I'm surprised you even bothered. Doesn't seem like your jam at all. Still, glad you're - kind of? - enjoying GTAV. I really enjoyed my time with the game.

Ugh so sick of this mentality that if I am not great at something in a game it's the game's fault. God forbid you cant just admit that you are bad at it instead. Personally the driving in the game is fine to me and the only reason I ever lose a race is because of my own mistake. Not because the cars handle like fucking boats. Same with the first flying mission where you land the plane. Not saying this to brag but more to make a point but I landed that thing perfectly the first time I tried it and I have never played a flying game in my life. It isn't at all simy and is not difficult to do. The game tells you to slow down and use your landing gear while you are doing it. So you know if you don't slow down and you don't use the landing gear or if you aren't level you are going to crash. People complaining about hearing a song more often than they feel they should well there are radio stations in the game so if you listen to the same one all the time you are going to hear the same songs. It's like me complaining that all I hear is Nickleback while all I listen to is the pop rock station. I will agree however with some of the humor in the game not fitting in well but besides that I cant agree with any of your points.

@seppli: It's not a lack of understanding, it's an incredulity at your colorful choice of words. It's not a "danger zone", it's controls that I feel don't always work with the player. They're not always that fluid, and the problem isn't limited to planes. Sorry, I'm used to games doing precisely what I want them to, when I want them to, in order to keep doing cool things and having fun. GTA V, for the most part, lets me do this. Occasionally, though, I feel like it's a little behind most games. Sleeping Dogs is the example I keep bringing up because its controls, especially on foot, just flow so smoothly and so well.

Oh, and I can play the game just fine. I'm not bringing this up from a lack of skill at games. I've mentioned several times that I really like GTAV, but it does not lack problems.

Judging by your subsequent responses, you seem to be continuing along this insulting track with comments like this:

Calling Saints Row a "neutered tame-ass gelding" sounds more like you're insinuating that the game is beneath your sensibilities and and that anyone that prefers it over GTAV is somehow lesser for that. I've been to plenty of rodeos, and I know what a bucking bronco is. I've also seen people ride and nearly get the shit gored out of them by bulls. That is nothing like playing a video game. That is an activity specifically for those that are brave/skilled/crazy enough to voluntarily climb onto the back of a large animal that doesn't want them up there. Rodeo is a dangerous sport and can lead to critical injury or death. Sitting on your ass playing GTAV is nothing like that. It's insulting my intelligence that you'd even compare the two activities.

Here's my problem with the vehciles: Cars are more realistic to drive than in other open world games, sure, and I have gotten better at it the more I've done it. But it's still not perfect. And the way that wrecking is handled feels entirely too inconsistent. It's also not fun, particularly in the street races, where the other cars don't seem to follow the same rules that I do. If they hit something, they quickly right themselves and keep going. I hit something, I might be a smear on the pavement after launching out of my windshield.

As for the airplanes, there is truly no reason that flying needs to be as complex an activity as the game makes it. Between angling the plane withe the analog stick using L1 and R1 for turns, L2 and R2 for the engine, holding circle to focus on the landing, pressing L3 to deploy the landing gear, and maybe X to drop a payload, that is a lot of shit going on, and not all of it is necessary to the experience. There is no reason that I should be asked to manually deploy the landing gear; particularly when a slip of the thumb could cause the plane to tilt to the side rather as they're being deployed. Also, I do not have motion controls turned on, and the analog stick controls do feel too sensitive. In the first Trevor flying mission, I had to tilt, ever so slightly, to ditch the guy on the wing, or I'd suddenly be upside down and in a fight to right myself.

Forget landing, just getting through that first portion of the flight up through the valley was a pain to deal with just because the tutorial is terrible. All you're given for instruction on how to fly is a small box of text that cycles through, resulting in me dying several times before I knew I could even turn the plane using L1 and R1 because I need to take my attention away from flying in order to read it.

