How WASD became the standard PC control scheme (2016) | Hacker News Reader

How WASD became the standard PC control scheme (2016)

pcgamer.com

78 pointsibobev80 comments

Yet ESDF is objectively better because it frees up Q, A, Z, and W to easily be used for other keybinds. The number of people I've seen stretch their pinky down to Left-CTRL for crouch boggles my mind. With ESDF, crouch is A!

Yes, this is a very tiny hill on which to die on, but it's my hill!

And what a hill at that!

The Tribes series showed me the based way of ESDF enlightenment.

WASD is for peasants.

So what exactly do you need the QAZW for? With WASD you still have TAB, CAPS, tilde and SHIFT available. Also, crouch is Q, jump is E.

I suppose with ESDF you have the two keys Q and W where otherwise only tab would be.

Crouching and jumping are usually performed in combination with movement. How do you press Q or E while also using WASD freely?

For run'n'gun games like Quake, nothing really but for games with more controls like ArmA or Tribes those extra buttons come in handy.

Shield, nade, lean left/right, use item, etc.

Weapon switching is a big part of competitive Quake. Easy-to-reach weapon keybinds give you an advantage.

Sure but aren't they all on the number keys?

Sure, but try hitting 8 without moving your hand from wasd

Q and E are lean left, lean right!

I have large hands. Left control is the natural resting place of my pinky, while reaching A from an ESDF rest requires I adjust my whole hand to scrunch my fingers closer.

I've used EADF (not s) for years, and will never go back.

I touch my palm on the ctrl key, so WASD is more natural.

First shooter I played at home was Esoteria, with ESDF.

ESDF is also more natural to touch-typers as it’s basically the same as the left hand “home position” of ASDF. And it’s easy to locate without looking, since the F key usually has a raised marker on most keyboards.

I touch type, but I've always felt WASD more "natural" or comfortable for gaming. I've tried ESDF but can't get used to it... For me I think it really is that the edge of the keyboard helps anchor and give a solid reference for where the hand is and those keys at the edge will be easily hittable by everyone. Also, a lot of times my pinky awkwardly rests inbetween the shift & z.

On the other hand, the F key has a bump on it on every keyboard I've recently come into contact with, which could provide an anchor.

Agreed, but everyone I’ve ever discussed this matter with has called it FEDS vs WADS

> Yet ESDF is objectively better

Subjectively better.

If I were to switch to ESDF, I would have only one key to the right of my index finger in each row, as opposed to two. (I have a split keyboard.) You could argue that I would have two keys to the left of my pinky finger, but I find that reach more difficult.

I would also have a harder time orienting my fingers without looking, because I would no longer have the differently-shaped keys under my pinky to let me know I was in the right place. (The indentation that indicates home position on my F key is subtle, and easy to miss when I'm focused on the action in a game.)

Objectively better on a standard non split keyboard then. Many games assume non split keyboard for default key bindings

No, still subjectively better. There's no such thing as objectively better when it comes to control schemes. It's all personal preference.

What is a "standard" non-split keyboard? What do a game developer's assumptions have to do with objectivity?

Also, you have conveniently ignored my last paragraph.

The better mapping is objectively subjective. ;)

It is a keyboard that is not split.

Funny, haven't seen esdf mention in ages. I used to use ESDF exclusively. I eventually gave it up though just due to needing to remap it in ever damn game. Plus some wouldn't let me remap, which was even more annoying.

It is incredible the number of AAA releases which have an abysmal rebinding experience. Like they gave the job to the intern and nobody attempted to try it once. From tutorials which hard code the controls, special modes (driving, UI) which only respect the original, etc.

Wonder if there's a program that toggles remaps wasd to esdf or whatever template.

> objectively better

There actually was a time when computer scientists at Atari studied user interface stuff with game performance in mind. All that ended years before WASD, but it’s worth pointing out that WASD came about as part of a competitive process. It’s not like anyone’s being forced to use something that doesn’t work for them (except on consoles).

> stretch their pinky down to Left-CTRL for crouch boggles my mind. With ESDF, crouch is A!

Because those are the only two conceivable choices…

> part of a competitive process

Ehhh, sort of. I think people copied it from Thresh (a famous Quake player). It was better than the default, and "good enough" for competition. So a lot of people simply copied it and never thought about it again, especially after games started making it the default.

I don't believe that competitive players are unwilling to experiment with this stuff to get an edge. On the hand, if someone polled today's competitive gamers to see what they're doing with their keybindings, the results were not published in this article. The author might ascribe more importance to the defaults than is really appropriate.

