Why do we still have to hold a button down to auto-fire?

[Veracity]

This is...probably not frightfully interesting, but something I've wondered about for a little while. Older shooters tended to require mashing of the primary attack button for rapid fire. This seems largely to have been dropped in favour of defaulting to auto-fire, as far as I know. The main exception is probably variations on charged shots like R-Type's, and ported versions even of games with charged shots probably allow mapping auto-fire to a separate input.

Continuous auto-fire throughout stages seems still to be the standard approach to a lot of games - to play these, you're depressing the primary fire control at the beginning of a stage and rarely releasing it. Wouldn't it make more sense for the player's ship to fire continuously by default, treating the input either as 'hold fire', or as a toggle?

I don't think this really matters from a playability point of view; it just seems like inefficient use of the interface, so I wonder if it's kind of a hangover from the button-mashing days. Or maybe the idea is more that mapping a depressed button to 'don't fire' would strike people as counter-intuitive?

[ReKleSS]

Well... press-to-not-fire would just be weird. Anyway, for scoring purposes there are many times when you want to stop firing, depending on the game. I can't think of many recent games where you want to be on the fire button the whole time.

Anyway, it's probably a mostly tradition thing, but try leaving something heavy on your fire button, and try playing - it just feels weird.

[D]

This is...probably not frightfully interesting, but something I've wondered about for a little while. Older shooters tended to require mashing of the primary attack button for rapid fire. This seems largely to have been dropped in favour of defaulting to auto-fire, as far as I know. The main exception is probably variations on charged shots like R-Type's, and ported versions even of games with charged shots probably allow mapping auto-fire to a separate input.

Continuous auto-fire throughout stages seems still to be the standard approach to a lot of games - to play these, you're depressing the primary fire control at the beginning of a stage and rarely releasing it. Wouldn't it make more sense for the player's ship to fire continuously by default, treating the input either as 'hold fire', or as a toggle?

I don't think this especially matters from a playability point of view; it just seems like inefficient use of the interface, so I wonder if it's kind of a hangover from the button-mashing days. Or maybe the idea is more that mapping a depressed button to 'don't fire' would strike people as counter-intuitive?

You are almost right.
For R-type it should've been like this.
When the shot button is not pressed, the beam shoulkd charge and now when the shot button is pressed the beam is shot and auto fire starts continuesly.
I think some games have this mechanism.
I do think that button mashing was the way most games were in old arcades. It was also a skill to mash as quick as possible. Humanity has become more lazy and I too can't see myself standing in an arcade button mashing like an idiot.
Then there were games like UN Squadron/Area88 and Carrier airwing/ US Navy where when you pressed the shot button and short burst of auto fire was released, this was way better than mashing, a big improvement.
But there are also shooter were rank is determined by the amount of bullets fired and/or amount of bullets that miss the target.
Great topic and I'm dying to find out what others think.
Also changing your topic subject title might entice more people to join in.
I almost refused, but got carried in by curiosity
modal, model

[CIT]

There is one game, Gleylancer for Megadrive, I know of that has the option to make the ship fire by default. It's weird though, I don't feel like I'm the one blowing shit up anymore.

[Edge]

Or maybe the idea is more that mapping a depressed button to 'don't fire' would strike people as counter-intuitive?

I think that is the case. I am imagining this toggling would feel very weird, but you might get used to it after a while. Still I prefer to keep the button pushed.

For R-type it should've been like this.
When the shot button is not pressed, the beam shoulkd charge and now when the shot button is pressed the beam is shot and auto fire starts continuesly.

That is an interesting setup and might have worked for R-Type 1. But in R-Type 2 you need the charge bar on a certain point in order to make that super shot. If the game would auto charge your shot, this feature would become very stressful. Also I think if you keep a button pushed, you can kinda feel the shot charging, very intuitive set-up. So I say the way R-Type works is just right how it is. Despite the missing Auto Fire Button which is implemented in R-Type Delta.


@Veracity:
You can map keys in MAME to toggle autofire like you suggested. Might be interesting for you to try out, if you didn't already do so.

[Monk 0 Nuggets]

I think this is a cool idea that could be implimented in a game with this setup in mind.

[neorichieb1971]

I hate that squiggly weapon in Raiden fighters 2, once you get it powered up you just hold the shoot button, its silly.

I have tons of shmup ideas that would add technical skill, none of which have never been implemented that i've seen.

[Turrican]

In don't think Gleylancer is the only one with this option, although I couldn't name another right now - anyway it's a cool option that makes the game especially keyboard friendly imho.

Much more widespread however is the "don't hold buttons to power up" shots, as seen in Dragon Saber and Thunderforce IV. This kind of reversed charge beam taught your fingers to leave buttons alone.

[glitch]

In don't think Gleylancer is the only one with this option

true!
Star Soldier PSP has this option too.
it's.... very awkward.

Much more widespread however is the "don't hold buttons to power up" shots, as seen in Dragon Saber and Thunderforce IV. This kind of reversed charge beam taughts your fingers to leave buttons alone.

also, Recca!
works for me. ^_^

[Ganelon]

Well, it would invalidate shot rate as a factor for increasing rank.

But I sure wouldn't mind playing a shooter with 1 hand, which isn't really effectively possible in Gleylancer.

[Ghegs]

But I sure wouldn't mind playing a shooter with 1 hand, which isn't really effectively possible in Gleylancer.

This calls for a joke about hentai shmups. Or possibly Cho Aniki.

[Minzoku]

But I sure wouldn't mind playing a shooter with 1 hand, which isn't really effectively possible in Gleylancer.

Funny, I've been doing that recently Yay, PC mouse-driven shmups!