And don't give me this nonsense about the game being hard. I've died a lot on some missions and failed the objectives on others, but it's not what I'd call hard. When the biggest obstacle to my enjoyment is the controls, which aren't as responsive as I'd like or too complex for their own good, that's not me complaining about the difficulty. That's me saying that the game's controls could be better. You disagree; I get that. But that is no reason to come in here and start lecturing me about the Danger Zone like I'm some kind of moron.

Well, I own the game, so I figured I should at least give it a fair shot.

There's a difference between being bad at a game and the game not feeling right to the player. I'm not "bad" at GTAV. If there's a criteria to measure by, so far, I've averaged out silver medals on most of he missions I've played on my first completions. So you're good at flying in the game and have no trouble with the controls? Well, good for you, but not everyone feels the same way.

@seppli: god, you're the worst.

@hailinel: Do you plan on continuing to play this game?

I do. I'm still interested and having fun in playing it. I just don't know if it'll remain that way through the whole game.

@hailinel:

My intention is not to insult, but to entertain and enlighten with my choice of words. I value honesty above all else, and that's exactly how I feel about it. I'm sorry if it offends you. My goal is to express myself accurately, not to trample your feelings.

Planes are that complex. If you simplify controls more than that, you limit what the players can do with the planes. The same is true for the cars. That's why I'm so adamant about it. I don't want GTA to become even more tame than it already has become.

Honestly - the thing games like GTA V add ontop of simply controlling the vehicles and characters is a higher risk of fucking up. Hell - the guys can fall down, if they do something stupid. That's by having more complex physics at work, and allowing for players to easily push beyond control. Risk management only adds excitement and reward for me, because I'm pretty damn good at it by default.

I just don't see how being forced to asses risk is a skill that's beyond any player. If you have an open mind to learn and adapt to the rules of the game that is. So you had a bad time landing the plane the first time it popped up? So what! If you put more time into flying planes, you can and will learn to control them better. Perfection is the limit.

What exactly is your horizon for mastering any activity? Is putting an hour into flight school to ace it asking too much? I mean it's there, if you want to learn. Or are you less patient with GTA V, because you just want to get through with it? Playing it out of a sense of dilligence, rather than genuine excitement?

You're failing miserably.

You keep complaining about the possibility of GTAV becoming "tame," but again, you equate simplification with neutering. Simpler flying controls wouldn't necessarily lessen what could be done with the planes. Nor would lessening the degree to which cars adhere to realistic physics. What is it specifically that would be limited, in terms of gameplay, and not your own personal need to wank at the thought of how awesome you apparently are? Why should I need to put in time at the in-game flight school to learn how to fly a plane? Why can't the game be better at teaching the player how to fly upfront?

Why should I continue this conversation with you, when you seem so intent on using my blog post to trumpet your own superiority and chastise me for not liking the game as much as you do?

• More simplified plane controls wouldn't allow the player to roll and knife and fly upside-down and all the advanced maneuvers that are combinations of the above.
• Tamer car physics don't allow the player to push the cars beyond control, taking away the excitement and reward of straddling the line between control and catastrophe - making for a lesser experience.
• It's my prerogative to feel like simplification is akin to neutering, and that too high playability is akin to a game playing itself, making it a lesser game. I'm not going to change who I am and what I believe, or windowdress it, to not offend you or anyone.

What I want to do, is to learn why you find the driving and plane physics/controls flawed, when in-fact they are not, at least by my standards. An answer you have thus far been unwilling to provide. They are not functionally broken in any way. I don't see how not being immediately playable is a flaw, if they are perfectly playable with enough experience and effort. It's depth in my book, as long as mastery provides full control. From my experience that's the case with the cars and planes of GTA V.

From how you are taking my attempts at discussing this matter with you, and other commenters, as a personal attack - I will refrain from further trying to discuss it here. You have attached this blog post to the general discussions forums, so I really don't see how you are surprised that I showed up to discuss the contents of your blog post.

While I fail to understand you, and your sentiments towards me pursuing this discussion, I'm sorry that I've evidently caused you distress. This wasn't my intention, and let's leave it at that.

