WASD or Arrow Keys?

[Coraline]

Here's a fun topic. When you first started playing DOOM, what keyboard scheme did you use? I vaguely remember the controls being customizable to an extent in SETUP.exe.

For me, I played with the arrow keys, spacebar, alt and control. Now it's nearly impossible to play like that, but it's still nostalgic for sure. I never used a mouse either.

I think the game to change that was Quake, and that's when I really started using the WASD keys and mouselook.

[EarthQuake]

Meh. I still use the arrow keys. Fuck all that WASD crap.

I was a keyboarder back then and my configuration was the default. I always held down shift to run (to the point where my shift key no longer worked), and I could do some really nice strafework without even thinking about it. As far as keyboarding went, I was pretty damned good.

[Maes]

This topic will inevitably bring the discussion back to mouse vs keyboard, however I too, when I started playing Doom and Heretic and for a good 10 years or so, played Doom with the standard arrows, Ctrl, Alt, Shift and Space (I still don't use autorun with this config, if I happen to use it, as I developed a habit of keeping the left shift pressed).

Add PgUp, PgDn, End for Heretic or Absolution looking up/down. Yeah, I played Absolution with the keyboard, and even the first half of HR.

After 2004, I totally moved to WADS + Mouse.

The weird thing was that I played other FPS way before 2004 with the WASD + mouse controls, but not Doom. I eventually decided that I'd better have a common control scheme for all FPS games, after I was convinced that WASD + mouse gave superior control.

[Coraline]

That's right, I forgot about PGUP and PGDN (in reference to games later than Doom). Then there was the Home or End key to straighten the view out in later games wasn't there? The only problem was that it was atrociously hard to aim with the PGUP and PGDN. Then again, Autoaim in those days solved that problem for the most part.

[Reevys]

You know, I can't honestly remember. I only played Doom on the PC from when I was 4 till when I was 6, so all I remember from that time are the levels.

[Airman266]

Well the first time I played Doom was on Super Nintendo; then on 32x. I was hooked. After that, in the late 90s one of my friends was the only guy in my little circle that had a computer and he had the Doom95.exe but we played with a joystick, like a flight stick to move; it had alot of buttons on it for fire, open doors and another one we used to enable strafing. All we used left hand for was selecting weapons. It took me a while to get used to that.

Finally I got my own computer and bought the Collector's edition and at first played with arrow keys and control and ins to strafe. It wasn't until I started using ports that supported mouselook that I switched to left hand to move, but I actually use EDSF because I find it more natural to keep my left index on the home key for typing. This opens up using all the nearby keys for direct selection of weapons without even having to move my hand, since most ports mouse wheel supported doesn't really scroll but just kinda clicks up to the next weapon, it takes forever to go from shotgun to plasma. This is how I still play all computer based FPS games.

[myk]

I used the defaults (thus, arrow keys) for a good while, without the mouse. I didn't have external points of comparison or input so I wasn't keen on why changes would benefit me. I was also something of a newb to action games, except in consoles which had a fixed setup.

The Internet came, though, and, aside from the fact that I could read of setups on text files (particularly of demos) people talked about this online. And seeing better play (or meeting it, such as on CSDoom or QuakeWorld) made a demand on me to perfect movement.

Now I use WESD, not WASD :p

[Maes]

Airman266 said:

in the late 90s one of my friends was the only guy in my little circle that had a computer and he had the Doom95.exe but we played with a joystick, like a flight stick to move; it had alot of buttons on it for fire

OK WTF, I gotta try this: Doom with a flight sim joystick. If the throttle acted as a collective/height control, you would have a decent helicopter sim right there.

[DeumReaper]

In 93/4, arrow keys w/ turning. It wasn't until my cousin was playing with strafe left/right arrow keys (with Rainbow Six of all games) that I switched to that. Then not long after Quake 3 came out did I try WASD and stick with that to this day. One of my earlier computers had a zboard with the gaming keyset that exaggerated the WASD layout, which was cool but I've stuck with normal WASD controls with open/use and show map/scores on the mouse buttons.

Maes said:
OK WTF, I gotta try this: Doom with a flight sim joystick. If the throttle acted as a collective/height control, you would have a decent helicopter sim right there.

maybe a Flight Simulator Doom wad?

[Maes]

DeumReaper said:

maybe a Flight Simulator Doom wad?

