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kildeth

Ideal/preferred keyboard and mouse configuration?

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Everyone is probably going to have a different opinion on this, but I was wondering how experienced Doomers set up their keyboard and mouse configuration, and if there is any agreed 'optimal' way to do so. Just asking as I'm not the best Doomer around despite playing the game on and off since I was a kid and I thought that maybe I've set things up awkwardly for myself somehow, especially since I'm currently using keyboard to move (up, down = forward, backward; left, right = strafing) and am only using the mouse to fire and look up and down at environments (using Zandronum source port). 'Always Run' is left on at all times.

Is this a good/bad configuration and is there anything I should experiment with to make my Dooming more efficient/easy?

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I sometimes use 'e' or 'f' for the use key instead of 'spacebar', and for games with inventories such as HeXen and Heretic I use 'z' for scroll back inventory, 'c' for scroll forward inventory and 'x' for use item.

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Personally, I only switch to keyboard-only controls when I want to simulate a newbie playing my map (for testing ITYTD difficulty). 99% of the time I use the fairly standard FPS setup of WASD for forward and back and strafing, and mouse for aiming and shooting. I usually play without autorun, unless my wrist is bothering me. I play using Chocolate Doom most of the time, so autoaim is usually reserved for playing online.

I play very, very poorly with keyboard-only. Although I have seen some demos of others doing very well with the keyboard (for instance, gggmork, iirc).

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For the most part, I use the tried and true WASD and mouse configuration. Its offers the perfect accuracy and speed that you'd want from a PC shooter. However, I know there's plenty of Doom players out there who prefer the classic keyboard only controls. Recently, I've actually managed to get through Knee Deep in the Dead and The Shores of Hell on Ultra Violence using this configuration but I still can't beat Inferno. I guess I still need more practice.

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Luke Dacote said:

For the most part, I use the tried and true WASD and mouse configuration. Its offers the perfect accuracy and speed that you'd want from a PC shooter.


Yup this :)

I used to use the cursor keys with no mouse, that really limited movement and I used to have to take imp fire balls in the face regularly. Looking back I don't know how I survived Doom back then.

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WASD for movement, Space for doors/switches, Mouse 1 for shooting, Mouse 2 for 'Strafe On' (for those rare moments requiring SR50). I use L-Alt for jumping when needed by maps/mods. Where possible, I use whatever 'Always Run' option is available (even if it's a shitty hacky method for Vanilla).

I used to play with the default KB-only settings (Arrows, L-Shift, L-Ctrl, L-Alt & Space); whenever I am reinstalling vanilla Doom and going through the setup menu these days I wonder why I didn't try something more comfortable to begin with.

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WASD movement, Q&E for weapon up/down, MOUSE3/RMB for jumping. Space bar stays as use because my thumb kinda hovers over it naturally anyway.

Mouse scroll-wheel for inventory or secondary fire/melee stuff as and when.

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WASD
LMB Fire, RMB Alt Fire

Here's the weird one for me: L-Shift is use, and L-Alt is speed/sprint/whatever it's called in games.

Could never tell you why.

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Basic: WASD for movement, Spacebar for jumping, C for crouching, E for using stuff, LMB for firing and RMB for aiming/altfire.

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Depends on the port sometimes, or how I feel like playing.

WASD for forward/back strafe left/right. Space for use. If playing HeXen I'll add Q for jumping, E and R for scrolling, and F for using an item. Mouse for shooting, looking, and secondary fire or jumping, though a long time ago I would've had X mapped for jumping due to playing large amounts of Jedi Knight, who mapped X as the default for jump, oddly.

If I'm just playing keyboard for Doom then it's

WASD for before, but then left and right arrows for turning, Space is now shoot while E or R is use. I tend not to jump then, as jumping in Doom is sorta meh in my opinion, unless I don't want tot ake the time to figure something out.

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WASD for forward/backward and strafing, mouse for aiming. LMB fires. I used to use RMB for "use" for whatever reason, but moved that to E and now use RMB for alt-fire (for ports that support it).