P.S. I don't believe in *being better*. I believe in *doing better*. What I want is for everyone to *play better*. To see the light. I guess that's dickish of me, but in a whole other way than you insinuate. I want to provide perspective. A path forward to better play GTA V. After all, in gaming, like in life, it's the player that makes the game all it can be, and I just felt from your blog post, that you might need a helping hand to realize GTA V's full potential.

@hailinel:

GTA V has a line, and it let's the player push past that line. To be beyond that line, means to venture beyond control. So to be in perfect control, means to tame the beast - and to tame the beast, you have to know it. To excell, you have to straddle the line. Thusly GTA V is less immediately playable, but infinitely more empowering and rewarding.

From all the things I've written here, I think this paragraph says best what I came here to say. Take that for what you will.

Well this game have the most alive city to date, compare to any other games. The game play itself and the story? I had more fun playing SR4 and there are way too many games with really terrific story that came out this year, it is actually unfair to compare those story driven experiences to GTAV.

Great execution. Maybe the most well-crafted open world ever created but not nearly the best game.

"In fact they are not, by my standards". If you are measuring something by your standards then it is not a fact.

An answer you have thus far been unwilling to provide.

To which I'll quote:

As for the airplanes, there is truly no reason that flying needs to be as complex an activity as the game makes it. Between angling the plane withe the analog stick using L1 and R1 for turns, L2 and R2 for the engine, holding circle to focus on the landing, pressing L3 to deploy the landing gear, and maybe X to drop a payload, that is a lot of shit going on, and not all of it is necessary to the experience. There is no reason that I should be asked to manually deploy the landing gear; particularly when a slip of the thumb could cause the plane to tilt to the side rather as they're being deployed. Also, I do not have motion controls turned on, and the analog stick controls do feel too sensitive. In the first Trevor flying mission, I had to tilt, ever so slightly, to ditch the guy on the wing, or I'd suddenly be upside down and in a fight to right myself.

You don't need to have to simultaneously control all of these things in order for the planes to be fun. This isn't a sim, this is an open world game, where half the point of playing it is to fuck around. The plane controls get in the way of fucking around. There are better ways to make a plane spin around or fly upside down or on its side or turn left and right. What we've got here is a confusing control set up, and even worse, the game expects you to learn this very control set up in the middle of a firefight and then expects you to drop some stuff off and land, all in the matter of five minutes. It is not good game design to introduce something remotely complex in a hurried situation.

Also, I haven't taken anything as a personal attack. I'm just defending the position that GTA V's plane controls are flawed and not particularly fun due to being overly touchy and complex.

@believer258:

Planes handle as complexly as necessary to pass as a facsimile of the real thing. Anything less and they'd be mere toys, no longer virtual planes.

By my standard, flawed controls are defined by disfunctionality. Mere personal dislike is not evidence of the presence of flaws. By my experience, GTA V's plane controls are both fully functional and very capable, hence my strong disagreement with your assessment of it. The planes are not flawed. Same goes for the cars.

You dislike how it handles, and that's okay. Stating it's flawed, without giving any evidence other than your distaste, or your inability to handle it immediately? That's not critique that's holding up to my standards. I guess you are looking for fun toys to play in a sandbox with, and I am enjoying it for the cohesive world simulation it strives to be. In fact I'd like it a whole lot more if it was more *simmy*, especially the cars, as far as my tastes are concerned.

Tastes differ. As does the definition of *flawed* - it seems.

Your standards are not everyone else's standards. You may not feel that the game is flawed, but others do. Neither side is objectively correct; it comes down to a matter of opinion. What you're doing is less questioning my opinion and more attacking it. I don't really care what your standards are. By my standards, the game does a poor job of teaching the player how to fly and features flight controls that are too complex for their own good and get in the way of active enjoyment of the game. The driving suffers likewise in this regard. When I played Vice City, that game was hardly a simulation by any means. I certainly don't recall flying a plane to be the process that it is in GTAV. It's fine if this is the direction that the game wants to go in, but it's a direction that hampers my personal enjoyment.

