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What’s up with the awful trend of console games having the joystick act like a mouse on menus?

Senator Toadstool

Senator Toadstool

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
16,651
When the hell did this start? And why? Just today I've played dead by daylight and MS Flight Sim and both console versions have this awful menu navigation of your left joystick being a mouse. It's slow, clunky and prone to errors.

As dawn breaks had it too.

IS this just them not designing for consoles and just porting a PC control scheme?

It's frustrating because one of the reasons I don't like PC gaming is its control schemes and UI.

it also seems awful for accessibility (though I'm not sure how the Xbox adaptive controller works) as it requires precision instead of simple up down left right menu selections…

/Thanksgiving rant
 
PlanetSmasher

PlanetSmasher

The Abominable Showman
Member
Oct 25, 2017
115,737
I feel like Destiny was the first BIG game to do this and it's become increasingly common lately and it sucks every single time it's done. It's like they just decided "we made the game on PC and we don't care enough to make a console-specific menu AI".
 
Cheesetriangles

Cheesetriangles

Member
Dec 5, 2017
1,435
PlanetSmasher said:
I feel like Destiny was the first BIG game to do this and it's become increasingly common lately and it sucks every single time it's done. It's like they just decided "we made the game on PC and we don't care enough to make a console-specific menu AI".
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It sucks on PC too because usually instead of just being able to click on things it's still the hold for a second to confirm garbage.
 
OP
OP
Senator Toadstool

Senator Toadstool

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
16,651
PlanetSmasher said:
I feel like Destiny was the first BIG game to do this and it's become increasingly common lately and it sucks every single time it's done. It's like they just decided "we made the game on PC and we don't care enough to make a console-specific menu AI".
Click to expand...
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It makes selecting options awful!
 
Dupy

Dupy

Member
Oct 31, 2017
473
Destiny popped into my head too. Even with snapping and acceleration I agree it's annoying.
 
OgTheEnigma

OgTheEnigma

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,803
Liverpool
They would be so much better if you had the option for gyro based cursor control like Dreams. Apparently Destiny had fully functional gyro aim set up during development on PS4, but it wasn't included in the final version. Maybe the intention was that you'd control Destiny's menus via gyro as well?
 
CQC

CQC

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,711
Tbh I couldn't stand destiny bc of this when my friends wanted me to start playing so we picked up cod instead lol
 
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OP
Senator Toadstool

Senator Toadstool

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
16,651
I'm playing to through the tutorial of dead by daylight and it keeps interrupting the game for tips and since I'm moving forward it slams the selection point straight up even though you can't even select anything (just press A) it looks cheap and bad
 
Keiriks

Keiriks

Omicron Persei 8 Logic
Member
Aug 19, 2021
6,154
Reykjavík, Iceland
The only version of this I like is in Bayonetta 3 where instead of just controlling a cursor you're aiming darts and throwing them at the menu items, and that's really cute.

otherwise fuck this trend I hate it
 
wiggler

wiggler

Member
Oct 27, 2017
473
I don't think it's bad. And I think Destiny does it very well, with the stick controlling the cursor and dpad/shoulder buttons navigating tabs and pages.

It's pretty straight-forward, and allows you to do things like pop-up info on text and buttons, and keeps things consistent between menus.

It definitely cuts down on development. Since each menu screen doesn't need different logic implemented. And yes, it maps nicely to the mouse.
 
writhingcorpse897

writhingcorpse897

Member
Jun 25, 2022
6,785
I don't mind it but I think it can be done a lot better.

AC Origins was the first game I played with this but I spent very little time in the menus so it wasn't a big deal.
 
Bio Booster Armoire

Bio Booster Armoire

Prophet of Truth
Member
Apr 21, 2020
956
At first it was kind of a novelty, now it's just completely exasperating. Having to hold down a button for every itty little bitty interaction also gets old fast.
 
Iwao

Iwao

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,800
The novelty has worn off. It should always be optimised for controllers first because it's much harder to do it the other way around. No idea how such garbage passes QA.

If Crystal Dynamics got something right with Avengers, it could at least be navigated with your regular directional buttons as well as the cursor.
 
Kuosi

Kuosi

Member
Oct 30, 2017
2,366
Finland
works both ways, you play with mouse and still gotta deal with bloated controller designed ui's, dragon age is one prime example every iteration since origins just got worse and worse
 
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OP
Senator Toadstool

Senator Toadstool

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
16,651
wiggler said:
I don't think it's bad. And I think Destiny does it very well, with the stick controlling the cursor and dpad/shoulder buttons navigating tabs and pages.

