Debunking the Myth that Doom is meant to be played keyboard-only

[Maes]

I played Doom keyboard-only until 2004-2005 (using the default controls), even though I played other, more modern FPS games with WASD+mouse. For some reason, I didn't think of adapting that same scheme to Doom. I also had a negative experience of using the mouse back in 1994 (without novert, of course, and sensibility must have been cranked WAY up. BTW, software mouse acceleration made for a TERRIBLE combination under these conditions) and concluded that the "Doom is much easier to play with a mouse" claim was bullshit.

 

I think what turned many people away was both the vertical movement (which made control feel clunky, at best), and the fact that using cursor keys + mouse was a bit WTF-y, unless you were born with two right hands. If there was a different set of keyboard layout defaults for "Keyboard + Mouse" then maybe the average Doom player's preference would have shifted way earlier.

 

It would be interesting to know if early adopters of "Keyboard + Mouse" just played it straight, putting up with the aforementioned flaws, or reconfigured keyboard/found ways to limit/deaden vertical movement (hardware mouse mods were not unheard of, e.g. physically removing the y-axis from the mouse).

[DuckReconMajor]

6 hours ago, Maes said:

(hardware mouse mods were not unheard of, e.g. physically removing the y-axis from the mouse).

Would that have been Compet-N legal?

 

edit: a quick google shows that maybe novert was not illegal in Compet-N as i thought I'd read that it was

[kb1]

On 6/4/2019 at 10:41 AM, fraggle said:

Apparently not! According to this tool which I wrote half a lifetime ago, it is using the mouse:

 

Almost, although not entirely true. There is at least one, maybe two exceptions: firstly, the Logitech Cyberman had special handling code in Doom that provided analog input. Secondly there's the Wingman Warrior, which had a special driver released for Doom that made use of Doom's external control API. I'm not sure if the latter provided analog control, but I assume it probably did.

 

In theory it should be possible to write an external control driver that provides analog joystick input using the standard DOS joystick APIs.

Interesting. I assumed the demo was keyboard only, because of the smoothness and slowness of the turns. Regarding the Cyberman: I knew there was *something* added custom for it, but I never realized it allowed analog input - nice. How about those commented out lines in the Linux source that occurred when the player received damage? (I always imaginged being connected up to a pair of terminals that delivered a nice shock to anyone receiving damage in the game :) I imagine that was used to shake the controller, for controllers supporting that sort of thing. But the Shocker would turn just about anyone into an elite player in no time...

 

On 6/4/2019 at 12:45 PM, LadyVader1138 said:

Really? What about modern sourceports?

Apparently, even vanilla had some analog support for the Logitech Cyberman (see above). But, yes, source ports are free to implement joystick analog control. Calibration becomes a tricky thing, though. Particularly, Windows tries to be smarter than it is, as it provides a joystick calibration window that does something to the joystick values receivable via DirectInput. I personally never had a lot of luck with it.

 

Most analog joysticks are simple cap/pot devices, where the software must time the charging of a cap through the variable resistor in the joystick. That's well and good, but it means that

#1 - every joystick produces different values for the same movement, and

#2 - those pots get dirt buildup, and become generally very sketchy to read.

 

This forces the game to take great measures to smooth out the input, and provide adjustable ranges of dead bands around the extremes of movement, to avoid the player "quivering", or drifting off to one side.

 

So, my point is that adding *good* analog support to a game can be challenging: you either need to depend on the quirky built-in OS calibration screens, or you need to build fairly complex calibration screens into the game.

 

I'd like to see an analog joystick that used the guts of a non-laser mouse. Something like that would provide precise measurements. I think joysticks have become a pretty rare device in the PC world, so they don't get a lot of love. Coming from the arcade/Atari-2600 world, I played vanilla Doom with joysticks for years before switching. You used to be able to plug the joystick into the sound cards of the day, as they had dedicated joystick ports. Nowadays, I think USB is the only way to connect. You can actually find joystick-to-USB converters. But the mouse will always be king.

 

[chungy]

I'm pretty sure even Half-Life 2 could technically support keyboard-only play, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear of even later games than that.

