WASD: Why???

LOCO LAPTOP said:
*snip*
Problem?
/trollface
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lol. that's awesome. uparrow is still off center though ;)

Dallows said:
MS Natural Elite keyboard.
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High five!

sirmonkey1985 said:
who the heck binds E to gernades? lol

as far as the home row goes, it only works if thats how you learned how to type. unlucky for me i didn't learn how to type using the home row keys. since i had to teach myself how to type over the years my fingers pretty much automatically sit on the WSAD keys.

as far as the keys you use. i'd kill myself if i ever had to play a game using those keys. there is absolutely nothing comfortable about that. oh btw the link doesn't work.
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Haha, well I've used WASD so infrequently it might have been a different key for grenades... my point is it's just not comfortable for me so I'm not as accurate.

I see your point about the homerow... as a touch typer ESDF is much more natural because that's where my hand sits anyway. I suppose it probably lends to my using the arrow keys - I learned FPS's on them so now I'm hooked. After trying both though, I do find the extra space between keys nice. I can spread out a little more.

Try this new link. Just a picture of my 'board. The keys around the arrows are closer than on a traditional rectangular one.

This is a great thread. :D
 
Maybe it's my "console sensibility," but if a game requires me to actively use 30 keys at once without having any overlap between different menus - that's a poorly designed game.
Someone dropped the ball when it comes to usability. Kind of like that old OpenOffice mouse with the 8 million buttons.
 
Arrow key rockstar here

shift=jump
ctrl=walk
enter=use
pagedown = prone
kp_0=reload
kp_1=drop weapon
kp_4=voice chat
delete, end, pageup, home - game specific function can vary
mouse1=fire
mouse2=crouch
mouse3=melee
mouse4=zoom
mousewheel=weapon switch
'=flashlight
/=map
][=inventory

back in the Quake1 days...I used to use ALL keyboard and no mouse...lol.
 
I do, because every game ever uses it. Some games don't allow remapping, and I don't always play on my computer, so it's more "transportable". Most of the time I use mouse buttons though. I like to keep the left hand simple and put most the stuff to the moust.

For example! Killing floor:

WASD movement.
Q Quick heal
E Use
F Crap weapons I don't really use.
G Grenade.

Then

Left click: Shoot
Right click: Iron sights
Middle click: Alt fire
Wheel up: Welder/Healing thing
Wheel down: Weapon slot 2
Mouse 4: Knife
Mouse 5: Weapon slot 3.

Means nothing really distracts from movement.
 
Wow, this many replies and nobody actually said where WASD came from? Well, here you go. Taken from the reddit discussion on this a month ago.

Shift, Ctrl and Alt, are modifier keys, and it's required that all keyboards be able to use them in any combination simultaneously with any other key. No other keys offer that guaranteed functionality, it was common for keyboards to not support pressing two or three keys at a time. The working combinations varied by keyboard, based on their hardware design. Also the modifier keys historically communicated their state on every keystroke, so it was also easier to support them in the software.
Star Control 2 was notable for coming with a utility that allowed you to test your keyboard for working combinations for multiplayer, otherwise trying to press 4 non-modifier keys at a time most likely would result in some keystrokes being locked out.
So WASD puts your hand in a position where you have access to the number keys, used for switching weapons (remember mouse wheel came much later), and close to the modifier keys. Also at the time it wasn't totally uncommon for keyboards to have the Function keys off to the left, so there might have been some advantage there.
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Best person to ask is Thresh. He won all the time in Quake and shared his cfg file on sites so people could use it.
I feel that the left shift is in the right place. The pinky isn't as accurate as the rest of fingers so it's nice to have a larger target.
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How do you lean in a first-person game with the arrow keys? With right Ctrl and Num 0?

Awkward. WASD folk have Q and E for that. If there's no leaning in the game, Q and E make for great quicksave/quickload keys. Reload is right there: R. Shift is right there: run/speed modifier. Caps is there too: run/speed toggle (a toggle key for a toggle — perfect). Use can go to F.
 
wonderfield said:
How do you lean in a first-person game with the arrow keys? With right Ctrl and Num 0?

Awkward. WASD folk have Q and E for that. If there's no leaning in the game, Q and E make for great quicksave/quickload keys. Reload is right there: R. Shift is right there: run/speed modifier. Caps is there too: run/speed toggle (a toggle key for a toggle — perfect). Use can go to F.
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I don't think I've played a game recently that has a lean. Not even BF3. My keyboard is perfect for arrow key play. And I've greatly adapted to it over the years. There's no point in really arguing which is superior. I let my scores speak for themselves.
 
Dallows said:
I don't think I've played a game recently that has a lean. Not even BF3. My keyboard is perfect for arrow key play. And I've greatly adapted to it over the years. There's no point in really arguing which is superior. I let my scores speak for themselves.
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I've assigned lean to the mouse buttons on the right and left side of the mouse in RO2 for now. I'm not used to games with lean, so I keep forgetting to use it though.
 
