Accuracy Comparison of Motion Controls between Joy Con and Pro Controllers

[Squirty]

For anyone reading who is unsure of how the test was conducted, Squirty built a multi-tiered lazy susan and secured the Wii U Gamepad, the Switch Pro Controller, and the Joycon Grip to each tier. This configuration allowed him to move controllers for each console with the same degree of rotation and at the same speed and velocity while playing the Splatoon 2 test fire and Splatoon 1 live simultaneously. He changed the sensitivity of each game between to see how the settings correlated.

I'm sure he'll want to be more thorough in reviewing footage before publishing his results (he did spend a year testing Smash, after all), but some of his preliminary findings were as follows (please bear in mind that I'm summarizing in my own words what he shared on our team discord server and am taking some liberties with inferences based on what he said):
-There is nothing inherently wrong with how the Switch handles Gyro. There is no evidence to suggest that the Splatoon 2 demo attempts to take any shortcuts or overcompensate in any way that is more aggressive than Splatoon 1.
-Sensitivity scaling (or perhaps just the default point of reference) is different between the two games. Anecdotally, the closest correlation he could find immediately following the test was between +5.0 sensitivity on the Switch and -0.5 on the Wii U. Take this information with a grain of a salt, because there are probably some factors that can't be accounted for, like the placement of the accelerometers in each controller and how their distances from the point of rotation might affect results or how off-center placement of the accelerometers (which is almost certainly the case in the Joycon Grip) might similarly affect results. The takeaway therefore should not be that -0.5 = 5.0 from Wii U to Switch, but just that there is a noticeable difference.
-Adjustments will need to be made when learning to play on the Switch. We're not going to get a 1:1 ratio that allows us to transfer our muscle memory informed by hundreds to thousands of hours of gameplay seamlessly from one game to the other. We basically already knew this given the change in size, weight, and shape between controllers, but testing suggests that there will be other factors that add to the learning curve.
-The Switch will handle subtleties in motion control better than the Wii U. Squirty described the Switch's response as "less confused" than the Wii U's when doing things like slowly rotating and coming to a stop.
-Drift correction is least aggressive on the Switch Pro Controller among the three configurations tested. This is a good thing for any Switch owners who might have been worried they'd have to bench their $70 USD investment.

tl;dr version: Switch has a lot of upside, but a lot of people will experience growing pains while adjusting to Splatoon 2.

I look forward to Squirty politely letting me know I'm an idiot and that I've completely misrepresented what he said. :p

Actually, all that sounds right to me. Thanks dogjoke! :) <3

 

[blu]

If -0.5 = +5 in Splatoon 2, does that mean a positive 0.5 sensitivity will be equivalent to a +6 (with 0 being a +5.5)?

I guess I'm trying to get a sense of how the scale would work once I get my hands on the game, which will be awhile, but don't wanna spend to much time dialing down to my sensitivity preference from the first game. In fact, I think it would be great if we created a conversion scale on where all of us would fall on in regards to our preferred gyro numbers.

 

[Squirty]

If -0.5 = +5 in Splatoon 2, does that mean a positive 0.5 sensitivity will be equivalent to a +6 (with 0 being a +5.5)?

I guess I'm trying to get a sense of how the scale would work once I get my hands on the game, which will be awhile, but don't wanna spend to much time dialing down to my sensitivity preference from the first game. In fact, I think it would be great if we created a conversion scale on where all of us would fall on in regards to our preferred gyro numbers.

Splatoon 2 testfire only allowed sensitivity up to +5.0, so +6.0 or +5.5 were not options.

I also did not test a second sensitivity mapping between the two games, so I don't know how it scales. I will plan to do this when Splatoon 2 is released.

 

[blu]

Splatoon 2 testfire only allowed sensitivity up to +5.0, so +6.0 or +5.5 were not options.

I also did not test a second sensitivity mapping between the two games, so I don't know how it scales. I will plan to do this when Splatoon 2 is released.

well, that's odd. In that case I wonder if these settings are even final. Thanks in advance!