Speaking of additional port-specific features, I put crouch on Shift, jump on Space, inventory keys on Z, X and C (select left, select right and use selected, respectively). Reload on R if the mod actually requires that (most don't). Mouse wheel for weapon selection, although I'll occasionally use the number keys to quickly switch to the shotgun or similar.

S'about it.

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I've got really good at switching weapons with the number keys, since using the scroll wheel in Doom is kind of labourous (sp?).

In games like Quake, where it's instant, I might use scrolling.

I've tried binding scroll wheel left and right to inventory left and right for HeXen, etc, but it's way too sensitive to select items with any kind of accuracy, unfortunately. Shame.

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I use the arrow keys for moving and turning (although I actually handle most turning/aiming with the mouse), number keys to change weapons, Shift as a run modifier, Capslock as an auto-run toggle (again, hardly ever used), the right mouse button as a strafe modifier, left mouse button to fire, third mouse button to alt-fire or reload in WADs where those functions are relevant. Space to open doors/'use' the environment (also done by double-clicking the right mouse button), Slash to jump, Backslash to do a 180 (again, something I usually do manually with the mouse), Delete and Home as crouch modifier/swim down and crouch toggle respectively (again, usually not relevant), the brackets and the Enter key for inventory use, where relevant. Hardly ever use mousewheel for anything in Doom, although I use it for standard weapon-switch behavior in other games, ala Blood or whatnot.

Edit: Oh, and all of my automap controls are default.

I can also play competently using only the keyboard on WADs of average difficulty (e.g. IWAD level, a bit above), in which case I tend to use the classic Doom defaults. It's been so long since I've played that way, though, that if I did it now I'd probably make some changes.

Hardest thing I've ever tried to do was use a joystick (why I tried this I can't remember exactly). I really don't recommend it, especially not for fast shooters like Doom.

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Mouse config:

LMB: Fire
RMB: Move forward
Wheel: Change weapon (but I use number keys more)
MMB: Use

For my keyboard:

ALT: for strafing, I don't use "strafe left/right" keys
Space: Use
Number keys for weapons

Zdoom stuff:

/: Alt-fire, please don't ask why this is my alt-fire key.
\: Drop items. All other "inventory" keys for me are at default
A: Jump
Z: Crouch
V: Zoom
R: Reload

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wasd - forward/back/strafe
space - use

1 - fist
2 - pistol
3 - chaingun
shift - shotgun
r - rocket
f - plasma
c - bfg

if playing keyboard only, then these also:

x - 180° flip
left/right-arrow - turn
up arrow - shoot

I think I stole that setup from qaatar (he mentioned it in a demo textfile or something), but I like it. e and z are free for zdoomy things if I ever find myself playing those wads.

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WASD movement, 1-7 weapons, Space use, LMB shoot. Yep, I'm the most boring person in the world. Jump on RMB, alt-fire on MMB and crouch on Ctrl in ZDoom.

There's obvious advantages to the configs mentioned above, but staying close to the industry standard as well as what I'm used to makes it easier for muscle memory not to screw things up, jumping from game to game as I am prone to do.

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Something that is probably quite important to state: which hand you use as your mouse hand. As a left-hander who uses his mouse in his left hand, my configuration is:

Movement: Arrows
Fire: Mouse 1
Use: Mouse 2
Jump: Mouse 3
Alt fire: Mouse 4
Crouch: Right Ctrl
Weapons: Number keys
Wep next/prev: Mousewheel up/down
Mouse Y axis: inverted

Wherever possible, I use the above configuration in all games. Only lack of good binding configurations in come games or occasional unsuitability means that I use other combinations. e.g. when playing the Thief games, I tend to use the number pad for movement because I can configure the other nearby keys for leaning and different travel speeds.

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I'm left-handed but use my mouse right-handed so it really doesn't matter.

