Why Mouse Acceleration and Responsiveness desperately needs Fixing

[27 others 102]

Please, anyone tell me that the statement "the devs wouldn't change [mouse acceleration] because it would be some form of cheat if they did [...]" is NOT true...

( http://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/161696-negative-mouse-acceleration/?hl=%2Bmouse+%2Bacceleration ) 

 

 

Today, i tried playing on a server which only has first person mode allowed. I promised myself more fairness (due to nobody being able to peek around corners), and also more immersion into the post-apocalyptic gameworld. After 1 minute in the game I had to find out, that the immersion decreased significantly. Due to the clunky, counterintuitive and downright unrealistic mouse-to-ingame-movement-translation it was impossible for me to scavenge a house for loot without cringing everytime i wanted to look inside a room next to me, or when i wanted to look behind me. Before you start insulting me for saying negative things about the game or want to remind me that this is an alpha, hear me out. Im not bashing anyone here, i spent a lot of valuable hours in this game, i love the atmosphere, i appreciate the work Dean`s team is putting into this game. I also see more of a problem in the Arma Engine than in the work of the developers. If this issue will be fixed by anone, i will be the first to kiss that persons feet. But this is an important issue for me, so i have to bring it up.

 

When i play Dayz in first person perspective i feel like I`m steering this robot:

 

 

Its a great robot, but it does not move like any human would.

 

 

In a post-apocalyptic environment with many ruthless people posing a threat, you have to be very perceptive. you have to know whats around you, and you have to be careful. you have to move your neck way more frequently than you are used to, scanning for possible threats with your eyes. like you were taught in driving school.

 

In Dayz, you are given the numpad keys to scan your surroundings. Pressing them does not feel nearly as intuitive as it could feel. The arma engine wouldn`t even need those keys if it had decent, realistic mouse responsiveness.

 

Imagine you were running across a field and you hear something behind you. In a real life situation, you would instinctively widen your eyes, turn your neck and torso quite a bit around in a swift movement, still running, and if you saw a threat, you would swing your arms after, and draw your weapon. If you were a perceptive person who is on edge anyway, i think this should not take more than 2-3 seconds. We are not talking about rocket (hehe) science here, just about seeing whats behind you and grabbing your weapon.

 

In Dayz, this simple task is treated like rocket science.

 

To undertake the first step and look behind you, you have to press the numpad keys 1 or 3, using your right hand. Now you see a player with a gun behind you. And you want to shoot him. But you dont have your weapon pointed in roughly that direction, because you just used your right hand to touch the numpad. And even if you awkwardly kept half of your right hand on the mouse, you wouldnt be happier, since the numpad keys only occupy your neck movement and your crosshair dissappears. Your arms are completely unresponsive and limp. So you release the numpad key, which makes your head face forward again, and then you try to face behind yourself with a quick sweeping movement all the way across your 30cm wide mousepad, from left to right. And it does almost nothing. Only after 2 more sweeps and way more lost time (or if you GEENTLY move the mouse, which is hard to do when you are in a situation that demands a quick response) your weapon finally faces the opponent. And now your crosshair is wobbling all over the place WHICH SHOULD BE ENOUGH to simulate the adrenaline rush. And you suddenly start running towards the enemy because you kept pressing "W" and you didnt want to stay still. But you also didnt want to start running backwards because you run backwards very slowly in this game, and there is also that split second between the animation where your character just stays still. Now, while in reality the time spent turning around would maybe have cost you one bullet in the chest, in the Arma engine it cost you 4. You would have been dead after releasing the numpad key.

 

 

 

In the following experiment, i compared the mouse responsiveness from Dayz to another ego shooter on the market. I did that by comparing the amount of rotation achieved by one swift, quick movement across all of the width of my mousepad.

