Of course it's deflection, if instead of engaging in discussion, you stoop down to attacking the writer instead. Classic case.

However, I see now that it is hopeless to try and argue with you, when you are not open to discussion, so whatever. Have a nice day.

Of course it's deflection if you don't engage the content of a post, but rather prefer to put down the poster. Classic case thereof.

However I see now that it's pointless to argue with you, since constructive discussion seems to be beyond you. Have a nice day.

Yes, that was about the worst mission in the entire game. Thank fuck you don't need to hover anywhere else in the game. Or land precisely. I find it best to just parachute to my goal as opposed to trying to accurately land that piece of shit haha

I don't see how the plane controls could be any simpler.

1. Remove the need to deploy the landing gear manually.
2. Allow turning the plane by tilting the left stick left and right. If rotation of the plane is absolutely necessary, assign that to L1/R1.

There you go.

That can't work.

For one thing rolling the plane is absolutely necessary. Otherwise you can't knife, turn sharply, barrel roll, fly upside down etc.

You can't assign that to L1/R1 because you need precision. Precision to do a complete roll, or roll 90 degrees or 45 degrees or 72 or 13 or whatever. You need the precision to roll however much you want or need to make the turn you want or need. You can't do that with L1/R1.

R1/L1 are assigned to the rudder and they are perfect for this.

As for the landing gear nothing is forcing you to retract and deploy them. Just forget they exist. We're talking about pressing a button this one time in the game here...

Reading everything you've said so far it seems to me that what you want is just different bindings for the same actions and that would make the planes way worst given the physics model they have.

So your problem is with the physics then, not the controls. And for that there's nothing you can do, either you like them or you don't. But there is no way changing the controls like you said would work.

The controls are as standard as it gets for any planes in games that behave remotely like a plane is supposed to.

I get the controls in games like Saints Row but at a certain point its almost like auto pilot. You don't have to manage your speed and altitude, you can't possibly roll out of control even if you actively try to and short of doing it on purpose by flying straight down you can't crash either.

Rockstar went for something somewhat more realistic and applying the Saints Row controls or something similar couldn't possibly work.

Now i don't know if it was you or someone else that asked or commented if this was even necessary.

My answer to that is yes it is necessary. It is necessary to me because it makes the vehicles fun and not a simple means to get from point A to point B. I played Saints Row and Sleeping Dogs but never once got in a vehicle and just drive or fly for the fun of it because there's no challenge. Once done with the missions i was done with those games.

I can play GTA games for hours however just navigating that world just to enjoy what the physics allow me to do. Sometimes that means flying and purposefully shutting down the engines to see if i can glide and safely land on the freeway in the middle of Los Santos or on the side of Mt. Chilliad. And then if i can do it can i turn things around and manage to take off again. I swear in some of those situations being able to roll the plane very precisely and retract the landing gear a split second after the wheels leave the ground meant the difference between success and failure.

To me the beauty of this game is that it never really forces this on the player. You don't have to drive fast or fly between buildings while evading military jets trying to shoot you down. You don't have to land on a 50 meter runway surrounded by trees. Chase sequence on the ground are scripted enough and with enough rubber banding going on that you can take your time, drive safe and you'll make it just fine. Even the races. AI drivers don't crash much because they go slow. Go fast enough to take first place and then slow it down and maintain just enough speed to stay in first place and you won't crash much either.

That's what i like about it, the freedom to go much further than required to complete the missions and progress through the game. This is what keeps me coming back for more.

Do you actually need to do any of those actions to complete missions in the game? Is there at any point you absolutely must barrel roll, or you will fail a mission? Is there no reason that you can't barrel roll using the Star Fox method of double-tapping the shoulder button? Is there any reason that you absolutely must have the precision of rolling 237 degrees for the sake of completing a mission? Is there no reason that you couldn't fly upside after holding a shoulder button to enter that position?

As for the landing gear, how am I being allowed to ignore them when the very first flying mission not only requires their deployment, but triggers a failure if you land with enough force that it causes the landing gear to crumple (forcing you to replay the last two minutes of the mission all over again)?

Flying and driving in Saints Row: The Third may not be as "technical" as in GTAV, but I found both activities far more entertaining. I will say that, since this thread got started, I have gotten much more used to driving in GTAV and am getting more entertainment out of it, but I wouldn't necessarily call the driving "better." It's different, but, compared to Saints Row or Sleeping Dogs, I've experienced a lot more frustration, which isn't exactly conducive to having a good time. Nor is it, as some in this thread would prefer to argue, a sign that I just suck at the game.

