I haven't played much console games since Playstation 1. I once tried to play some fps (Call of Duty maybe) on my little brother's Xbox, but I couldn't play it because controlling camera with a gamepad felt very impractical and I just couldn't get used to the control scheme. In that time I though that consoles suck and/or I'm too old.

However. I've been traveling a lot lately so I decided to let my anti-console sentiments go and buy a Nintendo Switch and (of course) Zelda Botw. I tested some control schemes and found one that was actually intuitive. It was suprisingly easy to play. I didn't think more about it then, but when I bough L.A. Noire this week I just found it almost completely unplayable. The damn game doesn't have an option to reverse X axis of the camera! And I immediately realised why I couldn't play my little brother's Xbox game previously. The standard camera is wrong. Here's how I'll prove it:

Take the Switch console (handheld mode) in front of you and imagine it is a camera. Look through the camera. Now rotate the console left. You will see what’s on your left. So far so good. Now try to imagine that you can only rotate the console with your right hand and the point you are applying force on is located on the right analog stick. Which direction are you pulling to turn the console (”camera”) left? That’s right. In order to turn it left you need to pull right. So let me repeat myself. The standard camera is wrong. Analog stick is not a mouse.

Surprisingly I've found out that I'm the only gamer in my life circle who thinks this way. But all the non-gamers who Iäve made to test Zelda out of scratch, choose to invert the camera if the option is given (not very many test samples though, but the pattern is recognizeable). So what about you guys? To invert or not to invert?

Erm, i'm pretty sure when you move the stick to the left, the camera turns to the left and vice versa as standard on most controllers, what sort of weird controllers have you been using?

This looks about right to me. left stick to turn car and right stick for camera, he pushes right on the right stick and the view pans right


I've checked my Switch and I can't find any setting to invert the controllers. you must be using it upsidedown

Yes I know and that exaclty is my problem. For some reason my brain thinks it should be the opposite.

The inverting is game-specific. In Botw you can invert the axis from options menu. For some reason when I started playing it I found it more natural to invert both axis (for my best explanation of why it felt natural, please see the paragraph I described rotating the console with right hand). Now my brain is stuck in the "wrong" way of using camera. Trying to play a game that doesn't give an option to invert the x-axis (like L.A. Noire that only lets me invert y but not x) drives me nuts. Like trying to ride a bike with a front wheel that always turns the opposite direction than where you try to turn it...

The funny thing is I seem to be absolutely the only person in the world who thinks camera should turn left when I pull the analog stick right, even though for me it's 100 % intuitive and I'm rather having problems trying to play the normal way.

Sounds like you would be very good with fight sim.

and by the way I don't think I've seen you for a long time, good to see you back.

Edit:- removed I getting mixed up now!

I haven't gone anywhere. Just haven't been doing much with GameGuru lately because playing Botw is easier while traveling . And most of my time with GG this year I have been working with my turn-based RPG battle and logic script which means a lot of coding (i think there were thousands of lines of code total in the final published version) and very little to show.

I'm still using your moshroom survival script, so you name pops up a lot when working on my WIP game "The Last Call" it's a great script.

Edit:- Well I've just tried my copy of Zelda Botw on the Wii U and inverted the controls. and found in a very short time I was playing like a pro. Maybe because I've been playing games for 40 years is why both ways seem right, and I would not have any trouble playing your way.

Nice to hear you have found my script useful. I hope I'm able to reorient my brain soon to be able to play games the "normal" way.

[quote]Yes I know and that exaclty is my problem. For some reason my brain thinks it should be the opposite.[/qote]

As i see now i thought you were experiencing controllers working the other way, that is very strange, i've never heard of anyone feeling that way.

Personally i hate controllers full stop, i just don't find them as accurate and smooth to use as a mouse and keyboard.

Like I was until I tried Botw with inverted x-axis setting.

I have Starwars Battlefield on my XBox ONe, i've tried inverting on that, kept nose diving and gave up lol

It depends on how your brain is wired. People like me who are grown up with keyboard and mouse and old, joystick-less controlers like the camera or the character to move "left" when they move the trigger/button for "left". However, someone explained to me as a kid, when you push a big ol' mounted hollywood camera to the left, the lens moves to the right... some people think this way when controlling a videogame camera.

Like with being a lefty, right handed or ambidextrous...there is no right or wrong. (despite right or wrong implying the opposite). It all comes down to personal preference.

I released a shooter game last year and someone complained to me that he can not have the "move forward" button to be "mouse 1".... what?

Yes, of course that is true, the way each individual prefers to play is always right for them. But if the camera is supposed to act like a camera, then the standard way is objectively wrong. Cameras are operated from behind and the field of vision always moves in the opposite direction relative to the force applied by the operator.

This doesn’t imply that I’d think others should adapt my logic and play style. Even I prefer the ”normal” way when playing with mouse, because that’s the way mouse has always worked and besides mouse doesn’t look and feel like anything that could be physically attached to a camera, so it’s easy to orient my brain to think mouse just ”moves the direction of field of vision” instead of ”controls the camera”. The analog stick however feels like an actual camera controller, and I hate it when games don’t give an option to make it act like one.

I’ve gone through old post in various forums (Skyrim, Rockstar games, etc), and so far it seems the devs have no intention on fixing this so it looks like in the future I have to buy Japanese games only. I know I could just learn to play the real American way but I don’t want to. I don’t play games to ”train my brain”. I play them to have fun and relax. I don’t have much time to play anyway so I don’t want to waste my few free hours in running around in circles, hoping that in few weeks I’ll learn to enjoy it.

(Humour warning: despite my usage of strong words like ”wrong” I’m not actually angry. The whole invert-or-not discussion amuses me greatly and feels like the old toilet paper argument. The only difference is that in this case the majority opinion is the wrong one ).

That's the thing, in a game environment the camera isn't meant to be emulating the operation of a camera, it's meant to be emulating the movement of your eyes, you move your eyes left they look left, you move them right they move right.

I accept this in mouse controlled games, and it's logical especially in 1st person. However...

Another example. In Botw you can aim by rotating the Switch console in your hands (not sure how it works in WiiU version since I don't have it). Rotate to left, you'll see what's on your left. Your hands may move left, your eyes follow the console to left, but in order to rotate the console left, you actually pull right. Basicly to make the rotation happen you push the right hand side of the console forward and pull the left hand side of the console towards you. If we make this movement happen by applying a force solely on the right analog stick, the direction of the force points right, not left. So at least here the console acts like a camera, not eyes.

(And again, yes I agree that everybody has his/her own preferred playing style, and in reality there are no "right" vs. "wrong" ways. For me the analog stick most logically controls camera, not eyes, but I acknowledge that this is subjective. There is no universal reason why the right analog stick should work in the same direction as the motion controls. It's just me that thinks this is the most logical way.)