No Left-handed controls?

I for one am stopping now because I just can't compete as I would like. I've played all week and finishing well but it's becoming obvious I'm being hampered from getting to that next step by playing right handed.

I can play single player campaigns right handed competently enough to complete them, as a lot of the backward japanese developed games have effectively forced me too. In multiplayer though, its the difference between finishing in the middle and competing at the top, especially when it comes to sniping. That split second difference in speed for me makes all the difference. If I wasn't any good, fine, but it's galling when you lose a battle knowing it's because you haven't been given the tools to do better.

I didn't buy bad company 1 because of the lack of left handed options despite really liking the multiplayer when I rented it and I really should have abstained from this too. I really took to the demo of MNC though, it is a great game, and I thought I would make it work, but alas.......

I'm still at a loss as to why this is isn't standard in every game, as should be subtitles and the like. We are talking about 7 to 10 per cent of the population, not one in a million people, and I hope I'm not being naive when I say that it can't be that much bother to simply offer an option to switch the sticks, just like inverting the y axis. You don't even need a special configuration.

If there's a patch I'll no doubt be back on in a heartbeat, and I hope it is as high priority for Uber as they say it is.

It's true 7-10 percent of the population are left handed. That does not mean, however, that 7-10 percent of the population use "southpaw" controls.

If I'm remembering the numbers correctly, less than 10% of players change their controls from default, and the great major of those only change the look axis to be inverted. Perhaps less than 5% of gamers use an alternate control scheme.

Now for game franchises that have had several games, and keep changing their control scheme each game, this might be slightly higher, but still probably no more than 10% and only to change the controls to be more similar to the defaults of previous games.

I've never seen any data specifically on a % of players than use south paw or legacy style controls, but it's part of that small percentage of players that change their controls beyond inverting look.


This isn't an argument for not including alternate controls in a game, more a long winded explanation of why we forgot to. At our office we have just under 20 people. Of those 20, 2 or 3 use inverted and 2 others (myself being one, neutrino being the other) use tactical. I've heard of legacy controls before, some of my young cousins use it, but I don't believe anyone in our office know of anyone who use south paw controls. I may be the only one who know of people who use legacy. We've had tons of outside people play the game (PAX east, and internal play tests with professional testers) and the topic of southpaw or legacy never came up to my knowledge.


The shorter answer is, the topic never came up. It's a lesson learned for a small new developer.

Thanks for your reply, and apologies for my belated one. I regret to say I still haven't played the game since. I've checked back now and then on the off chance that a patch has appeared but that's about it. Also apologies if I came across a bit harsh, while it is something that I care about, and I might have been fresh from being shot when I commented before, I don't want to appear patronising or like some sort of left-handed extremist

I accept your argument, I don't know how many left handers actually use southpaw and it is impossible to tell unfortunately, unless someone like Treyarch or Infinity Ward track stats for configurations that we could all get our hands on. If it didn't come up with you in the development process then maybe I am in a tiny minority?

Take it as a compliment that if MNC was on a par with some of the other shooters I probably wouldn't have even bothered voicing my opinion, let alone played it for the two weeks or so that I did right handed. I'm not one for commenting on anything online. It is a truly unique and fresh shooter, I love the way the the upgrades come in-game, a-la counter strike et al, so congrats on that.

Nice to see it's arrived on Steam also, with mouse control not being discriminatory I might well pick it up and start over. If not I politely ask that the sequel has southpaw

Cheers

Does this mean you havn't played it since the dlc?
The dlc that has given us leftys the south-paw we craved?

Im right handed and still prefer the lefty south paw "reverse" sticks. counterstrike for the xbox was one of the first games I can remember playing that offerd the setup and it just seem to be alot smoother to me.

It's definately smoother because you pull the trigger with a finger on your right
hand which isn't affecting the aiming with your left. I've used it ever since Goldeneye
on N64 ( showing my age now ) & I've never gone back.