Do any first person shooters have exponential?

[StageLeft]

I still think a mouse is the best thing for an FPS game and find sniping on consoles very hard with the regular controller. With RC planes/helicopters, a lot of pilots have exponential in so that at the extremes of stick movement there is full movement, but near the center there isn't, so in this manner it's possible to put in very finite movements but also huge ones, relying on more than simply a linear movement of the stick.

I think this would be great. It seems it could even be something integral to the console itself and irrespective of the game.

 

[TecHNooB]

Aren't you always pointing towards the center in FPS anyways?

 

[purbeast0]

what you are explaining is the very nature of an analog stick. if you push it over 1/4 of the way to the left, onscreen it only moves at 25% of the full speed.

at least in theory that is how it should be, and that's how most of the higher budget FPS games are.

the problem comes in moving the stick only that 25% instead of 1/2 or all the way, at least that is what I've experienced.

try messing with the sensitivity settings on the specific games and finding something you like.

me personally, i've always sucked at sniping in games and have just come to accept this, and if I'm playing multiplayer and I come accross a sniper rifle, I always let my teammates know where it is and don't grab it, or I'll grab it and drop it off at their feet.

 

[erwos]

The other part of the problem is that the analog sticks on the controllers are so small that actually moving the stick precisely is rather difficult. There are some controller mods that will fix this problem, IIRC.

 

[Kev]

They could really use this on gears 2, it's impossible for me to snipe because I always move the site past the target. COD4 isn't as bad because it slows down your movement when you zoom in.

 

[vi edit]

COD4 is probably the most dialed in FPS I've played on a console to date. It doesn't work exactly as you describe, but it's by far the most natural feeling aiming I've used on a controller.

 

[StageLeft]

what you are explaining is the very nature of an analog stick. if you push it over 1/4 of the way to the left, onscreen it only moves at 25% of the full speed.

I suppose this is somewhat true, but what I would like is, instead of:

1/4 stick = 25% speed
1/2 stick = 50% speed

something like:

1/4 stick = 10% speed
1/2 stick = 30% speed
3/4 stick = 60% speed
1/1 stick = 100% speed

As it is now in many or most cases the movement of stick is linearly influencing the speed at which one turns, but with exponential the sensitivity is scaled back disproportionately, so that near the center of stick movement is even more restrained.

 

[imported_Imp]

I've noticed that it exists on the PS3. However, it is VERY POORLY implemented. Near the center, sensitivity is so low that it's unusable in any action game, which forces you to move into the higher sensitivity zone, thus negating the effect. This has led me to just tap the sticks, which is annoying, but more or less works. The PS3 is especially bad ebcause you can move the stick about 1/8 or 1/4 with no onscreen movement; that's a dead area. If they fixed that, I would be pretty happy.

 

[destrekor]

Originally posted by: Imp
I've noticed that it exists on the PS3. However, it is VERY POORLY implemented. Near the center, sensitivity is so low that it's unusable in any action game, which forces you to move into the higher sensitivity zone, thus negating the effect. This has led me to just tap the sticks, which is annoying, but more or less works. The PS3 is especially bad ebcause you can move the stick about 1/8 or 1/4 with no onscreen movement; that's a dead area. If they fixed that, I would be pretty happy.

I have NEVER noticed a dead area on the PS3 sticks.
And I'm no fan of analog sticks. I pretty much hate them and am far from competitive with them, I'm much better using a mouse that has on-the-fly adjustable sensitivity, although I'm also better with a flat-sensitivity mouse than analog sticks. I just don't have the precision movement with my thumbs to do what I want to do. However I know a few people, and have seen many people, who are like gods with the controllers and can do very precise and minute movements with the sticks.

I've never really imagined the PS3 controllers had any different sensitivity over 360 controllers, and could never really tell they did. However, I would say you can create your own difference in sensitivity due to the sticks being so different. The 360 controllers might be more capable of minute movements I'd say do to the concave stick shape, but if you are used to the PS3 controllers like me, it ends up being opposite and I can't do minute movements on the 360 for crap, my thumbs attempt to adjust too much and I either get caught in a dead-zone or make sweeping movements (although there is no noticeable deadzone, it's just the concave sticks make my thumbs end up moving practically nowhere).
For the PS3, the analog sticks have a greater range of motion, and have a convex shape. In practice this may make it more difficult to accomplish minute adjustments, and this kind of still rings true with me because apparently I'm a terrible sniper using PS3 sticks. But the greater range of motion is a definite plus in my book, makes it feel like I'm capable of more movement. If I could get my thumbs to cooperate, I could dial in more precise adjustments, but in heated combat I just can't move that slow and quick at the same time.

 

[tatteredpotato]

Really this isn't a hardware feature, but rather on implemented in software. For example when you poll the controller to get it's state, you get a float value back between -1 and 1 (well 2 float values, one for X and one for Y) that corresponds to the position of the stick. So the hardware always reports the explicit location of the stick that is interpreted linearly, however there is nothing stopping a developer from transforming this into a more exponential function.

PS all this is based off the libraries provided by MS in XNA Game Studio, so this could be different in the official dev kits, however this is one detail I would believe to be the same.