Poll: Poll: WASD or arrow keys? Invert mouse?

What's your control setup in games

  • Arrow keys + invert mouse

    Votes: 13 2.4%
  • Arrow keys 'normal' mouse

    Votes: 55 10.1%
  • WASD + invert mouse

    Votes: 68 12.5%
  • WASD 'normal' mouse

    Votes: 379 69.5%
  • I'm a freak - some other crazy combination

    Votes: 30 5.5%

  • Total voters
    545
Soldato
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EDIT:

UPDATE...

Realising what a freak I obviously was using arrows + inverted mouse, I figured I must be missing a trick. I have now fully converted to WASD :) :). Wow - so much more comfortable. All those extra keys to play with (especially with my X6 with the numpad moved to the left), Q and E, space bar for the thumb - awesome. And aaah - that's why weapon choice is always the numbers! What was I thinking - I dunno!

Aint no way I'm ever un-inverting my mouse though. That's just wrong.

:)

**********

Hi there,

Just out of curiosity, and for a bit of fun and discussion, I wondered how other people control their games. Mainly FPS games I suppose I'm talking about. It's meant to be lighthearted, so any mocking is purely tongue-in-cheek.

Anyway, myself I switched to mouse from full keyboard at Doom. Was totally wierd at first but soon got used to it and never looked back - mouse control was great even though Doom had no up/down looking. Enjoyed whooping my keyboard-aiming mates with ease - some of them stubbornly stuck with keys even into full 3D games with up/down looking! Obviously I chose arrow keys - I'm sure it must have been default on doom? And even more obviously I chose invert mouse - stands to reason, right? I mean if you play a flight sim (x-wing/tie fighter at that time personally) with a joystick (or fly a real plane for that matter) you pull towards you to go up. So it's only natural to mirror this in your FPS and choose invert mouse, right? I'm sure everyone made the same choices. I can't remember but back then was that normal/default for the mouse?

The thing is I've had friends over recently (mostly younger than me, often asian friends of my malaysian wife) who look at me like I'm some kind of alien, and a particularly retarded alien at that, for not using WASD and 'normal' mouse. Either that or a look of such shock and contempt that youd think I'd just pi**ed on them :).

So I thought a poll/discussion would be interesting to see what others use. Or rather confirm that I'm not wierd at all, and 99.9% of people use arrows and invert mouse just like me because that's the right and proper way :). These WASD-up-side-down-mouse friends must be the wierd ones, right? Or maybe it's a youth thing, or an asian thing, still very niche and cult of course?

Even more disturbingly, I've heard of some people actually using mouse buttons to move backwards and forwards:eek::eek: That's just crazy, yeah? Rumours, doesn't really happen...

So over to you :)
 
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I always used inverted with a flightsim. It feels natural to me every time, but that's with a joystick where the physical action of pushing the stick back seems to translate better to the vehicle moving up.

My brain can't deal with that in a standard FPS though. Non-inverted every time for me there.

I was a hardcore arrow key aimer/mover and didn't use mouselook till sometime during Quake 2 when it just clicked that it was easier. I still used arrow keys for movement till Morrowind I think, when a lot of the other keys were sat around WASD so I finally learned to use them.
 
Arrow up, Arrow Down, Right Control, NumPad 0 and normal mouse.

In games were the key remapping is nerfed, like Bioshock, Just Cause 2, Fallout 3 I use default WASD keys.
 
I use WSAD, but sort of weirdly. I use my index finger for W whilst my thumb has a workout.

For the rest of the keys for say Cod4 it goes:

Middle finger for Q (Lean left), but if i want to lean right I move my index finger to E and then middle finger to W. Little finger does shift for sprint and the bottom of my thumb/palm of hand for space bar (Jump). Thumb again for Z to go prone and the bottom of my little finger, sort of like the pad for Ctrl for crouch. Then to reload its R and again the thumb takes care of that, or sometimes index finger. Thumb again goes to G for nades etc and and old finger spare to changed weapon.

Most people that have seen me play like it say I am weird. So I filmed my hand playing cod 4, and I guess it does look odd, especially at 17 secs in.

 
Seriously, though the movement of tucking your thumb under the hand like that repetitively is really bad for RSI etc you should try and avoid it.

Done it for a good 7 years now for hours a day, its too late to re learn how to control my character :( it just feels so wrong the normal way.
 
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