KB/M issues
- Preface
- The elephant in the room - hardcoded movement keys
- Another big elephant in the room - hardcoded all inventory/menu level keys
- Other non-rebindable keys
- Mouse sensitivity issues
- Target lock swapping issues + lack of dedicated keybinds
- Lack of locked-on target focus off option
- Dodge sharing functionality with dash
- Gamepad-derived inventory workarounds torment
- Let us use key combinations
- Maybe camera relative attack/action direction ?
Preface
KB/M catastrophe, 1.1.2.0 - 1.5.0.0
TL;DR: If you want to play this game on KB/M and you are not using WASD - either arm yourself with a gaming keyboard allowing hardware-level rebinding or suffer with AHK or other similar tools.
Originally posted on steam forums.
The elephant in the room - hardcoded movement keys
Note: it's not just that WASD is unusable as a rebindable keys for other functions - the character movement controls are hardcoded, period. Wanna use something else ? Maybe ESDF ? WERT ? SpaceDSG ? Different KB layout ? Left handed ?
The other hardcoded keys in this context:
C
MWheel (forcibly assigned to swapping items in both belts)
Dunno if it warrants any more comments. It's just a mind-boggling nonsense and/or laziness and/or ignorance. IDK what a sane developer would think it was a good idea. And it remained unfixed since the release.
Another big elephant in the room - hardcoded all inventory/menu level keys
In no particular order: W, A, S, D, Q, E, F, C, R, Z, X, Esc, Space
These keys SHOULD BE rebindable, independently from game-level keys.
Sadly this is far more common in the other games (souls or not) - while being quite irritating while moving away from WASD.
Look at games like Nioh 1/2 or Wo Long to see how it's implemented.
Other non-rebindable keys
Mouse4
Mouse5
tilde
single quote
caps lock
alt (left and right, game has no distinction between those)
F1 - F12
backslash
Cursor Keys
All numpad keys except Enter
The last two categories I'm sure will be loved by some players. /s
Mouse sensitivity issues
- you will likely need higher dpi setting on your mouse to compensate for rather weak sliders in the game; as a side effect you will have a bad time with mouse cursor (inventory, menu) after you crank up the dpi but at least the game will be playable; I'm at 3000 dpi in 2k resolution with all sliders in game to the right (except vertical, see below) - in-game sliders really need to go much further than just current 10
- vertical sensitivity is much weaker than horizontal - with horizontal at max you will need vertical at ~half to make the movement feel similar; I have a gut feeling it's even worse for widescreen resolution (21:9, etc. - if they work at all that is)
- there should be separate sliders for mouse cursor behavior
Target lock swapping issues + lack of dedicated keybinds
- typical gamepad mess ported to mouse with 0 changes - changing targets with "stick" nudges
- no sensitivty / deadzone slider for this (with ability to disable it altogether)
- there should be 2 distance based keybinds for this (from nearest to farthest and in the reverse direction); the cone setting is already in the game, so just add these
- just in case it's hard to imagine: don't forget that MWheel should be rebindable and usable here
Lack of locked-on target focus off option
This would allow to retain full camera control with target locked enemy. Once again - look at Wo Long or Nioh 1/2 that have such features.
Dodge sharing functionality with dash
Imagine that keyboards and gaming mice have enough keys and buttons to not need this "dodge on release" insanity due to gamepad constraints.
Gamepad-derived inventory workarounds torment
KB/M users also don't need to suffer through gamepad-related inventory workarounds (cycle-able upper belt, cycle-able bottom belt, etc.). Just let us keybind all possible inventory slots (whether belt, bag or anything else) as direct shortcuts. Also look at the next point.
Let us use key combinations
Putting keys used as modifiers on extra mouse buttons is a pretty common thing. And then suddenly you can even have 20 direct item shortcuts and won't ever need to move your hand an inch.
Maybe camera relative attack/action direction ?
Why bother with target locking and swapping at all, when this behavior could be added - one would think a basic common sense idea for KB/M. From recent games look at Remnant II and how melee works there in this context. Or any 20+ years old PC game.