I’ve experimented this question with a few of my games in the past.
I’ve found that:
Most players will automatically press shift to sprint, even if a game doesn’t have a sprint feature - as the majority of games use shift to sprint, players associate that key to the action.
It’s easy for the player - shift is located in a position which makes it easy for the player to toggle/hold sprint on and off. Sure, ctrl may be less frustrating because of Mouse Lock, but players (and developers) can always disable this feature. Players are also familiar with the finger movement required to sprint with shift.
‘Should my sprint feature be a toggle or hold?’
I personally use ‘hold to sprint’ as players are more familiar with this system, but at the end of the day it doesn’t make a huge difference.
Additional note:
If you’re intending your game to be playable on mobile, don’t forget to include a sprint button. To do this, simply make an identical looking button to that of the jump button then connect it with your sprint functions:
You could let users change this behavior in a settings menu. That way everyone can play how they prefer. I also remember playing a game where pressing and holding shift would let you sprint, and pressing shift twice in quick succession would let you keep sprinting without holding shift.
I’m trying to get my MVP(minimal viable product) done so I’m not going to do fancy settings stuff just yet.
Great idea but “pressing shift twice in quick succession” I don’t think this is commonly known, and I could add a Tip or Help text but we all know that 99% of players won’t read it, which gives me an idea of making a thread asking about “How to get players to read more?”.
The entire concept of sprinting is preference to the developer. If the developer provides a way to change the toggle and hotkey, then preference to the player. Most people will associate sprinting with the Shift key due to its use for faster movement in the greater majority of games. You can mix and match. Toggle or no toggle, one key or another.
On another note though, I’ve seen more people associate raycast guns with F over Shift. RCL gets people more accustomed to Toggle-F over Hold-Shift.
I would use shift to sprint. It’s more common in games, and may be players’ first instinct. Myself, and others would most likely associate CTRL with crouch. So I believe shift would be better for a sprinting key. I also believe that they should have to hold it down to sprint. As long as they hold it, is as long as they sprint. This would make it easier for players to stop sprinting say if they wanted to save stamina (if that’s even a thing in your game).
From my own personal time playing games on PC, I find that Shift is easier to press on most keyboards and allows for less finger fatigue. I know the exception to this is if you started playing games on PC with minecraft, because its default crouch is shift, so many make sprint ctrl.
As for ‘Hold to Sprint’ or ‘Toggle Sprint’ I think that should be an option up to the player, but for default settings I think Toggle Sprint is a lot more intuitive.
Why not make it both? While most people may use Shift for sprint, I don’t think it would hurt to make it so that both keys work for the same function. That way, it’s more diverse for the players of your game and getting used to the controls can be a little easier on them.
Personally, I think shifting to sprint is the best choice. Your players will most definitely play other games. Most of the games on the front page uses Shift to Sprint. When you change it to Ctrl to Sprint, some people will not be used to it
@RuizuKun_Dev You should. It’s a good feature, I’d personally always allow shift lock. If you’re going to allow shift lock, control is the best option. You could also add a feature that mocks shift lock, but it’s up to you.
@ForeverHD is it possible to make the thumbpad button button make the player go faster the the farther out they move their thumb into the pad?
The maximum thumbpad speed will equal the humanoid’s WalkSpeed, I’m unsure how you’d modify the speed boundaries in-between though. Your best bet is creating a separate help thread for this.
