Will Torchlight work with a gamepad?

[Aryndar]

Hello

I'm an avid gamer and quite curious about Torchlight. I've also spent most of my life working in the design/computer industry and have sporadic hand/tendon "issues" due to mouse/keyboard overuse. Because of this I have to play my vids with a game pad. It's a drag, but the alternative is stop playing pc games. Which I can't bring myself to do atm.

I'm wondering if Torchlight will have support for/function well using a gamepad?

Cheers

[imatree]

I was wondering about this as well, but i would seriously doubt that a gamepad would work in a point and click style game.

[hawkn]

I was hoping so too. Take that old D&D game for the xbox for example. They worked pretty well. Oh well, guess you have to gather even more dust game pad...

[Hollownuke]

I haven't done it myself but as a workaround you can reprogram your 360 gamepad to control the mouse, as well as other keyboard buttons.
http://www.instructables.com/id/use-a-x ... s-a-mouse/

I have used it for older PC games like GTA that don't have built in support for Xbox 360 controller and it worked pretty well.

I say this because it is super unlikely that they would take the time to design a different control configuration for using a gamepad. It is a lot more work than just mapping buttons.
I heard that they did a good job in Sacred 2 but that was because they actually released it on Game consoles.

[Omnifas]

I don't think Torchlight SP will have Keyboard Movement of any kind, so that makes movement an impossibility with a gamepad; unless you don't mind using one of the analogs as a mouse.

Of course there are makeshift ways to create analog movement/aiming. Set the Mouse to "Spring mode" in the profiler of choice on the left analog, bind the shoulder buttons as left click/right click. Moving would require Left Trigger and direction on left analog, at the same time if you have a skill that requires you to aim a bit you can still aim since you are controlling the position of the mouse. Face buttons can be the quickbar function with RB(assuming its a 360 controller) being a trigger to switch from 1234 to 5678. Right analog can be a free mouse aim. Depending on the power of the profiler you can even navigate menus by using scripts that remember mouse positions and etc.

The mechanics don't work right unless you design the game explicitly around that control scheme.

[bTomfoolery]

The mechanics don't work right unless you design the game explicitly around that control scheme.

Which, I must say, I wish they did, but I'm fairly certain they didn't/wouldn't have. I enjoy gamepad controls in my action RPGs.

[Aryndar]

Cheers for all the replys folks.

Here's to hoping they'll have specific gamepad support. Good point about the click to move engine. Am I the only one that does'nt enjoy that control method? I played a ton of D & D2 also, but these days when games are click to move only, I tend to stay away from them.

[Kardiophylax]

Cheers for all the replys folks.

Here's to hoping they'll have specific gamepad support. Good point about the click to move engine. Am I the only one that does'nt enjoy that control method? I played a ton of D & D2 also, but these days when games are click to move only, I tend to stay away from them.

My son has been playing D2 lately and I still enjoy click to move after years of playing WoW. I dunno, maybe its just me, I don't mind it much. Titan Quest was one of my favorite games in recent memory and it was click to move. The Witcher was an interesting game in that you could use click to move or first person type controls.

I don't enjoy console styled games on my PC. Perhaps I'm just getting too old, I dunno, I prefer a mouse and keyboard.

[Shardz]

I actually prefer click to move as I find it intuitive and much less strain on my left hand (ie carpal tunnel syndrome). My left hand starts cramping up with the WASD method along with the several other key presses you must maintain with spell/item/utility usage. Guild Wars 2 is moving from click to move to keyboard control and this really makes me nervous as I can feel the pain and cramping already after just a couple hours online. Not to mention the fact that my left hand is already busy firing off skills and maintaining the offensive action as it is...then pile on controlling the character with the same hand and those 1 hour break messages you get in Guild Wars really will mean something. I'm not sure exactly what the Ogre engine offers as far as control, but I'm sure it would accept XY (maybe Z) coordinate data for player control that could be implemented with a game pad. It's hard to speculate what Torchlight is capable of without actually having it and the dev tools to dig into the coding, but I wouldn't write anything off at this point until we get the chance to delve into it personally.

