"Voices Of The Void" Alpha

Gather unknown signals from deep, silent space · By mrdrnose

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"Voices Of The Void" Alpha community

Bad Controls at the El VotV OR: How I Learned to Start Worrying and Hate the Game

A topic by RatTimes12 created 93 days ago Views: 1,488 Replies: 14

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RatTimes1293 days ago(+11)(-5)

"You know its called an "unstable test" right?"

"newest version isn't even out for the public, it's an unstable test build... "

"Maybe wait for the stable release, this is a test build for feedback only"

"the entitlement is making me cringe. ITS A BETA TEST."

"it's a highly unstable build which was shadow dropped"

"If you can't tolerate an undercooked build... maybe don't play the version that has the word test in all capitals in the title"

"With the outcry over it, I'm curious to see how the stable release responds."

"...but it's a very unstable build, it obviously needs balancing and fixing and a lot of improvement on the controls"

"Everybody calm down. This is just a TEST version. It is RUSHED, it is UNFINISHED, it WILL get better"

"itch.io community really showing it's full of morons that don't know what the phrase "TEST BUILD" means."

"OP Is malding, trying to cope and trying hard to believe that this 0.9.0 is the PLAYABLE version...."

These are all things that were said to me in my last thread 202 days ago regarding the 0.9.0 test build, where among other things the new control scheme was added. Upon release of that build the majority of posts I saw were against the new controls, but a dedicated group of yesmen seemed determined that the problem would not persist as it was a "test build" as though it was not TESTING content to IMPLEMENT IT into the main game. Now here we are! 0.9.0 public has dropped and the old controls have not returned. I for one am shocked! How could this happen? I was assured that it was only a test build and that the stable release would be fixed! The old controls are not the default, and they aren't even an added option to revert in the menu. What is everyone's excuse now? "This is a <1.0.0 launch so you can't criticize anything yet!"? Judging by my experience on this forum I half expect that's exactly what people will tell me.

To digress a bit from talking about solely the controls: the dev clearly does not care about feedback and thusly I do not care to play this game any longer. This isn't even to bring up the new content that "adds more challenge to the game ... Would you prefer the game to stagnate and not get new content?" To answer this user indirectly and 199 days late: Yes I really would rather the game stagnate at a place that is fun and actually playable than suffer from the feature creep that is assaulting the experience now. Increasingly it becomes a game for people to optimize with a wiki on their second monitor and their ikea shark under their gamer sock clad feet. I do not want to optimize every second of the game day to make ends meet I want to enjoy my time and play the game. I do not need signal triangulation or coordinate towers and blown fuses or atvs that break down just like real life omg so realistic! getting in the way ON TOP OF being wrestling with the new (old by now) controls that were made to appeal to streamers and the unwashed masses who won't play this for more than an hour or two anyway. I feel like I lost the plot towards the end there but if the dev is reading this PLEASE PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD add back in a legacy control setting at the very least.

Thanks to anyone who read this far. I hope to see you in another 202 days when inevitably nothing changes again.

CyCent_R.R.93 days ago(+10)(-1)

No lies detected

steventylerseanherr85 days ago(+5)(-3)

really hate that i recognize most of those comments

and yeah i kinda just stopped playing when the test builds dropped

i dont like the new controls so why would i keep playing?

good news is that apparently people do like the new controls so theres plenty of people to take my place

have fun

im gonna go play something else

EdelweissBee82 days ago(+5)(-2)

heh, sorry but the controls are SUPPOSED to be needlessly complicated and new mechanics horrifyingly inept, doncha know? /sarcasm

wungopungo81 days ago(+4)(-1)

this post makes me feel like a god of gaming for quickly adapting to the new controls and moving on

Cyborg Rising81 days ago (1 edit) (+4)(-1)

As a brand new player to the game, I cannot comment on the "old" vs "new" controls, but I can say that the controls right now are by far the biggest impediment I'm having to actually enjoying and engaging in the game.

As a fresh mind to the game ...why is there separate "grab" and "hold"??? Instead of enjoying the content, storyline, puzzles, etc, I am mostly just struggling to keep the arbitrary division between these straight and not grab when I want to hold. Do you eat by pressing the grab key while holding the food, holding the grab key while holding the food, setting the food down looking at it and pressing the grab key, setting the food down looking it and long-pressing the grab key, setting the food down and looking at it and long-pressing the hold key, clicking the left mouse button while looking at the food, clicking the right mouse button while looking at the food, clicking the left mouse button while holding the food, long-pressing the right mouse button while holding the food? The fact that it could really be any of these is agonizing. The effect of the tutorial was mostly to teach me that there are a whole bunch of buttons this could be, and then I end up spending a bunch of time and effort hunting down food in the help menu (jesus christ, is food a "main gameplay loop"? or something else? I have no idea), and then I do it all again the next time I have to eat because there was never an internal logic that really made the answer click into place for me - repeat ad-naseum for numerous other things.

