I’m intrigued by ESDF. Gonna give it a shot tonight.
IJKM! Old school.
My fingers are rather short and unskinny, so trying to use WASD invariably has resulted in my unintentionally hitting other keys, so I’ve always used the arrow keys instead (the original Unreal Tournament had them as a default too, and it was the first FPS I seriously got into, so yeah). The left control, the “0” key on the keyboard, and the 6 buttons above the arrow keys (insert, home, etc.) give me enough keys for special actions (most games I play might only have no more than 1/2 a dozen special actions), even if they are several centimeters away.
ASDX like a good Hacker.
Really, I find it much more natural to keep my fingers aligned most of the time. Arrow keys work well for platformers, where the up direction is usually a jump, so in that case I’ve still got my fingers in the same line.
They probably just mostly play a different set of games, for which the arrows are appropriate (or at least, less inappropriate).
I hung onto the arrow keys as long as I could, even after mouse “looking” became the norm, shifting my keyboard far to the left so my left hand was on the arrow keys. But eventually I switched to WASD due to more and more keys being tied to actions within the games.
I learned to play FPS games playing duke3d and various others on the keyboard, with no mouse. So I had quite an unusual setup, and when I transitioned to using mice, it was hard to forget what I’d already learned, so I have some bizarre setup where right click = forward, forward thumb = back, E and R are strafe, A is jump, C is crouch, and… well, nothing else is really standard either. People rage if they attempt to hop on my computer and use my settings. I realize WASD is superior but I’ve been doing it this way for over a decade now so it’s hard to unlearn. Oddly, in MMOs or third person shooters or controlling vehicles I do WASD just fine.
I use WASD, but believe folks like Jas09 who say that ESDF is better for WoW. I don’t want to take the plunge, though.
ftw
+1 what they said.
Also, those of you saying you use ESDF so your index finger is right on the home key - WTF? And some of you WASD folks, you move your hand over a space? Why?
I WASD and I do it with my index finger on the home key.
Ring finger is WSX, little finger is QAZ and the side keys, middle finger is EDC and index finger is RFVBGT with left thumb on space.
Most of the time I don’t have anything bound to the right side of the keyboard, apart from games with an inventory which are usually bound to I, though for some MMOs they bind to B for bag, which I like a lot too.
I think it was Storm from complexity who was known for using right click as forward. I used to think it was a joke, but then I saw his config. I can’t make fun though since I’m a weirdo who uses crouch on right click.
The weirdest keyboard setup I ever saw was some Swedish CS pro (from SK I think) who used the numpad keys, which isn’t unheard of…except he held the keyboard at a 45 degree angle. He took up a lot of space at LAN events.
Arrows for me when it comes to ‘serious’ FPS action. For other action games WASD is OK but not ideal. Left ctrl + alt are weird to hit with the WASD setup imo, don’t like stretching my pinky down like that. Do WASDers still pop off the windows key (also useful for starcraft 1) or do you mostly use a program or the registry to disable it?
Arrow keys require a good keyboard layout though, one with close buttons + numpad and where the enter isn’t gigantic so you can have right shift + ctrl right there. I have something similar looking to this. Another potential problem is if you have a super cheapo keyboard it may not recognize more than 2-3 simultaneous keypresses on the right side of the board.
My CS 1.6 setup was right ctrl = secondary, right shift = walk, enter = mic, numpad 1 = pistol, end = primary (only needed if I had a cycle of pistol/nade/bomb), right click = crouch, mouse4 = jump, scroll wheel = nades, pressing down on scrollwheel = last weapon, space bar = defuse, numpad enter = reload. The only downside was it was difficult to walk and talk at the same time (although that’s not always a good idea anyway), so I would sometimes crouch and move and talk if I didn’t think I could just stop for a sec. Faking defuses required some serious arm action too, but it was still fine ingame.
:eek:
That actually never occured to me. Using the middle finger (and the stronger index and ring) for movement seems more natural. I’m not sure I could get used to using my pinky to strafe left… I like to use my stronger and more accurate fingers for the abilities I use the most, which certainly includes movement.
I remember IJKM from Apple 2 software in the 80’s.
Yip. If I’m playing a game where I need immediate access to buttons, I’m using a controller. Though, if the buttons weren’t off by the slight amount, I’d use the others just because it’s easier not to have to shift the keyboard over.
QWOP
I was a typist before I was a hardcore gamer, so it’s just been natural for my hand to live on the home key, and to use my fingers like I would if I was typing 
I still prefer to use arrow keys, but I’ll take a default WASD mapping if there’s mouselook. I just don’t play too many games that require that sort of binding these days.
Then again, what do I know? I still play all my old Wing Commander games using the mouse.
When I actually played games on my computer, I’d remap to ESDF. I liked having the tactile feedback from the index finger key, and it was exactly the same as typing position.
WASD, but only because I’ve never heard of ESDF. I’m intrigued, though, I’ll have to try it next time I fire up an FPS.