Thread: Aiming: Mouse vs Joystick

A mouse also feels more natural, as well. It uses your whole hand, so it's more of an extension of your arm (it's not, but more so then a joystick) then a joystick because with a joystick you only use 1 thumb. I assume we're talking about that sort of joystick, though. The other kind, used for flying, is so much better then a mouse because of the set speed. You can move it in one direction and leave it there for a steady movement. When aiming in a FPS or RTS, you want fast, not as accurate and steady movements.

Plus, joysticks are just slower.

Originally Posted by Derek

If you look around online you'll find a story about Microsoft experimenting with crossplatform play, but canning it because casual PC gamers could dominate pro console gamers. I can't say for sure if the story is true though.

I believe thats a rumor.

Yes, I will post when iget home

Mobile-

there was an article... hold on...

"Microsoft had plans in motion to allow widespread crossplatform play between PC and Xbox 360 games, but those plans aren't in motion anymore.

Why is, that? Pretty simple, really -- the console players just couldn't hang.

Voodoo PC found Rahul Sood revealed that the prospect was discussed "many many months ago" but that Microsoft killed off the idea due to tests that revealed PC gamers "destroyed" console gamers every single time. According to Sood, "It would be embarrassing to the Xbox team in general had Microsoft launched this initiative."

PC gamers often tout the accuracy of mouse-and-keyboard play as their ace in the hole. Having gotten into PC gaming over the past year, I certainly agree that the accuracy can't be beat, although it does seem that it's accurate to the point of coddling. When you can point and click your headshots, it just doesn't feel like you've earned it."

PC gamers 'destroyed' console gamers in ... | GamesRadar

rahulsood: Console Gamers Get Killed against PC Gamers

PC gamers 'destroy' console gamers in crossplatform tests -Destructoid

BTW - i'm sure we've all wondered at some point or another why some enterprising soul hasn't come up with a mouse set-up that would work without a desk... like if you were sitting on a couch.

The short version (this sadly, is not the long version)



Think of the mouse on a mouse pad, with the pad as a representation of the screen and the mouse as the cursor, its kind of like an old school version of touch screen. You move it, it moves 'exactly' how you moved it, and the cursor goes where the mouse goes. Furthermore the ratio of movement to cursor movement is much closer to 1:1 (ill call this M:CM ratio), than on a joystick where Additionally, making tiny adjustments is intuitive and incredibly easy, especially given the M:CM ratio

Joysticks excel at quick large movements but become increasingly difficult to use reliably, the smaller the movement becomes. This is the exact opposite of a mouse, where smaller movements on are easier but larger movements become more difficult (and take more time and mousepad space to complete, though this is why mouse software implementations have an acceleration feature to compensate for time and space given large movements).

In FPS: Joysticks would be good for close quarter (3m-8m) combat where the level of sloppiness that the joystick produces is compensated by the fact that characters are larger on the screen (linear perspective). This of course means that the further away your target is, the smaller the movements you need to make for precise aiming, the more difficult it is to use a joystick.


(I made this in under 2 minutes so anyone who wants to laugh can shove it :P). Here theres a joystick in the center (highlighted in green), and the red/white targets represent the axies of the aiming joystick. You get quick and easy aiming. But if you need to turn around and aim at a target behind you or anything thats not on that picture, mouse wins, every damn time.

Anything that requires precision the mouse will tromp the joystick every time. Sniping for example, this precision makes lineup shots infinity easier (not reflex shots, but shots that you have to manually aim for). Additionally, the mouse is just as good for close quarter combat as unlike the joystick, the user also has the speed at which they move the mouse, unlike the joystick users which have to press-n-hold the joystick and wait for their aim to fall.

Though, a counter argument does exist for the joystick users in regards to aiming methodologies, for example tweak and move (tweak aim then physically move your character in order to move the target into crosshairs). However, there are significantly fewer aiming methodologies that are even applicable to the joystick, let alone actually better at than the mouse.



If you want to make a overconfident joystick user cry, get them to try and navigate a nested navigation menu (ex Dynamic Drive CSS Library- Nested Side Bar Menu 'folder 2') with their joystick. For them it's like the mouses version of that cursor maze game (Scary Maze Game | Labyrinth Maze - Flash Games FYI: it has that startle scream near the end, a few levels in).




TLDR: In short Mouse excels at precision, were a joystick excels at quick (though sloppy) movements.




Hmm actually, a truely efficient setup, would be to have joystick controlling movement (ie being SOLEY your WSAD) and having the rest of the keyboard and a mouse for aiming (for example the g15 could be used to accomplish this.)



edit: WTF why did all my spacing disappear

did you write that?

This doesn't even include the fact that there are dead zones built into joysticks to prevent unwanted movement due to the stick not being completely centered. This dead zone makes it almost impossible to be accurate in small increments because you have to push the stick out of the zone before it registers anything. It absolutely sucks.

edit:

Here is a question you can ask joystick noobs: If the joystick is so accurate why do all console games require aim assist?
answer: BECAUSE JOYSTICKS ARE NOT ACCURATE

Originally Posted by Cojiro

did you write that?

course, when have i ever, EVER fully quoted a article.


Futhermore, who else just starts slapping down comma's in mega-runon sentences because they are too lazy from being too sleep-deprived and taking some space with periods after writing a 60+ page paper?