>computer scientists at Atari studied user interface stuff with game performance in mind

2600 and 5200 controllers say otherwise.

The point was that there is a way to do "objective" study of Human-Computer Interaction, with game controllers as well as everything else, and then there are random opinions offered as "objective" for no reason other than people not caring about what "objective" means.

But you're right about those controllers being somewhat shit. In fairness to the amazing Atari research labs that were used as part of a perhaps poor comparison, they had nothing to do with the design of those controllers and weren't around long enough to really affect much on the hardware side before their iteration of Atari died. For a couple of years Atari had some amazing researchers, but they would have benefitted from some amazing (or merely competent) senior management as well.

You could also just find a way to rebind caps lock, which would accomplish more or less the same thing.

This is exactly what I've done -- Caps Lock is another control. I find I don't use it much for typical keybinds, but very heavily use it in games.

As an EDSF gamer (blame Tribes) I agree but I've run into issues with (IIRC) E, Shift, and Space on keyboards that aren't n-key rollover but it's been over a decade since I last owned one. So I think that's the reason for WASD.

FWIW, A is dodge for me and V is crouch.

ESDF also has the cute advantage that it has your hand resting in home row position.

An issue with EDSF that WASD dodged was that some keyboards had groupings that could only register a limited number of key-downs simultaneously. I believe EDSF was in one group. But, WASD spanned two. So, on those keyboards you could get ignored inputs specifically when things were getting frantic.

I've never experienced that myself. Instead, I've been EDSF fo' lyfe because I had so many keybinds in HL1 multiplayer they surrounded those keys on all sides.

Input ghosting. Happens when they don’t use a 1 to 1 switch matrix. Probably some truth to what you’re saying, I could see the column/row inputs being different.

Disagree. If I put my pinky on A for ESDF then I have to rotate my wrist enough such that pressing E is uncomfortable. The natural resting place for my pinky with WASD is on shift, not tab. CTRL is trivial to reach. Tab is more awkward.

> Yet ESDF is objectively better [...] crouch is A!

I think you've forgotten the hardware limitations (rollover/ghosting) that usually made it objectively worse instead, where "A" often wouldn't behave the same as ctrl or shift when multiple keys are being held down.

Being able to strafe while holding crouch is a handicap.

Shift is can be another interesting key to hit. Many non-US keyboards have an extra key between shift and z (or whatever letter takes to place of z in a particular region. Not only are you reaching further to hit the shift key, but the size of the target is not much larger than a normal key.

In countries like Canada, life is even more fun. Most keyboards are of the US variety, yet many laptops come with the multi-lingual variant. Better get used to two keyboard layouts if you're using WASD with shift/control.

Clearly hasn't learned to use the palm for left ctrl!

I do use the palm though, it is weird, lol

me too, just works out well with WASD. It's like an extra finger.

And here I am using QWES.

I find it much more ergonomic to have the three fingers on the same row.

And L Ctrl is not a stretch at all. Although for some reason I usually bind L Alt to crouch...

Damn, am I the only one that used M1 to go forwards?

I've been using ESDF (well, .oeu now that I'm using the Dvorak layout, but details) since I was using Azerty keyboards. A (Q on Azerty) for jump, C (J on Dvorak) for crouch, Z (; on Dvorak) for walk, and I've got enough reach for plenty of other keys.

Got started doing that when I played Bungie's Oni, which required editing an INI file to rebind keys.

My hill is slightly smaller in that I replace D with C, this way I have my thumb on C and I never have to switch keys.

I instead use D as the use key in all games, X for reload, V for crouch etc.

I've got to agree with you on this

Back in the early 90s, WASD was sitting the furthest from the arrow keys. Me and a friend would both sit behind the computer, playing a multiplayer game (Wacky Wheels, at least). We could sit next to each other. The person with WASD was at disadvantage because we were used to arrow keys, and the person who sat behind arrow keys had an easier view on the (CRT) screen and far our small hands the WASD were further away from the table, so the right side was all in all way more comfortable. But there was one caveat. To drift, you'd push space bar, and you could smash that space bar to make the other person go drift, meaning (it did a 90 degrees) you could time your shot with it. I'm sure with single player, space bar was used to drift. So I assume it was also like that in multiplayer, but I am not sure for which player it was set up. Because some games changed the layout in such a way that the keys of one player were more near each other, and the keys of the other player as well. Instead of merely adding the other keybinds, they'd say OK you have insert and del as keybinds instead of ctrl and alt. That type of stuff.

