Game Mechanics Should menu controls be separated from game controls?

[vdweller]

I am trying to find a consistent scheme to use in all my games from now on regarding menu navigation and the rest of the game's controls in a keyboard/gamepad only control scenario (no mouse).

Scenarios:

A
Players navigate Menus using the Arrow keys, select stuff with Enter and go back with Escape.
Player can set keys related to the game, eg how the charatcer moves left, right, use items etc to whatever they want, but Menus always are handled with the aforementioned fixed controls.
Advantage: No matter what, players can consistently navigate a menu, and if they screw up the control scheme of the game, they can still easily fix it.
Disadvantage: What if players want to alter the menu navigation control scheme itself?

B
Menu navigation follows game control rules. Example: Player sets key W as up, so to go up a selection in a menu, you must also press W.
Advantage: You can tailor menu navigation controls to whatever you want.
Disadvantage: No consistency in menu navigation, if player messes up controls, they will have to look for what they must press to navigate and select menu stuff.

Mitigation Factor 1: Always display what button does what at the bottom of a menu. So even if W goes up in both the game and a menu, you know what to press in the manu to go up.
Mitigation Factor 2: Always have a fixed "Reset to defaults" key, eg F11.

Something to consider: Should it be forbidden for players to assign a previously assigned key to a new command? Example: You set game keys. You have set "A" as Jump, if you press A in the "Press key to use for Crouch" prompt, a warning appears saying "you have already assigned that key". Obviously this works differently for setting all the keys in one go and for setting just one key.

Something Else to consider: Maybe have a hybrid mode for menus only, where eg any player-assigned key OR UP goes up, any player assigned key OR Enter selects stuff etc. But what happens if players eg have already assigned Enter for moving down? This complicates things and leads back to either A or B.

So, taking all of the above into consideration, what do you think?

 

[Guest User]

i prefer menu controls to be the same as game controls. but i s'pose i'm used to it being that way due to being primarily a console gamer where that is standard (probably due to lack of keys).

b/c of this, though, if i set the keybindings in your game to be WASD but i then have to use the arrow keys to navigate the menus i would find that a bit annoying tbh. it just kind of defeats the purpose of having adjustable keybindings in the first place as the whole point of me changing it is b/c i don't want to use the arrow keys at all, for example.

if your game has like 6-7+ adjustable keybindings then it'd probably be nice to include a 'reset to defaults' option out of courtesy, regardless of whether you are accounting for people who totally mess up their game or not. and if you have a lot of keys--like more than what fits on screen, or is broken up into different tabs so you can't see them all at once--then informing players when they've assigned a key twice would also be a nice courtesy by default as well.

 

[BattleRifle BR55]

I prefer just having a default setup, but it really depends on the type of game you're making and the complexity of the menus. If it's some fast-paced game where the menus are essentially just checkpoints between levels or whatever, the custom controls may work to keep the pace up and avoid the player having to shift their hands just to quickly advance. Hybrid controls would be interesting too, but still depending on the game, you may have to prioritize defaults over custom controls to avoid sticky situations (so if Enter is for moving down, it would still function as the Accept key). However, it all depends on the depth and relation of your menus to the actual game, so I can't find myself saying much more than that.

 

[Siolfor the Jackal]

I always use arrow keys and enter on menus. If I hace other movement controls like WASD, I will make them work too. If my game uses the mouse for anything like aiming and shooting or something, then I will have my menus exclusively use the mouse.

 

[BaBiA Game Studio]

For my last menus I have them allow 3 inputs:

1. Direct mouse clicking of options on the menu.
2. Navigation using the arrow keys.
3. Navigation using the user defined keys.