If I have to wrangle with the controls in order to understand them, that's the fault of the game for not making them more immediately clear or understandable. I once tried wrangling with the controls of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex on the PS2. A game that among other crazy things in a control scheme designed by a madman, mapped jumping to R2, R1 to traversing ledges and ladders, L1 to firing weapons, grenades to L2, crouching to L3, picking up items with X, and switching weapons with triangle.

That is a batshit control scheme. I couldn't finish the game it was so awkward. And yet the game still had a far better tutorial for its insanity than GTAV provided for its flight mechanics alone.

Apple basically built an empire on making complex things very simple to use and charging a significant premium for it. Good design is good design, complexity/simplicitly is neither inherently good nor bad. There are cases where one is preferrable to the other. My life expierence tells me in the consumer market though that simplicity and intuitive design is heavily preferred by the vast majority of people for most applications.

And I think one of Nintendo's keys to their enormous past success is their core philosophy of easy to learn/use controls combined with varied,deep, hard to master gameplay

just figured I'd throw that out there.

haven't played GTA V so I can't comment as to where on the spectrum it falls on good control scheme design.

@seppli: The problem, then, is that I don't feel like these planes should be anything more complex than toys. That's how I treat everything not always with you in open world games - as extremely disposable toys. You're looking for a more realistic flying experience, which GTA V still isn't anything close to.

So i guess the forum ate my post? Fuck that i'm not writing it again.

Yeah, this thread has been very strange when it comes to submitting posts. It's like anything that gets posted is also put on a delay. No idea what's going on.

For the matter, I really don't understand how the plane's controls are complex. They're pretty standard for flying and seem easy enough to maneuver and land. Cars skid if you try and turn too sharply at too high of speeds; full tilt is for slower speeds. Helis I haven't quite gotten the handle of because I push the turns and skew the plane too far, but I wouldn't fault the game for having too sensitive controls; I just have to keep my movements basic for now.

@hailinel:

There is a flight school. They are well aware that many players need some hints and a lot of training. Being a pilot isn't the easiest thing in the world. Flying is the hardest thing to learn in GTA V, as it well should be, but it's far from being really hard.

Don't you enjoy things more, that you had to work for?

I'm not looking for a more realistic flying experience, I'm just looking to fly virutal planes, and not toys. GTA V is a world simulation. It's not a children's playground. GTA is the most successful open world franchise, because it's such an accomplished world simulation.

If things would feel fake, none of it would have the same impact. That's why it's important that planes feel like planes, and cars feel like cars. I'm saying, with adequate gamepad mastery and according experiences, planes and cars feel right.

Real life common sense and limitations apply to these activities, and that's what makes it so rewarding to go beyond what we dare in real life.

The game doesn't even tell you that there is a flight school until after the first flying mission. And of course I enjoy things that I have to work for. But not everything that I have to work for is enjoyable.

OK, I'd like to retract this since after going through the flying school, planes aren't nearly as complex as I initially thought, and in fact they're pretty fun to actually pilot. I posted this shortly after the mission where the game asks you to land a plane, despite barely any tutorialising before it, and I found it really aggravating as I kept destroying it on the runway over and over... That's still a load of bullshit, but more so as video game design and not necessarily the plane itself. So GTA V planes, you're alright in my book.

Oh, but helicopters can fuck right off.

Helicopters are definitely weirder than in past GTAs. The reticle flying all over the place is strange too.

Going to agree with the vast majority of people and say that I don't have any fun when trying to fly the planes and helicopters, and I personally want to have fun. If I wanted to learn how to fly a plane, I'd do a Drew and invest in gadgets and plane simulators and I might even enjoy it for five minutes. Not for me in this game though, no sir.

I still think you're missing my point. I do not want want real life common sense in my video games. I want to do awesome shit, and I want the game's controls to be simple enough for me to slip right into them and do that awesome shit. This game's plane controls do not hold up to the goal of allowing me to do awesome shit, and as a simulation they're not really all that great either.

Car controls, on the other hand, are fine. I've done some pretty awesome shit with cars in this game so far.

