Gaming: WASD vs. ESDF?

[SoLiTudE]

When I once upon a time decided to be a better raider in World of Warcraft, I started using QWES as movement keys, S being the backpedaling key but that is rarely used. I made the switch because the access to standard hotkeys like 1-5 is closer and now I use it for all games including FPS. It feels more natural as well, to me, if your fingers are lined up straight at QWE. A and D became my main keys for most used abilities.
However I can see ESDF being a good choice, or ERTF if you're going with my preferred setup, since it opens up a lot of space for keybinding!

As a side note: using "~" next to the "1" key is a good tip, few games (I can only think of Guild Wars 2) utilises this key. When playing MMORPG'S in particular you're struggling with a bunch of abilities that needs keybinding. 

[Bullveyr]

As a side note: using "~" next to the "1" key is a good tip, few games (I can only think of Guild Wars 2) utilises this key.

That's the standard key to bring up the console.

[SoLiTudE]

As a side note: using "~" next to the "1" key is a good tip, few games (I can only think of Guild Wars 2) utilises this key.

That's the standard key to bring up the console.

You're absolutely right I was speaking of MMORPG's and thought it was clear.

[Bullveyr]

I thought you were more speaking in general, I don't know anything about MMORPG's anyway.

[ferociousfingerings]

I got habituated into WASD, despite seeing the obvious potential benefits from ESDF. On paper, i have to say i prefer the ESDF approach, BUT, as was mentioned above, certain games "hard bind" WASD, and if you try to convert it to ESDF, you'll encounter non-conforming situations where your rebinds are ignored, and in those moments, you're stuck with WASD anyway... which defeats the whole purpose of a total conversion to an alternate control scheme.

I've also attempted a "dual alternating position" scheme, when playing my sage in swtor: normal "QWE" for strafes/forward, but left hand moves to 90-=[backspace] and op[]\, for "being the healer." Sometimes a healer should be assisting focus fires, and other times, the healer should be ignoring offensive abilities and doing pro-healer-magic on the entire team at once, while they concentrate on attacking furiously. I found it pretty effective actually, but that position swap delay did tie me up sometimes. There were occasions where i'd find my hand "hovering" rapidly back and forth, across the gap between "heal mode" and "regular mode." I still felt faster than using modifiers, for what it's worth. So, for me, it came down to having two single-key-bind "areas" or "regions," being slightly faster and easier to mentally process, than using modifier keys on a single region of binds.

ESDF ideally, but WASD is often more practical, because i get tired of having to redesign the entire control scheme for every game i want to play. Due to the amount of hassle eliminated from the equation by simply adopting whatever is the default control scheme, i feel it is "better," to just roll with whatever the defaults are, and try to find a comfortable position for that. Don't worry, you'll get bored of whatever game it is, before it becomes important to have a perfect control scheme. It's simply not that difficult to learn to move your hand just enough to press the keys past #6. What's hard, is staying moving in an acceptable direction at all times, without blocking your available fingers from needed key presses, by having your fingers busy pressing movement buttons.

[Zekromtor]

ESDF

The days of WASD being required due to the fact that you had to use shift and control for run/walk or be unable to strafe at the same time are long and gone. If you tried to bind run to a more comfortable key like z then you could not hold it and hold a particular movement combo, i think rear and strafe left. WASD should have gone away when that limitation was no longer common. We have a generation of gamers now some of who actually type with their pinky on the capslock. (Which, come to think of it, isn't a horrible thing since there's actually an argument to be made for having 3 columns for your pointer and one for your pinky)

[Skull_Angel]

The thought of using ESDF has crossed my mind before, but after a month of use I couldn't find any real advantages to it for my use and actually ran into some of the disadvantages some have mentioned with Ctrl and Alt.