Zarathustra[H];1038418117 said:
I've assigned lean to the mouse buttons on the right and left side of the mouse in RO2 for now. I'm not used to games with lean, so I keep forgetting to use it though.
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Actually, never mind, this was on my laptop Dell mouse that has buttons on either side. Can't remember what I set them to on my Desktop. That's how often I use lean, I guess.
 
wonderfield said:
How do you lean in a first-person game with the arrow keys? With right Ctrl and Num 0?
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Who even uses lean? It's pretty useless even in games with it. It justs makes you a huge slow moving head only target which goes round the corner at the same level, making it stupidly easy to get headshots. It limits your movement, as you have to release the keys and move your hand about, and is way more awkward than just quickly strafing in and out. Even in games like RO2 it's pretty useless, when you can just crouch below or blindfire.

Q and E are nice useful buttons that can be used on much better functions! :D

Zarathustra[H];1038418143 said:
Actually, never mind, this was on my laptop Dell mouse that has buttons on either side. Can't remember what I set them to on my Desktop. That's how often I use lean, I guess.
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Pretty much all logitech mice have the wheel nudge left and right which can be useful for that kind of stuff.
 
i can't get used to WASD for the life of me.

I've been using the arrows since the beginning of FPS days

Move forward: Up arrow
Move backwards: Down arrow
Strafe left: Left arrow
Strafe Right: Right Arrow.
Fire: left mouse/1
Jump: right mouse/2

Reload is mouse 4/backspace/whatever it binds to on the thumb side.
Zoom/Scope is mouse 5/forward/whatever it binds to on the thumb side.

numpad 0 - secondary attribute of weapon/scoping
numpad 1-9 - weapon binds

Insert thrugh Page down are for grenades, NVGs, etc etc

Enter is for use/enter vehicle
apostrophe is for BF2/BFBC2 menu

right ctrl - crouch
right shift - sprint

for quake 2 & 3 i used to bring insert through page down for my 6 favorite go to weapons.



now that being said for RPGs like diablo 2 i use default layout of keys
 
Every FPS I play I use arrow keys and work around it for everything else. I tend to use SHIFT for jumping, CTRL for crouching, \ for throwing grenades, BACKSPACE for modifying the gun to a grenade launcher (when in ARMA2 for instance), ENTER for use/activate, and I use the INS/DEL/HOME/PGU/PGD keys for misc stiff like spotting, modifying etc. On the numpad I use the INS/0 key for prone, END for run. Works flawlessly for me. And I plan on buying a new mouse with extra buttons for MMO stuff/fast switching to things during FPS games. And yeah, my arrow key fetish started with Doom and that's what I have been using ever since.

So needless to say Bad Company was a pain in the ass for me because you couldn't use the ENTER button for anything but spawning for some dumb reason. Reminded me of the "\" key in TOR where you could not rebind the key no matter what and always ended up pushing that by accident intead of ENTER and opening up the stupid support ticket.....that was beyond retarded. Keys that have hidden bindings that cannot be changed. Sorry, pressing ESC is the universal key for "oh shit, what did I do to my bindings? OK, let me get back to the menu and set to default" and there is no reason to perma bind the "\" key for that. If you don't know by now that hitting ESCAPE button in the top left in EVERY single god damn game/application on the planet is the "panic" button then you need to go back to wherever they found you don't come back until you learn it!
 
the arrow keys are wayyyyyy too close to the mouse for my tastes. I like that my hands are far apart from each other, so they don't get in the way and it's more comfortable.
 
Looking back I used the absolute most ridiculous key layout when I first started playing FPS (Descent 2). At the time I hadn't even known about WASD so my first instinct was to use the arrow keys, but there was a problem! For those of you not familiar with Descent it requires movement in all six axis at once to play so I ended up with my left hand on the arrow keys and my right hand on the numpad (the game did not support mice at the time).

Up/Down arrow - Forward / Back
Left / Right Arrow - Strafe Left / Right
Shift - Afterburner (sprint)
Ctrl / Num 0 - Strafe Up / Down
Numpad 8/5 - Y axis
Numpad 4/6 - X Axis
Numpad 7/9 - Z Axis (roll)
Num Enter / Plus / Del - Primary / Secondary fire / Bomb
Num '/' and * - Throttle
Num 1 /2 / 3 - Toggle Primary / Secondary / Bomb
Num Minus - Map

Now I just use a standard WASD layout. Function and modifier keys are nearby for quick access. Still can't believe I played for years with that layout though. And of course my keyboard couldn't handle that many keypresses so I'd get blocked after the 3rd or 4th key (I thought all keyboards did that at the time)
 
i prefer my g13 and its joystick for movemnet. feels alot more comfertable to me now over keyboard movemnet.
 
wonderfield said:
How do you lean in a first-person game with the arrow keys? With right Ctrl and Num 0?

Awkward. WASD folk have Q and E for that. If there's no leaning in the game, Q and E make for great quicksave/quickload keys. Reload is right there: R. Shift is right there: run/speed modifier. Caps is there too: run/speed toggle (a toggle key for a toggle — perfect). Use can go to F.
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1 and 3. Likewise, when i migrated from the num pad to the left, my lean keys got moved to Z and C. Not sure where the standard lean keys are but that's how i always set up my lean.