 

 

Which should equal one swift, quick player movement, right? Take a look at the results. Some guys may tell me that Arma`s is way more realistic than games like CoD or the one in the video. And you are right. The Ballistics are way more realistic. If you take a look at the mouse movement, even CoD is more realistic. If you move your mouse determined in the usual ego shooters, your character makes a determined motion.  In the Arma Engine, you are a Lego man.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TozQ4b0qz6c

 

 

In real life, you can rotate around your own axis in a pretty short time. maybe not quite as fast as in most ego shooters, but DEFINATELY way faster than in the Arma Engine. Even with a backpack and a heavy gun equipped, you will be able to aim behind yourself in a pretty short period of time and in one short, swift movement. Holding a gun definately affects your mobility, but not THAT MUCH. You should also consider that i DID NOT EVEN CARRY A GUN in the experiment in Dayz.

 

 

So, here are my suggestions:

 

One sweep across the mousepad = 180° rotation

 

numpad keys (looking in different directions) bindable to other keys. My left hand is on WASD, my right one is one the mouse, its just akward if you quickly want to look behind yourself.

 

 

 

 

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

UPDATED:

 

 

 

 

the follwing video shows how this complicated movement could be translatable to the mouse movement of Dayz.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LotFp3WLZN0

Edited January 5, 2014 by 27 others

[Daemonkid 493]

Hold ALT. No need for numpad my friend.

[creature 1189]

Uhmm. You ARE aware theres a freelook key right? Left alt key. No need for numpad. 

 

And I dunno what's wrong with your mouse but I can do a complete 360 in one sweep with mine in game. I have acceleration turned down very low as well.

[SaveMeJebus 164]

Never once used the numpad keys here .... hold alt, swing your mouse to look.  How hard is that?  Checking the config files for dayz (mine anyways) it shows the mouse acceleration value set to off, is it not off?  I know the button in the options menu doesn't respond when you click it but the config files show acceleration as off so just wondered if it really was. (because I sure don't notice any)

Edited January 4, 2014 by SaveMeJebus

[dgeesio 1034]

anyone with a brain doesnt use mouse acceleration. this is a big thing especially in first person. so the option to turn it off should hopefully be fixed soon.

[Mutonizer 78]

If you'd try to turn constantly turn your head at THAT speed, you'd break something pretty fast!

 

Hold ALT. No need for numpad my friend.

 

That..

ALT + mouse movement is your god in Arma (and therefore DayZ), especially in 1st person. Use it and abuse it until it becomes a second nature. You can also double tap ALT to for free mouse look.

 

Personally I've always been very attentive to my surrounding, whether it's walking in the street, driving or in games. Even in totally PvE games for example, I'm always panning the camera around. 

In DayZ (and other ARMAs), ALT is like...second nature now. I nearly always play 1st person and have none of the issue you mentioned. Feels very smooth and very natural and I'm always checking around. 

The body itself does feel a bit clunky at times though, but I rarely move the entire body unless changing direction, bit like I do in real life really. When I enter a room, I stop and pan the head around, then head toward either loot or a door, I don't "look" with my body.

 

anyone with a brain doesnt use mouse acceleration. this is a big thing especially in first person. so the option to turn it off should hopefully be fixed soon.

Unless they're trying to simulate the human body with inertia or something. Then I suppose you'd need to play around with mouse acceleration?

I mean, point your finger at something, do a 360° as fast as you can while trying to aim at that same point...probably won't be that easy.

Edited January 4, 2014 by Mutonizer

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

That was a really long post to describe something you can do by holding down ALT.

 

Which, incidentally, also demonstrates that they have no problem achieving "smooth, responsive" mouse movements.

 

But, that's not how human bodies actually move, so when it comes time to actually turn around, you're going to have to do so at a normal human speed, not like the super-human military assault robots from Counterstrike.

[Serious Stan 202]

You are moving slow because you are standing STILL! omg..... when will people read or even think about how the allmighty creator ROCKET want this game? he wants it to be REAL..............

 

In other words you cant turn fast 180-360 or wtf you want when you are standing still because you dont have mechanical legs!