Movement: WASD
Fire: Mouse 1
Alt-Fire: Mouse 2
Weapons: 1 - 7
Use: E
Inventory Use: Mouse 3, F in vanilla
Inventory Right: MWheelDown, X in vanilla
Inventory Left: MWheelUp, Z in vanilla
Look Up: MouseY+, R in vanilla
Look Down: MouseY-, C in vanilla
Look Center: V
Jump, Fly Up: Space
Crouch, Fly Down: Ctrl
Stop Flying: G

...I really hate playing vanilla Heretic/Hexen/Strife. There is no way to make a comfortable scheme for them.

Fun Fact: I used mouse + arrow keys up until...2007, maybe? before finally transitioning to WASD.

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WASD: forward/backward/strafing

Mouse 1: Attack

L Alt: Use

1-7 or the mouse wheel: Weapons -- More often the former than the latter.

I always have "Always Run" on and can't shake my addiction to mouselook.

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Mouse1 - fire
Space - use

Mouse2 - forward
Z - backward
X - strafe left
V - strafe right

I've never liked the traditional WASD setup. Switching from W to S to move backwards is less ergonomic for me because I have long fingers. By keeping the move forward/move backwards functions on separate hands, I can change direction on a dime.

If the map in question requires it, C is jump, and B is crouch. For games such as Quake, I leave space as jump and use C for crouch. Depending on the game, I'll switch certain functions around, but the fingers of my left hand always rest along the ZXCV keys.

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Mine is far from being efficient. I still use arrows even though it's a bit uncomfortable for left hand at times (I'm just too stubborn to try WASD). For SR50 I press forward + strafe right + strafe on (right mouse button) and I drag the mouse slowly. It's a bit awkward because sometimes I lose little time while repositioning my mouse after SR50ing. But again, I dislike trying new things so I'm staying like that. Yeah, I'm stupiiid.

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Wow, I wouldn't have guessed that WASD-based setups would be such a landslide majority. I guess I'm so comfortable with the setup I use because I was weened on Wolf3D and similar games (e.g. Blake Stone) and then on to Doom not too long after it first emerged, and of course pretty much all of those games used some variation of id's arrow/alt/spacebar-based setup.

It's 'like riding a bike', I guess.

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Over the years I've continued to use the directional keys for movement on Doom- even when I have WASD for all new games~

Ins 0: Use
Ctrl: Crouch
LMB: Fire
RMB: Jump
Left Side MB: Alt-Fire
Right Side MB: Taunt
Scroll Wheel for weapon switching...
...and nearly the rest of my keyboard is just for alias :D

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Hmm... my keyboard and mouse settings may be a bit strange, but this is what I use:

ESDF for movement and strafing -- think WASD pushed over a bit. :)
LMB for firing, RMB for the "use" key.
R for the auto map.
Shift for crouching (even though I have this turned off unless it's required), space for jumping (likewise).
I use the number keys for weapons, I'm just faster using them that way.

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I had been using keyboard only with the standard keyboard setup for years until modern games forced me to switch to keyboard + mouse, at which point my preferred controls changed a lot.
Now I use W+S for moving forward/backward, Q+E for strafing, Spacebar remained the "use" key. Mouse config: LMB for firing, MMB for jumping and RMB for crouching.

The reason I use Q and E for strafing is because my old keyboard had such a weird layout that the Home+End keys were next to the up arrow key, so I decided to bind "strafe left/right" to them. (The realization "yay, I can dodge projectiles!" actually encouraged me to play Doom without iddqd for the first time.) I got so used to these controls that I had to switch to WASD (well, without the A and D) after that keyboard got wrecked and I got a new one with a normal layout.

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W: Forward
S: Backwards
A: Strafe left
D: Strafe right
1-7: Weapon select
TAB: Automap
PauseBreak: Pause
Caps lock: Always run
Space bar: Use
LMB: Shooting

Snack interuption, emergency buttons.
Double click on MMB: Use
MMB: Forward

Zdoom
`: console
Z: Jump
C: Crouch
LMB: Second attack(also used for reloading)

Sure, why can't I have some emergency buttons?

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