Many games support both keyboard/mouse and controller input. Many users (myself included) may wish to switch their input method mid-game, but what is the best way of handling this?
There are two potential solutions:
- Have the two input methods combine and reach a consensus (e.g. pressing W on the keyboard while moving the left thumb stick to the left will cause the player to move forward and left)
- Have only one input method work at any given time, but switch automatically depending on what the player most recently used.
Technically there is a third option, which is to have the user manually switch between the two input methods in a menu somewhere. I don’t consider this a real option because the user experience would be terrible.
So, which solution do you think is better and why?
Accept all inputs. Update on-screen prompts depending on which one was used last.
But be careful with processing those inputs. Team Fortress 2 used to have an exploit where you could move the mouse and tilt a stick and turn twice as fast as you were supposed to be able to.