How do you play DooM? Keyboard only vs Keyboard + mouse vs controller

[xttl]

22 hours ago, auxo said:

Started playing on a DOS emulator so keyboard only.

Then I saw the light with source ports and now exclusively m+kb :P

 

uhh you can use mouse + keyboard in the original DOS version just fine

[OliveTree]

you arent gonna believe me but i switched to using a steam controller and my performance with Doom, specifically, has actually increased dramatically. (my combat performance i mean, the games run the same lol). 

[Beginner]

I play Doom the one and only way God & John Adrian Romero Carmack intended: mouse only. Every other way is, obviously, wrong.

Edited July 11, 2020 by Beginner

[Endless]

Where's that guy that plays with a Guitar Hero controller ?

[Chow Yun Thin]

Keyboard originally, now m+k on GZDoom. I despised using the mouse in DOS Doom because of the y-axis moving you back and forth and the slow turn rate even with max sensitivity in the in-game settings. I didn't learn about novert or editing the default.cfg until well after I switched to source ports.

 

Controllers aren't bad whether it's the PS1 layout or the dual-stick layout with modern control scheme. Hell, the motion-controller below looks pretty neat, though I imagine its setup is more involved.

 

 

[adamadam]

Still keyboard only.  Though I definitely know the limitations, cannot turn & strafe simultaneously and turning takes like ~5x as long as the mouse in modern source ports.  But it's what I began with and I still get by decently well playing in ultraviolence.  Once in a while there's an impossible level for example the one in the Scythe megawad where you're on a very tight timer, keyboard-only controls are just far too slow.

[unerxai]

3 minutes ago, adamadam said:

cannot turn & strafe simultaneously

You can if you use the strafe-left and strafe-right keys.

[Boaby Kenobi]

7 hours ago, kawadec said:

I have played Doom 64 on emulator with the controller mapped out to something resembling the typical modern console FPS scheme, and that was rather effective.

 

I use this configuration and it feels really nice.

 

[DooM Bear]

2 minutes ago, Boaby Kenobi said:

 

I use this configuration and it feels really nice.

 

 

Oh man I miss that alien hand of a controller :-P

 

You just reminded me that I need to find a way to hook my N64 and Sega Mega Drive to my tv :-D

[Boaby Kenobi]

@DooM Bear You can use the scart cable that comes with a GameCube to connect your N64 to a modern TV although as you can imagine it doesn't look very good at all. I also have a scart cable for my Mega Drive and sometimes get my MD out and connect it up but I mostly play those games using the Fusion emulator or even PicoDrive on my PSP.

[HeyItsDuke]

I started out with the XBLA ports of Doom 1 + 2 so controller was the way I played.
Then I bought Classic Complete on Steam, started playing them on PC, and now I only use Keyboard + Mouse (No Freelook though. Only looking to the right and left vanilla style).

[D4NUK1]

3 hours ago, Mitchfork said:

 

Don't forget, if you had Doom 95 on a Windows 2000/XP system in the early 2000s, the mouse would not work and there was no fix for it.  I suspect many people that weren't around for DOS Doom didn't realize this was a bug.

 LOL thats explain why I never played with mouse until ZDOOM

 

I was with XP and doom 95 and mouse really don't work it, so I just presume that's how was done. 

[The_SloVinator]

Used to play it keyboard only back in the day but since I play any other shooter with keyboard + mouse, I decided that I might as well do it for Doom too.

[CyberDreams]

14 hours ago, Can't play on Nightmare said:

 

Mouse players say that you have to go right and left with mouse.

 

There is no looking up and down in Doom.

 

14 hours ago, Roebloz said:

Yeah and I'm not so I dont use mouselook or jumping.

 

What are you guys talking about? I use a mouse in GZDoom and i don't use freelook or jumping/crouching either (unless a WAD i play needs it). You don't need to look up/down in GZDoom in order to use a mouse. You can disable it (Always Mouse-Look = Off) and play Doom/Doom II the way they were intended. Same with jumping/crouching. You can disable those as well.

 

Hell, i still play with infinite height on lol.

 

*EDIT: I forgot to quote the GZDoom "quotes" that you guys were talking about so this might seem confusing for others to read so here they are: 

 

Spoiler

 

Edited July 12, 2020 by CyberDreams : update

[DooM Bear]

47 minutes ago, CyberDreams said:

Hell, i still play with infinite height on lol.

 

Infinite hight is the only way to play :-P

 

That said I usually try to UV-max everything so doesn’t usually make too much of a difference for me :-P

[HeyItsDuke]

2 hours ago, CyberDreams said:

What are you guys talking about? I use a mouse in GZDoom and i don't use freelook or jumping/crouching either (unless a WAD i play needs it). You don't need to look up/down in GZDoom in order to use a mouse. You can disable it (Always Mouse-Look = Off) and play Doom/Doom II the way they were intended. Same with jumping/crouching. You can disable those as well.

Exactly what I was talking about. I disabled freelook and just use the mouse to look left, right, and shoot. It feels more comfortable than a keyboard.

