horrible mouse control

[Elvis-Bunbury]

Hi there,
Since I'm a snooker player in real life, I have been urgently waiting for a good multiplayer online snooker game and had to play online pool for several years instead. So I was pretty happy when I found SnookerQ.

It's Ok that you don't simply copy the controls from established other billiard games, but your mouse control to aim the object ball is a horrible solution. Since there's no mouse cursor, it's a pure matter of luck if the aiming line moves clockwise or counterclockwise when moving the mouse. Sometimes it flips to the opposite direction if you invisibly cross the center of rotation and I have absolutely no idea why the shot power should be adjusted in the same mouse movement as the direction.

I tried to adjust mouse sensitivity, but that didn't make anything any better. Fine aiming is quite good if the line is close to the object ball already, but it takes lots of random movements to flip the line in the rough direction.

You can get used to everything, if you practice enough. But your solution for aiming is completely not intuitive and I couldn't bear it after a few sessions, since it took me 80% time to find the object ball with the aiming line and to readjust the power for every single shot.

The miniclip system is the most intuitive control I've ever tried, and nobody I know needed more than seconds to cope with it without any explanation. May be a visible mouse cursor is the only difference between best and worst.
I hope you don’t lose too many users switching from miniclip at the first try, before you have fixed that problem.

Please send me a message if you have added a mouse cursor or changed something else on the aiming system. I will come back then.

[Testing]

Hi Elvis,

Thanks for giving SnookerQ a try. We're still learning and improving the game as much as possible and it's feedback such as yours that will help us tackle issues along the way. We really appreciate your comments.

The idea with this aiming system is to click and drag to line up a shot. In my honest opinion, it's the quickest and easiest way to build breaks on a snooker PC game. In our testing phase, we had a user that almost beat Ronnie O'Sullivan's fastest 147 time. We'll work on ways to improve the way we can teach people how to play. The idea is to click and drag your mouse to the opposite direction of where you want the aiming line to appear. Once you're happy with your line-up, click again to lock the aim and then you can adjust the power by clicking on the power bar.

Please check this video which explains all the aiming basics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wegGn9VX-o

There is also a setting to change the aiming method from dragging away (Normal), to dragging towards your desired object ball (Reverse):


Give that a try. Some people find that easier.

I hope this helps.

Thank you.

[Elvis-Bunbury]

Thanks for your reply.

Reversing the aiming mode helps a bit and it feels not completely unnatural anymore, but still clumsy.
If the mouse coursor would be visible, the player could guess how far it is from the rotation centre and has an idea about the sensitivity. There's no logic reason why the cursor has to be invisible.

>> "it's the quickest and easiest way to build breaks on a snooker PC game"

... to adjust the angle and shot power in one movement?
I play real snooker for more than 30 years and my (real) aiming method is:

coarse direction > cue tip position (effet) > fine direction (compensating effet missmatch) > shot power

...and I can't think of any experienced snooker player doing this in a different order. It is completely nonsense to adjust fine angle at horizontal mouse axis and shot power at vertical axis at the same time.


>> "we had a user that almost beat Ronnie O'Sullivan's fastest 147 time."

I don't know why a snooker game should be as fast as possible, but if this is your focus, why do I have to click the white ball every single time at first?

Are there any unknown snooker rules which allow to use other balls than the white as cueball?
Is the position of the white ball not detectable by software, so that the user has to show it?

And the most important question: Would your fast player beat Ronnies time using a better aiming method?



I did not pay a dime so far and tried a new game for free. Thank you for that, it is your decision and your opinion that rules, no matter if it is "humble" or not.

But we have a popular phrase in German: "The worm has to be tasty for the fish, not for the fisherman."

You'll see how many users stay after their first try. The idea is great, but may be I'm not the only one who is disappointed by the handling.

[Testing]

Hi Elvis,

Good to know that the reverse aim has improved things slightly for you.

"... to adjust the angle and shot power in one movement?"
You can adjust the power by clicking on the cue ball and moving the mouse away but it's not ideal. Once you lock your aim, you can adjust the power by clicking on the power bar. Alternatively, you can use your mouse scroll to increase/decrease the power.
Please watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wegGn9VX-o

"I don't know why a snooker game should be as fast as possible, but if this is your focus, why do I have to click the white ball every single time at first?
Are there any unknown snooker rules which allow to use other balls than the white as cueball?
Is the position of the white ball not detectable by software, so that the user has to show it?"

The topic about Ronnie's fastest 147 was a counter against your statement that "it took me 80% time to find the object ball with the aiming line and to readjust the power for every single shot". The main point was that it doesn't take long to line up a shot once you get the hang of it. The whole shot taking process shouldn't take longer than 10 seconds per shot. The quicker players average around 4-5 seconds per shot. Some players can take over 10 seconds per shot but that's not common.