 

IF YOUR CHARACTER HAVE MOVING/WALKING/RUNNING legs then he can move faster around. not when his legs are stuck in the ground.

 

Anyway it doesnt matter what you think.. This is not CS this is no COD this is not BF. This is dayz mother fucker!

We're all in the same bucket here so try to use your petty brains before gurgling it out on the ground 

[27 others 102]

The alt key is of limited help, because the crosshair does not move with it. 

And i already changed my mouse settings in the config file.

Swinging the mouse to look isnt hard in other games, in Dayz it feels uncontrollably clunky.

 

You can move around while standing still, im not asking for 360° CoD trick shots which you would have understood if you would have read my post.

 

In the Arma engine you don`t get actual human speed. Humans can move their torso. Have you ever seen scenes in police movies where they want to see if a room is clear?

They move their guns from left to right in a quick motion. 

 

 

I DO NOT WANT THE MOVEMENT SPEED FROM GAMES LIKE COD, take a look at the end of my post.

I know Arma wants to be more realistic. But they exaggerated it to the point where it is even less realistic than most trash games.

 

Both movement speeds are unrealistic. a thing in between would be nice.

Edited January 4, 2014 by 27 others

[dgeesio 1034]

just disable it on/off those who want it on leave it on those who want off leave it off, its not hard to understand. mouse acceleration doesn't make it realistic it makes it unrealistic lol. its adding acceleration ADDING ACCELERATION ! can you not read ADDING !

[serenityrick 218]

I feel like I'm the only first person player who has no trouble looting a house. 

 

Start looking your head around (alt-key) instead of turning your entire body to look around you.

 

The reason mouse acceleration exists right now is that the devs don't want this game to become a twitch shooter. Is that the best solution? Probably not.. but there is a reason for it. It's because they don't want bunny hoppers and 360 no scopers dominating the game. You have to be meticulous and careful in this game. It's not a deathmatch. You're not just a floating head like in other FPS games.. you're moving an entire body.

[creature 1189]

The alt key is of limited help, because the crosshair does not move with it. 

And i already changed my mouse settings in the config file.

Swinging the mouse to look isnt hard in other games, in Dayz it feels uncontrollably clunky.

 

You can move around while standing still, im not asking for 360° CoD trick shots which you would have understood if you would have read my post.

 

In the Arma engine you don`t get actual human speed. Humas can move their torso. Have you ever seen scenes in police movies where they want to see if a room is clear?

They move their guns from left to right in a quick motion. 

 

Aiming deadzone.

 

Learn to game.

[SaveMeJebus 164]

.... aim down sights and use alt then.

[wild_man 4442]

I feel like I'm the only first person player who has no trouble looting a house.

you are not only one ;)

me too I don't have problem

I make key-bind 'look' feature to mouse button 5 :thumbsup:  ;)

I search room use free look feature after I move to place and pick up what I want :)

no problem for me :thumbsup:  :rolleyes:

[Mutonizer 78]

The alt key is of limited help, because the crosshair does not move with it.

That's because it moves only your head, which is easier to move around than your entire body. If you move your body, it depends on your current movement, stance, etc.

Swinging the mouse to look isnt hard in other games, in Dayz it feels uncontrollably clunky.

Because in other games, it's done in a completely unrealistic manner to promote competitive game-play with nanoseconds reactions. That's no the point here in DayZ (or ARMA series). Usually, it's more about slow tactical approach, waiting, scouting, checking corners. Of course, your aim matters, but your mind, your preparation how you approach a situation, matters more than your ultra-fast mouse and pixel precise aiming.

 

In the Arma engine you don`t get actual human speed. Humas can move their torso. Have you ever seen scenes in police movies where they want to see if a room is clear?

They move their guns from left to right in a quick motion.

Err, sorry but I pretty much do exactly that ALL the time while checking my back corners with ALT/Head movement. There are tons of military clans on ARMA who train all the frikkin time to do exactly that, in WAY more realistic manner than any other FPS available on the market.

