I was watching the IGN overview on “No Rest For The Wicked” and they say that they abandoned the point-and-click system in favor of WASD because it was not precise enough.
I don’t mind it, either way is fine. However I love the League of Legends type of movement, it’s a factor that makes me still play the game.
(DotA has even better and precise movement mechanics but they are less fun I think)
It’s hard to master yeah, with the unlocked camera and all but I feel like you can be very precise and do exactly what you want: it is very satisfying.
What do you think? Do you know other games that use this point-and-click movement?
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I’m probably gonna be the odd man out here, I think that WASD movement is easier and more intuitive to control, and so will be more accurate for most people, but if you play a lot of RTS or MOBAs and have a lot of practice with click to move the precision of a mouse is still beyond any other control scheme that I know of, it’s just more like the other commenter mentioned where a lot of the benefit comes from decoupling movement and attacking.
It’s easier to be more precise when one thumb is only focused on positioning, instead of the mouse pointer being the source of movement location and attack location.
Precise != Accurate
Using WASD may feel better, but it’ll take a lot more work to get into a specific position vs just clicking. By definition, clicking will always be more precise, since you’ll go exactly where the chick happened.
As for accuracy, that really depends on the type of game. If you’re playing a slow moving game, it probably comes down to how the interaction works (e.g. is it like a CRPG where you need to be near but not on an NPC to talk?), and that’s largely preference imo. A fast moving hero game would probably favor WASD since you’d care more about relative movements than absolute movements. An RTS, however, would absolutely favor mouse because you need to make big jumps to move to different squads and whatnot.
For nearly every game where WASD is preferable, I prefer controllers, so WASD is rarely my preferred input option.
Theres also the point that point and click (or analog stick) means you can move directly in an axis that is not possible by WASD, so off the 8 wasd axes, this will be quicker than WASD (although not by THAT much).
This depends on implementation and isn’t always the case
Hmm, can you give me qn example of when it wouldn’t?
A lot of pixel art games will make click-to-move follow cardinals and 45s (like wasd) because it would look janky if you moved on a shallower or steeper diagonal when you only have walk cycles for some angles
Oh, okay, I misunderstood. For some reason I thought you meant some games might compensate the movement in a non-45 diagonal. Direction locking makes sense in some games.
Personally, I do think that WASD is more precise than point-and-click. When I am playing Diablo (point-and-click movement), I have a hard time getting my character positioned correctly to avoid AoEs that are telegraphed on the ground. When I am playing Factorio (WASD movement), I have never had any problems getting my character where I want him to be.
I think it depends on the person and what they want out of the control scheme.
I play Baldur’s Gate 3 with my partner. She swears by a controller, I swear by mouse and keyboard, and we both have differing reasons for it. She feels her movement is more precise, but she loses precision on interacting with items in the world. I have less precise movement that I have to be more considerate of the games pathing AI just walking me through traps or fire or whatever, but I have very precise interaction with the environment when it comes to clicking on items and so forth.
Interesting! It’s true that I like playing Larian Studios games with keyboard because I sometimes send spells in the wall or steal items without wanting to with a controller !
Point-and-click movement has been a staple of “Diablo-like” action-rpgs since the 90s. However I recently found out that I enjoyed them more when playing with a controller like they were a top-down twin-stick shooter, starting with Lost Ark. I don’t know about “more precise”, but it feels more natural to handle the positioning with direct control instead of pointing towards the destination.
I think the precision comes from decoupling movement from attacks. So you can more easily dodge or reposition yourself while attacking. My guess is that people started to appreciate that with the rise of gamepad controls in popular ARPGs.
Basically all real time strategy games and ARPGs use click to move. MOBAs have inherited it from RTS games, namely War Craft 3 and the ARPGs got it from Diablo 1, which coincidentally got the requirement for click to move in real time from War Craft 1 as well. Although you could also trace back Diablo 1 to Rogue.
There is a (now basically dead) game that I had high hopes for, called Omega Strikers. Top down moba air-hockey blend. Tons of high octane fun.
It had both an option for wasd and traditional moba control. The consensus by /theydidthemath type folks was that clicking in non wasd axis directions meant you can get certain movements ever-so-slightly quicker since you move along a straight line instead of using whatever two lines that you need to get to that spot. Now it is a question of it it actually mattered but that was true.