I'm speaking from mostly MMO experience (WoW probably being the only one I've needed to use a ridiculous number of modifiers), but using ESDF made using Ctrl and Alt mods very uncomfortable or near impossible for myself. I'd often lose my location after moving away from ESDF to use some Ctrl and Alt combos, mostly because of the cluster didn't give me any real good landmarks, but I understand this is more of a personal failing; normally I'd use the lip of the case + right hand keys (pinky on lip and ring felling for the top-right edge of Caps) to quickly regain where my hand was without looking, but the homing tab on my F key at the time may as well had been non-existent (so fumbling for it often caused issues).

For action and FPS I do see there being an advantage if the game has use for the extra key binds, but I think it disappears if you can't get comfortable with the positioning for whatever reason.

[Zekromtor]

Well, I stand corrected in the sense that you have a logical reason for preferring WASD. Probably a keyboard issue though if CTRL and ALT are easier to use when your hand is not in the default homerow position, but this forum is no stranger to issues with standard and nonstandard keyboard design.

[Skull_Angel]

Well, I stand corrected in the sense that you have a logical reason for preferring WASD. Probably a keyboard issue though if CTRL and ALT are easier to use when your hand is not in the default homerow position, but this forum is no stranger to issues with standard and nonstandard keyboard design.

Standard bottom row layout of 1.25 x3; I agree a layout that pushed Alt's right edge to be in line with X's would be preferred, but finding keysets for such can be a hassle, lol. Ctrl isn't as bad as Alt, but I lost the equivalent of Ctrl+t/g/v (Ctrl+y/h/b) in gaining Ctlr+q/a/z (mind you Ctrl+z/x is a little wacky to hit w/o losing movement). Alt needed to be held down with the top or side of my thumb (thumb nail) which is awkward to say the least and while I did not lose Alt+y/h/b, I needed to use some keyboard acrobatics to get to them, haha. Essentially, ESDF was more or less nothing but a positional trade off from WASD for myself, one that required awkward gestures for nearly half of my modifier binds.

I may have been able to deal with 1 less modifier worth of binds in swapping Caps <> Ctrl [to keep ESDF], but I'm not sure how my pinky would be able to deal with that. Normally the modifier workload is split between my pinky (Shift), left edge of my palm (Ctrl), and thumb (Alt); doubling up on my pinky may put unnecessary strain on it during longer events, but I may revisit the thought some time.

[sakai4eva]

I use modifier keys a lot in games though... I guess WASD is easier because I can pinky finger my CTRL.

[EvilHMB]

wow, i've never considered this I personally use wasd but esdf would be pretty useful. having Used WASD for so long my fingers remain here when I type, I actually find it more efficient for shifting/capital letters. However, one could easily maintain homerow with esdf and use the right shift for left hand letters

[Karura]

How about this one. CS:GO Pro player SHOX, what kinda setup do you think he's using?
Some are saying some custom keybinds like AZSW or something haha.

http://i.gyazo.com/2a551d0c13679b375706c16239562fa2.png

[Grim Fandango]

I do not think it makes a whole lot of difference.

Though I prefer WASD for easier access to the modifier keys (shift, alt). If it is about having more keybinds for games that need a lot of them, WASD would still be the most practical for me personally.

Also does not make me feel like I should re-position the keyboard for typing and gaming. Though that is a minor inconvenience.

[saturnotaku]

I've used EDSF for everything except two games: Oni and Max Payne. For the former, I never bothered to edit the appropriate file to re configure the keys (there's no way to change them in-game). For the latter...I don't know why I never changed it. Of course, it's been years since I played so I could probably just put it back to my preferred EDSF and not have any trouble.

[lolkey]

Arrow keys or go home. #truegamer

[Kiwi_321]

When you rebind keys like tab, caps lock, shift, ctrl, and alt, WASD is still very viable, if not preferable. The game needs to be key-bind friendly though. But larger keys like these are very friendly for your pinky to hit accurately

[conandy]

Since I have migrated to a columnar split matrix keyboard (Ergodox, TECK (what I am using), waiting on the Axios project), I switched to ESDF.  My only game at the moment is Wildstar, so my action set keybinds are 1, 2, Q, W, 3, R, 4, T, 5, X, Z, and A (I think).  Works pretty well for this type of keyboard, since WASD are very wrongly placed once you get a keyboard layout that is columnar and adjusted rows based on finger lengths (https://www.trulyergonomic.com/store/index.php).   Kind of forces you into the ESDF setup.   

