Non wasd moment keys

[Reincarnatedwolfgod]

If you don't you wasd for movement on a keyboard what weird or different set up do you use?

I can you wasd but I use esdf when decide to make the effort to rebind keys. I have obtained the muscle memory for esdf so it no problem for me.

recently I decided to spontaneously try out asdf while playing Elder Scrolls Oblivion. I needing more time get use some gain the muscle memory before I make a conclusive opinion of it. if don't like it I will go back to esdf.

edit- maybe sdfg would work better since the nub helps F stand out and my mind would probably associating F with forward faster then with with D.

 

[MysticSlayer]

Shift and Ctrl are too important to many games for me to move beyond WASD for them. I use my pinky for those two, and being the shortest finger, it's got less space before I have to start stretching it to reach a key, especially when considering Ctrl.

 

[Liljumpman]

For most MMO's I move with my mouse and have WASD and nearly everything else bound to moves.

 

[Recusant]

It depends rather enormously on the game, but usually some variant of >, O, E, and U.

Some of us are no longer stuck in the 1870's.

 

[DoPo]

I have tried ESDF but then I dropped it. It's not bad, per se, but I kept putting my fingers on WASD by accident and going back instead of left. Sure, I got in towards the end but on the other hand, I didn't find the extra keys around that useful. I can't remember what I played at the time but it was something with more keys available, yet even then the expanded number of availabilities was an overkill.

I might try it again if I find another game that has even more keys, though. I'm not against the idea, but the getting used to wasn't worth it the payoff from what I saw.

As for others, I've seen some people use some rather bizarre setups. There was a (short lived) trend around where I was to try and play with strange keybindings. The unifying theme was "If somebody tries to play with your config, they mush be unable to". I can't explain it better than that. Here is a sample key configuration for an FPS:

- Left-click - shoot (that's pretty much the only sensible one)
- Right-click - jump (alternatives: reload, crouch)
- Space - forward
- Z/X/C (one) - left
- C/V/B (one) - right
- X/C/V (one of the buttons between the two above) - crouch
- Shift - back
- Ctrl - reload

That's just ONE of the setups. And that's a sample, I made it on the fly since I can't remember any of them in full, but some of the keys do come from a real one, the other ones I filled up with things that made sense. In context, that is. Thing is - the movement keys were pretty much never in one place - left and right would be but back/forward wouldn't be with them and would be together, either. It wasn't uncommon to have left and right one key apart (e.g., X and V) and have the button between them be used for something significant - in the above example, C would be crouch but it might also be alternative fire or jump or something else you would be using often. The mouse would be used for some really odd stuff, like jump/crouch/walk maybe even movement, but also possibly flashlight or something else that you think shouldn't be there, extra buttons could also be utilised for some rarer-used buttons but ones that you still need few time in a play session - the fire button was usually left there but could be swapped to right-click. Sometimes it might be elsewhere, though, like space, for example. The rest of the buttons would be in reach, since the bindings wouldn't really be scattered randomly - as you can see above, your left hand would mainly be laying on the left side of the space bar, so the rest of the buttons would be in that area. Do bear in mind this is just one style - you could tailor it around your hand being around the J key or around the Y key or whatever else. This wouldn't even involve just shifting the above config to be up and right a bit, but everything could be different - walk left/right with Y/U, reload with 7, crouch with Alt, etc, etc.

 

[DarthCoercis]

When I was growing up it was Arrow keys or Numpad for movement, and usually the insert/home/etc keys or non-letter keys like ; , and ] for actions. Mice were rare back then too and you'd almost never find a game that used one.

It actually took quite some time for me to get used to using WASD and mouse for games.

 

[Death Carr]

for a time, I used DVORAK layout instead of QWERTY, but trying to unlearn all the muscle memory of all the typing I've ever done in my life proved to be too hard, and it was just easier to switch back to QWERTY (despite it's downfalls)

as far as specific games go, for Mirrors Edge I bound jump to left click, the "downward action" button to right click and disarm to space. I found it greatly accelerated my times on speed runs

 

[Fhqwhgod]

Arrow keys.
For other functions I usually rebind to
R-Shift for Jump
R-Ctrl for crouch/sneak
End for Use
Del & Pagedown/up for various other functions.