 

It would be awful but it's possible :)

[Maes]

Heretic, Duke3D and even the first Quake supported Doom-like controls by default (like Doom controls + Home/PgUp/PgDown keys for looking up/down). It was clunky, but it worked. The biggest disadvantage was that you used "freelook" only when you really had to, playing like straight vanilla Doom most of the time, which was not ideal.

[eyelid]

Playing Quake with keuboard is awful. The whole game changes radically from terrible to fun when using mouse. Still some people played quake with keyboard, have they completed the game ever is interesting question.

[Maes]

Since we're on the argument of controls...I wonder if anyone actually played vanilla Doom proficiently using a joystick/gamepad back in the 1990s, with the typical  DOS gaming limitations. That means, no fancy source ports, no 16-button joysticks w/remapping, just a plain old Game Port joystick with two (or four, if using a Gravis-like gamepad) buttons.

 

Also, no dual-shock PSX-like controllers with dual analog sticks, tons of shoulder buttons etc.: just what was regularly sold in stores and would work with an unmodified vanilla Doom the time. That means that you were pretty much limited to either horrible analog wobblers like this, more suitable for flight sims:

 

Traditional arcade-style joysticks:

 

Or a Gravis Gamepad/clone thereof:

 

 

None of those was really ideal for Doom. Also, a joystick or gamepad, unlike a mouse, is much harder to combine with keyboard controls without taking your hands off, and you had (at most) 4 axes and 4 buttons to play with with standard PC game ports.

 

FWIW, I once tried playing Doom II with my Quickshot Command Pad, an otherwise excellent controller:

 

 

It simply didn't work all that well: it was not possible to control as well/fluidly as with plain old keyboard, and combining running/strafing/firing was horribly awkward. It might have worked somewhat better with shoulder buttons (which it didn't have), but there still was the problem of switching weapons, opening doors etc. without taking your hand off the controller.

Edited June 6, 2019 by Maes

[Gunstar Green]

I mean, it wasn't ideal (the port or the controls) but I played a lot of Doom using this until we got a PC at home that could handle Doom.

 

[Maes]

I assume you mean the 32X port. How did the button mapping work on that one? I can imagine 1 button being dedicated to each one of firing, strafing, running and opening doors, but then you're only left with two buttons to handle weapon changes and/or automap (if that was even available, unless it was accessed trough the Start button while pausing).

 

Some console ports of Doom might have adopted the Quake-esque trick of auto/bump-activated doors/switches to save on one control.

 

Edit: well, the 32X 6-button control scheme seems rather reasonable, actually. The main controls you'll need the most (Run, Fire, Use+Strafe) are mapped to the big A,B,C keys, also conveniently placed in a row. Interesting how C doubles as both STRAFE and USE. That's already MUCH better than what you would get on Pee-Cee joysticks/gamepads at the time, and you would still have 3 buttons to play around with.

 

 

The 3-button Sega controller at least keeps the ABC layout for the main controls, but you get kinda fux0r3d when it comes to switching weapons and use the automap. Still, the "3 buttons in a row" layout is still better than what you'd get on most PCs, and at least every user action was mapped/mappable to the joystick, which was certainly not the case on Pee-Cee Doom.

 

Edited June 6, 2019 by Maes

[Grain of Salt]

How do you explain the fact that the qwerty keyboard has "wads" written on it

[Maes]

9 minutes ago, Grain of Salt said:

How do you explain the fact that the qwerty keyboard has "wads" written on it

 

That's Doom's big joke vs everybody that didn't get the hint, I guess.

 

52 minutes ago, Gunstar Green said:

I mean, it wasn't ideal (the port or the controls) but I played a lot of Doom using this until we got a PC at home that could handle Doom.

 

I guess that when dealing with vanilla levels only (esp. Doom I only, with the simplifications of console versions), no pressure from speedrunning or user map communities to play always faster & harder etc., a gamepad would be suitable to at least plough through the game at a leisurely, controlled pace, more like a survival horror than an action game. Doom II would already be MUCH harder with all the extra mid-tier monsters, revenant rockets, archviles etc., and most Final Doom/user-made maps (especially of the HR variety) would simply be an exercise in futility in all but the easiest difficulty levels.

Edited June 6, 2019 by Maes

[DuckReconMajor]

Someone might have mentioned this, but analog movement is still better than WASD for movement, with the exception of something like Doom that requires SR40 and SR50. Having only two available speeds and needing to tap constantly is not optimal.