It's pretty straight-forward, and allows you to do things like pop-up info on text and buttons, and keeps things consistent between menus.

It definitely cuts down on development. Since each menu screen doesn't need different logic implemented. And yes, it maps nicely to the mouse.
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The pop up can happen when you select using directional pads.

What happens with this is I miss the right selection and end up changing things I don't want to plus the needless "hold to confirm"

Don't know what this adds because the tab thing still works with joypad selections (they were doing this back in the ps1 era!)
 
Rodney McKay

Rodney McKay

Member
Oct 26, 2017
12,205
Worst type of interface on consoles.

I get that it has some benefit, especially in games with large grid-based inventories, but for some reason they're almost always glacially slow, and do the "hold to select" which makes it take even longer to do anything.

Could you imagine if Diablo 3 on consoles had gone with that type of interface navigation?
It would have sucked and equipping loot would take forever. But instead they optimized it for controllers and it makes all the difference.
 
PlanetSmasher

PlanetSmasher

The Abominable Showman
Member
Oct 25, 2017
115,737
Rodney McKay said:
Worst type of interface on consoles.

I get that it has some benefit, especially in games with large grid-based inventories, but for some reason they're almost always glacially slow, and do the "hold to select" which makes it take even longer to do anything.

Could you imagine if Diablo 3 on consoles had gone with that type of interface navigation?
It would have sucked and equipping loot would take forever. But instead they optimized it for controllers and it makes all the difference.
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It definitely wouldn't have been the insane hit it was on consoles if it had a horrible controller mouse UI, that's for sure.
 
Yossarian

Yossarian

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
13,264
It makes realpolitik on PS4 an absolute fucking chore (that rhymed!). Stellaris: Console Edition is the gold standard for strategy ports in terms of UI interaction, as far as I'm concerned. Really easy to use.
 
Rumenapp

Rumenapp

Forza Photographer
Member
Nov 9, 2017
12,783
In MS flight simulator they didn't even bother to try and make a console ui imho

First big one probably destiny.
 
snausages

snausages

Member
Feb 12, 2018
10,356
PlanetSmasher said:
I feel like Destiny was the first BIG game to do this and it's become increasingly common lately and it sucks every single time it's done. It's like they just decided "we made the game on PC and we don't care enough to make a console-specific menu AI".
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
It's not this at all though, cause Bayonetta 3 and God of War Ragnarök also have it
 
wiggler

wiggler

Member
Oct 27, 2017
473
Senator Toadstool said:
The pop up can happen when you select using directional pads.

What happens with this is I miss the right selection and end up changing things I don't want to plus the needless "hold to confirm"

Don't know what this adds because the tab thing still works with joypad selections (they were doing this back in the ps1 era!)
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I meant more when you have a scrollable text and you have highlighted terms that can give you more details. Which would be a pain with a dpad.

And you do the same thing you do as a dpad driven menu, go back, or undo it?

It replaces the confirmation pop-up, but you can add some juice with sound effects, or vary the length depending on the weight of your selection. They do this in Destiny when dismantling items depending on rarity.

Sure, but you can also display multi level menus and layout menus however you want, not just grids of buttons or icons. Which yes, are very functional, but don't you want to see how that item looks on your character, or menus to have some flavor?

Now I'm not saying every implementation of it is design perfection, but I don't understand folks' pure hate for it. Even when done poorly, it's not THAT bad.
 
Noog

Noog

▲ Legend ▲
Member
May 1, 2018
2,867
It worked for me in Destiny but it's never been convenient since then. Video game UI has been bloated and over complicated for almost a decade now. It's hard to tell if it's a case of over design or if all the experienced UI designers went into tech, but it's a notable issue
 
Ruck

Ruck

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,285
I don't mind it on console and it means PC UI's aren't absolute trash you have to navigate with the arrow keys. Ideally each platform would have their own UI that suits their control style but that's a *lot* of work
 
yap

yap

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
8,899
I'm not entirely sure why some games feel the need for it. It's not as if their menus are so complicated that it needs something analogous to a mouse in order to navigate. As said in the thread some games do it inoffensive enough, but on the whole I'm just like "why?".
 
Septy

Septy

Prophet of Truth
Member
Nov 29, 2017
4,082
United States
Destiny was the first I believe and they executed it really well. There's a gdc video out there somewhere about how they created the free cursor interface and it's pretty interesting how much thought and work went into it. Safe to say that when other games started copying it they ignored a lot of the user experience Bungie spent years working on.
 
Pyro

Pyro

God help us the mods are making weekend threads
Member
Jul 30, 2018
14,505
United States
It's literally the worst. Whoever does this on a console game doesn't understand UI whatsoever.
 
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