Toggle (or Hold) a button to Strafe

[BobT36]

Hi guys, one thing that feels a bit off when playing Grimrock is using seperate buttons to strafe.

Now in most games I'm used to my A and D keys being either strafe, OR turn, and the mouse or something else handling the rest. Yet in Grimrock I keep finding myself mixing up my turn / strafe buttons and doing the action opposite of what I wanted. Now I can normally handle many buttons and DO love a game that has more keys, so I'm not suggesting this be dumbed down.

However, I think it would be VERY useful if there was a seperate button that basically swapped the Turn / Strafe buttons when Held, (or set to Toggle the switching on / off with a setting in the options menu). This would feel a LOT better, I'd personally have my A and D keys turning normally for exploration, and then holding a button to strafe instead with those same keys whenever I needed to. Would feel a lot more fluid and immersive.

[Brodie301]

Try remapping A&D and Q&E from bottom left of options menu.

[Brodie301]

You can also hold right click on mouse, turn, & release to turn.

[Marak]

I feel you on this one. The default controls baffled me, and the first thing I did was set left/right turn to A and F, and strafe left/right to Q and E.

Dunno if that'll help you or not (everyone has their own preferences and ideas of what "feels right"), but I thought I'd mention it in case you wanna give it a whirl.

[BobT36]

Yup tried re-mapping the buttons (glad they left us able to do this) and also the mouse arrows and stuff, but still doesn't help. Using right-click to do the turning and keyboard to strafe works fine in most games with true "free camera", but not so much in this where it is grid based and you have to really wrench it to turn, which isn't somethin you want to be doing for every single turn heh.

I use turning along with forward / back as my WSAD mainly because I use that a lot more (when exploring), but as soon as an enemy is there, I'm needing to alternate between both, which can lead to things getting a bit muddled (and not in a good way heh).

Seriously just the ability to hold a second button that swaps the Turn / Strafe functionality would be absolutely fantastic in this game, movement normally, and then strafe when you need it. I LOVE extra buttons when the functionality is completely discrete, but when it is something very similar (Movement / Turning) I prefer a minimum, or some way to alternate them like with this.

Hold it down (or set it to toggle on / off from the options page) and your Turn keys become Strafe, and your Strafe become Turn, let go and its back to normal. Instantly intuitive, and doesn't take any concentration away from the actual combat.

[Thels]

If you had something like a G15 keyboard, you could use the M1-M2 keys to switch between two sets of keys.

I like the setup with Q-E turning and A-D strafing as it is. I guess it's different for everyone. If a toggle feature would be implemented, please make it an optional feature! With so few keys, a toggle only makes things more complex to most people.

Also, some timed puzzles require you to both strafe and turn. Are you sure you can pull that off well with an extra toggle button?

[gambit37]

Not sure I understand this!? W and D *are* the strafe keys, so how is this any different from a standard FPS? In an FPS, pressing W or D moves you left and right in the same line as your starting point, without turning, and that's exactly what Grimrock is doing too.

[BobT36]

Not sure I understand this!? W and D *are* the strafe keys, so how is this any different from a standard FPS? In an FPS, pressing W or D moves you left and right in the same line as your starting point, without turning, and that's exactly what Grimrock is doing too.

Ah but as I mentioned in an FPS, you have a totally "free camera" with your mouse, wheras you don't need to use "Turn" buttons AT ALL as your mouse handles it all. Now as I mentioned turning does still work with the mouse in Grimrock, but it isn't as smooth due to it being grid based, yet there's still a need to pretty much do both at the same time.

Also yep I certainly think it would be easier to pull off! As my brain would attribute the need to strafe / turn based on the seperate button that switches them.
And yes it would be optional, as it would be an entirely seperate bindable button that controled that functionality, and wouldn't actually replace any of the others. The ability to set it to toggle (Press for on, press again for off) would be in the options, as opposed to just holding it down.

It would litterally just be "Hold (or toggle on) this button to swap your Turn / Strafe buttons, Let go (or toggle off) and they're back to normal". (I remember it being most intuitive in WoW where I had A/D as turning, but holding the right mouse button made them Strafe. That had full free mouse look though so it wasn't as necessary anyway.)

That way I can use WSAD EXCLUSIVELY for movement, as the secondary button that swapped the Turn / Strafe keys would be seperate, (I'd probably use \, under my little finger). But the option of using the Q and A keys when you needed them (or whatever you have them bound to) would still be there. Many other games use this kind of thing (a hold/toggle to strafe / turn button), but usually isn't really needed as most of those usually have full free camera, wheras Grimrock is the one game I could see it being REALLY useful in.

[EvoluZion3]

Wow the last time I used strafe-lock was Duke Nukem 3D! For LoG I used Q and E to turn, A and D to strafe, and W and S for forward and back.

[gambit37]

I guess I just don't suffer from the problem. Q/E turn and A/D strafe and I always press the right keys *shrug*.