Am I missing something, or is this completely unplayable without a scroll wheel? There's "smooth zoom in/out" keybindings but it looks like it's intended for cinematic recordings - it's FAR too slow for game play and doesn't seem to be adjustable.
This isn't starcraft where the maps are tiny and you can only see a small amount of stuff at any one time. These are big planets with lots of surface area and multiple planets in the system. This game was made for zooming out. Where do you get a mouse without a scroll wheel?
Some people have accessibility issues. This is listed in the UI list. And was confirmed by Uber to be included at some point in the future (I think?)
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/help-for-players-who-cant-use-the-mouse-wheel-to-zoom.47244/ This thread is a sticky in the beta forums. .
Ahaaa. Thanks, Clopse. I didn't realize there was a separate internal forum. ZaphodX: Look for a Trackman Marble by Logitech. I've been using this mouse for ~10 years to ward off RSI.
I have trackball mice and I LOVE them, but no trackballs are not really for the gaming scene and YES you DO need a scroll wheel, you start zooming around like it's second nature once you figure out what you're supposed to do with your scroll wheel. some people want to bunker in with their keyboard panning, but I feel they're loosing precious time.
Not everybody can use a scroll wheel with their mouse hand, there may be health reasons to this. If clicks and zooms are bindable as well as the zoom rate, it really isn't too much of an issue. and well, in UI terms...... Mouse movements and actions are more expensive than a keyboard click. It doesn't have any sort of tactile response and requires you to also have your attention on the mouse movement results. This is why StarCraft 2 pro-gamers only use the mouse for actual pointing on the screen. While the keyboard does most of the heavy lifting.
As a fairly heavy gamer, this is the first game in 10 years that has REQUIRED a scrollwheel for playing it. Most games let you rebind these actions to keys on your keyboard. (In recent memory, I believe Farcry 3 required actually modifying an .ini file to get this working rather than modifying in-game settings, but the workaround was there.) I've played other games where zooming out/in was core to gameplay due to the size of the map; you're right in that panning with the keyboard is not a replacement for zooming functionality. I'll be testing the AHK work-around tonight.
You just hit the nail on the head right there. A scroll wheel is as essential to gaming as a monitor, a keyboard, or the rest of the mouse is. I don't know how you have gotten by without one for 10 years. However, for those sticklers who let their stubbornness be to their detriment, how about adding a sensitivity slider for keyboard zooming? Would solve the issue of how useless it is while still letting people use it for cinematics.
This is a known issue. Currently the game is pretty much unplayable on trackpads or a Magic Mouse. I think this is as simple as holding down a hotkey and clicking and dragging.
It's actually easy to not have a scroll wheel. With a trackpad or Magic Mouse, you can use two fingers to scroll up or down or left or right, which covers the majority of scroll wheel uses in basic computing.
Why knock it? Why restrict such things when they can be considered during development? It's like removing the ability to click spells in MMOs or not fine tuning the click/delay of the ability timing. More options means more happy users. imo. Though some of the finer refinements can be focused on after retail release.
while you don't NEED a scroll wheel, there are key binds under game settings; keyboard; way down at the bottom just above debugging is 'smooth zoom in' and 'smooth zoom out' but it's kinda horrible. 1) every time I go into key settings in a game, when I come out the screen is black and I can't see if the new settings are better or not. 2) WSAD controls don't work in space, you still have to use the arrow modes (going between planets) 3) there's no rotate... to pivot around the focus on ground. (even with a mouse)... I have to pan sideways, up and then back left to rotate.... Okay I see, while playing with this more, if you zoom too far out, when you zoom in it drops you back to the planet level with the keys... so it's really hard to maintain good control. If you're panning, and zoom at the same time key keys, it stops panning, and does the zoom, killing the registration of the panning keys... hmm no it's stranger than that... if I'm panning, and hit a zoom in/out key, and continue to pan, releasing the zoom key is still factored in, but the panning is slowed down. (I have zoom at 20 sensitivity, which is still really slow for the planet, and way super fast for system navigation.. I'd think after 20 years you'd have at least a robust UI down...
"Starcraft 2 usage rules are for the game Starcraft 2" Not only would this be a safe assumption but it just so (luckily!) happens that it is a prerequisite to understanding the usage of PA. NOTHING from the techniques of going around the Starcraft map currently transfers to PA (and that is because saved cam feature is not yet implemented). as a result you must adapt to the new rules of map navigation in PA. however map navigation in FA bears heavy similarities with PA's, therefore : MOST of what you learned from FA's scroll wheel navigation can be transferred over to PA. I'll be nice and say what you have to change if you are in this case scenario : the movement to the side you had to operate when zooming out must now be heavily exaggerated. that's it! with that you should be back up on your feet and ready to roll in no time! The technique of successive zoom in and outs to navigate the maps works just as well in PA as it did in FA (with the exception of course that you don't get a glimpse of the whole map as you do it.) happy zooming!
