Serious Feedback and Discussion about Reverse Controls

I would like to have a serious discussion from both ends of the spectrum. I would like to hear from people who find reverse controls to be fun to get a counter point. But I'd also like to hear from others along the range of the spectrum. Do you sometimes find it fun and other times not? With the introduction of nodes as a permanent feature of wars it's becoming more and more common place.

My opinion:

I really dislike reverse controls in every encounter and champion it's been introduced on. Not just because it's hard, but because it's not fun. Sure the MCOC developers have made some "not so fun" decisions in the past, but this is a normal balancing act, but I find reverse controls to be particularly damaging to my fondness of the game. I will admit, occasionally, I get it right and do well, but more often then not I find myself confused and disoriented even with some meditation. There is no way to "prep" for the fight in game to get my actions down in the reverse. I find Emma Frost to be the least offensive implementation. All I gotta do is learn to dodge her ability in reverse. The Thanos encounter and now War node are much much worse.

An outline of my argument and why I find it particularly not fun in order of least offensive to most offensive:

1. Reverse controls gives new mechanic for players to practice against and improve.
2. Reverse controls takes advantage of a difficulty to provide a harder challenge, especially for veteran players.
3. Reverse controls is predatory because of how the human mind and usability work. If you don't believe me, look it up. Imagine a reverse control bike where every 30 seconds you change how the bike responds on a timer. I've been referenced a study where someone rode a reverse controls bike and it took him 6 months to learn it and 6 months to unlearn it. This is PREDATORY on the majority of minds, very few of the elasticity to handle this sort of thing well.
4. It's becoming clear that less skilled developers on your team are responsible for increasing the prevalence of reverse controls because the "harder" difficulty of reverse controls lasts permanently. On the contrary, swapping controls mid fight on a timer is often much worse! Mid combo I gotta be ready on occasion. A harder version should swap more often or even at random intervals not last permanently.
5. It can't be easily practiced in the majority of the content.
6. With particular skill based opponents, like Havok or Korg or Thing, players will have a hard time doing anything at the level they need to.

I may want to delve more deeply on this outline and perhaps find some references but I just want to test the waters here for now. Am I off base? Do others feel the same? Do others actually find it fun?

Comments

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Kalantak

i agree. its just not a fun mechanic, it would nice to keep game mechanics to game itself only and not to the real life player's control, if reverse control is on character (evidently magneto, sinister n juggs immune) then why player is having to play in reverse controls, so many BS mechanics but this one definitly in top 5. i try to avoid it whenever i can. also champion boss's last 10% still tops for all bs for me. add reverse control there as well!! why stop 😔

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World Eater

Fighting vs reverse controls with someone who has ability reduction is a a little crazy. Sometimes your AAR will kick in and you don’t have to use reverse controls and when you reverse dex.... you get nailed

Neotwism

The thing i dont like about reverse controls is that it does nothing to the AI. If u use Emma as an attacker the AI isnt affected at all by reverse controls. It just responds normally. This to me doesnt seem like it is a fair mechanic when the AI can avoid it all the time and the player is affected by it.

Bear3

I find it fun and a nice challenge, especially in the small doses it’s given. I purposely take the reverse controls path in war because I want to do something different than the norm. Juggs and Magneto aren’t immune as mentioned above, they are immune to psychic reverse controls... there are also regular reverse controls which only sinister is immune to I believe.... rank up sinister, problem solved. Avoid that war path.... think calling it predatory is being pretty dramatic honestly.

🐻

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Bear3

Yeah no real way to implement that... like make the coding such that they run head first into our attacks 10% of the time to simulate them messing up on reverse controls? 😂. I understand what you’re saying, there’s no real way to create that though.

🐻

dot_ditto

I always plan ahead and bring Vision or somebody immune to it ... I don't play often enough to commit/invest into the "practice until you can do it" .. *shrug*

I have better things to do with my time .. LOL

GinjabredMonsta

I'll be honest, I hate it because I can't adapt to it. I don't actively look for an Emma frost duel target to practice on and I usually just try to time my blocks. I have hated inverse controls ever since I was younger and played games that had them. In games those are always my weakness and unusual just end up slowing down my play and being over cautious. If it is skill or talent or whatever, I am lacking in it.