 

[binx]

Hello there,

I believe you'll do an even more precise comparison between Joy-Cons and Pro when the game will be released, is that correct? If it is, please tell here when you think you'll be streaming.

 

[Kise Ryota]

Waiting for more tests :D

 

[Squirty]

Hey, just a quick update: I'm working on a test plan right now (was just out of town when the news hit about first splatfest.)

I'll try and have at least a comparison between wii u and pro controller before first splatfest... and hopefully a comparison of the other three configurations soon after (or at least a summary of results on same day as splatfest).

I'll post back soon with my plan so you can give input if there's something I might be forgetting to check

 

[Ibusama]

Great work squirty, I'm also interested in the difference between pro and con.

Awaiting your test with the full game :)

 

[Ansible]

Beautiful work!

Curious what your results will be in the full version and if we'll see further accuracy changes in future updates for both the game and system.

And wow I knew the sensitivity was different and bumped up but I had no idea it was by that much!

 

[Squirty]

Hey again!

As the first Splatoon 2 Splatfest approaches, a lot of people have been reporting that the motion controls feel unresponsive (laggy/high latency). I feel this myself. It's a big difference from what we're used to on the Wii U which had an obviously lower latency. This is such a visible difference that I feel any of my obsessive and precise approaches to testing it would be simply overkill. It seems everyone can already feel the difference.

A new wrinkle has been introduced as well: I've heard some people who have early access to Splatoon 2 hero mode say that it feels a lot better than the Splatfest demo that the public has been trying. It is possible that Nintendo has a fix for this latency that will be introduced when Splatoon 2 launches in its finished form.

My tests take quite a bit of effort and time to set up and perform, so I'm just going to hold out until the game has actually been released rather than testing with the Splatfest build of the game. Hopefully things are fixed by day 1...

 

[sygys.nl]

I can atleast say that the manual controls are off. Both joycons and pro controller have a too big dead zone in the Y axis. in wich the controls do not react naturally when moving up and down with the right stick. left and right work like it should. But when moving slightly up or down the movement of the screen seems to snap on the x axis until you pull the stick further up or down in wich you will move too fast.

This makes manually aiming a big pain. This happens on both the joycons and pro controller.

Also there seems to be a tremendous amount of output lag when moving around. the input of the controller to output on screen has a noticable delay in it. Im not really sure why that is, because the FPS seem to be good. When playing Zelda the controls feel allot more snappy and direct.

 

[Kise Ryota]

I hope it really has a fix.

 

[Squirty]

Hey everyone, I've got some results on a comparison between Wii U and Switch. No comparison of joy con vs. grip yet -- I'll try and do that soon. Please see the edited original post for Wii U vs. Switch comparison: https://squidboards.com/threads/acc...ls-between-joy-con-and-pro-controllers.28620/

 

[knubie]

It seems like the switch has more input latency than the wii u in general. Even button presses were slower between the two.

 

[Squirty]

It seems like the switch has more input latency than the wii u in general. Even button presses were slower between the two.

Yeah, I remember thinking MK8: Deluxe felt "loose" (I have over 150 hours in MK8 for Wii U). So I also suspect this is a problem with the Switch and not something specific to Splatoon.

 

[Kise Ryota]

www.twitch.tv/videos/160777232

 

[Squirty]

Hey everyone! Sorry I'm late giving final results, but I wanted to give a quick update:
The simple summary is: I'm having a very hard time finding any substantial differences between Pro Controller, separate Joy Cons, or Joy Cons in Grip. I've done the test and have about 45 min of video footage I'm trying to analyze. It seems that the only notable difference is whether you have a good calibration of motion controls on your controller! I will eventually get the full analysis completed with video data, but at this point I think it's pretty safe to say that the differences in accuracy are very subtle, if there are any at all.

(I've updated OP to include the above text)

 

[Squirty]

In this thread we talked a bit about the difference in latency between Splatoon 1 and Splatoon 2. I've made a new thread for that here, and thought I'd mention to anyone following this thread: https://squidboards.com/threads/splatoon-2-input-lag-aresplatoon2controlsfixed-com.31578/