Topic: The everything Xbox thread

I find it quite heartening/vindicating (in a 'yes - finally' & non-sanctimonious way) to see so many people voicing their issues with the RDR2 controls, it's the one thing that has truly bugged me about R* games for as far back as I can remember - GTA IV drove me insane with it yet there was nary a mention of anything amiss amongst all the 10/10 scores lavished down upon it, same with V - yet anytime I or anyone else mentioned it we were shot down for daring to criticise something beloved - you can still dislike a thing about something you love! As with the GTA games and the first RDR they're far from game breaking (obviously, as I loved the heck out of RDR), but certainly immersion destroying - surely if you make the user even think about the controls whilst playing your game you're doing it wrong? They've gone to every conceivable step to make the game as immersive as possible yet one of the most basic elements frequently yanks you back out and it's such a shame.

I don't know if I just have low tolerance for poor/dodgy controls but there's quite a few big AAA titles that suffer from it that are never taken to task - some of them my favourite games/series too - I always use BotW as my example (ironically, as I'm one of the few who didn't/don't love it as a game overall); fire criticism at the game all you want - and I have - the one bit that is just spot on for me is how Link controls, it's just utterly effortless (compared to the horses which are like driving tanks blindfold) and I don't see why more games don't push for the same level of fluidity. I mentioned something similar on another board and they suggested - and naturally their opinion is as valid as mine - that Link controls well in a video game sense, whereas he feels Arthur controls well in a "realistic & weighty" sense. I don't agree that Arthur controls particularly well at all, but I did understand what he meant to a degree - having Arthur control like Link may well seem a little too simplistic/out of place but I'm sure there's a middle ground?

Anyway, I've waxed lyrical about it - as I and others have said, it's far from world ending/game ruining, it's just an annoyance I wish I could do something about given the fact the rest of the game is so awesome I can see me spending a lot of time with it! Looks really, really pretty on the X too (those snow effects!)

As for GwG, am tempted to download the original AC just for feels - I maintain the early games had way better story than the latest titles (liked Origins but eminently forgettable, am bored to tears by Odyssey after growing tired of the main loop - nothing seems to matter), but curious to see just how far we've come control/gameplay wise; I remember when it launched it was like next-level wow and set the new standard!

@BrainOfGrimlock I agree that you can criticise anything about something that you love, it just means that you are being honest and not a blind fanboy. I have also low tolerance to not intuitive controls and it seems that Red Dead Redemption 2 needs an alternative control scheme that should be added in a patch. I was also disappointed by Breath of the Wild as a game and while I agree that Link moves nicely, the controls are not good either, you can't run and move the camera at the same time and the only mapping option is switch X and B buttons for jumping and running which doesn't solve anything. Horse riding is worse than in the first 3D Zelda game, too. Don't get me started about the awful inventory system (clothes especially) and equipment management in Breath of the Wild. Back to RDR2, I wonder if Rockstar is going to add more intuitive and normal control schemes.

I have running mapped to X, and if I ever want to run and move the camera I just press X with my index finger.

I was not the only to do that cumbersome thing then.

Sorry yeah, you make some good distinctions between how a character controls and the actual physical control layout;

It specifically is only how Link moves that I think feels fantastic - you're completely on point with the rest of it, not least the inventory which... ugh!! RDR2 suffers on both counts (at least for me personally) and makes things such as searching a house/camp almost painstaking at times (why isn't there a button to 'take everything in cupboard' instead of having to select each item!).

I like that people get passionate, it's just a shame it can often get tetchy very quickly - I guess part of the problem is when criticising like I/others have, it looks like I'm taking a 'dirt' all over the game as it's not offset with the deserved praise, which absolutely isn't the case, for the most part (so far) it's pretty much everything I expected and then some!

Be interesting to see if I adjust over time as sometimes muscle memory makes the pain go away; I replayed the entire Arkham series back to back earlier this year and after having standardised controls across the first two I hadn't realised first time I played that they changed everything around in Knight so this time it was painful & took me FOREVER to unlearn what I'd learned, but my old brain adapted eventually and so it probably will for this too.

@BrainOfGrimlock I agree and I understand you because I am like you in that sense. If you report and ignore the fanboys that are annoying and disrespectful there is a very nice community in here and you can be yourself.

It's really difficult when you have to unlearn something that you almost do automatically. I haven't played any Rockstar game yet but Nintendo's games have many peculiar things regarding control layouts that usually annoy me, because they are unnecessarily random and cumbersome. On Xbox One and PS4 it looks like almost every game follows standard control layouts and even have different configurations for the player to choose and I love that.

@BrainOfGrimlock

AC1: "nothing is true, everything is permitted"

AC6: "nothing matters"

Arthur controls like a semi. If real cowboys moved like that, they'd never get off the ranch. John Wayne moved like that... Of course the set was no bigger than a circus tent and moving faster would mess up the Kodachrome exposure rates. . I love the game, and Arthur, but the dude needs some yoga or something.

@NEStalgia Now, now it isn't his fault he moves that way. We don't know what happened to him when growing up do we As for John Wayne... he had his own problems

@BlueOcean The promo cars are probably the special cars, then. So, just taking photos of any car you see, won't add anything to that counter. That site I linked to, does contain more info on that topic, and many others. Just go to the index page and do a search that concerns taking photos in Forza Horizon 3, and you should get plenty of info on that very subject.
Here you go:
https://www.trueachievements.com/forum/forums.aspx

Good luck.

@DarthNocturnal Aha, thanks for adding that. I'll just add @BlueOcean in the conversation here, so that he also gets that message, and can then try and see if that is the case. I never took any photos myself, so I wouldn't be able to tell from experience. I honestly can't even tell if I've ever seen a camera icon. Probably was too busy racing and watching the road to take note of things like that...

