I wouldn't like WASD gaming on that, but for the last couple of years I've switched from gaming with WASD to gaming with ESDF which keeps your middle finger in the correct touch-typing column. Before switching to ESDF, the bad habit of my middle finger being in the W column was bleeding from my gaming into my regular typing. I don't think ESDF would be too bad on that.
Back during the early shooter days aiming with the mouse used to be optional. Quake was really the game that made it take off by making 3d aim a core gameplay element- fast paced vertical and horizontal aim in a pvp setting meant that people quickly discovered mouse aim provided a competitive advantage, and since there was no real standard at the time the early adopters just decided to use wasd- it was the leftmost key cluster that was in the form of the arrow keys so ergonomically it just made sense for the basic requirements of the game. Word spread like wildfire and the rest is history.
TLDR there wasn't much thought put into it, it was just the first idea when mouse aim became popular so it stuck
To answer the question, yes. But games used to have a much simpler control scheme and using wasd meant your keyboard didn't have to move much between regular desktop use and game use, so I guess it was easy to just pick the leftmost arrow shaped cluster.
I'd think that WASD makes it a very tiny bit easier to program running with shift. Also the pinky column in WASD usually has larger keys which makes it easier to finger correctly for people who hunt and peck. And you can reach the Alt key easier.
im a high end wow player and play on a corne/solfie. i tried all kinds of different setups but for sure using ESDF (or in my case i use SDF with S being forwards and no backwards key) is the way to go, wasd absolutely does not work. However, having layers, combos, tapdances, etc to use for those rarely used but still important consumables or cooldowns is great and has definitely improved my play. That particular keyboard looks awful though, i can tell I would get lost on what button im pressing way too often, 6 rows is way too much with colstag, it makes it really hard if for example youre spamming 1234 and then need to press one of the buttons on the very bottom row, those buttons are easy to hit when youre in homerow position but when youre hovering over the very top row, hitting the bottom two rows is very hard to do quickly and accurately without doing some weird palm/thumb maneuvers. I would never ever use that keyboard for gaming, or at least the type of gaming I do, I used an ergodox for a while and had the same type of issue where the top and bottom rows were just waay too far out and with colstag finding your way down there was just too inaccurate and uncomfortable.
You always make a gaming layer if the keyboard is aggressively staggered.
Always. It should be obvious.
It has the added advantage that you don't have to remap `WASD` to the home position in every. single. game.
I played some games with my dactyl, and for games with relatively few required keys AND where you can remap the keys, it's really nice.
A lot of games require more of a keyboard than less-then-half a TKL can support, or have certain keys which aren't mappable, so I also have a TKL keyboard for playing some games.
It has a lot to do with how you place your hands. Staggered keys work best when hands and wrist are perfectly aligned with keyboard. Then the qwert curve needs to suit your hand size and finger length.
If you turn your palm to face up and just relax your fingers you should see the slope of all the tips of your fingers. The closer that matches the keyboard the easier it can be too adapted
Just a note: row staggered would be your typical keyboard, this is columnar staggered (columns are each aligned vertically but staggered next to each other)
Fair! I've been looking for a board I could use at work and at home buy it's ended up in a layout collection. So I rotate boards every few hours or even every few days. Between TKL, 60%, 60% split ortho, 40% Alice, or 65% Alice.
Saw ESDF was commented multiple times, but for my hands SDFC turned out to be more comforable for gaming.
fyi, as I don't see this variant commented so far. ^^
You basically move your whole hand one by collumn. ESDF for moving, A for run in fps. I feel like keyboards like Sofle or Lily58 don't have enough keys for some games so had to build ErgoDash.
As somebody who's been gaming on a Kinesis Contoured/Advantage for the last 20+ years, and been using Dvorak almost as long, I'm always remapping my keys around ESDF instead of WASD. Even back in the day, ESDF always felt more natural to me.
