Poll: Screw WADS

[Baneat]

The only real problem is the use of CTRL,

If you curve your pinkie over control your ring finger ends up at z, I always rebind ctrl functions to shift or c if I can.

 

[Outright Villainy]

I've only start pc gaming 2 years ago, and already WASD is as natural as any controller to me.

Iz fine.

 

[Flailing Escapist]

Just out of curiousity why did you think a paragraph and a half needed a tl;dr?

OT: I think WASD works just fine for me.

 

[Avatar Roku]

I admit that WSAD is a ***** to learn, but it is clearly the best once you DO learn it. However...

snip

I've never seen one of those before but that's pretty damn cool. If it weren't for the fact that my main PC these days is a laptop, I'd be all over that.

 

[darth.pixie]

I just use the Arrow Keys.

I can't be the only person.

Though, that might be one of the reasons why I'm not very heavy into computer gaming.

I know a guy who won't play a game is he doesn't have the option to change WASD to the arrow keys. He once cracked a game to do so.

I like WASD because I got used to it. I can also play with the arrows. It depends on which keyboard I'm using and how distanced it is from the mouse.

 

[JoesshittyOs]

It's honestly not to bad for me.

I'm more worried about my mouse when I play PC games, seeing how I use the track pad on my labtop as it's the most powerful computer in my house (right after the Ipad, unfortunately enough).

Seriously, it's a momentous occasion when I get a kill in Counter Strike. While playing against Bots on easy.

 

[Halceon]

Well, the only thing I'd change around is moving caps lock to the very bottom, so that shift and ctrl are easier to reach.

 

[evilneko]

Know what I'd love to see?

More support for left-hand mousers. Anyone know if there's a right-handed nostromo-like device? That'd be pretty awesome. Granted, you got the numpad over there on the right, but it's problematic for various reasons.

I'd love to see more support for ambidextrous gaming, too, or switching hands on the fly. Many games don't have options for alternate keybinds, allowing only one key to be bound to a function.

Yeah, I suffer from RSI. Enough that I've switched to a trackball on my right, and keep a mouse on my left for when my wrist just hurts too much.

...and I'm terrible at left-handed mousing in games... but eventually I may just have to. >.>

 

[Yal]

WASD is perfectly serviceable, I don't see myself switching to any fancy key layouts, but I could imagine myself using a thumbstick (only for movement, leave the mouse alone). But it would have to be placed near the spacebar to keep the rest of my hand over the left side of the keyboard, and I would be leery of buying one without being able to test drive it.

 

[sir.rutthed]

So... You don't like it because everyone knows it works and uses it for the default? That makes no sense whatsoever. If you don't like it get a gamepad.

 

[RUINER ACTUAL]

I find WASD controls problematic because they are so unbelievably commonplace almost to the point of an unmodifiable standard. If it were easier to get your fingers oriented around WASD buttons from touch I wouldnt have nearly the issues.

So, It got me to thinking that a solution for this would be to modify keyboards. If you moved the arrow keys to the left side of a gaming keyboard and make a more ergonomic 1 hand control layout around that set of arrow keys, it would alleviate many issues that are created with WASD configurations like tying up text capabilities with movement mapping

TL;DR: Would you use a keyboard with a specialized set of control keys to the left of the letter keys if available, over standardized WASD controls?

Or use an xbox controller...just sayin.

OT: No. WASD is fine. If you can't find WASD, you're not using your computer enough.

 

[Saulkar]

Really? You've never seen this before?

Well, allow me to introduce you to the beautiful Steelseries Merc Stealth. Ive had it for about a year now, love it. Had a Zboard before this one, but I find this one to just feel better.

Oh, the Zboard -

Really? Never seen these? Seriously?

I think I will get one of those f!ckers thankyou very much.

 

[Smooth Operator]

You do understand there are millions of input devices that the PC can use?
A good portion of these are gaming keyboards... go and buy one of those.

 

[klasbo]

WASD gives me these keys easily within reach:
|123456 [Tab] QWERTY [Caps Lock] ASDFGH [Shift] <ZXCVBNM [Control] [Win (remapped through the registry)] [Alt] [Space]
That gives me 27 non-movement-related keys (ie when we exclude WASD Z [Shift] [Control])

Why would I want to move away from that? My pinky finger only uses 3 buttons, sure, but I've never had a problem with this. I'd honestly get a Razer Naga than have fewer keyboard keys...

 

[Neonsilver]

The only thing I'd really want to change about WASD isn't even about the keys themselves, is the stupid key limit that you can press. For example, a lot of driving games wont allow you to press W (accelerate), D (turn right) and Ctrl (boost or whatever) at the same time, so you end up boosting yourself straight into the oncoming wall. I never got the point of that key limit, especially when it works with some key combinations and not others.

You should probably invest a little bit more money in a keyboard. There exist keyboards were every key is detected, no matter how many keys are being pressed at the same time.

 

[Ensiferum]

After getting used to WASD for 15 years, I'm not in any hurry to change up now; no thanks.

 

[viranimus]

Or use an xbox controller...just sayin.

Yes, I do use a 360 gamepad almost all of the time for PC gaming. However, and if this was not clear, my apologies for failing to express it properly. What I am proposing was a solution more to change to a proper standard instead of using a stop gap solution. (also, there are some games even with xpad it is impossible to play via a gamepad be it from complexity, or key conflictions)

One or two keyboards laid out like this will not help from the developmental side where many game developers have adopted WASD as a default. In many cases it takes extensive remapping to configure if you do not favor WASD and now were seeing games that are starting to abandon the option for remapping all together. By relocating the arrow keys on gaming keyboards much like the above referenced metalSteel design as more of a standard for gaming keyboards (its not practical for traditional Davorak centric functions of traditional keyboards) you could migrate the developers to at least give that option. Instead of abandoning control options because the developers assume all PC gamers love WASD, and dont find having movement keys clumped into an unidentifiable mess of misaligned keys to be problematic

So my issue isnt really the hardware side, as much as it is a hardware solution to grievous software neglect.

 

[The Shade]

I either use Arrow Keys or a controller, honestly. Controllers are just so natural to me. Seems weird to use a keyboard at all some days for gaming. If I need extra keys, I just bind them to my NumPad.

And to all you people saying WASD is the most natural - I remember the days when Arrow Keys were the standard, and the best games were all on Mac! Yeah, that's right - WASD is an abomination unto PC gaming...

 

[FirstPersonWinner]

I call it the left analog stick. And to fix the mouse I propose a right analog stick also.

 

[Jaeke]

well they made WASD method for the convenience(spelling?) of the typewriter because it used too be where the only way to delete letters was whiteout and before that you would have to retype. They originaly had all the keys in alphabetical order but people would type to fast so they invented the WASD so as to not inconvenience the writer until the technology could handle it. By that time though, people were already used to it, so.... same thing here... ahem.