So how do you feel about character movement? Not just The Witcher 3

[yurieliakim]

As I was reading about The Witcher 3 among the common complaints, like frame rate during cutscenes, stutter, clunky combat, degrade weapons system, I stumbled upon a very specific one, which was the character movement which felt maybe unresponsive, maybe like a tank, maybe something else (I obviously haven't played the game). All the other complaints were fine with me (maybe not so much combat but I could live with it) but I've been to burnt out by this one.
It seems every modern game now has terrible character movement (obvious exaggeration), with the biggest offender being Assassin's Creed, because although you are a skilled assassin you have this highly delayed character movement, which takes a eternity to even turn around and this highly automatic parkour system that feels very unresponsive and awkward to use (but pretty to see, I guess?).
I remember playing Super Mario Sunshine and maybe that game had some flaws, ok, but not the movement. Mario moved fast like a ninja and it was incredibly satisfying to just move around, jumping across the city, through the rooftops, over the tress. It felt responsive and that made the experience incredibly more satisfying. A more recent example would be Splatoon, if you have played the global testfire. The Inklings were really responsive to your input and it kind of felt right and fun just swimming across paint on the floor and walls.

So, do you remember any games with nice movement, or terrible? Is that a dealbreaker for you, or are you indifferent? Is The Witcher 3 really a offender in that field or it doesn't spoil the experience? Are modern games more unresponsive due to overuse of animations ? Have you ever thought about this at all?
Discuss.

 

[TheHorseWarrior]

Ground Zeroes had some of the smoothest movement in gaming ever...got me super hyped for the phantom pain

 

[Foolery]

Sometimes games put too much animation into characters and their actions, it looks awful, especially when it pries away control from the player to play it out.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well there is the split between sprite character and physical character.
Anything you want to look as if it has weight needs to move and turn slower, slowly accelerate, slowly decelerate, slowly turn, slowly swing,... only then does it seem like a physical object. If you let them turn on a dime then we are well within cartoon territory and there it doesn't matter how goofy it looks.

But devs also make grave mistakes that compound the control problem.
Such as automated commands ala Ass Creed where you only hold down the "do cool shit" button and the game has to guess what it is you wanted to do, works great when it's guessing right, works horrifically when it doesn't. Then there are wonky context commands where the game can't decide clearly if action 1 or 5 was what you wanted. And then there are non interpretable animations during which you loose all control, for some stuff that makes sense but most of the time there is no real reason why this character can't change his movement.

And yes I do notice, pretty much gave up on Ass Creed because of it. Not so much a deal breaker as an eye poking device, I will suffer it to an extent but if that shit keeps happening we are going our separate ways.

 

[SKBPinkie]

I'm very surprised to see that GTA V didn't seem to get this complaint.

It has some of the slowest, sluggish, animation-heavy movement I've ever seen. That combined with the awful button mapping / tap X to run / respawn, etc. bullshit made it unplayable for me. Well, unplayable might be a bit harsh, but it never, ever felt satisfying to do anything in that game. I felt like I was constantly wrestling with the controls.

Compare this to something like Destiny, where the movement and shooting is buttery-smooth and incredibly satisfying. Pulling off consecutive headshots and dodging enemy fire by evading side to side, jumping over obstacles, throwing grenades / knives, etc. is just sublime. Too bad the game has some severe high-level design and mechanics-related issues, but the one thing it does incredibly well is its core gunplay and movement.

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

I've noticed that ponderous movement in some games and stayed well clear of them.
"Press X" to perform awesome move is not gameplay to me. I want reasonable control.

Another Witcher complaint (at least from me) would be the Over-The-Shoulder view, which I'm guessing is still used in the series?
I could wish for a list of all games using that particular view, or a mention of it in any review.
I can't believe I'm the only bothered by it..

 

[Treeberry]

I dislike the trend of realistic = clunky leadfeet.

I also dislike not having dedicated buttons for or being able to choose on my own to jump, crouch or do other movements. Especially as one of those people who likes to jump every few seconds...I can just guarantee that the prompt will be a completely different action than the one I want/need to take in a high pressure situation.

