An annoying trend for indie games...

[Stg-Flame]

Just had to rant a little since I've been trying to clear my backlog and in the past year and a half (since I started specifically knocking games off the backlog), I've come across at least six indie games that have hard-bound controls or simply lack any control customization. Now, this likely won't affect 99% of the PC community since WASD is fairly standard but I always hated WASD and started using TFGH back in the Unreal 2/Unreal Tournament days and I've never left that control scheme. People with big hands will agree that having your hand confined all the way to the left of the keyboard is far too constraining and it makes some games almost impossible to play simply due to the vast amount of keybinds (looking at you Tarkov). The fact that changing keybinds have been in PC gaming since the 90s makes it that much more infuriating when I come across an indie game that looks like it has a ton of potential and I could easily sink 20 hours into, only to find that the developers require us to use WASD or their wonky-ass controller buttons.

If anyone out here has any experience in game development, please tell me coding in keybind customization is an incredibly arduous task that leaves you a broken human when you're done because that's about the only way I'd excuse a developer for leaving that feature out of a game these days.

 

[igor_kavinski]

They are just lazy. Even if they don't put it in the game UI, they can implement an INI file for the settings with instructions in comments in the same file. If doing that is hard work for them, I am at a loss to think how they managed to create an entire game.

Keyboard Remapper: 10 Best Tools to Change Keys

Broken keyboard keys are a common issue on laptops and netbooks. While a keypress might still register, it can be best to shift it to rarely used ones to

www.raymond.cc

Key Mapper seems simple to use with visual drag and drop.

 

[CP5670]

I hate WASD too. However, for such games I just use a profile for my G13 keypad and map whatever I want to the hardcoded game keys.

 

[DigDog]

i hate WASD haters.

i played Quake Live for a loooong time and there's people there that have absolutely absurd control schemes, down to mapping Jump to the right mouse button, Zoom to the left mouse button, and Shoot to the spacebar.

..because it doesnt contract the hand muscles when shooting ...

seriously.

I mean, it could well be, but the 0.00003 advantage you get is meaningless in the game, and WASD is sooo convenient to find. Tell me you have NEVER taken your hand off of the keyboard on a TFGH config, and accidentally put it back in the wrong place.

 

[igor_kavinski]

It's kinda like the argument between right and left handedness. Some people are just wired differently.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

I grew up on WADS so its a bit of a default for me even when trying to contort your hand to hit the shift or control keys forces you to leave the WADS keys.

An even bigger issue that I have (now. as a crusty old man) is that devs don't let you select from Keyboard (WADS), Keyboard (TFGH), or Keyboard (IJKL) etc and auto remap the keys the keys for you.

As it stands remapping WADS means I have to remap a half dozen / dozen other keys because suddenly I'm not happy with their placement anymore and then my old grouchy bastard kicks in and I wonder what the hell I'm doing remapping keyboard controls at 40 and I just go outside and yell at kids to get off my lawn.

 

[CP5670]

I always remap the keys first thing when I open a new game. Apart from mapping WASD/jump/etc. to the numpad (on the G13), I set the G604 mouse buttons to various keys I have predefined. If a game won't let me do this, I'll make a custom Logitech profile for it with whatever the game's defaults are.

 

[RPD]

WASD sucks.

ESDF if far superior, fite me.

If you need it explained, I can but it's pretty simple why.

 

[Stg-Flame]

Tell me you have NEVER taken your hand off of the keyboard on a TFGH config, and accidentally put it back in the wrong place.

The F key has the "home row nodule" and since my hands are fairly large, it's very rare if I take my left hand off the keyboard and on the off occasion where I do, I not only have my keyboard in a place where my hand naturally rests on TFGH but I also make sure I feel that raised plastic bit on the F key with my ring finger before I do anything.

As it stands remapping WADS means I have to remap a half dozen / dozen other keys because suddenly I'm not happy with their placement anymore

The first thing I do in absolutely any game is go to the settings, check the video settings, then the audio (if the menu music is blowing out my eardrums), and then go to the keybinds and remap literally everything. The biggest issue is when I'm playing Escape from Tarkov with friends or interacting with new players over VOIP and they ask me "how do I do this function" and I have absolutely no idea because I rebound those hotkeys four years ago and never looked back.