Later on, we got a mouse (or, well: to be honest I already had one but it wasn't used as much as in later days), and the mouse was easiest to use in the right hand. So in the Windows 9x era (or well, even DOS, as Dune 2, C&C, WC2 I played in MSDOS) the mouse would be at the right side. And then you would use keybinds / choring with the left hand mostly. But the right side was using the mouse. Especially in 3D FPS this would turn out to be ace (such as Quake 2). Plus, also, the most weight on typing is on left qwerty hand. So the movement with one hand typing while keeping using mouse (small amounts of typing) is easiest from left hand being on left side of qwerty keyboard.

IMVHO it became a standard because of mere habit and lack of variety in keyboards space. Most "gaming keyboards" are just variant of a classic PC keyboard with aesthetic elements, "very different" keyboards, let's say a Kinesis Advantage for gaming explicitly targeting gamers essentially does not exists.

We have lost many interesting aspects of keyboards due to this lack of variety and substantial interests in design better tools, one for instance the parabolic layout meaning instead of having a flat base with various profiles in the keycaps having all keycaps of the same height but a curved profile under the switches allowing free movement of every keycaps. For some languages we have dedicated layouts generic and better, none essentially took of. We might have many functions keys, the IBM battlecruiser offer 24 functions keys since decades, but most prefer selling small keyboards at hyper big prices stating they are nicer because they are small with less keys and most people believe that's better having gazillion of layers and combinations to remember instead of moving hands a little bit and so on.

That's is, not much of a fancy story.

> His answer could be most readily found in Thresh’s Quake Bible, which describes the WASD formation as an “inverted T.”

This is IBM terminology. “Inverted T” was the name for the arrow key arrangement on ThinkPads (1992) later adopted by the Apple world after the IBM-designed Powerbook 2400c (1997) made their layout the new standard for all subsequent Powerbooks/iBooks/Macbooks.

It wouldn't surprise me if the term dates all the way back to 1984 with the Model M keyboard, but I can't find any reference for that (checked Bitsavers etc) besides You Can Tell By The Way It Is versus the earlier arrow-less Model F keyboard.

Crossfire for the Apple][ series ( https://youtu.be/Vi1Yo13TO28 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossfire_(1981_video_game) ) had IJKL for movement and ESDF for shooting.

I do want to say that for some reason, I remember IJKM and ESDX for controls though. That was a rather uncomfortable control layout (which is why I remember it).

I remember a lot of Apple ][ games using keyboard letters for controls. It bothered me, because having a ][gs I had actual arrow keys.

As for Doom and then Quake, I used the arrow keys and then Del+End for strafing. In Doom you actually went sqrt(2) faster by running diagonally with strafing, and could even outrun rockets (or run ahead of them to where they were going to hit, in big open levels).

I always preferred Q/E to strafe, A/D to turn. But these days, almost no games actually let you bind keys to turn anymore. This makes me sad.

Of course I use the mouse for precision turning and aiming. But if I'm just navigating through a map without interacting with anything, turn keys let me do that one-handed, while the other hand reaches for a snack or drink!

Unfortunately I'm permanently stuck with the Q/E habit even though it's no longer useful... doomed (so to speak) forever to waste time rebinding my keys every time I start a new game.

(To streamline things I've made a rule: Whatever is bound to E I move to mouse 4, and Q to mouse 5, then I rebind Q/E to strafe. Luckily no games have defaults set to mouse 4 or 5 since not everyone has 5-button mice. Still, I get really pissed when a game decides to have five different independently-configured control schemes for different contexts, like "on foot" vs "in a vehicle", and I have to go through all of them...)

Have you considered a custom keymap that swaps some of these around? Might be easier than rebinding every game. Just switch to Gamer Keyz.

I've always played asdf, since quake 1 and until this day. Any others? Seems the most natural to me. The majority of the time my finger placement is in the most natural position.

Oh, exotic! :) I could maybe do hjkl thanks to vim muscle-memory, but asdf would probably take forever to get used to, hard to imagine really.

It's good to know I'm not the only one! I think I started using asdf on Descent then loved it for Quake too. I still use it too.

Wonder why more people don't use asdf? Seems more natural. Also glad to see I'm not alone!

I don't know how much of a problem this was in the rest of the FPS world, but in the Descent world in 96, 97, 98 - when keyboard only was a common choice, at least for beginners - there was trouble with keyboards detecting all the necessary combinations of keystrokes. You'd hold down an A and a W and it couldn't see D presses or releases at all. It varied a lot by the particular keys and the particular keyboard. I'd often react to getting a new keyboard by shifting my familiar config around until I found a spot where all the needed independent keys would register.

