Console limitations - How much truth in such claims?

[Carrion]

Fighting games being better on a gamepad is up for debate. While a gamepad does allow for easier "circles" you can reconfigure the directional buttons on a keyboard and make it easier to execute combos.

Shoulder buttons are probably the biggest advantage of a gamepad there, as they ideally act as modifier buttons for executing different moves. For the same reason they're also a good fit for many sports games.

Analog sticks/buttons obviously have many advantages over mouse and keyboard, as aside from allowing a much better level of control in racing games they also allow you to have things like 360-degree movement in games with a fixed camera. A lot of that stuff can't be properly replicated on a KB + mouse setup, and even if you could do it on a technical level (like tying analog movement to the mouse), it probably wouldn't be nearly as enjoyable to play. On the other hand mouse and keyboard are pretty much objectively better for most genres that actually matter, like RPGs, strategy games, first-person and third-person shooters, point-and-click adventures, management sims and other more elaborate simulators. Another advantage of the PC is that you're not tied to a single control method, so you can very well design a racing sim for racing wheel and pedals, a sports game for a gamepad, or a flight simulator for a joystick or some more professional control device. On the other hand, while you can plug a keyboard and mouse into your console, it's still probably not viable to release a console game that can't be played with the standard controller*. This, obviously, is a huge limitation that grealy affects the gameplay and UI design.

* Yes, I know that there are exceptions, like light gun shooters and Steel Battalion, but few of those games actually turned much of a profit.

 

[sullynathan]

^In many 3D Brawlers you need to fight while you are surrounded by enemies, so being able to strike in any direction instead of the 8 that WSAD allows for is much preferable. And there is stuff like MGR where you must strike exactly in the direction of the enemy in order to parry.

Trying to play MGR with a mouse and keyboard was a mistake I made but I beat a few missions with it.

 

[Dev_Anj]

Analog sticks/buttons obviously have many advantages over mouse and keyboard, as aside from allowing a much better level of control in racing games they also allow you to have things like 360-degree movement in games with a fixed camera. A lot of that stuff can't be properly replicated on a KB + mouse setup, and even if you could do it on a technical level (like tying analog movement to the mouse), it probably wouldn't be nearly as enjoyable to play.

I do agree with this, but it's not like things like that can't be replicated to a certain degree on a keyboard; the rotate left and right buttons do exist in some games. But yes, ultimately the advantage controllers have over a keyboard and mouse is that they offer more convenient control schemes in some situations, like fighting games and racing games, while keyboard and mouse offer a lot of flexibility. This, I feel, is where a lot of the debate between the two control schemes stems from.

 

[Gerrard]

^In many 3D Brawlers you need to fight while you are surrounded by enemies, so being able to strike in any direction instead of the 8 that WSAD allows for is much preferable. And there is stuff like MGR where you must strike exactly in the direction of the enemy in order to parry.

Trying to play MGR with a mouse and keyboard was a mistake I made but I beat a few missions with it.

I beat the whole game with M+K, the only real issue was the awfully implemented aiming in blade mode that could've been really easy with a mouse if they just wanted to make it.

 

[Carrion]

I do agree with this, but it's not like things like that can't be replicated to a certain degree on a keyboard; the rotate left and right buttons do exist in some games.

Sure, you can have tank controls with a fixed turning speed, which can work in a slow-paced adventure game or a top-down shooter, but it would be completely useless in something like FIFA. Analog movement with a fixed camera is not really something you can directly replicate on a keyboard, and in practice your choices are to either go for 8-direction movement or an entirely different control scheme, i.e. basing the direction of movement on the character rather than the camera — and those are precisely the types of compromises that console games are criticized for when they try to replace the mouse with analog sticks or the d-pad.

 

[Ash]

Since consolefags tried to steal "hack 'n slash" from Diablo-like games, no.

Lol, no. Hack and slash games existed before Diablo.

On the other hand mouse and keyboard are pretty much objectively better for most genres that actually matter

Genres that matter to you, probably only because you've not done enough exploring and are highly biased. To me, something like Dark Souls is far more interesting than point and click adventure games, which generally lack gameplay aside from puzzles and generally figuring out what to do next.

 

[abija]

Dark Souls is better with M&K (when mouse is implemented). Fighting games are better with a keyboard (it's debatable, depending on game, between arcade stick and keyboard, gamepad is always inferior).
You could very easy implement a mouse based control scheme in FIFA way better than gamepad. That's valid for pretty much every genre, unless the devs refuse to implement a proper scheme k&m > gamepad.

 

[Carrion]

To me, something like Dark Souls is far more interesting than point and click adventure games

Dark Souls works better on a gamepad because they never tried to make a proper KB + M adaptation of it in the first place. Blade of Darkness, for example, plays very well with both keyboard and mouse. Both setups have their advantages, of course.

You could very easy implement a mouse based control scheme in FIFA way better than gamepad.

Not really. They actually tried it a few years back with their PC port, back when they still had a different version of the game for the PC and the consoles. What they tried to do was to use the mouse to give you full 360-degree control of your passes and shots, like with a gamepad, and while it kind of worked it also felt rather sluggish and cumbersome. I guess a pretty good comparison would be playing a shooter with thumbsticks: for a PC FPS veteran that's used to a mouse it feels like you have to drag the crosshair across the screen in a less than ideal way, and similarly replacing the thumbsticks with a mouse in FIFA felt like you were sacrificing some of the quickness and precision since you needed to move the cursor all around the screen instead of being able to switch direction with just a quick push of a thumbstick. It was a functional but clearly inferior control scheme, and you were still stuck with 8-direction movement anyway. The most notable steps forward in the series came when the developers stopped designing the games for the keyboard and concentrated on fully utilizing the better control method, which really is something that you should be doing regardless of the genre instead of getting these multiplatform nightmares with terrible UIs and weird hybrid control schemes. If you want to make a realistic racing sim, you don't design it for a fucking keyboard, you design it for a racing wheel and pedals. If you want to make an isometric RPG, you'll do it with the notion that the player will be using a mouse like any decent human being.

 

[sullynathan]

Blade of Darkness, for example, plays very well with both keyboard and mouse.

It works well but I'd argue that it would work even better with a controller, the game is damn near a button masher

 

[Severian Silk]

I gave up on mgr. Combat is too tricky, even with Controller.

 

[A horse of course]

Dark Souls works better on a gamepad because they never tried to make a proper KB + M adaptation of it in the first place. Blade of Darkness, for example, plays very well with both keyboard and mouse. Both setups have their advantages, of course.

Severance's movement system is very different to most action games, though. It's closer to Resident Evil 4 than Dark Souls.

 

[abija]

Not really. They actually tried it a few years back with their PC port, back when they still had a different version of the game for the PC and the consoles. What they tried to do was to use the mouse to give you full 360-degree control of your passes and shots, like with a gamepad, and while it kind of worked it also felt rather sluggish and cumbersome.

That's because they tried to emulate gamepad control instead of trying to fully utilize m&k. You cold use a control scheme derived from rts/mobas and make the current directional control look like a poor joke.