Default Keybindings Presets

[lowskill.]

On the issue of jumping and other bindings such as alt-fire and crouching, honestly I don't think that whatever is chosen as default will be sufficient here. The best course of action, in my book, is just keeping two presets, one modern and one for vanilla. There have been a ton of discussions about this in other places and I'm seeing no ideal solution here. If they're not bound, new players won't know what's happening in mods that need them, while the more purist folks will complain that it can break more vanilla maps.

I've noticed the more purist oriented group adamantly defend the latter, where they'd like to see those actions not bound, which I disagree with since they also tend to defend the intellectually lazy for not doing their own homework and learn how Doom was played like in the past... Basically not even being interested in the game they're playing...

As for the issue of left-handed setups, that's even worse since keyboards are built differently. On top of this, believe it or not, I actually also know people who are left-handed but play games with a right-handed setup (WASD, mouse on the right side, weapons on the right side in games that support changing this, and so on). No idea how they're doing it, but they most certainly do exist, which only adds even more insult to injury.

[drfrag]

It's working now. I've made four presets in LZDoom: classic, wasd, esdf and keypad. For GZDoom i could redo it to keep only two. About strife popups i made the minimal changes to avoid clashes.
Graf wants to remove the classic preset, i actually think it's not very useful. Then the left preset has its own issues and according to a survey many left handed users actually use wasd as well. I added the feature mainly becouse apparently the classic one and wasd could not be merged (and i thought it was cool).
Here's the commit: https://github.com/drfrag666/gzdoom/com ... 04c08e1776
And a test build: https://devbuilds.drdteam.org/lzdoom/lz ... 4b185d0.7z

[Enjay]

purist

Honestly, I'm sick and tired of the loud-voiced self-styled "purists" shaping, moulding and bending what is done in the community to their will. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be due consideration for the preservation of Doom traditions and styles, but so many of these "purists" arguments are just unnecessary obstacles to progression where both the old and the new can usually happily co-exist anyway.

In this case, if someone is getting upset that a key that they don't have to use (and which can be turned off mod-side for any mod made after that was a possibility) has a default binding, then I really don't care. As far as I'm concerned, they are being irrational and selfish (as they so often are). If they are getting that pissy about it, why are they even playing GZDoom in the first place? Oh, that's right, the rules of "purism" alter from person to person anyway.

Of course, the above rant is all a bit straw man because no purist has actually raised the objection in this case (yet). I've just reached a point where my patience has run out with "but the purists won't like it" arguments - especially when its a case that the purists can easily not use the feature and all that they are doing is being offended on behalf of a potential new player who "won't get the true Doom experience".

The purists may be loud, but their opinion is no more important or valid than the (probable) majority of other users who are not lying on the floor screaming and drumming their heels in a tantrum.

[lowskill.]

purist

Honestly, I'm sick and tired of the loud-voiced self-styled "purists" shaping, moulding and bending what is done in the community to their will. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be due consideration for the preservation of Doom traditions and styles, but so many of these "purists" arguments are just unnecessary obstacles to progression where both the old and the new can usually happily co-exist anyway.

In this case, if someone is getting upset that a key that they don't have to use (and which can be turned off mod-side for any mod made after that was a possibility) has a default binding, then I really don't care. As far as I'm concerned, they are being irrational and selfish (as they so often are). If they are getting that pissy about it, why are they even playing GZDoom in the first place? Oh, that's right, the rules of "purism" alter from person to person anyway.

Of course, the above rant is all a bit straw man because no purist has actually raised the objection in this case (yet). I've just reached a point where my patience has run out with "but the purists won't like it" arguments - especially when its a case that the purists can easily not use the feature and all that they are doing is being offended on behalf of a potential new player who "won't get the true Doom experience".

The purists may be loud, but their opinion is no more important or valid than the (probable) majority of other users who are not lying on the floor screaming and drumming their heels in a tantrum.

Well that escalated quickly.

It wasn't my intention to ignite the flames though, I was just trying to make a point but I must've worded it quite poorly. What I was trying to raise was the simple fact that there's no such thing as a perfect default configuration, no matter what it is, some will just not be pleased about it - some of those yes, being purists, admittedly -, and each one for different reasons. It just seems that the topic of "ZDoom defaults" somehow manages to pop-up periodically, as it recently did once more on DW...

Can't say I have much sympathy for that attitude either, especially when it's used in defense of not doing proper research about the port in question, its features, and not being bothered to do a literally 2 minute research about "jumping/freelook in classic Doom", for instance.

The best configuration is your personal setup, ultimately. I'm content with the current defaults, the addition of ESDF is probably the only one that could make some sense to implement.

[Enjay]

Well that escalated quickly.

Fair point.

I don't think you worded things poorly and your point was a fair enough one to make. It's just that I personally have reached breaking point with all the "but we can't do that because the purists won't like it" things that have happened in the past. Half of them don't even like GZDoom anyway.

[lowskill.]

Well that escalated quickly.

Fair point.

I don't think you worded things poorly and your point was a fair enough one to make. It's just that I personally have reached breaking point with all the "but we can't do that because the purists won't like it" things that have happened in the past. Half of them don't even like GZDoom anyway.

Can't argue with that, seconding this .

[SanyaWaffles]

I'm of the opinion if people don't like what GZDoom has to offer then maybe this port isn't for them, and that includes different keybinds that are more modern and not classic.

I'm tired of having to appeal to a vocal minority of people who won't even use the thing they complain about and somehow get the oil anyway, so I agree with what was said above.

