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Improved Controllers Build: Ongoing Player Reports


Batsphinx

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We have now reached the end of the initial testing phase of our controller build. The work that Stas has done on it will be integrated into the anims build at a later date (though we can't say for sure which version that will be in), and any other relevant/demanded tweaks will be added at this point.

 

The Controller beta is staying open - but won't have active work done on it until our animation system is closer to completion. This is due to the fact that Stas is moving onto pastures new, and in terms of the rest of the team we're currently all hands to the pump getting the core components of the next version of PZ in place. 

 

If you want to keep playing the controller beta, however, then please do. The way you can now help us most is:

 

Tell us the three tweaks/fixes to the current Controller set-up that would most improve your experience.

 

Password: badassstas456

Beta name: controllertest

 

We would also like to thank @Stas from general arcade for all his hard work on this aspect of the game!

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Hello there ! 

 

So i played with my gf an hour or so yesterday, here is my feedback : 

 

I wanted to play splitscreen, i was on the controller beta. I tried several times but after i created my character my spawn next to player 1, i could move around but it was impossible to open the inventory (pressing Y was doing nothing, even if, in the game menu I could see that the controller was recognized and the Y button was pressed). So we change to the normal 40,3 and after a little bit of messing around, we manage to start a new game and everything was fine.

For now, to create a splitscreen game, you have to connect your controller, start the game, start a new game with the K/M, and once in the game press A on the controller and create your character. 

 

1/ Say that you are alone, playing with a controller, and your gf just comes in. Give her the possibility to create a new character and make a splitscreen game by just pressing a keyboard button. If there is already a button, then makes it more obvious so that the process of creating a splitscreen is less tedious.

2/ Sometimes, when playing splitscreen i couldn't loot certain containers (happened 1 out of 20 times I would say)

3/ Give me the ability to enlarge or reduce the windows of the inventory of the player with a controller. It was kinda overwhelming and too big sometimes.

 

I'm so eager to play the anims build ^^ Be brave and please no burnout <3

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Hello. The window showing the materials needed to build or repair something in the context menu (like the carpentry menu) are still missing. That could be one.

 

Two would be the customizability of the face buttons and the addition of more actions to assign to them.

 

Three would be the re-integration of the quick-move button, but have it function only to transfer items between inventories instead of throwing your items on the ground. 

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Last week, RobertJohnson said this "fixed: Remove "Vehicle Sub Menu" from Car tab (unless there is the need for this - I do not know what this does)"

 

but it had a function. When holding up on the D-pad, it brings up a radial menu with a list of actions you can do to the car without using X to bring up the context menu. I will post pictures. I think this should be re-integrated.

 

 

Project Zomboid Screenshot 2019.02.14 - 14.17.08.85.png

Project Zomboid Screenshot 2019.02.14 - 14.17.23.03.png

Edited by PapayaKing
I can't spell
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On 2/14/2019 at 10:23 PM, PapayaKing said:

Last week, RobertJohnson said this "fixed: Remove "Vehicle Sub Menu" from Car tab (unless there is the need for this - I do not know what this does)"

 

but it had a function. When holding up on the D-pad, it brings up a radial menu with a list of actions you can do to the car without using X to bring up the context menu. I will post pictures. I think this should be re-integrated.

 

 

IIrc, It was a duplicate of an existing function.

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 3/16/2019 at 10:52 PM, syfy said:

not sure why, but the password listed above don't work for me

did you copypasta both the name and the password into the text bars or type them out yourself? I'll try it on another account I have.

 

EDIT: I mean copy the password. I forgot how the beta window works until I used it.

Edited by PapayaKing
Dimbus
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On 3/23/2019 at 12:09 PM, syfy said:

yeah, i blew it, messed up the 3's

 

 

 

damn rookie move

How are you liking the controller test beta so far? I personally don't really like the inventory controls but i think that more options will be added to help with that in the future, plus of course the issues above that I've posted. 

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  • 1 month later...

As requested, here are a list of the concerns, but as context, let me explain why I'm so adamant about this: I play this game with controller as my main apparatus because 1) my setup makes it very tedious and often times a little painful to play with keyboard and mouse because of back issues, so leaning back or laying down on my side or stomach has become my preferred way of playing games, and 2) even if I didn't have back issues, I would still play with controller because I find that for me, most 3rd person or isometric games feel better with a wider range of motion that a controller offers, examples include all assassin's creed games and Fortnite (the PvE don't worry lol), games like Don't Starve, and even Conan Exiles tbh, along with Dark Souls and The Surge, and almost all horror games because a controller provides a more cinematic camera experience with way less jarring and snappiness.

 

Which brings me to the list of things that are quite necessary for a controller scheme in games. 

