Request: An optional 'variable movement' combo key for PC users

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Would you support a variable movement combo key, as described below, in Cyberpunk 2077?

  • Yes

  • No (Please explain why below, for my own interest)

  • No preference


Results are only viewable after voting.
Hi, everybody. This thread is intended as both a suggestion and a discussion, so while I'm certainly looking for support for the idea, you can do whatever you want, and I'd love to have a chat about it with anybody else. That's sorta the point of forums, after all. I included a poll to gauge interest. If you vote "no," while far from mandatory, I'd love to hear your reasoning behind the choice.

TL;DR at the bottom.

Anyway, so what is variable movement and why do I think it's important?

In short, variable movement is just what it sounds like: the ability to move at different paces smoothly, dynamically, and at will, much like you would in the real world, or console video games.

Console joystick input is called "analog" input, which in practice means it is not "binary" -- the issue with PCs is that, short of buying a controller (which ditches all the benefits of using a keyboard to remove a single drawback), our input is always binary.

We move at one of two speeds: Walk or run. There's also sometimes a sprint key, but that's the same as pressing down the joystick on console, so I don't include that here.

As you can imagine, in games where there is stealth, this has a direct negative impact on a PC players' experience. Since it was confirmed in a recent interview (I will look for the link, but it's common sense) that the speed you move at in stealth will impact detection, you can see why this might be frustrating for us. We either move at a snail's pace and risk not being able to catch up to enemies, or we move too fast and risk getting detected.

This was a problem in Skyrim, as well, and I never considered how much better it could be with controller-like movement till I tried it one day.

Ok, so what's the solution? There are several. You could buy a controller, as stated above, but that has drawbacks. You could also buy an analog keyboard like the Wooting one or two, but they are expensive and little-known (thus not always well-supported).

There is a third option, though: a combo key. I've suggested this randomly in other threads, but I thought, given that the game has about 9 months of development left, now is a good time to ask for this very simple quality of life feature.

First, two good examples: Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and Escape from Tarkov. While I can't find any videos to demonstrate the former, I've included a timestamped video of the latter below. (about 2:26 if the timestamp doesn't work for you)


As you can see, in both of these games, scrolling up or down on the mousehweel adjusts your movement speed. On PC! What an outlandish thought, that almost no developers have ever considered!

"But Snow, what if I want to use the mousewheel for other things?"

Yeah, I know. People like to use the mousehweel for swapping weapons, items, powers, etc. I get it. The alternative is to have this variable movement option disabled by default (but communicated in the form of loading screen or tutorial hints) and require a modifier key to be pressed before it functions. This key can be changed at will. For example, I might choose to use Alt (a key I never have bound to anything else) as my modifier key -- while that's held down, and while I scroll my mousewheel up or down, my movement speed shifts up or down.

Not only would this be great for stealth, it'd be nice for immersion. CDPR had the brilliant idea of having story NPCs match your speed when they follow you around in TW3, but what if you want to match someone else's speed? What if you want to adjust how fast your car or bike is going without constant taps on the W and S keys? What if you simply don't want to run around like a chicken with your head cut off in the middle of a diner, but you also don't want to walk like a geriatric?

TL;DR:

I would like CD Projekt Red to consider adding console-like movement to PC, by allowing players to use an optionally-bound "modifier key" in addition to the scroll wheel to adjust their speed. Hitting Caps Lock (or whatever the walk/run key is) would automatically switch you back to the standard walk/run speed.

This feature would be disabled by default, and you'd need to manually bind it in the options before it would ever work. That way, you can't accidentally adjust speed while trying to swap weapons or use the scroll wheel for other purposes. Further, I imagine this would require minimal development effort (though a CDPR employee is free to prove me wrong) to implement, so I can't think of any major drawbacks.

Small update:
Also, I should have clarified in the OP, but once you've adjusted to the speed you want, you only need to hold W (or whatever other movement direction) to maintain it. Releasing and re-pressing a movement key would still maintain that speed. You don't need to hold all keys at once (including scroll wheel).

Thanks for reading.
 
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Hi, everybody. This thread is intended as both a suggestion and a discussion, so while I'm certainly looking for support for the idea, you can do whatever you want, and I'd love to have a chat about it with anybody else. That's sorta the point of forums, after all. I included a poll to gauge interest. If you vote "no," while far from mandatory, I'd love to hear your reasoning behind the choice.

TL;DR at the bottom.

Anyway, so what is variable movement and why do I think it's important?

In short, variable movement is just what it sounds like: the ability to move at different paces smoothly, dynamically, and at will, much like you would in the real world, or console video games.

Console joystick input is called "analog" input, which in practice means it is not "binary" -- the issue with PCs is that, short of buying a controller (which ditches all the benefits of using a keyboard to remove a single drawback), our input is always binary.

