Controls: touch vs. traditional?

[archagon]

First of all, hi! I'm new around here, as well as to the bullet-hell genre. I've watched videos of people fighting Cave/Touhou bosses before and always thought they were a bit crazy, but then I discovered the marvelous Jamestown and have been slowly working my way up from there. Now I have a bit of a dilemma in regards to control schemes that I'd appreciate your opinion on.

As far as I can tell, most arcade shmups feature 8-way digital joysticks. This means that you can never precisely control the position of your craft, only adjust the position in bursts (perhaps with the help of a "slow" button). Having played a few of these shmups in MAME, I found it immensely frustrating to navigate the bullet patterns with precision. It just felt like the already-difficult task of navigation was compounded by the imprecise controls.

Recently, I tried a few Cave shooters on the iPad. Now, I usually have an allergic reaction to iOS arcade ports, but the touch controls here were a revelation. I could suddenly weave in and out of patterns with the greatest of ease. This felt even better than an analogue gamepad: instead of manipulating my ship's velocity, I was essentially moving it directly with my finger. I still sucked horribly, but I felt like I no longer needed to worry about the controls getting me killed. For once, this was a port that added something to the game!

So now I'm a bit torn. The perfectionist in me wants to go for the most "authentic" experience (i.e. digital controls, or possibly analogue gamepad), but I can't deny the fact that touch controls felt much more fun. What's the community's take on this? Does using touch controls cheapen the gameplay, or is it a refinement of the original arcade experience? (After all, a lot of console shmups feature analogue gamepad controls, so maybe you could think of it as an evolution from 8-way digital to analogue gamepad to touch?) Can you train yourself to reach the same level of precision with conventional controls?

And on a related note, what about plain old analogue gamepad vs. 8-way digital? Any impassioned thoughts on that?

Thanks!

[drunkninja24]

IMO (especially true with Cave's iOS ports) the touch controls make most games significantly easier, since the patterns aren't really made with the fact that you can instantly zip around the screen in mind. The thing about controlling these games the "traditional" way that you have to keep in mind is that you can't typically move wildly around the screen. In many case, short movements are your best bet. Learning techniques like tap dodging are essential.

[matrigs]

it's so different that you can't really compare these two. it's not really like comparing automatic and manual transmissions in cars but rather playing football with segway's - it's a completely different game. but as ninja said those games were specifically made for dodging them on arcade sticks.

imho touch controls give you the false impression of being more accurate but aren't. a joystick allows you not only to make even one-pixel movements and is absolutely lagless but most importantly it allows you to move exactly in the direction you want. with touch controls you have a lot of algorhithm's going on for approximating your point of touch (bacause your finger touches a bigger surface) and smoothing movements.

when it comes to gamepads - i don't bother. people have hi-score with gamepads. for me personally my hands start to ache to much when playing on a pad. i think the only game i really like to play on one is gigawing 2 for the dreamcast as it has analog controls with the stick which is really nice.

[Eaglet]

This means that you can never precisely control the position of your craft

lol
Sticks allow pixel-precise movement. Just like any other control method except touch.

Having played a few of these shmups in MAME, I found it immensely frustrating to navigate the bullet patterns with precision

Input lag or teh suck.


I haven't played any of the iOS ports myself but i expect that with the increased movement speed (your finger is the limit) you should be able to easily sidestep most patterns.
Not having to dodge is not exactly what the genre is about.

[archagon]

There is obviously a lot of teh suck going on, which is why I'm asking the question. There is no need to mock me.

Sticks allow pixel-precise movement. Just like any other control method except touch.

Say what you will about touch controls, but it's actually very easy to move 1px once your finger is down on the surface. (I just tried it out.) What's more, you have a full 360 degrees of freedom as opposed to the 8 joystick directions.

[AntiFritz]

I'm not sure how you could have something more precise then digital controls, touch controls certainly are not. Having said that on a phone i don't think digital controls would work all that well (hence the need for touch). I haven't played any of the smartphone ports though.

[NzzpNzzp]

This means that you can never precisely control the position of your craft

Pretty certain I can.
Damn certain those dudes who are 2-alling Ketsui or whatever can.

