Manipulating objects (holding 'E') - Is there a better way?

[Fredas]

I played FalloutNV for hundreds and hundreds of hours.  I also played Skyrim years ago on the 360.  In both cases, when you wanted to pick up an item (without adding it to the inventory), a particular single button (or key) press was how it was accomplished.  Said button was set aside for this function.  Pressing it again released the object.  Simple, intuitive.. pretty much the way it should be.

 

I'm not thrilled to discover that manipulating objects on the PC version involves holding down a key for a set amount of time.  And the key in question is already set aside for a critical function.  Did they run out of keys? ;p

 

Here is hoping that somebody has put together a mod which corrects this.  I am hardly likely to be the first person to decide they don't like downgrading input flexibility when upgrading to Skyrim.

 

[Guest Ragna_Rok]

thats exactly what they invented "FUS RO DAH" for... all the object manipulation youre ever gonna need in skyrim

 

(sorry, cant help, keybinding is not my field of work... cant you remap them with the options menu? i got used to it, but i think you could adjust some stuff there)

 

[Guest luthienanarion]

Skyrim on 360 always had you press the activate button (A) for a second to grab things. You're remembering Oblivion or the Fallout games, where pressing the right stick grabbed and released. Yes, they did run out of buttons because of the added sprint function mapped to LB. LB's old view-switch function got moved to the right-stick, which bumped grab/release off the control map. Holding the activate button was the only real option to preserve it.

[gvman3670]

Yup Skyrim on the 360, and on PC when using a controller, just has you hold the A (activate) button for a moment to "grab" an object. In Fallout it was a shoulder button and it was clicking a stick in Oblivion.

 

Honestly? I like Skyrim's method. It actually is intuitive and simple.

[Fredas]

So I misremembered my Skyrim experience on 360.  Fair enough.  I think my point stands, though. ;p  If you want to grab a bunch of things and toss them about, it's not going to be happening in a smooth fashion because you have to wait for the game to register your intent with each object.  I am honestly shocked that nobody's come up with a solution.

 

[Mud]

To be quite honest, I'm inclined to believe nobody's come up with something because it just isn't a problem for most of us. You hold the button for one second, that's not exactly an obstructive control scheme.

[Fredas]

Meh.  My guess is nobody's come up with a solution because it would necessitate an external modification along the lines of SKSE.  Frankly, the advantage is probably more generally obvious than you suspect.  If I were playing a FPS and felt "comfortable" with holding the mouse button for half a second to fire each shot, I too might pooh-pooh suggestions that it could be improved, even if an earlier FPS already showcased an improved control scheme.  (Then again, I might not.)

 

[gvman3670]

We're talking about moving/dragging objects here. Right? My god, man. How many things are you moving a few inches? The only time this could conceivably be any kind of issue is if you had hundreds of single items that you were moving just a tiny distance. And I just can't see that happening. Can you think of a time that would happen?

[Fredas]

Can you think of a time that would happen?

 

Sure.  Did it all the time in FONV.  Why?  Because it was fun.  Pile of junk sitting on a shelf?  Fling it all around the room, just as quickly as you can move the mouse back and forth.  Why was this fun?  Why did it even become a pasttime of mine?  Likely because there wasn't any hamstrung control mechanism preventing it from being so.  I see a box on a shelf with hidden contents, I don't think twice about flinging it off the shelf to dump the contents.

 

Really, I almost feel like I need to invent Mario64 to convince people analog sticks are an upgrade. ;p