[Graf Zahl]

What I don't get is people who whine around when some software ships with defaults they do not agree with - that's what the option menu is there for, goddamnit! It's impossible to preconfigure any software to satisfy all users. All that can be done is to provide some reasonable defaults but it's nearly inevitable that the end user has to perform some fine tuning. But apparently for some users even this is out of the question.

[Rachael]

I do 100% agree with what you've said here, Graf, but I think the majority of people in this discussion are asking for defaults to be set to what people most commonly set them to, rather than what they personally want.

That being said - that comes with a different issue entirely - who decides what is the most common default?

Unless we have a way of asking for people's INI's and running them through a statistical tool that spits out the defaults that most people use, everything is purely arbitrary.

[drfrag]

The most common default is clearly wasd, but now which wasd?
So it's going to be only two presets in the end? wasd and keypad without weapons? or three?
This is my proposal for wasd:

Code: Select all • Expand view

w +forward
s +back
a +moveleft
d +moveright
e +jump
x crouch
mouse2 +altattack

And this is common now:

Code: Select all • Expand view

` toggleconsole
1 "slot 1"
2 "slot 2"
3 "slot 3"
4 "slot 4"
5 "slot 5"
6 "slot 6"
7 "slot 7"
8 "slot 8"
9 "slot 9"
0 "slot 0"
[ invprev
] invnext
mwheelleft invprev
mwheelright invnext
enter invuse
- sizedown
= sizeup
shift +speed
space +use
mouse1 +attack
capslock "toggle cl_run"
f1 menu_help
f2 menu_save
f3 menu_load
f4 menu_options
f5 menu_display
f6 quicksave
f7 menu_endgame
f8 togglemessages
f9 quickload
f11 bumpgamma
f10 menu_quit
tab togglemap
pause pause
sysrq screenshot
t messagemode
\ +showscores
f12 spynext
mwheeldown weapnext
mwheelup weapprev

// Originally just for Heretic, Hexen, and Strife.
// I can't see why they shouldn't be for Doom or Chex either.
pgup +moveup
ins +movedown
home land
pgdn +lookup
del +lookdown
end centerview

// Xbox 360 / PS2 controllers
pad_a +use
pad_y +jump
rtrigger +attack
ltrigger +altattack
lshoulder weapprev
rshoulder weapnext
dpadleft invprev
dpadright invnext
dpaddown invuse
dpadup togglemap
pad_start pause
pad_back menu_main
lthumb crouch


/* Default automap bindings */
mapbind f am_togglefollow
mapbind g am_togglegrid
mapbind p am_toggletexture
mapbind m am_setmark
mapbind c am_clearmarks
mapbind 0 am_gobig
mapbind rightarrow +am_panright
mapbind leftarrow +am_panleft
mapbind uparrow +am_panup
mapbind downarrow +am_pandown
mapbind - +am_zoomout
mapbind = +am_zoomin
mapbind kp- +am_zoomout
mapbind kp+ +am_zoomin
mapbind mwheelup "am_zoom 1.2"
mapbind mwheeldown "am_zoom -1.2"

[dpJudas]

The most common default is clearly wasd, but now which wasd?

Don't really care much which, as long as it is one used by the major modern AAA shooter games. Your proposal does not do that as afaik none of them use 'e' for jumping. You pay your respects with F or E.

There seems to be this general misconception that a feature like this is about making the ideal default binds, or options in general. That is not really what it should be about. There is no ideal setup. The default binds and options serve the purpose of maximizing the chance a user will not abandon the product on sight (*).

*) I actually originally dropped GZDoom on sight because the defaults were so far from what I expected that I concluded it was a poor port. From there I tried ZDoom which defaults happened to be closer to what I wanted. It wasn't until much much later I realized I could actually customize GZDoom to match what I was going for. So that's at least one example of what happens if the defaults are totally out of whack. With keyboard binds it is probably not as bad, but a gamer today would never assume you move with arrow keys, slide with alt and shoot with control. No game released today does this.

[Graf Zahl]

I do 100% agree with what you've said here, Graf, but I think the majority of people in this discussion are asking for defaults to be set to what people most commonly set them to, rather than what they personally want.

That being said - that comes with a different issue entirely - who decides what is the most common default?

Unless we have a way of asking for people's INI's and running them through a statistical tool that spits out the defaults that most people use, everything is purely arbitrary.

The irony here is that the main subject of discussion is the 4(!) directional keys.
Configuring a setup normally means setting up a lot more than 4 bindings but it doesn't seem to matter how much work needs to be done - if these 4 aren't properly preconfigured it becomes a major issue for some.

[drfrag]

Then spacebar for jump and c for crouch ala far cry? what about the classic preset? should i drop it?

[dpJudas]

I would say the classic preset should be there. If nothing else, then to let someone easily get back to that if they tried the other preset.

[lowskill.]

Yeah, I agree that the vanilla preset should stay there, even if for historical reasons only.

"C" for crouch is odd to me though. I'd recently ran into a Doom 3 mod that apparently uses that - and has seemingly all the key bindings locked (!) -, and C is way too close for a WASD setup IMO. Admittedly not as bad as for ESDF though, but still. My own personal setup is kinda interesting honestly - I use Left Alt for running, and Mouse2 for "Use" in a more vanilla setup, and if something requires a more modern config I just bind Left Control to Crouch, E for Use, Mouse2 for secondary fire, Space for Jump, and so on.

As about "configuring them to your needs" nah, we can't have that, it pisses off the purists and intellectually lazy who unironically defend those who can't be arsed to learn how Doom was played like in the past. And when I called them lazy some individuals resorted to calling me an "elitist", no kidding! Imagine being called an elitist for doing your research about the game you're playing, port you're using, and WAD you're playing smh. I've seen pettiness before, a lot actually, but this is entirely new even for me.