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Will Nintendo ever drop the octagonal gate on their analog sticks?

Balb said:
I thought the GameCube analog stick was amazing. I don't like the nunchuck analog stick though. I always find myself going sideways whenever I climb up vines in Zelda TP, which doesn't happen to me in any other Zelda game.
I think that's a TP issue, not a specific analog stick one. I also never had "wtf why won't you climb straight" problems in any previous Zelda, but it happened on both the Wii and GCN versions of TP for me. It's as if even 1mm away from directly up on the stick will make you go sideways on vines.

I'd totally hate Nintendo to use the analog stick clicking stuff. On the DualShock especially the stick is so loose that it always moves slightly sideways when I'm supposed to click down on it, since my thumb is coming from the side and not directly down on the stick. I'm sure this problem would largely go away if I played nothing but console FPS, but that's a hellish experience I never want to go through. I've also never played a game on GCN or Wii where the octagonal gate was a negative, it's generally very useful.
 
Caesar III said:
everytime I give my 360 controller (for PC) to someone to play a game they click the sticks without any reason and wonder about the effect and are confused the same time.
This was a big problem with the Duke for me for a while. Took me some time to get used to it, and it still never really feels natural.
 
ZealousD said:
I don't think that's what he's talking about. He's talking about pressing down on them and using the sticks like a button, sorta like with the 360 sticks or a dualshock.
Oh, I see. I assumed he was talking about the gate directions.

I guess because it would cause stress on the nunchuck, wouldn't it? It seems pretty fragile.
 
Caesar III said:
That said: The Dualshock sucks
Very much, yeah. The Gamecube, Controller S, and X360 controllers are some of the most comfortable I've ever used. The Dualshock? Not so much. In fact, it's not even close.

That said, using the X360's d-pad drives me nuts. Recently I've played Fallout 3 and Resident Evil 5, both games which have a "hot key" option, and in both games I've had to put up with incorrect weapon-switches either when I'm a tad bit off or even sometimes when I feel like I fully pressed up, down, left, or right.

Nintendo's d-pads, for the most part, are the best. Not only that, but their use of octagonal gates is also highly preferable in a very large amount of games. This is why the Classic Controller is so awesome. Not only does it have quite possibly the most glorious d-pad ever, but it also has the octagonal gates to boot.
 
Rash said:
Very much, yeah. The Gamecube, Controller S, and X360 controllers are some of the most comfortable I've ever used. The Dualshock? Not so much. In fact, it's not even close.

That said, using the X360's d-pad drives me nuts. Recently I've played Fallout 3 and Resident Evil 5, both games which have a "hot key" option, and in both games I've had to put up with incorrect weapon-switches either when I'm a tad bit off or even sometimes when I feel like I fully pressed up, down, left, or right.
Yeah, don't even get me started on DMC4's D-pad use.

I thought I just didn't understand how to style change because it sometimes switched back to the Trickster style I usually kept as default. Turns out, I was slightly off so it switched, then immediately switched back. That game made me hate the 360 D-Pad.
 
While we're complaining about controllers treating us like babies, when will Microsoft take the letters off of their buttons? We can tell what the buttons are!
 
Aaron Strife said:
While we're complaining about controllers treating us like babies, when will Microsoft take the letters off of their buttons? We can tell what the buttons are!
Uh, why?
 
Aaron Strife said:
While we're complaining about controllers treating us like babies, when will Microsoft take the letters off of their buttons? We can tell what the buttons are!

I think the colors are a bigger outrage! We're totally hardcore people, we fucking hate rainbows!
 
Sixfortyfive said:
I hate the segmented d-pad, I hate the shape naming scheme for the buttons, and I hate how my hands cramp up when trying to use both analogs at the same time.

THIS. So very this. Sure, it's cool, and iconic, but it's irritatingly hard to use - the idiot who thinks that you should need multiple syllables to state what button you're pressing should be shot - or at least sat down with someone playing a split-screen game and trying to play of his own accord while also having to tell the companion what button does what.
 
Caesar III said:
I don't think the d-pad is so bad. It's mostly in the wrong place.
Dude it's TINY. If it were simply a little bigger, yeah, it'd be fine. But it sucks holy hell playing GBA games on that thing.

GCN analog is still king.
 
Is there a joke I'm missing or do people actually have complaints about shapes instead of letters on playstation controllers? that is such craziness

and after over a decade of using the Dual Shock controller, I have no problems with it, but I also don't have too much I like about it. I do find it funny when people think that moving the analog stick to the d-pad position is a bright idea to fix the problems. The entire controller needs to be redesigned with analog sticks in mind. The original Dual Shock from the late '90s had to be this shape because it was new controls tacked onto an already existing controller. Why they decided to continue the design for the next decade doesn't really make sense. When they actually were going to change the controller, people bitched and they went back to the same dual shock design.

