Analog vs. Digital Control

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thaIllsburyFlowboy
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Analog vs. Digital Control

Post by thaIllsburyFlowboy »

Hi all,

The search surprisingly did not yield many results regarding this. Is analog control unilaterally "better" than digital in terms of achieving high scores? On one hand, it's better to be able to move more gradually than digital permits, but on the other, in situations where rapid movement is better, one would assume digital has the edge since the player with a directional pad or arcade stick will be able to go from zero to one hundred percent instantly, whereas an analog player will have to travel through the full range of the joystick before reaching the extreme value. It seems then like a combination of both would be ideal - thoughts?
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Jonpachi
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Re: Analog vs. Digital Control

Post by Jonpachi »

thaIllsburyFlowboy wrote:Hi all,

The search surprisingly did not yield many results regarding this. Is analog control unilaterally "better" than digital in terms of achieving high scores? On one hand, it's better to be able to move more gradually than digital permits, but on the other, in situations where rapid movement is better, one would assume digital has the edge since the player with a directional pad or arcade stick will be able to go from zero to one hundred percent instantly, whereas an analog player will have to travel through the full range of the joystick before reaching the extreme value. It seems then like a combination of both would be ideal - thoughts?
The entire question is faulty unfortunately, as there are very few shmups that are built around true analog movement. As such, all you're getting with an analog stick is a terrible way to control a game built around purely digital movement. There are a few exceptions, such as Pawarumi, but those are rare.
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mamboFoxtrot
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Re: Analog vs. Digital Control

Post by mamboFoxtrot »

(tl;dr: Theoretically, perhaps yes, but it would be much more difficult to become that precise and consistent with analog input.)

If we assume a parallel world where, say, home ports of arcade shmups normally added analog control the way Saturn Soukyuugurentai did...
Specifically regarding "achieving high scores", I remember Banamatic made a comment some years ago that since high scoring often requires you to plan out very specific routes, analog control would "add a lot of unwanted noise" to your movement plans. It'd be much harder to consistently be in the same spot every time if you're drifting around in subpixels.
As for "going from 0 to 100", don't forget also "going from 100 to 0"; often being able to stop on a dime, rather than continuing to drift into a bullet, is more important. But when scoring you'll be relying less on split-second reaction times most of the time, right?
Being able to drift slowly across the screen would probably not be as useful as tap dodging? The spurts in the taps sometimes help make the gaps in the bullets needed to cut back through.

From my own "game dev" experience in mucking around with analog controls (and from playing a few existing shmups with actual analog controls), it's... well it has it's ups and downs. Sure, yeah, you can move any way you want, but getting the actual precise movement you want from a thumb twitch turns out to be pretty hard. You might press up or left wanting to go straight but then drift a bit diagonally. It depends a lot not only on the programming of the controls (deadzones and whatnot), but the make of the stick, as well. Even if you became an analog-stick monk to finally achieve laser-precision, you'd probably have a much harder time transferring that skill between different games or controllers than you would with d-pads or arcade sticks. Just look at how picky Smash players get about their controllers and sticks lol.
(Though speaking of Smash, someone had made an arcade stick for playing Smash, turning it into a digital control game, and I'm pretty sure this controller was banned for being "game breaking"? Though whether that was because tapping a button is faster than moving a stick, or if because the buttons allowed for impossible combinations of directions or buttons I don't really know)

But all of this very heavily depends on the design of the game and how much precision or improvisation etc it demands, what kinds of movements its bullet patterns or terrain asks for, how much being able to move in arbitrary speeds or angles means anything, etc etc.

I've really got no clue on how you'd "combine" them, beyond just supporting both? Some pad-players already kinda bounce between the analog stick and d-pad anyways. (Or some wackadoodle nonsense with having both WASD and Mouse control active simultaneously lol)
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AimeeSH
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Re: Analog vs. Digital Control

Post by AimeeSH »

I think most use a button modifier/toggle to control your speed and rarely if ever is done via analogue. Often its combined with your focus fire shot.

Most shmups tend to avoid inertia mechanics which analogue movement would add back in to some degree.

I think its more common in mobile, where the ship is tied to your finger movement. Can move as fast or slow as you want but breaks game balance unless it was built around it. For example AKA to Blue.
sunnshiner
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Re: Analog vs. Digital Control

Post by sunnshiner »

There's too much throw on an analogue stick and the feel is too mushy for it to be any use (for me) in games that need quick reactions and different speed levels (Cave type games where the speed changes are pretty much instantaneous or at least predictable notwithstanding) may start to feel like inertia- no ta.
thaIllsburyFlowboy
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Re: Analog vs. Digital Control

Post by thaIllsburyFlowboy »

mamboFoxtrot wrote:I've really got no clue on how you'd "combine" them, beyond just supporting both? Some pad-players already kinda bounce between the analog stick and d-pad anyways. (Or some wackadoodle nonsense with having both WASD and Mouse control active simultaneously lol)
I was thinking switching between pads, yes, but I think people have made some valid points regarding the tradeoffs involved and the idea that a lot of these games simply are not programmed to use analog.

I think with racing games it might be somewhat different. I get the feeling with some of them that the turn increases exponentially when the direction is held down, such that three one-second taps to the left are less of a turn than a single left held for three seconds. It makes it more difficult to find the aforementioned "ideal route." Unless it's along the same path digitally or with analog, it seems that analog would be better in such games.
sunnshiner
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Re: Analog vs. Digital Control

Post by sunnshiner »

thaIllsburyFlowboy wrote: I was thinking switching between pads, yes, but I think people have made some valid points regarding the tradeoffs involved and the idea that a lot of these games simply are not programmed to use analog.

