ValveSoftware
[L4D2 Beta][Linux] Radial menu navgiation off-center
When invoking the vocalization radial menus (Orders and Q&A), the center is often shifted to left, which makes navigation a bit tricky. In the Q&A menu, for example, a simple mouse down issues "Yes" instead of "Sorry", a mouse up "Thank You" instead of "Laugh". Naturally, selecting entries on the right side is even more difficult.
The other issue has a good suggestion:
stevethepocket commented 16 hours ago
You know what? I'd be happy if they just retooled this menu to work like the buy menu in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, where pressing (and releasing) the key brings up a menu you can click with your actual mouse pointer. After dealing with Team Fortress 2's voice command menu, the ones in the Left 4 Dead games (and the gesture menus in Portal 2) felt very awkward.
I think that makes a lot of sense -- it's easier to point a visible cursor than an invisible one. I find it quite error-prone to pick the right radial item during the heat of battle (even in the Windows version of L4D2, where it works properly).
I confirm this error as of today (2013-05-22) in Left 4 Dead 2 Beta for Linux.
OS: Debian GNU/Linux 7.0 amd64 DE: KDE 4.8.4
I also have the same problem, the selection often starts on the left instead of the center
for example: pressing z will immediately focus on Be Carefull instead of Look!, same for x
OS: Arch Linux
Confirmed 2013-07-12 on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
As far as the suggestion above to invoke counter strike type commands, I believe the goal is that the game behaves the same regardless of OS. Wouldn't it be much better to simply resolve the issue?
Making the game work the same on all platforms would be better than the current situation, but I think making the menus more usable would be a big improvement. :)
I still have this problem (2014/05/17)
it's been a year and it's not fixed yet...
This could also be a Source game issue rather than just L4D2 since Nuclear Dawn also has this problem.
I'm also having this problem. Would be better to have a drop-down menu for voice commands rather than the radial wheel, like in Tribes Ascend or Killing Floor.
Kona actually has a great radial menu; all they added was an arrow that connects the centre of the circle to where the mouse currently is. It's amazing how such a small change makes a big usability improvement.
Maybe it's time to open source the engine! It seems to be unmaintained at this point (on Linux, at least).
I love how all the id Software games get opensourced so quickly after release. Letting the community keep enhancing the engine really keeps them alive and playable. It's amazing that people are still playing and developing variants of Quake 3, which is over 20 years old!
