Why does controller placement rotate around the player in DST?

[rezecib]

I got a controller recently and was using it to make sure everything worked well in Geometric Placement with controllers, and noticed that the way controller placement works in DS and DST is different. In DS, it always places things right beneath your feet (with the exception of boats and perhaps a couple of other things) Actually, apparently this is just a bug with inventory item deployables in Shipwrecked. In DST, everything has a slight offset from you that rotates around as you move. This new behavior makes it very difficult to put things quite where you want them, because to make a slight adjustment you have to circle back around so you're facing the same direction again.

Visual comparison:

Why was this change made? Was it intentional? Can we get it changed back? @KrisRF I know you use a controller, do you have thoughts on this?

[KrisRF]

Finally, a plausible excuse for my terrible, disorganized planting style!

(My guess is character visibility, but I'm not totally sure. Someone like @Bryce or @nome is probably better equipped to answer this  )

[rezecib]

19 minutes ago, KrisRF said:

 

Finally, a plausible excuse for my terrible, disorganized planting style!

 

You should try Geometric Placement :P. It's very controller-friendly, and even has an in-game configuration menu you can get at from the scoreboard.

[nome]

I'm afraid the answer to that question is forever lost to us - the person responsible has left Klei. As for whether it should be changed, maybe @Ipsquiggle has an opinion? I will say that the DST way looks easier for placing stuff in corners without having to do map rotation.

[rezecib]

2 minutes ago, nome said:

I will say that the DST way looks easier for placing stuff in corners without having to do map rotation

I don't think map rotation affects where it's placed at all with the old method? But I suppose you might not be able to get things deep into corners at all. But then again, you also can't pack things as closely by dropping or placing with a mouse because of the way that objects steal the mouse focus, so I don't think it's a problem to have small edge cases where controllers don't do as well.

[Ipsquiggle]

I definitely see it in Vanilla DS. It looks like this is a bug from Shipwrecked, where the pinecone specifically (and perhaps other things) doesn't have a correct offset. (Buildings and such have the leading behaviour as always.)

As far as what I think of it: Well, I definitely prefer the leading behaviour, but I can understand that for the kind of person who uses GP, it's probably pretty annoying.  It's handled entirely in placer.lua as far as I can tell, so you should be able to wrap the OnUpdate and just do the positioning yourself for that mod.

[rezecib]

@Ipsquiggle Thanks for the input, I'll make it an option in GP then!

[Rily]

18 hours ago, rezecib said:

You should try Geometric Placement :P. It's very controller-friendly, and even has an in-game configuration menu you can get at from the scoreboard.

that mod works while you play with controller? it doesn't worked for me the last time

[Faintly Macabre]

55 minutes ago, Rily said:

that mod works while you play with controller? it doesn't worked for me the last time

It does, but I'd rather like it if it optionally behaved the way rezecib seems not to like, since it can be very hard to place certain things properly if there are impassable objects nearby.

[Axehilt]

I only ever use mouse, but yeah that looks considerably clunkier in the second pic.  The ideal would be that you're moving the intended placement location (like in the first example) and your character automatically follows or moves away from the location so they're not directly standing on it.

[rezecib]

1 hour ago, TheHalcyonOne said:

It does, but I'd rather like it if it optionally behaved the way rezecib seems not to like, since it can be very hard to place certain things properly if there are impassable objects nearby.

It is an option in the mod right now, look for Controller Offset. Turning it on will make it rotate around you, and turning it off will keep it at your feet (that's the default for the mod).

2 hours ago, Rily said:

that mod works while you play with controller? it doesn't worked for me the last time

Yup! I've been making sure everything works with a controller now that I have one. You can even navigate the menu I added with the controller (that was a surprising amount of work... o_o).

[Faintly Macabre]

16 minutes ago, rezecib said:

It is an option in the mod right now, look for Controller Offset. Turning it on will make it rotate around you, and turning it off will keep it at your feet (that's the default for the mod).

Derp. Good to know. I had to turn it off for Shipwrecked because I didn't know about this and always had to go to a specific edge of an island to place a boat. D: Thanks!

[rezecib]

2 minutes ago, TheHalcyonOne said:

Derp. Good to know. I had to turn it off for Shipwrecked because I didn't know about this and always had to go to a specific edge of an island to place a boat. D: Thanks!

Oh yeah, boats were broken with the mod until recently because I couldn't figure out how the offset worked until I got one. But even with Controller Offset turned off, boats should still place with an offset (because otherwise they wouldn't work at all).