[Veracity]

changing your topic subject title might entice more people to join in

I did mean 'modal' - was initially thinking of a toggle between firing/not firing modes, but 'modal shot' could also refer to toggling between different firing configs for the primary button. Anyway, changed for clarity.

This calls for a joke about hentai shmups.

I was anticipating possible reactionary-styled accusations of extreme laziness ('Why not have the game do the dodging for you, while you're at it?'), but this I didn't think of. Ew. The button layout on most keyboard numpads is reasonably conducive to setting up one-handed control, but it'd probably be too awkward for twitchy games.

You can map keys in MAME to toggle autofire

I don't use MAME, which is kind of limiting considering I mostly rely on a PC for gaming, but I'm not really comfortable emulating hardware I don't own. I do emulate old consoles for convenience, though.

I realize a lot of games give you good reasons not to be firing all the time, but I think there are a fair few still around where this would be somewhat appropriate. What brought it to the front of my mind was that I've been playing Embodiment of Scarlet Devil recently. Even if you're ceasing fire at times to control item spawns and bonuses, that tends to want auto-fire on at least as often as off, and if you're just concentrating on not dying you may as well tape down the button and be done with it.

Does anyone know of either a configurable controller or TSR application that might handle this? I know some controllers with hardware auto-fire can keep sending continuous press/release signals without holding a button down. I have an ancient analogue flight-sim stick that can be programmed to alternate between key press and release codes, which is ideal for converting a 'hold button' control to a toggle, but I haven't seen anything more modern that seems to support that kind of low-level control. The Logitech USB pad I use at the moment has fairly good config options for games that don't support remapping, but I don't think it can be told to send press and release separately.

[Pixel_Outlaw]

It just adds a (very) small level of interaction.

[mulletgeezer]

The obscure c64 title Scorpius had continuous autofire while the button was not being pressed, it felt a bit strange i thought.

[Turrican]

Wait, now I remember, I used such a feature recently, in Sigma Star Saga! A couple of power ups give you continuous fire and by pressing button you can redirect your shoot or reposition some firing pods.

We already found four, but I'm sure there are more out there!

[louisg]

I don't think this really matters from a playability point of view; it just seems like inefficient use of the interface, so I wonder if it's kind of a hangover from the button-mashing days. Or maybe the idea is more that mapping a depressed button to 'don't fire' would strike people as counter-intuitive?

I think the biggest reason, aside from modern shmups in which something different happens when you start/stop shooting, is that games which do this kind of break the correlation between a player hitting a control and the controlled character performing an action. In games like the Genesis ports of Afterburner 2 and Midnight Resistance, this was the case. While it made sense from a dry interface design standpoint (that it frees up other buttons to be used or simplifies the controls), it led imho to a strange, disconnected feeling for the player.

[Andi]

But I sure wouldn't mind playing a shooter with 1 hand, which isn't really effectively possible in Gleylancer.

One handed playing means you can put a joystick in each hand and control the second player too. Or at least I would, because I'm a pimp like that.

[DJ Incompetent]

The requirement to hold the fire button feels more like an "interactive psychological stimulation." While you may get bored of killing enemies by holding a button after prolonged play, the fact remains, it is you, the player who is directly killing the enemies, not the ship, not the game. You.

When the game does the firing for you, that almost primitive sensation of you blowing stuff up and actively participating in your scoring is virtually lost.
Is it more ergonomic? Yeah. Does it increase your scoring opportunities now that you have less to do? Maybe. Does it enhance your interactivity & immersion playing the shooting game? Not really.

Go and play this shmup. It does exactly what was asked. Autofire with no button.

Now play this one. 'Still with holding autofire. I'll hope you can dismiss the presentation upgrade and see my point. Do you feel like you're actually killing these enemies? Is that slightly more satisfying to you than the other game with all-too-similar play mechanics?

And that is why the autofire process was never fully automated.


I'm sure The Rando can explain this better. Until then, I hope you understand my hypothesis.

[Ed Oscuro]

When the shot button is not pressed, the beam shoulkd charge and now when the shot button is pressed the beam is shot and auto fire starts continuesly.

Can you say Recca? I love that game.

Edit: Oops, Glitch beat me to it. Heh, beat. LOL YOU GUYZ

[ktownhero]

What I want to know is why there are no games that dodge the bullets for you yet?

[iatneH]

Remember those old games where you could shoot more if you mashed the button faster? And even Mushihime-sama has something like this?

Here we'll be able to..uhm... not press the button faster!

[D]

What I want to know is why there are no games that dodge the bullets for you yet?

Iky

[PC Engine Fan X!]

I did an experiment with Capcom's Sidearms PCB (the original JPN Bios version dated 1986, of course) -- it has been determined that the standard default "auto-fire" power-up once picked up is faster than if such an after-market added auto-fire switch is turned on (mapped to either Left or Right "Fire" button control scheme).

On the Turbo Force/Hyper Force PCB, auto-fire is given to the player at the start of the game -- it is by accumulation of power-ups that the spread of auto-fire widens. Get hit by a stray bullet, you still do have auto-fire capability but regresses back to level "0", of course. ^_~

Some old shmup PCB-based games such as Seibu Kaihatsu's Raiden II PCB (circa 1993) do benefit from an external auto-fire hack to save "wear 'n' tear" on the player's fingers (when using the homing "purple" colored laser). It is considered a luxury to have such auto-fire capability at a moments notice when playing with arcade PCBs. ^_~

Sanwa did make such an external auto-fire PCB that connected between an arcade Jamma PCB and the 56-pin Jamma edge interface...unfortunately, it's been discontinued as of 2006. It supplies auto-fire at a fixed rate & is non-adjustable. ^_~

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~