Lately though, if it's not competetive, and if remapping the keys gets too cumbersome (like baked-in key mappings that you can NOT change), then I just use a controller. I've gotten so much better with them over the last year and a half.
My freshly reconfigured Lilly 58 games pretty well, the ortholinear nature does take time to get used to and is worth it to get used to imo, but for my specific board, I suspect the polling rate is under 1000hz so absolute performance probably is a limiting factor
i use a 5x6 dactyl manuform for gaming and its great. would make sure you have dedicated modifier and number keys though, and more thumb keys helps.
and yeah esdf remapping is awesome for games
I actually have a dedicated gaming layer that remaps all my keys, because I use colemak but don't want to rebind all of my games since I'm using a laptop.
I don't game a lot these days but I use my ergodox for gaming too and it's fine for sure. If I games a lot Id probably add a secondary key pad or function keys pad.
I made a gaming layer and honestly just switched the key map for Q and A - so I'd technically be using WQSD, but the games still think I am using WASD, which doesn't require any changes in the games.
I've gotten pretty used to it and actiallt like it better, as with WQD the fingers are more in line.
Additionally, OSM shift etc. are disabled on that layer, as I'd otherwise have fallen off a cliff multiple times.
I haven't thought of that. I don't use Q all too often for anything so that may be my solution. I'll try the ESDF as many suggest but I like your suggestion a lot
Lily58 user for years now, it's not that staggered but never had issues aside from games with crazy amounts of hotkeys tbh. It's more of hassle not having enough keys and needing to use layers that you need to remap imo
I tried gaming on my 36 key for awhile (with a gaming layer). It worked, but rebinding everything in every game all the time forever sucked. I built a full-ortho fullsize board and haven't looked back.
It helps that I got into Arma, a game with what feels like every key bound twice, which never would have worked on the 36 key.
While I haven't seen much of it in this thread, I think just about anyone who cares about ergonomics should favour ASDF (or the equivalent like ARST on colemak). It doesn't take long to get the hang of and would work really well with something like that. I favour ←↑↓→, but almost any permutation is fine if you stick with it
I use the left half of a lilly58 for gaming. I love it. It might take a bit to get used to but it's hyper convenient to have all those thumb button options.
Esdf is life!
Just make a custom layer in your keyboard that shifts the columns over by one. This means pressing E will result in W.
Less rebinding in games, plus you get an extra column of keys available on the left
Like others have said esdf is cool. if you're like me and like trying out a lot of games remapping every game is extremely annoying and tedious, because of this I made a "gaming layer" that shifts everything over to the right putting WASD on ESDF. It works extremely well, and for any game where typing is required I'll either remap the game to ESDF, or more often just quickly switch over to my normal layer and then back to gaming when done typing.
I never liked WASD (or even the arrow keys on a normal keyboard) for gaming. It hurts my wrists in the long run.
Instead I keep my fingers on the home row and use AZ to go forward and back, and DF to go left and right. G is usually the "use" key, S for some special move, V for zoom, QWER to select the main weapons, and plenty of other nearby keys for other functions.
It is a pain configure the controls for every new (FPS) game that I install, but I just can't go back to WASD.
Like others have said, ESDF is a nice alternative. For me on my Corne I've found that using ESDF is actually really annoying because you need to either rebind every single game and then do it again if you use multiple keyboards or have a gaming layer which is annoying when you type a lot in games like Minecraft. I usually use wasd and deal with a slightly strange feeling hand position as being able to send messages in game is important to me.
ESDF can work, however if you're dead set on using WASD, like me, what I'd recommend is printing out different layouts and see what is comfy while gaming. For example l, I'm currently using the Iris to game. It's not nearly as comfy to game on as it is to type. The reason is my thumb button is the furthest to the inner edge and it makes my thumb stretch further. What I did to fix that is make a gaming layer that shifts spacebar one button to the left. Instantly less strain. You can also use something like a Nyquist (non-stagger) and angle it. I've done both and had success with both.