I think with racing games it might be somewhat different. I get the feeling with some of them that the turn increases exponentially when the direction is held down, such that three one-second taps to the left are less of a turn than a single left held for three seconds. It makes it more difficult to find the aforementioned "ideal route." Unless it's along the same path digitally or with analog, it seems that analog would be better in such games.
Your mentioning driving games reminded me of V-Rally on PS1 BITD. It absolutely sucked with digital controls because when you pressed a direction the car's wheels would immediately go to full lock in whichever direction you pressed so the cars would just understeer into the scenery because of the floaty physics in the game. Sega Rally on the Saturn was totally different though, it actually plays really well with a dpad (and so does Outrun 2/2006/C2C/Online Arcade). Afterburner Climax works well (not better, just different) with digital controls too because you can reach all parts of the screen whereas you can't with the standard analog stick because of the stick's circular gate. There's no (or so little I can't feel it) inertia in that game though.

Anyhoo, back on topic, sorry. Thinking about Afterburner Climax and the way it controls, it works because the plane + crosshair always snap back to their starting points on the screen when there's no input. You don't want the character to start making its way back to the centre of the screen when there's no input in a shmup (the slight drifting effect in RayStorm HD is offputting for me). If a shmup were to incude analog movement then there's need to be an option to use digital with speed change buttons (up and down, not just cycling through them) and the two control types would need to be kept separate, ie no 'hold a direction longer to speed up' nonsense, just on or off like regular shmups and coming to a dead stop immediately, no slowing down through the speeds if the player was using maximum speed for example, it has to be zero inertia.
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heli
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Re: Analog vs. Digital Control

Post by heli »

It is not weird since most shmups have integer controls and movements, per pixel based.
I can only think of sine mora ex btw that have shitty controls, thats not a real game.

LOL integer steering racing game, make me smile.
sunnshiner
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Re: Analog vs. Digital Control

Post by sunnshiner »

heli wrote: LOL integer steering racing game, make me smile.
Ok, Outrun 2's steering is twitchy enough that digital steering works and the drift mechanic is digital anyway- off the throttle, tap brake, back on the throttle (in auto mode anyway, manual you just knock it down a gear to initiate the drift then shift back up) and taptaptap steering works really well in it. I don't know how old you are but for those of us that grew up with arcade ports with digital controls it makes perfect sense!

I might even be tempted back to try Crazy Taxi again now, thinking about it... :lol:
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heli
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Re: Analog vs. Digital Control

Post by heli »

Gran Turismo 7 still offers old school controls for those used to.
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Jeneki
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Re: Analog vs. Digital Control

Post by Jeneki »

If the game is designed from the ground-up for analog it should turn out ok. I suggest Score Rush (Xona Games) as an example of analog control that feels nice.
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Bassa-Bassa
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Re: Analog vs. Digital Control

Post by Bassa-Bassa »

sunnshiner wrote: I might even be tempted back to try Crazy Taxi again now, thinking about it...
Please let me know how it goes because I stopped playing it due to never being able to use the DC controller. I'm quite used to ports with digital controls as well.
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BareKnuckleRoo
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Re: Analog vs. Digital Control

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

thaIllsburyFlowboy wrote:On one hand, it's better to be able to move more gradually than digital permits
Digital controls are superior because of precision and rapid execution. The "granularity" on an analog controller actually doesn't help for the kinds of movements you need to do in most shmups.

Analog controls in a shmup make it difficult to make consistent tap movements. For instance, in some sections you can memorize the positioning for a safe spot by moving to the screen edge then tapping 3 times away. Digital controls let you quickly get consistently small, evenly spaced taps, whereas because of the nature of analog sticks, it's not as easy to get short taps. You might push the analog stick slightly and fail to exit the deadzone of the stick, or you might push it far and get a longer movement than intended.

Digital controls are also beneficial because you get instant ON/OFF movements. It allows for quick, high speed adjustments as opposed to having to accelerate for a frame or two as you start pushing the stick to the side. For games with very fast movement speed, something like a slow or focus button (like Touhou or something) helps you make more fine-tuned adjustment.

Analog controls also cause misinputs sometimes. It can be hard to move in a straight line without an accidental diagonal, especially if the game natively supports true analog movement, but sometimes you want the precision of moving in a truly straight up/down/left/right direction.
sunnshiner wrote:plays really well with a dpad (and so does Outrun 2/2006/C2C/Online Arcade).
100% agree. I've played both the PS2 version and the PC version of 2006 and they play just fine with digital input (dpad/keyboard). The steering's really well calibrated for that. Analog is obviously better for fine tuned steering and getting the best times, but you can play it no problems with digital controls.
SuperDeadite
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Re: Analog vs. Digital Control

Post by SuperDeadite »

If anyone wants to try real analog in a classic, the X68000 port of Kyukyoku Tiger supports true analog via mouse. (Hold F2 while booting, also holding F1 gives you auto-fire). You can move as fast as you want, even faster than the game can draw the sprite! It's wierd at first but quite a lot of fun with practice.
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copy-paster
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Re: Analog vs. Digital Control

Post by copy-paster »

I find PS2 controller's analog is really good for tap dodging, and I find it good for shmups too especially if the games on PS2 supports analog movement.
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Rastan78
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Re: Analog vs. Digital Control

Post by Rastan78 »

copy-paster wrote:I find PS2 controller's analog is really good for tap dodging, and I find it good for shmups too especially if the games on PS2 supports analog movement.
Lately I've been playing with analogue stick almost more than d pad on regular 8 way shmups. I know this is blasphemy, but I feel like it's not as bad as people make it out. You just need to do very tiny movements of the controller, just enough to move the stick out of the dead zone and let it come back to neutral.

I like the feel of the thumbstick and how easy it is to do inputs with hardly any pressure. Maybe a thumbstick with tiny microswitches inside like a Neo CD controller could be the best of both worlds?
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