I always remap the keys first thing when I open a new game. Apart from mapping WASD/jump/etc. to the numpad (on the G13), I set the G604 mouse buttons to various keys I have predefined. If a game won't let me do this, I'll make a custom Logitech profile for it with whatever the game's defaults are.

I have a fairly extensive profile list for my G502. Some are unnecessary now because the games were updated to have better control options (Terraria and UnEpic for example), but I used the different profiles for a while. I have found that if a game has hard-coded movement controls, remapping through a third-party utility sometimes messes with the diagonal movement or causes issues when multiple keys are pressed. I believe Ghost 1.0 had this issue since I have a profile for that game under my Logitech software and I remember not beating the game because there would be times when the character would simply stop moving if I pressed too many keys or something would eat my inputs and nothing would happen. It just really annoys me that in this day and age there's developers who think everyone is right handed and loves WASD.

ESDF if far superior, fite me.

The childhood friend of mine that got me into TFGH actually uses ESDF and I did too for a little while. It feels great with E and D lining up almost perfectly but for me, it's still far too cramped. I think it was Titan Quest that got me to move to TFGH or some other game that had O as "Objectives" and I hated slightly moving my hand across the keyboard to hit O so instead I just moved my keybindings over a few keys and I can hit all of the normal keys without needing to move my hand. P, Semicolon, and Period are the furthest keys to the right that I can press without having to move my entire hand.

 

[DigDog]

TFGH

excuse me but, how do you sprint? or crouch ? (i.e. Shift and Ctrl, AS GOD INTENDED)

 

[Stg-Flame]

excuse me but, how do you sprint? or crouch ? (i.e. Shift and Ctrl, AS GOD INTENDED)

Sprint is S. Crouch is D. Prone is X. Reload is U. Use/Interact is E. Lean buttons are R/Y. Swap ammo/equipment type is usually W/A. Quest log is Q or Tab. Inventory is I. Character sheet is C. Map is M. Night Vision is N. Spell list is B. Shift/Ctrl is mainly for combo keybinds (ARPGs/Escape From Tarkov) as I can still reach those keys without issue.

With my hand in the dead center of the keyboard I can press 1-9 without moving my hand too much (though sometimes hitting 9 causes me to move my hand weird so I rarely use it and will instead bind three or four hotbar keys to my mouse).

 

[DigDog]

oh wow, no no.

First off, my pinky pretty much always rests on the ` key. I move it when i want to (Shift) sprint or (Ctrl) crouch.
WASD for movement.

for quake, 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 are Gauntlet - Machinegun - Shotgun - Grenades
E - lighting gun
Q - rockets
R - railgun
F - plasma
C - BFG
X - mines

obviously most games dont have this complicated scheme, so Tab is Map or whatever UI the game uses,
Q & E are the most common combat functions, like Heal or Radar or whatever magic the game has
F is Interact

R is reload, T and Y are utilities i dont need in combat, like change ammo type, or flashlight.
C is Prone.

I honestly do not play games that have a Lean function because i cannot bring myself to use Q & E for leaning.

 

[RPD]

ESDF > WASD due to the fact you have more keys available, no one is using tab or caps lock, so those are unused real estate. With ESDF you have QAZ while still being able to use and hold shift and/or control as needed.

I don't think I've ever heard of TFGH... but moving 2 keys over that makes holding shift and control impractical. But I guess you could just re-assign those two keys to ZX or something like that.

 

[DigDog]

ESDF > WASD due to the fact you have more keys available, no one is using tab or caps lock, so those are unused real estate. With ESDF you have QAZ while still being able to use and hold shift and/or control as needed.

I don't think I've ever heard of TFGH... but moving 2 keys over that makes holding shift and control impractical. But I guess you could just re-assign those two keys to ZX or something like that.

dude, your avatar is the Quake 1 logo.

Quake is particularly demanding when it comes to keybinds; you will need your railgun, lightning gun, rockets, shotgun and MG on a regular basis. But the same way, you don't need grenades, proxy mines, plasma or gauntlet as quickly as you need your main guns. Nobody stakes a game of quake on a 100ms gauntlet hit, unless they are already obscenely dominating that game in the first place.

