We’re saying goodbye to the DPad, Thumbpad, and Thumbstick mobile control modes.

I’ll explain why.

First, some history.

Roblox launched on mobile in 2012 with support for 4 control schemes:

Click-to-Move

Thumbstick

Thumbpad

DPad

DPad mimicked a controller DPad on your screen, locked to four directions.

Thumbstick was the classic button on the bottom left hand corner of your screen.

Thumbpad was Thumbstick with extra steps.

These controls did the job for a long time, but there was clear room for improvement.

Dynamic Thumbstick (DT) debuted in 2017.

DT lets players use a whole corner of their screen as a controller – Put your finger down wherever and and swipe to move. User tests showed that DT was a huge win for accessibility and ergonomics, especially for portrait mode and younger players lacking fine motor control.

We continued to iterate on Dynamic Thumbstick well into 2017 and 2018, making continuous improvements and fixes based on numerous rounds of feedback and testing. DT was made the default for all games in late 2018.

It’s now 2019, DT has matured well, and bug reports are relatively few and far between. We’ve heard success stories with top games like Adopt Me migrating to DT without hiccups.

This brings us to a point where we have one well-supported, modern control scheme, and a few seldom-used legacy control schemes collecting dust.

Every scheme we support adds an extra permutation of control modes for us to test and support with every update and improvement, increasing the time it takes for us to push updates. Additionally, Thumbpad and DPad are rarely (if ever) used, and Thumbstick is becoming rarer by the day.

Time to say goodbye.

What’s not going away

The TouchMovementMode enums will stick around forever. Existing scripts, including forked PlayerScripts, will continue to work – no action is needed.

When?

Thumbpad and DPad are the least used. We’ll be removing these from the in-game menu and remapping them internally to Dynamic Thumbstick. This will happen on Wednesday, October 9th.

If you run into any DT bugs during the migration, we ask that you report them on the devforum and tag @subcritical. We will provide any necessary technical support for helping your game move to Dynamic Thumbstick.

-subcritical