Bug Nudging does not work correctly

[Tony C]

For me, nudging HASN'T been fixed and is actually worse now. Now it is much too sensitive and accidentally will take the input from my flipper taps as me trying to nudge the table. This leads to tilt-lock and me losing the ball most of the time.

The game is pretty much unplayable for me right now on iOS, iPhone 4, latest software, because it will tilt lock too easily. I'm not even TRYING to nudge the table! Just hit the flipper!

Are you playing in landscape mode? That has always been more sensitive and just plain wrong. It seems they only programmed the tilt feature in portrait mode. It works the other way, but it's not very functional.

I have no problems with false nudges on my iPad or iPhone in portrait mode.

 

[starck]

Yup- you're right. The bug exists in landscape mode but not in portrait mode.

Not too comfortable to hold the phone and play in portrait mode though.

 

[Heretic]

The lack of sensitivty in the new update makes getting anywhere in gorgar a pain.....shake nudge should be the way to go but if you have to shake so violently you loose the ball its too much!

Before the update you could simply twist the top half in portrait.

Has anyone done a forward nudge?

 

[gjarnling]

has there been any official statement regarding nudging by FarSight?

 

[Vip8888]

I'd be interested in an official statement as well. I got an iPad two weeks ago, and TPA looks great on it but shake nudging just doesn't work, whereas it works near perfectly on my Android tablet (Asus Transformer). I'd prefer the crisper graphics of the retina display, but without nudging it's practically unplayable for me.

 

[Abdullah786]

Yeah.. Very frustrating.. the flipper controls should only be in the bottom part of the screen and not much further up than the size of the average thumb.

I feel like an "achievement" icon should pop up or something everytime I make a useful nudge.

 

[Stormchild]

Idea for forward nudge: tap the nudge area on both sides at the same time.

Combine this with adjustable flip/nudge areas so both can be done comfortably and reliably with thumbs (instead of having to awkwardly reach for the nudge area with index fingers, which is what I find myself doing at the moment). I actually have a few ideas that might help solve this problem:

- Whether the tap/nudge areas are adjustable or not, there should be tiny hash marks on the edges of the screen so you can see exactly where the boundary between them is.

- A little bit of logic could help resolve edge cases — i.e. determine whether you meant to flip or nudge when you happen to tap really close to the divider line. You could use a vertical delta to measure how far the user's finger has travelled between the last tap and the current one. If it's greater than some threshold, you can interpret that as them trying to reach for the nudge area (or the flip area, if the last tap was a nudge). This may or may not work, but it's probably worth a try. I do know several iOS developers who have put in extra code to determine where a user intended to tap in situations where a single tap touches multiple target areas.

- In landscape mode, you could lay out the nudge areas horizontally instead of vertically. Tapping within an inch or so of the screen edge triggers the flippers, and beyond that, a nudge. That way you could use your middle fingers for the flippers, and index fingers for nudging. This would allow you to simultaneously nudge and flip on the same side (making slap saves possible).

- For bonus points, look at what Apple did with the accelerometer in GarageBand. It's actually able to sense how hard you tap the screen and interprets that as velocity, and it works quite well. With a little accelerometer magic, tap-to-nudge could actually let you control how hard you nudge the table.

- Finally, please switch the nudge directions. Tapping the right should be like nudging the right side of the table. Currently they're reversed. (Or am I imagining this?)

 

[an ox]

As a designer of touch control schemes myself I know it's not easy to make things feel natural. I've been thinking about the issue of shoving on iOS - at the moment I don't really bother at all since having to reach up and tap a different bit of the screen is too much faff for an action that by its very nature often has to be almost instantaneous, and trying to shove via accelerometer just tends to leave me flapping my iPad wildly and hoping it'll do something useful and that I won't have already lost the ball when I have it steady again.

When i make controls I absolutely hate the idea of specific target areas you have to hit to make something happen. Flipper control touches naturally fall on the left and right of the screen and by their nature tend to be pretty static touches - the touch goes down and doesn't travel a lot before it's released. It may be held for a while but you don't usually slide a held down flipper touch.

So how about making a touch which you DO slide deliberately be interpreted as a shove? The direction of the slide could give direction to the shove, the speed and length could inform how hard to shove. The advantage would be that you could give a good directional shove simply by modifying a flipper tap rather than having to faff about reaching for a different touch zone or flapping your ipad about.

I'd appreciate some improvement to shoving on iDevices because my two favourite tables are Black Hole and Gorgar and I'm certain I'm not getting the best out of them without being able to shove effectively.

 

[Debelius]

+1 to that idea

 

[SoonPoker]

So how about making a touch which you DO slide deliberately be interpreted as a shove? The direction of the slide could give direction to the shove, the speed and length could inform how hard to shove. The advantage would be that you could give a good directional shove simply by modifying a flipper tap rather than having to faff about reaching for a different touch zone or flapping your ipad about.

I think it's the best solution too.