PC FPS gamers: WASD vs Arrows

[VladKGB]

I am pretty good at FPS games, i've been playing for over 10 years & i am definetly not a nub. i have been using arrow setup ever since my Rainbow 6 days, and to me it seems like arrow setup is superior to the WASD setup that most FPS come with nowadays.

One of my dislikes of WASD is that it is around many identical keys, therefore there is always the chance to mash keys that you didn't intend to in the heat of combat, as well as getting completely lost on the keyboard after getting attacked while typing.

I find that with the arrow keys none of these problems exist, each button is easy to find in relation to the arrows, as well as nearly all of them are supported in all games.

With the arrow keys you have three separate groups of keys to use which are nearly impossible to get lost in, the Page up page down group of six is aligned in a grid of six (Not the offset grid of WASD, but an actual grid), the backspace area has a row of five uniquely sized keys which are impossible to confuse, and the numberpad keys (7, 4, 1, 0, others for more oscure functions) are easy to find, 7 is across from pagedown, four is below that, zero is the large key directly to the left of the left arrow and one is above that.

They're all very very easy to find, this is great for allowing you to forget you're merely controlling a character on a screen with some buttons.

I don't see the reason why everyone uses WASD setup. There is greater room for error having all those buttons close to each other and not aligned.

WASD
Pros:
more buttons available near your hand
more ergonomical placement for your hands
cons:
easy to lose your positioning on the keys
easy to accidently confuse buttons or accidently push ones you dont want to.

Arrows
Pros:
buttons are perfectly aligned with space in between them, so getting confused or lost is nearly impossible, and reaching for buttons is alot easier.
More than enough buttons available near your hand for most FPS games.
Cons:
have to move keyboard to make it comfortable for your hands.

Heres a sample setup i have for COD4 using arrows:

arrows are for movement of course
on the 6 buttons above arrows:
Del= reload
end= crouch
Insert=lean left
Home=lean right
Page down=prone
Shift=sprint
enter=function (old F key)
\ = throw grenade
ctrl=Knife (also middle mouse button)
numberkeys on num pad (except 0) = weapons
0 on numpad=jump

And i have many other buttons for other controls.

As you can see this scheme allows all these buttons to be right around your hand.

Try it out, i find its much better for FPS.

[zyrrth]

personally i prefer esdf, if you play somewhat regularly you won't press buttons by accident.

[tercet]

I used the original arrows in Rainbow six back on the Zone in late 90's. But I got hooked to cs late 90s early 00s and just got acustom to wasd.

WASD > ARROWS

[capone0]

I also started playing with the arrows for CS/TF1. When I started playing CS Source and now TF2, I only used WASD. I don't prefer 1 over the other. I don't think any is that much beter but WASD has a lot more options for short changes in distance. Also to AWP+Pistol, it's very, very hard with arrows unless you bind your mouse to changing weapons.

[Freakin]

WASD/ESDF are always going to be a better setup because of the large number of buttons you can hit without stretching.

Saying "More than enough buttons available near your hand for most FPS games." may be ok for you, but that's not universally true. Even on old games like Quake 2 I would have run out of buttons around the arrows. I use WASD and was using every button from YHN over for my common tasks, and other ones past there for less common tasks.

The arrows can't compare with it that way. Once you train yourself to WASD it is just as comfortable and easy to find as arrows.

Try it out and try to get used to it. Pretty much all serious gamers use WASD by default. A lot of left-handed people start out with arrows and usually don't deviate from it.

[evil twin]

If you're a clumsy oaf you might need to use the arrows to avoid mashing the wrong button. Otherwise WASD is the best choice.

[astroglide]

i started using SZXC for quake a long time ago. i continue to use that for competitive multiplayer q3, for everything else i try to stick with the default. in q3 i have local keybindings to every individual weapon as well as all sorts of other stuff. i wouldn't have the required amount of buttons if i were to use the arrows, and shifting over my keyboard seems weird in and of itself.

[g-bebe]

I guess ESDF is handy if you're a button masher, due to the mark on the F key.

I can't really remember when I made the transition from arrows to WASD, because it was quite a while ago -- probably when I started playing CS, which was in 1.6 before Steam came out. It's the superior setup if you ask me, for reasons stated above.

[PITTM]

I use arrows and program a ton of buttons on my mouse(reload, run, throw grenade, etc).

[Bostaevski]

I used to always use the arrows but eventually just gave in and switched to wasd because of the main con of arrows which OP didn't mention: every time you get a new FPS you have to [censored] around remapping the keys.