Shooters, mouse and keyboard or analogue sticks does it really make a difference?

Ok so there was a debate to give it a more friendly term in #eoff tonight between myself, Kotora, Jiro and Bert. The debate was on whether the use of a Keyboard and Mouse was better for shooters or the analogue stick. Kotora and Bert argued with physics on their side that using a mouse = greater surface area to aim in, greater maneuvering ability due to full hand content and therefore was more accurate. In theory this is true. However my counter argument was to point out videos such as the various player montages you see from people playing Halo Reach, MW2, Black Ops, Killzone even and any other number of console based shooting games. The accuracy of some of these players is just sheer amazing.

Accuracy imho is to do with the player not their input method. If a player is good and has a high accuracy rating then that is going to show using either control method. Ok so sure analogue shooter controls take some getting used to it's not quite the same and most shooter players originally were pc gamers I know I was. 10 years ago I'd have laughed if you told me my average k/d would not only be better than it was then it would be better using a control pad for my games I'd have laughed in your face. These days I can barely remember how it feels to shoot with keyboard and mouse.

I would argue that if a player cannot use both methods of control or is accurate with a mouse but whilst of equal skill has an accuracy rating well below their mouse gaming sessions it is merely the player who is inferior not the control method.

Opinions?

I like kitties and kitties like mice!

Well console shooters are just better. So let's go with that. :)

With analog sticks, smaller movements are required to achieve the same level of accuracy as a mouse, therefore sharper fine motor skills are required.

Therefore, a mouse is inherently easier to use than analog sticks.

That's not saying you can't be as good at using sticks as a mouse, just that it takes better muscle control.

With a mouse you can use the whole of your hand/wrist to articulate, with a console you are only using your thumbs.

Physiologicaly it makes more sense to use larger muscles for larger movements (wrist) while the smaller muscles (fingers) do the fine honing work as the larger muscle moves. In this case you wrist would be moving you towards the target while your fingers perform the fine micro adjustments to get a head shot. When using your thumb you have to perform every range of movement through the same muscles. I'm no kinesiologist, but everything I learned from sports/coaching would indicate the mouse is a physically superior control scheme for aiming.

mouse
*mew*

I forget what I said in chat. I think a player with incredible skill at both stick and mouse would still perform better with a mouse however this thesis is completely unfounded because I have near 0 pc shooter experience. And I'm :bou::bou::bou::bou: at it anyway.

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Originally Posted by NorthernChaosGod

Well console shooters are just better. So let's go with that. :)

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yeah if you're a total creep who likes to talk to 12 year olds all day :colbert:

Controllers aren't bad. But the keyboard + mouse combo is nonetheless vastly superior. Nothing to do with 'skill' or consolefags vs. pc master race, just simply truth that the option which offers greater control fidelity, a far greater number of buttons, and much more customization is better.

It's pretty simple actually.

A player can be good with either one. However, as people have already suggested, it is inherently EASIER to be accurate with a mouse than a joystick. If you had the choice between aiming a gun with a finger, or your entire hand, which would you choose?

Of course, I'm also of the belief that correct settings with a Wii mote (and now Move controller) are even better, as exemplified by Metroid Prime, or even the full customization in The Conduit. At least, better in that if you are accurate with an actual gun.

My reasoning behind this would be the fact that most shooters, such as Call of Duty, have it so that even if you don't touch the aim at all(mouse or stick) the gun "sways" to create realism. However it's not very real if you actually have a very steady hand. This bothers me in those games because lets face it: If I am a Black Ops Sniper, I will have pretty damn steady hands! However with a Wii-mote, the gun is as steady as you are. So if you have steady hands, the gun is steady!

THE JACKEL

That is just game design, it has nothing to do with the input medium. If a game is designed to sway with no input then it will sway weather the wii mote is giving no input or the mouse is giving no input. If you played the same game with both the wii mote wouldn't have any inherent advantage.

The fact that sway in a mouse is so minuscule that it has to be added artificially tells you how stable a control scheme it is.

There's also the fact that if you're playing with gaming mice, they often have their own sets of drivers wherein you can control the sensitivity to a much larger degree than the right analog stick. Skill level aside, a good mouse with proper settings will outstrip a controller.

From experience, I am far more accurate with a mouse than with a controller, though in part it is because I rarely play first person experiences (either shooters or RPGs like Oblivion) on a console. In the end, a mouse personally feels more natural when it comes to such games.