 

When I played Call of Duty with keyboard/mouse I had a Logitech G13, to which I epoxied a larger analog stick head to the small one provided, freeing up all of my other fingers for other functions. To me it was the optimal FPS setup.

 

[Maes]

Then again, in typical Doom gameplay, do you really need the ability to tiptoe and control your positioning so precisely as in e.g. a modern tactical or stealth/survival shooters? Most of the time, Doom levels are designed around Doomguy's moped-like speed, tank-like mobility and insane firepower, and you really don't need that much fine motor control or carefully hide/maneuver around your opponents. Especially in some slaughter maps, you could even not have a "forward" or "run" control at all: those could be always on and the player would only maneuver in an airplane-like fashion, always going forward and turning, but never actually stopping.

[DuckReconMajor]

I agree on the Slaughter comment, but a lot of times you are popping in and out from behind a corner to take out hitscanners or navigating narrow stairways or paths, which is much easier to do precisely with analog controls than keyboard, until you get really good at it. Overall, to play Doom really well you have to have a keyboard, but I think for casual non-slaugher gameplay or people just starting out I think analog movement is better.

[[McD] James]

I played Doom and Duke 3D when they came out with a keyboard only, but it's not something I could ever go back to. Even Wolfenstein 3D doesn't feel right if I'm not using a mouse.

 

On a half-related note, I've recently found myself playing Doom without mouselook for the first time in many years. On the behest of Romero, I played through Sigil with mouselook disabled, even though I don't think mouselook is in any way cheating. When I started playing Ancient Aliens yesterday, I played through the first few maps with mouselook, but after that, I switched back to horizontal aiming with autoaim. 

 

There's definitely a purer, more retro-feel to playing without mouselook, but I do think that it makes the game a little more artificially difficult in that the autoaiming can be finicky at times. Not being able to snipe enemies in the distance mildly annoyed me at first, but when I think about it, it probably makes most maps a bit more fairly balanced.

 

Ya know, I think I actually prefer vanilla Doom with mouselook disabled, even though I've been playing vanilla Doom with mouselook for years now. If I'm going to be using a weapons' mod, then it makes more sense for me to reenable mouselook, but horizontal aiming when playing vanilla Doom just feels faster, purer and more visceral. 

Edited June 6, 2019 by Ajora

[Average]

When I first started playing Doom it was on the Amiga back in 1997 and I used a CD32 controller.  It worked pretty well for me.  When I first got a Windows PC I found mouse and keyboard really cumbersome and ended up playing keyboard only for the first while until I finally got used to the whole mouse thing.  Funnily enough, nowadays I've reverted back to keyboard (mainly due to a wrist injury).

 

Coming from the Amiga scene to the PC, I had no idea there was such an argument as to how Doom should be played.  Essentially, for me, it felt kinda like a step backward going from couch gaming on the telly with my controller to sitting at a desk, mouse in hand...  

[Zelent]

My mind has actually been blown.

I had no idea mouse support was originally available (and even recommended) in Doom.

 

When I was a kid, I don't remember seeing any prompts or options to use a mouse.

I've been playing Doom for over two decades with keyboard only.

Playing with a mouse today just feel wrong to me. It feels completely sacrilege. 

[xttl]

10 hours ago, Maes said:

Some console ports of Doom might have adopted the Quake-esque trick of auto/bump-activated doors/switches to save on one control.

 

Nope.

 

10 hours ago, Maes said:

I guess that when dealing with vanilla levels only (esp. Doom I only, with the simplifications of console versions), no pressure from speedrunning or user map communities to play always faster & harder etc., a gamepad would be suitable to at least plough through the game at a leisurely, controlled pace, more like a survival horror than an action game. Doom II would already be MUCH harder with all the extra mid-tier monsters, revenant rockets, archviles etc., and most Final Doom/user-made maps (especially of the HR variety) would simply be an exercise in futility in all but the easiest difficulty levels.

 

Revenants and their projectiles were made a lot slower in PSX Doom (the only one of the old console ports which included Doom 2 content in addition to the Saturn version, but that's just the same game with much worse framerate and no colored lighting). Archviles don't exist at all but that was more due to memory limitations. Some Doom 2 monsters actually got added into the UDoom maps (on UV only). It's playable on UV but of course mouse+keyboard will always be better.