That's it for most games some games I add 0 (Numblock) or Enter for other options.

I never got used to WSAD movement. Any game that defaults to it with non rebindable keys gets on my "Don't play" pile.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

Usu

 

[Subbies]

Due to big hand and small laptop keyboards, I used the wierdest setup that my friends had ever seen:
3 for up
alt for down
q for left
and r for right

Then w,e f and other close keys for anything that was needed like reload and stuff.
It was always a pain to setup and now that I have a larger keyboard I use wasd cause I can be arsed to change things.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

I suppose I only have a minor example, but about a decade ago for a time I used a variant form of WASD where:

ASD were standard, but,
W for Jump
Right Mouse for Forward
Control for Alt.Fire
Space for Switch to Secondary
Q for Switch to Primary
Alt for Switch to Melee
E for Throw Grenade
F for Use

It was a control setup I mostly used in games like Team Fortress Classic or COunter-Strike. I've since adopted a more standard WASD control setup.

 

[Souplex]

Most PC games support USB controllers, there's literally no reason to ever game with a mouse and keyboard.

 

[DefunctTheory]

Most PC games support USB controllers, there's literally no reason to ever game with a mouse and keyboard.

Except for the higher look/aim accuracy and higher quantity of buttons, and personal preference. Also when playing anything strategy based, real time or turn based.

 

[Poetic Nova]

For Carmageddon I use the numpad keys, and it is only for that game series. Rest is WASD where possible.

 

[DefunctTheory]

Spoiler

I have tried ESDF but then I dropped it. It's not bad, per se, but I kept putting my fingers on WASD by accident and going back instead of left. Sure, I got in towards the end but on the other hand, I didn't find the extra keys around that useful. I can't remember what I played at the time but it was something with more keys available, yet even then the expanded number of availabilities was an overkill.

I might try it again if I find another game that has even more keys, though. I'm not against the idea, but the getting used to wasn't worth it the payoff from what I saw.

As for others, I've seen some people use some rather bizarre setups. There was a (short lived) trend around where I was to try and play with strange keybindings. The unifying theme was "If somebody tries to play with your config, they mush be unable to". I can't explain it better than that. Here is a sample key configuration for an FPS:

- Left-click - shoot (that's pretty much the only sensible one)
- Right-click - jump (alternatives: reload, crouch)
- Space - forward
- Z/X/C (one) - left
- C/V/B (one) - right
- X/C/V (one of the buttons between the two above) - crouch
- Shift - back
- Ctrl - reload

Spoiler

That's just ONE of the setups. And that's a sample, I made it on the fly since I can't remember any of them in full, but some of the keys do come from a real one, the other ones I filled up with things that made sense. In context, that is. Thing is - the movement keys were pretty much never in one place - left and right would be but back/forward wouldn't be with them and would be together, either. It wasn't uncommon to have left and right one key apart (e.g., X and V) and have the button between them be used for something significant - in the above example, C would be crouch but it might also be alternative fire or jump or something else you would be using often. The mouse would be used for some really odd stuff, like jump/crouch/walk maybe even movement, but also possibly flashlight or something else that you think shouldn't be there, extra buttons could also be utilised for some rarer-used buttons but ones that you still need few time in a play session - the fire button was usually left there but could be swapped to right-click. Sometimes it might be elsewhere, though, like space, for example. The rest of the buttons would be in reach, since the bindings wouldn't really be scattered randomly - as you can see above, your left hand would mainly be laying on the left side of the space bar, so the rest of the buttons would be in that area. Do bear in mind this is just one style - you could tailor it around your hand being around the J key or around the Y key or whatever else. This wouldn't even involve just shifting the above config to be up and right a bit, but everything could be different - walk left/right with Y/U, reload with 7, crouch with Alt, etc, etc.

