I'm surprised ESDF is such a small percentage. I'm sure if more games used it by default it would be a higher amount - many of my friends don't seem to like to configure their controls. Especially in online games where someone asks "What's the key for ..." - I can never help them because I always set a custom key pattern that makes sense to where my fingers rest.
Adam Jensen said:
The only reason people prefer WASD is because they never tried ESDF. You have more buttons on the left side to work with and you can reach the rest of the keyboard on the rights side easier. There are literally zero downsides.
I was forced into trying ESDF when I played Tribes 2 many years ago and ESDF was the default. I want to say that there was even a disclaimer saying it was a better button setup, and to give it a try. I went through and reconfigured it to WASD, but the amount of keys needed made it a pain (this was also the area before 50 button mice). So I tried ESDF and what do you know - I found it much easier to increase the amount of keys available on the left side by shifting over. I remap crouch or sneak to A, and I never have to deal with reaching my pinky finger down at an awkward angle to hit control (and sometimes clipping that damn windows key).
Honestly, I think anyone that tried it for a month would never go back to WASD. We stick to what we're comfortable - like those people that like to have their mouse inverted. I was one of those people too until a game didn't give me the option and I had to force convert. Now I can't go back.
There's also that ridge right on the F, usually (though some gaming keyboard put one on the W or similar area). That helps orient your fingers when you take them away.
Also - many MANY years ago, games defaulted to the arrow keys and there usually wasn't a custom option for changing the controls. Somehow while playing Duke Nukem 3D against players on the internet, one of the players asked me "are you using the arrow keys? You need to use WASD" I'm not sure how he knew - I guess I was playing that poorly (using the numpad 1 and 0 for jump and duck...) The game didn't have mouse aiming support by default and was one of those that used keystrokes to look up and down.
Adam Jensen said:
And ESDF nobles are superior to WASD peasants.
LOL
Why people still stick with that cramped control scheme of WASD is beyond me. I can only guess it's because of the increasingly availability of buttons for the mouse hand that people don't need to shift over.
Z, X, C, V, B become more available, compared to only Z X C before (to use V, my hand has to come off WASD completely, whereas with ESDF, any finger can slide down easier).