With the way that GTAV introduced flying, I have no interest in doing any more of it. I did not find that intro mission a good first impression and I don't really see myself spending hours just flying around. I actually don't see myself really screwing around much in this game at all, really. Outside of Trevor's rampage missions, I haven't gone on any wanton killing sprees, and I haven't driven like a lunatic looking for ramps or anything because I have no interest in attracting the attention of the cops in this game. I don't feel that GTAV is a fun screwing around game. I could drive around like an asshole and slap the shit out of bystanders with a dildo bat in Saints Row all day long, but there's something about GTAV that makes me actively want to avoid that kind of behavior.

Well completing the flying school absolutely requires all those maneuvers and they must be done with precision that wouldn't be possible with L1/R1.

And like i said, most of the fun i get from the game wouldn't possible without those particular controls.

And if no mandatory missions requires you to perform them then i don't see how it's a problem that those controls exist. Turn using the rudder. The first mission which is the only one i can recall that actually requires a proper landing gives you ample of time to make your approach and slow down.

Landing so fast that the landing gear crumbles is in no way the game's fault either. Even if the landing gear deployed or retracted automatically that wouldn't have changed anything in this case.

I'll give you that the game does a poor job of introducing flight. GTA San Andreas actually rolled the flying school in the main story when a character tells you to get ready by heading over there. This was actually mandatory if i recall.

Maybe having to retry a couple of exercise in the context of the flying school is less frustrating than having to retry a mission a couple times until you've figured out the controls but the end result is the same.

Maybe you don't find as much fun of just fucking around in this game the same way you do in Saints Row but you can't demand the game remove the possibilities its controls and physics offer that can't be found elsewhere in other similar games because you don't enjoy them when it's not actually forcing you to be so fast and so precise to succeed and progress through the story.

If there was actually some insurmountable challenge in missions where you'd fail dozens of times in a row you'd have a point.

@pr1mus: I'm not making demands. Someone said they couldn't understand how the controls for flying could be simpler, and I offer a couple of suggestions how it could be done.

The game doesn't specify that it's possible for the landing gear to crumple until it actually happens. And after failing the landing five or six times for various reasons before that, to think that I had finally nailed it only find out that nope, fuck you, try again, it gets really tedious. And when Ron landed after me and got in my way of the hangar, I was cursing up a storm swore I'd turn the game off if his presence caused me to wreck my plane and be forced to do the landing over again. That mission is asking the player to learn through trial and error in the most frustrating way possible. And that's only when it comes to landing the plane. The rest of the flight portion of that mission was likewise frustrating from the moment you get in the air. I kept spinning out and crashing because the game does a piss-poor job of notifying the player that rudder controls are on the shoulder buttons. Did I get over that hump? Yes. Do I like the way that it controls? No.

It is absolutely fine that you like the flight the way that it controls, but I don't. I find it more ridiculous that people are going to such lengths to defend the flight controls as though my opinion on them had any bearing on their own enjoyment.

@hailinel: I'm not defending the controls because your opinion of them are having any bearing on my enjoyment. I just tried to explained why changing the controls the way you suggested would likely make things worst given the physics at play here. Nothing more.

And then i explained why i think this added challenge is necessary to me.

We even agree that the game does a piss poor job of introducing flight, even more so when considering how much better they did it in San Andreas!

I'll add one last thing. I think the best way to explain why i like the controls and physics so much is because they make the vehicles meaningful to drive and fly. To me if the act of navigating the world in an open world game is boring then the game has failed as an open world. If going from missions to missions is a chore then what's the point? In GTA half the fun is getting to whatever places i need to go and makes the open world nature of the game worthwhile and not just padding between story missions.

Better graphics and a larger map aside, all GTA 5 did for me was make me better appreciate GTA: San Andreas. That, and Sleeping Dogs, of course :)

I wish people would stop necroing threads just to say useless things.

But now that it has been necro'd, what were your eventual thoughts on GTA V, @hailinel? How far did you get?

Honestly, not very. After I got to the point in the story where I could freely switch between all three characters, I did some of Trevor's side missions and rampages and then just stopped. I have not felt any urge to go back to it at all. I'd say I'm done.