I'm finally starting to use a mouse in Doom, but a little confused

After using the mouse briefly, it actually feels pretty nice, more accurate than a keyboard alone. My only problem is that it feels kind of hard to use :/ I'm playing worse with the mouse than I did with the keyboard.

Are there any optimal configurations for playing like this? I don't like moving the mouse forward for going forward, so I put novert on, but it still seems weird. I rearranged the keyboard, so S is forward, X is backward, Z is strafe left, and C is strafe right. This feels alright, but it's not helping my playing skills. Also I noticed that I just can't get used to using the first mouse button to fire, I'm still dependent on the Ctrl button.

Man I feel old, never really used the mouse before to play games.

To answer your let me post my configuration.

Move Forward - W (or I for left handed mouse)
Move Backward - S (or K for left handed mouse)
Strafe Left - A (or J for left handed mouse)
Strafe Right - D (or L for left handed mouse)
Fire - Ctrl or Mouse1
Use - Spacebar

And thats pretty much it. Mouse is for turning, and as you can see, the A and D keys are for strafing, alt is for...um...nothing really. I also have novert on, vertical mouse movement bugs me batshit.

Never in a million years did I expect someone to still be a keyboarder in 2007.

WASD is pretty much the standard now... well "now" being like the last ten years or so I guess.

Give it some time, I remember when I switched to WASD in... like... 1996 or something, it took a while to get the hang of it.

MikeRS said:

My only problem is that it feels kind of hard to use :/ I'm playing worse with the mouse than I did with the keyboard. ... This feels alright, but it's not helping my playing skills. Also I noticed that I just can't get used to using the first mouse button to fire, I'm still dependent on the Ctrl button.

It always takes a little while to adjust to a new control set-up. The fact that you're already noticing some improvements suggests that it is worth sticking with it. Just keep practicing and it should all come together before long.

The WASD set-up (or something similar) that Hobbs describes is pretty popular. It should start to feel comfortable after a while, and leaves your thumb plenty of room to hit Space and keeps your fingers close enough to the number keys too (try ESDF instead if you're finding it too awkward for some reason - keyboards and fingers differ, after all). I'd definitely suggest dumping Ctrl for fire - the left hand already has enough to do, while the fingers on your mouse hand are underemployed otherwise.

If you find you are hitting the Windows key (if that is on your keyboard), then this can be disabled. Do a web search (for, e.g., "disable windows key") to find out how.

Note that if you do try this out in a port, there should be a way to disable forward mouse move, either via the menus or by editing the cfg/ini file.

Thanks, WASD actually does feel better than what I set up. I guess I should just give it time before I feel completely comfortable with it. The only real problem I find is that I'm trying to revert to the keyboard for tough situations; when I started testing out the mouse I hadn't changed the keyboard and moved to purely keyboard often, then it quickly became obvious using the mouse to go forward/backward is too much of a pain.

Don't worry, the Winkey serves no threat to me, I have nothing assigned to it (not using Windows either). Also, I already said I'm using novert (Chocolate Doom) <_<

Linguica: I'd probably be surprised if I was the last keyboarder in the world. There's bound to be somebody

MikeRS, I still keyboard, but if you using console based sourceports ex. Be Skulltag, Zdoom, GZDoom. Theres a command you should use for your mouse since movement on it SUCKS, ' Freelook true ' - This makes youre mouse the aimer, like in Doom 3 how you can AIM, and with this it makes it the perfect tool for sniping.

<Edit>

@ Linguica: I wish to not know you amongst your evil picture.

MikeRS said:
Linguica: I'd probably be surprised if I was the last keyboarder in the world. There's bound to be somebody

I have to know how this happened. Are you new to games? or did you stick just stick to older FPS so you never needed to make the change?

I'm not trying to make fun of you, I just really want to know how some one never heard of WASD.

Not new, but I don't play them often (I have some new games for NDS and GCN, none of them FPSes), and yeah I pretty much stuck to old school FPSes.

Linguica said:

Never in a million years did I expect someone to still be a keyboarder in 2007.

I use only the keyboard for Wolf3d, Doom and other older FPS's (including Quake 1 and Dark Forces). For these older games, the mouse doesn't seem too well adjusted for aiming; rather for plain movement. Besides, there's not that bad need for aiming as in Quake 2 or Doom 3. The only missing thing with keyboards is instant turning, but I can live without it in Doom. I was able to finish some dicey Nightmare maps even with keyboard.

Maybe you need to set a higher speed for the mouse,as I tried mouse'ing first in chocolate doom,it seemed to be like walking through pudding.

Here are my settings:

Speed: 10
Acceleration: 2.5
Acceleration threshold: 5
Fire weapon: Left
Move Forward: Right <-- though I don't use it
Strafe on: Middle <-- the same

Novert is enabled.

My keyconfig looks like this:
Forward: W
Backward: S
Strafe left: A
Strafe right: D
Speed on: Shift
Use: space

all others are unused

it's a good tactic to "concentrate" all unused keys (like fire weapon,turn left,etc) in one corner of the keyboard where they are as far away from other movement keys as possible to avoid "falling back" to keyboard play

printz said:

For these older games, the mouse doesn't seem too well adjusted for aiming; rather for plain movement.

That's quite untrue, especially in Quake's case, but if you enjoy crippling your performance I guess it's your choice.

MikeRS: I use ZXC the way you had it set up, but with the RMB as forward, and I doubt I'll ever change it.

MikeRS, I recently switched to using mouse as well, and while it took some time to get used to, I've noticed that gaming has improved greatly! Because of the mouse sensativity, I can quickly turn around to return fire in an instant, something the keyboard doesent do too well. This makes strafeing much easier as well since you don't need to bother with the alt key anymore.