We move at one of two speeds: Walk or run. There's also sometimes a sprint key, but that's the same as pressing down the joystick on console, so I don't include that here.

As you can imagine, in games where there is stealth, this has a direct negative impact on a PC players' experience. Since it was confirmed in a recent interview (I will look for the link, but it's common sense) that the speed you move at in stealth will impact detection, you can see why this might be frustrating for us. We either move at a snail's pace and risk not being able to catch up to enemies, or we move too fast and risk getting detected.

This was a problem in Skyrim, as well, and I never considered how much better it could be with controller-like movement till I tried it one day.

Ok, so what's the solution? There are several. You could buy a controller, as stated above, but that has drawbacks. You could also buy an analog keyboard like the Wooting one or two, but they are expensive and little-known (thus not always well-supported).

There is a third option, though: a combo key. I've suggested this randomly in other threads, but I thought, given that the game has about 9 months of development left, now is a good time to ask for this very simple quality of life feature. First, two good examples: Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and Escape from Tarkov. While I can't find any videos to demonstrate the former, I've included a timestamped video of the latter below.


As you can see, in both of these games, scrolling up or down on the mousehweel adjusts your movement speed. On PC! What an outlandish thought, that almost no developers have ever considered!

"But Snow, what if I want to use the mousewheel for other things?"

Yeah, I know. People like to use the mousehweel for swapping weapons, items, powers, etc. I get it. The alternative is to have this variable movement option disabled by default (but communicated in the form of loading screen or tutorial hints) and require a modifier key to be pressed before it functions. This key can be changed at will. For example, I might choose to use Alt (a key I never have bound to anything else) as my modifier key -- while that's held down, and while I scroll my mousewheel up or down, my movement speed shifts up or down.

Not only would this be great for stealth, it'd be nice for immersion. CDPR had the brilliant idea of having story NPCs match your speed when they follow you around in TW3, but what if you want to match someone else's speed? What if you want to adjust how fast your car or bike is going without constant taps on the W and S keys? What if you simply don't want to run around like a chicken with your head cut off in the middle of a diner, but you also don't want to walk like a geriatric?

TL;DR:

I would like CD Projekt Red to consider adding console-like movement to PC, by allowing players to use an optionally-bound "modifier key" in addition to the scroll wheel to adjust their speed. Hitting Caps Lock (or whatever the walk/run key is) would automatically switch you back to the standard walk/run speed.

This feature would be disabled by default, and you'd need to manually bind it in the options before it would ever work. That way, you can't accidentally adjust speed while trying to swap weapons or use the scroll wheel for other purposes. Further, I imagine this would require minimal development effort (though a CDPR employee is free to prove me wrong) to implement, so I can't think of any major drawbacks.

Thanks for reading.
I love it, and I love your idea on it's implementation. I love it's optionality, and I also love how hitting Caps Lock returns it to normal so I don't have to guess forever to reset the speed to basic. I have no criticisms and no complaints. :D
 
It would be a good thing to have. Provided there was a gameplay reason to adjust - for instance - speed of sneaking beyond slow and fast, or finetuning walking/jogging/sprinting speeds.

As for inplementation... I can only play racing games with a controller, so that’s not an option.

But for m/kb, tap shift to change pace of current movement type (let’s say there’s two steps) and hold for sprint.

The mousewheel adjustment sounds just good, though. I don’t think you should be able to carry an arsenal with you anyway (that you’d need the mousewheel for, quick keys work just fibe for that).
 
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xer21

Forum veteran
having to hold down a key to use my mousewheel to change movement speed seems cumbersome.

funny you mentioned chaos theory, you could tap movement and smoothly creep on people without actually using your wheel to modulate speed. they could do better by just making context sensitive movement. ie, held down is run, light tapping is sneak, etc...not sure if that would be difficult to do though if you're running and gunning and your change of directions is constantly registered as "tapping". Chaos Theory didn't have that issue because it was ALL sneak. it was also hardcoded into the game to slower your movement closer to the enemy if you were crouching so it was partially done automatically.
 
It would be a good thing to have. Provided there was a gameplay reason to adjust - for instance - speed of sneaking beyond slow and fast, or finetuning walking/jogging/sprinting speeds.
Yes, I do hope there are reasons, but I also hope there are different things the player can do about those reasons. Maybe my V can get special legs that let them move at all speeds completely silently? Fast Quiet Legs..... So Cyber.


