^Now enough about magic. Here are the actual controls...
Bear in mind it will take a while for all of this to fall into place. But it will definitely be done before one of these proposed games is ready to head out the door with my seal of approval. In fact I see my main contribution as facilitating these controls. Its the only part I am willing to take personal responsibility for.
With these controls. Things can be radically simplified usually. Especially if you can't see your body when looking down. But as soon as you can do that things get complicated. And that represents a lot of the complications. Likewise I'll be programming these controls. But for them to work its going to take artists dedicated to churning out the necessary animation data. Verdite recoils at the idea of disembodied limbs, so I expect he will be along to loyally implement everything as new possibilities come into focus. As for myself, I'm pretty impartial either way. I can imagine players and authors preferring disembodied limbs. I mean for whatever reason more big budget games than not seem to go that route. But either way...
Controls overview. Again I won't go into detail. Even if it sounds detailed its not nearly as detailed as it could be.
Core concepts are you play with three buttons. We don't count the menu button. We assume not everyone can deal with four buttons. But we know that five buttons is out of the question. I don't believe in the player having to take their fingers off the buttons. We assume you will be playing with L1, R1, and R2. We ignore L3 and R3. Keyboard players just have to make due as best they can. They are not a priority. That said, all controls start out as keyboard keys.
Only three buttons is a tall order. This is done to be in keeping with SOM, but also like I say, that's as many buttons as you can dedicate your fingers to on a controller. If you have other buttons you can assign items and magic to them, things like that. There are also some extra keys on the keyboard, and some virtual keys that you can map buttons to. You can hold the menu button down to bring up a menu of 10 buttons that you can map to items and magic. You can also assign a button to each item in the menu so you don't even have to pull up the menu. And if you press the Menu+button combo fast enough the menu remains hidden. Tap Menu to bring up the standard menu.
There is a dedicated dashing, jumping, and shield button. Fast turning too. Dashing and Shield aren't on the keyboard. But you don't need to use any of these to access these mechanics. But if you think the controls are too convoluted, you might opt to assign one of these to the 4th button. And move Menu out of the way. Sword magic will use the Shield button regardless of how you assign different magics to different buttons.
Start is pause, which accesses movie features. Select is like Caps Lock. It puts you in dedicated stealth/jogging mode. This is the only way keyboard players can access this kind of movement since they are stuck without analog buttons. There will be a new system menu that you access with the Escape key. It would be the PS button on a PS3 controller.
Every button pulls double duty. You can tap it, or hold it, to different ends. The time it takes to register a hold is how long it takes the gauge to start draining when you dash. Players can adjust this number in the game preferences menu. I recommend between 500 and 1000 milliseconds. SOM uses 750ms. There will be a Speed stat. There will only be three stats. If you are a fast tapper that is one way to increase your Speed stat, and push the time below 500ms. Faster isn't necessarily better.
Things get most complicated when you introduce holsters, scabbards, sheaths, whatever. If you can't see your body or even your arms when not in use the player can just use their imagination. KF will use holstering mechanics. There are 3 passive modes. Meaning you can be in the mode when not pressing any buttons. Excluding things like swimming a climbing ladders. There is also a Guard, or auto mode. You go into guard mode by holding the attack button down for a weapon. Not a shield. In Guard mode you act just like one of SOM's monsters. You can move but you can't dash. Its like a defensive stance in a fighting game. You could play the whole game in this mode if you are not good at fighting. But if you did that there will have to be an alternative way to do it without holding the button down all game. Anyway, Guard mode isn't a passive mode.
Scan Mode
Here your weapons are holstered. The attack buttons don't attack. Instead they scan left and right. Hold to turn your head at a constant speed after a short acceleration (750ms by default) or tap to scan to the next interactive thing around you. It's kind of like picking a lock on target in Dark Souls, except you don't lock on, and you can't fight in this mode. It stops at anything, items, money, monsters, that isn't just a piece of furniture. It turns your neck only. Well halfway during the acceleration your eyes can't go any further, then your neck. If you look all the way behind you your upper body will turn a little bit. Tapping the attack buttons also interacts with things nearby. But Action is used to talk and read.
Edited: everything will probably have to work this way; so regardless of mode. If you attack a door you auto holster and open it instead. Probably you'll have to look down at the ground to pick up items so that you don't accidentally auto holster when you miss a monster because of an item at your feet. I won't get into why this is inevitable here. But for what its worth it is. Just imagine the Attack and Magic buttons as your left and right hands or vice versa (auto holster probably won't go to Scan Mode. It'll just be temporary until you are done doing whatever with your hands. Although it might after running and sneaking on an empty gauge, but not just for picking things up and opening doors)
Also I will go ahead and say that if there is a new noise or something, tap scanning could give priority to the source of the noise. You could tell that something is being singled out by the scan moving more quickly than normal. So even in a dangerous setting Scan Mode can have an advantage in terms of awareness. But where its best is social settings.
Draw Mode
To enter this mode from scan mode you tap the Action button. In this mode you can draw your weapons. Note that you can't accidentally attack an NPC because if you press Action you will talk to them. When you press Action nothing happens visually, but your gauges begin to fill up. In Scan mode your gauges empty out. You can also use magic in this mode by tapping the magic button. Holding pulls up your shield. You can quick draw by tapping attack, and perform a combo, and afterward the weapon goes back in its holster. If you spend too long in Draw Mode you go back to Scan Mode.