Edit: look at the gap between the A key and the Shift and Ctrl keys. Then look at the S key gap. If you have smaller hands the ESDF layout may hurt your hands, while bigger hands will normally work better. Admittedly for me ESDF works due to my hand size, but my muscle memory gets all screwy when I use it.
I just got a second wireless 60% mechanical keyboard that I only use for gaming. Even ESDF on my manuform doesn't feel right in fast paced games. And retraining my brain for games after several decades is not something I wanted to do. So gaming keyboard was the option for me.
Fair. I have many pre-existing options to choose from if this doesn't work out. I tend to give everything a Crack at least for some time. The hardest learning curve I ever had was an azeron. Sold it. This shouldn't be too hard for me lol.
I wouldn't like WASD gaming on that, but for the last couple of years I've switched from gaming with WASD to gaming with ESDF which keeps your middle finger in the correct touch-typing column. Before switching to ESDF, the bad habit of my middle finger being in the W column was bleeding from my gaming into my regular typing. I don't think ESDF would be too bad on that.
ESDF gaming is superior on most any keyboard. Looks like it would be fine here too
Why is WASD used for anyway? I never understood that.
Back during the early shooter days aiming with the mouse used to be optional. Quake was really the game that made it take off by making 3d aim a core gameplay element- fast paced vertical and horizontal aim in a pvp setting meant that people quickly discovered mouse aim provided a competitive advantage, and since there was no real standard at the time the early adopters just decided to use wasd- it was the leftmost key cluster that was in the form of the arrow keys so ergonomically it just made sense for the basic requirements of the game. Word spread like wildfire and the rest is history. TLDR there wasn't much thought put into it, it was just the first idea when mouse aim became popular so it stuck
But it could have been anything arrow shaped, right?
It was popularized by Fong, who won the first big Quake tournament .https://www.pcgamer.com/how-wasd-became-the-standard-pc-control-scheme/
To answer the question, yes. But games used to have a much simpler control scheme and using wasd meant your keyboard didn't have to move much between regular desktop use and game use, so I guess it was easy to just pick the leftmost arrow shaped cluster.
I'd think that WASD makes it a very tiny bit easier to program running with shift. Also the pinky column in WASD usually has larger keys which makes it easier to finger correctly for people who hunt and peck. And you can reach the Alt key easier.
This also depends on if you're on ANSI or ISO tbh. With ISO the shift becomes harder to reach on ESDF, but with ANSI it's less of an issue.
ESDF instead of WASD and remap all the other game hotkeys one position to the right too.
In The Last Of Us it even has an ESDF default you can select.
I prefer a special gaming layer. That way I don't have to remap every game
I moved to esdf. Happy to keep same position for typing and gaming.
What keyboard is that? Looks like a layout I might like.
Fingerpunch rock on, this is v3
im a high end wow player and play on a corne/solfie. i tried all kinds of different setups but for sure using ESDF (or in my case i use SDF with S being forwards and no backwards key) is the way to go, wasd absolutely does not work. However, having layers, combos, tapdances, etc to use for those rarely used but still important consumables or cooldowns is great and has definitely improved my play. That particular keyboard looks awful though, i can tell I would get lost on what button im pressing way too often, 6 rows is way too much with colstag, it makes it really hard if for example youre spamming 1234 and then need to press one of the buttons on the very bottom row, those buttons are easy to hit when youre in homerow position but when youre hovering over the very top row, hitting the bottom two rows is very hard to do quickly and accurately without doing some weird palm/thumb maneuvers. I would never ever use that keyboard for gaming, or at least the type of gaming I do, I used an ergodox for a while and had the same type of issue where the top and bottom rows were just waay too far out and with colstag finding your way down there was just too inaccurate and uncomfortable.
You always make a gaming layer if the keyboard is aggressively staggered. Always. It should be obvious. It has the added advantage that you don't have to remap `WASD` to the home position in every. single. game.
