Gears of War makers miss HUGE flaw in Southpaw setup

[slackur]

This is kind of complicated, so stay with me. I'm left handed, and have to play standard FPS style controls in southpaw or I'll get motion sickness. (Yes, I've tried many hours to play like right handers, still get sick.)

Gears of War has a Southpaw setup (Look on Left Stick, Move/Strafe on Right stick.) Even the triggers have a swap option. So no problem, right?

Except that the 'A' button is as crucial as the fire button, needed for jump, cover, roll, everything that makes this game a 'stop and pop' shooter. All mapped to the 'A' button, a button that cannot be changed or remapped. Many moves require that you be moving in a direction and tap 'A' while moving. Now, I ask you, how do I do this when the move stick and 'A' button are on the same side?!?! Without contorting into a wierd clawlike grasp on the controller, I don't see how. If you are having trouble visualizing this, imagine that your move stick was still on the left side, and that your look stick was on the d-pad on the same side of the controller. Get the picture?

Whoever works in QA for the controls at Epic should be fired. I would love to see how they expect someone to play using their own southpaw option.

The worst part is, it would be easily fixable with a little bit of code. Remap the 'A' to the TAC bumper, a button that brings up a menu that most games would use a pause screen for anyway. Or give a southpaw option to swap the face buttons with the d-pad. ANYTHING.

Personally, I find it draconian that in this day and age gamers don't have the ability to remap all controls to their preference. Leave a default for those who don't want to tamper, and give the rest of us a chance to play the games comfortably.

[Gamereviewgod]

Not to sound stupid or offend, but I'm curious. How would the analog sticks being swapped make you motion sickness? The graphics/camera, etc. don't change.

Being left handed but still doing fine with a standard control set up, I can easily see how the set up gives you a major problem. It's actually a little tough with the standard set up since you want to look and dive for cover at the same time. That left handed set up is simply brutal though.

Still, amazing game on every level.

[sickdrummer420]

how would the controls on the controller give anyone motion sickness? it doesnt change the gameplay or how it looks or anything O_O

[-SuperYoshi-]

Funny thing is that I'm left-handed as well, but I always found southpaw controls awkward and uncomfortable.

To each his own, I suppose.

[slackur]

The motion sickness southpaw thing is difficult to describe to someone who doesn't experience it, but it is well known to those poor souls (like myself) who cannot avoid it.

The best suggestion I can think of, if you really want to empathize, is try playing your favorite FPS controlled game with the sticks swapped (Move to look, etc,). Or, for you PC gamers, try using the mouse and keyboard with different hands. It is often more than just a learning curve: it makes many people sick to play 3d games with the controls alternated. 2D games with nontraditional controls can come across as just annoying, but I've become so nauseous trying to play 3d games right handed that I almost literally vomited. It has to do with the right-left brained thing, I guess.

I thought I was just strange until I met other gamers who suffer similar problems, both right and left handers. If you've never found yourself motion sick from 3D games, just know that you are spared from a frustrating, less common gamer problem.

For the rest of us, we seriously need the option for remappable controls on every game. Leave the normal setups for casual gamers so they don't get confused, but come on, give everyone who wants it, the option to set up the controls themselves. The lack thereof keeps gamers like me from otherwise excellent games like Gears of War.

[sickdrummer420]

The motion sickness southpaw thing is difficult to describe to someone who doesn't experience it, but it is well known to those poor souls (like myself) who cannot avoid it.

The best suggestion I can think of, if you really want to empathize, is try playing your favorite FPS controlled game with the sticks swapped (Move to look, etc,). Or, for you PC gamers, try using the mouse and keyboard with different hands. It is often more than just a learning curve: it makes many people sick to play 3d games with the controls alternated. 2D games with nontraditional controls can come across as just annoying, but I've become so nauseous trying to play 3d games right handed that I almost literally vomited. It has to do with the right-left brained thing, I guess.

I thought I was just strange until I met other gamers who suffer similar problems, both right and left handers. If you've never found yourself motion sick from 3D games, just know that you are spared from a frustrating, less common gamer problem.