I will try just for curiosity but I don't think that I'll bother taking over 500 photographs of special cars even if I should have most of them in the Ultimate edition + Porsche pack, that doesn't sound like a lot of fun, does it? Ha ha. I just keep doing random stuff in both FH3 and FH4. The paradise beauty, the fun of Hot Wheels and snow of Blizzard Mountain in FH3 and the 60 fps and seasons of the British scenery in FH4.

I am intrigued by Red Dead Redemption 2 and the "next-generation" Wild West visuals but I will wait for a sale and/or see if they patch anything regarding controls. I really want to play it, but at the end of the day I already have many games to play.

@BlueOcean I think you just neatly summed up why I myself haven't bothered with getting that photography achievement yet, either...

@ThanosReXXX Yeah, like I mentioned to Blue, there are several control layouts available, but most of them don't actually change anything, just swap 2 or 3 controls to other buttons, but not really alter the core layout. And the LT to target interaction object/person or aim your gun depending on what the game decides can't be fixed.

You of course do get used to it, somewhat, but it's true, any game that makes you have to think about the controller breaks the immersion and is doing it wrong. Any game that animates horse "parts" should get the controls right

@BlueOcean @Yosheel I find running not ideal on any game though. RDR2 puts it on A (so it has the same problem as LoZ. You can remap it to LS with FPS Standard though.) But I'm not a fan of LS run either since holding down the stick at the run position isn't always easy and also is more prone to lead to analog drift over time. That's half of why I love the Elite. Just map R3/L3 to the large paddles and never worry about it again. Melee attacks get mapped to the top right little paddle and life is grand (Brook devices let you use Elite on Switch as well, though I haven't tried it yet!)

RDR2's oddities aren't really helped by the Elite though. Paddles can't save that it's never the button you expect.

Rockstar games tend not to go on sale much until they're pretty old, much like Nintendo (but a little better.) We get spoiled by Ubisoft half pricing everything in 3 months. Here's hoping for that patch!

@BrainOfGrimlock Yeah that's one thing of RDR2. Glowing/flashing things break immersion, yet OTOH, the very minimal flash of interactables on RDR2 means you generally have to try to touch everything to see if it's retrievable or not.

I still like how Deus Ex Mankind Divided gives you an option to keep the controls like Human Revolution, or use the controls optimized for the moveset of Mankind Divided, or just do FPS standard if you want to play DX totally wrong

I bought soma on discount for Xbox one via the windows 10 store.

So by the time I do get the system, I'll have a nice game to play.

The Halloween sale is very tempting. There's like every single resident evil on sale. But I don't feel comfortable investing in more than one game for a console I don't have.

@NEStalgia Haha, I've actually seen an item about "the package" on the horse, or under the horse, in a Dutch news & society show, that also mentions/reviews games whenever a big release is imminent.

Perhaps the shrinking animation is a covert sign of them bracing for impact concerning the apparently ever growing criticism concerning the controls and button layout. A real shame though, because at first glance, it most definitely seems like a must have title to me.

I'll probably still get it though, eventually. Perhaps they've patched it by then, if enough people raise their voices...

As for running not being ideal in any game: I personally think that the original Gears of War did that just fine, and I also didn't have too many issues with games like COD, who used a depressed and forward facing thumb stick for running. But in some games, a bit more freedom in rearranging controls would be most welcome indeed...

Since the latest XB1 update fixed external drives being painfully slow to use, I've been considering going through my Gears backlog. Is it best to go in order for single player (Ultimate Edition, 2, 3, 4) because of story reasons (like with Tomb Raider the best approach for the reboot is 2013, RotTR, SotTR) or does it not matter much (e.g. can start with 4).

@DarthNocturnal Hmmm, you're tempting me to give that game one last final attempt to like it after my ill fated voyage the other week.

@thanosrexxx I hate calling any big overbudget horse-junk animating AAAA game "must have" but honestly it really is a unique experience in terms of the living world. It's the kind of "living world" Mattrick told us could only be achieved by being always online and using the "power of the cloud!" Except it doesn't need the cloud.

But yeah...those controls..... I mean like you and everyone says, of course you (mostly) get used to them over time, or the ones that aren't just bad design like the target-to-talk, but.... I get used to a stone in my shoe over time too, but it doesn't mean it's pleasant having it in there, or that I don't notice it again every time for the first hour I put my shoes back on It does damper the experience, but it doesn't invalidate it. I can see a patch happening though since it's become a meme almost

Most games use the L3 but that can be awkward (and wear the stick faster.) It's standard, but that's why eSports shooty guys have piles of dead Scuf controllers on the table The Elite's paddles though....yummy!

@Yosheel If you know that you're going to buy it anyway, why not? Alternatively, just get a cheap 12 month subscription for Xbox Live Gold, and start collecting the free games on there. That will give you more than enough to play for months to come.

I did the same when I didn't have an Xbox One yet, although I did have an Xbox 360, but I collected all the games for both systems anyway, and by the time I finally purchased my Xbox One, I had collected around 70 games in total for the Xbox One, and that's not even including all the backward compatible Xbox 360 titles, otherwise it would be double that number...

Anyway, have a look here, and see if it piques your interest enough to dive into Xbox Live already:
https://www.cdkeys.com/xbox-live/memberships
(check the site out every couple of weeks or so, because offers tend to change quite frequently)

And of course, you'll need the Games with Gold website to collect the games, as long as you don't have an Xbox One yet.
https://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/games-with-gold

@Grumblevolcano Simply said: yes it is.

Hm I see so these games are permanent, they won't go away if I decide to stop paying for live?