Wubbie075

Are there nodes where you have to play with reverse controls the entire fight???? Please tell me there aren't any for an entire path....

Xdonre

Reverse controls just seem silly in this type game ... as player you have no idea if the AI is adversely affected by this technique… IMO it as less than stellar idea … just my thoughts.

Aleor

Honestly, I will prefer inverted control to any unavoidable damage or any gates we have. The only tricky thing is timing of switching, if it's longer then MLLL combo

TwmR

The thing i dont like about reverse controls is that it does nothing to the AI. If u use Emma as an attacker the AI isnt affected at all by reverse controls. It just responds normally. This to me doesnt seem like it is a fair mechanic when the AI can avoid it all the time and the player is affected by it.

You could say the same thing about taunt mechanic, it doesn't make the player more likely to throw a special.

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Tehsigzorz

I take path 9 in war where the duration is 20 seconds, its not too bad. I think I only died once to king groot cuz I got hit a few times by missing dashes after parrying(got parried instead) and then failed the sp2 evade cuz I was titled from getting parried twice

Mqc19

Reverse controls suck

Hammerbro_64

It sounds to me like you made excellent points of why inverted controls are a good thing. It’s a newer skill based mechanic, it makes players more adaptable, so on and so forth.

The bike analogy is not an accurate analogy of this because of the following:

In Mcoc RC, there is no different sensory input besides visual, and you only need to focus on output of motion being changed

In the reverse bike, you are experiencing gravity, momentum, and introducing a change to something done all the time (Steering within driving, biking, any sort of left-right directional input says you bring the left side down or towards you to turn left and vice versa). And THEN, while taking all of those inputs in, you need to change your output and adjust every step of the way. It’s like relearning how to balance.

TLDR for the bike thing
Mcoc reverse controls require minimal sensory input to be processed and very slight output change

Reverse Bike requires lots of sensory input and constant adjusting and a lot of complex output.

TheBestinTuakau

Exactly same thing about that reverse bike. When I face Emma Frost, and she throws a special and I get inverted controls. Whenever I try to dex it I end up dashing into her, now I end up just blocking it

CommonSense

Yeah, reverse controls stink, you know like a 110 degree day in Florida near a landfill filled with a thousand porta potty’s that’s been filled to the brim for over a month kinda stink 🤮. I’m not a big fan of it and it’s definitely hard for me to get a grip on it. I’ve been practicing or been getting punished to get it down...I’m doing ok now, not the best. I’d imagine they had to make up something totally different and out of the norm to keep us on our toes....I’ll still be playing the reverse control nodes and hopefully with time I will get better, and I wish all of you luck also that it comes easier with time. PS I still try to bypass the nodes or champs that have that ability for the time being, I always get caught off guard and not ready for the disappointment that I call my gameplay 🤕👍🏻

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Threedeadkings

The thing i dont like about reverse controls is that it does nothing to the AI. If u use Emma as an attacker the AI isnt affected at all by reverse controls. It just responds normally. This to me doesnt seem like it is a fair mechanic when the AI can avoid it all the time and the player is affected by it.
You could say the same thing about taunt mechanic, it doesn't make the player more likely to throw a special.

There’s a fundamental difference between an ability and game control. Taunt is an ability given to a champ, whereas game controls are universal (your standard swipe left to move left, or right to right).

And many summoners chose only to remember that ‘taunt’ induces a higher probability for AI to throw a special but forget that the effects of taunt is also extended to reduced atks. You as a player under the effects of taunt, may not be ‘coerced’ to throw specials but you suffered reduced atks. The same cannot be said for AI where inverse is concerned. If I recalled, the Developers have previously confirmed that AI move sets will always be normal vs player even under inverse control situation.

I’m not against a new game mechanic. But as a matter of principle, why isn’t a game mechanic universally applied ? If I have to change my game mechanic to suit a fight, why should coding for AI be allowed as ‘normal’?

