What controls do you use?

[NAVI]

Do you change any controls, and if so why? Also what type of camera orientation do you use?
I use pointer because that's what i'm used to, since that's the config that was used in Arena.

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[noobishlord]

I have it set to have the camera be controlled by the mouse, and naturally the weapon swinging, but everything else is controlled by keyboard for me, interacting, moving, so-on and so-forth. I can't remember exactly what keys I have set where, but I definitely know I move anything away from the Function keys, since using those on my laptop is just plain annoying.

[LugkAgumbuk]

i use keyboard + mouse, using wasd to move, space to jump, and Ctrl to sneak

[princeofwtf]

Standard FPS controls for me. WASD for moving and strafing, mouselook mode on. Space to jump, and Shift to sneak, but sneaking doesn't do much even with maxed Stealth and awesome language skills in my experience.

[Crawldragon]

I use the keyboard-based controls. Sorry, but to me it feels like Daggerfall was designed for that. I radically changed the default control scheme to match this, and it plays almost flawlessly.

I use DSXF for movement controls (previously I used SAZD but DSXF is clearly superior) with W and E mapped to strafing. V and B are mapped to "look down" and "look up," respectively, with C used to center the view. Beyond that, my main goal was to move the buttons most commonly used as close to the left hand as possible, leaving the right hand free to move the mouse. Hence, A to draw weapon, Z to switch hands, and G to cast spells. I play in fullscreen to maximize my view of the screen and make ranged attacks as accurate as possible.

Hot buttons on the UI are reserved for scrubs only.

Also, the various "mode" buttons are clearly the wrong way around, since I think F1 is Steal mode in the default control scheme, making it way too easy to accidentally attempt to pick a guard's pocket and get yourself in a heap of trouble. I've remapped F1 to Talk mode and moved Steal all the way over to F4, despite primarily playing as thieves. Weirdly enough, the other "modes" don't seem to come up that often in actual gameplay, but I guess your mileage may vary.

Yes, I have put way too much thought into this.

[GamerAim]

Personally, I find the default controls of Arena and Daggerfall unplayable. Maybe because I'm young (younger than those games, anyway), maybe because I'm a console gamer, but I felt it was designed with a gamepad in mind...despite being decades ahead of my controller setup. And while I respect that others find their own ways better for them, I truly believe that my config is superior to all other gamepad configs for one reason: I use an Xbox 360 chatpad on PC. This means no more cycling between modes on the d-pad or having so many "hold" functions to open up different menus, because I can just set the main stuff to the gamepad via Xpadder (inspired by console TES controls) and leave the rest where it was. This way, it plays pretty well, and I even solved (quite easily), the infamous "can't attack on controller" problem. I think I'd otherwise have never played Daggerfall, but now it plays good as new

@Crawldragon: I did take a cue from you and switch the modes around because it does make more sense that way, so thanks.

[Crawldragon]

I'm intrigued that you feel Arena and Daggerfall were designed for gamepad controls, because I tried it with a gamepad and it didn't work for me. At the time that Daggerfall was released, joysticks were still standard for PC games, and while you could technically buy gamepads for PCs I don't think anyone really started taking them seriously until around the Xbox/PS2 era*. What I think they had in mind was something more like using a joystick for movement and a mouse for attacking, which I actually thought was a really good idea but it doesn't really work unless you have the hot buttons in the HUD, which as I've said are for scrubs only.

Maybe it's because I'm a snob, but I've never really liked using a gamepad with PC games unless they were like stealth action games where precisely controlling your movement speed was absolutely key.

* Some old Atari controllers were compatible with Atari computers, and I think even the Sega Genesis controller could be plugged in to some old personal computers, but you were usually kind of screwed if you were playing a game with a lot of keyboard commands. Maybe someone older and wiser than me can clear that particular point up.

