As stated last week, the default right mouse button is assigned to the left hand, not aiming.
First thing to think about – we’re going to let you choose to be right or left handed, and support the ability to swap hands in-game. Your handedness dictates your ‘main hand’, with the opposite hand being your ‘offhand’. Aesthetic reasons aside, the game play enhancements are just something we don’t want to pass up.
Keeping this in mind, you should think of the left and right mouse buttons as being ‘use’ keys, with the left relating to your main hand and the right relating to your offhand. Naturally, this meant moving the aim/weapon position command to the middle mouse button. In any situation that requires you to choose to use or interact with something, you can opt to use what ever hand you prefer or the situation dictates. In some situations, you may choose to use both.
eg. Your team mate has been shot and incapacitated. Using your left hand (RMB), you reach out, grab them by their platforms drag handle and begin backing away to safety. Meanwhile, still clutching your M4 in your right hand, you blast away in attempt to keep your enemies at bay (LMB).
Another team mate arrives shortly and begins providing cover fire. Seizing the opportunity, you let your M4 drop to your chest and grab your fallen team mate with your now free right hand (LMB). Using both hands, you are able to drag your fallen team mate to safety more quickly.
It is an easy concept to follow and after the initial shock, it begins to feel quite natural and fluid. It also helps improve features like momentary flash light usage, stacking up and proper team mate interaction, ie. hand gestures & shoulder taps/squeezes.
Some of these were to be bound to a use key, but that would mean creating extra buttons for those that that weren’t. This system keeps extra keys to a minimum, lets the player decide which hand to use and improves immersion. There are some interesting game play related side effects, but we are rather curious to see how many people figure those out 🙂