If you ignore that the boomerang controller looked like a fucked up banana, double tipped dildo or boomerang, it also looked like it would have been a lot more comfortable to use. Just the fact that they have slanted d-pad and face buttons makes it seem like they considered that human hands would be using the thing.
 
My dream controller would be the GCN as it is, with a clicky analogue stick (still gated though) and a DS Phat d-pad. Maybe another shoulder button on the left side, too, but I'm not totally convinced that's needed. GCN controllers rocked.

Oh, and +1 for the Dualshock 2 hate. I cannot stand how the two analogue sticks are directly in line with each other and the spacing between them, and I really hate how they use symbols instead of letters for naming buttons. For some reason it took me forever to remember which was which, I always had to look down.
 
I dont mind it for most games, but NiGHTS 2 controlled TERRIBLY with anything but the GCN controller because of it.
Not that that helped most of the game itself all that much in the end, though.
Mario Galaxy sometimes seems like it would benefit from its absence as well.
 
Sixfortyfive said:
I hate the shape naming scheme for the buttons,
I always had that problem, until I correlated the fact that the PS pad was a crappy rip off the SNES pad with button naming. The four buttons correspond with the same ascending order as the SNES buttons, but instead of position in the alphabet, it's the number of sides in the shape. O X Triangle, and Square have 1 2 3, and 4 sides respectively and are in the same places as A B X, and Y, in that order.
 
I love it so i hope not.

Speaking of controllers i recently tried playing a 2d game with an xbox dpad... lets just say i am never doing that again.
 
The patent on the octagonal gate feature is listed as "BabyGuard - system for simplification of analog method for control input to reduce complexity and ease access for the young and physically incapable."




Oh wait. I misread that.
 
bmf said:
I always had that problem, until I correlated the fact that the PS pad was a crappy rip off the SNES pad with button naming. The four buttons correspond with the same ascending order as the SNES buttons, but instead of position in the alphabet, it's the number of sides in the shape. O X Triangle, and Square have 1 2 3, and 4 sides respectively and are in the same places as A B X, and Y, in that order.

Oh ****, I didn't realize this until now!
 
I support the octagonal shape, but I think the GameCube stick was overall better than the Wii one. I wish all analog sticks were like GameCube's.

KevinCow said:
I like the octagonal gate. But at the same time, I don't like how it feels awkward to roll past any of the 8 directions, or even to just point in anything other than the 8 directions.

I've always wanted to see a compromise between the two, like an octagon with rounded edges, so you can still feel out the main directions, but it's still relatively smooth to rotate around. Drew this up in AutoCAD real quick to show what I mean:

314qfk0.jpg


The middle one would be the optimal kind of gate, I think.
You may be onto something, but I can't help but think it would be hard to feel the notches. And if they're harder to feel, how useful would they be? And would it really improve games like Nights? I haven't played it so I don't know. But I play Geometry Wars Galaxies fine with the classic controller (although the two sticks are pretty effing close together).
 
flintstryker said:
I love it so i hope not.

Speaking of controllers i recently tried playing a 2d game with an xbox dpad... lets just say i am never doing that again.
Playing SF4 on the 360 drove me nuts because of this.
 
There are times when the notches annoy me, but mostly they are very useful.

Now, the square gate in my Hori makes me mad and no one here can use the fing thing
 
Dragmire said:
I support the octagonal shape, but I think the GameCube stick was overall better than the Wii one. I wish all analog sticks were like GameCube's.


You may be onto something, but I can't help but think it would be hard to feel the notches. And if they're harder to feel, how useful would they be? And would it really improve games like Nights? I haven't played it so I don't know. But I play Geometry Wars Galaxies fine with the classic controller (although the two sticks are pretty effing close together).

NiGHTS is about the only game I can think of that's actually better with a circular gate... Nintendo's octagonal design is by far the best design. So no, I hope Nintendo never stops using octagonal gates; they're great, far better than circular or square ones in almost every case. I think the octagonal gate was a great idea. The N64's analog stick is still my overall favorite stick, before they completely break down that is.

(Square is the worst. How helpful is it to have easy diagonals but not cardinal directions? I mean, come on... it makes no sense!)
 
Balb said:
I thought the GameCube analog stick was amazing. I don't like the nunchuck analog stick though. I always find myself going sideways whenever I climb up vines in Zelda TP, which doesn't happen to me in any other Zelda game.
vanty. said:
I think that's a TP issue, not a specific analog stick one. I also never had "wtf why won't you climb straight" problems in any previous Zelda, but it happened on both the Wii and GCN versions of TP for me.
It's definitely TP weirdness. I think it has something to do with the camera's location before/when you start climbing, iirc.

In any case, it has nothing to do with any perceived flaws in the analog sticks of either the GCN or Wii.
 
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