Idea(s) and musings for addressing multiplayer confusions

[Arthur]

Okay, we probably have all seen that people not following the development of 0.7 wonders where split-screen multiplayer went. In 0.6, we had a separate menu item for that, but in order to minimize amount of screens and navigation needed for multiplayer, the new design was based around the "console concept", where players add themselves to the game by pressing their relevant 'fire' buttons.

Problem is that people aren't used to that for computer games, and also for most consoles, you specify at the beginning of the race how many players will be part of the game. So in the "choose vehicle/character" menus on console games, you already have 2,3 or 4 areas split up after how many players you specified. People already know by then that they are added, and it all makes sense for them.

For STK however, this approach could be annoying for people playing the game alone, against the AI. Always having to specify that yes, you are alone in your STK addiction could possibly get on people's nerves.

Therefore, I present this simple addition(/hack) to the current system:
In the 'Controls' tab in the 'Options' menu, where all input devices are listed, you could have a "radio button" which indicates what your primary device is. So by default, 'Keyboard 0' would be the primary input device, and thus, clicking on the 'Race' icon in the main menu would result in 'Keyboard 0' being the input device for player 1.

Now, couple this with detecting gamepads and other input devices, and you could have a quite flexible system. Say that you want to play multiplayer with someone. You start the game, and in the 'Controls' list, both 'Keyboard 0' and 'Gamepad 0' (in fact, device ID) would show up. Now, since the game knows that more than one input device is available, player 1 would be set up to use the keyboard, and player 2 would also be added already, since a controller was plugged in.

What about someone playing alone, but preferring using a gamepad? They could just mark the gamepad as being their default input device, so every time the device is plugged in, the game would assume you would want to use it when clicking on 'Race' in main menu.

The complicated part of this is the fact that several gamepads of the same device ID would be shown and interpreted by the game as one device. This means that if two players were to use the same type of gamepad, one of them would have to add himself/herself manually as is the case now. But, this addition would likely cover quite a lot of people with less confusion for them, whereas in this last case, people would need to seek the in-game or the community's help such as now. Alas, this would not be a perfect solution, but I imagine it would work for many and thus reduce the need to seek for or give help.

Any thoughts, questions etc?
Maybe I didn't explain this as easily as I could, but in the way I imagined it, this "hack" would make sense (sorta).

[charlie]

Or just have a message: "Players, press button 1 to join the race!"

[Arthur]

There is a message such as this already, but people seem to overlook it. Also, it doesn't address the problem of people using mouse to click on 'Race', and then the game assumes they want to use keyboard, when in fact they meant to play with gamepad.

If all people read the in-game manual, this wouldn't be an issue at all.

[Auria]

Maybe we can go this way :

1) Have a "single-player" button; if you use this race button, you get the usual kart selection screen, just like now, and no one else can join.
2) Have a "multi-player" button too; if you use this button, you get the screen like now, but with a HUGE message "Press Fire to Join", probably at the right of the game master's kart
3) In the bottom bar where you can now find the language, there would be a "input device" selection combo; the default value would be "Automatically detect".

What about this?

[mjminfo]

Hi Auria,
I would like better that the situation stays as it it's. I like better to play a 1 game race with my gamepad than the keyboard.
I have to admit that it took me some time to understand that I could just use the gamepad instead of the keyboard to start a race, but once you get that then it's a no come back to keyboard.

I think that it's only a question of visibility and understanding how it works. Most of the games use the keyboard ( that's what the users are used to) to navigate and start the game, but in STK you can navigate and start a game with a gamepad.

I think that a simple mention like :

Use your gamepad or keyboard to navigate and make the choices to add/start a race would suffice.

just my 2 cents ...

Jorge

[madbad]

Maybe we can go this way :

1) Have a "single-player" button; if you use this race button, you get the usual kart selection screen, just like now, and no one else can join.
2) Have a "multi-player" button too; if you use this button, you get the screen like now, but with a HUGE message "Press Fire to Join", probably at the right of the game master's kart
3) In the bottom bar where you can now find the language, there would be a "input device" selection combo; the default value would be "Automatically detect".

What about this?

+1 for this one

[Arthur]

Auria's suggestion sounds a lot better than mine, though it'd be cool if we could avoid adding a specific button for multiplayer.... Well, when WAN support comes in 0.9, we could use the same button and some extra buttons in the following kart selection menu to select kind of multiplayer, like "WAN", "LAN" and "Local".

Okay, probably thinking too far, but... it's so fun!

[hiker]

Maybe we can go this way :

1) Have a "single-player" button; if you use this race button, you get the usual kart selection screen, just like now, and no one else can join.
2) Have a "multi-player" button too; if you use this button, you get the screen like now, but with a HUGE message "Press Fire to Join", probably at the right of the game master's kart

Sounds good - I think this will be more in line with what people expect to see. I would actually go a bit further with 1): any new input device in this case should automatically be assigned to the player. This would allow people to easily use keyboard for all selections, but then switch to gamepad. Is it perhaps possible to assign multiple devices to one player? So people could have keyboard and gamepad assigned. This way people could even switch in a race between devices.

Also generally if a new input device is used after kart selection, it could automatically be co-assigned to the player with the keyboard (assuming that we can have more than one input device per player). I don't think that this would cause a new problem (?), but will solve issues with people using keyboard for menu selection, but gamepad in the game.

3) In the bottom bar where you can now find the language, there would be a "input device" selection combo; the default value would be "Automatically detect".