But just because one is easier than the other doesn't make it automatically "better" it makes it more convenient but not better. You could argue that a player with 90% accuracy rating in the console based version of Call Of Duty (you pick which version) is simply better than someone with a rating of 90% accuracy on the PC. Especially since the PC players in this thread have conceded that it is easier to use a mouse than it is to use a right analogue stick.

Ofcourse proper gaming mice and keyboard/mouse combination layouts make for much more control and we've all been dicked over by a context sensitive game pad button "No! Re-smurfing-load not smurfing board the smurfing nub seat or change weapon" but again, easier doesn't mean better automatically. And the common argument about accuracy still hasn't been argued. Accuracy would still be player dependent whether a move of 1mm in a direction on the control moves 1 pixel or 1cm (if this is a problem, your sensitivity is too high, back it down ok) as Kotora tried to argue last night.

it's easier to control so therefore better :p

Yeah but this is like the Nintendo 3DS, if it hurts your eyes, you're doing it wrong. If analogue sticks are too difficult for you, you're doing it wrong.

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Originally Posted by Iceglow

But just because one is easier than the other doesn't make it automatically "better" it makes it more convenient but not better. You could argue that a player with 90% accuracy rating in the console based version of Call Of Duty (you pick which version) is simply better than someone with a rating of 90% accuracy on the PC. Especially since the PC players in this thread have conceded that it is easier to use a mouse than it is to use a right analogue stick.

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Arguing from a standpoint of accuracy alone is only dealing with a single part of the issue but I'll bite anyway and discuss that before tackling the rest of the debate.

In terms of actual accuracy of the input method, a modern mouse most likely wins. I'm not sure of the sensitivity level of modern analog sticks, but I do recall the dual shock 2 on the PS2 had 256 levels of sensitivity that it could recognize. Considering a human being wouldn't be able to distinguish between that many levels of sensitivity in such a small range of movement, it really doesn't matter if analog sticks are more accurate now, and I'd be willing to bet they aren't much more accurate if they are at all. Any given mouse with a decent dpi these days is going to be able to distinguish between very small movements. Again, a human being wouldn't be able to perceive the difference between individual levels of movement (at least not consciously) but I will bet on a high dpi mouse being more mechanically accurate.

You also have to keep in mind that having a high accuracy in a console game says nothing of the comparison between a mouse and a stick. All it tells us is that this person is very good at not pulling the trigger until they know they're going to hit their opponent. What it doesn't tell us is what their k/d ratio is, how well they do when they're ambushed, flanked, or when someone starts shooting them in the back etc. Even if you can manage a comparable accuracy with an analog stick to that of a decent player with a mouse, the player with the mouse can pull off movements like a complete 180 degree turn in fractions of a second, whereas someone using an analog stick will take a second or more in most games. You can try to combat this by upping the analog sensitivity, but you'll lose fine aim control for smaller movements; something that doesn't happen with a mouse.

As a result, people using a mouse can not only be accurate, but they can be accurate while not sacrificing quick reaction time, which in an FPS means they stand a better chance of surviving an ambush, or an attack from behind.

I feel it's also worth mentioning that pretty much every analog stick I've used aside from a brand new N64 stick has a dead zone right around dead center where you have to move them a noticable amount in order to get any response from them. Some are better than others, and all of them are better than previous generations controllers, but this is another hinderance to fine aiming on a console as compared to using a mouse.

I think the mouse will always be better - I don't think there's any getting around that. But console shooters, especially in the last few years with smoother frame rates, have largely diminished the gap.

I think there's some of a feeling difference, like pulling off really great shots while maneuvering two sticks can almost be like an art form, but I feel like PC pulls off that faster paced, exhiliarating feeling a little better.

There's also been a big development lately - the "heavier" shooters like Killzone and Gears of War. Because of the way they deal with movement, I couldn't imagine playing Killzone with a mouse and I heard Gears didn't play out as well as the console version there.

There's also been the development of motion control in shooters, and I don't think they've really touched on the controller vs. mouse gap, i believe they've only added additional experiences. I just don't think they're accurate enough to take away from the mouse - not that they're inaccurate, but almost that they're too accurate and it's easy to go all over the place. I would never leave my online score in Killzone 3 up to the unpredictability of the move, although they put in a TON of options to tweak it, so maybe I just need to mess with that more. It's a different experience, though, and the sniping sections in the KZ3 campaign are bliss with the Move, i'd imagine it'd be the same with a lot of Wii shooters.

