I can't use motion controls to save my life...

[OogieBoogie]

So I am an aging gamer. Not as old as some, but I promise older than many. I grew up with 1/2 button controls and over time, I found adapting to many more buttons to be possible and I do just fine on any modern standard controller, but I SUCK at using the motion controls in this game. I mean, it is terrible. I perform far better when I go to standard stick aiming...

I am not asking for tips, as I do not think anything more than "keep practicing with it" can really be said...the point of this is to see from the community if others have my issue and perform just fine with stick aiming as well?

 

[Dessgeega]

One question: How do you hold it? That one bit seems to trip up a lot of folks.

 

[OogieBoogie]

One question: How do you hold it? That one bit seems to trip up a lot of folks.

Well I use a pro controller...so I guess the only way one can hold a pro controller o.o

 

[Dessgeega]

Oh, thought you were talking about 1, since playtime on 2's been pretty limited so far :P

 

[OogieBoogie]

Oh, thought you were talking about 1, since playtime on 2's been pretty limited so far :p

I didn't play a whole lot of 1 beyond the campaign, but even then, I couldn't use it well. Yeah I know we only had a weekend so far, but I trip up and get confused even while using motion controls. It just feels so unnatural.

 

[Lonely_Dolphin]

I didn't like it at all at first either, so I played Splatoon with sticks only and never felt the need to try motion controls again. But then Splatoon 2 got announced and revealed new maneuvers in dodgerolling and vertical flicking. I feel they require being able to aim while pressing the jump button to be most effective, thus I decided I had to learn motion. Yet again I didn't like it at first, but I forced myself to stick with it and eventually got used to it!

 

[Fisherman]

Just keep using it. In Splatoon 1 I didn't like them so I used stock controls, but then people told me that with motion controls you could turn around faster and more precise. So I turned them on and kept trying to use the stick and found them awkward, but the more I used them the better I got. Now I can't play without motion controls and the stick feels awkward.

 

[OogieBoogie]

It is far from the first time I have heard the "I just kept playing and eventually I was better with motion controls"...I am stepping out of many comfort zones with this game XD

 

[Dessgeega]

On average, it seems to take people a few hours to adjust. How many hours varies, with you it might be many :P

 

[OogieBoogie]

On average, it seems to take people a few hours to adjust. How many hours varies, with you it might be many :p

*cries* okay....so answer me this...is it normal for you to feel like you have your controller like WAYYY off to the left and your forget to recenter the camera with Y until you are practically facing away from the TV? I think I get "off the center" WAY too often. Is it normal to have to tap Y every few seconds to get your bearings back??

 

[Fisherman]

I tap "y" every time I respawn and whenever I'm refilling my ink. I most press it like 20 times per match. It took me like a week to get used to motion controls.

 

[Dessgeega]

Another thing you can try is, after returning your hands to the normal position, hold the right stick until the camera catches up with you. That works in most situations that aren't heavy combat.

 

[Kise Ryota]

Is it normal to have to tap Y every few seconds to get your bearings back??

I reset the camera every 10 seconds.

 

[Hero of Lime]

So for a vast majority of my Splatoon playing, I used sticks. Let's say with my 600 hours on the game, 570 using sticks. Just sometime last month, I returned to the game with the intent to learn motion controls and refresh myself with the game. Instead of jumping into online, I played the entire single player again, with only motion, which really helped. Once I decided to go into turf with motion, it took maybe 3 or 4 hour-ish sessions of being iffy with them to having a great grasp of them. Within a week of playing motion, I would say I caught up to my skill level from before, and in some ways exceeding it, especially with the added accuracy.

My performance before was perfectly fine, I rarely felt I was at a disadvantage, but the times where I was being clearly outaimed got to me. While that still happens due to human error on my part, I have a bit more confidence in my abilities now, even if my sticks career got me to S+ just fine. I advise switching (insert Switch click noise) to motion, but I don't think it's super necessary to be good at the game. My advice would be to play the single player in 2 with motion, you may just pick it up easier than you think.

 

[Torloth]

So I am an aging gamer. Not as old as some, but I promise older than many. I grew up with 1/2 button controls and over time, I found adapting to many more buttons to be possible and I do just fine on any modern standard controller, but I SUCK at using the motion controls in this game. I mean, it is terrible. I perform far better when I go to standard stick aiming...

I am not asking for tips, as I do not think anything more than "keep practicing with it" can really be said...the point of this is to see from the community if others have my issue and perform just fine with stick aiming as well?

I'm in the same boat motion feels super unnatural on a controller but I'm determined to give it another try.
When I started up the demo and I was greeted by over sensitive motion controls.
I did the tutorial but did what I always did. Turn off motion. Then decided to play around with the sensitivity untill I found something I liked.
I set it to -5 the lowest and looked around I found it to be the most comfortable to me. And press Y when you feel any strain in your wrists, after addressing the angle.
The only thing that bothers me is that there is no Up and down when you enable motion.

 

[Ulk]

I can tell you right off the bat, you will be at an undeniable disadvantage if you switch to stick controls. It's a good thing and very commendable that you're at least trying and not immediately switching to stick controls. Stick control users in most cases switch to motion control eventually anyway, and if there is one thing more difficult than learning to play this game with motion control, it's switching to motion control after getting used to stick controls.

Not to say there are no good stick control players. But even good stick control players use only a part of their potential and are always at a disadvantage.

All I can tell you is that the majority of players had the exact same issue as you since day one of Splatoon 1. It's just a matter of biting the bullet. Believe me, hardly anyone who never played with motion controls before thought they felt natural when they first played Splatoon. I thought they felt unnatural too, and so did the absolute majority of the community. You are not just "not alone" with this, you are a textbook Splatoon player experiencing the struggle most of us had to deal with.

I know you didn't want to hear advice, especially not this kind of advice, but I can honestly just recommend to keep practicing with it and bite the bullet now, because chances are high you're going to want to bite the bullet later, which will make it even more difficult. Don't even just occasionally switch to stick controls. Stick to motion controls and I guarantee you, before you know it it will feel natural.

 

[OogieBoogie]

Well......a lot of people knocked Skyward Sword for its motion controls and I found them really fun as the game progressed. *sigh* I DO want to be as good as I can be.....guess it would be best to START with motion controls as opposed to trying to pick them up later.

 

[dylan_not_bob]

Took me a while to get used to them and I know what helped me was playing around with sensitivity levels. The lower sensitivities felt still and unnatural, but when I set to higher levels it felt way more fluid. Just from playing the Test Fire and in the lobby a bit for the Splatfest Premiere I can also tell that using the pro will start to feel more natural much more quickly than the Wii U tablet did, at lease for me personally.

Do you have Zelda on your Switch? It's not a 1:1 ration by any means, but maybe playing around with the motion controls on the Bow could hel as a bit of a warm-up?

 

[dylan_not_bob]

And yes, I reset the camera basically every time I move in a new direction.

 

[NotAPerso]

Just going to put this out there, the right stick still controls left/right motion! So for most of your motion (which will be turning left and right) you can use the right thumbstick. If you are moving for everything it will be extremely uncomfortable. The only time you should move your controller left/right is for fine tuning your aim on an opponent (and rarely for swiveling quickly while also holding the thumbstick).

Primarily motion controls should be used for up/down movement or movement while jumping.

When you understand how to connect the thumbstick movement with the motion, that's when motion controls will really click.