i use one of those trackball mice with the ball on top. first time i tried it i never went back, no need to worry about having a proper surface or desk space for a mouse ever again. if you reach the side of your desk using an optical mouse, you have to pick the mouse up and move it all the way to the other side of the desk, while is a proper ball mouse (a good one without too much resistance) when you flick the ball it can continue spinning a bit even as you release it, so you can flick it to the side and then bend your wrist slightly to then flick it again, and the mouse cursor will just continue moving without stopping, which in games you can do this to have endless turning around, when turning is always stuttery on an optical mouse due to hitting the end of the desk. it takes a little bit to get used to, but at least a good one with limited resistance and a large ball, you can easily get just as accurate as an optical mouse as well. the only downside i find is that i do have to take the trackball out and clean it like the ones on the bottom.
You make good points and it’s very rational, but for some reason, having used an optical mouse for most of my life but also knowing what a trackball is like (but just not being used to one, it accounting for like 0.005% of my mouse usage or something), I just…
They must be comparing a wired track ball mouse to wireless mice.
Having used trackball mice quite a lot before optical mice became common place, I can see a good wired trackball mouse being more responsive than an optical or even wireless laser mouse, but you would have to buy a truly craptastic wired laser mouse to find a trackball mouse better. The only way I could see it even being a possibility is if your desktop is made of glossy plastic or something else that could confuse the laser.
I can see it being more responsive yes, and all the other benefits he mentions as well.
It’s just such a different way of controlling the aim of your character that my brain refuses to believe it’s any good. I’ve seen some gamers going with one of those actually large trackballs (whereas the one I was thinking about was like a huge ergonomic mouse which had a trackball on top of it. Not tiny, but not massive and you only used your thumb to move it.
If you use one of those massive ones you can use your entire hand on, then where’d you click? Like if you don’t click, just aim, then the other hand has to do moving and shooting, and in games like deadlock you’re already kinda full with things you have to manage on kb.
But yeah I def see your point, thinking of like early 2000’s optical mice. I just a few months ago bought the first wireless mouse for like 20 years. I didn’t trust their speed in gaming (even though I managed to game with the wireless one 20 years ago as well.)
It’s just it’d take so much getting used to. Like in League I’m jealous of the people who started playing using custom key binds and moving the camera from the keyboard. I think it just is objectively better (because you don’t need to take your cursor away from the enemy to move your screem, etc), but I’m just getting to such an age that I can’t be bothered to learn a completely new control scheme to replace one I be used for more than 10 years.
Can’t see myself playing FPS without a trackball. You can also use lower mouse sensitivity for higher accuracy, because you can flick. If you don’t like that all the time, there’s also good old Wolfenstain Enemy Territory trick where you bind the trigger button to drop your mouse sensitivity for that easy headshot.
i use one of those trackball mice with the ball on top. first time i tried it i never went back, no need to worry about having a proper surface or desk space for a mouse ever again. if you reach the side of your desk using an optical mouse, you have to pick the mouse up and move it all the way to the other side of the desk, while is a proper ball mouse (a good one without too much resistance) when you flick the ball it can continue spinning a bit even as you release it, so you can flick it to the side and then bend your wrist slightly to then flick it again, and the mouse cursor will just continue moving without stopping, which in games you can do this to have endless turning around, when turning is always stuttery on an optical mouse due to hitting the end of the desk. it takes a little bit to get used to, but at least a good one with limited resistance and a large ball, you can easily get just as accurate as an optical mouse as well. the only downside i find is that i do have to take the trackball out and clean it like the ones on the bottom.
You make good points and it’s very rational, but for some reason, having used an optical mouse for most of my life but also knowing what a trackball is like (but just not being used to one, it accounting for like 0.005% of my mouse usage or something), I just…
They must be comparing a wired track ball mouse to wireless mice.
Having used trackball mice quite a lot before optical mice became common place, I can see a good wired trackball mouse being more responsive than an optical or even wireless laser mouse, but you would have to buy a truly craptastic wired laser mouse to find a trackball mouse better. The only way I could see it even being a possibility is if your desktop is made of glossy plastic or something else that could confuse the laser.
I can see it being more responsive yes, and all the other benefits he mentions as well.
It’s just such a different way of controlling the aim of your character that my brain refuses to believe it’s any good. I’ve seen some gamers going with one of those actually large trackballs (whereas the one I was thinking about was like a huge ergonomic mouse which had a trackball on top of it. Not tiny, but not massive and you only used your thumb to move it.
If you use one of those massive ones you can use your entire hand on, then where’d you click? Like if you don’t click, just aim, then the other hand has to do moving and shooting, and in games like deadlock you’re already kinda full with things you have to manage on kb.
But yeah I def see your point, thinking of like early 2000’s optical mice. I just a few months ago bought the first wireless mouse for like 20 years. I didn’t trust their speed in gaming (even though I managed to game with the wireless one 20 years ago as well.)
It’s just it’d take so much getting used to. Like in League I’m jealous of the people who started playing using custom key binds and moving the camera from the keyboard. I think it just is objectively better (because you don’t need to take your cursor away from the enemy to move your screem, etc), but I’m just getting to such an age that I can’t be bothered to learn a completely new control scheme to replace one I be used for more than 10 years.
Can’t see myself playing FPS without a trackball. You can also use lower mouse sensitivity for higher accuracy, because you can flick. If you don’t like that all the time, there’s also good old Wolfenstain Enemy Territory trick where you bind the trigger button to drop your mouse sensitivity for that easy headshot.