[archagon]

That's not what I'm saying. Let me clarify:

Say you're on the lower-right corner of the screen. There's a narrow curved tunnel that you have to go through to get to the upper-left corner. With a joystick — especially a digital joystick — this would be difficult. You'd constantly have to correct your direction. With touch, it's easy: you just trace the tunnel with your finger and you're there. Works every time.

I'd say the touch controls are more precise in this case.

[NTSC-J]

Yea, I think you should just spend more time with digital controls. The vast majority of pro players use them and most of us here do too, just check out some of the superplays in the youtube thread to see what people have done not just with arcade sticks but even keyboards.

Personally, I find touch controls floaty and imprecise. I can see how one would assume touch would be better, but I find them difficult especially when it comes to positioning. Many times you'll want to be perfectly still, but a touch control picks up on the slightest movements so your character may nudge over if your finger pressure changes. With an arcade stick or a Saturn pad I can stop on a dime.

[NzzpNzzp]

I'd say the touch controls are more precise in this case.

I think that's just because you're new to using sticks in general. Once you're used to them you can do whatever you want with no problems.

Dark Sword is pretty hard to use though I suppose. But I think that's kind of the point of Dark Sword.

[Ed Oscuro]

Joysticks and keyboards in general = constant vectored movement
Mouse and I guess now touch control = discontinuous movement

Ever seen the "blooper reel" version of the original Star Trek intro where they hitched up the sounds of a Model T sputtering and backfiring to the jerky motion of the Enterprise across the screen?

[Friendly]

Touch control is for women, not shmups.

/topic

[Demetori]

I find the touch precise and where I want to go. Digital controls, I always have a massive fear of dying and always do in places where I just stop and think, wait.. I only tapped the stick, why did the ship go four feet that way and in to that bullet?

I haven't gotten past that hurdle, and my stick is decent as well. I just have way too much of a constricted feeling with them.

[Ed Oscuro]

wait.. I only tapped the stick, why did the ship go four feet that way and in to that bullet?

I haven't gotten past that hurdle, and my stick is decent as well.

From the description you give, either your stick isn't decent, or it's the wrong kind for shmups, or there's lag somewhere in the system.

[Special World]

If you like the touch-control games, then play those. No need to ask us if you're having fun.

You'll be missing out on a lot of great games that way, though.

[FetusZero]

I personally find touch controls to be awful. I can't conceive how people play shmups on smartphones, or any game for that matter o_o

Out of every control schemes I've seen, I still prefer keyboard though.. but I only really started getting in shmups with bullet hells on PC, so that probably plays a lot on why I prefer keyboard-controls for shmups.

In my opinion, keyboard > sticks / gamepad > touch. I do expect this to be different for a lot of people, as it will always come down to what one feels the most comfortable using, or even what they grew up with when playing shmups. We hardly had any shmups at arcades here except one, which I don't even remember the name of because I was too busy playing House of the Dead over and over.

[Moniker]

I've wondered before why analogue control has never really caught on for shmups. Mostly due to tradition and conformity to arcade hardware, I imagine? Score Rush is a bullet hell game that works very well with analogue sticks, but it's the only one I know of.

I haven't played much with touch controls since there aren't many good shmups out for Android, but I've played the ESPG2 demo on a friend's ipad a few times and it felt really good and responsive. May get more frustrating on later stages, but I wouldn't know.

[Frederik]

The iOS CAVE ports are the only games I still play on my iPod Touch, except some random puzzle game once in a while. I personally think the "touch makes everything easier" argument is nonsense, try Ultra mode on Mushi with touch controls, it is just as hard as playing it with traditional controls.

For ship controls I really, really enjoy the way the CAVE ports handle - smooth as butter and without a hitch. However, the big problem isn´t the ship control, but the fire control. DDP Ressurection was quite annoying to play with those tiny virtual buttons on the side (probably much better on an iPad), and I just didn´t even bother trying to play Espgaluda II the way it´s supposed to be.

