The Fallacy of Believing the Controls are Bad

[Dark_Turn]

Many of the less astute people (dumb children) who have played Getting Over It have complained adamantly about the controls ranging in anything from ‘bad’ to ‘bugged’ to ‘evil’. These people suffer from what I can only describe as extremely delusional thinking.

To start, here’s a couple of facts:

Fact 1 - The ‘controls’ in GOIwBF include literally one thing: your mouse.

Fact 2 - The head of your hammer follows your mouse cursor with parallel precision and a smoothing effect to prevent the hammer from making sudden jerks/movements (and cursor acceleration if you are so inclined to leave that checkbox in the options menu unchecked).

With these two facts in mind, I have to ask: How are the controls the problem? I mean, this isn’t complicated. You only have to do one thing to play this game: move the hammer via the mouse and provoke inertial reactions with said hammer. What were you expecting— a button on your keyboard that causes the cauldron to sprout rocket engines and propel you upwards? Or perhaps you were expecting a button to increase your basal level of intelligence so you can problem solve more effectively (if only such a button existed).

No, you see, the problem cannot be the controls because the controls are innately fool-proof. I say ‘fool-proof’ not because any fool can use them without issue (you people have proven that to be patently false). I say it, instead, because no fault can be attributed to the controls with respect to any surrender to gravity that you yield during your GOIwBF experience. The controls do what they’re supposed to do perfectly: they move the hammer. That’s their design.

The problem is what arrises from moving the hammer (the mouse): human error. When your hammer “spazzes out”, as so many of you have said, that’s not the controls spazzing out— that’s you spazzing out. When the hammer suddenly moves, that’s not the controls suddenly moving— that’s you involuntarily moving your hand because you’re undisciplined.

Now I know a lot of you will say, ‘no dude, you’re wrong; the controls are inaccurate and don’t move smoothly enough.’ To you I say: no. Just no. I’ve got over 30 hours logged into this game. I’ve climbed to the top of the mountain over 50 times, many climbs clocking in at under ten minutes. And understand this: I am not some freak of nature with unlimited time on my hands who’s innately great at video games. I am normal. And believe me when I say, I have experienced absolutely none of the problems you people are complaining about. None.

But these lies (yes, they are lies) that are being circulated shall no longer stand. I have played this game (probably) more than you have, and it falls upon me to set the record straight. The controls are perfect. I know it, you know it, and everyone knows it. You may not like to admit it— I know it’s painful. But they are, undeniably, perfect in every way.

But fret not, because I am here to let you in on a little secret. You see, this game is not for fun. It’s much more than that. I see it as a study in a human being’s propensity to be stupid, ineffective, and reckless. This game proves it, documents it, and displays it for all to see. Every setback, fall, and rage quit that you’ve experienced is a memo, detailing your inability to rise above (no pun intended) what is a simple concept with simple controls and simple rules. You blame these setbacks on the user interface, when in reality the user interface is your one and only friend in this game.

Your enemy— the thing blocking your safe passage to the summit— is not the mountain itself. It’s you. Your shortcomings are the only thing that separates you from victory. And this game— it’s not about climbing a mountain— it’s about surpassing your own innate limitations. It’s about taming your recklessness, improving your problem solving techniques, and conquering your regrettably short attention spans.

This game is not about getting over a mountain. It’s about getting over your own weaknesses. Once you stop ranting and raving about the ‘unfair controls’, and start blaming your own deficits for your problems, you will have a better understanding of how to win and how to get over it. Good luck with that.



TL;DR - You’re all idiots. Apply yourselves.

[Names]

I see 0 inconsistency. What's inconsistent is your hand movement, position, terrain etc. But mostly your hand movement. If you moved your hand perfectly you would not be writing stories about this ;) Consistently being able to beat the game below 10 mins is quite a strong argument for this. Not to mention the speedrunners who beat this game in 2mins. How on earth would you make a thousand jumps perfectly in a row if all of them were inconsistent?

[Legion]

Originally posted by Brother Vladimir:

I see 0 inconsistency. What's inconsistent is your hand movement, position, terrain etc. But mostly your hand movement. If you moved your hand perfectly you would not be writing stories about this ;) Consistently being able to beat the game below 10 mins is quite a strong argument for this. Not to mention the speedrunners who beat this game in 2mins. How on earth would you make a thousand jumps perfectly in a row if all of them were inconsistent?

^Cause its not a difficult game.

[Names]

Care to calculate the odds of winning the game in 2mins with inconsistent controls? I'm too lazy, but i'd love to see the numbers ;)

[Legion]

Originally posted by Brother Vladimir:

Care to calculate the odds of winning the game in 2mins with inconsistent controls? I'm too lazy, but i'd love to see the numbers ;)

100% odds.

Game has nothing against the player other than the player mastering the controls and movement and what happens when said movement is made.

What does that mean^

It DOES NOT MEAN: The controls are perfect.
It DOES NOT MEAN: There is consistency or inconsistency.
It DOES NOT MEAN: That both sides are right and/or wrong.

