[AFGNCAAP]

Assume I'm asking about a modern 3D-ish game with a 3rd person perspective here, because: 1) in 1st person perspective they are one and the same, 2) I don't think anybody is crazy enough to want to have character-relative controls in the flat rectangular words of Pac-Man or King's Quest 1.

Having played Broken Sword 4 demo and Prince of Persia: Sands of Time lately, I started, not for the first time, to wonder how can some people honestly prefer camera-relative movement over character-relative one. If you ask me, the moment I have to go back to an earlier savegame in PoP, because it hasn't occured to me that a button responsible for performing a particular action may change halfway through that action (ie. I'm still turning the same wheel, but the Prince must now move towards the camera instead of away from it), the control system loses any right to call itself "intuitive".

Of course, the real question we should be asking is why won't the games make all players happy by just letting us choose between the two. As a matter of fact, both games I mentioned here do feature a bit of character-relative gameplay, so the developers must have agreed that it sometimes is preferential. Yet, they haven't decided to offer us a choice, something Grim Fandango (despite having almost no action- or timed sequences) got right eight years ago.

[insane_cobra]

I prefer camera-relative movement, even at the risk of having confusing scene transitions (though a game should be able to recognize a transition has taken place and adjust the controls accordingly). Especially if we're talking fixed camera angles.

Why? Because it's much easier to see where the player character is in relation to screen borders than to see which way he's facing and then do control adjustments in your head.

[simpson_yellow]

Camera relative for me too. Perhaps my brain works funny, but I loved the control system in the PoP games (I agree that turning wheels never quite felt natural, but I don't think character-relative controls would've felt a lot better in those circumstances).

[Jeysie]

I find direct control in general completely spatially confusing, but camera-relative movement is a bit less confusing than character-relative.

I tried playing in character mode in Grim Fandango, and found myself constantly moving in the opposite direction that I intuitively wanted to move. There's a character-relative section of Super Mario RPG that I remember being really tricky to navigate as well.

Peace & Luv, Liz

[undeaf]

I guess it depends on whether the camera moves or not.

The super nes version of smash TV demonstrates that completely camera relative controls, not just for moving but also for shooting, can work really well.

[Melanie68]

These questions confuse me because I can't envision what you're talking about by the description. I am incredibly visually oriented and I often need to see somthing in order to understand it. I've probably used both control mechanisms but never knew the term for them. I can't answer it right now.

[Jeysie]

Melanie:

Camera-relative movement is movement based on the screen. That is, pushing left always moves the character towards the left of the screen, no matter which way the character is facing.

Character-relative movement is based on the character's facing. A character facing away from you would move left (from your perspective) if you pushed left, but a character facing towards you would move right (from your perspective) if you pushed left.

Um, the first sentences in each are the gist, anyway. I might have doofed on the detailed explanations. (My sense of direction is generally awful.)

Peace & Luv, Liz

[Melanie68]

Thanks Jeysie. I sort of get what you're saying but I need to let my brain work on that for awhile. The concept will probably click at 3 a.m. and I'll wake up and go 'Oooooh, I get it!'

[AFGNCAAP]

Oh, sorry about that.

Character relative is when the player character is the point of reference, so (if you're using a keyboard), up arrow would make him go in whatever direction he is facing at the moment, and left/right arrows are used to make him turn.
Camera relative is when the screen is the reference point, so up arrow will move you deeper "into" the background, down arrow - towards the player, and left/right to the left/right border of the screen.

For example, in this screen, the former system means that holding "up" will cause Nico to continue crossing the street. The latter method means that "up" will make her go to the parked car (as it always would).

EDIT: What Jeysie said, but I provided a picture!

[ATMachine]

I prefer character-relative movement. I often tend to mash down the keys when I'm making a character move, so it's jarring in camera-relative mode when the camera angle changes and all of a sudden the protagonist is running the wrong way. Plus, character-relative mode, for me at least, provides a sense of realistic immersion and being truly "in control" that camera-relative mode doesn't.

[Jatsie]

I think I got confused and voted for the wrong one.

I believe I generally prefer camera-relative movement, when I press left, I want the character to move left.

That said, I loathed the system in Grim Fandango, when I ran from one area to the next the relativity to the camera would change, and if I just held down a key I would often find myself running in circles, back and forth between screens.
I think that was less to do with the control system, and more to do with the fixed camera position, however.

[Crunchy in milk]

I actually find it depends on the controller more. Camera relative controls are the norm in console games and for some reason the sticks on modern gamepads make this rather easy and fun.