Keybinding is not just about .. binding keys. In theory, we could say that any keyset is equal to any other keyset, but in reality it's not.

1. it's nice to have your pinky on the side of your - rigorously tenkeyless - keyboard, because it allows for fast positioning of your hand on the correct keys.
2. shift and crouch are not emergency buttons because *EVERY* game in existence puts some limit on either function e.g you cannot shoot while sprinting
3. you thumb naturally rests in the middle of the spacebar
4. it's nice to have both arms at the same distance form the computer; instead of having your right arm naturally loose, and your left one crunched against your chest because you are aiming for the right-hand-side of the keyboard.

 

[RPD]

dude, your avatar is the Quake 1 logo.

Quake is particularly demanding when it comes to keybinds; you will need your railgun, lightning gun, rockets, shotgun and MG on a regular basis. But the same way, you don't need grenades, proxy mines, plasma or gauntlet as quickly as you need your main guns. Nobody stakes a game of quake on a 100ms gauntlet hit, unless they are already obscenely dominating that game in the first place.

Keybinding is not just about .. binding keys. In theory, we could say that any keyset is equal to any other keyset, but in reality it's not.

1. it's nice to have your pinky on the side of your - rigorously tenkeyless - keyboard, because it allows for fast positioning of your hand on the correct keys.
2. shift and crouch are not emergency buttons because *EVERY* game in existence puts some limit on either function e.g you cannot shoot while sprinting
3. you thumb naturally rests in the middle of the spacebar
4. it's nice to have both arms at the same distance form the computer; instead of having your right arm naturally loose, and your left one crunched against your chest because you are aiming for the right-hand-side of the keyboard.

Yes I know, and I learned this from a player I met in college that could hang with Thresh and won Quake tournaments for money and new computers. It is about available key bindings for weapons as well as common "I'm at X location" binds as well.

I don't really follow any of your bullet points in how they relate to shifting the industry default of WASD for movement over a key to ESDF.

Edit - Also I am fully aware, I forget if it was Thresh or Fata1ity (or however he typed his name) used WASD.

 

[DigDog]

Yes I know, and I learned this from a player I met in college that could hang with Thresh and won Quake tournaments for money and new computers. It is about available key bindings for weapons as well as common "I'm at X location" binds as well.

I don't really follow any of your bullet points in how they relate to shifting the industry default of WASD for movement over a key to ESDF.

Edit - Also I am fully aware, I forget if it was Thresh or Fata1ity (or however he typed his name) used WASD.

Fatal1ty used WASD.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

 

[Stg-Flame]

and your left one crunched against your chest because you are aiming for the right-hand-side of the keyboard.

Do you bolt your keyboard to your desk? Me, I just move my keyboard slightly to the left so my hands aren't at a weird angle.

 

[DigDog]

Me, I just move my keyboard slightly to the left

hmm.. interesting concept

 

[sdifox]

WAXD

 

[nakedfrog]

People with big hands will agree that having your hand confined all the way to the left of the keyboard is far too constraining

I have big hands (kind of goes along with being 6'3") and I've never entertained the notion of using something besides WASD. I've never perceived it as a problem.

 

[igor_kavinski]

I have big hands

Some people have stubby fingers. My brother for instance. I mean, it almost made me chuckle out loud first time I saw him using the keyboard after he had gained a lot of weight. His fingers made the keys look puny in comparison.

 

[sandorski]

WASD is the devil, but TFGH is just Communism.

Cursor keys were handed down from on high as Perfection.

 

[nakedfrog]

Some people have stubby fingers. My brother for instance. I mean, it almost made me chuckle out loud first time I saw him using the keyboard after he had gained a lot of weight. His fingers made the keys look puny in comparison.

Even when I was 140 lbs heavier I still didn't have any issues, but growing up I was told I had piano-playing fingers--I showed them all and took up guitar instead So probably I don't have stubby fingers.

 

[ImpulsE69]

View attachment 64530

Wanna hear something scary? I'm still rocking his branded motherboard.