Is mouseless play feasible?

[Raoull]

Or at least mostly mouseless....

So far the setup that I've been most comfortable with has been to use mainly the keyboard. My right hand moves around, and the left hand handles tab to enemies and various hot keys for anything I need to do.

I find that far better than doing the one hand on the mouse and one on the keyboard. For one, that requires the move hand to also deal with hotkeys, but also I find I occasionally lose track of the mouse in a busy combat and get confused. Out of combat, I will use the mouse occasionally to look around, or so see what crates and such are highlightable.

But I'm worried that I'm gimping myself, and that while Korthos is simple enough to do mouseless, my playstyle will be worthless at higher levels.

Any advice? Is this doable or should I switch to a more traditional, uncomfortable, setup and just get used to it.


Thanks.

[Geonis]

Yep, do a forum search for "controller".

I use a controller and only use the mouse for entering quests/inventory management/selling.......

[sultanica]

or "gamepad"

[Sneakee]

It's your game, setup the interface however you want! I have heard of players not using the mouse, but to me it seems counter-intuitive.

But hey...if it works for ya, it works for ya!

[Raoull]

To me, a controller is just a fancy mouse. I guess I should have specified "keyboard only" play... although like the controller folks I expect to mouse around for inventory management and whatnot.


It does work for me now... I'm just afraid that I'm just learning bad habits that I should ditch before they get too ingrained. I guess I can always keep going as is until it becomes apparent that I need to change styles and then worry about it then.

[testing1234]

meet a couple of pure keyboard players while playing but they are few and far between and they are in my experience all either clerics or wizards/sorcerers. all the tools you need are already buildt in the game, tried it myself but so long ago and theyve changed the game so much since any advice id give would be hopelessly outdated.

if your playing a melee character there is no real gain in going pure keyboard. while for a caster, healer/meleehybrid there could be advantages.

could use only my mouse to play the game if i really wanted to but it would be ineffective unless you only have 1 arm, and id need use other programs then ddo.

[phillymiket]

I'm a keyboard only player because I use a laptop and play in odd places with no surface except my lap.

Some disadvantages to that style of play include...
- not easily being able to look around.
- I can't easily play in mouse look mode.
- I had to reconfigure the key-mapping completely.
- Can't circle strafe to save my (toon's) life.
- Shooting things above and below you is difficult.

However, I seem to be able to keep up well enough and may even be faster on the draw with my spellcasters in casting multiple spells on the fly.

Some advantages include...
- I can play in the backyard sitting under a tree

[redfox42]

it depends on the class I am playing. with a melee based class ( paladin, fighter and such ) I use the mouse and keyboard.

when playing a caster ( cleric, sorcerer and such) I alternate between mouse and keyboard and two handed keyboard. one hand running the function keys for selecting other characters. And my right using the d-pad for movement and switching to the mouse for changing toolbars. its probably not the most effective system but it works well for me.

[Missing_Minds]

It's your game, setup the interface however you want! I have heard of players not using the mouse, but to me it seems counter-intuitive.

But hey...if it works for ya, it works for ya!

Actually, I'm pretty much a strict keyboard player for DDO. Only grab the mouse when I need to ckick something or go swimming for the most part.

Thing is, if you practice, you (the player) can be as hard to distinguish from a mouse user.

[Raoull]

Randomly in this room to post about a possible bug I've run into... and noticed my old thread.

I've been running primarily keyboard for ages now. Works great. Mouse only gets used for non-combat things.

One thing that helped me, was I used to use auto-attack and tab to the monster I wanted to beat on. Now, I just simply hold down the attack button (I use right arrow for attack so I can hold it down with my thumb while using the keypad) and manually move myself into position at the monster I want to beat on. All and all, I find keyboard only to be very agile running around attacking with my right hand and then doing spells and whatnot with my left (or using the mouse as necessary). The fact that I am right handed yet frequently a left handed mouser may make this easier for me than most.

That said... while most of the time the right arrow key attack thing works fine, I've noticed a bug with it. If I click on one of my shortcut boxes, the arrow key will be come "turn right" until I click again on the main action area. I've gotten pretty used to it, but it is annoying.

[thekiwi]

Yup, it seems that keybindings have defaults the game uses when the cursor is over any ui element.