Crosshair is nearly invisible / aim mode suggestion

[⎝⧹Quirken⧸⎠]

I'm playing Road Redemption on a couch with my roommate. The crosshair is extremely faint from 10ft away. It's practically invisible.

Please make it have a dark outline with more contrast, possibly thicker. Or something. Because the only time I can tell where I'm aiming is if I aim up at the sky or something like that.

On a related note, I struggle with steering while I have a gun out because camera re-centering does not happen at all if you have a gun out. I would expect the camera to behave the same as normal; here, if you rotate 90 degrees to your left, the camera stays there, even if you aren't moving the camera anymore, even though you can't see where you're going.

I think the game would benefit a lot from treating having a gun out just like any other weapon, minus the reticule. If you aren't actively aiming, you probably want to be looking forward, not at an angle.

While you can click the right joystick, that's still a distracting experience.

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Better yet (which I doubt you'll change), tweaks to how driving w/ a gun out would be nice. My problem is that on a controller, it is very difficult to drive with the gun out. Even ignoring the gun itself, just driving I find myself going off road constantly. I guess I'm probably used to rotating the camera a lot when the gun isn't out, and having that suddenly change is very jarring.

I'd much prefer a fixed-location reticule in the center of your screen, and rather than aiming the gun, you essentially aim the camera (more like a FPS). That way the right joystick would behave exactly the same way with or without a gun out. Take a gun out, a crosshair appears, but other than the fire button, everything would be exactly the same.

[Max Is Back]

"I'd much prefer a fixed-location reticule in the center of your screen, and rather than aiming the gun, you essentially aim the camera (more like a FPS)."

Then just don't move the right analog stick. The gun will always be pointing right in front of you and you can position the bike to take a shot rather than aiming your weapon off-center to take a shot.

Unfortunately, aiming with controller analog sticks is hard. Always has been, always will be. If you're a heavy firearm user, consider KB+mouse.

Cheers, good gaming!

[Paul Fisch]

Originally posted by Quirken:

I'd much prefer a fixed-location reticule in the center of your screen, and rather than aiming the gun, you essentially aim the camera (more like a FPS). That way the right joystick would behave exactly the same way with or without a gun out. Take a gun out, a crosshair appears, but other than the fire button, everything would be exactly the same.

That is how it works right now...?

[Max Is Back]

Originally posted by Paul Fisch:

That is how it works right now...?

I think his terminology was just a bit off. I think his suggestion is that the guns can't be aimed independently of the bike direction and are are always facing directly ahead. So in order to shoot someone you need to manouvre them into your crosshair and fire rather than aiming your weapon independently and firing.

I've heard this suggestion come up before, but I think it's too restrictive and not fair on KB+mouse users who actually want to aim their weapons.

Cheers, good gaming!

[⎝⧹Quirken⧸⎠]

Originally posted by Max Is Back:

Then just don't move the right analog stick. The gun will always be pointing right in front of you and you can position the bike to take a shot rather than aiming your weapon off-center to take a shot.

"Don't move the right analog stick" is not an option, because I use it for the camera. I fiddle with it, mostly changing camera height. The moment I take a gun out, I start swerving because I'm used to the camera being right joystick. It's hard to explain why it makes that much of a difference to me, but even if I'm not aiming with the gun at all and just have it out, it impacts my ability to steer.

Originally posted by Max Is Back:

Unfortunately, aiming with controller analog sticks is hard. Always has been, always will be. If you're a heavy firearm user, consider KB+mouse.

There could be an option you could use to toggle aiming/control schemes, or a different setting for controller vs mouse-and-keyboard.

Originally posted by Max Is Back:

I think his suggestion is that the guns can't be aimed independently of the bike direction and are are always facing directly ahead. So in order to shoot someone you need to manouvre them into your crosshair and fire rather than aiming your weapon independently and firing.

While this would work (and I'd be happy with it), it isn't what I was suggesting. (Still, having that as an option would be nice)

[MechaTails]

Originally posted by Quirken:

I'd much prefer a fixed-location reticule in the center of your screen, and rather than aiming the gun, you essentially aim the camera (more like a FPS).

...

What I was suggesting is this: normally, if you move the right joystick, it rotates the camera. Keep the reticule in the center, but you can still aim by moving the camera (independent of which way you are driving)

I'm confused because that's how it works right now. If I move the Right Stick with a gun out, my bike's direction doesn't change, just the gun aim. My bike keeps going in a straight line and I can steer and usual with the Left Stick.

EDIT: Tried it right now, moving Right Stick moves the camera and the reticle stays centered. Steering is unaffected.

