new computer

[Snowreap]

the big benefit of using your thumb to move (which is the whole point of using a gamepad I think, because otherwise it's just a keyboard with fewer keys), is with strafing.

regardless of whether you're strafing left or strafing right, typically you will have 1 finger busy holding that key down for the duration. the actions you then have available to you during that time are limited to those keys your other fingers can reach, without taking your finger off the strafe button.

and *specifically* which actions you have available at any particular time, depend on whether you're strafing left or strafing right. if you're strafing left, then you might find that actions bound to '2' or '3' may be hard to reach. but if you're strafing right '2' and '3' are easy, but '5' or '6' become hard (never mind shift-6 -- go ahead, hold down your strafe-right key and then try to press shift-6).

for me, this led to an interesting effect on my shadow warrior -- when kiting I'd always circle-strafe clockwise (thus freeing my index finger for my bow-attack keys, which tended to be towards the right), but when circling behind a target in melee I'd always circle counter-clockwise (thus freeing my ring finger for my sword-attack keys, which tended to be towards the left).

I didn't like this restriction; I wanted to be able to strafe in either direction, at will, depending on terrain and player positioning.

so I decided that I needed a left-hand controller, so that I could more effectively separate movement keys from ability keys.

by the way, I've decided at this point that 22 ability keys isn't quite enough, so I've reprogrammed the G22 key to act as a shift key -- as long as I hold that key down, the 'M2' keymap is active, otherwise the 'M1' keymap is used (usually the M1/M2/M3 keymaps are selected using the dedicated M keys at the top, but for my purposes a shift key is more useful). the 'M2' keymap can then be configured with a variety of abilities that I don't typically need to use while moving (so I can use my thumb to hold G22, and have all fingers available for whichever other key G1-G21 I want to press).

-ken