 

1 hour ago, DooM Bear said:

Infinite hight is the only way to play :-P

I don't know about that one. I try to play as vanilla as possible, but infinite height psychically causes me pain sometimes. :P

[Can't play on Nightmare]

11 hours ago, Doomkid said:

I use a mouse and keyboard in the vanilla executable, the way God intended

 

Are you the same Doomkid on Youtube?

[aB1s]

6 hours ago, CyberDreams said:

I use a mouse in GZDoom and i don't use freelook or jumping/crouching either (unless a WAD i play needs it). You don't need to look up/down in GZDoom in order to use a mouse. You can disable it (Always Mouse-Look = Off) and play Doom/Doom II the way they were intended. Same with jumping/crouching. You can disable those as well.

4 hours ago, HeyItsDuke said:

I disabled freelook and just use the mouse to look left, right, and shoot. It feels more comfortable than a keyboard.

I totally agree with the two of you. That's aswell exactly the way how I play DOOM since years. :)

Edited July 12, 2020 by aB1s

[Maximum Matt]

Keyboard only, I'm oldschool/an idiot.

[Doomkid]

59 minutes ago, Can't play on Nightmare said:

Are you the same Doomkid on Youtube?

Yep, same one

[Loud Silence]

Keyborad + Mouse. No matter how some players are good with controller or keyboard only, Keyboard + Mouse player can do much much much better.

[Roebloz]

4 hours ago, HeyItsDuke said:

Exactly what I was talking about. I disabled freelook and just use the mouse to look left, right, and shoot. It feels more comfortable than a keyboard.

 

True but I'm not that good at using a laptop mouse (Or trackpad I think it's called? I'm natively french so I don't know 100% for sure) for Doom and I'm way too used to using the keyboard at this point.

[ZeroTheEro]

1 hour ago, Roebloz said:

True but I'm not that good at using a laptop mouse (Or trackpad I think it's called? I'm natively french so I don't know 100% for sure) for Doom and I'm way too used to using the keyboard at this point.

Yes, it's a trackpad.

[Final Verdict]

9 hours ago, CyberDreams said:

 

Hell, i still play with infinite height on lol.

 

 

I do the  same and I don't even know why. It can be a serious pain in vertical maps or a high density arena and yet I will not change it. Strange how the mind gets itself locked into certain habits, especially when the brain itself naturally strives for efficiency (path of least resistance et-cetera).

 

I won't use crouch or jump either, unless the map/wad requires it.

 

I do enable mouse look though as I see no reason not too, that and I still remember being blown away by Exhumed (known as Power Slave in the USA). When I first noticed you could look up and down in that game I was speechless.

 

I know it's hilarious because I think it had been around in some games since 1992, but until that point I had never seen it done in a FPS game. I didn't play stuff like System Shock and Duke Nukem 3D until after Exhumed/Power Slave. 

 

[HeyItsDuke]

4 hours ago, Roebloz said:

True but I'm not that good at using a laptop mouse (Or trackpad I think it's called? I'm natively french so I don't know 100% for sure) for Doom and I'm way too used to using the keyboard at this point.

Yeah I'd rather use a keyboard over a trackpad so that's understandable.

[GarrettChan]

On 7/11/2020 at 10:26 AM, Grazza said:

I strongly suspect the myth that Doom was keyboard-only is perpetuated mostly by newcomers who weren't around in the early days and have just been misinformed much more recently.

 

A bit of a mystery where the myth came from, but it's clearly alive and well. The thing I find most interesting is that if you delete the default.cfg, the option it defaults to is keyboard + mouse. You didn't even need to do anything to choose this option.

Right now the most annoying part is that when somebody says "Doom was designed with mouse gameplay in mind", there'll be a chance that somebody interpret that as "you have to play it with mouse" even though nobody explicitly said that. Heck, there are some crazy good keyboard speedrunners, so I have zero motivation to influence others by saying "mouse is better".

[Remilia Scarlet]

WASD + mouse.  I used to do keyboard only as a kid, but stopped once I could move the mouse vertically for aiming instead of moving.  The only first-person game I still play keyboard-only is Descent.

[Pirx]

mouse + keyboard. it's still the optimal input method for shooters.

 

my only use of controllers was years ago for fighting games (where they're the best choice, imo)

 

actually, i played happily keyboard only through wolf3d / spear and doom 1+2, and converted in 1996 to the mouse, iirc. that means, i was so used to walking forward using my right middle finger (on the arrow keys), that i didn't adopt full WASD, but ASD + right mouse button to walk forward. that stayed so since, so it will hardly ever change.

[BigBoy91]

Pretty tired discussion at this point.

[DooM Bear]

4 hours ago, lazy91geek said:

Pretty tired discussion at this point.

 

Why do you say that @lazy91geek?

 

Sure the question may have been asked in the past at some point but people may have changed the way they play in the last 1, 5, 10 or 20 years :-)

 

For instance, I honestly expected more keyboard only players but that was just because it was how everyone I knew 15-20 years ago used to play :-)