Controller support improvements planned?

[Captain Hammer]

I tried playing this game with my wife today with 2 controllers, and the experience was very confusing. Later, we found out online that you miss out on things like tooltips when you play with a controller instead of keyboard. Furthermore, certain menus (in options, for example) don't work with a controller. This is definitely the definition of "partial controller support" despite full controller support being advertised.

[Michel Marques]

I had the same experience recently trying to play the game with a friend, the OS just recognizes one mouse, so we have to use a controller too... even the character cloth color option isn't working properly right now with a controller

[The Dude]

+1

Playing it online now with two people that play with controllers and they find the experience pretty confusing.

[cyberswine]

We are planning to add a mode where the controller can control the mouse cursor, allowing you to see tool tips which is normally not accessible via the controller. We also are open to any other suggestions which would improve the controller experience.

[Dr. Faustus]

Controller is very inferior to mouse in this game. You press left on the stick or dpad and it goes in a diagonal. Can't we at least choose 90 degree or diagonal character movement?

[Zoom]

One suggestion would be that if you hold down a d-pad button or analog stick in the menus then (after a brief delay) it should repeat the action until you release it. The lack of this is especially frustrating when you want to give a certain amount of gold to another player.

[Manxome]

Originally posted by cyberswine:

We are planning to add a mode where the controller can control the mouse cursor, allowing you to see tool tips which is normally not accessible via the controller. We also are open to any other suggestions which would improve the controller experience.

It's great that you're planning to add improvements, but I strongly urge you to edit your Steam store listing in the mean time to say Partial Controller Support. Steam's definition of Full Controller Support is that you can run the game 100% with just a controller. One of the official examples of partial support is if you need a keyboard to enter your name but everything else is doable with controller. I can't even find a way to get past the party customization screen and actually start the game using only my controller!

I've only played the game briefly, but here's my immediate thoughts on what should be improved with a controller:

- There should be button icons displayed on the screen to tell the player how to do certain things with a controller; for instance, with an Xbox controller, there should be a Y button near your belt, and a back button near the end-turn hourglass.

- For major irreversible moves (like ending a turn), consider requiring the button to be held down for a half-second or so to confirm. (A timer should visibly fill up while you are holding to let the player know what's going on.) Haven't played enough yet to know whether this is appropriate, but I did end a turn accidentally once so far.

- When navigating menus with joystick or dpad, holding a direction should scroll faster (probably after a delay), and long menus should wrap around (possibly only if you stop on the first/last item and then press towards the edge). Right now, trying to adjust the volume with a controller is absurd!

- Have a button that puts the UI into a special "inspection mode" that lets you navigate through everything that has a mouse-hover tip instead of only functional controls. This should probably still be "press a direction to jump to the next thing in that direction", like a menu, rather than free-roaming joystick-mouse, but that's subject to screen layout working with that style.



On a tangential note: in my personal opinion, the next-best thing to controller support is mouse-only support (without requiring a keyboard)--this lets me play without a desk. If you could find a way to add mouse-only controls for the few things that currently require a keyboard or gamepad (such as pressing shift to see details on a weapon's attacks), that would be appreciated.

[Manxome]

- Controller should either have dedicated buttons for opening inventory and stat panels, or the buttons for opening those should be selectable from the belt via some number of key presses that does not depend on how many herbs you're carrying. Needing to click right-right-right-right-right to get to the end of the list every time I want to change equipment is painful.