[kb1]

@Maes: Yep, I used a 2-button analog Gravis cheapo joystick. Button 1 = fire. Button 2 doubled as strafe and open doors. It actually did work pretty darn well. But, again, nothing beats a mouse, due to the precise ability to turn at variable rates.

[Gaia74]

I'm still playing doom with just the keyboard, because since I was a child I played only with a keyboard, and well i play better only with the keyboard xD

 

but it's interesting to see this discovery!

[jupiter_ex]

I can't believe I never realized the demos are recorded using a mouse.

 

I, and everyone I knew, played back then Wolf3D and then Doom and then DukeNukem3D with keyboard only. (Actually, I was still playing keyboard only until Quake III. I beat Xaero using a keyboard. Got pretty skilled on that until I realized I had to switch to a mouse). As a matter of fact I clearly remember ROTT (a big favorite of mine) has Backspace bound by default to give a 180° turn. Ideal to shoot someone on your back without dying by slowly turning with the keys.

 

I guess using mouse enabled only in the horizontal axis feels weird to some of us.

[spaztacus]

I played keyboard only because I was playing Doom at launch on my friends Dad's work laptop and he didn't have a mouse.  I just kept playing that way till Zdoom I believe.

[Dark Jaguar]

The very first FPS I ever played was the demo for Catacombs 3D.  To this day I wonder if Heretic is set in a shared universe with that classic.  I played through the demo on keyboard only, not knowing or considering there could be any other way to play.  Oh, and for added bonus points, I played "coop" in that demo with a friend. One of us took control of weapons and attacking, and the other took control of movement.

[LadyVader1138]

16 hours ago, jupiter_ex said:

As a matter of fact I clearly remember ROTT (a big favorite of mine) has Backspace bound by default to give a 180° turn. Ideal to shoot someone on your back without dying by slowly turning with the keys.

 

I bind X for that purpose. Works well.

[HAK3180]

I play keyboard only because I was almost computer illiterate in the 90s, I spent a lot of time playing Doom on a laptop without a mouse in the 00s (I've never tried WASD+touchpad, but I can't imagine it being a good thing), and as the 10s come to a close, I've become an eternal slave to nostalgia and habit (but not elitism).

[Maximum Matt]

On 6/7/2019 at 12:54 PM, jupiter_ex said:

I can't believe I never realized the demos are recorded using a mouse.

Seconded. Feeling pretty stupid right now... but also extremely macho, considering how hard I made it for myself.

[Linguica]

One nice thing about Doom is that while most true 3D FPSes have four degrees of freedom (forward movement, strafe movement, turning, and mouselook - arguably 5 if you count jumping/crouching), Doom only has three. Whether this makes the game "easier" is up for debate but it does mean that the skill floor is lower, since you only need to aim in one axis, not two.

[Cruduxy Pegg]

Yea but the real question is why does the mouse push the player around. aside from satanic design.

[Maes]

1 hour ago, Pegg said:

Yea but the real question is why does the mouse push the player around. aside from satanic design.

 

Probably a design leftover, or overzealousness in making the mouse alone a "complete" control for Doom, similar to a flight/hovercraft simulator or a helicopter's cyclic input. In theory you could have single-hand control in Doom thanks to that design decision, but let's face it, unless you're forced to (and yes, I know about that one DW member that actually had to), and your mouse has enough buttons to spare, you wouldn't like to play more than one minute that way. Besides, with vanilla's actual limits on input devices (e.g. no 16-function mouse), this could never be practical back in the pre-source port days.

 

But yeah. On the one hand you had a control that was clunky as Hell by default, and on the other hand the manual teased you by hinting that Doom could be made 10 times more awesome if somehow you managed to unlock the Secret to the Mouse + Keyboard's TRUE potential. Thou speakest in riddles, Old Man. And then you had those built-in demos....were those really recorded with an unmodified mouse/mouse driver?

[Diabolución]

Supposedly, John Romero used a trackball back then.

 

Source:

https://www.chocolate-doom.org/wiki/index.php?title=Setup%2FMouse_configuration&type=revision&diff=1878&oldid=1876