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[shpankey]

I have had this idea for awhile hoping some developer would someday come up with it. What I was thinking was that the right analog stick would be cool as the "shifter" for your car. Like for a manual transmission. This could be done in a couple ways. You could have it as an UP/DOWN shifter, kind of like the old arcade units... where in order to "shift up" into a higher gear, you would press straight up on the right analog stick and to "shift down" you would press down (or vice-versa if you preferred). Sort of like a ratchet shifter (was it B&M who makes these -- or is that someone else?).

Alternatively, and better in my mind (more realistic and more sim like) would be a full fledged shifter using the right analog stick. It would go something like this...



Using the Right Analog stick on your controller:

Press Up and to the Left -- 1st Gear
Press Down and to the Left -- 2nd Gear
Press Up and to the Right -- 3rd Gear
Press Down and to the Right -- 4th Gear

Press all the way straight Left and then Right in a back and forth side to side motion 2 times for Neutral. This is kind of like what a lot of people do in real life to find Neutral. I think this idea for Neutral is really cool actually.

Push straight Right then Down and to the Right for Reverse. You could vary this actually to straight Right/Left followed by Up/Down to your liking to match how your car is in real life and are therefore accustomed to.

I believe this would add a great deal of immersion into a driving game, as it makes sense. It is a stick, much like a stick shifter. Not only that, in the case of the second way, it would make you a better driver (if you are a manual gear driver -- which in itself will usually make your car faster in most games) by allowing you to go directly from a high gear down into 1st or 2nd gear without having to cycle down through the gears.

Anyhow, what do you all think?

P.S. I was also toying with the idea (on the Xbox controller) to have the Left Analog Trigger used as a clutch (instead of the brakes). An instead move the brakes to the A button instead, leaving the throttle (gas) on the Right Trigger. This in combination with the method I laid out for manual shifting with the Right Analog stick would create a very impressive simulation of real life manual shifting. Of course by moving the brake to the A button you would have some serious getting used to, but the payoff for having a real clutch with a real shifter with a controller would be impressive.

I would really like to see a setup like all this for a game like Forza Motorsport and GT4.

Hell, if all games would just give us total control on button mapping, we could at least do the UP/DOWN shifting on the Right Analog stick on our own. I think that would be cool. I hope next generation makes it mandatory that all developers allow total custimization on button mapping and honestly have a hard time understanding why developers are so dogmatic and senile about forcing their button layout on us. While games like Return to Castle Wolfenstein prove that total button mapping control for the user is easily possible.

 

[mumu]

Americans and Japanese don't like manual gear, so there will be no sales.

 

[speedpop]

Or you can just buy a steering wheel with gear shifter.

 

[shpankey]

Not everyone want to have to drag out a steering wheel and find something to mount it to, have wires stretched all over the place just to race in a game. I use a wheel for my PC sims but never on a console.

Americans and Japanese don't like manual gear, so there will be no sales.

What on earth are you talking about? This is an idea for an option in racing games. How is having the option to set the manual gear shifting to the right analog stick going to stop any sales? :lol

 

[etiolate]

I've always liked the thought of that idea myself. If you had to keep your thumb in that position though it might be annoying.

 

[Gek54]

You are this anal about a shifter yet you dont use a wheel? This use of the right stick that you describe is not feasible. What is your beef with sequencial shifting?

 

[shpankey]

I've always liked the thought of that idea myself. If you had to keep your thumb in that position though it might be annoying.

You wouldn't have to have it there the whole time... only when shifting. I would be happy if I could just have the "shift up" option set to Right Analog Stick Up and the "shift down" option set to Right Analog Stick Down. That to me would be much much MUCH more enjoyable that pressing A button for shifting up and X button for shifting down.

 

[shpankey]

You are this anal about a shifter yet you dont use a wheel? This use of the right stick that you describe is not feasible. What is your beef with sequencial shifting?

I use a wheel for my PC sims... but when I play a console I don't. And I think you are stretching it to call it "anal". This is an idea, no more. I don't even understand how you could of said that.

