OPQA, who's with me?
I know it as QAOP, and it feels strange to see it written as OPQA.
Also, HJKL for all you vim users out there.
How WASD became the standard PC control scheme (2016)
71–80 of 83 posts
Re: How WASD became the standard PC control scheme (2016)
#72Yet ESDF is objectively better because it frees up Q, A, Z, and W to easily be used for other keybinds. The number of people I've seen stretch their pinky down to Left-CTRL for crouch boggles my mind. With ESDF, crouch is A! Yes, this is a very tiny hill on which to die on, but it's my hill!
I've been using ESDF (well, .oeu now that I'm using the Dvorak layout, but details) since I was using Azerty keyboards. A (Q on Azerty) for jump, C (J on Dvorak) for crouch, Z (; on Dvorak) for walk, and I've got enough reach for plenty of other keys.
Got started doing that when I played Bungie's Oni, which required editing an INI file to rebind keys.
Re: How WASD became the standard PC control scheme (2016)
#73Yet ESDF is objectively better because it frees up Q, A, Z, and W to easily be used for other keybinds. The number of people I've seen stretch their pinky down to Left-CTRL for crouch boggles my mind. With ESDF, crouch is A! Yes, this is a very tiny hill on which to die on, but it's my hill!
My hill is slightly smaller in that I replace D with C, this way I have my thumb on C and I never have to switch keys.
I instead use D as the use key in all games, X for reload, V for crouch etc.
Re: How WASD became the standard PC control scheme (2016)
#74Yet ESDF is objectively better because it frees up Q, A, Z, and W to easily be used for other keybinds. The number of people I've seen stretch their pinky down to Left-CTRL for crouch boggles my mind. With ESDF, crouch is A! Yes, this is a very tiny hill on which to die on, but it's my hill!
I have large hands. Left control is the natural resting place of my pinky, while reaching A from an ESDF rest requires I adjust my whole hand to scrunch my fingers closer.
I touch my palm on the ctrl key, so WASD is more natural.
Re: How WASD became the standard PC control scheme (2016)
#75Yet ESDF is objectively better because it frees up Q, A, Z, and W to easily be used for other keybinds. The number of people I've seen stretch their pinky down to Left-CTRL for crouch boggles my mind. With ESDF, crouch is A! Yes, this is a very tiny hill on which to die on, but it's my hill!
Clearly hasn't learned to use the palm for left ctrl! /s I do use the palm though, it is weird, lol
me too, just works out well with WASD. It's like an extra finger.
Re: How WASD became the standard PC control scheme (2016)
#76I don't know how much of a problem this was in the rest of the FPS world, but in the Descent world in 96, 97, 98 - when keyboard only was a common choice, at least for beginners - there was trouble with keyboards detecting all the necessary combinations of keystrokes. You'd hold down an A and a W and it couldn't see D presses or releases at all. It varied a lot by the particular keys and the particular keyboard. I'd often react to getting a new keyboard by shifting my familiar config around until I found a spot where all the needed independent keys would register.
They still advertise 10 key rollover keyboards today. I feel like they're more common, but perhaps I have just always insisted on having one.
I've always wondered if it was a problem for other communities. I certainly think it was a contributing factor to why no default control scheme emerged in the Descent world, and even very top pilots used an astonishing array of very different methods.
A serious drawback of the standard WASD configuration for me is the need to move the middle finger to switch between forward and reverse. This adds latency, and can be a source of error. In games that rely a lot on accurate timing and quick reactions, I generally avoid this. There is a tradeoff, of course, but in the extreme case of a very simple and twitchy game, I like to map up/down/left/right to sit under pointer and middle finger on each hand. This seems like a lot of a geeky departure from intuitive arrow keys for a dubious benefit, and I don't often see others do it. But I can't help but wonder if FPS design and history is informed by better reactivity along that strafe axis. Or perhaps it really is the best design - you do tend to dodge perpendicular to where you're looking.
Re: How WASD became the standard PC control scheme (2016)
#77Yet ESDF is objectively better because it frees up Q, A, Z, and W to easily be used for other keybinds. The number of people I've seen stretch their pinky down to Left-CTRL for crouch boggles my mind. With ESDF, crouch is A! Yes, this is a very tiny hill on which to die on, but it's my hill!
I've got to agree with you on this
Re: How WASD became the standard PC control scheme (2016)
#78Yet ESDF is objectively better because it frees up Q, A, Z, and W to easily be used for other keybinds. The number of people I've seen stretch their pinky down to Left-CTRL for crouch boggles my mind. With ESDF, crouch is A! Yes, this is a very tiny hill on which to die on, but it's my hill!
So what exactly do you need the QAZW for? With WASD you still have TAB, CAPS, tilde and SHIFT available. Also, crouch is Q, jump is E.
Q and E are lean left, lean right!
Re: How WASD became the standard PC control scheme (2016)
#79I used to play with WER/Space (W forward, E left, R right, Space back) with Q as my jump button. That gave me Tab, A, S, D, F, G, T along with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 in a natural resting position. These days, I use the WASD scheme because of how ubiquitous it is.
Re: How WASD became the standard PC control scheme (2016)
#80OPQA, who's with me?
I know it as QAOP, and it feels strange to see it written as OPQA. Also, HJKL for all you vim users out there.
I grew up in a Spanish-speaking country, reading computer magazines in Spanish, and at the time Spain was hugely into ZX Spectrum videogames. I feel like OPQA rolls off the tongue easier than QAOP when you say it in Spanish, so maybe that's all there is to it?