[hawkn]

That was one problem i have with MMO's. You have to maintain control of your character with WASD, while using hotkeys at the same time. I hated it when you'd use the wrong ability because you pressed the wrong button while trying to move at the same time.

[realtitef]

You have to maintain control of your character with WASD, while using hotkeys at the same time. I hated it when you'd use the wrong ability because you pressed the wrong button while trying to move at the same time.

Which is why I'll have to ask something that bugs me since quite some time. Being a long time gamer that saw the rise of FPS genre with Doom and the original Quake back then. I'm still using the control scheme that was widely used at the time : mouse for viewing, left and right clicks for moving forward and backwards, respectively. It keeps things very intuitive by grouping movement to the mouse and action to the keyboard, not creating the kind of tangled-fingers-due-to-brain-cross-threading-mistakes hawkn is refering to. That's imho far superior ergonomicaly to the wasd thing. Does somebody know why and at what time things turned the wasd way ?

Edit : sorry for being off-topic.

[Tiamat]

Strafing.

[realtitef]

Strafing.

Mouse 4 & 5...

[Omnifas]

Strafing.

Mouse 4 & 5...

Around the time of the transition to WASD which IIRC was actually QWES, I remember the defaults being Q E strafe, thus my brother and I grew accustom to QWES. Well back on point at the time 3 button mice, let alone 5 button mice were investments, so the average gamer couldn't bind Up down stleft stright on the mouse.

Essentially the transition was actually a reversion to the left hand Joystick(movement), right hand buttons(functions) arcade setup.

+our brains are already tangled up, our left brain controls the right side and vice versa

[realtitef]

Well back on point at the time 3 button mice, let alone 5 button mice were investments, so the average gamer couldn't bind Up down stleft stright on the mouse.

I didn't realized that. Thank you for the clarifications.

[Qix]

Granted its expensive, but I bought a DX1 (from Ergodex) a few years ago (along with the extra keys). It helped me a lot. By being able to place your keys literally anywhere on the pad, you can space them out more, and make them MUCH more comfortable. Also a lot easier to organize your spell keys, options etc. I even have a couple buttons that run Winamp controls in the background.


Not my setup, but you can the amount of customization here:
http://assets.gearlive.com/blogimages/ergodex.jpg
http://www.tweakers.net/ext/i.dsp/1080565410.jpg

I just wish there were some differently shaped keys, like double wide's and a couple with the bump like 'F' and 'J' on normal keyboards. I made do by not playing labels on the movement keys, so they feel different now.

The ONLY downside to it is that I have issues playing on a normal keyboard now (like at a friends).

[piratepwnsninja]

Actually, if you are able to click and hold the left mouse button for continual direction movement in the direction of the mouse cursor (which ends up being whatever way you push the mouse) as I am fairly certain Diablo and other ARPGs have done, the program Xpadder easily allows you map commands to a controller. Those commands can be a combination of buttons, so with some tinkering you could probably make the controller work. I am a game designer by trade, and I tend to try to make the controller work with every game I get, just because I have a friend who is only able to play games using controllers. If I end up coming up with a workable xpadder profile for Torchlight, I'll happily share it with the community.

[Aryndar]

Actually, if you are able to click and hold the left mouse button for continual direction movement in the direction of the mouse cursor (which ends up being whatever way you push the mouse) as I am fairly certain Diablo and other ARPGs have done, the program Xpadder easily allows you map commands to a controller. Those commands can be a combination of buttons, so with some tinkering you could probably make the controller work. I am a game designer by trade, and I tend to try to make the controller work with every game I get, just because I have a friend who is only able to play games using controllers. If I end up coming up with a workable xpadder profile for Torchlight, I'll happily share it with the community.

That would be much appreciated piratepwnsninja. Cheers mate.

[lithographer]

any luck?

[juan626]

Yeah my suggestion would be trying it with ControlMK, Xpadder, or similar tool.

They use profiles which you can create yourself or ideally someone has already created a good one. For this game I don't think there are any (not sure it would work very well) because I usually see them for more popular games like Battlefield 2, usually shooters.

But hey maybe try it out to come up with a good profile that others may find useful too.