Is this still necessary? I admit I am not big fan of the language selection in the bottom bar, since I see this bar more as a 'news ticker' (where once the addon manager is functional there will be news items displayed, probably like a news ticker). But till we have found a better location, we can leave it there (what about displaying a language flag in the top right corner? That's where this is on many web pages ... I think).

Cheers,
Joerg

[hiker]

Hi Jorge,

I like better to play a 1 game race with my gamepad than the keyboard.

That will certainly still be possible.

I have to admit that it took me some time to understand that I could just use the gamepad instead of the keyboard to start a race ...

Yes, but that is a huge problem - people thinking gamepads do not work, potentially not even bothering to play STK, or opening bug reports.

I think that it's only a question of visibility and understanding how it works. Most of the games use the keyboard ( that's what the users are used to) to navigate and start the game, but in STK you can navigate and start a game with a gamepad.

One correction: "in STK you must navigate and start a game with a gamepad", and that's just not good enough. I think it should be possible (with Auria's suggestion) to select menu with keyboard, and still use gamepad in game. You are right - that's what people expect, and that's what we need to support.

Cheers,
Joerg

[Auria]

Joerg,

your idea of assigning multiple input devices to a single player sounds unfeasible to me, how is the computer supposed to guess who uses which device? (unless you manually select that in a menu but that's an additional step users need to take and IMO it's not cool)

[Pixel]

I think "single player" and "multiplayer" should each be their own option. In my opinion, any extra navigation effort is offset by the benefit of the player(s) understanding exactly which option they've selected.

As to who uses which device, there doesn't seem to be an easy answer for "automatic" input configuration.

I admit, I haven't played the formal STK 0.7 release yet. Is each player's preferred device stored along with general STK config?

[hiker]

Hi,

your idea of assigning multiple input devices to a single player sounds unfeasible to me, how is the computer supposed to guess who uses which device?

simple case: one single player (which is known because the player select single player). Any input device will be assigned to this player, i.e. the player can switch from keyboard to gamepad anytime (possible even in the middle of a race). I.e. instead of the message "You have to press fire earlier to join", the device is assigned to that player.

in case of split screen:

• option a) after selecting split screen we ask to select the number of players. Player 0 gets the keyboard assigned. Each player presses fire to join. If more fire buttons are pressed, the additional devices will be assigned to player 0. Example: 3 players, player 0 has keyboard assigned, player 1+2 press fire. If then a third fire button is pressed (either in the kart selection screen, or any time later), it will be assigned to player 0, too. That would only fail if player 0 selects with keyboard, and then presses fire before all other players do. Even in this case people could play, they would only have to switch the gamepads, and they will notice this, since when player 0 presses fire, one more player will be displayed.
• we have a separate screen in which we ask each player to press fire. Once all players have joined, one player presses fire again to confirm the number, then as above.
• If we don't want one additional step to get the number of players, we could try the following: if a new event comes from a device and it is the fire button, we add a new player. If it's a 'move focus' event, we assume that this is the device for the keyboard player, and we will assign this device to the keyboard player. This would fail if someone moves the cursor before pressing fire (and again this would get noticed if he presses fire and isn't joined - and again they could just switch the gamepads).
• We add an 'ready' button to the kart selection screen (perhaps only in split screen), which must be selected once all players have selected their karts.

Yes, admittedly most ways involve one additional step (at least in split screen), but I think that's better than people not being able to use STK the way they are used to (from other games).

Or am I missing something?

Cheers,
Joerg

[Auria]

Joerg:

assinging all devices to player 0 in single-player mode sounds reasonable, BUT we have the issue of gamepads that always point left, until we can reasonably handle that, gathering output from all gamepads may result in disaster

Also, regarding additional devices being assigned to player 0... I don't like the idea, it's convulated IMO Then we would need to add a message "you joined with keyboard; if you wish to use a gamepad instead, wait until 3 other players joined then press fire on your gamepad". IMO this is way more confusing

[mjminfo]

How about having a screen where each player can choose with what device he wants to play with ?

ex: racer setup ; Please press spacebar(fire) to choose your keyboard as active navigation or press Button 1 (fire) to select the gamepad as your active navigation device.

and this for each player. Then:

press here to start race or press here to add more players.

so with these menus it will be easier for everyone to choose what he wants to play with and for the program to know which player is active with what (keyb/gamepad)

what do you think ??

Jorge

[hiker]

Joerg:

assinging all devices to player 0 in single-player mode sounds reasonable, BUT we have the issue of gamepads that always point left, until we can reasonably handle that, gathering output from all gamepads may result in disaster

Yes, but we obviously need a fix/work around for this in any case.

Also, regarding additional devices being assigned to player 0... I don't like the idea, it's convulated IMO

I think it is unavoidable to do that. As mjminfo has written - people expect to select menu with keyboard, and play with gamepad.

Then we would need to add a message "you joined with keyboard; if you wish to use a gamepad instead, wait until 3 other players joined then press fire on your gamepad". IMO this is way more confusing

Why do we need a message? I would prefer to have an option to select the number of players in splitscreen, then we clearly don't need this message at all (and even without knowing the number of players, it just means that the first player can not select with gamepad if he wants to keep the same kart, otherwise he will move first, which we can recognize). Admittedly not an ideal solution. Maybe we should abandon the whole concept of multiple players selecting on one screen, and instead have a separate kart selection screen for each player - very much like mjminfo's suggestion, just combine the separate screen for device selection with the screen for kart selection (we could still leave the old interface around if possible, and people could select 'advanced interface' or so).

I think best would be to first determine what (mostly new) players would actually expect? Clearly atm we are not matching those expectations.

So all new players - how would you expect/prefer the kart selection process to work, esp. in split screen?

Cheers,
Joerg