Gamepad Virtual Cursor for UI is Live! [Opt-in Only]

Is there a reason why the security is set to NotScriptable instead of ReadOnly? I wanted to check the value of the property on the client so my game wouldn’t suddenly break in case this feature spontaneously got rolled back but I can’t do that :confused:

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i agree. developers should be tasked with developing the system with the tools given and creating something that works that also actually is visually pleasing and nice

the same thing with the interaction things that were implemented a while back. i see them being used more often and i really feel like people should have to design their own ui and own scripts to make the ui work rather than leech off of a pre made system

basic pre made systems that are good are things like the chatbox like you dont want to have to script it yourself every time you make a game, and it is good you can change the look of it too, but these kinds of updatesjust make developers lazy in a sense

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Will all mouse events work with this, or is it just the ones mentioned here?

You never really specified and I’m pretty concerned that most things won’t work with this since it doesn’t already work with a handful of UI elements (I’m praying these get resolved soon so I can roll out my newest project with gamepad support)

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would players be able to tune their sensitivity? i think that would be really good.

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I think my biggest and only question would be why is the virtual cursor visually different from the normal roblox one?

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These “premade” things of late are actually helpful to a lot of developers. These items are making multi platform compatibility much easier to implement. I don’t think using new things like this makes developers “lazy”. They’re simply using the resources they’ve been given to build a game. Proximity Prompt is simply just an object in studio now just like a click detector. There’s also a difference between the chat and these resources, the chat is part of the engine not studio development (while you can make changes to it I wouldn’t group it with studio objects).

These updates can help newer developers learn, as you can mess with things like Proximity prompt and make your own UI for your prompts. While again, also implementing multi platform support with ease. People tend to forget about the other platforms (besides PC) and this is a very easy way to include them.

And nobody is forcing developers to use these, if you want to make your own go ahead but they are a good resource. The toolbox has been in studio and providing free resources to developers, along with resource games to provide tools to newer developers. More experienced developers can implement cross platform support with ease, but newer devs might not be able to and that cuts out quite a percentage of players. So these resources can easily fix that problem. Studio development is aimed at making games for a composer, and it’s unfair to those on mobile/console to be left out of some games just because the developer didn’t yet have the resources to include them. So by using these, developers can focus on other updates to their games/learning more about development rather than spending time trying to figure out how to include those not on PC.

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Yeah, the mouse UI is good, but every player is used to the default UI cursor. I think the round one looks a bit hard I mean it doesn’t have any corner and if a cursor doesn’t have a corner then players will be confused that they clicked or not. But I will test it.

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https://www.roblox.com/games/3649684622/Game-Company-Tycoon
Hopefully it works fine, I can’t really test since I don’t have any console.
Note: It’s enabled on the 1.8.8e version

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This is better than pressing a button, Great job roblox!

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(This should also address your question, @XOLT1268)

Just because its been done before, doesn’t mean that it should be done again. But, you make an interesting point which I believe we could all benefit from deconstructing:

I think we’re all aware that the reason we have a cursor present in modern desktop computing is because its an accurate, precision-based input form that is natural to the user. Almost no-one these days would suggest implementing a cursor on a mobile phone; but that didn’t stop a lot, and I mean a lot of businesses and brands from attempting to implement that kind of setup.

As we know now, it didn’t work. The reason it didn’t work is quite simple, it’s because the cursor wasn’t in any way analogous to the input behind it. While the scenario is friendlier on console (thumbsticks give a certain, limited degree of movement control), the user’s input is still largely limited by the range and sensitivity of their thumbsticks, a fact that does not happen with a mouse. This limits the speed at which users can interact with the game. This is what makes the controls non-intuitive.

Players and users alike move at their own paces. By adding in a plug-and-play system that uses an input format that just isn’t native to the platform we’re not only limiting that pace and worsening user experience, but we’re allowing every developer to take a shortcut and do the same.

Destiny uses a similar system, that is very true. But you disregarded two caveats in that system. The way the user interface moves and flows to blend in with that system makes it much better — it was designed for console; and even then that very system isn’t without its critics, which is why Destiny made sure to add other ways to navigate the UI.

Wow! Love this feature. This’ll be very great for Xbox users, especially for FPS games like Arsenal or Phantom Forces!

Quick suggestion. You should make this feature to allow Xbox players to chat, since that’s a part of Roblox, is chatting with other Roblox players.

Sorry if I made an error with my suggestion, if there’s something that I haven’t already seen, etc.

I don’t think XBOX allows roblox to chat themselves.
Xbox players can no longer chat, resulting in major loss of playercount - Bug Reports / Xbox Bugs - DevForum | Roblox

Oh, okay. Hopefully that changes since that takes away from the experiencing when playing Roblox.

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hi jacko (:

they can be helpful but i feel developers dont learn from it
it’s like that saying, “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. teach him how to fish and you feed him for his life”

instead of trying to build the ui up and make it better, most people just use the ui script it and call it quits.

this is good for newer developers but then they aren’t learning and are just learning to use premade programs from roblox, and no one is forcing them to use these and they can make custom ui if they want but they aren’t going to since they already have ui and have a script. unless they want to advance or just dont like the ui and want to make it better, they stick to the basic premade stuff.

it is enabling developers to be more lazy and not make quality games, and yeah some platforms like mobile benefit from these updates roblox is making, though i feel like it is partly the developer’s responsibility to MAKE the game compatible.

a good developer should know how to make a game compatible and even new players should learn, even if they mess up, you learn from mistakes. its better than having mommy bird roblox still feeding them with these premade updates

premade things like the e to interact system might be good example to show how a proper system should look but shouldnt be reused with no changes what so ever. if it is helping developers, it would enable them to remake the look and design

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Not sure I understand your points here. Phone touch screen is just like using a mouse, except your finger is the “cursor”. What mobile app uses a separate cursor on the screen? I don’t know of any.

If you say another implementation is “much better” can you please provide clear examples?

The bottom line is, you can use it or not use it. Many Roblox games do not have great gamepad support for UI and some don’t work at all, now they have another option.

As we stated earlier, if you have the time to implement a great UI layout for the UI highlighting system that works with gamepad, that’s awesome. The developer can choose what works best for them.

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I believe a part of devSparkie’s message is that by implementing such a control system, developers instead no longer actively attempt to make console controls better and more intuitive - that is, by pressing L2-and R2 buttons to go up and down for instance.

Putting my two cents in here, I feel like while it would cause somewhat higher levels of ignorance with developers, leading to some overview in UX-design, it wouldn’t really affect anything negatively - in fact, it would likely make it better as games that do not support consoles wouldn’t pay heed to these issues in the first place.

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It sounds like you have more of a problem with search and discovery than the UI feature being added here: If search and discovery is structured to reward experiences that people like better, and people like experiences with custom designed-for-console controls better, there will still be a strong incentive for developers to give their experiences those controls in the long run.

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(39) F3X Area Permissions Testing - Roblox

This will be great for XBOX players! Now they won’t need to press the square with the half square behind it then fiddle with the joystick until it goes onto a GUI!

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Yep! I’d just like to clarify that I myself don’t hold these thoughts, only raising concerns others might have.