I find that lead feet impede exploration - one of my favourite things to do in a game - and ironically seem to occur a lot in newer sandbox games.

I'm very surprised to see that GTA V didn't seem to get this complaint.

It has some of the slowest, sluggish, animation-heavy movement I've ever seen. That combined with the awful button mapping / tap X to run / respawn, etc. bullshit made it unplayable for me. Well, unplayable might be a bit harsh, but it never, ever felt satisfying to do anything in that game. I felt like I was constantly wrestling with the controls.

I definitely agree. This is one of the reasons I stopped bothering with the game verrrrrry quickly. I can sort of justify it in Red Dead Redemption as Marston being more comfortable in a saddle buuuut sometimes you need to dismount or your favourite horse disappears in a misty rain whilst you're poking around that treasure-laden tree and then you hear a mysterious howling...Stupid slow-ass protagonists.

 

[yurieliakim]

Nosgoth is a game where the low quality animations really put me off playing it.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

As an example of responsive character movement in modern games people should see Mafia 2. Aside from the lack of free jumping, that game did a great job of letting you walk and run without making you feel like the character is secretly just a rock. Rockstar shouldn't have hired those guys to help them with cutscenes, they should have hired them to help them with movement. As much as GTA V is improved compared to GTA IV, it's still a bit sluggish, and it's one of my only complaints about that game.

Another even more modern example would be the last Tomb Raider. I absolutely love how Lara moves in that game.

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

I'm very surprised to see that GTA V didn't seem to get this complaint.

It has some of the slowest, sluggish, animation-heavy movement I've ever seen. That combined with the awful button mapping / tap X to run / respawn, etc. bullshit made it unplayable for me. Well, unplayable might be a bit harsh, but it never, ever felt satisfying to do anything in that game. I felt like I was constantly wrestling with the controls.

Compare this to something like Destiny, where the movement and shooting is buttery-smooth and incredibly satisfying. Pulling off consecutive headshots and dodging enemy fire by evading side to side, jumping over obstacles, throwing grenades / knives, etc. is just sublime. Too bad the game has some severe high-level design and mechanics-related issues, but the one thing it does incredibly well is its core gunplay and movement.

It's because it was worse in GTA4. Five was a improvement. They try to make the movement realistic you know how you can't go from a standing to a full sprint instantly, but it also makes it very sluggish.

 

[Evil Moo]

Unfortunately it is a trade-off between perfectly accurate animation that necessarily needs to constrain movement to remain realistic and responsive controls that sacrifice perfect animation to keep the player in control. Of course with the constant push for realism and the rise of let's plays, putting even more emphasis on visuals rather than gameplay, it's inevitable which option wins for many games these days.

I can usually live with it, especially if I want to feel better integrated with the world and get into some kind of roleplaying, but more often than not it tends to be frustrating during actual gameplay.

 

[laggyteabag]

It can be difficult to get the movement right, especially in multiplayer games or third person games. I like to feel that if I were to suddenly press "S", my character would immediately start walking backwards, but that isn't always the case, and there is one very large reason for it: Animation.

Lets face it, it isn't exactly visually pleasing to watch your character suddenly do a 180 without any visual cues, and for that reason, we get that awkward trade off which is the U-turn. This can be understandably frustrating, especially if you are trying to run away from something, but your character is still trying to fight their way through the animation, but in an industry in which graphics sell games, it is unfortunate.

 

[Asclepion]

It's the reason why I never played Mass Effect 3.

 

[Jandau]

I've seen this complaint regarding Witcher 3, and having finally gotten to play it, I see what people mean, but I don't think it should be changed.

Geralt is responsive to commands and performs what he's told. However, he's a physical character in the game world and has to obey the laws of physics. His movements have weight and momentum, and serve to make him feel a part of the world he inhabits. In that regard, I'd argue that the movement in Witcher 3 is actually very well done. As I said, Geralt is responsive to player input, but it's up to the player to learn how to work with his animations - learn to judge how much time a swing of the sword will take, which dodge move is appropriate, do you have time to cast a Sign, etc.

