You don’t move a stick up or down, you don’t lift it up out of its enclosure. You tilt it forward or downward. What happens when a person tilts (their neck) forward? They look down! The camera also doesn’t actually move up or down, it tilts backward or forward. Just like the stick. This is the way real-world planes work, and planes tilt just like cameras do. Hell, even eyes roll forwards or backwards in their sockets.
With invert off, the camera moves in the opposite direction of the player’s input.
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Actually unpopular opinion, congratulations, have fun being down voted to hell because people on this sub have forgotten what it’s supposed to be about. Also, seek help, this is an atrocious take.
with invert off when you tilt the stick down… the camera moves to face down and vice versa, I don’t get how that doesn’t make sense?
For flying games, I agree. Otherwise, no.
Fully agree
Finally someone who gets it
It’s so trivially easy to include an inverted option in the settings menu (for both axes please) and then stop worrying about which is best.
I like both axes inverted when in third person (and if anyone’s interested I can say why that makes sense in my mental model) but ultimately it doesnt matter which is “right” just let people choose.
Console games seem to have increasingly stopped offering axes inverted options
Who describes tiling the stick of a controller forward and…downward? The fact that you yourself described it as “downward” rather then “backwards” sort of hurts your argument, as the default is pretty damn clearly up and down rather then forward/backward. When describing buttons on a controller, does anyone say “the y button is forward from the a button”, or “the y button is above the a button”? Pretty clearly the up option. As for the neck thing, no, when you tilt your neck forward, it doesn’t tilt up or down, you can separately choose to also tilt your neck up and down. As for the plane thing, that’s just how the limited mechanics of the early planes were built, and tradition took over, not because it was a natural design choice to begin with.
It’s the same reason I used to use Australian scrolling 😂. But my brain can’t not do inverted controls on a controller.
Controller sticks are not your head, you move them in different ways
Relevant
Maybe it’s because I played flight simulators in the nineties before fps controls became standardized but I absolutely cannot play without inverting the right stick…
This is a good explanation for why inverted feels right to me. Head pushed forward makes me look down. Head pulled backward makes me look up.
How do you like your X axis?
I agree. I don’t know how anyone doesn’t play inverted. I thought we all did, but then I noticed my kids getting super confused with it when they play a game im playing and I have to turn it off.
I think Goldeneye did it to me. It was default inverted.
you move the stick forward the potentiometer moves up on the pcb of the controller. Want to go down, move the potentiometer down.
I always play inverted.
Why does this logic never apply to the X axis lmao? Does the metaphorical stick only exist on the Y axis?
Just came here to unfortunately agree with you lol. In an fps I set my controller to invert but I cant for the life of me set my mouse to invert
Holy shit, an unpopular opinion i fully agree with.
Yes, the joystick represents the head of my character and im holding them by the hair.
I support you OP
Is that how the mouse controls work?
I, uh, didn’t realize this was unpopular. This is literally my reasoning for inverted Y as well.
Well, know that you’re not alone, at least. There’s at least one more person out there who apparently games wrong, lol.
i disagree because the stick is moving my crosshair, not my hypothetical camera.
I agree it makes more sense. I’ve just gotten to used to the default and can’t get my muscle memory to change. But I know someone who literally cannot play a game if it doesn’t allow them to invert.
I actually completely agree. I play all my games with the y-axis inverted
It’s also how construction equipment is operated, which I used long before controller sticks were a thing. I literally can’t play without the invert.
Yup, first setting I always change in a game’s settings
How is that unpopular? Are there people who dont do it like that??
Preach!
It’s the default in Goldeneye N64, and the original Perfect Dark. That’s why I think myself and many people prefer it. Just habituation to Rare shooters.
I always invert
Games in the PS2 era used to have different default settings for this due to driving (flying mostly) games and FPS games starting to use analogue sticks for controls as a standard that generation. Ultimately, as FPS games started to get more popular across both PC and console than flying-based games did, the fact a mouse moved an aiming reticle upwards by moving it upwards on PC, took precedent over the older standard of flying controls using analogue sticks on console. Games like Timesplitters I remember used flying vertical axis, but around the time call of duty came round with xbox360 it all standardised towards the mouse-like controls. To me, it makes more sense with standard, because every game controls the same regardless whether it’s a platform game, a third person or a fps, you move a reticle around on a screen, or the direction a camera is facing, you don’t control a character’s head every single time. It’s contextual, but mouse-like vertical makes all the standards the same across the board. Until you play Flight Simulator that is xD
100% agree, I could never understand how people play games without this and why I have to change the setting in every game. The stick is my head and pushing up means looking down and the opposite, pulling back means looking up.