I have the most spammed keybinds set to Q, W, R, and T so that my fingers don't have to move off the base position very often.  S and F are set up for Strafe, and there are no keybinds on my keyboard for rotate left or rotate right, as that is all handled via mouse.  Making this commitment really freed me up to use fewer overall keys and keep my hands in the home position.  This is critical for an MMORPG game like Wildstar where the combat is very action oriented.  In my days playing WoW years ago, this was less of an issue.  I don't play first person shooters, but I would imagine that this setup would work well for those, too.

I was a WASD holdout in my WoW days.  And until I started using the TECK, for what it is worth.  When I was using a lot of modifiers for my billion keybinds in WoW, I felt the need to have my pinky finger resting on the CTRL, and SHIFT keys for all those combos.  FWIW, I am looking forward to the Axios keyboard so I can have the thumb for the modifiers, rather than that horrible pinky.

[AKmalamute]

In Unreal Tournament 2013, you can't bind the comma or the period to movement keys. So I was forced into an RDFG config. Well, PEUI. See my .sig if you're still confused.

And Conandy is right about columnar stagger. I've been playing fallout on my ergodox, but of course I was able to bind the expected keys to a row over. Extra shift key, ESC on the thumb cluster, Z is actually control ... I think we're done here.

[Brane Ded]

ESDF has always been my preferred method but I think that comes from learning to type and with ASDF being the starting position it was just natural to move the middle finger up to E for the ESDF pattern. 

Still don't know why gaming keyboard manufacturers who ship keyboards with optional off-color WASD keys don't throw in E and F too to cover the other major half of the gaming community, we have to go find our own custom keys.

[ADFX_Pixy]

Playing games like CoD 4 and Unturned, the sprint key is originally mapped to the shift. Moving my hand over kinda strains my pinky because it has to stretch a little bit to reach the shift key.

[RED-404]

I used to use ESDF and I still prefer it, but rebinding gets a little old.

[steve.v]

For my hand size and preference I prefer to use wasd. I used to play high elo world of Warcraft arena games utilizing many abilities. What helps me is the close reach of the shift modifier and ctrl keys; such as shift+w, ctrl+s. As for shooters I think esdf would be fine.

[Liar]

RDFG + A for jumping.  I play WoW mostly, and having the additional keybinds around my movement keys is very helpful.

Since I use an MMO mouse for the additional buttons, I don't really need to use modifiers to expand the keybind pool, however Shift and Alt are still very pressable

[Oobly]

Since I have migrated to a columnar split matrix keyboard (Ergodox, TECK (what I am using), waiting on the Axios project), I switched to ESDF.  My only game at the moment is Wildstar, so my action set keybinds are 1, 2, Q, W, 3, R, 4, T, 5, X, Z, and A (I think).  Works pretty well for this type of keyboard, since WASD are very wrongly placed once you get a keyboard layout that is columnar and adjusted rows based on finger lengths (https://www.trulyergonomic.com/store/index.php).   Kind of forces you into the ESDF setup.   

I have the most spammed keybinds set to Q, W, R, and T so that my fingers don't have to move off the base position very often.  S and F are set up for Strafe, and there are no keybinds on my keyboard for rotate left or rotate right, as that is all handled via mouse.  Making this commitment really freed me up to use fewer overall keys and keep my hands in the home position.  This is critical for an MMORPG game like Wildstar where the combat is very action oriented.  In my days playing WoW years ago, this was less of an issue.  I don't play first person shooters, but I would imagine that this setup would work well for those, too.

I was a WASD holdout in my WoW days.  And until I started using the TECK, for what it is worth.  When I was using a lot of modifiers for my billion keybinds in WoW, I felt the need to have my pinky finger resting on the CTRL, and SHIFT keys for all those combos.  FWIW, I am looking forward to the Axios keyboard so I can have the thumb for the modifiers, rather than that horrible pinky.