I tried to ignore this, but I keep coming back to it. My fingers are literally aching just thinking about this.

Just... fuck. What a nightmare.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

PC Gamer recently had an article about this exact topic if anyone is interested. I thought it was pretty fun.

http://www.pcgamer.com/how-wasd-became-the-standard-pc-control-scheme/

I've alwys just stuck to wasd. Just seems to convenient to move away from shift and ctrl. I would consider esdf though.

 

[DoPo]

Most PC games support USB controllers, there's literally no reason to ever game with a mouse and keyboard.

Except for the higher look/aim accuracy and higher quantity of buttons, and personal preference. Also when playing anything strategy based, real time or turn based.

Or older games that don't support controllers. Or older games that would not fit a controller scheme even if the input was mapped to keyboard/mouse functions. Or when playing games that support keyboard "power using". Or when playing interactive fiction games.

I think we can definitely say that there is literally no reason to ever stick to only one mode of input.

I tried to ignore this, but I keep coming back to it. My fingers are literally aching just thinking about this.

Just... fuck. What a nightmare.

Horrible, ain't it. I think people were trying to show off their l337 skillz by doing the mind boggling mappings and still being ale to play. As I said, it was short lived trend, given how fucking uncomfortable these were.

it was just easier to switch back to QWERTY (despite it's downfalls)

*shrug* the downfalls of QWERTY only matter if your entire job consists of typing. And not only that, but fast and constant typing. Furthermore, as a very desirable feature, you shouldn't be near any other person's keyboard, so as long as you are left alone in a room to only type, then yes, you'd benefit greatly from DVORAK. If that is not you, then the benefits of DVORAK hardly matter.

See, I work in software development. I'd hardly ever benefit from switching to a different layout since I'm not constantly typing, even though (for some reason), that's a stereotype for programming. Thinking about code, reading code, reading documentation, debugging are also part of the job and they require no typing. They also take up a larger portion of my day than writing code. Even when I do have to write code, the tooling takes care of a lot of it - auto-completion, code templates, IDE assists, various shortcuts, etc. all further make me press less keys in order to produce more output. Overall, I don't really see a reason to ever switch to DVORAK. So, unless you're a novelist or something like that, I similarly don't really see a reason.

 

[Sonmi]

I used to bind "move forward" to M2 in my early FPS-playing days... I don't even know why exactly, I simply did.

 

[DoPo]

I used to bind "move forward" to M2 in my early FPS-playing days... I don't even know why exactly, I simply did.

I think that was a (rather short lived) convention at one point. Maybe "convention" is a bit misleading, though - when mice started becoming wide spread in camera controls in the beginning[footnote]and I mean more like FPSes[/footnote] there was a bit of confusion on how to lay down controls. The "old way" was something arrows for movement which you'd use with your left hand and other buttons usually on the other side of the keyboard for your left hand. This movement that involved a mouse was strange and new, so few games tried (and failed) to predict how people would use it best.

I can't remember which game(s) did it but I am pretty sure I have seen "move forward" bound to a mouse button[footnote]and that's outside of vanity control schemes[/footnote]. I think the design decision was along the lines of "well, people would be using the mouse to look around, obviously they would also want to move in the direction they are facing". It's either that, or an a bit odd interpretation of how to apply earlier controls, since it'd usually be left/right to turn and then forward/back to move in relation to where you're currently looking. Or both, I suppose. At any rate, side-stepping/strafing did exist but wasn't that popular before mice.

At any rate, that got settled into a fairly standard set of controls before long. So perhaps "lack of convention" is the better way to call why that button was there.

 

[Michel Henzel]

I used to use the arrow keys cause that is what I was used to from way back when when WASD wasn't the standard yet. I can't really remember when I started getting used to using WASD, I remember still using the arrow keys back when Counter-strike was still just a Half-life mod and in beta, and I still played a lot of Quake 3. (fuck I'm old).