  • The movement is great already. I know a lot of people were having issues with Trigger drift in the previous thread and were unable to push or swing weapons consistently, but increasing the deadzone for sticks and triggers is a great QOL option that myself and many others were glad to see added.
  • Inventory systems need to be intuitive and practical. PZ often requires you to loot things as fast as possible because of one reason or another, and in the main and IWBUMS versions of the game, this is already kind of implemented, with X (control scheme for xbox controllers from now to the end of the post) being the quick transfer button. However, many many things in the new controller test build have been goofing with the inventory system. The KB/M inventory system is easy because it was designed like Windows Explorer, and I believe that the same kind of ease of use and practicality can be designed with controllers in mind. This includes:
  • Assigning one button, and one button only to control the inventory screen. Stas changed it to Y and B to bring up and close the menus, respectively, to make it more intuitive and easy for players to back out of the inventory screen, but all it did was confuse people and make it more difficult to navigate the inventory. Keep Y as the button to open AND close the inventory.
  • Assign one button as a quick transfer button. This, like I said, already kind of works in the current versions of the game, but it is flawed. X transfers items from a container to your inventory, but it UN-intuitively  drops items in your inventory to the ground, making loot much harder to transfer to containers, which brings me to my next point.
  • When a highlighted item is selected in the inventory, and an item above this item is transferred, because certain items take much longer to transfer than others, what happens is as you're going down the list of items and tediously pressing A over and over to transfer things, by the time you've moved a few items down, the item at the top is done transferring, it exits your inventory into a container, and your WHOLE inventory is shifted upwards, so now you have to press up on the D-pad to select the thing that you previously had selected, then wait for it to transfer before moving on. There are only two remedies to this so far. One is to just start at the top and wait for every single item to transfer before moving on to the next item, or transfer things from the bottom and go up. What needs to happen (and I'll make a video on this and post it  here so everyone can see what I'm talking about), is when you transfer an item out of your inventory, the highlight bar that tells you which item you have selected needs to move up with your inventory when your inventory itself moves up. This makes it less annoying to want to organize and move things around because as it stands, it's honestly the worst part of this game with a controller. 
  • RADIAL MENUS ARE YOUR FRIENDS!!! In a post of mine a bit above all this, I posted about a radial menu being removed that had a list of functions to chose from pertaining to your vehicle, this needs to be re-implemented, as almost no one wants to sit and press up and down on their D-pads to do certain actions. Having a radial menu to choose makes it much easier visually and practically, and the radial menus you guys currently have are awesome, and should stay the same. In the future, base controller actions and ease-of-use around this fact.
  • Along with a few bullets prior, pertaining to the inventory, We need more customizability when it comes to the actions that are present in the game, such as being able to choose which face buttons we want for inventory, menu navigation, etc. This started to get worked on, and I know that some actions have to stay where they are because it's kind of the only way to do them, be there can be much more leeway in terms of customization. 

Bugs

 

  • One of the kinda big ones is one I found (others have probably noticed but I haven't seen any posts about it) where the menu that shows the items that you need and/or have when building or repairing things in a context menu like carpentry, doesn't show at all. If I navigate to a door and want to build it and I'm a new player, I'd have to guess what I needed because there's no menu or indication of what I have and what I need. Probably a pretty simple fix, but it is kinda big nonetheless. 
  • Many people have had issues with looting things, or rather, the lack of their ability to do so
  • Others have claimed that there are issues with split-screen, specifically adding new characters that have to be created, and the character creation menu itself can use a bit more controller friendliness, as some things you still have to use a mouse for, if I'm not mistaken.
  • Lastly, there were quite a few posts in the previous controller thread where people reported the inability to use, or problems generally with the moving system, be it moving, picking up, disassembling, rotating, etc.. This could be because of a lack of understanding, because I personally haven't had any problems with it and find it quite easy to use, but some posts have pointed to the issues being bugs, but at this point nothing can really confirmed without combing through the previous thread. 

That about wraps it up, in a nutshell. Obviously, I don't represent all gamers with controllers, but I'm also not posting this because like the last thread, people see "free PZ code" and put in the minimal effort required to get free stuff, because free code or not, I would've been just as dedicated to helping out. I care about the game and want to see it flourish, and I think these things could help improve the experience that this game offers. 

 

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  • 2 months later...
  • 3 months later...

I currently am restricted to controller play, I use an Xbox controller. Three suggestions from my experience:

 

Put the zoom levels on exact left and right of the spin wheel, it’d make zooming just slightly easier. Alternatively, have left and right bumper control zoom until inventory is opened. I’ve sometimes custom mapped my controller to this sometimes and it works well, but there are issues with the inventory without it being natively integrated. 

 

Make it so Left Trigger will initiate a push in the direction the character is facing without having to be aiming and canceling movement for duration of the push. It might also feel more natural to gaming to have the push initiated on full trigger squeeze, rather than release. 

 

In regards to looting, have left and right bumper control which container you are focused on, left going up, right going down. Make it so focus needs to be shifted to player inventory to go up or down on player containers. This would make cycling containers much more smooth. 

