The mouse control in DayZ really needs some love. I'll go over my problems one at a time:
- Separate X and Y sensitivity:
Arma/DayZ are the only games where I see these be visibly separated values in the GUI. Many games you can change X and Y sens with console commands, but 99% of PC players want one thing above all: Consistency. Separating these values and exposing them to the players can be confusing, especially since if I use the same X and Y values on the slider, my X axis is faster than my Y axis in-game. This confuses the hell out of me, and takes a lot of tuning to get right.
- Using sliders to determine the sensitivity value over numeric values:
I'm pretty sure nobody likes sliders for these. I have no way to easily quantify if my sensitivity is too low or too high, and when compounded by the fact that I have to individually configure X and Y axis there is an entire other level of difficulty added to get my sensitivity to somewhere comfortable. Let me set my sensitivity to 1, or 1.1, or 0.8, or 5.2 or essentially any numeric value that will keep my X and Y axis acting completely symmetrical.
- Mouse acceleration turned on by default and can't be toggled off:
Not only am I completely convinced that almost nobody prefers playing FPS games with mouse accel on, I can't comprehend why it's on by default in the first place. Those who aren't aware of what it does will have it mess with their ability to aim, and those who are aware will be frustrated until they can turn it off.
Beyond that, I've noticed that there is some degree of negative acceleration in this game (faster you move the mouse, slower you move in-game ie: expected behavior is inverted). This is a great way to kill immersion - once I realize that I can't control my character properly I have to stop playing DayZ and start playing Crappy Arma Avatar Operator: The Game, akin to trying to operate heavy machinery with a bunch of joysticks - slow and clunky.
All in all, my mouse sensitivity is never consistent and I can't figure out why. It should be proportional to my FOV (if I am zoomed, sens is decreased) and maybe my stance.
- Lowest possible sensitivity on slider is still not low enough for low sensitivity players like me:
I play most FPS games at a sensitivity of 40cm/360 (AKA it takes me 40 centimeters to complete a full 360 degree turn in game). Even with the X-axis slider all the way to the lowest setting, my sensitivity is anywhere from 4-16cm/360 with my Razer Taipan mouse at 1200 DPI (what I use by default in windows). I would really like to be able to set my sensitivity to what I prefer without the need of dropping my mouse's DPI to something abysmally low.
I realize DayZ is far from a twitch FPS like Quake, but if there is one thing that irks me more than anything else with FPS games it's poor mouse optimization and bad netcode. DayZ is, for the most part, slow-paced enough that these problems don't rear their ugly heads, but with melee weapons and the need to circle strafe around enemies (I got into three seperate melee duels with other bambis in Elektro today and won because I circle strafed but not after taking unnecessary hits because I struggled to aim at them) to make yourself hard to hit I really would like my mouse to behave properly instead of jittery, inconsistent and clunky. PLEASE give the mouse some love - at least change your UI to use NUMERIC VALUES instead of sliders.