Custom controls exist to include everyone, I had a buddy that plays south paw
You don’t thing about tilting your neck back, though, you think about looking up
I have hated inverted aim for my whole life.
The way you described it, comparing it to tilting ones neck forward, made me rethink it.
Very well put.
I’ve been playing inverted Y since Space Voyager on the NES.
I too, approach it as if I am tilting a camera, not whatever these other people are trying to pitch fork you for.
Stand together.
Inverted Y’s…. Together…. Strong 🫡
The first FPS game I played on controller was Turok Evolution for the GameCube. The Y axis was inverted by default and so for the next many years I would invert the Y axis on each FPS game I would play. I eventually got tired of having to change this setting all the time so I forced myself to learn the default. Really either orientation makes sense depending on your reference point but you can’t convince me to go back lol.
What’s really interesting is that it used to be the default. Push up or ‘forward’, and you look down, same as flight joysticks or as otherwise mentioned the neck and head. It was about the time when the option to invert this choice was introduced that some games reversed the default and started calling the original a legacy invert.
If I want to look up, I want to push ‘up’. The analogous physics are not important to me.
Literally does not matter.
It’s like comparing left and right handed.
I play inverted because I play inverted. Not because it works better or is more logical or anything else like that.
It’s just whatever part of your brain defaulting to either “up is up (or eyes look up)” or “up is forward (or head leans forward looking down)”.
I started playing a lot of CS back in the early beta days (1999). I was told by friends I should play inverted because it was better. I learned, and played like that for almost 20 years. I got sick of having to swap to “normal” any time a friend played a game on one of my systems. I decided it didn’t actually matter, and relearned on “normal” so that I would not have to bother with switching. My girlfriend now plays inverted… 🙄
Do whatever you want. that’s why games give you the option.
Imma go back to flying my plane now.
I think there might be slight misunderstanding in this thread. Basically OP sees the joystick y-axis controls as tilting the camera FRONT or BACK – which totally makes sense when you think about it. You tilt your head to the front when you look down.
However, we (well, most of us) see it as tilting the camera UP and DOWN which correlates with looking up and down. This is more intuitive for people because the joystick follows the exact direction of your sight. In flight sims you use the yoke to “tilt” the entire aircraft front and back, which aligns with OP’s point.
Stealing from a google search, but this makes sense to me
100% agree with this. First setting I go to change with every video game I play is inverting the Y axis. It just feels more natural but I never understood why until your explanation. I am simulating the motion of my neck when I move the camera up or down since I look up or down with my finger movement.
Dude, this is a truly unpopular opinion that I’ve lived with my entire gaming time! Im an invert Y axis first thing i do before even moving the stick.You’re getting downvoted to fuck for how I would explain it as well. I don’t know if this makes sense, but to explain it to people if the joystick were on a ball then how would you move it up and down. that’s how I relate the movement on a controller not as a flat button, but a whole 360° view and I will always pull down to look up and push forward to look down for life!!
It depends how you subconsciously view the camera movement. If you think of the right stick as controlling the view then obviously pressing up would point the camera up but if you think of the right stick as controlling the camera itself then obviously moving the camera up shifts the view down.
…..it depends, the other stick trains a lot of people to see push forward as “move in a positive direction” and so forward on stick is look up and back on stick is look down. I get that planes are inverted but I’m not on a plane nor am I a pilot so that argument isnt convincing.
All that I care about is that when I turn invert y axis off I don’t have to look down or think about how I move my character/the camera. If you get that same joy when you turn it on you do you man but I just don’t have fun when I play inverted. Sure I could fix it with practice but that would involve a lot of annoying sucking in something that I do to add a little joy into my life.
So we keep things as they are you have fun playing inverted, I have fun doing not that and everyone has fun
If you’re inverting your look controls you might just be a psychopath
wrong. i like it standard, not inverted. up is up, after all.
Inverted all the way for y axis.
I’m an invert Y guy.