For the rest of us, we seriously need the option for remappable controls on every game. Leave the normal setups for casual gamers so they don't get confused, but come on, give everyone who wants it, the option to set up the controls themselves. The lack thereof keeps gamers like me from otherwise excellent games like Gears of War.

thanks for clearing that up! now i somewhat understand

[YoshiM]

The best suggestion I can think of, if you really want to empathize, is try playing your favorite FPS controlled game with the sticks swapped (Move to look, etc,). Or, for you PC gamers, try using the mouse and keyboard with different hands. It is often more than just a learning curve: it makes many people sick to play 3d games with the controls alternated. 2D games with nontraditional controls can come across as just annoying, but I've become so nauseous trying to play 3d games right handed that I almost literally vomited. It has to do with the right-left brained thing, I guess.

I can see where you are coming from. It's like your brain is working overtime trying to compensate for the switch in control while taking in the motions on the TV.

[Princess-Isabela]

the day I got gears of war(8th, 11) I tried to switch my control setup for left handed, and I instantly have found out that trying to run with your right stick has a big issue using A button(getting into cover), they didnt include remapping buttons in game like this is....this is epic game(GOW been in the making process for years, how could they skip remapping for left handed players?).

[SuperShark]

Very quickly I will toss this out:

I believe that in this day and age with how advanced our gaming is getting, everygame for every counsole now should come with the option of customizable controle, and I dont mean choosing from a list of preset, I mean you choose what each and every button does. We are so advanced now that this shouldnt be to hard, right? From what I have seen, basicly all PC games I have played allow you to map out your own controles (excluding mouse controles sometimes) and I am talking about games dating back into Windows95, or at leat 98, and the hardest prob for programmers with this is getting the txt in the tutorials to match up to the changed controles, and often they dont even try, they just leave tut txt at the defaults and if u change controles, u gotta remember what it is instead of the defaults, but anyways so what, at least you can change the controles. Now y cant consoles do that yet?

[Mayhem]

Best customisable controls I've found for any FPS: Timesplitters 2. That thing let you assign just about anything to any action in the game.

As for myself, I'm left handed but I play either handed without much issue. Having said that, I can't play southpaw to save my life (must have look on the right!) and I can't stikc the "Turok" control scheme either and sometimes games force THAT on you as well making my life a bit miserable in the process.

What's the "Turok" scheme? Where you have move forward/back and strafe on one stick and fully look around on the other. Can't use it. I need rotate/move on one stick and look up/down and strafe on the other. In other words, the Goldeneye control scheme. I'm stuck with that in my brain now :roll: :P

Then again, I'm fine playing Metroid Prime Hunters on the DS with the stylus as full look around, and I'm sure I'll be okay with the Wii for FPS, so I guess it'll just be a regular console controller snafu on my part...

[Princess-Isabela]

I beat GOW twice(right handed on casual) and left handed on insane, but it wasnt as comfortable as it could have.

[Lord_Magus]

Very quickly I will toss this out:

I believe that in this day and age with how advanced our gaming is getting, everygame for every counsole now should come with the option of customizable controle, and I dont mean choosing from a list of preset, I mean you choose what each and every button does. We are so advanced now that this shouldnt be to hard, right? From what I have seen, basicly all PC games I have played allow you to map out your own controles (excluding mouse controles sometimes) and I am talking about games dating back into Windows95, or at leat 98, and the hardest prob for programmers with this is getting the txt in the tutorials to match up to the changed controles, and often they dont even try, they just leave tut txt at the defaults and if u change controles, u gotta remember what it is instead of the defaults, but anyways so what, at least you can change the controles. Now y cant consoles do that yet?

I agree 100%. However, the problem doesn't seem to be associated with the technical difficulty of mapping the controls or adjusting possible tutorials - I think it's mostly a matter of developers being lazy and simply not caring about gamers with special\different needs. As a programmer myself, I can easily say that adding fully customizable controls to a game would take very little time to be fully implemented once the main control scheme is in place. :/