I just cannot enjoy myself playing with camera relative controls on a keyboard. You wouldn't think the slight difference between keys and a joystick would make much of a difference but for me it just does. I will frequently hit the wrong button when the camera changes because my left and right hemispheres get into an argument.

I naturally see a keyboard as a flat space and find it easier to imagine a 3d character standing on top of it at all times, with UP on the keyboard always being FORWARD. Spacially this is much easier for me to lock onto and thus put on the back burner.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by Melanie68

These questions confuse me because I can't envision what you're talking about by the description. I am incredibly visually oriented and I often need to see somthing in order to understand it. I've probably used both control mechanisms but never knew the term for them. I can't answer it right now.

Character relative movement: Max Payne 2 (gameplay clip)

Camera relative movement: Silent Hill 3 (gameplay clip)

[undeaf]

Originally Posted by Crunchy in milk

I just cannot enjoy myself playing with camera relative controls on a keyboard.

And that's preventing you from using camera relative controls on PC games because...?

[Marian]

Camera relative feels more intuitive to me, in general.

Having said that, could someone tell me what exactly was the deal with the way movement/direction worked in the laser puzzle in Still Life? That one sticks in my mind because the difficulty of that puzzle for me was not the puzzle itself but rather the fact that the robot would go left when I thought I had directed him to the right, and so forth. My mind wasn't in sync with the way the movement was controlled in that sequence at all. Was that character relative, or I am just confused?

[Melanie68]

Yay!

Thanks for those Trep. I'll watch them tomorrow when I go into the lab (I have a much faster connection there). I can couple those with AFGNCAAP's and Jeysie's descriptions to have a complete picture in my head.

[Junkface]

My preference is usually for camera relative (though I do always have trouble with the turning wheels thing), but it probably depends on the game's camera. Grim Fandango, for instance, I played character relative. Maybe my understanding of this is a little fucked up, as I don't remember the issue of character vs camera relative really coming into play with Max Payne's control system at all - don't the character and camera always point in the same direction?

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Yeah, and that's what I associate with character relative. Not so much in terms of control but in terms of how the game is visually experienced in space (in the gameworld from your point of view).

Oh, forgot to answer the thread question. I can do both (I'm that good ), but ultimately it depends on how well the game's designer implement the control in proportion to the views of the player - and which platform I play the game on.

For example, playing Silent Hill 2 on the PC, I occasionally had a difficult time with the character relative control scheme and had to switch to camera relative control. This is because the pre-directed camera itself (i.e. our point of view into the gameworld) was constantly shifting around the character from scene to scene, and during the heat of combat (or evasion) it can mean the difference between surviving and dying. But once I was in camera relative control everything was better.

However, when I played Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time on the PC it was exquisite. The controls were character relative by default and it was smooth.

On the console, though, it's an entirely different experience. The analog sticks work beautifully and somehow you intuit your character actions through them (this is why at times I have far more fun with console games than with PC games), with the left stick moving the character through space and the right stick panning around the character. The character is always the fixed point in the world.

[Melanie68]

The few direct control games I've played (Grim Fandango, BS3, Dreamfall), I've used my gamepad and the analog stick. It's more fun controlling things that way. I used the keyboard a very short time with Grim Fandango and that's when I decided to buy the gamepad.

[insane_cobra]

Originally Posted by Crunchy in milk

I actually find it depends on the controller more. Camera relative controls are the norm in console games and for some reason the sticks on modern gamepads make this rather easy and fun.

I just cannot enjoy myself playing with camera relative controls on a keyboard. You wouldn't think the slight difference between keys and a joystick would make much of a difference but for me it just does. I will frequently hit the wrong button when the camera changes because my left and right hemispheres get into an argument.

I naturally see a keyboard as a flat space and find it easier to imagine a 3d character standing on top of it at all times, with UP on the keyboard always being FORWARD. Spacially this is much easier for me to lock onto and thus put on the back burner.

I think there's some truth in that. Another reason why I'm so used to camera-relative controls could be my previous experience with 2D games. Most side-scrollers can't use character-relative controls at all (games creating an illusion of depth, like Golden Axe, can, but rarely do).

Originally Posted by Junkface

Maybe my understanding of this is a little fucked up, as I don't remember the issue of character vs camera relative really coming into play with Max Payne's control system at all - don't the character and camera always point in the same direction?

In most shoulder cam using games character-relative and screen-relative are entirely the same. Some of them, however, leave some space between the camera and the player character so when she's retreating, she's facing you. Generally I don't like such behaviour, but that's a design decision and depends on the kind of game you're making. If it's a shooter, then it's much better to leave the player always looking at the back of the player character.