[GamerAim]

I replayed Arena today and it isn't quite as bad as I remember, and Daggerfall is probably more playable than I give it credit for if I remapped the controls. I think I played them once years ago and immediately hated the controls, then when I got a gamepad, mapped them and liked it well enough, haha. Still, I couldn't play Daggerfall with the default controls and no mouse view; it just feels like it was made for someone who instead of fingers had ten tentacles on each hand. I felt the same about Star Wars Dark Forces. But I know I'm probably in the minority.

Plus, like I said, I'm a console gamer (I've played all the console TES games on console first) so having easy access to all the buttons in what I feel is a convenient and sensible location is what I'm used to, but that of course varies based on what you grew up with and are naturally predisposed towards. Ironically, I can't stand playing Morrowind on PC with a gamepad, despite playing it first on Xbox, because it lacks native support.

At the end of the day, I'd take a controller over anything else, but I have no problem using a keyboard/mouse for most games that require it (like Morrowind or Baldur's Gate). And I don't think it makes you a snob to not like using a gamepad. We all have input preferences and you're no more a snob than I am

[Crawldragon]

To be fair, the controls for Arena and Daggerfall are pretty obtuse by today's standards. I think you have to be in a certain mindset to really understand them, the mindset of an early PC gamer. I have the benefit of already being a PC gamer and kind of a nut about control schemes, so it was easy for me to crack what they were going for and find ways to improve it. (Well, I say that, but I still don't understand the "run" command being mapped to the 'p' key in daggerfall, but whatever, it was the mid-nineties and they were still figuring this stuff out) I started out as a console gamer and had to make the transition into PC gaming, so I kind of know where you're coming from.

and really, there's nothing wrong with using a gamepad in today's day and age. At the time it would have been pretty difficult depending on the game, and I'm actually pretty impressed you mapped Daggerfall controls to a controller, but nowadays? [&@%!], I just had a big argument with my boyfriend about whether or not gamepads were valid for first-person shooters, and he was sort of winning. That's how you know things have turned around: When there's actually a valid argument for gamepads to be superior to keyboard and mouse for FPS titles.

I still prefer mouse and keyboard, because I'm a snob I like buttons! LOTS of buttons!

[GamerAim]

I still prefer mouse and keyboard, because I'm a snob :D I like buttons! LOTS of buttons!

Pfft, I like buttons too!

The controls are actually not too dissimilar to modern TES if you remap them. The biggest issue is probably the mode buttons, the maps and the log/notebooks.

Movement is easy if you use mouse view and use the left thumbstick to move/strafe, but I mapped floating to d-pad because like you said, 3D movement like this hadn't been perfected yet so you don't just aim where to move (which to be fair, isn't perfect either). Xpadder can map buttons to different thumbstick distances, so I have 3-stage movement (stealth, normal, running) depending on how far I push it.

Mode buttons would be a pain with just the gamepad because I'd have to make some sacrifices to what I could have, or just have one button cycle through them. But with the chatpad/mini keyboard, I just remapped the mode buttons to the number keys (IDK why they were Function Keys because the number keys are otherwise unused? Did keyboards not have the number row back then?) and now they're right below the d-pad in case I ever need them. Same applies to the map, with the automap on the d-pad and world map on the chatpad within reach of my thumb. I can reach the logbook, inventory, spellbook and history with B just like on console, or I can use hotkeys on the chatpad or d-pad to get to them.

Aside from that, it's mapped pretty similarly to a modern TES game on console, just slightly less convenient.

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I might switch Float Up/Down with the bumpers, that way I can float without moving my thumb off the thumbstick. I also don't know how useful the use magic item key is yet, but I'm sure it's fine.

[Crawldragon]

Keyboard standards were pretty solid at the time; mostly everyone (mostly) used the IBM standard, firmly established in 1984 with the release of the venerable Model M keyboard, which is pretty much what we use today (in America). I think it was just standard practice at the time to use Function keys for certain things in PC games. For what reason I'm not sure; maybe it was just a holdover from older games designed for keyboards which didn't have the number row. When I say "older," though, I mean way older, Commodore 64 old.

It's hard to explain, but it makes sense if you're in that mindset. It's still not quite as bad as Deus Ex mapping the flashlight to the F12 key.