 

If if a container is opened, X should drop items into that container, or into player inventory if loot container has focus, instead of on the ground. If it’s just the player inventory open, dropping on the ground is fine. 

Edited by tommysticks
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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi, im actually playing Project zomboid with a friend, me with keyboard and mouse and him with the xbox controller, but when i try to crouch in stealth mode his character does it at teh same time and its so frustrating, also I think that a mapping section for controller in the options menu should be added.

Edited by Dimpatatas
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  • 2 weeks later...
On 11/2/2019 at 8:06 AM, Dimpatatas said:

Hi, im actually playing Project zomboid with a friend, me with keyboard and mouse and him with the xbox controller, but when i try to crouch in stealth mode his character does it at teh same time and its so frustrating, also I think that a mapping section for controller in the options menu should be added.

Stas from General Arcade made a controller build that had a more in-depth controller scheme, and that will be added with the optimizations during or after the new animations build 41. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I would really like some more controller love by the devs cause I like to use one every now and then. Being laid back in my chair with a controller in hand is why I like them and would love if the menus and controls with it get a bit of tweaking to make using a controller much less headache. Like making my character for example with a controller is kind of a pain in the neck sometimes. Also seeing a controller button config in the menus so you can config some stuff for your prefer control mapping would be nice. Just thinking some stuff off the top of my head here. XD

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  • 2 months later...
On 11/22/2019 at 7:03 PM, Kaixrou said:

I would really like some more controller love by the devs cause I like to use one every now and then. Being laid back in my chair with a controller in hand is why I like them and would love if the menus and controls with it get a bit of tweaking to make using a controller much less headache. Like making my character for example with a controller is kind of a pain in the neck sometimes. Also seeing a controller button config in the menus so you can config some stuff for your prefer control mapping would be nice. Just thinking some stuff off the top of my head here. XD

Pretty late reply, but I've spoken with the Devs and they said they were going to keep this thread open, then when the time comes for controller fixing to start, they're going to either continue this thread or make a new one. Trust me, I get you. But they need to make sure everyone can play the game first. The only thing so far that's "broken" per-se as of the current build 41.29, is sprinting, you're supposed to be able to sprint by double pressing the right trigger, but it doesn't work. You just have run. but yeah, they'll announce when it's controller time so stay frosty my friend. 

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  • 2 months later...

IWBUMS 41.36:  40 hours in and I switched to controller (PS4), I find it plays SO much better then K&M, though I am predominantly a console gamer.  This is especially true for vehicle handling

 

One thing I've noticed, which would be a great QoL improvement when driving in a vehicle, is to allow panning with just moving the right thumbstick, without having to hold the R1/RightBumper button, it seems superfluous and totally awkward.  In light of this change, I would also suggest moving the brake from Circle/RedButton to the L1/LeftBumper.

 

This alone would help greatly with driving at higher speeds and seeing those car wrecks and sharp turns before its too late.

 

Thanks!  and phenomenal work on this project so far, it really is impressive!

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  • 4 months later...

41.43

 

Speeding up the game very easily is cancelled for me because of the way I have to push the right joystick to speed it up in the first place. Am I doing something wrong?

 

Problem #2 when I load a saved character skill tree I can't hit the next button to actually create the character!

Edited by Zomboid
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  • 1 month later...
On 5/8/2020 at 6:01 PM, AkoVendetta said:

IWBUMS 41.36:  40 hours in and I switched to controller (PS4), I find it plays SO much better then K&M, though I am predominantly a console gamer. 

I've tried several times to play with a PS4 controller but can't even perform basic actions. Could you guys share your controller configs? Or you use that shipped with a game? If so, I can't understand how do you play?

I can move with the left stick, and was expecting that rotation is on right stick, but there are swinging and pushing on it. Also I didn't find how to fight actually on a PS4 gamepad, because hit button has been left unidentified by me.

Edited by Gekkko
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15 hours ago, Gekkko said:

I've tried several times to play with a PS4 controller but can't even perform basic actions. Could you guys share your controller configs? Or you use that shipped with a game? If so, I can't understand how do you play?

I can move with the left stick, and was expecting that rotation is on right stick, but there are swinging and pushing on it. Also I didn't find how to fight actually on a PS4 gamepad, because hit button has been left unidentified by me.

 

I've used this guide: https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-use-ps4-controller-steam-4570989  and ended up with controller working the same way as Xbox one.

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  • 1 month later...

Hi, I've noticed that with the controller it is not possible to open doors with the guard ready. With the keyboard it is possible to hold right mouse button and press E to open (ready to push left mouse button to hit), but, with gamepad, if I press A, it isn't possible to ready the guard with right stick and hit before the zombie attacks. Already tested and already got bitten.

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  • 1 month later...

Hello. I was trying to play with a friend in shareplay as i did before but now the game just dont add the second player i pressed A in my case and tried to click with the mouse but no thing hapens. Sorry for bad english 

Edited by MortalhasPT
Correct some grammar error
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