...but then I got into Tribes 2, which defaulted to ESDF. It was clearly obvious why when you look at all the bindings: one key to throw grenades, another to throw mines, yet another to place beacons, one more for packs and another for medkits, so on and so forth. I hadn't switched back since, because the advantages were obvious and I tend to rebind controls manually first time I start up a game anyway. (For starters, gotta make every game reload via middle mouse click instead of R...)
Same! I really miss the mechanics of that game - my favorite game of all time.
A lot of games that hard code WASD? Most of these early access/beta games D:
I actually went back to WASD, then I went back to ESDF again for this reason: accidents while typing, especially in league of legends. When you have to shift your hands to type, then shift them back, the chance of failure and outbursts of cussing becomes incredibly high. I also use vim as my primary text editor, so keeping everything in home row is that much more intuitive for me.
Some tips for ESDF:
This is a personal opinion, but being a vim user - make every game's key layout YOURS. You can use the recommended layout as a guide, but I've learned not to.
ESDF: movement
A: crouch/stealth mode (i usually use those options a lot) or sometimes iron sights
Z: skill/power that I use a lot
X: pop-up circle options (often games bind this to middle mouse)
C: other skill.. often unused
V: use/activate
B: weapon option (like flashlight)
Q: med kits/favorites menu
W: primary weapon
R: secondary weapon
1/2/3/4/5: switch fire mode or knife or grenade, or other powers
T: reload
G/Y/H/N: various skills
shift/space: sprint/jump
I swap alt and control so i can hold control with my thumb, and I use my palm on alt fairly often
ctrl: iron sights or something I use often
alt: random power thing that I rarely use / stealth if it's a toggle, sometimes
I also rebind caps lock to F7, then I usually use that for voice chat
mouse1: fire
mouse2: melee
mouse3: scope/steel sight - disable scroll to pick weapon
well.. that was too long. anyways, it helps with understanding a game to know all the binds, and sometimes resolves issues other players run into... it can also create quite a few problems, lol
I use WASD because I'm not some hipster that insists on remapping every key for every game just to be different.
I'm not a hipster since I rarely come here.
wait.. does that make me a hipster? lol