Controller support? no thanks!

Stupid arguments aside, because this sounds a lot like the controller vs. keyboard/mouse argument (*hint, one of those is vastly superior as well), I'll still be buying a controller.

On a side note, professional gamers playing Leauge of Lengends on a touchscreen keyboard is not an argument against the benefits of tactile feel. Also, I definitely don't see my hands sufficiently enough when playing on the ipad, the fact that their in my peripheral doesn't even remotely equate to watching your fingers when you type.

Btw, what are these ports done right? I'm genuinely curious because even games built from the ground up for iOS have passable controls at best. For instance, I've been playing The Blocks Cometh with touch controls, and it's certainly very playable, but the instant I played with the iCade my scores took off; same goes for Super Mega worm and Velocispider.

I can't help but feel like you play very different games.

 

It is strange how similar the keyboard vs touchscreen and controller vs touchscreen comparisons are.

In both cases, I think the touchscreen proponents are somewhat missing what the primary benefit of the touchscreen is. It doesn't make a better traditional keyboard or a better traditional joystick - it enables developers to create new experiences that can be SUPERIOR to what a keyboard or joystick can enable. Direct multitouch manipulation of on-screen elements can make for a completely new, more immersive gaming experience. Variable keyboards with context dependent buttons and letters can increase productivity.

The difficulty comes in trying to cram the old metaphor into the new technology. It isn't a complete failure - the hundreds of millions (billions?) of smartphone gamers is proof enough of that - but it doesn't represent the best use of the technology.

There is a reason Angry Birds became as huge as it did: it completely, totally understood the touchscreen as an input method. Playing it with a controller sucks: it was designed for touch screen. Control issues would have kept Mario from reaching the massive, diverse audience that Angry Birds has, and as a result Angry Birds is arguably bigger than Mario today.

Older games can be adapted to work with virtual buttons. Games ported that way can still be fun, and many gamers are able to overlook input difficulties, or acclimate themselves well to the new methods. "Real" gamers are able to put up with a lot of pain to play real games.

Game controllers mean you don't have to, though. Thats all. It means you can play a game in a closer approximation to how it was designed originally to be played. Some of us prefer that - why shouldn't we have that option?

Some people prefer a physical keyboard. Apple will be glad to sell them one, too.

I just don't see the controversy here.

 

^ I couldn't agree more.

I actually wanted to mention angry birds as an example of games that I'd never play with a controller in order to highlight how touchscreens are superior for a lot of games and a lot of genres.

Anyway, great post.

 

I've yet to play a Mario style game on iOS that had as tight of controls as actual Marion with a controller; actually all the ones I've played have felt sloppy and I've wished for controller support.

KoTOR is great but it was never a game that demanded decent controls. It's almost entirely mouse driven and works on touchscreens for the same reason point-and-click adventure games work on touchscreens.

Halo CE made FPS's better on console, true, but it didn't make them equal with or superior to keyboard/mouse, in fact, it made them a different beast entirely but as a 90's FPSer that's another discussion. I've played Halo on my Xbox against PC players; it was a slaughter. I'd won tournaments on console and couldn't even touch players using the keyboard and mouse. Granted, it was fine for consoles, and I do like FPS on console, but they're a perfect example of a genre that doesn't work on touchscreens, play well-enough on consoles only once the controller started being designed to handle them, and is still vastly superior on PC.

I play plenty of touchscreen games which I'd never want a controller for or a keyboard/mouse for; angry birds, warhammer quest, lords of waterdeep, drive on moscow, etc... but platformers, arcade style titles, FPS's, they all need something more to me. I'll even go so far as to say that anything mouse driven works better on touchscreen, Starbase orion for instance is great with the touchscreen, feels fancy.

Long story short it definitely sounds like we play differently and expect vastly different things from our controls but at the end of the day the tight-controls desired for arcade style games, not cheap knock-offs, can't be achieved on touch screens and can't be achieved without tactile feel but I'm sure for diablo it'll work just fine.

Btw, I do love gaming on mobile. iPad and PC are where I spend all my time these days.

 

This "argument/debate" is kind of funny.
I'll start by saying that games like the League of Evil series, Stealth inc and many other platformers have brought touchscreen virtual controls to a very high level. Although this type of game was Designed to play with physical controls, virtual control has been very well tuned in some instances.
Some developers have made great games and been unable or unwilling to seriously consider how to make a V-pad work well. Other Brothers or Flying Daggers could have been great and were crippled with sub par controls by stubborn developers. If a developer includes enough (well designed) options, most people will be able to adapt to touchscreen controls. Personally I would prefer a controller for even the platformers with the best designed touch input.