When I use my column stagger ergo board, I actually only use SDF (actually IEA with my custom layout) for WoW since I have bound D to forwards and don't need a backwards key for the classes I play. I bind C to an interrupt usually, and E is one of my rotation actions along with W and R and often Q, A, T and G too. I use the lower row for heals and survive / panic actions (Z,X,V and B) and have jump/up and target on thumb buttons.

[FinancialWar]

All of ya are noobs, I used

http://www.razerzone.com/au-en/gaming-keyboards-keypads/razer-orbweaver

[Grendel]

Razer ? Orbweaver ? Yuk !

I use ASDX (W for "use") on this:

[MrRooks]

I recently switched to an Ergodox and I found WASD to be awkward on it. I switched to ESDF and I like it more. I do like the WERD and ASDX people mentioned here, I might have to give those a shot.

[Kira]

I've been using WASD for so long I would be seriously handicapped if I had to offset my hand to use ESDF.

Same here! I can't imagine having to change the way I play. I mean it all became muscle memory. Always stick to what your most comfortable with. That's why I have a MS WMO, MS 1.1, and a SS 3.0 because I'm so used to the sensor in it. Oh and not to mention the LOD is GREAT hehe

[islisis]

I recently switched to an Ergodox and I found WASD to be awkward on it. I switched to ESDF and I like it more. I do like the WERD and ASDX people mentioned here, I might have to give those a shot.

sdfc might suit you better in that case!

[asavi]

I played games before I learned how to type so even my typing position has my pointer on D. And i still hit half my Ys and Hs with my left hand...

[RED-404]

Depends on the layout.


Edit: It turns out my unfinished Atomic makes a really good wrist wrest. 

[Lord of Narwhals]

I saw this thread a few months ago and it convinced me to switch to ESDF.
As far as I can tell there's no downside to it when compared to WASD. I can reach more number now keys and my fingers are on the home row (except for the middle finger which is on E).

[supersoul]

esdf for shooters. tried to do it for mmos but just too many years of muscle memory on wasd D:

[oledome]

I use WASD but I regularly misplace my hand to ESDF when switching controller, maybe I should just do what my body seems to be telling me.

[vvp]

IJKL

[Nai_Calus]

They both have the same exact problem, TBH. My left hand comes in at an angle that's the opposite direction of the stagger on a keyboard so either ends up with an uncomfortable deviation to the left of my middle finger. If I move the keyboard over to the left to compensate for angle then tab becomes difficult to reach. The nature of the stagger makes EASD equally impractical. I might have to try ASDX, though the most common action keys on the game I play most outside of L/R mouse are QER and I haven't gotten used to my Naga yet for those so it's still an awkward stretch up(Not to mention 1-7 for other things, though most of that I already long since outsourced to my mouse.)

[_PixelNinja]

I use ESDF because it is the left had home row position (transitioning from chat to play is easier) and I find the extra keys beneficial. 

[vindaon]

In my experience, ESDF makes Ctrl easier to hit, and tab / alt harder.

That and needing to rebind defaults for everything made me stick with WASD.

[_PixelNinja]

Interesting. I just roll my thumb towards my palm and extend my pinky to Alt + tab or hit those keys individually. That being said, I have relatively big hands and I used to play classical piano, which might or might not help.

[vindaon]

Interesting. I just roll my thumb towards my palm and extend my pinky to Alt + tab or hit those keys individually. That being said, I have relatively big hands and I used to play classical piano, which might or might not help.

Yeah, I think my hands are smaller than normal or something. I roll my entire hand like 30 degrees to hit tab with my pinky, and my thumbnail sometimes end up scraping the alt key when I hit it.

[Chromako]

While ESDF would be better in theory, I use WASD for two reasons:


1: It's what I learned first, and it's really hard to un-learn muscle memory. My efforts to learn DVORAK ended in tears. Literally.
2: I play some games that have WASD hard-coded into their control scheme, and changing hidden config files manually is just not what I want to be doing in my spare time. Ugh. You'd think they would have stopped doing that in 1994. But... some games have strengths besides their stupid key assignments, so I play them anyway.