Moving the Reticle only while the gun is out, instead of the whole camera, may be useful. Of course, then we can't move the camera while a gun is out...I dunno, I'd like to test it.

[⎝⧹Quirken⧸⎠]

Originally posted by MechaTails:

Now Idon't know what to believe though, I'll try it right now lol

ah, you're right. I misdiagnosed what was causing me problems!

So the problem I have is that if you get a gun out, it doesn't automatically recenter the camera after a while.

[Max Is Back]

Originally posted by Quirken:

So the problem I have is that if you get a gun out, it doesn't automatically recenter the camera after a while.

Press the right analog stick to recenter the camera.

[MechaTails]

Originally posted by Quirken:

Originally posted by MechaTails:

Now Idon't know what to believe though, I'll try it right now lol

ah, you're right. I misdiagnosed what was causing me problems!

So the problem I have is that if you get a gun out, it doesn't automatically recenter the camera after a while.

Understandable, that gave me a headache the first time I played the game, but I got used to it. I still don't use guns that often because the aiming/camera movement is uncomfortable (for me), but it's manageable with practice. I tend to use guns in short bursts, not have them out for a long time, for the same reason.

[⎝⧹Quirken⧸⎠]

Originally posted by Max Is Back:

Originally posted by Quirken:

So the problem I have is that if you get a gun out, it doesn't automatically recenter the camera after a while.

Press the right analog stick to recenter the camera.

I'm aware that you can click it to center it. Snapping to center isn't as fluid as the automatic gradual 'return to neutral' that the game normally does.

And since I constantly fiddle with the camera, that would basically mean clicking that several times a minute. If I'm rotating the camera slightly to get a better view of what's coming up or what my surroundings are, I'm not actually aiming the gun. Especially if there aren't any other vehicles on screen, it doesn't make sense for the recentering to be turned off.

"If you haven't moved the joystick in ___ (milli)seconds, start gradually moving back to center" seems like it should work exactly the same way whether or not you're aiming or just fiddling with the camera. Camera management isn't something I want distracting me from the road.

[⎝⧹Quirken⧸⎠]

pleaaaaaase change the crosshair color to a more visible color :(

[Max Is Back]

Originally posted by Quirken:

pleaaaaaase change the crosshair color to a more visible color :(

Personally I find the reticule to be eminently visible but everyone's eyes are slighty different and in fact we all perceive color sllightly differently, although generally not enough for it to be notable.

If a change is going to be made here I'd suggests a simple color-picker control that allowed you to choose any color you like for the reticule. Taking that a step futher, a "boldness" option (how thick the reticule's lines are) and even a selection of different styles (cross, circle, etc. etc.) would really give the user a very versatile means to customise the crosshair to their liking.

I'm not saying this can necessarily be done, the devs are extremely busy with the continuing improvements to multiplayer, but I think that would be the best approach. Maybe, at least in the first instance, they'll be able to implement a color picker or even just a set of pre-defined colors to choose from. The latter option would be the quickest and easiest thing to do because they wouldn't need to create any bespoke UI for it, it could simply be implemented as another slider in the "Game" options and fit right in with the existing UI.

Do you think that would help Quirken? Because I think it would be the dev's preferred solution (at least as a quick fix). Since it would allow the game to look the same for those who have grown used to the reticule color and may find it jarring if it suddenly changed, but it would also allow others to pick a different color from a predefined list in the options that could simply be added as another slider and wouldn't require any new menu UI. I'm sure they'll consider it.

Cheers, good gaming!

[⎝⧹Quirken⧸⎠]

yeah, I'm all for giving everyone options to tweak it to their liking.

out of curiosity, do you play sitting at a PC or on a couch? I would bet that's the difference. I sit 10 feet away (and play in 2p split screen) and so the crosshair blends in almost completely.

I just tried loading it while sitting at the computer and it is indeed very visible when it's about 1-2 ft away

[Max Is Back]

Originally posted by Quirken:

yeah, I'm all for giving everyone options to tweak it to their liking.

out of curiosity, do you play sitting at a PC or on a couch? I would bet that's the difference. I sit 10 feet away (and play in 2p split screen) and so the crosshair blends in almost completely.

I just tried loading it while sitting at the computer and it is indeed very visible when it's about 1-2 ft away

Ah, you've got me there - I sit at my desk a couple feet from a 24" monitor so indeed, that may explain the difference. From a greater distance, sat on the couch or whatever, it probably is a lot harder to make out. Good point there.

Cheers, good gaming!