I get the feeling a lot of people mentally map a controller as though they are looking straight at it, not that they are holding it and it is facing upwards. I reckon there’s a lot of psychology in it with mental rotation and inherent perspective. Playing Wind Waker it is obvious the camera control is set up to be from the camera’s perspective, not the player’s, so that has a horizontal inversion that is opposite to FPS games.
I’ve always subscribed to “forwards=down” because that’s how my own head tilts and that was my logic even as a kid. “Forwards=up” breaks my brain.
Preference depends on the purpose. Normal is controlling your eyes, inverted is controlling your neck.
Everyone!! Look around the room. Take a BIG look. Now hold an imaginary joystick while doing it.
You look up, your head tilts BACK. You look left, your head turns left. You look down, your head tilts FORWARD. You look right, your head turns right.
Invert (Y-axis) is the normal operation of looking.
I love totally harmless opinions that still manage to be deranged
In flying games, yes. In other games, no. You’re just controlling a reticle essentially. Having up go down or down go up in that case makes zero sense. Good unpopular opinion though.
Even if you’re 100% correct in your opinion, you are trying to overcome decades of muscle memory and gaming standards. From a non-gaming, logical standpoint your opinion might be correct but within the world of gaming it’s not the standard, and there is little reason to change.
Also, games have settings you can change for this exact reason.
an inverted Y-axis is just flying the camera like a plane, it actually makes way more sense once your brain clicks with it
I’ve never been much for flight sims but have played with inverted-Y since the early 90s.
It’s entirely personal preference, there isn’t one way that’s better than the other.
I’ll accept your pov only if you also invest the horizontal axis.
I almost down voted this, then I saw the sub name
I blame GoldenEye for my need to do this
1000% agree.
Most people think of their right toggle as their eyes. Most games treat it as your eyes. Wherever you move your toggle is where your eyes move to. You think of it as your neck. That’s really weird and a lot more complex of a movement point.
The same logic applies to X inversion though. Are we hypocrites if we don’t do both?
The truth is far simpler. Fact is, what you learned is what makes most sense, but you can learn another way.
I started as a PC gamer. Couldn’t do controller. Considered it a handicap. Used to say GoldenEye would be better with keyboard and mouse and that nobody who could beat me at it could do so if I had a keyboard and mouse. Portal taught me how to play with controller. Now I’m good with both. Can’t do Y invert with a mouse, only keyboard.
I play Y inverted and all my friends think I’m crazy. Glad to find other inverted players out there. I’d be super curious to find out what percentage of players use inverted controls (for the Y axis at least).
Inverted club represent!
I’m old enough to remember when inverted was actually the default.
It really comes down to how you gamed first. I’m 40 so up is down and down is up. Inverted all the way. If they started me as left is up and right is down that would be fine as well.
The flight stick thing is nonsense. I never thought of that once. Early game developers decided up is up and down is down so that’s the way it is for me. Then a generation later they decided to change it and it was already to late for my brain
Flash forward and I have a son and instead of changing settings every time we swap off the controller he started inverted and has zero issues and never thought about it.
I agree with OP. We don’t hold the controller vertically, we hold it horizontally, so what people call “up” on the stick is actually forward. When you look down your head moves forward, when you look up your head moves back.
For the longest time I was primarily console gamer. Always had inverted cause it felt right. Then got a gaming pc, played it exclusively for two years or so. Landed a ps5 on release, I can’t do inverted anymore. Pc broke my ability to do inverted.
Neither way makes more sense, it’s all just a post-rationalisation.
And most of the time these post-justifications are not even internaally consistent – for example OP applies his “plane” logic to the y-axis but not the x-axis. Inconsistent.
You play the way you are used to and with a little bit of time and practice you can change the way you play, period.
Inverted is the only way for gaming. I blame Star Fox 64 for making me this way
Up is up and down is down, it ain’t that deep. It’s intuitive and it works
I started playing flying games (wing commander) before any first person shooters, so I always invert the y axis… but I understand that’s weird.
When you hold a camera, which is what is happening in a game (there’s a camera that you are controlling), what happens when tilt the camera up? It goes up. It doesn’t go down.
I always invert the Y axis because it is exactly like airplane controls. When I’m playing a shooting game, I’m just piloting a human with a gun.
stampy is that you
I very much bet this is an age thing and the % of people who invert (me included) increases for those 35+.