They still advertise 10 key rollover keyboards today. I feel like they're more common, but perhaps I have just always insisted on having one.

I've always wondered if it was a problem for other communities. I certainly think it was a contributing factor to why no default control scheme emerged in the Descent world, and even very top pilots used an astonishing array of very different methods.

A serious drawback of the standard WASD configuration for me is the need to move the middle finger to switch between forward and reverse. This adds latency, and can be a source of error. In games that rely a lot on accurate timing and quick reactions, I generally avoid this. There is a tradeoff, of course, but in the extreme case of a very simple and twitchy game, I like to map up/down/left/right to sit under pointer and middle finger on each hand. This seems like a lot of a geeky departure from intuitive arrow keys for a dubious benefit, and I don't often see others do it. But I can't help but wonder if FPS design and history is informed by better reactivity along that strafe axis. Or perhaps it really is the best design - you do tend to dodge perpendicular to where you're looking.

I remember the transition from playing with the arrow keys to WASD, was in the late 90's. When I was playing Unreal Tournament and Quake 3

Castle Wolfenstein, MUSE Software, 1981, used a variation of WASD for movement: https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1qrynf/terrifying_c...

I used to play with WER/Space (W forward, E left, R right, Space back) with Q as my jump button. That gave me Tab, A, S, D, F, G, T along with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 in a natural resting position. These days, I use the WASD scheme because of how ubiquitous it is.

I've used the numeric pad for years as it's comfortable and you have enough keys to map the common functions of most games. I've been experimenting with IJKL because [;'\ isn't acceptable for most games. It's OK but [;'\ would have been perfect.

Back when I'd game I'd use the actual arrow keys (the one close to the numpad) and the keys around it. WASD and ESDF are both poor attempts at mimicking the actual arrow keys cluster (imitating the inverted 'T' of the arrow keys cluster). My keyboard would be in diagonal on my desk (as opposed to parallel to the monitor). I've seen some pro-gamer, back in the days, use the same setup. And, no, I couldn't type to chat this way.

ESDF at least as the excuse that 'F' typically has a little nub on it and that it's the natural position for touch typists. WASD: it won but meh.

> imitating the inverted 'T' of the arrow keys cluster

Tangentially: There were a few Microsoft keyboard models where they arranged the arrows in a diamond, which was uncomfortable heresy of the highest order.

The Apple Magic keyboard still does this I believe? Worst part of an otherwise good keyboard.

I used RDFG, I needed my pinky to be able to access a lot more keys in games like mechwarrior.

Dark Castle, released on Macintosh in 1986, had ASDF movement and mouse for aiming.

Err, ASDF? What did the "F" key do? I think it used WASD, and was probably one of the very first games that did. Screenshot: https://www.mobygames.com/game/110/dark-castle/screenshots/a...

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-origin-of-the-WASD-control...

I was going to say CP/M, myself.

The person answering apparently never saw the ijkl or ijkm controls for games (which were popular on the Apple ][ since (a) the Apple ][ didn’t have arrow keys beyond left and right and the rarely seen joystick for the Apple ][ was kind of janky since it was a pair of analog inputs rather than the essentially arrow-key replacements typical of most joysticks of that era). I don’t know that I ever saw jkl;, although I’m sure it existed.

does anyone have links to a canonical implementation of modern-style first person controls? I’ve been looking into this recently (both the WASD+mouselook PC version and the corresponding dual-stick console/touch version) and the closest I’ve found so far is ID’s cl_input.c [0] (used in quake, half life, etc.)

[0] https://github.com/id-Software/Quake-III-Arena/blob/master/c...

OPQA, who's with me?

As you may have guessed from some of my postings here, I'm an ESDX man (grew up with a TI-99/4A).

That was the default for a bunch of 8bit systems, for me, the Spectrum series

I know it as QAOP, and it feels strange to see it written as OPQA.

Also, HJKL for all you vim users out there.

I grew up in a Spanish-speaking country, reading computer magazines in Spanish, and at the time Spain was hugely into ZX Spectrum videogames. I feel like OPQA rolls off the tongue easier than QAOP when you say it in Spanish, so maybe that's all there is to it?

Anyone remember spacebar instead of w to move foward? Or mouse2 instead of w.

I'm annoyed there isn't a wasd keyboard combination where "w" isn't shifted slight to the right of the "s".

(2016)

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