Help a console gamer with their PC controls

Here's the short version: I'd like some help figuring out what the most common inputs are in PC games that don't have controller support. We're talking strategy games, adventure games, weird little indies, and the like. I mostly play on console, so this is a bit of a mystery to me!


Here's the long version: I have a gaming PC that I almost never use. In part, this is because I don't like mouse and keyboard controls, and I don't like sitting at a desk. After a full day working on computers in my job, I don't have much interest (and, increasingly, my hands don't have much interest) in sitting at a desk on a computer for fun.

So I've hooked up my gaming PC to my television with an Xbox One controller for the games that support one. This works great! But it also limits me to games that have built-in controller support, and there's a rich library of new releases on PC that don't.

To get around in the OS to open games and launchers, I've been using a Steam controller mapped through reWASD (great piece of software, by the way). I have the right pad mapped to the mouse and the triggers mapped to left and right click, and that's good enough to get me where I need to go.

But it could be more! There are about 24 easily accessible inputs on the Steam controller (more with some extra customization). If I mapped the most common PC gaming inputs to those controller inputs, I could have a somewhat universal layout that could give me easier access to those games that don't use controllers. I just don't know what those inputs are. I hope you all can help me.

I should say that I'm not especially interested in discussing the relative merits of controllers, nor am I trying to find a lap tray or other solution for having a mouse and keyboard on my couch. Let me make my bad choices!

For PC games (at least in my experience) each game has their own hotkeys for things that are typically unique to the game. In strategy games for instance, creating a worker unit is not a universal button press across the board. So I'm struggling a bit to think about what specific buttons you could map to a Steam controlller.

The one thing I can say though is that with PC gaming you can basically remap any function in the game to any button on your controller. Although just typing that out I realize that means you'd be setting up custom controls for each game individually which is probably more effort than you're looking for here.

I'll have to think about it a little more and maybe pay a bit more attention to what I'm pressing when playing on the PC. At the moment all I can think of is using WASD to move in a FPS, and then the mouse to do whatever else I actually need. Maybe using a quick save / quick load button as needed?

CptDomano is mostly right that a ton of games have unique control schemes. But really, a ton of games use many similar keys, all built around the idea of where your hand is resting while using WASD.

Q and E are common. Some games use Q and E as scrolling through options (weapons, an inventory slot, etc). A lot of them use E as a "use" key (in fact this is practically universal now). An alternate use for Q is to mark enemies in games that let you do that through a special kind of "vision mode" or radar or something.

R is usually reload.

F is common (F's in chat), although its use varies.

G is common as well, similar to F, but often for a grenade throw.

Z is common - can't think of an exact use for this, but a lot of times, it ends up as putting your weapon away in games that let you do that.

Number keys are very common - select weapons, skill bars, when combined with CTRL, select some groups.

Space bar is common. Usually a jump key these days, although it used to be the Use key that E has become.

CTRL and Shift. CTRL, aside from the listed use above, is often a crouch, and Shift is often run. Caps Lock can be a run toggle, but I hate using that, personally.

C can also be used as a crouch option.

Tab is often used for in-game menus, like a quest log or journal.

M is often used for maps.

Tilde is not usually used as a control, but in games that allow you to access the in-game console, where you can type commands for cheats and the like, you usually use that. If you're not into cheating, it can still be used to put in a command that might reset your character position, for example. You'd still need a full keyboard for this, though.

F5 is commonly Quick Save, and F6 is commonly Quick Load.

ESC is usually a pause or menu of some kind.

Similar to Q and E, [ and ] can be used to scroll through a list of options. That's a little more rare these days, though.

Map the Windows key for an Instant Frustration button.

H is a bit of a reach for the left index, but it can also be a random key to control something.

Like Tab, L and J can be used sometimes to bring up a Log or Journal. So can K, but that's less frequent.

That seems like all the major ones I can think of. I think you have enough inputs to map nearly all of those plus 0-9 of the number keys, if you really wanted to.

NSMike wrote:

CptDomano is mostly right

IMAGE(https://thumbs.gfycat.com/FlatIdealisticBoaconstrictor-size_restricted.gif)

I wrote:

CptDomano is mostly right...

Me, the next sentence wrote:

But really...

Hm.

Normally, the controls I use the most are the WASD keys, the space button, Shift key, tab, ctrl, and miscellaneous buttons based on the game. These generally include, but are not limited to, the function keys, the number keys, and Q, E, Z, X, and C. F and G are also commonly used keybinds. Esc is, too, of course, but that's already in reWASD.

Thanks! That's exactly what I'm looking for.

Do the mouse wheel and middle mouse button get used much these days? I assume so.

Mousewheel is often weapon switch in an FPS or 2D sidescroll shooter. It's often zoom in and out on an overhead game.

MMB can do a bunch of different stuff, it really depends on the game. FPSes, for instance, often use that for zoom or sniper zoom. A few games have used it for alt-fire modes on a given weapon. (I think Remedy's Control does this, for example.)

Almost all PC games are fully remappable in their options, so you're almost never stuck. If you map your functions to specific keys for one game, you can usually then remap other games to take those same keys for the inputs you think are appropriate. Pick a good basic FPS like Half-Life 2, develop a control system you're comfortable with, and then port that system to other shooters. Keep some buttons free for each game's unique controls, and you should be fine.

Did they do away with that Steam Controller interface in Steam where on a per game basis there was a whole slew of mappings? It wasn't the easiest UI to figure out for customizing something, but just to go in and nab the most popular mapping for a game worked for me. But that was a few years ago.

Danjo Olivaw wrote:

Did they do away with that Steam Controller interface in Steam where on a per game basis there was a whole slew of mappings? It wasn't the easiest UI to figure out for customizing something, but just to go in and nab the most popular mapping for a game worked for me. But that was a few years ago.

It's still there. You have to be in Big Picture mode though.

I don't use Steam, so I'm mapping through a different bit of software.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Here's the short version: I'd like some help figuring out what the most common inputs are in PC games that don't have controller support. We're talking strategy games, adventure games, weird little indies, and the like. I mostly play on console, so this is a bit of a mystery to me!

Hmm, in my strategy game experience I mostly use LMB / RMB / the mouse wheel. Trying to think of general rules:

- Strategy games tend to use WASD, which you'll probably map for other games, to control the camera.
- As NSMike observed, RTS games tend to use CTRL-1, CTRL-2, CTRL-3, etc to designate unit groups that can subsequently be instantly selected by hitting the corresponding number (1, 2 ,3).

Beyond that it gets tricky because individual strategy games and franchises tend to have their own keyboard shortcuts - for example, in Paradox games, Spacebar is "pause", = is "increase speed", and - is "decrease speed".