So for me, the touch controls on the iOS ports are just something very different from digital input. Especially Mushi is a ton of fun to play, since the game has a lot of smooth, wavy patterns and it´s great to precisely dive through the clouds of pink death.
But the virtual buttons really kill it for more serious play - trying to play something like Super Crate Box with those dumb virtual buttons that cover half the screen is just not any fun to me at all.

What you really wanna get is one of these nifty things:



The Sega Saturn USB controller remake. It´s simply the best digital d-pad I´ve ever held in my hand, nothing comes close. Light, clicky, precise. Learn to love the feel of a good piece of hardware in your hands. The feel of the feedback a good controller gives you. Or maybe try out a good arcade stick, with their sweet loud clicking noises. How you really push hard on those buttons during an intense bossfight.

Don´t get me wrong, I love that I´m able to play the iOS ports, but nothing beats proper hardware controllers. The cold, sterile feel of smearing my finger across a piece of glass is okay once in a while but doesn´t fill my heart with the love a nice piece of colorful plastic being crunched in my sweaty palms gives me.

Oh, and AVOID ANALOGUE INPUT at all costs. These are great for playing modern 3D games, but for 2D games you need a simple 8-way, on/off d-pad. Analogue joysticks are fine for titles like Geometry Wars that are programmed with these inputs in mind, but not your traditional shmups that relies on precise little inputs of 8 directions.

Have fun

[MR_Soren]

As far as I can tell, most arcade shmups feature 8-way digital joysticks. This means that you can never precisely control the position of your craft, only adjust the position in bursts (perhaps with the help of a "slow" button). Having played a few of these shmups in MAME, I found it immensely frustrating to navigate the bullet patterns with precision. It just felt like the already-difficult task of navigation was compounded by the imprecise controls.

Nothing is more precise than digital. Any given direction is either on or off. Maybe you're getting bad input lag in MAME, but try playing Deathsmiles or Mushi on a 360 with a seimitsu stick and tell me it's not precise.

Recently, I tried a few Cave shooters on the iPad. Now, I usually have an allergic reaction to iOS arcade ports, but the touch controls here were a revelation. I could suddenly weave in and out of patterns with the greatest of ease. This felt even better than an analogue gamepad: instead of manipulating my ship's velocity, I was essentially moving it directly with my finger.

First, you would never want to play a shoot-em-up designed for digital controls with an analog stick. That whole precise on-off thing? Too sloppy with analog. Different story if the game is designed for it I suppose.

Now, on to the finger thing. Yes, it's stupidly easy.

I love the iOS games, but I'll never deny that it feels like cheating. You're not only breaking game balance by totally ignoring the different move speeds for different ships and shot modes, but you can also zip across the screen in a fraction of a second or jump up to grab an item and return to where you were in just a few frames. Touch controls allow the player to perform moves that are downright impossible as the game was designed and cheat their way around patterns that might normally require dodging.

I would be curious to see an original shoot-em-up with bullet patterns designed for the arbitrary movement speeds on a touch device, but you're missing a part of the experience playing a stick-based game with your finger.

[Raytrace]

What you really wanna get is one of these nifty things:



The Sega Saturn USB controller remake. It´s simply the best digital d-pad I´ve ever held in my hand, nothing comes close. Light, clicky, precise. Learn to love the feel of a good piece of hardware in your hands. The feel of the feedback a good controller gives you.

While for shmups I use a stick - for 2d fighters I use a Saturn Pad going through a converter - that is without a doubt the best d-pad ever (though slightly thumb blister inducing) - The Mad Catz SF IV ones are pretty good though, but not quite as good as the real thing.

For me playing those shmups with touchscreens just feels wrong - the whole experience of shmups for me is on/off input play - a digital joystick

[hwl]

Taking the arcade stick out of the equation means removing the fun from playing shmups for me.
I mean really, shmups on touchscreen? I know they're there, but I despise them. <;

[dpful]

I agree with you on the wonders of touch control. I love the iPhone shmups. The three things that make me prefer sticks are:

1. I'm good/feel comfortable with sticks
2. My finger blocking part of the screen is a bother
3. The anticipation of a bunch of bullets coming my way vs. the speed of my ship is a big part of the shmup experience for me (opposed to the touch screen zip around). I always wondered why cave didn't include a steady speed "slow mode" in their shmups.

