Board 8 > Lab study to be performed on why gamers prefer inverted or non-inverted controls

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.theguardian.com/games/2020/dec/02/scientists-studying-why-gamers-invert-their-controls

Finally, science will give us the answer

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I am sure it will be extensively peer reviewed online and/or over LAN.

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My friend explained why "inverted controls" (who called these inverted) are intuitive really well

He was like... "put your hand on top of your head like a joystick-- push your head forward, which way are you looking? Pull your head back, which way are you looking?"

But yeah inverted for life

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Lopen posted...

He was like... "put your hand on top of your head like a joystick-- push your head forward, which way are you looking? Pull your head back, which way are you looking?"

This has never made sense to me. Why would my point of view be starting from behind my head instead of inside it, like it actually is?

Your eyes are on the front of your face. When you look up, you look up. When you look down, you look down.

I hate this question because I never know my preference unless I'm actually playing the game.

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If your head is a joystick you don't grab or put your thumb where your face would be, you put it on top of it.

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It's funny. I preferred inverted until I played Detroit of all things because the camera more tilts than rotates there. Then I went back to other games I had already played with Inverted controls and suddenly it didn't work for me anymore.
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When I press up, I want the camera to go up. When I press left, I want the camera to go left.

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I've played X-Wing vs TIE Fighter in my childhood so now I invert all Y

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I want to know what sort of upbringing leads a person to become a horizontal inverter
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Jakyl25 posted...

I want to know what sort of upbringing leads a person to become a horizontal inverter

The first game you ever played was Beyond Good & Evil?
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It's a flight-stick thing. Push forward, go down. Pull back, go up.

It only applies for me to games where:
1) First person view
2) I'm holding a controller, rather than KB+mouse

Jakyl25 posted...

I want to know what sort of upbringing leads a person to become a horizontal inverter

Yeah, inverting X is just freaking weird. I can't justify that one, nor would I ever do it.

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Non-inverted, except for flight sims.

Depends on first person or third person

BetrayedTangy posted...

I hate this question because I never know my preference unless I'm actually playing the game.

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Lopen posted...

My friend explained why "inverted controls" (who called these inverted) are intuitive really well

He was like... "put your hand on top of your head like a joystick-- push your head forward, which way are you looking? Pull your head back, which way are you looking?"

But yeah inverted for life

That never worked for me because it's not how you move your head. If you wanna look up, you look up. If you wanna look down, you look down. So I guess since I hold my controller closer to vertically than I do horizontally, up is up and down is down just transferred better for me.

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tcaz2 posted...

This has never made sense to me. Why would my point of view be starting from behind my head instead of inside it, like it actually is?

Your eyes are on the front of your face. When you look up, you look up. When you look down, you look down.

if you tilt forward you look down, if you tilt backwards you look up

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i'm sure it's just however they learned to do it originally. i still have memories of how unnatural all video game controls felt at first- it's not like we're born with an affinity

inverted is traditional for airplanes, so i imagine that's how most of them started using those controls. if you're manning a turret, to aim upwards you don't like, push up. you lean back.

that being said, for most games i use normal. anything involving planes, submarines, or flight, i use inverted. i think there are arguments for either method, and they're both fine- just visualized differently

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StealThisSheen posted...

That never worked for me because it's not how you move your head. If you wanna look up, you look up. If you wanna look down, you look down. So I guess since I hold my controller closer to vertically than I do horizontally, up is up and down is down just transferred better for me.

The issue for me is that in 3D space joysticks don't represent "up and down", they represent "forward and back". If you want to look up, you tilt your head back. And if you want to look down, you tilt your head forward. If vertical camera controls simply panned it would make more sense for up to be up, but they (normally) don't; when you move a camera in a 3D video game vertically it rotates to show the view. If your playing first person, the view rotating can be imagined as your character's head tilting. Even in third person the camera rotating can be imagined as an actual video camera; if you were filming someone and wanted to show what was above them you would tilt the camera you were holding backwards.

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last time we had this topic i tagged everyone that said the post inverted so that i always know where my homies at

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BetrayedTangy posted...

I hate this question because I never know my preference unless I'm actually playing the game.

Dude. Thank you. I'm sitting here trying to figure out what I like, and both feel possibly okay

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i can't stand just inverting y. it's either both or neither. and both is only okay for a controller, not a mouse, which is what i'm usually going to be using.

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This used to drive me batty but this topic made me realize I haven't had to think about it almost at all recently, even though I can't stand not having the y axis inverted. Have significantly more games started using inverted y as the default compared to like, 10 years ago? I legitimately haven't even considered it.

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Great_Paul posted...

When I press up, I want the camera to go up. When I press left, I want the camera to go left.

I can't tell which side you're on with this.

