I stand firm on my position that WASD movement would only enhance our gaming experience.
But, as we have heard the devs are against it, which is a damn shame. GD is a great game regardless.
For what it’s worth, bring new players to the game/genre. It would have kept me playing past the zombies in the burnt out intro village, but after killing a few zombies all I could think was “Please let there be an alternative to just banally clicking my screen while using my left hand to prop up my head, this game’s setting and art look too good for the controls to be this… actionless.” and after a search I quickly ended up here.
You don’t need to repeat anything to do with the mechanics I read all 41 replies, but this one sorta stuck out to me and I just thought “Bring in new players” was a reasonable answer to your question, technological hurdles aside.
I’m winning.
I’m sure someone would be interested in that kind of game. But WASD controls would fundamentally change what kind of game it is. It’s not a coincidence that no ARPG supports both WASD and the standard mouse control scheme.
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I still don’t understand this logic. Even after all this time.
The restriction of control scheme would make sense if you didn’t already allow a control scheme that functioned almost identically (Controller).
Quite frankly it still baffles me how at least to me this argument doesn’t hold water for a single millisecond.
Everything you could do with keyboard+mouse WASD you can already do with controller.
If your argument is that WASD movement would unbalance the game because players would be able to move differently or something that simply isn’t true, it still wouldn’t be nearly as good as controller movement.
If you’re worried about something like META, Controller would still be better than WASD.
So what are you trying to say? How would WASD controls fundamentally change the game when the movement it would unlock would simply be close to PAR with the controller support the game already has?
Please explain since it was never explained before throughout this thread and remains the biggest mystery to me.
Basically what we have right now is Controller allows you to move, and attack, simultaneously. You can be moving backwards whilst attacking forwards.
On keyboard/mouse such as it is you cannot do this. Since attacking AND movement are controlled solely with the mouse.
If you want to attack something you have to click and target it, if you want to move you have to click there.
WASD controls would simply allow you to have similar movement as Controller already gives. The ability to separate movement and attacking from the same input into two different inputs.
And every single argument I have seen that says that is a bad idea has frankly been baffling and outright dumb.
You cannot move backwards while attacking forward with a controller.
When you move backwards, you lose your target and cannot attack it.
To relock on your enemy, you have to change analog direction forwards and stop moving backwards as a consequence.
Just as on a controller, moving and targeting are done with one thing - your mouse.
In case of a controller it’s the analog stick.
There are two ways WSAD could be implemented
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moving doesn’t change target, only mouse does - obviously would give an advantage and everyone performance oriented would probably switch to that. Differs from a controller as I described above because here moving away doesn’t change your target or in other words moving and targeting are separated. Currently both on M & K and controller moving away does change your target.
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moving changes your target just like mouse - I cannot imagine it being implemented because how would it even work? Two inputs conflicting with each other in regard to where your character is aiming? It would be a mess. For example where should your character be pointing at when you click forwards and move backwards at the same time? It would have to be 1 which gives and advantage for the reason mentioned - movement doesn’t losing your target.
This is not an argument on whether WSAD + Mouse should be implemented
but rather that it would give some advantage in comparison to current controlling methods.
And would give the game a twin stick shooter feel / gameplay.
Btw to be fair controller would need to get an actual twin sticker option then.
I agree but you’re splitting hairs.
On Mouse you have to click target, then click to ground behind you, them move mouse all the way to target and perfectly click on them and rinse/repeat this.
On Controller you can do it immensely faster with perfect accuracy.
Back up, stop for split second and attack, back up stop for tiny moment and attack.
If you’ve played on both you understand that controller movement is far superior.
You cannot attack whilst moving already, so the analogy of being able to move and attack at the same time was indeed wrong and thank you for clarifying it. But it was barely wrong.
WASD movement would simply allow a keyboard/mouse player to approach something similar to controller. Instead of a much worse control scheme where the mouse does everything.
And the functionality is already there. The Joystick movement is essentially WASD movement. It functions IDENTICALLY to how WASD movement would function.
So why the limitation? What’s the purpose? What’s the gain and what’s the loss? I still fail to see it.
People are talking like WASD movement would change the game fundamentally, it would change everything and require massive amounts of dev time and work to implement.
It all seems like a lot of BS to me without someone explaining exactly WHY that is, without falling back to generic responses.
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You must not have used the controller much. Skills that don’t require a direct mob target are extremely tricky to place on an empty spot and more so when the area is full of mobs.
And setting a fixed view angle can be useful when navigating maze-like maps, whereas the controller requires constant rotation.
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What is it with the sudden influx of people claiming “yes, add this thing that makes the game easier, but it actually doesn’t affect its balance at all”?
Yes, in a very general sense, wasd movement doesn’t add something that doesn’t exist in the game in some form. But, changing an already existing mechanic so that it is notably easier to move, dodge and aim is quite enough to ruin the game’s balance.
Yes, add some soulslike elements to Grim Dawn (like, untankable boss abilities that require you to move out of the way and time your attacks - basicslly, the way superboss fights are in Project Diablo 2). But don’t turn Grim Dawn into Dark Souls.
I just tried it and I’m not 100% sure. I mean I guess I can be a bit faster in some scenarios (although with mouse you can be fast too if you train / set it up properly) but there’s one advantage with Mouse and Keyboard
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you can click for your character to move
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and hover over a target monster while your character is still moving
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and then attack a monster instantly with a click after you stop moving because your cursor is already on a monster
With a controller you have to move an analog and press some attack button.
With Mouse you instantly stop the character and cast a spell with just a click instead because you moved your cursor while the character was moving. And that’s how everyone actually stutter steps with M&K. Impossible with a controller and kinda makes it balanced.
Imo it’s not the same because you’d have to remove targeting from WSAD / from where the character looks.
The analog of WSAD + Mouse on a controller would be Moving with Left Analog Stick and Targeting with the Right Stick.
As far as I’m concerned, you can add WSAD to the game (because I don’t care if someone would potentially have it a bit easier) but it would make a game different, for example you could
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hold arrow down and just press attack button repeatedly for the stutter step attack
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while on the controller you have to constantly change the direction of the analog
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and with mouse you have move the cursor around
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Elite gamers gatekeeping to keep those less skilled from being able to play something that they don’t want tarnished by being experienced by those of less refined reflexes. you cant reason with an elitist any more than you can with a drunk or a zealot.
This topic had to be forgotten, why are you like this?
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WASD movement would be a nice addition, heck, even Path of Exile is adding it.
And Crate have made it very clear over the years it’s not happening for GD. Maybe something they consider for if/when GD2 starts being seriously developed, but that’s years away yet.
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I don’t think it’s a good argument. I watched that stream. It actually looked weird to me and it allows moving backwards and shooting at the same time which is not possible in GD currently so I don’t think you could add it in this form.