I wish gaming companies would get this right at least. More and more, certain actions are hardcoded which begs the question why have rebinding at all if you can’t bind things to keys like F or E or so?
And it shouldn’t be F or E, but the key that’s represents F and E. That way you can change keyboard layout without the keys moving physically. I switch between Dvorak and QWERTY quite a bit (I use Dvorak my kids use QWERTY), so it’s particularly important to me since things like Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V are not in convenient places (C is above right middle finger, V is below right ring finger).
Yeah although I would accept that if at least I can rebind everything. I have no clue whether modern keyboards output non-processed signals to an API the game could even interact with (that is, whether you can get a “Key 102 was pressed” instead of “F was pressed”).
But I kinda agree, it’d be awesome if things could be done either “by position” or “by letter”.
And the very best is still Star Wars Squadrons, which even goes as far as allowing you manual control over it’s combo-keys (that is, the same key having different functions based on context). You get to freely choose whether you want to bind:
- Individual keys for each functionality.
- One combo key.
- Both, should you want to.
The sad part is: Yes, that’s how it should always work. Keybinding has become such a second-class citizen of game development, it’s super sad. And as a lefty, quite annoying.
I haven’t tried every game engine, but at least the browser provides “key.code” to get the code (fixed numeric position) and has for at least a decade, and every programming language I’ve use to detect key presses offers it.
You’re the second person this week to mention Star Wars Squadrons, I think it’s a sign I need to check it out. I played Rogue Squadron and TIE Fighter as a kid, so it’ll be fun to see how Star Wars games have progressed. I usually avoid EA games, but maybe it’s worth breaking that for this game.
things like Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V are not in convenient places
Huh, I hunt-and-peck Qwerty and touch-type Dvorak and that has never bothered me. I can know where C and V are, and I just press them.
I don’t game much though, and could see the issue if WASD are scattered all over like they are in Dvorak and can’t be remapped.
Yup, I’ve run into some games where WASD and the like are scattered on Dvorak. What’s worse is occasionally it’s inconsistent, and they use key codes for some things and letters for others. I’ve even had cases where they somehow read the primary keyboard and I had to reorder my keyboards in the settings for the game to work properly.
Bigger budget, newer games are usually more consistent, but all bets are off with older games.
