Hypothetical "tacticool" game innovations

[Stark]

The GTA example is a good example of controller limations feeding into control design - people 'like' to have driving controls in a certain place (either triggers or x + square) thus being in a vehicle instantly means the control system has to be re-jigged (unless you control the car with forward-back on the left stick and right-left on the right stick, which has been tried and isn't popular). It's unfortunate and introduces complexity but it's a challenge you face when you need two types of control that have different 'standards'. Triggers for throttle + triggers for guns = incompatible.

[Singular Intellect]

True enough; one of the reasons I don't really dig the consoles myself and why I'm wary of console ports to PC.

I personally think that good PC games (particularily FPS's) should have much more advanced and intuitive control setup options. Things like virtually every control having a toggle option; you can walk, crouch, prone as a either a toggle or hold down for example. Options for things like BF2's double tap for going into run mode should also be availiable.

You could introduce quite a bit of complexity and versatility into a game and yet still keep the required input bindings relatively simple.

And another thing; I fucking hate it when games force you to bind every key. Once again, I'm looking at you GTA4. I don't use the car radio system, so forcing to me pick keys for changing radio stations and volume irritates the fuck out of me. The only key that concerned me was turning the radio off, and I need only one key for that.

[Stark]

Well on that, I hate RTS games that have a different button hotkey FOR EVERY SINGLE FUCKING POWER OR ATTACK. If units have between 0-2 powers (which is generous in many games) why can't I use a consistent set of buttons (say, qe or ertor rf) for everyone's powers in a contextual way? Yes, this was done more than a year ago in WiC, but even games like DoW2 - very modern, have different fucking buttons for powers even though they're in a list AND they don't use WASD for camera so you need to use the left side of the keyboard, the arrow keys, and a mouse.

It's just designers and players being conservative to the point of absurdity. To extend a previous idea, if you had equipment mounted in 'places' you'd only need a button per 'place' or a simple wheel/menu interface to remove the need for 50 buttons. People can cry all they want, but letting people put 'equipment' or 'skills' on a 'toolbar' for 'quick use' is more than ten years old and having the 'number keys' limited to just guns when it could be more is unnecessary.

[Peptuck]

The GTA example is a good example of controller limations feeding into control design - people 'like' to have driving controls in a certain place (either triggers or x + square) thus being in a vehicle instantly means the control system has to be re-jigged (unless you control the car with forward-back on the left stick and right-left on the right stick, which has been tried and isn't popular). It's unfortunate and introduces complexity but it's a challenge you face when you need two types of control that have different 'standards'. Triggers for throttle + triggers for guns = incompatible.

Honestly, the first Mercenaries game did this one right. That game had perfect controls for a sandbox shooter*. I played that game and went back to San Andreas, and all I could think of was "Why does Rockstar insist on cocking up the control scheme for this game?" The "realistic" controls for the planes and helicopters in that game enraged me to no end, especially after playing with the helicopters in Mercenaries.

*Except for the fucking tanks. Its like they tried to crib the controls for the Scorpion in Halo and failed at it.

[Singular Intellect]

Again, two games worked really well implementing a system for stuff like that. In Crysis, I needed only to bind one key to my quick suit menu, which allowed me to change suit modes with a single press and quick movement of my mouse. Couple that with the modular weapon system, and one key/mouse button allowed me to completely alter my weapons with scopes, silencers, laser beams and flashlights. With one key. One of the reasons I love Crysis so much, honestly.

Jedi Knight Academy was the other one; your character had multiple Force powers at his or her disposal; some neutral, some Sith and others Jedi. Yet you really only needed to bind three keys, two to quickly switch between which current power you wanted to employ, and a key to use/stop it. Key bindings for every particular power were available, but you didn't have to bind them, and I greatly appreciated LucasArts for that feature.

Quick frankly, the controls setup of any game and how flexible and intelligent it is can literally determine whether I toss or keep a game.

For example, five minutes of playing the first Star Wars Battlefront with it's absolute shit interface made me uninstall and toss it (well, that and the AT-AT enormously disappointed me). Never even looked into SWBF2 either because of that.

[Oscar Wilde]

How about a game where harder difficulty=/=enemy grenade spams?