Controller layout suggestions

[Pothocket]

[Note, I'm using the xbox button layout because that' what I'm familiar with]

Just want to throw some ideas into the ring for what I think a decent controller layout would be. Many games follow familiar layout conventions (A is select, B is back/cancel, and left stick changes what the cursor is highlighting in combat and moves characters forward out of combat) so some things are already going to be assumed by the player. The rest of it will have to be adopted in such way to be as intuitive as possible, else poorly implemented controls might create an immersion barrier between player and game.

So let's start with the most important and common screen in the game, combat. Of course left stick would be used to select targets. The D-pad is commonly used as a weapon/item select and I think it would work well in DD for selecting one of the hero's 4 skills. Instead of 1,2,3,4 above each skill a little symbol can be displayed to show which direction on the D-pad would select that skill - up,down,left,right.

But players do have more actions than just their 4 skills, they could pass or move too. Either one is essentially canceling their turn so hitting B while its their turn brings up the move/pass options and players can either hit A to select one or B to back out and choose one of the normal skills. As these options are chosen far less often I think it's ok to not have them on the D-pad, and as each one is essentially skipping a turn I think B is the intuitive choice.

Alternatively, instead of assigning each skill to a direction, you could just cycle through them by pressing left and right only. This would allow for more than 4 options on the D-pad and move/pass could be alongside the combat skills but I don't like this because if I'm on the 4th skill and press right I'd assume it's going to loop around back to the 1st skill and not one of turn skip options.

Now the player is going to need access to other screens while in combat if they need to use an inventory item or check their character sheet page, so you need to allow for that and it might as well be consistent with how those screens are accessed outside of combat. I suggest Y for switching between map and inventory and X for bringing up the hero sheet. Of course once looking at a hero sheet the player is going to assume that hitting the left and right triggers will cycle through the heroes so I strongly advise adding that to the game. Even with M+K, cycling through hero sheets rather than backing out and selecting a different one would be greatly appreciated.

The left stick would have to be contextual so that when the inventory is open, the player is using LS to navigate it. This would also mean players have to toggle to the map screen in order to move forward or select enemy targets but the alternative would be to have the Right Stick navigate the inventory and that seems like it would be really awkward.

The back/select button would be used to attempt combat retreats or to abandon quests depending on the context. For example, hitting the back button in combat would bring up a window that says [A: retreat B: cancel]

When camping the D-pad would again be used for skill selection but don't just automatically trigger those skills without targets. Let the player select them with D-pad and activate them with the A button.

Town I'm not sure about but I think it's important the player can use Left and Right triggers to cycle through the buildings. If anyone has any ideas for how the town can be efficiently and intuitively navigated feel free to post them, or let me know if I missed anything in my outline of dungeon controls