Same, L1/L2 or R1/R2 will always be instantly clear to me. I believe it is just the superior way of naming these buttons. Even if you are an old Xbox gamer, I can't imagine R1/R2 would not make immidiate sense to you.
That's what "Press the right bumper" looks like to someone speaking a Slavic or Hispanic language. Dafuq is R? I don't have an R. I have a derecha. Did you mean derecha? And dafuq is a bumper supposed to be?
No but like, what even is this argument? I grew up in a Spanish speaking country and by like 4 years old I already knew L and R meant left and right. Did you never use headphones? Or stereo speakers?
I get not getting B and T (for bumper and trigger) but L and R has been for like 30 years a worldwide standard
To me it doesn’t. I never know if L1 is the shoulder button or the trigger. I don’t understand the numbering. If the shoulder is L1 then I’d assume the numbering goes top to bottom, but in that case why is the stick L3 and not L1?
Just because you don’t, doesn’t mean nobody else would. Besides, my main issue is with the stick that’s technically the highest and closest to you, so why is it L3?
Exactly! I remember when I first played Ape Escape, which as far as I know, is the game that really first introduced the dual stick control. That game was SO difficult for my 9 year old brain, mainly because no other game had used the sticks like that.
I know that. But I was naturally asking about DualShock supported games here; whether or not any of them used the stick buttons. Given that it was possible to my knowledge, there had to have been some.
I see. This kind of underlines the issue with numbering though, as opposed to directly naming buttons.
Someone else mentioned not being native English speaker (which I am also not) and that’s a fair point, I suppose.
Because they're extras. Not every game would use the stick buttons. But almost every game would use the 1s and 2s.
EDIT: Correction, it was due to the fact that the PS1 did not even have joysticks, and thus no stickbuttons, as other commenters have kindly pointed out
Tbf, my purwiew really wasn't of the stick buttons to begin with. To name those RS/LS never caused me any issues. It's the RB/RT stuff that is sometimes annoying.
Yeah, I forgot that bit of the lore. My first console was the Nintendo64, after which I went the PS2+ route (now PC), so I lack the vivid childhood memeroies of it.
The naming of the stick ’buttons’ are kinda funky wouldn’t you agree? L3 and R3 at least appears to be solely PlayStation’s domain so there shouldn’t be any confusions about that. But outside of that whether or not they’re LS and RS or simply L and R seems to be all over the place…
I understand. I think it depends on what you learned those buttons on. I mainly use the PS controller nowadays and I don’t normally have issues finding L1 and L2 but sometimes, when I’m not in the flow I do have to stop for a moment to remember. This has never been the case with LB and LT, but I blame it on the fact that I used Xbox controllers first.
As someone coming from the PS controls at first, I would intuitively read RB as "right back".
But I think it also not uncommon to intuitively translate them as "Right Top" and "Right Bottom", which I think really is a design oversight. "Top" and "Bottom" would more likely be your first guess for what those letter mean over "Bumper/Trigger".
I have played with the Xbox controls long enough to be used to it now, but it took a while for it to really sink in, much moreso than R1/R2 ever did.
I always thought L1/L2 made perfect sense. You always have your FIRST (index) finger on the L'1' and your SECOND (middle) finger on the trigger ie L'2' 🤷♀️
With L3 and R3, you are just confusing yourself when there is nothing confusing about this.
Understandable, if you never used a PS controller and imagination is kind of like extrapolation.
People that are new to gaming does not know at first that L stick and R stick also functions like a button. So, they understand L1/L2 and R1/R2 easily. There is also a historical reason for this naming.
First PlayStation controllers didn’t had sticks so L3 and R3 did not existed. Sony avoided the mistake that Nintendo did with Switch Pro controllers by keeping the same name convention for existing buttons (based on some comments I saw here regarding gamecube and switch pro controllers).
For me the first obstacle to finding those is the l/r question. The more stress I'm under, the harder it is for me to determine left from right, and gaming is bad in that way. If I guess wrong on the first try, I'll just circle through all the back buttons until I hit the right one.
This is just the whole Fahrenheit/Celsius intuitiveness thing again. The one you grew up using/have used for longer feels more intuitive. They're both good, they're both bad, they're both intuitive to long time users, and they're both possibly confusing to first time users. From the perspective of everyday usage, neither is superior.