The reason why you have to click on the cue ball every time is because the mouse-click has many other responsibilities. Some of the important ones are:
- You can click on other balls and check for plants, doubles, snooker escape angles and to see if there aren't any obstructing balls in the way of the object ball.
- We have a couple of colour-blind users who struggle to tell the difference between the brown ball and red ball. Therefore, we have a feature where you can hold the SHIFT key and click on any ball, which will display a text popup for a couple of seconds telling you the colour of the ball.
- Right-click on a ball to nominate if you are snookered on all colours OR you are not directly aiming at any colour, so you'll have to declare.
- When it's your turn to break-off, click and drag the cue ball to place it anywhere in the "D".

To be clear, you CANNOT strike any other ball other than the cue ball.

"I did not pay a dime so far and tried a new game for free. Thank you for that, it is your decision and your opinion that rules, no matter if it is "humble" or not."
As I mentioned in my previous post, we're still learning and improving the game. It's still early days and we have much to add in the coming months. It's user feedback that will help the most. We appreciate your comments.

"But we have a popular phrase in German: "The worm has to be tasty for the fish, not for the fisherman."
You'll see how many users stay after their first try. The idea is great, but may be I'm not the only one who is disappointed by the handling."

I totally agree with the phrase. Very well put.

So far, believe it or not, from nearly 200 users you are the only one who has had any difficulty with the aiming. Well, you're the only one who has brought it up. If we do get more of the same feedback from other users, then it's a more serious topic for us to focus on and look for additional aiming options.

What I believe is that there is some sort of misunderstanding here. I'd really like to meet you on the game so I can go through the basics with you. If you can make some time, please let me know!

[Elvis-Bunbury]

Thanks for your time and detailed reply!

The right click to nominate the colors and the left click for moving the white on break-off are completely intuitive and logic, since you know that it's not a standard shot. But less then 2% of all shots are break-offs and much fewer are doubles. So why should I click the white at 98% of all shots when it's not needed, to prevent any additional action / keystrokes on 2% of certain shots?
And this doesn't ease the procedure when you are color blind in any way, since the Shift+Click could be done at any time.

I knew that I can readjust the shot power at last. I do so every single shot. But the fine adjustment of the angle gets easier the further away you are away from the rotation centre. This is not possible if one axis is used for power adjustment and at least I'm not able to move the mouse strictly independent in 2 orthogonal axes. So the direction aiming is less comfortable and the power adjustment is done twice at most shots.

The missaiming-effect when using side effet seems to be a bit stronger than in reality, but this is Ok and something one can get used to if practicing enough. But it's quite difficult to decide how much compensation angle is needed, when the effet / hit point on the white is selected afterwards. So I have to find the correct effet matching the already locked direction, which is completely the wrong way if you have ever played real snooker. What one has to do in your software is: deciding how much effet is nedded and memorize that → set the angle → remember your first decision and try to find that point at the white according to the already locked aiming missmatch. This is an iterative way, twice as complicated as in real life.


"believe it or not, from nearly 200 users you are the only one who has had any difficulty with the aiming."

I strongly doubt that this is true. May be I'm the only one who wrote here instead of leaving. And I don't know the percentage of people who make an effort to point out problems instead of tacitly accepting them. And I don't know the percentage of people who tested an other aiming system before to be able to compare. But there is generally very little activity here in this forum. And at last: There is not a single post here in which someone praises the system...

If there was a possibility to switch between your and an other (e.g. miniclip-like) aiming system and all/most users prefer your solution, then I would agree to your statement.


So you seem sure you've found the better system and the user should adapt. But why chase away potential users (even if they're few) simply because they are not able to see how much better your system is?

You did a lot of advertising on Facebook. The lobby is still empty most of the day. But I still like the idea of playing snooker versus my friends online instead of pool.

[SquaredCue]

Hello Elvis-Bunbury and everyone,

A new aiming mode has been implemented in the game and it is the default aiming mode. It provides a smoother, more convenient aiming experience with very little mouse motion, which is ideal for new players.

Experienced players who want the old, more sensitive aiming mode for the usual quick aiming, can select it in the game settings window (IN-GAME tab / Aiming Mode: Smooth / Sensitive).

[Elvis-Bunbury]

Thanks,
just today, I wanted to uninstall SnookerQ but started it one last time to have a look, if any update was available. It was. Just in time.

I still think the other points mentioned are still problematic, especially the effet missmatch, which is still much stronger than in reality, but the main aiming problem seems to be solved.

The new (default) mode feels much better and I had fun practicing instead of cancelling exasperated, so I'll give it a second chance.

I hope others who have had the same problems will return too!