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[Lottel]

The second one is even better.
 

[teg]

I'm actually playing the third one.

At first I was like "This is weird. Golden Sun's always been like a SNES RPG that somehow crept its way onto handhelds, but this is more like a PS1 RPG."

And then I got to the first log-rolling puzzle and I was home.

[Beat Bandit]

GS 2 and 3 did have tl;dr options.

It was the desert from GS.

[Lottel]

I've complained about this before I think but god damn. I was in the mood for some Harvest Moon so I restarted the farm I had on Island of Happiness. I was only in fall of the first year so I wasn't very far anyway.
Now I remember why I stopped playing. The controls are fighting you every step of the way. You have to use the stylus to move but you can't tap the square you want to water/chop/whatever. You have to go to the spot and either press a button which is incredibly awkward or tap a circle on the screen and hope that it thinks you're in the right 4 pixels to register it. Harvest Moon, believe it or not, is very dependent on accuracy. If you don't have that, you don't have much. The Zelda DS controls worked for Zelda DS because you could tap something and interact with it. If I have a watering can selected and I can't tap a square to water and instead have to use buttons, why can't I use the more accurate buttons to move?

[Brentai]

Because mandatory stylus controls, probably.

Ys DS let you play either with the stylus or D-pad though, which effectively meant you can ignore the stylus altogether.   Unless you happened to prefer the stylus controls of course.

SEE HOW EASY THIS IS?

[Thad]

Right, and that's a good bottom line: configurable controls are a GOOD thing.

Anyone who makes the argument that the user should just learn to adapt to the button mappings mandated by the developer is wrong.  Always.

[Bal]

I don't like certain levels of configuration in competitive settings sometimes, but given how much customization goes on in all major competitive games I guess the consensus is that, so long as it doesn't seriously exploit something, it's fine. 

[Brentai]

The only instance I can think of where this is really beyond your control is MMOs, and as Blizzard has made it clear, they're perfectly happy to limit your play options using this as an excuse.  In all other cases it doesn't really justify a developer constraining you to a certain configuration, though in most cases this isn't an intentional constraint, it's just sloppiness.

[Norondor]

in the case of unavoidable stylus controls or like such as, it's probably an artifact of their original design bid, or similar. which sucks, but.

[Zaratustra]

the thing is, there's always another control scheme and each one requires learning yet another arcane API command

KEYBOARD
GAMEPAD
XBOX CONTROLLER ( of course it uses a different input method )
WII CONTROLLER
STYLUS
VOICE CONTROL
VIA SSH
TWO MICE
TWO KEYBOARDS
TONGUE DRIVEN
etc etc

[Bal]

I was mostly talking about really extreme interface mods that either use software to create incredibly elaborate macros that can sometimes completely automate certain sets of actions and also things like the modding that goes into fighting sticks these days with special macro buttons and the like. In the former case the developer will usually break whatever lets such a macro work, but in the latter case it seems to be a situation where, since it doesn't seem to actually effect tournament outcomes, no one cares.

[Büge]

TONGUE DRIVEN

Anyone got a copy of John Madden's Cunnilingus Playoffs '98? Mine's worn out.

[Norondor]

in FFXI you can use software to macro things with incredible specificity, like putting gear on based on moon phase or your current HP. Given that there are a lot of weird, overly-specific items that make such a practice useful, though, the use of third-party software to automate it pretty much seems like the natural outcome.

[Thad]

the thing is, there's always another control scheme and each one requires learning yet another arcane API command

Fair, but even if there's only one supported input device, buttons within that device should be remappable.

[Brentai]

In the former case the developer will usually break whatever lets such a macro work, but in the latter case it seems to be a situation where, since it doesn't seem to actually effect tournament outcomes, no one cares.

I think we just said the same thing, yeah.

XBOX CONTROLLER ( of course it uses a different input method )

BUT XINPUT IS DIRECTLY COMPATIBLE WITH ALL OTHER DEVICES

TOTALLY

[Bal]

I'm sure from the developer standpoint having a different API for the 360 controller input is a pain in the ass, but as an end user I can tell you that the ubiquity of support for that controller, and the standardized nature of it, is a fucking god send for someone who wants to use a pad on their PC.

[Thad]

Yes, because DirectInput was so poorly-supported and nonstandard.

[Bal]

I've configured a pad under DirectInput. You know what I like about 360 pad support? I don't have to configure a god damned thing. If I get a console game ported to my PC, which is the time I am most likely to ever use a pad, I can turn on my 360 controller and it will feel EXACTLY the same. This is a better end user experience.

[Brentai]

From a developer standpoint the XInput API is kind of a crazyshit mess like most of the rest of DirectX, but it's recognized that it enforces a lot of good standards (like remapping) and does in theory provide universal device support.

In practice, almot every developer ends up implementing a mixture of XInput and DirectInput, so... eh.

[Thad]

I've configured a pad under DirectInput. You know what I like about 360 pad support? I don't have to configure a god damned thing. If I get a console game ported to my PC, which is the time I am most likely to ever use a pad, I can turn on my 360 controller and it will feel EXACTLY the same.

What are we talking about here, button mapping?  That's not really anything to do with whether the device is implementing DirectInput or Xinput.

This is a better end user experience.

I'll grant that "good end user experience", as it is typically used, DOES encompass "breaks all your shit and makes you buy new shit."  Personally I believe the experience of continuing to use the perfectly good shit I've already bought is superior.

This may seem hypocritical coming from someone who routinely rails against luser logic like "I'm not going to upgrade my IE6, it works fine for me", but the difference is that the IE6 example is a case of an ignorant user who simply doesn't know the myriad of things wrong with his product, while the Cordless Rumblepad 2 situation is one where there really IS absolutely not a thing wrong with my controller and hell no I'm not going to spend $40 on a new one just because Microsoft decided to break standards.

I guess we're down to our usual bottom line: you like it when game companies limit your options, and I know a simple workaround, so at the end of the day everybody gets what they want.