I plugged in my Trust flight sim joystick to give it a shot, and after some fiddling with config I managed to get by the sergeants in E1M1 and get pumped full of hot, manly lead :)

Not really the best way to play DooM, I can guarantee. For the records, I used a 4-axis "fighter plane" joystick, initially with the main stick set to control direction, stick turning to control turning, and the throttle level to control eye elevation. Then I tried assigning the throttle to move doomguy.

The advantages? Well...you can do really fine forward and strafing movements. The cons...well...it's just plain fucking impossible to play that way.

[geekmarine]

I, too, first played Doom using a keyboard. However, I swapped firing and strafing so that I used ALT to fire and CTRL to strafe. The reason I did that was because I was used to ALT being fire from Bio Menace. I can't believe I still remember that.

I never actually moved to WASD until I first played Half-Life - it had never even occurred to me before, but it was the default control setup, and I didn't feel like messing with it, so I gave it a shot and fell instantly in love.

[Coraline]

I played ROTT with a flight joystick once. That was a trip. I also remember a kid growing up who played it with just a mouse. Moved around, one btn would open, one btn would shoot...I forgot the other button.

I also remember playing Doom Legacy, splitscreen, with my brother, who used a flight sim joystick. Shortly after I remember us splitting the keyboard up for it: one of us would use the default arrow keys + space and whatnot, and the other would use the numeric pad for moving and the mouse for the rest. Good times with Eternal Doom with that setup.

[Dreadopp]

When I started playing, I used the arrow keys. I now use WASD (with the mouse), but I can't remember what game made me change over. Maybe it will come back to me now that I am thinking about it.

[Hellbent]

For as long as I can recall it's been: s d c + mouse

[Pirx]

Chu said:

I also remember playing Doom Legacy, splitscreen, with my brother, who used a flight sim joystick. Shortly after I remember us splitting the keyboard up for it: one of us would use the default arrow keys + space and whatnot, and the other would use the numeric pad for moving and the mouse for the rest. Good times with Eternal Doom with that setup.

probably ok for co-op (i've never played with splitscreen), but, um, less for deathmatch... :p

i've keyboarded happily through doom all of 1994-95, using the standard keys offered by setup.exe (arrow keys, space bar to open, ctrl to shoot iirc). i used alt to turn strafe on as i didn't even have dedicated strafing keys which would have improved my abysmal mobility with that setup somewhat, so circle strafing (rather square strafing) was an elaborated series of strafe, stop, turn, strafe again.

funnily, the only mousers i knew back in the day were equally inept kids, so our deathmatch scores were pretty equal. i made up for my speed disadvantage with clever camping while they couldn't do much better than run into me spinning wildly with their l33t mousesens of ~2 cm per 180 degree turn. this convinced me that the rodent-like contraption was an impractical toy.

in mid-1996 i got internet access and the demos i watched (donner, sjoblom, lindgren, humpert, whoever recorded back then) left me baffled: no matter how quick i tapped my keys, my circles stayed square and slow. frustrated i started using the mouse, but made the same mistake of playing with a way too high sens, so i fell back to my trusted keyboard controls when the game became too hectic. duke3ed was still manageable with keys.

by the time quake with its full mouselook came out, i watched a demo of 4 guys in an FFA on dm4, of which only the recording player used a mouse. i concluded he must be using a joystick with a hat switch, so i guess i was still really crappy :p

only days later i finally got my ass handed to me in quake so badly that i finally adopted mouselook and WASD. actually it's ASD since i walk forward using the right mouse button, i found it easier when leaving the arrow keys since it's the same finger. starting with quake i arranged my weapon keys around ASD. also, i didn't like other mice than my logitech wingman, and when ball mice became obsolete i found someone to build ms 3.0 optics into the wingman. i still use it for gaming.

[Coraline]

Torr Samaho said:

probably ok for co-op (i've never played with splitscreen), but, um, less for deathmatch... :p

...so circle strafing (rather square strafing) was an elaborated series of strafe, stop, turn, strafe again.

Haha, I never attempted a deathmatch on a setup like that. Anyways splitscreen is too awkward for something like that.


Yeah, that circle strafe thing was exactly how it went, too. It's funny to hear it from someone else. Yeah, circle strafing would be pretty choppy. I think...I don't think I've ever seen anyone use a mouse in Doom when it was released, it wasn't until later (after Quake was released) that I really saw people using the mouse.

[punnyone]

I find it easier to use the arrow keys. Mainly because I find it easier having my hands spread out over the keyboard with my left hand controlling the action/fire/weapon keys and the right hand controlling movement.

