe it has to do with maintaining realism and keeping the interface clean?

Yeah, if you hold the shift key then you can see the lines for movement (red for attack, green for move, blue for construct), but I'd still like to see the icon turn red when I issue an attack command (which I think is part of Arcturus314's suggestion). Also, as an FYI holding the alt key lets you see the ranges of your units.