Also, I have absolutely no beef with sequencial shifting. I actually had that first on my ideas (and in my last post as well) so no clue why you thought that. I think, as I just pointed out in the last post, that having the option to shift up by pressing up on the right analog and shift down by pressing down on the right analog would be a really nice improvement over hitting say A and X to do the shifting. And that is certainly possible, so dunno why you think it's isn't. I don't know if my alternative way would be, if that's what you meant... but dunno why it wouldn't.

 

[Gek54]

I would be happy if I could just have the "shift up" option set to Right Analog Stick Up and the "shift down" option set to Right Analog Stick Down.

I would think that there would be a problem if you flicked the stick up to shift only to have it bounce down cuasing you to shift back.

 

[shpankey]

I would think that there would be a problem if you flicked the stick up to shift only to have it bounce down cuasing you to shift back.

Nahhh... that I doubt would be a problem. And if your stick does that, you got problems. When a right stick is released it returns to center.

 

[Gek54]

Yeah, that would be cool and I too dont know why no one has used this as an option for sequencial shifting. Im not sure how well a clutch would work and when would you really need a clutch other than for percise launching?

Seriously though, you need to rig a GT Force Pro up for GT4.

 

[captainbiotch]

Too much button work, it would be like trying to play a fighting game while you steer. A complete steering wheel rig with a clutch and game support would be much better, and I'd rather see a detailed cockpit view than anything else. Do you imagine that braking into a turn with A button, turning and depressing clutch, moving thumb back to right analog stick, shifting, giving right amount of gas, and on and on all at the same time is gonna be fun on the joypad without weeks of practice? I just don't see it.

 

[shpankey]

Too much button work, it would be like trying to play a fighting game while you steer.

Well, the alternate way I listed might be too much button work for most people but the up/down on the right analog stick for shifting up and shifting down certainly wouldn't be hard for anyone.

 

[mr2mike]

"I have had this idea for awhile hoping some developer would someday come up with it. What I was thinking was that the right analog stick would be cool as the "shifter" for your car. Like for a manual transmission. This could be done in a couple ways. You could have it as an UP/DOWN shifter, kind of like the old arcade units... where in order to "shift up" into a higher gear, you would press straight up on the right analog stick and to "shift down" you would press down (or vice-versa if you preferred). Sort of like a ratchet shifter (was it B&M who makes these -- or is that someone else?)."

Project Gotham 1 did that

I had the same idea as you for your more complex, 2nd method back then, I pitched it on the bizarre forums, to no avail.

 

[royale]

Outrun 2 uses the right analog for shifting. I think that is the default setting because I played it on a demo kiosk...actually it worked quite well, flick it up to shift down and tap down to shift up.

 

[miyuru]

Although it's already been said, there have been many games that use the right analog to shift in the manner you first described.

As for the alternate method, I think it takes away more from a game than it adds.

 

[thorns]

You want to move the brake to a button and clutch to a trigger??
it is FAR more important to have analog brakes than a clutch. Playing any sim-like game with on/off brakes you'll lock the wheels up in no time (even in PGR2).

 

[mr2mike]

Oh, one difference with my idea from your second idea, when I pitched it, was that I was employing a more "relative" approach to stick movement that would have allowed mapping of pretty much an infinite amount of gears rather than positioning the gears at it's corners.

Example:

you start a race in neutral, to get in 1st push it left then up, like you, but to go in second, you'd just need to flick the stick down. to go in 3rd, flick it right/up. 4th would have been straight down from after that. 5th, would be right/up again. 6th would be straight down from that...

downshifting would go the other way, 6th straight up to 5th, from 5th left/down to 4th, straight up to 3rd, left/down to 2nd, straight up to 1st...

clicking the stick would have poped it in neutral and from there you could have gone straight to reverse (right and down) or back in lower gears.

So I was using "how you push the stick in real life" instead of "where the gears are in real life"

People who say it's too complicated are missing the point entirely: like with a real life manual tranny, it forces an awareness of what gear you're in. it's the kind of thing that might be hard at first but that given time can greatly enhance your control of the car, unlike just flicking +/- buttons.

I'm pretty sure real life automatic drivers wouldn't have known what to make of it, but that would have been the point.

