Best Control Layout for Destiny (Destiny)

by General Vagueness , The Vault of Sass, Tuesday, August 19, 2014, 13:27 (3753 days ago) @ Xenos

Other games have them. Why not Bungie games?

Well, very few console games do. I don't know WHY, but it is very rare in console games. I remember somebody was making a list of console games that had them and he didn't even get to more than 20 that he could find.

Citation needed, I'm pretty sure 40% or more of the games I've played with controllers that had more than two main buttons let you customize the controls. As for why, the only reasons I can see are it slowing things down, using more memory, and potentially introducing more bugs, because you have to add a layer of abstraction between pressing a button and performing an action-- and they're all ridiculous because all you need is a very simple redirection function or a set of them, and they're especially ridiculous for games that let you choose between pre-set control setups because they have to be doing that already. It would take a lot (code samples and run statistics and probably hardware details, which are very unlikely) to make me buy there's a good technology-based reason not to have custom controls-- so I think it's something else (or someone is confused and/or out of touch and/or lazy and can't be convinced of the above). I can't fathom a philosophical argument against it. There isn't really an ergonomic argument to be made because the controllers are supposed to be ergonomically designed and players would be able to set up something that works the best for their hands. I just wish we could talk to the engineer or manager that made the decision to not have custom controls-- I know Urk and Deej mean well and they try to be informed, but they never get into stuff like this, and neither did their predecessors.