Kill Mode (for lack of a better four letter word)
This is really fight or flight mode. To enter this mode you need to permanently draw your weapon. This is the classic KF mode. You could play the whole game in this mode if you want. To permanently draw you enter Guard mode by holding the weapon button and let go. Your gauge will drain while holding, but after a while it will begin to refill. If you release within this window you never really enter Guard mode but your weapon is drawn. If you keep holding you hold your weapon in front of you in Guard (aka. auto) mode. You can still cancel Guard mode with the Action button to never enter this mode. One nice thing about this mode is your walking speed is faster. If at any time you receive combat damage you enter this mode.
Holstering works the same way as drawing. Which works the same way as doing a standing jump. When you holster you go to Scan Mode. Another way to holster is to unequip the weapon you are holding. Eg. if the weapon is assigned to a button.
The reason you may or may not want to enter these modes is Adrenaline. Its a secondary function of the Magic gauge. As adrenaline builds up the gauge loses its colour, and your magic looses its potency, but your Strength and Speed receive bonuses. The Power gauge's secondary function is Stamina. Its primary function is timing. Lower stamina means slower timing. And less power. Increased adrenaline increases stamina, and use of stamina increases adrenaline. As adrenaline increases you can go into a berserker like frenzy, but only if the game incorporates AI mechanics. Where the game does things for you based on Experience and stuff that are too fine to be inputted with a controller. If you don't like the game taking over for you when adrenaline is high you can use the adrenaline to run away and cool off. Likewise its possible to play with the AI to keep control as long as you make decisions that are consistent with the AI. If you don't you will interfere with the AI. So your options are run away, or let it takeover, or try to complement it and risk the kind of accidents that happen when adrenaline takes over. Adrenaline comes down fastest in Scan Mode (ironically ACV has something called Scan Mode, and your energy recharges more quickly in it)
When you tap the Dash button (may or may not be the Action button) you perform a rush. Which is the equivalent of speeding up to a dash and then slowing down. You can move as normal while this is happening. A rush to the side is more like a dodge, and backwards is a back step. If you hold down Dash long enough for the gauge to drain and then let go you jump. When dashing forward there is sneaking and jogging and running gaits. I won't get into how they work. But this stuff was all in the last demo. If your gauge is empty from dashing you won't jump on release unless you are running or sneaking forward. If you don't like auto jumping it can be turned off and you can use a Jump button instead.
To crouch you hold Dash while not pushing any movement buttons. Really all that matters is what you are pressing when the gauge begins to drain. If you release for a period after the gauge begins draining, but before it starts filling back up due to resting, then you do a standing jump. Once crouching you can lean out and let go to jump out of the way of something at the last second or do controlled platform jumping. You can let go for a standing jump after you lean some, as if stretching your legs.
There are also a bunch of mechanics that come from leaning into walls and things. Like climbing and kneeing, tackling (jumping into an opponent) and you can kick and stuff by pressing Action while rushing. There is only one attack except for Guard mode, but the animation changes depending how you are moving. So a sword might do a thrust if you are rushing forward, but a slash if you are moving sideways. Same for kicks.
There are a lot more details. Guard mode does a whole lot. Like bows and arrows, and firing sword magic like a bow. Throwing your weapons. You can wield two weapons, since you have backup weapons like in Shadow Tower, but just based on the last weapon you equipped. You can pass a weapon to your left hand basically. Left hand weapons use Attack for sword magic. As for two handing a weapon. Any weapon with two handed attacks can and will be wielded two handed. But there isn't a button for this. Instead if you holster your shield then you are two handing if one of your arms is not injured. This makes sense because a fighter would want to save their strength whenever possible.
I don't think big shields will be popular. I think the shield will need to be able to fall naturally to your side on a sling. I don't see them being worn on the back like in Dark Souls or lugged around. But I do foresee any object being carried in the left hand without ever going into the inventory. So you could find a large shield and use it to solve a problem, but leave it in the map once you move on. I think the player character would just automatically drop the object when passing over a different coloured grey square as setup in SOM_MAP. Likewise you could pickup a torch, or move a ladder, or anything like that. I think its important to be able to go anywhere, and even rearrange the objects in the map as long as they are not too heavy to move. As far as I know the save files track the position of every object, so this is not so farfetched, or even unlike SOM. That is its just the logical extension of moving objects with events.
I think that pretty much covers the basics. There are also social and roleplaying functions accessed by holding down both buttons in Scan Mode and tapping / holding the directional buttons. Not the dpad, the analog stick. You can adjust your headgear that way too. The fast turning gesture is pressing both sticks in the same direction left/right by modern gaming standards. You can turn incredibly fast. I recommend 3x dashing speed, and fast turn is 2x, so 6x walking speed, and you fast turn at the same speed walking or dashing, though walking accelerates more slowly. You can half turn by turning while rushing.
There are other kinds of leaning and looking gestures. Dropping equipment. Sitting down. Lying down. Crawling. And you should be able to hang off cliffs, shimmy, all that kind of stuff. There are also camera controls which can even be used for play in an advanced mode (where 2 out of 4 buttons control the camera (or 4 out of 4 in Scan Mode) press together for Action) to swivel your upperbody manually. You can also look behind when fleeing just like in Scan Mode once the gauges are empty. Check the link in the last post for more details.
EDITED: It really sounds like a lot when you put it that way. But conceptually its same old King's Field. The main difference is you can hold Magic to pull up a shield. And hold Attack to go into a guard stance. Everything else is just there to make you feel more in control, which really helps you to feel like you are really lost in the game.