Racing games have come a long way in the development of the AppStore. Personally, I don't think we can match what a controler does to help with these games. In specific, shoulder buttons for shifting gears made racing drastically better on consoles. Just a small design change that went a long way. I enjoy a few racing games on touch devices. I don't think they can reach the level of console racers though. Choosing between auto accelerate and cluttered interfaces stings a little and hampers the experience.

Point and click games... Drastically better on a touchscreen than with a controler.

FPS and RTS are by far the best with a mouse and keyboard. I'll take RTS touchscreen over controller. And FPS with a controller instead of V-Pad 100% of the time.

Games like Street Fighter aren't even a comparable experience on touchscreen.

Some games designed for touch interface, I couldn't imagine any other way of playing them. Some games, Roguelikes, RPGs, etc are not at all effected by this debate and are equal with all methods supposing they are well designed.

This is all just my opinion of course. Not Fact. Just a few thoughts loosely strung together. That people are willing to argue for touchscreens as a viable method of controls shows how far they've come along. Great news for anyone who's visiting this site. Obviously this whole debate is about people's opinions. There is no right or wrong. No winner. This debate has played out in other forms here. Namely the virtual controls vs tilt argument. All I can say is that the more options people have, the more likely they are to enjoy the experience that a game offers.

 

I'm going to need to take this point by point.

I checked it out and... it's not even on par with Super Mario Bros. 2, though that's the closest comparison, and I mean it's not even close. The game seems like a decent platformer for iOS, which is definitely derogatory, it controls well given it's limitations and is a great comparison to Halo since the game has been slowed down significantly, the jumps are very generous requiring no real precision and the levels are flat sprawls which lack interesting diagonals or any real hazards to negotiate; beyond some vertical gameplay, akin to mario 2, which only serves to slow the game down even further, it doesn't have much challenge and as a result was incredibly boring.

That's a lot of the same reasons PC gamers still don't like console FPS's. Halo just makes the best of it's limitations, reworked the systems to reflect that, and came out as a good game because of it but Ava's Quest not so much. I need something much more compelling and iOS platformers have yet to deliver.

I didn't because I only have an iPad, but I don't find the iPad too big to hold. Perhaps though it does explain some of our differences since your argument is based from an iPhone perspective while mine is definitely iPad centric. Why I would want a controller for a phone is beyond me, maybe the nifty little case ones but it'd be a novelty in my eyes and I hate cell phones anyway.

Mostly joking but I'll take my headshots without a hand covering half my screen, that's assuming I could even turn around to hit anyone in the first place.

I absolutely agree; unfortunately, every FPS made specific for touchscreens has been garbage since touchscreens really can't handle FPS gameplay. Maybe that'll change one day but I don't see it happening without major concession to gameplay, again akin to Halo. It rather or not those concession can be crafted to enhance gameplay or not that will make the difference.

Can't argue there as I don't think controllers would improve iPhone gameplay and I agree that games should be built with their formats in mind, which is why the DS sucked so bad; could Nintendo honestly ruin more good games with forced gimmicks at this point? I also have very different expectations of what different systems can give me in terms of gameplay, it's just that once a good controler get's made for iPad I know that I can start expecting even more, at least for a few games, much like the iCade does for me right now.

As for RTS's, why even bother making them if they are less complex and less compelling than their PC counterparts? I like Autumn Dynasty, though it took a LOT of simplification to make it fun on iOS devices, a lot like Halo Wars actually.

Can't argue here either; handhelds mostly suck. Even the SP's best games are all ports from better consoles; people somehow forget that it's library is full of shovelware.. reminds me of the App Store just a bit actually.

Anyway, we clearly have different perspectives since we game on very different systems and I can see your reasons now that I understand you're talking about smaller devices; however, I see gaming on an iPhone and an iPad as vastly different things and suspect that the initial confusion is on my part.

 

Well, people like Topherunhinged easily start a controversy with statements such as: "all FPS games on all touchscreen devices in general are unplayable". And yet he never even played an FPS on an iPhone.

People prefer what they prefer. But please, for gods sake, speak for yourself and don't generalize things.

 

Anyway, as to the worthwhile posts. I'm glad that Ava's quest picks-up. I've heard great things about it pretty much everywhere and it has iCade support, which I really really appreciate, so I'll probably try out the full version, and the later levels, at some point. I suspect that it just makes for a bad first impression with me which isn't hard to do.

 

Here's my 2 cents.

I think official controller support will push to change ios gaming and provide those of us who want the controller support the option. It would have still probably happened with 3rd party but a lot slower.

It's what helped me buy into a new ios device, actually.

That being said, there's work to be done in developing the hardware. I feel like it won't be too long before some company develops one that is comparable to the ds or xbox controller and at a more reasonable price point.

