Daggerfall-like cursor in view mode

[hfc2x]

I want to preface this by stating that this is, of course, very low priority, and should only be considered once the game is already at a mostly playable state.

With that out of the way, I just want to say that this is really awesome lol. Having played tons of vanilla Arena, it's a dream come true to see the game being modernized. However, I have a very minor peeve when it comes to the available options for controlling movement and view, so I thought it would be nice to have a couple more options in the future.

The problem I have is that you only can either choose between "modern" or "classic" UI, with movement and view options being different and exclusive to one another. Modern allows for freelooking, but no cursor, whereas classic is exactly like standard DOS Arena. I get why this is, but as someone who prefers having both the intrusive old UI (I know, I'm in the minority here), it's a bit of a letdown not to have freelooking along with it. This was a major problem in the original Arena, because you couldn't look down to pick up objects that were in the floor next to you, so you were forced to step back a bit until the object was within click distance, and in some instances, that was borderline impossible due to, at times, there not being enough physical space for that.

Of course, the intended way to go would be using the modern-style UI, but it'd be a problem if you want to play with the entirety of the screen available to you, while still having the option to perform actions with the cursor. This is where Daggerfall comes in. Vanilla DOS Daggerfall allows for the use of the point-and-click cursor, even if you're playing with mouselook, by allowing you to map a "cursor" key in the options, which you require a lot of the time in that game, because levers and switches are extremely fidgety, and fail to work a lot of the time, even with your "activate center object" key while you're directly looking at them. Having an option to do this in OpenTESArena would help both modes, since "modern" UI could use the classic point-to-move with the cursor, and vice versa, at the player's discretion.

Again, I want to reiterate that this is a very minor peeve of mine, and it should be considered extremely low priority at this time.

[afritz1]

It's not something I'm currently thinking of doing but it may become more realistic as more UI work is done to support things like this.

[FitzRoyX]

It's a common theme in early first person games that mouselook+strafe wasn't yet the standard. You look and turn at a fixed velocity instead of a controllable one. 10x worse. Awkwardly toggling between "look" and "cursor" pretty much died too, because learning 10 hotkeys isn't hard (especially since forced mouselook eliminates turn, look, and cursor hotkeys).

I really wish there was less resistance to adopting modern controls for source ports. Not exactly the same thing as changing numbers, changing graphics, changing monster behavior, adding content. It's not subjective.

[hfc2x]

It's not about resistance to adopting modern controls. It's about having options. You like modern controls? That's cool, you have an option for that. You want to play the game the way it was originally intended to be played? There's an option for that as well.

Source ports tend to be, most of the time, recommended by each game's community over official (re)releases because of the amount of options they tend to give to the players, specifically because the source ports are made by other players and fans who understand what could improve the game without taking anything away from the core experience.

Awkwardly toggling between "look" and "cursor" pretty much died too, because learning 10 hotkeys isn't hard (especially since forced mouselook eliminates turn, look, and cursor hotkeys).

I have no idea if you have played Daggerfall, but it seems like you haven't. It's one of the reasons why I mentioned it in the OP as well, because you don't really need to learn any of the hotkeys. You can play the game with modern FPS controls and ignore most of the hotkeys the game offers. The game explicitly gives you this option, unlike vanilla Arena. If you want to activate the cursor, you just press the "use cursor" key in your keyboard, which detaches the mouse from your freelook, and gives you a mouse cursor to click and investigate around the world, along with making it easy to activate levers and switches. Pressing the key again removes the cursor and gives you mouse freelook again instantly. It's literally a single keypress. Not awkward by any stretch of the imagination.

Having redundant controls for turning and looking hurts no one. Hell, even the modern official rereleases of Doom, Quake, etc, come with redundant controls that you can use if you wish, even if these games come with their control schemes mapped as standard modern WASD by default. I don't think you should play Quake keyboard-only, but I'm not losing sleep over the thought of anyone wishing to do that.

I really wish there was less resistance to adopting modern controls for source ports.

It's not subjective.

How is your opinion not subjective? If you want this source port to forbid anyone from using classic controls, because it's "objectively" better that way, you can always fork the code and make your own version. This project is open source and offered with a MIT license, after all.

[FitzRoyX]

How is your opinion not subjective?

Is it really though? Daggerfall's "cursor mode" was a bad design for real time first person. Crosshairs point just like a cursor, and being able to click on things WHILE looking around solves all the frustrating clickability issues you complained about with levers, 2d corpses, and moving npcs. Locking yourself out of mouselook at any point in a dungeon also has goofy pointless death potential.

If people complain about "too many hotkeys" to learn, you can have an overlay option showing the key on each hud button. At no point would I consider letting them steal the cursor from mouselook to click on the hud.

[hfc2x]

Is it really though? Daggerfall's "cursor mode" was a bad design for real time first person.

That's still a subjective appreciation. I could easily just choose to contradict you and tell you why I think you're wrong, and we could be here for hours not getting anywhere. I don't think you came to the right place for this kind of conversation.

At no point would I consider letting them steal the cursor from mouselook to click on the hud.

What I said still stands, though. If you're so adamantly opposed to the idea of giving players options that feel personally offensive to you, you can just fork this project and make your own version where those options are forbidden. Everyone wins in the end.

[Thunderforge]

@FitzRoyX @hfc2x Let's take a step back from this argument. The answer right now is still the same as when this request was created: it's not something that is going to be worked on right now, but could be considered for the future. The current roadmap notes that the renderer followed by original gameplay/UI are the current priorities.

The OpenTESArena project isn't necessarily opposed to adding modern conveniences in the future, including features from Daggerfall, but the first goal is to be a re-implementation of the 1994 game as-is.

As always in open source: demanding things from volunteers is not productive. The best way to get things done sooner is to implement it yourself.