Yes, this is a very tiny hill on which to die on, but it's my hill!
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.)
Also, you have conveniently ignored my last paragraph.
The better mapping is objectively subjective. ;)
FWIW, A is dodge for me and V is crouch.
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.
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…
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.
2600 and 5200 controllers say otherwise.
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.
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.
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.
Got started doing that when I played Bungie's Oni, which required editing an INI file to rebind keys.
I instead use D as the use key in all games, X for reload, V for crouch etc.
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...
Shield, nade, lean left/right, use item, etc.
WASD is for peasants.
/s
I do use the palm though, it is weird, lol