Let's Talk Swimming

[GeneralWalnut]

Skimming the toybox feedback thread it seemed like swimming was the thing that came up most frequently. As such, I figured it might be helpful to have a thread dedicated to discussion of the mechanic, just in case Playtonic find it helpful to have some of the feedback parsed a little bit.

In the feedback thread I mentioned some ways I felt the swimming currently there could be refined some. On further reflection I think I feel that at its core the current swimming system doesn't have the maneuverability or speed of the swimming in a game like Banjo Tooie.

I realize it's natural to lean towards what you're already used to, but I think the 3 speed swim in Tooie really managed to find a nice balance of precision and speed. The Yooka-Laylee Toybox swim, to me, feels tedious and slow, which is very much in contrast with how great the rest of the movement feels.

So let's talk about it some, if you've got the toy box what do you think of the swimming? Do you prefer the mechanics present in Banjo, or perhaps something else? Let's hear it!

[Taylor]

I had no issue with the swimming. I liked it. I actually find BK's mechanic more cumbersome.

Just wish I could swim faster by holding a button, maybe X and A at the same time.

[GeneralWalnut]

[Quarg Ranger]

I would love to swim faster, but apart from that, I thought that the height thing worked out super well. I normally find it difficult to navigate underwater in games, controls often make it difficult for any high level of precision (the camera can sometimes be to blame too). A 2D stick exploring a 3D space is always going to be difficult.

Mapping the vertical dimension to the buttons solved the issue in a very elegant, very practical way, I thought.

[Lufkin]

I don't like it very much, I prefer Banjo-Kazooie's method.

They always could put both in the game and make it switchable in the options.

[Nemo]

I prefer the swimming controls of Banjo-Tooie over that of Yooka-Laylee. However, I doubt the control scheme would transfer very well onto mouse and keyboard.

[GeneralWalnut]

[NasiDe]

Can you describe what BK's swimming was like? I might be one of the few people that has no idea what it was like. SM64's?

I myself was using the keyboard and mouse and it certainly takes a bit to get used to actually. I thought it might be easier with a gamepad since it suggests it, but dunno with how you guys are having trouble with it.

[GeneralWalnut]

[NasiDe]

[Afevis]

I'll admit, the second I dove underwater, I started spamming X&A in hopes that you could fastswim just like in BT. I prefer flight type swimming like BK/BT had.

[Einherjar]

honestly i do agree that swimming felt really slow compared to the banjo games, and that I also tried to see if holding down both buttons would make you go faster

i think what might work too would be to keep the x to go down/a to go up mechanic, but add another button (maybe one of the triggers?) to swim faster so as to preserve the two buttons controlling the height while still adding a way to move faster under the water

[CrazyChaos]

I don't mind the current style, but it definitely needs to be more responsive. It feels a bit delayed when moving up or down. A small tap of A or X/Left Trigger should not make such a large movement either, I like a little more control similar to how small taps of the jump button give lower jumps while holding it gives the full height. Also makes some consistency in the control schemes that makes it feel natural. I do like that LT can be used instead of X, which also gives consistency since LT is used for crouching on land.

And of course, a way to swim faster would be nice. That feels lower in priority to me though.

The B-K style would be fine as well.

[Tamashii7]

The swimming controls felt noticeably clunky to me. I don't think using the X and A buttons (Xbox 360 controller) to rise and sink in the water is a bad idea, but it did feel really imprecise and unresponsive. It took a while for Yooka to readjust to swim straight after I pressed and released one of the rise/sink buttons.

I do think Yooka and Laylee should have two modes of swimming speed, like Yooka spinning his tail to propel them forward, which could be mapped to the same button as Yooka's roll. I would imagine the devs already plan to include a move like that later in the game though.

[Pisuke85]

To sum up what I wrote elsewhere, the actions buttons could be used to perform various swimming style (breaststroke, flutter kick or whatever) while the control stick would be associated to adjust heading, to dive and surface.

That works well when it comes to aiming. I also remember Talon Torpedo to work this way in BT.

[Natendo]

This was actually my biggest gripe with the Toybox. Nay, it was my only gripe. It feels way a bit clunky. Everything else feels perfect, I would just like to see more responsive and more precise swimming controls. When I release x, Yooka continues to swim downwards for a second instead of flowing smoothly into a perfect horizontal swim.
Currently the swimming is almost identical to the controls of ratchet and clank games, just not as polished. I know this is pre-alpha, but please Playtonic, I've been playing Banjo-Kazooie and Toole for years, just started dabbeling in the speed running community. Everything is perfect just tweek swimming.

[Punksthetic]

I'm not sure what it is about these two different swim settings, but I think it may be the one thing to separate the human race as we know it. In the future, people will be divided not by race, religion, or gender. No, we will be divided upon the style of swimming we prefer in Yooka-Laylee.

That being said, I'm with the majority in saying that the current swim setting feels clunky and overly complicated. All you need is a button to start swimming (with different speeds mapped to a different button, perhaps) and a direction to steer with the control stick. Shouldn't be too much more complicated than that.

With the current setup, the reason I think it's clunky is because I can't just press a button to swim, I have to think about exactly where I want to go in 3D space first: Up or down. Whereas if I'm swimming organically, I might want to swirl around a bit, oscillating between up and down at *free will*. And I think that's the point here. We want as much freedom of choice in this of where to go at any time... Leave the complex swimming controls to Mario Sunshine, which was easily the worst part of that game.

[GeneralWalnut]

[CheatoRomani]

[Scraps69]

Im really surprised. The BK swimming was hardly to do. These swimming mechanics are a lot more stable with less stuffing around. I recently played BK and this swimming mechanic is so much better.