It was the default back in the early 90s because the first games that took place in a 3D space were flight sims. We all learned back then that pulling back on the stick moved your vision up. That transferred to FPS when they came along.
See I always just think about the controller sticks as up and down like the arrows. So if the controller is standing up then it makes sense to me that if I push up on the stick I should move/look up. I understand why inverted makes sense for a plane because I would understand it if I was in a plane but with a controller it doesn’t compute like that for me.
I play every game with inverted Y-axis
An actual unpopular opinion but kind right it’s better when flying, idk why but I realized this when playing the Arkham games with the remote batatarang
But camera movement is still better with default
I play all my games with the y-axis inverted. Every time I play games with others where we’d hand the controller back and forth I’m the only person who plays this way.
One way is the way physics and bodies work. The other way is the way language works.
I’ve been playing with inverted Y for as long as I can remember for FPS games and controlling the camera otherwise.
I remember when COD4 came out and all my friends started playing, i said something like “ugh why do we have to invert our Y, that should be default since everyone uses it anyways”
That was the day I discovered that no, everyone does not invert and I was definitely the outlier not just in my friend group but in all of gaming.
My brother, I 100% agree with you, but this is going to be a pretty unpopular take.
I press up, I look up. Why would pressing up making me look down make more sense?
I’m moving a camera around, I’m not thinking about head movement.
You’re right, this is the intuitive way, That’s why airplanes do it that way.
Agree, but I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s with flight sims on my PC so maybe my brain wiring was set a long time ago.
Inherently unpopular opinion. If inverted was the popular option, it would be the default.
I see now why you lose every fps game you play. Hard upvote on this one! 🙂
What happens when you kneel or go prone? Up? Maybe forward? Yeah, that must be it. Forward. I’m sure that makes sense to OP.
Invert gang ✊
I used to play games inverted until sleepovers at friends houses happened. It was too annoying to always switch the settings to inverted when we switched who was playing.
Agreed. Since the screen is basically my eyes, if I pull back on the stick its like pulling back on my head to look up and vice versa. I never understood folks who ran inverted controls. I always flipped them if inverted was the default.
Inverted Y is the only way. Imagine your thumb is placed on the top of your characters head, pull back: look up, push forward: look down. Boom.
depends on your POV. are you controlling the front of the camera or the back of the camera
if im controlling the front of the camera then im pointing it up to look up and down to look down.
I actually kind of agree and a lot of games in the 90s did too. Pretty much every N64 and PS1 game used inverted Y axis.
My brother still uses it even now.
While I agree with you, after 30 years I got sick of having to invert the Y-axis in every single game I played. Finally I committed to re-training my brain and switched to the default.
I used Elden Ring as my training ground, and while it’s hard to wipe out 30 years of muscle memory, it was worth it in the long run.
Flying around – inverted
On the ground – normal
Exception – controlling a vehicle with an artillery gun, inverted just feels better for that
Nah, for me I move the stick towards the side of the screen I won’t to look, when I want to look left I tilt left not right, when I want to look up I tilt up not down
It only makes sense in flying sims and on a touch screen. If I’m mechanically using a controller, it is way more intuitive to go the direction that I press.
If I scroll the mousewheel down, I want the page to go down. If i press the down arrow key, I want the cursor to go down. Same thing with the sticks, man. Im not turning my neck or thinking of perspective to control something I have no connection to besides eyesight.
But ill upvote for an unpopular take. Good job.
When not inverted, the camera follows the tilt of my thumb. I’m thinking of my actions, not the resultant actions on the controller.
Exactly, although it is more a preference thing, when I was really little, I played a bunch of N64 games, which had the Y-Axis inverted and just stuck with me
Unless you invert your mouse too your opinion has no substance.
If you do invert your mouse….. fine. Freak.
>You don’t move a stick up or down
>You tilt it forward or downward
Is downward not down? Saying forward or down makes no sense. I could sort of understand what you’re getting at if you said forward or back but then that’s just relative to how you’re holding the controller. If it’s flat then it could be forward and backward. If it’s vertical it could be up and down.
Fun fact about me (not that anyone cares) my first FPS game that I played in earnest was Heavy Gear 2 (I then backtracked to play Heavy Gear 1). I used a keyboard and joystick, and pushing the stick forward would point down (just like a plane).
