What are your wackiest ideas for a “universal” controller layout that would appeal to the fans of the Xbox, Nintendo, and PS layouts? You certainly can’t pick one of the three, that would be lazy and frankly unfair for the other two layouts. It’s got to be something that everyone agrees on, something different!
I’ve got a few ideas: NSEW (the cardinal directions), RGBA (colours, also transparent button could be cool…), or maybe CMYK (printer ink colours for ease of printing)
What are your ideas for the universal controller layout?
Camera?
Right stick, generally used for camera control. Reading my comment back that’s super unclear lol
Oh ok I see. I don’t really see how it matters for that purpose whether it’s symmetric or asymmetric. When moving the camera your hand is in one position, and when using the buttons for things like jump, attack, interact etc., your hand is in the other position. You have to use both positions either way. So I’d rather the kind of natural position of both hands resting on the analogue sticks is symmetric rather than twisted.
on the xbox controller the D-pad is to the left of the Right stick, meaning you can easily move your thumb over it to use it in certain games (like in Dark Souls, you use it to change equipped consumables/weapons). Whereas with the symmetric design, you’d have to move your right thumb a bigger distance, and also get in the way of your left thumb (which is on the left stick for movement). Ofcourde, you can always let go of movement to switch items, but that’s not always an easy option (Bossfights, enemy encounters, ehere you have to be moving constantly)
That’s just one game i can think of where the asymmetric dedign is better
Wait, you use the d-pad with your right hand on an Xbox‽ I’m gonna be honest, I can’t even imagine wanting to do that, and it feels like it would be bad game design if a game necessitates it.
But if you did want to do it, I’d say your best option in a symmetric design would be to use your right thumb on the left stick. It’s a little awkward, but it’s only for a split second, which IMO is better than sacrificing the comfort of the design as it’s used 99% of the time.
Not ALL the time. For the most part, you use your left thumb on the left analog stick and the D-Pad, and your right thumb on the right analog stick. But, SOMETIMES, you have to keep your character moving with the left stick while at the same time switching weapons/items with the D-Pad, especially when escaping a tough situation.
Usually, you use the D-pad with your left hand. But in dark souls, movement is done with the left analog stick. Otherwise, if d-pad is used for movement (and not item switching), you use your left hand