I think I agree. I get the feeling some players (including me) might forget the roll keys exist when swimming around, or just not be familiar enough with hydrodynamics to understand how it would help them. Maybe it could be handled automatically, so you always roll at the best angle for optimal speed when moving and turning?
I think it might be too early for this kind of discussion; as far as I know no one really knows how hydrodynamics or fins are going to work, other than just assuming they’ll behave like they do in real life. Maybe fin placement will be a fairly complex task that requires a good understanding of hydrodynamics, and so controls for rolling wouldn’t feel out of place; or maybe it, and the hydrodynamics system, will be fairly simple (in which case fins won’t be as necessary unless there’s some other reason to add them, which I don’t think is ideal)
Maybe 3D movement could be implemented with support for rolling for now, which would be a useless (but fun) feature, and when fins and hydrodynamics and such are implemented we can see how fun and intuitive it is to roll manually, and if it isn’t then it can be made automatic? (afaik manual control would have to come first because rolling would need to have an effect in order for it to need to be adjusted for any reason)
Also yeah, I don’t think I’ve heard many people mentioning a “crouch” button but I think it’d be a useful feature. I mean I dunno how useful crouching would be in this game, so I’ve always imagined it as more of a sneak button that makes you move more slowly and quietly, letting you somewhat fine-tune your movement and sneak up on prey. Having 3 modes of speed (sneak, normal, sprint) also kinda takes care of the suggestion of controlling thrust without introducing something like a power gague.
If it’s ctrl though, and “sneaking” (moving slower) is allowed underwater, then space and ctrl can’t be used for vertical up and down movement, so maybe R and F would work? But I feel like F would be a good key for an ability so maybe space and C? And also maybe the “move downwards” key could be used on land to actually get down on the ground and crawl? That way space and the down key correspond to moving up and down in whichever ways apply, whether you’re on land or underwater, jumping and crawling or moving up and down respectively, which I think would be pretty cool and intuitive. It seems like it’d be weird to have different keys for moving slower and crawling though. Maybe you could hold sneak and crawl at the same time for maximum slowness, but holding ctrl, C, and using the WASD keys isn’t exactly comfortable. Maybe C could act as a toggle for crawling? It wouldn’t work well as a toggle for moving downwards underwater, but maybe it only acts as a toggle while you’re on land and can crawl, and when you’re in water you have to hold it down to descend (if you have the capability)? I dunno if that would feel good, or if the switching between toggle and non-toggle is too jarring.