By trying to bind to a controller so that I can play the game while relaxing on the couch, quite a few obstacles get introduced that are probably out of the scope of this particular thread.

What the game has really taught me so far is how important it is and why it is every other game has such simple and straightforward inventory and interaction controls. I want the minigames to be the minigames, not figuring out if its shift-click on the signal triangulate console or if it was stick-my-finger-up-my-ass.

nippleman80 days ago (1 edit) (+3)(-1)

You use grab mainly to reposition items in the world without moving them to inventory.

when in the world using is for activating an items subfunction. for food its eating, for the drive box its taking the lid off.

when an item is *held* in your offhand, you use its subfunction by clicking. this way you can use food without worrying about dropping it, for example, or to equip a tool so you can use it's subfunction ON an item. since you cant use food any other way than eating, that's all it lets you do, does that explanation help clarify the control sceme at all? i would not enjoy this game much if its interaction mechanics were simplified, the depth of what you can do in it is what i play it for X3

Cyborg Rising79 days ago (4 edits) (+3)(-1)

I've been playing a fair bit now and the only way I've found to eat food or use batteries is to set them down and long press LMB while looking at them. If I can hold LMB while holding an item to perform the same action that I perform by holding LMB while looking at it, that would be news to me. But I'm on day nine and still can't even figure out how to get credit for finding a signal and processing it to level three, so I guess that would track.

The issue is that there are the following different inputs to interact with an object:

LMB quick press
LMB long press
Grab quick press
Grab long press
Hold quick press
Hold long press
RMB quick press

Which are all repeated over again for the following states:

Looking at
Grabbing
Holding

Which is further multiplied by the following modifiers:

Scroll wheel
Sprint (I mapped sprint to 'press left stick' when binding a controller and somehow now I need to use it to put things in the drone bag, hell if I know what key it usually is)

This is over FORTY possible ways to interact with an object, and EVERY interaction becomes its own minigame of figuring out which of the over FORTY possible inputs that you can perform on an object does an OBVIOUS action that a real life human would have NO difficulty immediately and unhesitantly executing, that every player is going to look to do with the object in a given situation. This effectively transforms Voices of the Void into the QWOP of user interaction.

Sure, some combinations you can start to rule out because they are universal. Short press hold puts something in inventory. But that only removes one combination of the forty, and there are many examples of objects that break many of the conventions you could try to set forth. Broom which sweeps with RMB (holy goddamn SHIT that was agonizing to figure out as somebody trying using an controller). Tape reels that you can only remove from the recording machine with GRAB rather than long-presing HOLD, yet the tape reels are put into a HELD state. The fact that you put tape reels into the machine tape recorder with LMB, but you put drives into the signal playback/processing machines by long-pressing HOLD (or wait, maybe it's LMB too and it's removing them that's different between drives and reels?). Broombas whose inventory you access by using the SCROLLWHEEL and LMB, but I don't think I interact with the drone bag in the same way? The whole ridiculous situation where you can grab drive out of a signal machine and put it at slot of another machine, but even though you moved the object correctly through time and space, you didn't use the right magic word while making the motion, you need to use the other magic word for performing the very same physical motion.

And to top it all off - there is NO radical, special sophistication that Voices of the Void has somehow introduced with having FORTY possible user inputs relating to objects. The things that your character is doing is NOT an order of magnitude more complex than any other video game. It might not be universal across all other games, but I have absolutely been able to pick up world objects and set them down while also holding a firearm that I can shoot or a sword I can swing. I've also been able to pick up and hold an object and then have it interact with the world other than just firearms that put holes in things. I've been able to enter things into keypads, eat food, reload objects that take consumables (be they bullets or batteries or whatever). All without even really thinking about it because of an effective user interface design that apparently deserved far more respect than I've ever paid before in those other games. I really wonder how much somebody actually likes "the complexity", or more honestly they just like playing interaction QWOP (QWOP is a game after all) where it becomes possible to make mistakes, be wrong, and you need to get interactions right across a myriad of inputs. That it just feels complex and sophisticated because of all of the different possible inputs you have to think through, even though the actual interactions character is performing with the world are exactly the same as the games that achieve this with vastly less confusion and a vastly simpler set of commands.

I think the real, true test here is just how much effort goes into actually performing these actions IRL. If much of a game's interaction is managed by a single interact key that has a context aware-input that simply knows that the desired interaction with food is to eat it, the interaction with a mounted tape reel is to take it off the machine and start holding it - and then a context aware single activation key for equipped item, where brooms sweep and tape drives are installed into a slot - it would indeed make doing these sort of things thoughtless and effortless when compared with the current controls where every one of these interactions currently involves a separate keybinding - but aren't all of these actions also effortless and thoughtless in real life too? I never find myself unable to take off a tape reel because I tried to hold it my hands rather than grab it in my hands, I never hold a broom and can't figure out how to sweep it, I never get stuck not being sure how to eat food, I never have a drive in my hand that I can't insert because I'd 'grabbed' it instead of 'held' it.

