FPS Gaming & NUMPAD

[Mazora]

Hello everyone,

I had this crazy idea today: for those FPS gamers that are in search of a good gaming board (and not too expensive), why not binding ASDW keys (and surrounding keys)  to the numpad ? Or again, bind commands in the config file of your game so that you can jump with NUMPAD_ENTER key and stuff...

Size (small) is very important to me as my arms feel better when not wide-open; I wouldnt game with a full keyboard (105 filco i.e). Numpad size would be awesome...

 I also feel NKRO is important, or atleast 3-6-kro ...

So I came to the conclusion filco numpad with brown would be nice... would be like a modded Nostromo (?)...

Anywayz, what do you guys think? What would be the limitations of this setup ? Are numpads NKRO?

[Arc'xer]

I'm not sure why you say it's a "crazy idea". People have been doing this since the mid-90s or earlier for games that allowed rebinding.

It's pretty popular with sinistral gamers who need more than the arrow keys. And I believe it was pretty popular for some of the hotkey intensive games like tribes series, quake, unreal etc.etc.

It's not a bad idea really because it does offer a fairly robust key setup but only problem you might have is the comfort of the large modifiers like shift/ctrl and the relearning of a new setup.

[bakageta]

Do you mean remapping things to the numpad on a 104-key keyboard? Or using a dedicated numpad and moving your normal keyboard out of the way? Using the numpad on a full-size keyboard would be too close to the mouse for me, and I don't think I have room to spread the keyboard far enough from the mouse. Using a dedicated numpad would get tedious moving your keyboard, and you lose text chat.

Personally, I'll stick with a tenkeyless, it puts the WASD cluster just the right space from my mouse. I still plan to pick up a dedicated numpad to put on the right side of my mouse, but I use the numpad so rarely that it's been a low priority.

[Lanx]

numpad is awesome for fps, big vertical enter button for jump, big + button for reload. I fps'd on numpad for years and mmo'd using the numpad/arrow/2x6 cluster to use those 30ish hotkeys so necessary for mmo gameplay.
but 99% of the ppl are set in their WASD ways, at least it builds pinky strength i guess.

[killy]

I move my mouse from the elbow, so after a little bit of fine tuning I got entirely used to having a full size keyboard + mouse.

[Mazora]

bakageta: I meant seperated numpad. Its true though that I wont be able to chat...

[Daniel Beaver]

I used to do this back in the 90's. The number pad is laid out well, and the keys have a matrix layout. There are, however a couple of flaws with it:

1) There aren't any easy to reach keys to the left (only Pg Up and Pg Dn). The pinky is a very useful free finger, and it gets wasted somewhat.
2) The numpad is WAY too close to the mouse.

The only real disadvantage of WASD is the staggered W, but you get used to that.

[aynjell]

bakageta: I meant seperated numpad. Its true though that I wont be able to chat...

That's okay. I'm going to have to give this a try tonite with some QuakeLive.



And almost in direct commentary to the comic above:

[Soarer]

How about turning the keys around and using a numpad sideways...



Would work even better on an 1800.

[Daniel Beaver]

MY HEAD A SPLODE

[killy]

Except sometimes for FPS, and indeed RTS and more, you'll need more keys than that.

[Orphagn]

MY HEAD A SPLODE

Show Image

You couldn't have said it any better.

[vicariouscheese]

besides needing more keys (which i actually dont, with tf2 being my fps and weapon switches bound to mouse, there are enough on the numpad)  i actually like having my left hand spread out while playing fps games.  numpad is too small, no key for thumb or pinky to rest on the way i like

its all preference though.  if the numpad has enough kro for your games, go ahead and do it.

[bugfix]

tf2 being my fps

High Five!

[CeeSA]

Cherry Keypad G84-4700 and Filco Keyboad have no 6KRO.

Cherry: you cant press 5+6+0 (or,) IIRC.
Filco: information is a answer from elitekeyboards.com via email

[Mazora]

CeeSA, did you mean Filco KeyPAD ?

And why are you saying 6KRO, and not NKRO ? I though Filco were all NKRO (?)...

[CeeSA]

yep, i mean Filco Keypad

[taswyn]

Don't bother with a numpad if you have any plans for using it in conjunction with modifier keys, unless you're going to remap it to something innocuous first, like the higher F keys.

Personally I dislike them anyway for social gaming, since it's really annoying to have to move *both* of your hands so far =/ For MMOs that, the modifier+numpad issues, and trouble with reaching modifiers in general (I usually bind modifier combinations with M4 & M5, and even certain left/right click actions).

Really I can't see anything the numpad has over using keys in the left homerow area.... you can easily reach at least as many keys using wasd, esdx, or similar, in addition to being able to reach the modifiers to act like extra layers for certain keys.

It might be interesting if someone released an N/6kro non-transposed keyboard aimed at the gaming market, though. Or better a split ergo using a more natural fan/mitten shape for each hand, and minimal finger movement.

[out51d3r]

Numpad is actually pretty good for lefties.  When you put your right hand on the numpad 8456 position, your thumb conveniently rests roughly in the middle of the arrow keys, giving you access to 4 more inputs.  You assign the things that you need the most while moving to the arrow keys, + and enter, as you can hit those keys without moving any fingers from your movement keys(8456).

[stuiees]

Its not mech, but I think something like http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-G13-Programmable-Gameboard-Display/dp/B001NEK2GE would suit much better as a dedicated gaming pad vs a numberpad.  Then again I think a keyboard does the job even better.

[Lanx]

the thing about the numpad that i have always suggested is in the "clusters", especially with mmo's. Anyone who has played mmo's knows that you need at least 20 (i'm being conservative here) buttons for your hotbar to perform specific game functions.
For instance as the main tank, i'd have loads of 1 button specific functions, such as my "oh crap i'mma gonna die" buttons, or "dammit i need to peel this mob off this idiot caster" buttons.

Now the clusters i'm talking about are the arrow cluster and the 2x3(home/del) cluster. Those are great clusters, you can dedicate all 6 of those buttons for your "oh crap i'mma gonna die" buttons. Which makes even more sense when you think that you need these as hardware buttons, cuz if you need to "click" on them with the gui or your mouse, your as good as dead anyway, you need instant access, and these "clusters" seperates the buttons for you.
Also having usually in mmo's each spell/ability has a cooldown or you have to wait a set amount of time to use it again, easily seen and linked this way.