Ideal/preferred keyboard and mouse configuration?

I use the arrow keys to move up, down, back and forth.

, is to strafe to the left side
. is the strafe to the right side

'Ctrl' is to fire
'Alt' is to secondary fire
Spacebar is to open doors
'W' is to drop weapon
'T' is to talk
'U' is to taunt
'Z' is to jump
'C' is to crouch
'B' is to add a bot
'Shiftbar' is to run (although I typically select "always run" in the player setup)

This is my usual configuration when playing Doom on Zandronum.

Traditional w,a,s,d for moving and strafing but I play left-handed so I,j,k,L; left and right mouse buttons swapped. Second mouse button for strafe-on. Vertical mouse movement enabled and number keys for weapon switch (any other way I think is cheating; you have to switch weapons blindly with number keys).

Holering said:

Traditional w,a,s,d for moving and strafing but I play left-handed so I,j,k,L; left and right mouse buttons swapped. Second mouse button for strafe-on. Vertical mouse movement enabled and number keys for weapon switch (any other way I think is cheating; you have to switch weapons blindly with number keys).

I hardly ever use the mouse unless I'm playing brutal doom and I need to aim at the direction of the enemy.

Ctrl: Shoot
Space: Open doors
Arrows: Move
Tab: Map view
Shift: Run

The mouse is a huge blessing to me. I use ESDF as the basic movement controls, spacebar as use, T as jumping, G as crouch, B as toggle crouch and stand, and Q and A as swim up and down, respectively.

WASD keys for movement, R for use, Mouse1 for sprint, Q for jump, E for crouch, SPACE to shoot.

WASD with mouse is the best way to play.

I have heard some people using esdf to getting a few more keys freed up, has anyone else tried that compared to wasd?

kristus said:

RDFG för movement, Space for shoot, Mouse1 for Jump. Usually A for Use.

What kind of inhuman monstrosity are you?

reality 2.0 said:

I have heard some people using esdf to getting a few more keys freed up, has anyone else tried that compared to wasd?

That's default Tribes 2 shit right there.

Memfis said:

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.

thanks god im not the only one ahahah
I'm the same same memfoboy :3
but differently from you I guess, I got both horiz and vertical movement from mouse! sometimes its helpful with these settings, as you can move without troubles while your left hand goes to weapon switch for istance (or space bar to "use")

WSAD, E activates stuff and spacebar jumps. Ironically, during my Counterstrike 1.5-1.6 days I was one of the few holdouts who stuck with the arrow keys and 0 on the number pad to jump. I don't know why I did that.

I used to have my controls set like Morrowinds controls

E=Jump(zdoom)
Q=Crouch(zdoom)
Space=Use
Shift=Run
Mouse1=Fire
Mouse2=Auto map
WASD
Mouse=Free look
Mouse3=Fist,Pistol,Shotgun,Chaingun,Rocketlauncher,Plasmagun,BFG9000.

TYU-Spacebar for movement with my thumb on the spacebar (the E and R keys are broken, so I had to move to the right)

F: Use or crouch in other games, since my pinky is always on it
M1: shoot
M2: Jump

SavageCorona said:

What kind of inhuman monstrosity are you?

Mine is very similar:

R -forward
F -back
D -sidestep left
G -sidestep right
A -use

If I'm playing keyboard only then also:

: -turn left
@ -fire
~ -turn right

It's only due to the fact that I've been playing keyboard only for the past few years (although just recently moved back to mouse) that I started using a key for forward movement - used to use RMB, and might switch back now that I'm using the mouse again, feels more natural.

Mouse+WASD is so much better than the default keyboard layout it's not funny, but you can also have a non-default keyboard layout that's a lot better than the default.

In early 1994 I realised the trouble with the default keys is having strafe be a modifier key; you can't circlestrafe and it's another key to think about, especially awkward given that DOOM.EXE doesn't have always-run so you're basically holding Alt down all game. (In retrospect, I should have mapped it somewhere out of the way and wedged it with a coin.) About then, I was trying to make the jump from HNTR to HMP (embarassing as that is) and was getting tired of the way every monster fireball meant hopeless fumbling - and being hit at short range. Aside from deathmatch, the idea of using the mouse at all was a bit alien to most people, and mouse+WASD hadn't been invented - there were lots of different approaches to mouse control (RMB=>forward movement was common).

So I moved the controls up to the Home-End block, making Home/End/Delete/PageDown work like the arrow keys, and Insert and Page Up strafe left/right. This was a revelation; it didn't change the finger bindings for the four keys I was used to, and it took almost no time to get used to strafing.

When ports with autorun came out, I moved Fire to Alt (keeping use on Spacebar). I moved the map to Ctrl (right Ctrl, pressing it with my thumb) - more important before source ports grew HUDs, because if you wanted to play fullscreen you could only see health/ammo by flicking the map on and off.

Just recently, I've realised having the weapons keys at the top of the keyboard is a bit of a stretch, and switched to a layout where ZXCV are fist/shotgun/chaingun/rocket, ASDF are chainsaw/SSG/plasma/BFG, and \ (to the left of Z on a UK keyboard) is the popgun. This is taking a bit of getting used to but I hope it'll be better in the long run.

Oddly, this did me a favour ten years later, in City of Heroes; CoH didn't really need the precision of mouselook, didn't often need vertical look, but did have a vast number of possible keys for power and teammate selection which really wanted both hands on the keyboard. I moved the "Doom layout" to WASDQE (which caused a bit of cognitive dissonance with AD as turn where in modern FPSes they're strafe, but apparently my brain will drive the Doom layout with either hand), teammate selection on 1-8, "inspirations" (usable inventory items) on the F1-F5 keys, and powers and enemy selection on the numeric keypad with Shift/Alt/Ctrl. In Doom, holding out for a good keyboard layout is a bit silly; mouse+WASD would actually be better, but keyboard feels more Doom-ish. In City of Heroes, though, this layout was much much better than mouse control.

Come to think of it, before I discovered mouse+WASD, I used to remap run to SHIFT so I could have my pinky on it and mapped ZXC to left strafe/fire/right strafe. It was kinda comfy, but now I'm too used to WASD for that to work really.

right hand = mouse
mouselook (vertical disabled on chocolate doom & prboom)
scroll = change weapon
left button = fire
right button = use

left hand = keyboard
arrows = forth/back, strafe
space = screenshot (when available)

always run

I use default configuration, except that I use WASD keys for movements instead. And yes, I use the right mouse button for strafe to do SR50 using the mouse to replace the turn buttons. To do that effectively, I use mouse on max sensitivity + novert + always run. :P

If I'm playing a ZDoom mod, I just use a configuration similar to Half-life, mouse's middle button to use inventory and mouse wheel to choose items from my inventory.