Mostly it's the finger blockage that bugs. I've got to try ipad

[MR_Soren]

I agree with you on the wonders of touch control. I love the iPhone shmups. The three things that make me prefer sticks are:

1. I'm good/feel comfortable with sticks
2. My finger blocking part of the screen is a bother
3. The anticipation of a bunch of bullets coming my way vs. the speed of my ship is a big part of the shmup experience for me (opposed to the touch screen zip around). I always wondered why cave didn't include a steady speed "slow mode" in their shmups.

Mostly it's the finger blockage that bugs. I've got to try ipad

I suspect iPad would be worse as there are times when your entire hand would be over the screen if you move past the middle.

You can keep your finger behind your ship, so I find that finger blockage is rarely a problem on the verts. It is quite a bother on Deathsmiles, however.

[ZenErik]

Finger on part of the screen isn't a huge deal with Cave's verts. However, it really zaps the fun out of DeathSmiles...

[t0yrobo]

There's thing I like about touch controls. But I still very much prefer a real stick or dpad. Maybe it's just the many years of using them but it makes more sense to me. I'm not particularly good that shmups but there's still many times where I'll dive into a cloud of bullets to grab a medal and come out unscathed, I have a hard time doing that on touch screens.

[KNTain]

The most important thing to keep in mind when it comes to this subject is that you simply aren't playing the same games on iOS. The movement rules (which are obviously among the most important rules when it comes to this genre) are fundamentally different. If you had the same rules in the iOS games (locked movement speeds and directions), you probably wouldn't like the touch controls very much.

[archagon]

Thanks for the opining, everyone! I guess I'll be on the lookout for a good arcade stick, though I definitely look forward to playing more shmups on iOS. Are there any worthwhile sticks that work with both Xbox and PC?

That Sega Saturn pad looks great. Are any of the USB knockoffs on Amazon worth it? They're not getting great reviews...

Here's what I don't quite understand. I did a bit of MAME testing yesterday and loaded a bunch of Cave shooters. In every single game, if I tapped a direction even slightly (tried both dpad and keyboard), I always moved several pixels at once. This happened regardless of whether I was slowed down w/shooting or not. The ships seem to be just too fast to be pixel-precise with digital controls, despite what many of you have claimed. Am I doing something wrong?

[ZenErik]

I use my PS3 HRAP for PC games. It works better for doujin because there is a switch to change whether the stick is controlling the digital or analog movement inputs. The Xbox 360 HRAP, which I also have, does not have that switch. Thus isn't as simple to set up for doujin games.

[NTSC-J]

Here's what I don't quite understand. I did a bit of MAME testing yesterday and loaded a bunch of Cave shooters. In every single game, if I tapped a direction even slightly (tried both dpad and keyboard), I always moved several pixels at once. This happened regardless of whether I was slowed down w/shooting or not. The ships seem to be just too fast to be pixel-precise with digital controls, despite what many of you have claimed. Am I doing something wrong?

I dont mean to sound condescending, but have you played video games before? I think you just need to get used to controlling a character with a d-pad.

I`ve noticed that with shmups in particular, beginners tend to be all over the place, zooming around the screen when there arent even any enemies yet and crashing into them as soon as they appear. Its like theres a bomb strapped to their ship and if they stop moving the bus explodes (on second thought, I would like to play this game). Just relax and move when you need to. Cave games usually offer ships with varying speeds, so find one that suits your play style.

[archagon]

I'm saying that literally tapping the keys as fast as I can moves the ship more than one pixel, which does not mesh with the "pixel-perfect" claims in the thread. This has nothing to do with skill. I'm just a little confused why people keep saying that touch controls are imprecise when I'm easily able to move the ship one pixel on my iPad and not when using a digital controller. Er, not that I'm interested in starting a flame war or anything... I'm just not sure why there's so much enmity towards touch devices, aside from the fact that it's a less authentic experience.