I notice everyone just assumes that the only viable controls on the right of the keyboard are the arrow keys even though the numpad arrows have been used long before any of the other keyboard configs
 
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I'm a right handed mouse user and I've used numpad all my gaming life (since Quake 1). You arrow users should really use the numpad instead, it's pretty much the same as the arrow keys plus a bunch of easy to access surrounding buttons. I just always preferred my hands to be closer together when playing, felt more natural (vs. WASD and mouse in right hand). With a few minutes time, it's easy enough to make a autohotkey script that maps the numpad to WASD keys so you don't even have to do much rebinding in games and every game works. In addition to this, I use a G700 because it has 4 remappable side buttons vs. the 2 side buttons most gaming mice have (and I find the sensor to be flawless but that's another story.)
 
It definitely depends on what type of game you play. In FPS games I don't use as many keybindings as I do in RPGs, so I could see something other than WASD working out pretty well.

I think WoW was probably the game where I used the most, but other complicated games like ARMA could benefit from WASD over arrow keys as well (I just never play those often enough to learn them all).

Some people have switched to ESDF instead of WASD because then there's more small keys adjacent to each other and it lets you hotkey more things a little bit better. This is the same reason why people use WASD over arrow keys, but it's a less noticeable impact imo. WASD is also nice because you have install access to Shift, Control, and Alt. This usually lets you operate 2nd, 3rd, and possibly 4th sets of hotkeys for all those easily accessible keys (Q, E, R, F, T, G, Z, X, C, V, B, 1,2,3,4,5, Caps Lock) which should provide more than enough hotkeys for most games. Because ESDF is shifted in a little bit more I noticed that these combo hotkeys were harder to use, so there's defnitely a trade-off at that point (if you just need 10 or so ESDF would have the advantage it seems, but if you needed more than that then WASD has the advantage imo, due to the secondary sets you can access).

Having quick access to hotkeys (I'd define is as not having to move your hand) when you have 20 different abilities you can use impacts how quickly you can react to your enemy and makes a big difference in the fight. I see this mostly in MMOs but there's a few RPGs, like NWN, where this was also important for me. I don't play fighting games but it could be a big impact in those too. It's also important too when game designers allow you to reassign all your hotkeys. In games where this isn't allowed it can really gimp your potential, like forced mouse smoothing in an FPS.
 
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RDGF or ESDF are probably better to use than WASD. WASD, like many standards, is used simply because it is the standard and gaming companies fear changing it because they stand to lose customers in the process.
 
Starcrossed said:
RDGF or ESDF are probably better to use than WASD. WASD, like many standards, is used simply because it is the standard and gaming companies fear changing it because they stand to lose customers in the process.
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it's not really a standard as such, it's completely use cusomtizable in almost every game, the reason games use WASD as default is because it's the most popular key configuration, and it's the most popular because it's the best suited.

You can shift right if you want but very few people see actual benefit from doing so, hence why WASD is more common.
 
I used to be arrow keys, but one of my college roommates explained why WASD was better, and I've been using it ever since.
 
Here are mine for FPS games. Forward/backward movement is via mouse and the rest is pretty much left side of the keyboard.

Buddy showed me this with Rainbow Six and I have never gone back.

Move forward: Left Mouse
Move backwards: Right Mouse
Strafe left: S
Strafe Right: D
Lean Left: W
Lean Right: E
Fire: F
Jump: Left Ctrl
Mouse: Invert Y axis
Crouch: A
Prone: Z
Run modifier: Left Shift
Use: Space
Reload: G
Grenade: R
Drop/Switch weapon: X
Scope/weapon special function: Q
Chat ALL: Y
Chat Team: U
Chat Squad: I
Weapon quick switch: Dedicated buttons on numerical keypad) and/or mouse wheel.
Comms: Caps Lock
Change camera View: C
Knife: Mouse thumb button
Toggle weapon light/laser: T

The density of keys and the natural position of my left hand on the left side of the keyboard make it great. An advantage is that if I ever have to move my left hand (seldom) from the keyboard my fire key, F has the handy tactile bump on it, so very easy to finds its place again.

I have been doing it this way long enough that I don’t even know what keys they are, but my hand does. Make remapping a chore, but worth it.
 
^^^ Pretty bizarre setup imo. Not sure how people don't use the mouse for fire. At lease M1 for fire.
 
For my primary's I've always used:

S-Forward
Z-Backwards
A-Strafe Left
X-Srafe Right

Just puts your hand in a more natural angle so it's not straight on.
 
started gaming with the arrows way back when and I still use them, I have big hands though so I never really thought twice about having to reach delete end and pgdn, but it doesnt even seem like that big of a deal now that almost any gaming mouse worth its salt has at least two extra buttons on it. I always figured people played with wasd because they felt cramped having both hands so close together. I personally just move my kb off to the left.
 
KillRoy X said:
For my primary's I've always used:

S-Forward
Z-Backwards
A-Strafe Left
X-Srafe Right

Just puts your hand in a more natural angle so it's not straight on.
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Err...natural? The only way I see that as slightly natural is if you have your middle finger on the s key, and hold your wrist at a 45 degree angle turned into your body. :confused:
 
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