Blogs Why I don't use WASD

My story is similar to Joe's in that I used the arrowkeys for years when I was younger, in the Quake/Duke3D era, for the same reasons, but my situation changed over time.

I'm right-handed, but my father was forced into left-handedness by a serious injury to his right hand in his early 20s, so our computer desks at home were always built to be left-handed and I grew up using the mouse in my left hand during my 'formative gaming years'.
I quickly got used to mouselooking, but I still used arrowkeys for movement with my right hand even when I got my own computer & desk, and I remember doing so right up to about the time I was playing Jedi Knight 2 : Jedi Outcast.

I used to have my force powers bound to the ins/home/pgup/del/end/pgdn keys and would use those for Gunsmith-like ninja gameplay back then with easy access.
Then one day I think I got sick of rebinding keys in shooters to my left-handed controls and decided to put the mouse in my right hand switch to WASD.
At first I found it really annoying, because it meant remapping the force powers in JO to awkward-feeling letter-keys around WASD like Q, E, R, etc. but I got used to it over time.
The upside of it is that these days I'm comfortably ambidextrous with the mouse & keyboard. I can switch between them happily as needed.

These days, I play WoW with complex keybinds for PvP and the like, with nearly every key using modifiers (via macros with shift, ctrl, alt) for alternate actions.
On my Death Knight for instance this is my current setup:
WASD = Movement
1-5 = Main Attacks
6-0 = Other convenient abilities
Q = Utility cooldowns (Blood Tap, ERW, etc )
Z = PvP Trinket
X = Sit (Important for RP )
E = Defensive cooldowns
C = Runic Power attacks
R = Snares, Grips, Taunts
F = Self-heals
V = Interrupts/Silences
T = Pestilence
G = Extra spec-specific cooldowns (Vamp Blood, etc )
B = Minion summons
H = Presences
N = Presences (Alternate)


And that configuration carries over to similar/comparable abilities on my other characters, though it tends to be more complex on my Warlock!

In shooters these days I use a fairly typical WASD configuration, though for a long time (prior to HL2, or thereabouts) I kept crouch on left-shift and sprint/run on ctrl.
I usually stick 'Reload' on MOUSE4 as I find the 4th button very handy to reach on my MX518 (but Mouse5 never gets used, ever) and I usually bind Melee attacks to R on the keyboard instead, which I think is a holdover from the first shooter with melee attacks that I actually played significantly, which was F.E.A.R.

It's interesting to see how much people vary in their preferences with these things!

 

I havn't used the actual arrows since doom, but in the haydays of marathon 2 and then through the thief series I used the numberpad - it had more buttons. It took me years to figure out that if I used WASD I wouldn't have to constantly move the keyboard into a skewed off-center position.

 

Also I knew bloke with one very very little arm who played counterstike passably at University, even perhaps better than most. But I've no idea how me accomplished it.

 

Mostly WASD for me. For jumping I use both space and mouse wheel down (depends on jump). Wheel up for grenades in CSS, and knife melee in others like mw2.
- -mw2
F = flash
G = another grenade key

I never switch weaps with scrollwheel, in any game, never got used to it. always use the numbers, and quickswitch.

 

I use: (and I'm using Far Cry as an example)

WASD
c = crouch
v = lie down
f = use item
left shift = run
g = grenade
space = jump
mouse 1 = fire
mouse 2 = reload
scroll wheel click = toggle scope etc
scroll wheel move = zoom in/out with scope
numbers = weapon selection

I can reach all these with either my little finger or thumb while my index and ring fingers are on A & D, with my middle finger on W or S as required.

 

You forgot the [ sarcasm ] tags... I hope.

WASD ever since Quake. The last game I played with cursor keys must've been either Doom or Wolfenstein 3D.

 

i use default keyboard in CSS but bind my G5 like so:
MB1 - fire
MB2 - scope
MB3 - voice comm
SCR up - primary
SCR down - secondary
MB4 - knife
MB5 - grenades
Tilt scroll wheel left - Ventrilo PTT

 

oh and same applies for any other fps

 

I too used to use the arrow keys and its surrounding buttons. I liked the spacing between the keys, whereas with WASD, all the keys felt too close together and I would often hit the wrong key. I also hate the way the W is not directly above the S!
However, as some have already mentioned, I got tired of having to rebind every key for every new game I got, so now I use This. I find it very comfortable and it if I need to type, I just slide it out of the way and pull out the keyboard.

 

I hate the standard setting the wasd are not on the edge of your keyboard so you can't rest your hands

and i got a wave keyboard for better and faster typing so those keys are just not handy

i mostly use the arrow bottoms and all around
up down left right
ctrl = jump
number pad 0 = reload or special
number pad 1 = crouch
del = open
page up = zoom in
page down = zoom out
rest is on my mouse with 8 keys

or i use the number pad

but it changes with the game what works best

 

When I first started to play games there was no standard KB layout that everything used, and looking back I think that some of the early game layouts were almost deliberately designed to be counter intuitive. ( I don't expect they were, but some sure felt like it.)