As for inplementation... I can only play racing games with a controller, so that’s not an option.
This actually makes me wonder how speed control will function in the racing portion of the game? I hope there is also good drifting. ( as I mention in my signature of feedback to CDProjektRed ) The setting for speed control would need to be something that is easy to change, but doesn't need constant attention (like easy to press/use without looking at it too much) because we must concentrate on the driving itself. :shrug: Alt+Mouse wheel or even just mouse wheel (and the Caps Lock to reset) may be excellent for when V is just on foot (walking/running) but the mouse wheel would not work for me during driving for two reasons:
#1 if my hand is on the mouse for steering, I wont be able to control the car and hold my mouse correctly if I have to constantly adjust the mouse wheel for speed. (can do this by just pressing the accelerate/speed key tapping or holding or letting go to increase/decrease speed)
#2 if my hand is on arrow keys for control and speed, having to let go and touch the mouse wheel would make me crash instantly.
so I either have to tap and hold and let go, or a different system for speed control in driving. :shrug:
 
I have no preference, if it can be in the game without them needing to do extra animations or other things that take a lot of time to make, I don't see why not to add it for the people that wants it. But if it now needs a lot of work to make it possible, I don't see why you would need it so bad. Yeah it may get a bit smother for the 1-2% of people that actually will use it, but I don't think most people will using it.

Most people are casuals, and specially in a only single player game like this. So better to spend resources on things that most people will use in the game. I may be wrong and almost everyone would use this, but don't think so.
 
having to hold down a key to use my mousewheel to change movement speed seems cumbersome.

funny you mentioned chaos theory, you could tap movement and smoothly creep on people without actually using your wheel to modulate speed. they could do better by just making context sensitive movement. ie, held down is run, light tapping is sneak, etc...not sure if that would be difficult to do though if you're running and gunning and your change of directions is constantly registered as "tapping". Chaos Theory didn't have that issue because it was ALL sneak. it was also hardcoded into the game to slower your movement closer to the enemy if you were crouching so it was partially done automatically.
Actually, this seems way less cumbersome than what you suggest here. Tapping down keys? Good lord, no! I already do that to try to keep pace with enemies.

Also, I should have clarified in the OP, but once you've adjusted to the speed you want, you only need to hold W (or whatever other movement direction) to maintain it. You don't need to hold all keys at once (including scroll wheel).
 
Really don't enjoy it when games take control away from the player :(
they didn't. if you want to rush up on someone you can. the system is explicitly communicated to you. if you sneak, it just slows you around the person you're sneaking on. its more for visual than anything. you can run at any moment and you have to stay hidden.
 
I have no preference, if it can be in the game without them needing to do extra animations or other things that take a lot of time to make, I don't see why not to add it for the people that wants it. But if it now needs a lot of work to make it possible, I don't see why you would need it so bad. Yeah it may get a bit smother for the 1-2% of people that actually will use it, but I don't think most people will using it.

Most people are casuals, and specially in a only single player game like this. So better to spend resources on things that most people will use in the game. I may be wrong and almost everyone would use this, but don't think so.

I gave good reasons in the OP for wanting it. Stealth is one of them. You're right that not many people would use it, because ideally, it's as unintrusive as possible. I could have suggested just attaching it to the mousewheel, but it would piss people off (even if they could change it in the settings) who use mousewheel for other things (even if the same could be accomplished with number keys or rebinds). I'm trying to make it as easy on the devs and other players as possible.

And I seriously doubt a QoL feature that's this small would have any meaningful impact on development as a whole. This literally already exists for console, and controllers on PC, I imagine it wouldn't be an impossible task to work it into keyboard/mouse controls.


having to hold down a key to use my mousewheel to change movement speed seems cumbersome.

funny you mentioned chaos theory, you could tap movement and smoothly creep on people without actually using your wheel to modulate speed. they could do better by just making context sensitive movement. ie, held down is run, light tapping is sneak, etc...not sure if that would be difficult to do though if you're running and gunning and your change of directions is constantly registered as "tapping". Chaos Theory didn't have that issue because it was ALL sneak. it was also hardcoded into the game to slower your movement closer to the enemy if you were crouching so it was partially done automatically.
Actually, this seems way less cumbersome than what you suggest here. Tapping down keys? Good lord, no! I already do that to try to keep pace with enemies.

Also, I should have clarified in the OP, but once you've adjusted to the speed you want, you only need to hold W (or whatever other movement direction) to maintain it. Releasing and re-pressing a movement key would still maintain that speed. You don't need to hold all keys at once (including scroll wheel).

I don't recall the player moving slower when you sneak up on enemies in Chaos Theory, and I just played it again recently. Your animation changes, but that's all. Maybe I am misremembering.
 
Actually, this seems way less cumbersome than what you suggest here. Tapping down keys? Good lord, no! I already do that to try to keep pace with enemies.