[Dragonsbrethren]

I used the arrow keys + mouse up until about a year ago, when I finally made the switch to WASD. It only took me about three days to adapt to, and there's no way I'd ever go back to using the arrow keys.

[Ichor]

When I first started, I used the gamepad. Of course, I had to since it was SNES. For the PC version, I used a joystick for a while, but they kept breaking, so I switched to all mouse (with shift for run and alt for strafing).

[Kyka]

Forward: Mouse2
Strafe left: M
Backward: ,
Strafe right: .

Weird setup, but it works for me pretty well. I think I have used it since the beginning. Firstly with the arrow keys (I didn't use down arrow, had my R thumb on CTRL for shooting, and my right pinkie on NUMPAD 0 iirc.), then kept the same general idea for when I switched to mouse look, which was approximately 2 days after I got my dooming butt handed to me by a mouse user. After that, I spent a glorious period of owning everyone I met. After that, they all caught on, and thus began my rapid return to dooming mediocrity. :(

[raptir]

Funny, I was about to make a similar topic here. I alternate a lot between mouselook, mouse turning and all keyboard, but I never use the traditional setup. When I first played back when the game was released, I just used the default controls (arrow keys for moving, alt for strafing I think, etc...), but now that I've come back to the game I always customize to WASD for movement and left and right arrow keys for turning. Ctrl for fire. That's if I go all keyboard, obviously. When I playing with mouse turning, I'll still use WASD and use Mouse1 for fire.

[Coraline]

I still remember trying to use a gamepad and the game would go berserk sometimes, so I didn't stick to it for very long.

[perkristian]

During my early days of Doom/Wolf3D I quickly went over to using the mouse, but didn’t develop a deatmatch-worthy way of playing until Duke Nukem 3D came out.
I use neither WASD, nor the arrow keys:

Forward – Right mouse
Strafe left – Left shift (didn’t work in original Doom)
Strafe right – Z
Backward – A
Jump – Left Alt
Q – Crouch (using the same finger as on backward)

My hand naturally hits these keys when I lower it down on the keyboard, and all these keys are located on the left side of the keyboard so it’s a quite comfy position.

[Lüt]

EarthQuake said:

Meh. I still use the arrow keys. Fuck all that WASD crap.

Score.

14 years strong and never compromising.

[Graf Zahl]

I'm left handed so WASD is of no use to me. I use the number pad plus mouse with the left hand.

[DooMAD]

I can still quite happily use the arrow keys, although I might be a bit out of practice these days with all the mouse usage. The only thing I could never get used to was holding Alt for strafing, so I use , and . for strafe left and right instead.

I don't think I ever used WASD until I started playing BF1942, heh. On most of my FPS games with mouse usage, I set up both arrow keys and WASD because I tend to choose one at random each time I play without even noticing, heh.

[Maes]

Graf Zahl said:

I'm left handed so WASD is of no use to me. I use the number pad plus mouse with the left hand.

I never quite got why a left handed person must/should be purely left handed for everything: I have a few left-handed friends, and none of them needs to use completely mirrored keyboards, specially mirrored tools etc. Not everything in a left-handed guy's life must be specular: e.g. said friend uses the exact same controls I use for games, and a normal right-handed mouse with left clicking on the...left button.

Especially video game controls are something subjective that depends on one's habits and the nature of the controller, more than being left-handed or right handed.

E.g. with arcade sticks, I really need my strong (right) hand to control direction, while the weaker one is mashing buttons. Same with keyboard, if using arrow keys. Especially with the joysticks, I'll go as far as playing with my hands crossed, if the stick is on the "wrong" (left) side.

The only exception is when using a gamepad, most of which are "left handed" or rather, "left-thumbed", and of course the WASD +mouse arrangement...although one could argue that none of the hands has just movement or just firing/action controls.

[Espi]

I used to play kb only for a while, using the default setup. I used the right side shift etc, until Duke Nukem 3D and Quake, which is when I moved to the left side, with a and z for looking up and down. Shortly after that I moved to using keyboard and mouse though. As far as I can remember, the first game I tried it in was Jedi Knight.

[dew]

i heard sedlo used some totally ultra-weird key settings that optimized his freaky sr50 superpowers, like using all the keys in the line above space or something..

[Steeveeo]

Used to use Arrows, but then my hands started cramping on a regular basis, so I went WASD.

That choice further hardened when I got a gamer keyboard from my friend (with those separate WASD keys with all the buttons "strategically positioned" around them).