I don't think there is a single way your character actually interacts with the world that couldn't be managed by just four buttons, including a trigger:

Put in inventory (long press to access its inventory)
Interact (long press to move it around in the air, releases object when press is released) (interact is context-intelligent, does the obvious thing you wish to do with something) (never activates a held object, is only an interaction with the world object)
Activation button (e.g. trigger, no long press function other than continuous activation) (is never used as an interact button - only ever activates held item)
Switch held item, ideally a radial menu (long press to access your inventory)

Given long pressing is a variation between button actions but no buttons change function if you are looking at an object vs holding it, that's I think 6 different input variations while interacting with the world, and then two of interacting with yourself. Maybe add one or two functions to more easily place equipped item, while easily keeping it under 20 possible ways of interacting.

nippleman79 days ago (1 edit) (+3)(-4)

what in the actual fuck are you talking about????? long press LMB does nothing? did you rebind all your controls or something? what is going on??? none of what you say in your post is accurate, there are four ways to interact with an object in the world. left mouse button only does one thing, and that's activating the subfunction of whatever is held in your hand, and holding left mouse button does nothing as far as i know. you eat food in two ways, holding e on it when its in the world, and pressing left mouse button when its in your hand. like, your post makes so little sense I'm beginning to think you haven't even played the game.

when you're looking at an object, you have FOUR ways of interacting with it:

grabbing it: this moves it to the center of your vision and uprights the object and keeps it that way. grabbed items can be rotated with right click

using it: using it uses the item, for food, using would be eating,,,,,

pick up: puts it in your offhand. this is just an inventory action nothing more

put in inventory: puts it in your inventory

it gives you a description of what each action does when you look at an object, i dont see why you cant just read it every time.

Cyborg Rising79 days ago (15 edits) (+4)(-1)

At this point you're not even reading what's written, though I may not have done a perfect job of reading your post myself.

I'm not saying that long mouse press while holding food does nothing. I'm saying that I didn't find out that was a way to eat food. Which was exactly what I wrote, and follows my ponint of there being too many combinations of inputs and it being a challenge to keep them all straight. EDIT: If what you're saying is that long-press LMB actually does nothing, that's kind of my point. Long pressing other buttons does things, so if you're searching for an input to do something, a long press on the mouse is going to be one of the things you try. I may have mixed up long-press LMB and long-press grab for food eating - I've remapped LMB and the grab key to controller buttons and I'm trying to translate everything back to M&K for your benefit, so between the input soup and trying to keep track of controller map I might have mixed that up with grab - which still goes to my point.

You're also not even engaging with the full facts and overall discussion here. Four inputs for an object you're looking at is more than what I suggested is actually required for an object in front of you, and the user has to deal with more than just looking at objects. More than that, they have the experience of having to determine which of different possible input combinations performs the requested real-world action, and isn't operating from a place of already knowing what every possible input is . I think you're withdrawing into a simplified mental concept of the controls you have that isn't what's being discussed. Whats being discussed is the total number of distinct inputs combination across every different input a player has to enter at different times and multiplied against the various conditional states that in change some of the user interface input meanings, as well as user interface modifiers that also change what some of the inputs mean.

One possible thing that could be tripping you up is that not every conditional state (holding, looking at, grabbing) and every user interface modifier (such long-pressing the input or scrolling or whatever sprint is) always has a valid button combination with each other user interface, but this is not inherently perceivable by a new player who is learning how to play the game. To know what combinations aren't valid inputs, one must know all of the valid inputs. If you have an action you want to perform in mind but you are trying to figure out how to perform it because you haven't Matrix-style uploaded all of the valid input combinations into your brain, but you DO know that looking at an object and holding an object and grabbing an object can each influence the action that LMB performs, that's three different inputs the action you have in mind could be. If you know that long-pressing an input and quick-pressing an input have performed different actions, now you have six different ways of interacting with an object with LMB that could be your action. But if LMB is one of lets say 4 different keys, now there are 18 possible combinations. There's also mental logic to filter these down, but the point is that the sheer number of combinations you are facing prior to having the inputs completely memorized, or god forbid you forget any of them, is significantly problemactic for exactly everybody who isn't someone who has long since figured them out and put learning them into the forgotten past.

If you can extend a modicum of empathy for what it's like to not know how to play the game and how the true level of required knowledge a person has to learn is not actually sufficiently captured by your control summary, that's what will get you to understand what I'm talking about.