To give you an idea of what I like in my open world games, Sleeping Dogs has a button that slides your car to the left or right, allowing you to hit anyone to your left or right. It also allows you to lean out your door and leap forward to the car in front of you. There is absolutely no real-life common sense in this, but I found it incredibly fun. I don't necessarily want GTA to do that, but it would be nice if its plane controls were more intuitive and it would be extra-nice if that mission where they introduced planes wasn't so damn hectic.

Oh, and the game doesn't even tell you about the flight school beforehand. The only reason that I had any clue about how to fly a plane in the first place was because I'd already stolen one and flew it (purposefully) into a mountain.

Funny to see South Park mentioned. I was thinking the other day about how GTA's radio stations always sound like episodes of South Park.

Which brings as full circle to the downside of immediate playability. Immediately playable mechanics usually are much more shallow, offering little depth for mastery, and thusly offer less longterm viability.

GTA is kinda like Battlefield in that sense. There's lots of people who don't get over the hump of anyone thing in that game either, but those who do find sheer endless variety and depth in regardless what they chose to do.

I prefer depth over instant playability. It's my preference in games. It's not a flaw. It's flavour. Direction. We are arguing semantics for awhile now anyways. I'd say we'd talked in circles enough.

@clonedzero: and not express his dislike of something because you like that something. just like you expressed your dislike of something he likes. nice.

Call it what you like, but not everyone is going to like it, and some do consider them flaws. GTAV is not a flawless game. It's a good game, as far as I've played into it at this point, but a flawed game. I've said my piece on the flying and driving (why are you so focused on my vehicle criticism in particular?) and you have acting nothing short of abrasive in response to that.

How is personal dislike evidence of a present flaw? Flaws are based on facts, not preception. In the case of games, a flawed mechanic would be a disfunctional one. My experiences with the game state that the plane mechanics are not flawed, measured by this definition.

Your gripe with planes has mostly been about game structure, rather than the mechanic itself. It's just too complex for you to pick it up, when the game throws it at you. The controls themselves are functionally sound, and as simple as they can be - at least for such a complex thing as a plane.

I'd agree that GTA V is structurally flawed in the regard of introducing flight properly, since you don't get funneled into flightschool before having to fly in main story missions. Valid point. However I'll never be okay with you or anyone calling the flight model flawed because of your dislike or inability to control the planes immediately, because from personal experience I know that one can control them perfectly.

We have different definitions of the word flaw. We are arguing semantics. I glean your meaning and I disagree, and obviously we will never agree, since you too will not be swayed to at the very least reconsider your wording. So let's leave it at that. This is becoming tiring.

@seppli: You wanted this, and now you've got it. I and others perceive the game's flight mechanics flawed. You don't, but this is not an I'm right/you're wrong situation. You can enjoy the flying all you like, but don't expect everyone to fall in line with the same beliefs.

What I want is to hear is your definition of *flawed*. What I don't want is the constant repetition of *it is flawed, because I say so*-attitude you're giving me.

I don't believe that mere dislike is evidence of a present flaw. Nor is your inability to instantly control planes perfectly.

You seem unwilling to clarify your definition of flaw. I'd gladly give it a rest, if you did.

To state a mechanic be flawed, soley by the evidence of your perception, without producing conclusive proof, rings hollow.

I am looking for fact, and thus far, you have only offered opinion. By which standard is it flawed? Please define the parameters of your judgement.

@seppli: Question: Is there a way in GTAV to make helicopters stop and just hover in the air? That's my only real problem with them.

Helicopters are driven by inertia/momentum. To control a chopper is to manage inertia/momentum. You need to equalize the current movement by an equivalent opposite force to stop a helicopter.

For example, to stop forward movement, you need to pull back the stick until the forward momentum is equalized. This same rule applies to any direction of movement.

Chopper movement itself is manageable. However fine control is lacking. For example aiming the Scout Chopper's miniguns with willful precision is nigh impossible, certainly not to any reliable degree - if it actually is to more skillful hands than mine, I'd be surprised

Choppers are flawed, but can be a lot of fun nonetheless - as long as efficiently picking off dudes with your miniguns isn't your goal.

But he's explained why the plane controls are flawed twice, and I've mentioned how the planes feel too touchy and are a little hard to control once.