But yes, companies that give out special WASD keycaps with their keyboards should really include EF keycaps that match. It'd be a nice gesture and gain them a lot of geek-cred for very little money.

Now, if some VI apologist starts insisting we should game with HJKL, I'm going to scream bloody murder. Worst. Idea. Ever.

[Angrychair]

I've been gaming with ESDF since 1999, when the original Alien vs Predator game came out for PC, I had to switch from WASD at that time, to accommodate a more ergonomic(I didn't even know what this word meant then)layout for the alien with the wall climb button.  I had already learned touch typing by then, and the switch from wasd to esdf was easy, and made more sense.

Today, I remap every game I play to ESDF with the exception of one, Arma, there are just too many keybinds in that game, and when you go switching wasd around, things just get really messed up and impossible to fix perfectly.

[TheSoulhunter]

a buddy of mine has been using a really wacky control scheme since quake 3, when he and a friend of his tried to make the most efficient setup for the game.
i'd have to ask him what everything was, but it was along the lines of:

move forward- left mouse
move backwards - right mouse
strafe left - z
strafe right - x
shoot - shift
ads - a (or in the area)

Show Image

I just use WASD but I'd consider ESDF if I needed more keys around the main movement keys.

One of my main issues with FPS games is finding a good PTT button. I currently use Z but it requires letting go of A (Left ring finger).

[saturnotaku]

I want something like these but in EDSF. Someone want to try and put this together? 

[Korth]

2: I play some games that have WASD hard-coded into their control scheme, and changing hidden config files manually is just not what I want to be doing in my spare time. Ugh. You'd think they would have stopped doing that in 1994. ...

Hard-coded?  Need an example.  I have yet to see a WASD-based game which won't let a player redefine key bindings.

I don't personally mind the "inconvenience" of checking through (and changing settings in) every menu and submenu when I first play a new game - it's a great way to quickly learn what all your (half-undocumented) options and controls really are and really do.

[TheSoulhunter]

2: I play some games that have WASD hard-coded into their control scheme, and changing hidden config files manually is just not what I want to be doing in my spare time. Ugh. You'd think they would have stopped doing that in 1994. ...

Hard-coded?  Need an example.  I have yet to see a WASD-based game which won't let a player redefine key bindings.

I don't personally mind the "inconvenience" of checking through (and changing settings in) every menu and submenu when I first play a new game - it's a great way to quickly learn what all your (half-undocumented) options and controls really are and really do.

I recent example would be "Daylight", also a lot old games (DOS era) or Flash games won't allow remapping.

[nova779]

I've used WASD for so long that switching isn't really an option for me, but firing up minecraft, and half life and remapping the keys I can immediately see why someone would make the switch to ESDF but it's just not for me.

[MrRooks]

I made the switch to ESDF upon acquiring an ErgoDox. The stagger on the Q column threw me off and made WASD feel awkward. So I'll likely be sticking to ESDF, it didn't take more than a few hours of gaming. It definitely set me back for a little while but I'm back at 100% of what I could do with WASD.

[John Venture]

Been using ESDF since Quake (one, now that makes me feel old). It involves a complete remapping in every game which can be a pain - Battlefield for instance where you have to remap a gigallion keys AND THEN AGAIN for every type of vehicule.

Recently I have tried switching to wasd out of lazyness in Evolve but quickly had to revert to esdf: I find the placement isn't convenient enough to use everything properly even whith an ISO board which has one extra pinky key. I have also grown very fond of extra mouse buttons, the logitech are really good in that regard thanks to the setpoint software which allows you to conveniently map any key (even macros) on any button, set specific profiles for any desired application/game etc. Mine even has an internal memory so I don't even have to use the software and can switch between 3 configurations on the click of a button. I don't use this last feature much, but big yay for left thumb buttons in-game.

[noisyturtle]

I use WASD because I'm not some hipster that insists on remapping every key for every game just to be different.