Keyboard Movement Control

[pikafoop]

The arrow keys are not working in the Beta version to move my character, nor are the other traditional (WASD/HJKL) configurations.

Is this feature:

• available, and I'm doing it wrong (or having problems),
• going to be implemented soon, and can't I just be patient during the beta, or
• never coming back, and I should get used to it?

Thanks for your help!

[dislekcia]

The arrow keys are not working in the Beta version to move my character, nor are the other traditional (WASD/HJKL) configurations.

Is this feature:

• available, and I'm doing it wrong (or having problems),
• going to be implemented soon, and can't I just be patient during the beta, or
• never coming back, and I should get used to it?

Thanks for your help!

Arrow keys are a tricky one... I mean, barring horrible situations (like playing on a trackpad) they really have nothing to offer vs standard mouse play.

So probably halfway between options 2 and 3. I mean, they'll probably appear eventually, but we really do think they're a holdover from standard roguelike play that doesn't take into account how DD actually works. 9 times out of 10 it's more effort to play with the keys... I mean, do people play minesweeper with keys for preference?

[pikafoop]

OK, I can wait and hope. Until then...

horrible situations (like playing on a trackpad)

...I guess I'll be in a horrible situation!

I was a pretty serious PC gamer, but I scaled back quite a bit last year, and since then I've been playing less-twitchy games on MacBook Airs. It's awkward and uncomfortable to use a mouse except on those rare occasions that I'm at a roomy desk or table, and a mouse doesn't usually make it into my laptop bag. For this reason, I always prefer to have keyboard control as an option, even if it's not quite optimal.

I know my hardware puts me in a minority, and so I won't get upset if you don't find it reasonable to support me in this. It's worth the trade-off to be able to be near my wife in the evenings instead of in the back room with my gaming PC.

I guess when I get tired of the trackpad, I can always switch to Sword of Fargoal Legends (my wife plays this on my old MacBook Air now - and she's been asking about DD!) or one of my older favorite roguelikes, like Nethack or even Rogue. And, since DD is designed to be played in short rounds, I can be assured of finding a good stopping point.

[dislekcia]

We do have to figure out the design constraints around keyboard movement and casting eventually, it's just that doing so right now isn't really optimal - that's not a balance thing. Plus there's this weird thing where many roguelike players demand keyboard support even when they don't actually use it when it's there (we have stats to prove it!) and prefer the mouse

Yup, finding a place to theoretically stop playing isn't the hard part

[232]

I will admit I was one of those people who wanted more hotkeys, but recently I found that double clicking does stuff. Frankly I only discovered it by accident, maybe it would be good to give people instructions on it (or did I miss them in the tutorials? ).

[pikafoop]

We do have to figure out the design constraints around keyboard movement and casting eventually, it's just that doing so right now isn't really optimal - that's not a balance thing. Plus there's this weird thing where many roguelike players demand keyboard support even when they don't actually use it when it's there (we have stats to prove it!) and prefer the mouse

Yup, finding a place to theoretically stop playing isn't the hard part

I'm going to keep playing with the trackpad for now, and if your controls are nice enough to get me to prefer that to keyboards, more power to you and me both! I'll warn you, though... I'm "old" and set in my ways.

[dislekcia]

I will admit I was one of those people who wanted more hotkeys, but recently I found that double clicking does stuff. Frankly I only discovered it by accident, maybe it would be good to give people instructions on it (or did I miss them in the tutorials? ).

We still do have more hotkeys planned - specifically for spellcasting and other frequent actions. But I'm glad double-clicking helps, I can't play without it now. Will check the tutorials to see if they mention it, think they do.

I'm going to keep playing with the trackpad for now, and if your controls are nice enough to get me to prefer that to keyboards, more power to you and me both! I'll warn you, though... I'm "old" and set in my ways.

I'll take that as a challenge, sir One awesome interface experience by the end of the beta.