It DOES MEAN: It can be mastered and there is a learning curve.
It DOES MEAN: When learnt, easy to accomplish.
It DOES MEAN: The game difficulty is just that: The learning curve.

I fail to see why people want to go " ;) " or "-insert insult here.-"

My opinion those who have beaten the game failed to learn a single thing.
If anything its brought out the worst in people.

Other than that. You have numbers now. You have facts there.

[JohnTravoltage]

Originally posted by Brother Vladimir:

I see 0 inconsistency. What's inconsistent is your hand movement, position, terrain etc. But mostly your hand movement. If you moved your hand perfectly you would not be writing stories about this ;) Consistently being able to beat the game below 10 mins is quite a strong argument for this. Not to mention the speedrunners who beat this game in 2mins. How on earth would you make a thousand jumps perfectly in a row if all of them were inconsistent?

What about camera movement and momentum affecting where the cursor is causing the hammer to move on its own simply because the camera is moving fast? It isn't like your falling momentum is affecting it, its almost the opposite. If you fall a large distance and hook on he pulls himself up suddenly for example.

[Names]

Originally posted by Mad Imaginative:

What does that mean^

Obviously it means that your lack understanding of probabilities prevents you from seeing my point. Can't argue against math my friend.

[Names]

Originally posted by John Travoltage:

What about camera movement and momentum affecting where the cursor is causing the hammer to move on its own simply because the camera is moving fast? It isn't like your falling momentum is affecting it, its almost the opposite. If you fall a large distance and hook on he pulls himself up suddenly for example.

Camera doesn't move randomly. It's has a very consistent acceleration. Even though it does add dificulty, it is very consistent.

[ziul123]

Originally posted by Brother Vladimir:

I see 0 inconsistency. What's inconsistent is your hand movement, position, terrain etc. But mostly your hand movement. If you moved your hand perfectly you would not be writing stories about this ;) Consistently being able to beat the game below 10 mins is quite a strong argument for this. Not to mention the speedrunners who beat this game in 2mins. How on earth would you make a thousand jumps perfectly in a row if all of them were inconsistent?

Did you not read my comment? A game being speedrunned and beaten does not in any way reflect on the quality of controls. Also, no, my hands were not inconsistent. I executed my experiment by doing the same hand movements in the same places, only to have wildly varying results. The margin of error for this is not as large as the difference in results. Being flung halfway across the map instead of just a few meters back is not the result of a slightly different hand movement.

[Names]

Originally posted by ziul123:

A game being speedrunned and beaten does not in any way reflect on the quality of controls.

Yes, it does reflect on the quality. In a mathematical way. It would be litterally impossible to speed run the game in 2 mins if every movement randomly "flung you halfway across the map".

[ziul123]

Originally posted by Brother Vladimir:

Originally posted by ziul123:

A game being speedrunned and beaten does not in any way reflect on the quality of controls.

Yes, it does reflect on the quality. In a mathematical way. It would be litterally impossible to speed run the game in 2 mins if every movement randomly "flung you halfway across the map".

Not at all what I said. The problem isn't "every movement flinging you halfway across the map". The problem is that sometimes they do, and sometimes they do not.

[ziul123]

Originally posted by Brother Vladimir:

Originally posted by ziul123:

A game being speedrunned and beaten does not in any way reflect on the quality of controls.

Yes, it does reflect on the quality. In a mathematical way. It would be litterally impossible to speed run the game in 2 mins if every movement randomly "flung you halfway across the map".

Here's a bad game with bad controls being speedrunned:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzK74kkFnlk

[Names]

Originally posted by ziul123:

Not at all what I said. The problem isn't "every movement flinging you halfway across the map". The problem is that sometimes they do, and sometimes they do not.

Sorry, well if it's 1% chance of randomly buggged movement, I suppose I could see your point.
You could claim that the speedrunner was just lucky not to get that 1% bug in his 2 minute speedrun. But if it's so rare then is it really an issue worth complaining about?

[ziul123]

Originally posted by Brother Vladimir:

Originally posted by ziul123:

Not at all what I said. The problem isn't "every movement flinging you halfway across the map". The problem is that sometimes they do, and sometimes they do not.

Sorry, well if it's 1% chance of randomly buggged movement, I suppose I could see your point.
You could claim that the speedrunner was just lucky not to get that 1% bug in his 2 minute speedrun. But if it's so rare then is it really an issue worth complaining about?

It's very far from being a 1% chance. Speedruns are very different from normal playthroughs. They are constantly restarted and redone when a mistake happens. You probably saw one of hundreds of takes.

[Names]

Well how high of a % are you talking about then?

[ziul123]

Originally posted by Brother Vladimir:

Well how high of a % are you talking about then?

I would say around 20%. I'll be climbing up normal sections, repeating the sames movements done before, and suddenly a little push throws me over a cliff. Again, I'm not saying the game is badly developed. This was the objective of the game. Bad controls. That doesn't change the fact they're bad.