So I designed a layout that suited me and that made sense to me.

Cursor keys for movement as that was logical, up arrow goes forward, back arrow goes back, etc.

Then there was the next level of movement which needed to be accessed almost as much as the main movement keys, but needed to be separated as they did opposite functions and in a frenetic "I'm gonna die if I don't get my ass outta here' moments I didn't want to be catching the wrong button by accident. So crouch was bound to the right ctrl key, and jump was bound to the KB 0 key.

Next up was the run/walk key. Whether it was a state toggle or if you had to hold the key down to keep it one one state (i.e. hold down the key to run, release it to walk) it needed to be easy to get too, but in a comfortable position to keep a finger on without getting the dreaded hand-ache. So the right shift became the defacto key for that.

For quite a long time that was my default set-up (and still is today actually). As games have progressed so I have added extra keys in to accommodate their functions. The large main return key gets used for activating game objects or for getting on and off ladders (depending on which I will be doing the most of during the game), the numpad 1 key is used as weapon reload, the numpad '.' key is used to swap between weapon fire modes or to holster a weapon (again depending on the game). If there is a flashlight it gets bound to the num pad 4 key. Inventory opening if it is important gets bound to the del key, but if something else is more important (Like casting spells in oblivion for example) needs to be close at had then that key is used for that and the largish tab key is used for opening the inventory (A long way away, hence it uses a large key to be quickly found and thumped without having to look down at the KB) because invariably any game that has you doing something like casting spells does not make it imperative to open your inventory mid-battle.

Zooming in for sniper mode weapons is bound to the backspace.

Any other controls are bound on a game by game basis as I find out what I am using the most and need quick access to.

Nowadays a few of the controls have been moved to the mouse for ease of use, like weapon zooming is now on the mouse wheel and spell casting is now set to my thumb button on the mouse, but I still keep the KB versions as backup because I seem to be hard on mice and I can never be sure when the mouse wheel will stop working correctly for example.

There are exceptions to this rule though as some developers think it is still cool to make certain keys not reconfigurable, for example I like playing Just Cause 2, but I play it rarely as the controls cannot be reconfigured how I would like them. Thus I am forced to use the standard wasd setup the game has and after half an hour I start to get cramp in my hand as the keys seem way too close together.

 

lefty: RDFG + reverse mouse fire buttons.
Gives access to the most buttons with my right hand + reversing fire buttons means my fastest finger (i.e. index) does primary fire.

 

I use different keys in different games, for example in counterstrike is use the arrow keys, some numpad keys, the control, shift, enter, slash forward delete and end keys.
For another game i use ESDF

 

ha joe your like me.. I can do both but I really like the arrow keys over wasd

 

Haven't played much FPS for a while but I did have a related issue when I had been suffering from some tendon/RSI type thing from the aptop I used at work and then bought a joystick for X2 and the trigger placement such that the rest of the fingers on my right hand weren't gripping anything and I was getting a lot of pain and stiuffness after gaming.

I fixed the joystick issue (taped a wine cork to the stalk as a support) but I decided that as a contract developer I'd be out of pocket if I (though I'm most definitely not ambidexterous) just in case I got the same trouble again.

 

All my gaming friends and coworkers ride me like a greasy used bike on my PC control scheme. Strangely enough, one of them actually linked me to this article (as opposed to the traditional auditory rebuking and chastising). Anyways--I played a butt-ton of Duke3D & Quake, and I sort of absorbed my current control scheme vicariously through both. Despite the hate, I do pretty damn well at FPSes.

Right Mouse Button: Forward
Left Mouse Button: Fire
Middle Mouse Button: Alt Fire
Mouse Thumb Button: Last Weapon

Left Alt: Strafe left
Space Bar Strafe right
A: Jump
S: Backwards
D: Use/Interact
Z: Crouch
C: Grenades
X: Health (when applicable)
Left Ctrl: Special (spin mini-gun in TF2, aim down the sites in COD)

On a closing note: games that refuse to let you re-bind every key have special place in hell reserved for them. Appropriately, Hellgate London's already there.

 

I'm a full-time nostromo speedpad user. I haven't touched a keyboard in years! I have no problems in FPS games, in fact, FPS games are what led me to use a nostromo...I don't know how people can use keyboards, they're too awkward for me.

 

I've changed my controls from default to more quake like. Quake the last used weapon is kinda useless and most important is to have qertfg open for your favorite weapons and it reflects to my binding style where qertfg are usually reserved for game specific bindings.

WASD = normal
CTRL = altfire
SPACE = crouch
Shift = Walk/Run/Prone
CapsLock = prone(if game has walk also)
ALT = use
R = reload
T = last used weapon
Mouse1 = fire
Mouse2 = jump
Mouse4 = knife

 

Me too. I find having to remap the keys in almost every game to be a pain - but it sure beats the alternative.

Not me. What bugs me is that I've seen an entire computer lab set up to be "ergonomic" - but for right-handers only .

+1

 

that makes sense actually i may try this out