Hold Key to Slow Helm Turn Speed for PC players

  • Long time player here. I played the alpha on Xbox One as well as the beta. I have now been playing on PC for the past 2 years since release.
    There is one thing that still bugs me to this day: the inability to make precision helm movements on PC.
    On controller, the helm moves at a different speed based on how far you move your thumbstick. This allows you to center the helm just right when you want to sail straight. On PC however, this is not possible, as you always have to turn the helm at max speed with A/D.
    I would really appreciate the ability to hold a key to allow a slower movement of the helm. This would operate the same way as holding a "walk" key in an FPS game. When you hold A/D, the helm moves at full speed. When you hold (let's assume the key is ALT) ALT-A/ALT-D, then the helm will move at a very slow speed.
    I don't mind having a bit of difficulty and inaccuracy if all players are supposed to be experiencing it (I would understand if it was a game design choice), but the fact that using a controller gives you this ability that you just inexplicably lose when on a keyboard is annoying. It doesn't seem like a design choice, but rather an oversight.
    It really makes me miss piloting with a controller, but I much prefer using my mouse and keyboard.

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  • I compensate by tapping the A and D keys with a deft touch, when the helm gets close to twelve o'clock.
    Sometimes ya gotta tap back and forth a couple times to get dead center, but the boat doesn't fly by wire and small course corrections don't deviate much.

  • @barnabas-seadog Oh trust me, I'm all too familiar with this tapping technique. I just find it to be so tedious and unnecessary compared to the ease of controlling the helm with a controller.
    I'm sick of teasing the wheel back and forth for 5-15 seconds to get it just right when I should be able to just center it swiftly and be done.

  • I never knew the controller could do this as I have never used one.
    This trying to center the wheel has been a minor annoyance for me on my pc, but I assumed everyone had that problem.

  • I believe this is by design - it allows us console-based pirates to have the ship-to-ship advantage, while you PC-based pirates get the pirate-to-pirate advantage.

    Balance!

  • @galactic-geek I can't tell if you are joking or not, so I will just answer first as though you are being serious.

    I highly, HIGHLY doubt that this was a design choice. I'm pretty certain it was just an oversight, seeing that as far as I can tell (chiefly from the dev live streams) the vast majority of the devs use controllers; so the devs probably just don't put that much thought into PC controls.
    If it were a design choice, it would truly be a perplexing one. As far as "balance" goes, this is certainly not any true combat disadvantage; being able to hold an exactly centered helm in combat is almost completely inconsequential.
    Where this oversight truly comes into play is when setting the ship on a long range destination. Over time, having your wheel set slightly off course can make a fairly significant difference in where you arrive. This results in having to check your course almost constantly to make sure you aren't going off course and wasting time.
    So I have to just sit there at the helm for like 30 seconds making sure I get the helm centered as close as I can. Which is just annoying. It doesn't really affect balance whatsoever.
    If they really were trying to "balance" PC and Console players, there would be much more meaningful ways to do so. This slight bit of added tedium is not good game design, it is a bad porting oversight.

    And if you were joking, as I assume you were, then hardy-har very funny.

  • I wish there was just a key that would center the helm, just a small quality of life cahnge.

  • @john-graham-doe Drift is not a PC-exclusive thing - that actually is by design, because the wind and waves will push the ship in certain directions if you stay off of the wheel for too long.

  • Using the mouse wheel to turn the ships wheel might address the issue up for left down for right or visa versa this would allow for more precise wheel movement while also still giving the player the feeling of steering a ship

  • To be honest the PC controls really need a re-work and give us more flexibility for assigning hotkeys.

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