Also, funny how Dark Souls gets praised for its terribly slow combat animations, while Witcher 3 gets slammed for having better ones...

 

[skywolfblue]

There are a lot of games where the movement bothers me. Mass Effect is a super bad offender. I love it for many other reasons. But the movement is downright frustrating when the game can't figure out whether you want to run away or take cover, and you die because it picks the wrong one.

Strangely enough, Gears of War 3, of which Mass Effect 3 shares the same engine, has extremely fluid (if slow) movement, and never guesses wrong whether I want to run or take cover.

Speaking of Next Gen/Gen 8? I'm disappointed that DA: Inquisition has such terrible movement. It was a great game in many regards, but the movement is so rough it's kinda jarring to have it be as clunky as skyrim. I hope next gen games focus on movement before pretty visuals.

Better character animation and smoother movement are vastly more of an improvement then High resolution Texture Maps.

Another even more modern example would be the last Tomb Raider. I absolutely love how Lara moves in that game.

I'll second that. Even the game's melee combat comes off as fluid.

 

[Drops a Sweet Katana]

From what I've played of The Witcher 3, the controls aren't too bad. The dodging is probably the worst part since you can still be hit and staggered in the dodge animation, but other than that it's pretty okay. Not nearly as bad as GTA IV/V which feels like you're playing as an oil tanker with legs. In my opinion, Bloodborne has some of the best movement of any game I've played. Everything feels tight and responsive, and the animation is incredibly fluid.

 

[Cowabungaa]

Well thank God there's still games like One Finger Death Punch around then:


aka The Most Responsive Game To Ever Grace Us. Fuck me that game feels good to control, even though you don't actually move. But I sure as hell prefer that over Arno's raggedy ass in AC: Unity.

 

[Zipa]

Framerate can have a hell of a lot to do with it, when Dragon age Inquisition first came out the character movement around the world felt clunky and unresponsive, with a bit of tweaking of the settings and a couple of patches its now so much better. It actually feels like playing a modern game not KOTOR.

 

[gnihton]

Witcher 3's movement is really offensive. Sometimes if you want to go in a straight line through a gap - say, a set of stairs - you will have to walk backwards several metres and then walk forwards, all the while wiggling left and right to control Geralt's strokes that cause him to veer off in one direction, meandering into the side of the gap.

Tank controls isn't an accurate enough description. It's like Geralt is on a wooden pallet floating in a slightly turbulent sea, and he is also made of jelly, with your input just applying force on the pallet.

Games with good movement I would say are Source FPSs, Souls games, and basically anything derived from the Quake engine (Source, Call of Duty, etc).

 

[Mikeybb]

I haven't run into any issues with witcher 3 yet, but I can understand how frustrating the ones others have reported are.

I've found that after a while, with all but the worst offenders, you eventually come to adapt to the control systems.
You learn what the engine can do in regards to movement and you adjust, either by effort or by a kind of gaming muscle memory, until the point it becomes second nature.

MH4U was my hill to climb.
I've always loved running around with bows in fantasy games.
However, there was a problem lurking for me in the rocks like a sleeping Basarios...
The ranged combat controls.
The horrible, horrible ranged combat controls.
I found them to sluggish and counter intuitive.
Over time they became tolerable and now, while they're still not what I'd call good, they are reliable at least.
Nevertheless I still love the game.

Sometimes playing multiple games of a similar kind in regards to movement can throw you off.
It can even happen with games that have a good control system, I remember having my performance in battlefield 2 completely destroy my performance in counterstrike.

Then there are times when one game manages to get everything just right and while that in itself isn't a problem, when you start playing something with similar perspective and movement, it becomes the veritable pea under the mattress.
The controls can niggle away at you for reasons you can't quite define.
You can never get comfortable with them, until you suddenly realize that it's not because they're bad per se, but that you'd become so used to some graceful little aspect of the perfect iteration of the control method elsewhere.
Now it's either absent or just not quite right and it just doesn't fit with you like it used to.
Almost like you've moved from tailored underpants to storebought tighty whiteys.