Touchscreen controls on the other hand, for me, are serviceable at best. That's probably due to the games I'm playing though. I'm not really into the physics puzzle atmospheric stuff which usually innovates when it comes to touch controls. There's no tactile edge and glass doesn't feel good on my fingertips after 30 minutes. Plus, having to hold my ipad gets tiring after a while too.

So yeah, bring on the controller support but I'll need a better hardware device before I make the jump. I feel like that'll be soon too.

Also - no issues with battery on my ipad. I can literally play games for 4+ hours on a single charge. More depending on how CPU intensive the game is.

 

I think controllers are at most a niche within the gaming niche. Some genres are better on a touch device. Typically board games, tactical games, turn based games, puzzles like Dungeon Raid or 10000000. Then there are new genres/mechanics possible because of it.

If you believe touch controls are servicable at best, than you're either playing bad games, or playing games that aren't to the strength of the platform. For example, if you play a lot of FPS's or fighters like Street Fighter, than yeah, they won't work well. But that would be like playing Glyph Quest or Battleheart on a console and expecting better results.

If your fingers are getting sore from playing on touch, you're pressing too hard (which isn't how it works, they aren't buttons )

A controller on a touch device (which has it's own unique strengths) is so counterintuitive to me. I can see how they could be useful for some ports to the platform, but far from something that will take touch device gaming to new heights.

 

I'll post my comment from the front page here since it probably belongs in this thread anyway.

Seriously though, these controllers are a niche within a niche... so I question the success of these. I enjoy games as much as anyone - whether it be a PC game or a console game. But this attempt of implementing controllers on a touch device seems so counterintuitive to me.

In my eyes, the reality is that not every genre works well on a touch device. So I suppose these controllers are an attempt to "fix" this. The uniqueness of touch also comes with it's strengths though. New genres are created, new mechanics are possible. Existing genres like turn based games, tactical games, match 3, puzzles, board games, hell even the hugely successful game XCOM is better on a touch interface and way more intuitive. Way more than a keyboard that's designed for everyday computing and communication use or perhaps even a controller. Why? Because those two things are mediums added between you and the graphic user interface or GUI.

On the other hand, if a traditional controller attracts more gamers to iOS, than I'm all for it. After all, the more gamers that play on an iDevice, the more developers may potentially profit. The rest of this equation is easy to calculord, I mean calculate... (seriously check out Calculords)

**Disclaimer: The above is my and only my opinion. You may share my opinion. You may not share my opinion. You may even believe it to be "toxic" or "internet". And that's OK. I can assure you though my opinion is authentic, thoughtful, and comes with a streak of passion. It doesn't make anyone elses opinion wrong or less important. It's simply an expression of mine**

Here is a fantastic response with example to my comment.

bilboad said:

I agree that there are lots of games which work just fine with touch and tilt controls, and wouldn't really benefit from a physical controller, except possibly for people who won't make the effort to get used to virtual controls. The majority of games I spend time on in iOS are like this.

However there are lots of other games which iOS hardware is perfectly capable of running well, but which are kept from reaching their full potential for fun by lack of physical controls. I still play some of these games on iOS because I like the games enough to be willing to put up with the less than ideal controls in exchange for having a mobile game. Others are so annoying to play with virtual controls that I just don't bother. I keep being tempted to get a PS Vita because I enjoy racing games and some fighting games, but find them much more fun with physical controls. If I could use a controller with my iPad, that would be one less reason to get a Vita. I do want games to continue to support virtual controls as well. That way I can play the games whether or not I have the controller with me, but I have the option of having a more premium experience playing it in situations where I have my controller.

In summary, to me a controller just seems like a way to extend the usefulness of my iOS devices to more genres of games, including games which I would otherwise only play on my Xbox. I don't think they'll become ubiquitous enough to stop game developers from developing games like Infinity Blade or Tilt To Live, which are specifically designed around virtual controls, so I don't see any harm in them catching on.

 

You are either trolling me or didn't comprehend my post.

LOL. I'm not pressing too hard on the screen. And I know I'm not the only one who's fingertips feel odd after using a dual-stick touch-screen interface for over 30 minutes. Or am I? Maybe.

The kind of games I like to play benefit from controller support (which was explained in my previous post). I do not like the kind of games that usually innovate with touch screen controls, that's all personal preference, so yeah, the games I'm playing on IOS are not the strength of IOS, but that's not likely to change.

You are right though, regarding IOS controller gaming to be a riche within a niche. However, do not underestimate that, because IOS gaming is HUGE, so even a small % of that can be quite large. It might be counter-intuitive to you, but for my purposes, it most certainly is not. Different strokes...