I've just been around the parts of the internet where this stuff is argued so much, I've accepted that in order for an entire country to be convinced that fahrenheit is a valid system, there has to be something else going on, other than "they're stupid". And the conclusion I've come to is that the system is just good enough in everyday use. I still wouldn't use it though.
Actually it doesn't make immediate sense to me. Never learned if they used x1 for upper buttons and x2 for lower buttons. I've never owned a PS console tho, and even played on one like twice at most
I've always had a PS growing up so it's not an issue for me, but I could totally see people thinking 1 for the left and 2 for the right.
I don't really think either layout is much of an issue anyway. It's one of those things where you see once and then you should kind of just know from then on
So like that. I googled it. Doesn't that "at the front, at the back" depend on orientation? Like is one holding the controller like they are supposed to or are they looking at the buttons from the front etc?
I can never remember if the sticks are 1 or 3, which then means I can't remember what the actual shoulder/trigger buttons are either. But I instantly know that B is for bumper and T is for trigger. With the numbers you have to remember which number corresponds to which button, with the names of where they're placed you just need to remember what the B and T stand for.
Not me, I know what a trigger is instinctively. I don't know what a "1" is instinctively. I think of a trigger as being more primary, so that's the one I want to be the 1, but it isn't.
I'm not saying that the T/B convention is superior, but I am saying that for some people one way is more clear and for others the other way is more clear and I just wish there was a way to change preferences at a system level so it could work with me in the way that I like in all games.
Yes, it does not make immediate sense to me. I think 1 is for buttons and 2 is for triggers, while xbox doesn't make me wonder, Right Trigger or Left Button, I know exactly what I need to press
As long as you know the T is for trigger and B is for button/bumper that makes it easier for xbox.
Switch Pro really fucked me up with L, R, ZL, and ZR. When Z on the gamecube was the button located in front of the right trigger(R), and now ZL and ZR are the triggers behind the L and R buttons.
Honestly, I couldn't tell you. It was one of my earliest memories of playing my PS2. If was an open world type of game and I think it reminded me of a Spyro game. Couldn't tell you much about it as I seemed to have gave up during the tutorial as my 6 year old brain couldn't find the L3 and R3 buttons.
This was my thought too and the reason it always screwed me up, because I'd assume the bottom one is the one that's lower than the top making me press the trigger for rb and lb.
When you think about it in context of the controllers besides gamecube it makes a bit more sense. Like the snes and n64 both use L and R buttons. The Z button on the n64 was a trigger as well and I believe the same for the wii.
N64 had a Z button on the back, wasn't a real trigger yet.
Wii was psychotic B button where a trigger would be on right hand, C and Z buttons on end of nunchuck. Wii classic controller had two versions I think, one with L, ZL, ZR, and R in a straight line across the top and one with the ZL and ZR being where triggers would be and the L and R above them as in the Switch Pro Controller.
It's worth noting that only the Gamecube had analog triggers that responded to partial triggers pulls(good for feathering the gas/brakes in racing games or lightly spraying water in Super Mario Sunshine).
Everything up to and including the Switch 2 has digital triggers which are no different than on/off buttons.
Im a Nintender for most of my childhood and I find easier L1, L2 than LB, LT (idk what lb and lt even means)
to me xbox only wanted to troll everyone's brain (they named the buttons the same as nintendo, then changed positions, then they took playstation's L and changed names too lmao)
I never seem to reference exactly what is on the controller when I say it out loud. In my mind is an ideal controller that is a mix of several controllers. Xbox makes the most sense for face button layout (X for x axis, Y for y axis, main button green, cancel button red, easier to say ABXY than PlayStation symbols). LS and RS (left and right stick) make more sense than calling it L3 and R3, that confused me a lot as a kid. But as you said, somehow L1/L2 and R1/R2 DO make more sense than calling it the thing it is due to proximity and "bumper button" not rolling off the tongue, and a LOT more sense than ZL/ZR in Nintendo land. Also Start & Select will forever be the middle two buttons, not Options & Screenshot or whatever Xbox's is called
What’s funny is that the ’cube used the exact same colours for A and B buttons as the Xbox so it’s definitely possible to be confused if you only saw screenshots, at least in cases where the prompts are the same size and with no other buttons visible.
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u/colaman-112 3h ago
Add Gamecube to it and you'll have all the possible positions for X.