Also, I should have clarified in the OP, but once you've adjusted to the speed you want, you only need to hold W (or whatever other movement direction) to maintain it. You don't need to hold all keys at once (including scroll wheel).
I really have no issue tapping keys to execute movement shortcuts, that's how you used to dodge in UT. I guess its a familiarity issue.

having to hold two keys while using the mousewheel just sounds really janky to me. to clarify I'm just saying you would say, tap twice at a certain interval and you then walk a certain speed if you hold the key.
 
Really don't enjoy it when games take control away from the player :(
they didn't. if you want to rush up on someone you can. the system is explicitly communicated to you. if you sneak, it just slows you around the person you're sneaking on. its more for visual than anything. you can run at any moment and you have to stay hidden.
But you said that it does right here:
it was also hardcoded into the game to slower your movement closer to the enemy if you were crouching so it was partially done automatically.
I could imagine myself trying to walk up to an enemy and begin to sneak randomly without player input and mess up badly :(
 
I really have no issue tapping keys to execute movement shortcuts, that's how you used to dodge in UT. I guess its a familiarity issue.

having to hold two keys while using the mousewheel just sounds really janky to me. to clarify I'm just saying you would say, tap twice at a certain interval and you then walk a certain speed if you hold the key.
But @Snowflakez didn't say to hold down two keys, they just implied it could be optional that the player always has access to the mouse wheel speed change ability, or that to activate it they could hold down alt or another key (only while using mousewheel). To reset speed would be a single push of the caps lock key for example.
 
I really have no issue tapping keys to execute movement shortcuts, that's how you used to dodge in UT. I guess its a familiarity issue.

having to hold two keys while using the mousewheel just sounds really janky to me. to clarify I'm just saying you would say, tap twice at a certain interval and you then walk a certain speed if you hold the key.
I don't mind tapping to execute actions either, it's just not my preference.

I think I am misunderstanding your suggestion.

What I am asking for is essentially analog movement on PC, simulated by way of mouse wheel + a modifier key of some sort. Would your suggestion accomplish the same thing, and if so, how? I'm genuinely curious as I'm having a brain fart right now.
 
it only did that while crouching. if you don't want to sneak, you simply stand up.
Unfortunately that would still bother me, because my speed is still being decided for me by an outside force, thus taking control away from the player.
 
But @Snowflakez didn't say to hold down two keys, they just implied it could be optional that the player always has access to the mouse wheel speed change ability, or that to activate it they could hold down alt or another key (only while using mousewheel). To reset speed would be a single push of the caps lock key for example.

that's either removing the mousewheel from use for something very situational or requiring two none movement inputs to modulate speed. that's just cumbersome.


I don't mind tapping to execute actions either, it's just not my preference.

I think I am misunderstanding your suggestion.

What I am asking for is essentially analog movement on PC, simulated by way of mouse wheel + a modifier key of some sort. Would your suggestion accomplish the same thing, and if so, how? I'm genuinely curious as I'm having a brain fart right now.

you'd tap at an interval proportional to how fast you want to go. even if you had to hold a second key to get this, I think its better than needed two none movement inputs to accomplish this. the less individual keys you have to press to do something, the better, imo.

its not really mimicking analog movement, but then, neither is your way really. its just a workaround for the fact that keyboards don't usually support pressure sensitive inputs (some could, but games don't get coded that way). I want as little input as necessary to do something basic.

Unfortunately that would still bother me, because my speed is still being decided for me by an outside force, thus taking control away from the player.

you wouldn't even have known if I hadn't told you. its extremely subtle. Snowflakez didn't even notice it and he actually played the game.

its impossible to have a game fully under your control to that extent without involving 5 million key bindings. Arma tried to do that and it's a mess.
 
that's either removing the mousewheel from use for something very situational or requiring two none movement inputs to modulate speed. that's just cumbersome.




you'd tap at an interval proportional to how fast you want to go. even if you had to hold a second key to get this, I think its better than needed two none movement inputs to accomplish this. the less individual keys you have to press to do something, the better, imo.

its not really mimicking analog movement, but then, neither is your way really. its just a workaround for the fact that keyboards don't usually support pressure sensitive inputs (some could, but games don't get coded that way). I want as little input as necessary to do something basic.



you wouldn't even have known if I hadn't told you. its extremely subtle. Snowflakez didn't even notice it and he actually played the game.

its impossible to have a game fully under your control to that extent without involving 5 million key bindings. Arma tried to do that and it's a mess.

I get you now, but my original suggestion still stands. I'm sorry you'd find it cumbersome, but I'd hope the fact that it's optional and disabled by default would be enough to ease those concerns.
 
I am all for controls that give players a reason for agility and flexibility stats. Or, keeping stats out of the picture, just allowing more precise movements. I can't say "yes" enough.

Having more of an "analog" feel is why people, like myself, still buy things with buttons, knobs, and switches as opposed to digital everything. Being able to give more human input to something like a key board would be greatly appreciated!
 
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