Maybe try walking maybe instead of running, you'll have less momentum?

[27 others 102]

just disable it on/off those who want it on leave it on those who want off leave it off, its not hard to understand. mouse acceleration doesn't make it realistic it makes it unrealistic lol. its adding acceleration ADDING ACCELERATION ! can you not read ADDING !

My mouse accelerates too slow. I go across my whole mousepad and only rotate 30 degrees. By accelerating it i should be faster and thus move more degrees. Also, THE BUTTON DOES NOT WORK.

Aiming deadzone.

Deadzone changes dont do shit. Like i wrote in the video. There should be no Deadzone anway. People can move their torso and their legs.

[dgeesio 1034]

My mouse accelerates too slow. I go across my whole mousepad and only rotate 30 degrees. By accelerating it i should be faster and thus move more degrees. Also, THE BUTTON DOES NOT WORK.

Deadzone changes dont do shit. Like i wrote in the video. There should be no Deadzone anway. People can move their torso and their legs.

yes it doesnt work at the moment ! it needs sorting asap as alot of servers are now first person and in first person acceleration is even worse. you should have a raw input any gamer who knows how to play plays this way as your movements are what you move exactly ! i think they will make the option work or why would they add a option for acceleration in the first place ?

[Noisex 11]

I don't have too many problems in first person, still I don't like it at all (and usually I prefer it). Aside from what has been told herem mouse acceleration is crap, ever been and ever will. I know no game where you can't disable it, so I thought it was matter of time for the option to be fixed.
Is it really going to stay like this?

[SaveMeJebus 164]

Am I the only one that checked the config file even tho the button isn't working? ... config file says mouse accel is off for me (value = 0) what does yours say?

[imrevned 0]

I am experiencing an issue where when I move my mouse, it feels like my sensitivity is constantly changing. Smoothing is off, tried messing with sensitivity. The game is nearly unplayable, I can barely navigate through houses. If this is an intended feature, I don't even know...

 

Edit: Made a demonstration video.

Edited January 5, 2014 by imrevned

[eviltoast499 7]

Why do some people here think being able to turn around or aim quickly is unrealistic? Are they really fat or have terrible balance? It's not hard. You can be weighed down by plenty of stuff and still be able to turn and aim on the dime. I'm tired of the milspergs who think shitty and unresponsive controls make a game more realistic.

Edited January 5, 2014 by stevebob

[Mookzen 67]

Anyone calling the negative mouse acceleration on the x-axis a feature is clearly delusional, if you move the mouse slowly it rotates fast but the faster you move it the slower it goes, clearly no dev would implement a feature this badly. Its straight up stupid and very terrible design to force players to use different sensitivities and acceleration on the x and y axis unless they are driving a tank or flying a helicopter, which is what controlling a human feels like in this game.

Edited January 5, 2014 by Mookzen

[Lady Kyrah 1109]

It's not mouse acceleration tho, call it "maximum rotation speed".

 

And it's there for a reason, be thankful it doesn't also has inertia making you turn past your target with heavy gear :)

[csharp 47]

 

 

In the Arma engine you don`t get actual human speed. Humans can move their torso. Have you ever seen scenes in police movies where they want to see if a room is clear?

They move their guns from left to right in a quick motion. 

 

 While we were taught the urban warfare in the army, we didn't do it at all like they do it in hollywood movies. And try to do that with m4 while in doors wouldn't be smooth either. Works with pistol maybe, but we weren't issued with one so we didn't train it.

 

But i have to say that i needed to do somewhat a lot of tweakin in a2 to get my mouse movement to be smooth. That is not the case in SA though.

Edited January 5, 2014 by csharp

[machiavelli 38]

I've heard stuff about accell being on to simulate actually holding a weapon and some others claiming different butt stocks change it. It's the most ridiculous thing I can imagine as a reason it is on.

Both positive and negative accell need to be able to be disabled completely. Negative accell itself is in no way a useful or sensible feature. It's a engine bug and needs to be squashed entirely.