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DTMelodicMetal

I ran reversed controls (section 2 path 9) all last war season in tier 1. I ditched using Emma with Mysterio synergy after our 1st war last season because she was boring and took too long to KO certain defenders. I used Vision, Proxima Midnight, Quake, Magik, Corvus, Captain Marvel MCU, Sentinel, and Doctor Voodoo for those reversed controls fights. My only non-solo was against Nick Fury with greater confusion, who I’d soloed earlier in the season using Magik (Quake was a bad choice).

I greatly enjoyed using different strategies to clear those fights. My only criticism of reversed controls in war is there are limited opportunities to practice reversed controls fights in other game modes (Map 7 and Act 6.1.6 delirium nodes).

Rektor

Shows a lack of creativity by developers.

DTMelodicMetal

I would like to have a serious discussion from both ends of the spectrum. I would like to hear from people who find reverse controls to be fun to get a counter point. But I'd also like to hear from others along the range of the spectrum. Do you sometimes find it fun and other times not? With the introduction of nodes as a permanent feature of wars it's becoming more and more common place.

My opinion:

I really dislike reverse controls in every encounter and champion it's been introduced on. Not just because it's hard, but because it's not fun. Sure the MCOC developers have made some "not so fun" decisions in the past, but this is a normal balancing act, but I find reverse controls to be particularly damaging to my fondness of the game. I will admit, occasionally, I get it right and do well, but more often then not I find myself confused and disoriented even with some meditation. There is no way to "prep" for the fight in game to get my actions down in the reverse. I find Emma Frost to be the least offensive implementation. All I gotta do is learn to dodge her ability in reverse. The Thanos encounter and now War node are much much worse.

An outline of my argument and why I find it particularly not fun in order of least offensive to most offensive:

1. Reverse controls gives new mechanic for players to practice against and improve.
2. Reverse controls takes advantage of a difficulty to provide a harder challenge, especially for veteran players.
3. Reverse controls is predatory because of how the human mind and usability work. If you don't believe me, look it up. Imagine a reverse control bike where every 30 seconds you change how the bike responds on a timer. I've been referenced a study where someone rode a reverse controls bike and it took him 6 months to learn it and 6 months to unlearn it. This is PREDATORY on the majority of minds, very few of the elasticity to handle this sort of thing well.
4. It's becoming clear that less skilled developers on your team are responsible for increasing the prevalence of reverse controls because the "harder" difficulty of reverse controls lasts permanently. On the contrary, swapping controls mid fight on a timer is often much worse! Mid combo I gotta be ready on occasion. A harder version should swap more often or even at random intervals not last permanently.
5. It can't be easily practiced in the majority of the content.
6. With particular skill based opponents, like Havok or Korg or Thing, players will have a hard time doing anything at the level they need to.

I may want to delve more deeply on this outline and perhaps find some references but I just want to test the waters here for now. Am I off base? Do others feel the same? Do others actually find it fun?

Read the whole OP. @StarshipHULK regarding your points:

- I agree with #1 and #2
- #3 = I don’t agree with that comparison but I think I get the goal of you referencing that study.
- #4 = I don’t have commentary on this because I’m not a game developer.
- I 100% agree with #5.
- #6 = The right attacker counter makes fights against Havok/Korg/Thing manageable:

https://youtu.be/bmpCRV59W5o

Korg temporary reversed controls fight is at 4:53, Havok greater reversed controls fight is at 8:04

https://youtu.be/7U0pWFixs3s

Thing greater reversed controls fight is at 13:31

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Grid456

I do think there are a couple of instances where a “reverse control” AI could be felt as an attacker, which kinda correlate with some of the challenge/setbacks us players face when fighting against it (at least in the Emma Frost situation, which is what I encountered the most):
1. When you try to dex against a special and instead get hit (re: the reason some players decide just to block)
2. Dashing at the opponent right after you blocked the special in the small window before the opponent can block your charge. Generally speaking the ai is pretty good at dashing at you after it blocked your specials, and this could hinder them long enough for you to defend yourself in the opposite case.

I’m not sure how easy it is to implement it, and not saying this would be a critical game changer. But all in all I think there could be some noticeable effects.