 

[shpankey]

Oh, one difference with my idea from your second idea, when I pitched it, was that I was employing a more "relative" approach to stick movement that would have allowed mapping of pretty much an infinite amount of gears rather than positioning the gears at it's corners.

Example:

you start a race in neutral, to get in 1st push it left then up, like you, but to go in second, you'd just need to flick the stick down. to go in 3rd, flick it right/up. 4th would have been straight down from after that. 5th, would be right/up again. 6th would be straight down from that...

downshifting would go the other way, 6th straight up to 5th, from 5th left/down to 4th, straight up to 3rd, left/down to 2nd, straight up to 1st...

clicking the stick would have poped it in neutral and from there you could have gone straight to reverse (right and down) or back in lower gears.

So I was using "how you push the stick in real life" instead of "where the gears are in real life"

People who say it's too complicated are missing the point entirely: like with a real life manual tranny, it forces an awareness of what gear you're in. it's the kind of thing that might be hard at first but that given time can greatly enhance your control of the car, unlike just flicking +/- buttons.

I'm pretty sure real life automatic drivers wouldn't have known what to make of it, but that would have been the point.

hmm... i actually like your idea here for shifting through the gears (as an alternate to the sequential shifting up/down) better than mine. although i would definately keep my Neutral method as that's how a lot of people do it in real life.

aslo, my idea for a clutch was just kind of thrown out there, not that i really even liked it all that much really. in fact, i probably wouldn't even use it myself, but might not be a bad option to add as a bonus, just to fart around with or something (like just to go do donuts in a free roam mode or something).

 

[mr2mike]

well to be fair, in real life I do give the stick little left-right tugs, but nver to "find" neutral, jut to make sure I'm in it, like when I park the car, when I have the parking brake on, before letting go of the clutch pedal I always give it a shake to be sure I'm not forgetting it in gear, wich would result in a violent stall the moment I'd release the pedal.

'finding neutral' I dont think is so hard that it would require any action beyond giving the stick a little push with your pinky, just letting it pop out of gear.

[Edit]

Now about clutches, I had an idea about that that relied on the Xbox and PS2's analog buttons and layouts, but it wouldn't have been usable inconjunction with the stick shifting idea:

simply put, you'd have A/X as the clutch, with analog button sentitivity, and +/- gear changes on X-B/square-O, that way it would have been easy to 'roll" your thumb over the clutch and gear change at the same time

On PS2 it'd be easy to implement an analog clutch and the stick shifter though, since there are 2 shoulder buttons on each side, it'd be easy to either have a setup like

L1:clutch R1:-----
L2:brake R2:gas

Using the GREAT gas/brake on shoulder layout that's been around since the dreamcast, and since the PS2 controller has analog choulder buttons, it'd work out perfect!

PS: I dont want to hear anyone complain that the analog buttons wouldn't work because it's too hard to control with so little analog travel. Boot up RRV and go change the sensitivity, if the developppers took the time to implement such a neat little sensitivity setting, it'd be easy to control.

 

[Shinobi]

I don't see the point of working the clutch into racers now. Damn near every top flight racing series worth a damn has sequential shifting, with the clutch only being used at the start. Champ Car's about the only top flight racing series I know of where the clutch is still used. In replicating sequential shifting, I'd say regular face buttons more then do the job. I just wish the Dual Shock had some triggers for the gas and brake, since I have no way of using a wheel. As far as controllers go, the XBox pad is about as good as it gets for racers.

 

[Alf-Life]

I have to say, I'd been imagining a game a bit like this, set in a Jurassic Park-style dino park gone wrong.

The only difference to your control scheme would be I imagined that you could press the analogue stick 'in' and then move it like left-then-up for first gear.

The game would always be played inside the car -view, with mirrors used to shit you up to see a chasing T-Rex, etc.

Perhaps clicking in the left analogue stick could also be used to simulate your character putting keys into the ignition, so you therefore have to press the analogue in and rotate/turn the stick to start the vehicle.

As with your system, the left and right triggers could be used as clutch and gas, with it being possible as with real life to stall the jeep/car if you're panicked and release.
How cool would it be to see a T-Rex come lumbering towards you while you - panic-striken - try to start the ignition on a jeep which has difficulty starting?