The tooltips while looking at an object, in some instances, have been EXTREMELY helpful - I did not have to struggle to figure out how to put things into the drone bag, or how to start the broomba. But they do not include words like "eat", and only inform the meaning of user inputs when an object is being looked at. They also get MUCH more clumsy and overly wordy with a controller map. More importantly, they don't cover the different sets of inputs and input meanings in the grabbed and held state.

And again, if I'm getting some of the input combinations wrong.... that's kind of my point!!!

nippleman80 days ago (7 edits) (+4)(-4)

the game has a lot of settings, i know its a slough to read through but most of what ur complaining about is modifiable by the user. i rather like the complex item interaction system, sure there are some quirks that make the game frustrating at times, but there are ample difficulty adjustment settings and even a "change how long a day lasts" slider. if you're struggling to make ends meet i suggest turning the day speed down so that time passes more slowly. Personally i have mine set to 0.8, but it goes down to 0.5. It can be located in the popout menu to the right of the "load a save" ui when you click on your save slot. You can also disable falldamage, physics damage, server minigames you dont like, nightmares, bloodloss, coordinate radar fuse decay, drone tower fuse decay, and i think even transformer decay in this menu. the old controlls forced people to hold shift alt e and also scroll thru a menu at the same time, and that is rlly bad for people with coordination issues, and frankly, I think the game has become much more playable and accessible overall because of it. sure, a toggle to go back to the older system would be nice, but getting used to the new controls isn't that hard, and you can also change the timing of the hold action to make it faster and more fluid. I get that it can be confusing at times but the tutorial and the help and info menu explains almost everything if you just have the stamina to read it.
TL;DR

turn down your day speed so you have more time to get your stuff done so you don't need to optimize as much, and turn the game mechanics that bug you off. the controls being different, sucks I'm sure, but you have the capacity to learn and remember new ones, And once you nail them(and dial them in to your needs with the settings menu) they're pretty quick to use! also signal triangulation just looks cool, i think that's why it was implemented tbh, i like it, personally.

P.S. if you dont like repairing the ATV, just reset its position and stats, that puts it back in alpha base, and fully repairs and cleans it. you can access it by clicking on a saveslot of your choice and pressing the "open save data reset menu." there are also buttons for fully cleaning the base, change what day you're on, resetting the player's position and stats, and removing all your upgrades, so make sure you only have what you need selected. also its rlly easy to get infinite points and items in the story by putting stuff in the mailbox and loading backup saves. its handy for when you accidentally loose stuff or when you want to cheat :D (the mailbox is storage between save slots and its content is based on the most recent main save)

CHEAT SOLUTION FOR BEING TOO ANNOYED BY TRIANGLE!!!!!!!!!

STEP 1: DUPLICATE EXPENSIVE SMALL ITEMS!

STEP 2: SELLL THEM ALL AND BUY [ping cooldown upgrades] TO THE MAX! [also cursor speed so you can get to signals quickly]

step 3: teleport all coords to the signal thats green

p.p.s. i play with swap hold and press "r" actions turned off, its on by defaut for some reason

steventylerseanherr78 days ago(+3)

you didnt have to scroll through the interaction mode window
you could look at an object and hit 1,2,3,4,5 etc etc to instantly jump to the mode you wanted. no having to remember what hold vs press does

thekekscernist58 days ago(+1)(-1)

Here's what I've seen from people who are playing this game on videos and stream and are having fun: they're generally slower players who weren't capable - even with the previous control set - of maximizing speed and efficiency in a game with lots of small tasks and tons of busy work. Quick and efficient players, on the other hand, have a hard time with the new controls because everything now frustratingly takes much longer.

With the old controls, if there were a lot of interactions to perform in a small area, those controls allowed fast and efficient task completion. The new controls no longer allow this and now force individual interactions with each object to take significantly longer, significantly increasing time spent on what would have otherwise been a relatively quick job for the quick player.

This appears to be why some players report no issues - these are the "slow" players for whom the controls do not present a bottleneck.

The other issue is that some actions are unbindable - if an action bound to a hold doesn't make intuitive sense to the player, there's nothing they can do about it other than set a toggle which swaps the same two actions bound to a single key, to another key, which is not a solution.

The strength of the previous controls was their quickness and their customizability.

The new controls don't allow either of these things.

It's why I've been hard filtered by 0.9.0 - my life is too busy for frustrating, time-wasting controls to stand between me and enjoying myself.

CyCent_R.R.58 days ago

This makes a lot of sense.

GoldenGlory57 days ago(+1)

yeah the new controls are pretty bad, i got used to them eventually but theyre still pretty distinctly worse than they were before. i consider it essential to go into the difficulty settings and turn off the coordinate tower decay. they actually made it a bit worse with the latest updates by making it so that you need a certain size of triangle too so everything about the coordinates doesnt feel fun now.