For the record, Seppli, your argument is valid but the way you've presented it seems like you're taking for granted the superiority of your argument. Both Hailinel and myself have extensively explained our views, occasionally repeating ourselves to you. And you've mostly said the same thing over and over. The planes are just too complex. The game does not call for such complexity in the mechanics of such a disposable tool. There's no reward in mastering overly complex mechanics when there isn't really all that much you can then do with them. You've mastered GTA V's flight controls. OK, so what? So what are you going to do with them? Do you ever use the planes for more than just flying from one place to another?

For a comparison, look at the car controls. You hold R2 to go, L2 to brake and reverse, X is handbrake, left analog stick is steer, right analog stick is move camera, and L1 is shoot your handgun, and the physics applied to the cars (while no Forza) are generally fine and fun to play around with. There's nothing here that isn't necessary, and it's all been quite useful while playing.

I'm about as far as you are and I have to agree with almost everything you've said. For some reason, I'm just not having as much fun with GTAV as I did with Sleeping Dogs or Saints Row. There are some simple things that those games did that GTAV just don't do. Why is there no restart mission function? How come I have to pause the game and bring up the map to set waypoints to missions when Sleeping Dogs did it so much easier a year ago?

Again, how is your personal experience conclusive evidence of a present flaw? All the things he has mentioned fall away with experience and training - therefor it isn't really a flaw.

If it was impossible to controls planes? If planes were overly limited, respecitively overly simplified - that'd pass as a flaw.

I don't like how complex it is, and I couldn't instantly control it - these opinions are not evidence of flaw, it's just personal perception. There's a difference between real flaw and mere perception.

In this case, the quality of his critique does not stand the test of time, because in time, he'd be able to control the planes fully. It's definitely not an impossiblility.

@seppli: Dude cut it out already. I'm right there with you in my enjoyment of the controls and physics on offer in the game and for pretty much the same reasons but you're just being an asshole about it and have been for a while. You're locked in a pissing contest over a meaningless choice of words.

I don't understand how the planes are so hard to control. They control like every other plane in every other game. Hell, they control like they did in San Andreas, and not many games have tried to improve upon the "flawed" flight mechanics of that game.

I actually think the planes are great and the helicopters are an exercise in utter frustration.

How is your personal experience conclusive evidence that there isn't a flaw? I've made my case, as has Beliver258, multiple times. If you can't grasp what both of us have explained, I don't know what else to tell you. You also don't know how well I could control the planes with time. Maybe I'll grow accustomed to them, or maybe not. Either way, the needlessly complex flight mechanics and poor introduction to them do not do the game any favors and do not make me eager for the next time I need to jump in one for a mission.

Because I believe that it can be done. I mean, plenty of people can deal with the planes just fine. All it takes is one *Yes, we can!* to beat out millions of *No, we cannot!*.

The guy who can, proves those who can't wrong. That guy isn't better than everybody else, he just does it better.

It's about inspiration to do better, not about putting you down.

@seppli: Your manner of speech has been far from inspiring.

While I kind of want to agree with you... Tony Hawk and his Ride peripheral/game. Apparently he's really fucking good at it, but ask anybody who's played it, well...y'know.

Yeah - sure there's extreme cases like that, but that's clearly the exception to the rule. I mean Tony Hawk Ride seems like a game made by Tony Hawk for Tony Hawk - and according to him, it succeeded in that. As a mass market product, the prerequisite of being Tony Hawk is a bit steep.

That's not a winning attitude. Deflection is what that is called, I believe.

Just checking in on this flight control "debate", tonight I had to do a mission where you had to hover a helicopter pretty close to the ground and if you drifted even a little left or right from the exact spot you needed to be hover, it didn't count. The controls can eat a dick. Getting from one place to another is fine but the precision that the game asks you to pull off is ridiculous. I was literally screaming "THIS IS TERRIBLE" at my TV screen.

I'm not sure you understand what deflection is. Because really, you have not been inspiring, and the longer you allow this to drag on, the less you're likely to become such.