If I’m playing with a directional pad, up is up, but as soon as I am using a stick (even the small sticks on console controllers) the controls are “inverted”
I actually move stick both up/down and forward/backwards because I hold my controller at around 45°
On joystick yes, on controller no. 100% logical. Why? Idk
Fun fact: most people who get sick/dizzy playing FPS games, usually need to invert the Y axis.
Alternatively, sometimes they need the FOV turned down instead.
I agree. It’s actually controlling a character instead of a dot on the screen.
I grew up in the era where HOTAS was typically mapped to movement for shooters because verticality only existed in flight sims.
Upvoting because look up/down should be a key binding, if it’s even possible.
(/s…upvoting because it’s nuts to think there’s a right or wrong here)
I would say that regardless of what makes sense, the default should be whatever the majority of people use. And going by this GameFAQs poll that reported 66.32% of people preferring non-inverted and 20.84% of people preferring inverted, the default should be non-inverted.
But, that does also show that this is in fact an unpopular opinion. So upvote there.
But when you’re looking at your controller, “forward” isn’t forward, it is actually up from your perspective. Ik you’re not gonna be looking at the controller’s face as you play, but if you’re new to gaming and learning how to use a controller, you would be. Also, whenever a game shows a controller on-screen to teach players the controls, a “forward” joystick will also be literally pointed upward on the screen. So “up is up” makes more sense when seeing the controller being used or shown
I’m the only one in my surrounding who’s inverting the Y axis in every game, and whoever hears it tells me I’m weird
>You tilt it forward or downward. What happens when a person tilts (their neck) forward?
This is what I tried explaining to my friends. They don’t understand how I play with the X inverted, and I honestly don’t understand how people can play the other way. Its also like a flight stick, pull back to tilt the nose up.
Use whichever setting works for you. Don’t waste time arguing about which setting is “best”
I played inverted for years because i changed the settings and didn’t know how to fix it
Ahhh the days before internet
Depends on the game
I go both ways
I play not inverted cause when I need to go up my brain thinks up not down and I push forward on the stick. But ngl this is kinda a nothing burger
So you mean the right stick, specifically? I don’t see how that logic would make sense when applied to the movement stick.
The action of moving your head back requires you to pull the neck muscles downward
It all comes down to are you the player or are you controlling the player.
I play inverted because I accidentally set the camera to invertered in the Halo CE tutorial. +- 20 years later and it stuck
I think it makes sense as a joystick that is perpendicular to a table, cause its like controlling the nose of a plane
But as a controller that is facing me, it feels more like the movement of my head where I just think in up/down
I remember reading an article years ago about how the preference for inverted or not largely depends on how you visualize control the character.
People who inset themselves into the characters perspective prefer non-inverted controls, while people who see themselves as puppeteering the char prefer inverted controls.
After reading this entire thread I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m a freak for having inverted X and normal Y. Specifically for third person games I play with a controller. In first person I would not invert my X.
It’s essentially just moving the control
Point from the forehead to the rear of their head. Simple change that makes a huge difference. I’m Inverted. 😂 love it when I don’t have to change. Makes me think this team gets it!
That depends if you think of the camera as being on a tripod, where pushing it one way makes it turn to the other
Inverted used to often be the default. I assumed it comes from flight controls and thats how I view it when navigating any 3d space in first person. Even if I cant fly in game, the flight controls make sense to my brain the most.
I used to invert it, but then got tired of changing the setting every time, and having arcades be the other way. So I just switched, only took a few days to get used to it
Inverted in 3rd person kinda makes sense but I’m not really sure why. I don’t like inverted to be clear but somehow in 3rd person I can tolerate it if I have to.
I’m not pivoting a model. I’m moving my viewpoint. If I’m pushing up on the stick, that’s because I want to look up.
I’ve played inverted for as long as I can remember for the exact reason you monetioned. Always made taking turns between matches/deaths in FPS game a bit of a pain.
Inverted axes absolutely make sense to my brain in a 3rd game but not 1st person.
I think inverted mostly became a thing due to games that used that control as a carryover from flight simulators
How about something you haven’t mentioned. Not everyone holds a controller parallel to the ground and even if you did it is logically easy to follow that forward=up as it always has since the dawn of controllers
Been trying to argue this with people most of my life. They always act like I’m the weird one though.