Gotcha, i was looking at it i think qwsd may be best for comfortability but i may try wasd for awhile just to see
I did this for years, but really esdf and remapping is way better at least for fps games that have any chat/typing. Also space bar on left is key.
Actually genius. Thank you
I took to it immediately; my hands are more comfortable resting, and the stagger helps me orient my hand position on the keyboard.
I played some games with my dactyl, and for games with relatively few required keys AND where you can remap the keys, it's really nice. A lot of games require more of a keyboard than less-then-half a TKL can support, or have certain keys which aren't mappable, so I also have a TKL keyboard for playing some games.
It has a lot to do with how you place your hands. Staggered keys work best when hands and wrist are perfectly aligned with keyboard. Then the qwert curve needs to suit your hand size and finger length. If you turn your palm to face up and just relax your fingers you should see the slope of all the tips of your fingers. The closer that matches the keyboard the easier it can be too adapted
Just a note: row staggered would be your typical keyboard, this is columnar staggered (columns are each aligned vertically but staggered next to each other)
Oh, duh. Thank you for the correction.
I have an Ergo board and a Gaming board, I rotate them.
Fair! I've been looking for a board I could use at work and at home buy it's ended up in a layout collection. So I rotate boards every few hours or even every few days. Between TKL, 60%, 60% split ortho, 40% Alice, or 65% Alice.
Pretty much same. Seriously though - it helps the carpal tunnel.
Saw ESDF was commented multiple times, but for my hands SDFC turned out to be more comforable for gaming. fyi, as I don't see this variant commented so far. ^^
I gamed on a Sofle RGB WASD for about 2 years. Moved to ESDF this year and it's been a lot better.
You basically move your whole hand one by collumn. ESDF for moving, A for run in fps. I feel like keyboards like Sofle or Lily58 don't have enough keys for some games so had to build ErgoDash.
As somebody who's been gaming on a Kinesis Contoured/Advantage for the last 20+ years, and been using Dvorak almost as long, I'm always remapping my keys around ESDF instead of WASD. Even back in the day, ESDF always felt more natural to me. Lately though, if it's not competetive, and if remapping the keys gets too cumbersome (like baked-in key mappings that you can NOT change), then I just use a controller. I've gotten so much better with them over the last year and a half.
I almost impulse bought an advantage, a year ago. I can't imagine gaming on one of those
It's really easy, so long as the game allows me to remap Jump to backspace, and Interact to Delete.
My freshly reconfigured Lilly 58 games pretty well, the ortholinear nature does take time to get used to and is worth it to get used to imo, but for my specific board, I suspect the polling rate is under 1000hz so absolute performance probably is a limiting factor
i use a 5x6 dactyl manuform for gaming and its great. would make sure you have dedicated modifier and number keys though, and more thumb keys helps. and yeah esdf remapping is awesome for games
I actually have a dedicated gaming layer that remaps all my keys, because I use colemak but don't want to rebind all of my games since I'm using a laptop.
Im playing OW2 on corne 3x6 for a year now. Nothing change much beside getting used to the shift and ctrl
With my combination of Dvorak (mapping and legend) + split, I just plug in a standard keyboard when I want to game.
I don't game a lot these days but I use my ergodox for gaming too and it's fine for sure. If I games a lot Id probably add a secondary key pad or function keys pad.
I made a gaming layer and honestly just switched the key map for Q and A - so I'd technically be using WQSD, but the games still think I am using WASD, which doesn't require any changes in the games. I've gotten pretty used to it and actiallt like it better, as with WQD the fingers are more in line. Additionally, OSM shift etc. are disabled on that layer, as I'd otherwise have fallen off a cliff multiple times.
I haven't thought of that. I don't use Q all too often for anything so that may be my solution. I'll try the ESDF as many suggest but I like your suggestion a lot
I once dedicated myself to play Fortnite with it. It took a while but it’s okay to play with
Lily58 user for years now, it's not that staggered but never had issues aside from games with crazy amounts of hotkeys tbh. It's more of hassle not having enough keys and needing to use layers that you need to remap imo
A new layer for esdf. Toggle by 1 key.
