Disclaimer: I don’t want this to be an actual rant. I want to highlight the bad aspects of roblox VR in the hopes that the admins see it and take some points into account.
Recently I tried to play roblox in Virtual Reality, because I saw they had updated. To be very blunt I was completely dissapointed, as it felt more like a downgrade than an upgrade.
Comfort Cam
The comfort cam is a really good implementation for people that get sick due to locomotion in Virtual Reality, by keeping the camera still until the player is finished moving. However, this way of locomotion can be confusing, especially in games where you have to react fast. Also, because the camera is always above the player, it can be really hard to orientate where your player is located. This is especially a problem because your camera doesnt automatically reposition itself when youre done moving. VRChat also has a comfort cam, but here the camera does reposition once you stopped moving, which doesnt make you lose sight of your character.
First-person
There is none. Since the last VR update of roblox they completely abondened first person, and decided to force you into the comfort cam, where you are always in third person above or nearby your character. The whole point of VR is to feel immersed in the game, and feel like youre actually walking around. This cannot be achieved when youre stuck in third person, unable to place yourself in the game, because youre always above your own and other characters. Before the update, you could easily go into third or first person by just zooming in or out.
Unintuitive controls (xbox)
The xbox controls are acceptable, however they can be improved. The only problem I have with it is the action that is connected to the A button. On the image shown below, which i have taken from the last blog post on roblox VR, it says that A is connected to jump or select. But when I tried this in game, I noticed that 4 controls are connected to it.
- Select
- Jump (when you press for a short time)
- Reposition camera (also when you press a short time)
- Move to point (click and hold)
As you can see in this video, I tried to make my character move by just pressing and holding A, using move to point. Imgur Also when youre using a controller, you would expect to move in menus with the joysticks, and although this is possible, it is really hard to do because for some reason the selection pointer that is stuck to your head in VR stays when youre using a controller. This means that you have to look to a button to be able to press it, and then use the A button to press. This just doesnt make any sense.
Unintuitive controls (HTC vive)
The controls for the HTC vive are really bad. This is because it feels like the xbox controls are poorly mapped to the controllers of the htc vive, which doesnt work. For example, you have to select in a menu not with the trigger button, but on the bottom of a touchpad. This would be like having to right click with a mouse to select in a menu, but use left click to use a weapon. Also, in VR I have seen zero games that use a physical back button. Instead, in the menu theres a button you can press to go back. By removing the physical back button, you could use either touchpads for movement, and then click somewhere on the touchpad to jump.
No keyboard controls
There are currently no controls for using a keyboard. For some people like me, i prefer to play roblox VR while sitting at my desk, and using WASD or arrow keys to move, and all other default keybindings for the keyboard. It is weird that they removed this feature, because before the last VR update this was all still available.
removal of chat in VR
Since the new update, roblox has removed the feature of being able to use the chat while in VR, by disabling keyboard input. Not only did they remove the feature to chat in-game, they also removed the feature of seeing other people’s chat. This could be easily fixed by having the text of a player appear above their character. (bubble chat) Alternatively, voice chat could be implemented for VR the same way it has been implemented for the xbox.
No Customization
There is no customization at all for players. You are stuck with the comfort cam, whether you like it or not. There should be settings for:
- Enabling/disabling comfort cam. (meaning the camera sticks to the character)
- Change between first person and third person
- switch htc vive and oculus rift controls for left handed people. (EG right touchpad to move instead of left)
- when using xbox controllers, enable/disable selecting a button by looking at it
- Change input type (controller, keyboard, VR controllers)
TL;DR
- comfort cam is bad because it forces third person
- theres no more first person
- controls for controllers are bad, lacking or non-existent.
- you cant chat in VR
- theres no customization or settings for VR