To be clear, if the literal camera behind your character goes goes up... then the camera now needs to aim down to see. If the camera goes to the left, then in order to stay focused on the character, it now needs to aim right.

Hence why inverted is more intuitive to me.

inverted 4 lyfe

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I sincerely doubt we need a study for this. Its just whatever control set up a person is used to playing.

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I've trained myself to be equally bad at both.

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StealThisSheen posted...

So I guess since I hold my controller closer to vertically than I do horizontally, up is up and down is down just transferred better for me.

An interesting observation.

I definitely hold my controller horizontally, with the up on the D-pad pointing towards the screen than to my ceiling, which transferred pretty easily to inverted. I think Star Fox uses inverted controls? That might also be the big influence for me as I likely played it before even any shooters too.

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My first experience with 3d movement in games was with old flight/space sims with a flight stick so inverted is my thing
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I did inverted 100% of the time, then I marathoned every MGS game for the first time and inverted just didn't work there, and ever since then I just can't stand to play inverted even in games I played before MGS.

Hideo Kojima cured me of my affliction.

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#invertedlife

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If there's a crosshair, up should move the crosshair up.
If there's a horizon, up should move the horizon up.

Inverted Y-axis being similar to how one tilts their head to look up and down is merely coincidence. The coincidence breaks down when one considered the case of looking left to right. It feels natural to tilt the stick left and right to look left and right in a game even though that doesn't match how our heads work. If one wants to look left and right in real lift, they turn their head left and right.
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Turns out people learn how to do things in different ways

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Team Rocket Elite posted...

Inverted Y-axis being similar to how one tilts their head to look up and down is merely coincidence. The coincidence breaks down when one considered the case of looking left to right. It feels natural to tilt the stick left and right to look left and right in a game even though that doesn't match how our heads work. If one wants to look left and right in real lift, they turn their head left and right.

Uh, no, they're the same?

Looking up in real life means the back of your head has gone down. Looking down means the back of your head has gone up.

Looking left in real life means the back of your head has gone right. Looking right in real life means the back of your head has gone left.

it's like this:

https://i.imgur.com/RqIf2fN.png

if that's your character's head, from a top-down view, and they're looking straight ahead.

do you push the front of the head left? (arrow A) that's regular camera.

or do you push the back of the head right? (arrow B) that's inverted camera.

both pushes involve the eyes ultimately facing left.

I push the joystick in the direction i want my character to move, and I push the other joystick in the direction I want my character to look. So if I want to look at the sky I press up

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For me it's the pivot point. Usually in games, especially in third person games, the pivot point for the camera is the player character and thus the camera moves around the character in relation to the character. Thus if you want to look up and right, if the player character is the pivot point, the camera has to move down and left in relation to the character in in-game space and therefore I want to push down and left on my controller too. It's really that simple.

Thus, if the character isn't the pivot point or if the camera isn't pivoting and instead just moves, then I don't use inverted controls.

I used to use non-inverted controls, but now I always use inverted. I wonder what science would say about me.

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UltimaterializerX posted...

This explains it well enough, but it works better with your thumb or driving as an example. I'm sure most kids at some point had a dirt bike or dad let them drive the boat or whatever; inverted controls are the norm there. You pull your weight back to make a jump. This is doubly true on an airplane or helicopter. Like even without gaming I would prefer an inverted Y axis because I grew up on it and I've driven a lot of stuff in my life. My personal favorite are the various fork lifts I've learned. My personal favorite is this thing: http://www.warehouseforklifttrucks.com/photo/pl17393532-full_electric_power_narrow_aisle_reach_truck_narrow_aisle_straddle_truck_high_speed.jpg

Fork lists are basically all inverted controls.

Or with the thumb example, you're pulling back to look up or pushing something down. It's more intuitive, and I'm willing to bet if this is real science it'll show this. That or it'll likely connect the male love of operating vehicles and gaming with inverted controls; these two factors are more closely related than most people think. Don't men design most directional control in video games?

Yeah I will say he follows it up by going into a tirade about how airplanes fly like that too ha ha

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The real answer is whatever your used to.

The logical answer depends on how you hold the controller (and what type of game it is).

For example if you are holding the controller horizontal light a flight stick it's not really up and down but more forward and backwards in which case the head tilt argument makes more sense. Flight stick is an example of this.

If you are holding it vertical where up is actually up i would consider it closer to eye movement where you move your eyes up to look up (and tilting the head is a byproduct).

For something thats third person theres not really a good comparison but really you are moving your physical self up and down to get a different angle so however your mind processes that.

For something thats overhead (like an rts) i guess it depends on whether you think it makes more sense to move a overhead drone camera in a direction or move the land below you.

but at the end of the day I use non-inverted for everything because im used to it

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BetrayedTangy posted...

I hate this question because I never know my preference unless I'm actually playing the game.

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