The only thing dont use is WASD, I still use my arrow keys for moving/strafing just because the extra finger space feels better for me.

One question though, does you mouse have 2 or 4 buttons? Because if more, you can assign more tasks to the mouse. I have a 4 button wireless mouse, and while I can always switch weapons by scrolling the wheel, I can also open doors and jump with the two side buttons. It really works wonders.

I found one thing which made mousing more convenient is to disable vertical sensitivity. In dos you do this with novert.com I suppose with ports you just need to find vertical sensivity in the menu. If you 're used to quake or quake2 with the mouse, then I suppose doom shouldn't be too hard to adjust to. Just find a sensitivity that works for you. Once you have mastered using the mouse, then your performance should increase, especially in nightmare mode.

Grazza said:
It always takes a little while to adjust to a new control set-up.

Indeed, and how much probably depends on the user. To me it's kind of dreadful, but evidently worthwhile in the end when something is changed for the better (and adding the mouse is, as we know, beneficial over only the keyboard).

I'm probably unique in that all FPS games I play, I use the arrow keys for movement / strafing and the keys around it as functions.

Up - move up!
Down - OMG RUN AWAY, BACKWARDS
Left - Strafe in that direction
Right - ^--

MB1 - Shoot
MB2 - Use-key (may also be Enter) or alt-attack
MB3 - Jump
MWheel-up - Next weapon
MWheel-down - Prev weapon

Shift - run

That's the exact setup I use...! heh

Inferno said:

One question though, does you mouse have 2 or 4 buttons?

Neither. My mouse has three buttons.

I always use keyboard and mouse to play Doom. Since 1994.

Naked Snake said:

I'm probably unique in that all FPS games I play, I use the arrow keys for movement / strafing and the keys around it as functions.

I can assure you, you are not unique.

Heh, I still use the keyboard exclusively, using the default controls. I've never been able to use the mouse, it seems to slow.

EANB said:

Heh, I still use the keyboard exclusively, using the default controls. I've never been able to use the mouse, it seems to slow.

In 'nilla Doom you can always edit the default.cfg. Also, some mice (drivers) seem to be more sensitive in Doom than others.

No, I actually like the default controls.

You can increase the mouse sensitivity.

Bloodshedder said:

I can assure you, you are not unique.

Well, what I mean is that it's basically akin to handedness. WASD is more common, like being a righty, where-as using the arrow keys is like being a lefty ;)

It seems most right-handed players here prefer WASD+mouse, so no surprises there.
Personally I find WAXD or ESCF more natural though, since I prefer not not to move my middle finger away from W and backpedal with the thumb instead.
Mouse movement is for aiming of course, wheel for weapon changes and buttons 1, 2 and 3 for fire, secondary fire/use and jump, respectively.
Had I a mouse with more buttons, I'd probably bind even more actions to the right hand fingers.

It's a shame Doomworld has no polls. I'd like to know what fraction of players use reversed y-axis (flight simulator -style pitch control) in mouse aiming.

Hmm..I practically played Doom with a keyboard for at least 10 years (1994-2004). The weird thing is that in the mean I got used to other FPS which used the WASD+mouse config, yet I continued to play Doom with the keyboard alone (I still can't get rid of the reflex of holding down the shift key ;-)

Anyway, I mostly switched to mouse+WASD also for Doom, but I can switch back and play with the keyboard at anytime :-)

About right/left handedness....well, I was always of the opinion that the strong hand must be the one controlling movement, as it has better coordination, and the weaker one should be used for button mashing :-)

This worked quite well in arcades, at least then buttons are placed on the left of the lever...else I had to play with a weird cross-hand stance :-)

But mouse+WASD...well, no hand alone controls movement :-S

There are other possible discussion points, like e.g. autoaiming. I personally play Doom with freelook and full vanilla autoaim, but I also know someone who plays with no autoaim at all and (he claims) no crosshairs. The weirdest thing is that he doesn't do it for "sportmanship" or "to make the game more challenging", but, as he put it, "because it's more confortable"...well, beats me :-)

Linguica said:

Never in a million years did I expect someone to still be a keyboarder in 2007.

[Raises hand]

Oh, and when I play games that require the mouse I use the arrow keys rather than going to the WASD format.

Naked Snake said:

Up - move up!
Down - OMG RUN AWAY, BACKWARDS
Left - Strafe in that direction
Right - ^--

MB1 - Shoot
MB2 - Use-key (may also be Enter) or alt-attack
MB3 - Jump
MWheel-up - Next weapon
MWheel-down - Prev weapon

Shift - run

My setup is practically the same, but I have autorun on.

Dr. Zin said:

[Raises hand]

Oh, and when I play games that require the mouse I use the arrow keys rather than going to the WASD format.

Exactly what I do.

My setup is, for zdoom:

Forward: up arrow
Backwards: down arrow
Turning: Left/right arrows
Strafing: ,.
Look up: Ins
Look down: delete
Fly up: Page up
Fly down: page down
Jump: keypad 0
crouch: keypad 1
Autorun toggle: capslock
map: tab

Many years I used only the keyboard, because it is the best way to play single-handed. We were playing at the office and I needed the other hand to work (answering phone calls, writing stuff down etc..) Sometimes we played the whole day 9-5 with just a short break for lunch...

But when I can use both hands, I prefer WASD & TRACKBALL. The trackball I am using (Logitech Marble Man) is controlled with the thumb. You have to get used to it, but then it is extremely fast and precise.