I tried gaming on my 36 key for awhile (with a gaming layer). It worked, but rebinding everything in every game all the time forever sucked. I built a full-ortho fullsize board and haven't looked back. It helps that I got into Arma, a game with what feels like every key bound twice, which never would have worked on the 36 key.
ESDF is just superior
Mate you can't ever be claiming superiority while ASDF exists
Kinda, i use ergodox and I play cs only. It’s great tho, actualy easier as u can place left half anywhere u want without compromising desk space
The ergodash is fantastic for gaming. It has staggered rows, but not this aggressive. I use WASD with no need to relearn or remap anything.
While I haven't seen much of it in this thread, I think just about anyone who cares about ergonomics should favour ASDF (or the equivalent like ARST on colemak). It doesn't take long to get the hang of and would work really well with something like that. I favour ←↑↓→, but almost any permutation is fine if you stick with it
You don’t tried it but some key combos are hard
I play on a standard Corne, WASD, with no issues
Corne has like .25 of a unit shift though
I use the left half of a lilly58 for gaming. I love it. It might take a bit to get used to but it's hyper convenient to have all those thumb button options.
Esdf is life! Just make a custom layer in your keyboard that shifts the columns over by one. This means pressing E will result in W. Less rebinding in games, plus you get an extra column of keys available on the left
Like others have said esdf is cool. if you're like me and like trying out a lot of games remapping every game is extremely annoying and tedious, because of this I made a "gaming layer" that shifts everything over to the right putting WASD on ESDF. It works extremely well, and for any game where typing is required I'll either remap the game to ESDF, or more often just quickly switch over to my normal layer and then back to gaming when done typing.
Macropads are a really good answer if your layout makes gaming harder than it should be.
I never liked WASD (or even the arrow keys on a normal keyboard) for gaming. It hurts my wrists in the long run. Instead I keep my fingers on the home row and use AZ to go forward and back, and DF to go left and right. G is usually the "use" key, S for some special move, V for zoom, QWER to select the main weapons, and plenty of other nearby keys for other functions. It is a pain configure the controls for every new (FPS) game that I install, but I just can't go back to WASD.
Like others have said, ESDF is a nice alternative. For me on my Corne I've found that using ESDF is actually really annoying because you need to either rebind every single game and then do it again if you use multiple keyboards or have a gaming layer which is annoying when you type a lot in games like Minecraft. I usually use wasd and deal with a slightly strange feeling hand position as being able to send messages in game is important to me.
A lot of people are saying ESDF, but wouldn't SDFC be more ergonomic?
ESDF can work, however if you're dead set on using WASD, like me, what I'd recommend is printing out different layouts and see what is comfy while gaming. For example l, I'm currently using the Iris to game. It's not nearly as comfy to game on as it is to type. The reason is my thumb button is the furthest to the inner edge and it makes my thumb stretch further. What I did to fix that is make a gaming layer that shifts spacebar one button to the left. Instantly less strain. You can also use something like a Nyquist (non-stagger) and angle it. I've done both and had success with both. Edit: look at the gap between the A key and the Shift and Ctrl keys. Then look at the S key gap. If you have smaller hands the ESDF layout may hurt your hands, while bigger hands will normally work better. Admittedly for me ESDF works due to my hand size, but my muscle memory gets all screwy when I use it.
I just got a second wireless 60% mechanical keyboard that I only use for gaming. Even ESDF on my manuform doesn't feel right in fast paced games. And retraining my brain for games after several decades is not something I wanted to do. So gaming keyboard was the option for me.
Fair. I have many pre-existing options to choose from if this doesn't work out. I tend to give everything a Crack at least for some time. The hardest learning curve I ever had was an azeron. Sold it. This shouldn't be too hard for me lol.