Er, given that controls are intended to be as unnoticeable as possible, and that to facilitate the player taking whatever actions they want to in-game as effortlessly as possible is the point of a control scheme, I would say that easier is better.

I find a controller/gamepad must easier to play an FPS with than a mouse and keyboard. But that's probably just because I grew up playing console games 90% more than PC games and therefore my brain is far better trained in one department.

Threads like these always make me laugh.

Analogue sticks can sense like 255 degrees of tilt on each axis (at least thats what the DS3 driver for my PC was detecting when I connected it), and dividing those two cm of movement you can on each axis into 255 levels is obviously going to make everything you do with it require a lot of precision. Mice can however have as high a resolution as 1600 dpi, and you also perform mouse aiming over far more than two cm per axis. This alone clearly shows that it is easier to perform more accurate aiming with a mouse.

I also find the way you aim with a mouse to be more intuitive. To me, it feels more direct, while on a stick it is more like telling the game "start moving aim in x direction at y speed until i stop telling you to".

Even if both methods of input are dependent on each players skill level with that sort of input, I can't imagine a stick user outmaneuvering a kb+mouse user, given the same level of physical aptitude in each player, the same amount of training with their preferred input method, and in a game that doesn't interpolate analogue stick input.

It's sort of like tiers in fighting games. A person playing a mid-tier character can still beat a person playing a high tier character, but chances are the person playing the mid tier character would have been even better with the high tier character, given the same amount of practice. In this case, the laws of physics put KB+mouse on a tier above analogue sticks.

None of you mousers have :bou::bou::bou::bou: on Tsquared :colbert:

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Originally Posted by kotora

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Originally Posted by NorthernChaosGod

Well console shooters are just better. So let's go with that. :)

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yeah if you're a total creep who likes to talk to 12 year olds all day :colbert:

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I forget, what's party chat for? :confused:

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Originally Posted by Mirage

Analogue sticks can sense like 255 degrees of tilt on each axis (at least thats what the DS3 driver for my PC was detecting when I connected it), and dividing those two cm of movement you can on each axis into 255 levels is obviously going to make everything you do with it require a lot of precision. Mice can however have as high a resolution as 1600 dpi, and you also perform mouse aiming over far more than two cm per axis. This alone clearly shows that it is easier to perform more accurate aiming with a mouse.

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Isn't 1600 dpi pretty low? I've seen high end mice with like 5000 dpi.

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Originally Posted by NorthernChaosGod

None of you mousers have :bou::bou::bou::bou: on Tsquared :colbert:

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Originally Posted by kotora

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Originally Posted by NorthernChaosGod

Well console shooters are just better. So let's go with that. :)

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yeah if you're a total creep who likes to talk to 12 year olds all day :colbert:

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I forget, what's party chat for? :confused:

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Yes, and looking at what he played we wouldn't want to be either. All he was good at was Halo :p

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10 years ago I'd have laughed if you told me my average k/d would not only be better than it was then it would be better using a control pad for my games I'd have laughed in your face. These days I can barely remember how it feels to shoot with keyboard and mouse.

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Perhaps your k/d ratio on console games is better because your competitors aim is worse due to using an analogue stick?

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Originally Posted by Iceglow

But just because one is easier than the other doesn't make it automatically "better" it makes it more convenient but not better. You could argue that a player with 90% accuracy rating in the console based version of Call Of Duty (you pick which version) is simply better than someone with a rating of 90% accuracy on the PC.

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You just stated that given equal accuracy the console player would be better skilled, ergo given equal skilled players the mouse player would have more accuracy. Isn't that the definition of better?

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Originally Posted by Bert

Yes, and looking at what he played we wouldn't want to be either. All he was good at was Halo :p

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Realistically speaking, being good at one console shooter would give you a pretty good advantage in any of the rest. But that doesn't change the fact that those MLG nerds would slaughter everyone here.

I'd argue that our generation of gamers might find a mouse and keyboard much easier and more natural to use for shooters, but I've seen kids who've only really gotten the gaming bug since shooters became big on consoles who move console sticks with more precision than I could ever hope to emulate.

I agree Mo, I grew up playing shooters on a PC. and once they started coming out for consoles besides Golden Eye I never bothered with them since I have always been way more comfortable playing games on a PC (long story short my brothers wouldn't let me play consoles growing up so I had to play PC games)