The midle way would be an analog stick.
I don’t think that wasd or even analog can be called more precise either, they require you to stop the movement input precisely on the spot you want, where as with clicking you just point and click…
Whatever their reasons, I’m glad they opted for this. It makes the game translate better to controllers, and that’s just a more comfortable way for me to play games.
The advantage that ESDF movement has (boo, WASD uses the wrong keys), is that you can stop movement by just not pushing any keys or buttons. With mouse-based movement there’s rarely a “stop movement” button, you just have to click close to where you already are.
But, the bigger difference is that you can dedicate one hand to movement and the other hand to aiming. This is key when you’re playing a ranged attacker. With a melee attacker clicking on an enemy is fine because you want to both attack it and move in that direction. But, if you want to stay away from the enemies and attack them from long range, a mouse-based movement system combined with a mouse-based aiming system means you’re clicking on one side of the screen to aim and the opposite side to move. That’s inefficient and imprecise.
ESDF movement does have its drawbacks though. The biggest drawback is that you can only move at one speed. That’s especially bad for certain scenarios, like escort-type missions where you want to move at the same speed as whatever you’re escorting, or stealth games / activities where the slower you move the more stealthy you are. But. for those, the mouse isn’t any better. What’s better is a joystick / thumbstick. With those you can move the stick very slightly to move very slowly.
Often I think the best of both worlds would be a mouse for aiming and a thumbstick for movement.
ESDF movement has (boo, WASD uses the wrong keys)
This is the first time I’ve ever heard of this. What’s wrong with WASD?
It underutilizes the pinky, and it’s not the home keys.
ESDF still lets you reach tab, caps lock, shift, ctrl and alt, but opens it up so your pinky can also use Q, A and Z. With WASD your pinky can only really hit the “big keys”. Everything else can just get shifted over by one. Plus, if you’re a touch typist your fingers are already good at finding the home keys so your ring finger is already used to being on “S”. That means if you have to stretch to hit a special key, it’s easier to get back to the right keys. Plus many keyboards have a nub on F and J so you can find them / verify you’re on the right keys by touch.
My left pinkie doesn’t have that kind of dexterity
So, you’re unable to type with it? This kind of movement is no different from typing where you have to use the occasional word like “quick”, “active” or “zygote”.
I don’t actually use it for z! Haha
Also, I feel like needing to hold ctrl or shift is a fairly common requirement in games. I think it’d be too uncomfortable to do that from one column further away
It’s not, I don’t have particularly big hands and it’s easy.
The OP hasn’t responded, but I’ll hazard a guess that moving the movement keys one set to the right gives you more access to easily reachable keys to the left of the movement set that you can bind things to.
I guess if you want that left-hand pinkie workout! Haha
I think point and click has a much steeper difficulty curve, so p&c can reach higher levels of accuracy, it’s easier to reach mid levels of accuracy with wasd.
gamepad or bust
Its not precise because it usually is using AI pathfinding to make the dude(s) move from where they were to where you clicked. It often either sucks at getting around things, sucks at getting there fast, or sucks at being exactly where you want because everything about the movement is “fuzzy” and imprecise by design.
However a point and click system such as Ultima Online where you’re simply driving the character using the mouse while one of the buttons is clicked works pretty good. Actually more precise than WASD since you can move more than 8 directions.
When I mean master it, I meant learning to play with the clicking to click at the right speed to kite, sidestep spells.
You do not click far away from you an try to get there, you continuously click to get your character where it needs to go.
For exemple in Starcraft, in close range combat you need to master micro to be able to win. Stick to the wall so they can’t circle around you, etc…
I don’t really think of any of those as precise actions though. Getting your character to stand in a pixel perfect spot is precision, moving your character back a few feet to not get hit by an aoe is more to do with your speed as a player than the precision of the movement. You don’t care where you go as long as you’re not in the aoe.
Just try getting your guys to stand exactly in a specific spot. Like maybe you’re trying to hide them in a bush. Or hell, just get them to go around a building on one side instead of the other. You have to micromanage like a motherfucker because half of them won’t go where you want so you need to keep nudging them like herding sheep.
Did you play a MOBA because you can really get a taste of the versatility of the movement. I promise you, there is a LOT to master here
