Negative mouse acceleration

[RentAProbe]

I have mentioned the issue on this forum, but it has since quited down with nothing in the way of a resolution. Attempting to contact the developers directly has not resulted in anything either. So here I am again, and all I want is a one word answer from someone responsible. ...besides that I hope that other people will chime in with their experience.

The problem: Sea of Solitude uses negative mouse acceleration.

This means that, while using the mouse to control the camera, moving it slowly results it strong camera movement, and moving it quickly barely moves the camera at all. This is the opposite of what Windows does by default, and therefore translates into many games. Many other games use (or allow) "raw" mouse input, which means no acceleration. The only other examples of negative acceleration I can come up with, are Dark Souls (which is legendary for the "quality" of the port) and Hellblade (which had it fixed in the very first patch). I personally think that negative mouse acceleration feels unplayably horrible, and I would rather use keyboard camera controls, which would still seriously detract from the experience.

The question: Will the negative mouse acceleration be fixed (in 2019) ?

If I can get a "yes" I will happily cheer and wait for the patch to come, and enjoy the game to it's fullest when it does. If I can get a "no", then at the very least I can move on, buckle up, and go through it with keyboard camera controls, and a much diminished experience.

If there are other people who played with keyboard and mouse, I would love to hear from you. In another thread @HarleyQuinn2922 commented, that they have not "encountered any issues", and neither did their friends. They did not clarify wether that means that they did not have negative mouse acceleration on their system (which I doubt), or that they had it but liked it (which I also cannot fathom).

[HarleyQuinn2922]

Hello again @RentAProbe 

When I move my hand normally, the camera follows as well. When I move my mouse extremely fast, the camera doesn't follow as fast as my hand movement. However, it's a single player game and since SP games have not been created for extremely fast mouse movement, I totally see why it behaves like such. 

From my point of view, I do not need to move my hand extremely fast because in the Settings there is a camera speed option which allows me to set how fast I want my camera to follow, or of course how slow. Thus, I'll move my hand slowly because I'm playing a Single player game and I want to relax; otherwise I'd play a shooter or something like that :D. 

What me and my friends think when trying a SP game, is that we actually enjoy looking around at the architecture of the buildings in-game and whatever else it is offered. As you could see, bottles and seagulls can be collected in Sea of Solitude and moving too fast might actually make us miss those. 

As previously stated, everything has a solution and there is the Mouse Look setting, for using arrows instead of the mouse. There's the Camera Speed setting, so you can set how slow/fast you want the camera to follow. There's the DPI setting of the mouse itself in case it is not enough. Since I am not bothered by anything in-game, I can't yet think of more things to try other than these mentioned, unless of course offered more details.

I honestly appreciate this type of implementation, because I am not forced to use my wrist too much in order to move the camera. However, that is just my opinion and I am not expecting everyone to be/think as I am. I really appreciate games which have a rather unique view/approach/implementation on things and that they're not just like any other game. 

Seeing that you have given a couple of games as examples, I'd like to add that just because those games use something fit for your style, it doesn't mean that everyone should. I do think we should understand the logic and the reason for which some things are as they're seen. Have you thought if a certain something has been added just because someone wanted to make people see/think how they want to? 
I'll give an example: There is no correct photograph, because one photographer wants to show a certain feeling when not respecting the rule of thirds and taking B&W pictures; meanwhile another photographer is respecting that rule of thirds - but the picture is basic and it's something we've seen everywhere, not giving us a chance of feeling something, but only admiring how well the object fits inside the frame. 

It is your choice whether you like a game or not, whether you like how things have been set; however don't think of it as a negative experience, but rather try to understand the view of others and think that there's other people appreciating that. We can't be all the same, we can't all have the same opinion about something, however there's always: People that enjoy something, People that don't, and People that don't care or are in between. 

Sorry for the long text, though I wanted to make sure you're not placing a label, as it wouldn't be fair. 

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I do not work for EA. I am just a player helping other players.

[RentAProbe]

First of all, thank you for confirming that you are also experiencing negative mouse acceleration. So it is not just me. Thank you also for taking the time to explain at length how you like the mouse behaviour. While I cannot empathise with you in this regard, I can accept that you are different.

As far as your suggested solutions goes:

- Switching to keyboard camera controls does not solve it, it just switches to a far inferior input mode.

- The camera speed setting makes all movements slower or faster, and does nothing about the anomalous behaviour.

- The same goes for changing the DPI settings outside of the game.

About the distinction between single and multiplayer games:

My complaint has nothing to do with that. I consider the mouse an input device, and when it moves the camera (same as with the cursor), it has an expected and learned behaviour. I am used to how a camera reacts to the mouse, no matter how relaxed or twitchy a game is, and no matter how many players there are.

Regarding your photography example:

As far as I can tell, this is not just me. The PCGamingWiki calls it "botched implementation", and when you search for "negative mouse acceleration" all you find is complaints. There seems to be a decades old convention, and when a game breaks it, that means - for me at least - that I have to fight the camera with every movement I make. It is not just that Sea of Solitude eats the very quickest movements after all, but it also exaggerates calm movements, making the camera swerve around where I do not expect it to go. Similarly, moderately quick movements do not cover the ground I expect it to. At least to me, this is not new and different in an enjoyable way, but in a broken and cumbersome one.

To make an example of my own:

Sushi does not taste better when you eat it with sticks. If you can deal with sticks, dinner will go just fine. If not, you will drop your food and make a mess and embarass yourself. And when you give up and eat with your fingers, the fish will still taste exactly the same, but it will not be as nice an evening.

Sadly, I cannot choose to like a game. I wish I could, but Sea of Solitude simply feels bad for me. I am happy that you like how it controls. But you may realise that your vindication would work just as well for non-remappable controls for example. Even if they have forward on "p", left on "y", and jump on "shift".

By the way, there has been a patch recently. I cannot find any patch notes, though, and the mouse most definitely hasn't been fixed for me / broken for you.

[RentAProbe]

The support chat could not help, but agreed months ago that the mouse behaviour should be fixed. They also told me that posting here is the correct way of reporting the bug. Since it has been quite a while, I am starting to assume that neither EA nor Jo-Mei care - which is a pity (for me).

[RentAProbe]

So I finally played the game with broken mouse controls, or rather, with keyboard only. It was just as awkward as expected, and took me out of it quite a few times. But I still ended up liking the game quite a bit !

The real reason for this final post is a sad one though: In the keyboard mapping, the entries for "Camera down" and "Camera right" are interchanged ! Didn't they try this even once ? This is pretty telling regarding the non-controller input methods, and it fits very well with my previous experience. Guess I should be grateful mouse and keyboard are available in any capacity at all...