Feedback from informationally self-isolated player - WASD and control system in general

By "informationally self-isolated player" i mean that my exposure to the rest of the PoE 2 community is, like, 3 hours of streams and a couple wiki pages. Which does mean that my knowledge is limited, but does also mean that my thoughts are ~completely not influenced by the thoughts of the rest of the community.

WASD

WASD - good. Default keybinds for WASD - are very much not good, probably even directly conflicting with the stated game-design intent of PoE 2 (more on that near the end of this section). More specificaly:

I think there are a few keybind-making principles that need to be followed to have good keybinds:
1) Keybinds, that are likely to be used at the same time, should be spread as much as possible between different hands, finger groups and fingers (i.e. having something a player may want to use while moving be bound to E is a bad idea; especially in a top-down game where you don't just hold W for 90% of movement)
1.5) (Kinda as a derivative of (1)) Keybinds, that are unlikely to be used at the same time should be concentrated on the same fingers / finger group / hand (to free up more keys for spreading out "same-time" keybinds).
2) Keybinds should be as easy to use as possible (a dedicated key is better than a key combination, left side of the keyboard is better than the right side); ease of use of more important keybinds should be prioritised
2.5) (Kinda as a derivative of (2)) left side of the keyboard should be filled as much as possible with important keybinds (w/o violating (1))

Default WASD keybinds fail rather miserably on these principles:
- 10/13 skill slots (things a player will want to use at the same time as moving) are bound to (Ctrl+)QERTF - keys that are pressed with the same fingers as "move left/right" (A and D)
- Flasks are bound to 1 and 2 - the same finger as "move left" (A)
- Dodge-roll is bound to Space, which... kinda reservers player's thumb and, thus, restricts/blocks use of ZXCVB and Alt (6 otherwise potentially available keys) for combat-related actions
- ...

Proposed changes (assuming a 3-button mouse, since default keybinds assume such mouse):
(These changes should be treated as... a detailed but still more example than a rigid suggestion; also, beware that i may've missed some keybinds)
- Skill slots ((Ctrl+)QERTF) - move these keybinds to the thumb; as suggestions based on my hand and the way i rest it on the keyboard - (Ctrl+)Z,X,C,V,Space or (Ctrl+)Alt,X,C,V,Space or (Ctrl+)Alt,Z,V,B,Space or, possibly, (Ctrl+)Alt,Z,V,Space,Ctrl+LMB,Ctrl+RMB (to spread movement and skills between different fingers)
- Flasks - probably move to X,C, but can be left at 1,2 if needed. (to spread movement and flasks between different fingers)
- Dodge-roll - move to Shift (to "unreserve" the thumb) (will require that you fix players dodge-rolling when trying to Shift-use currency while having dodge-roll bound to Shift)
- Actions that by default are bound to (Ctrl+)Alt,Z,X,C,V - move to (Ctrl+)QERTF (because these actions are not important and/or can be allowed to restrict player movement (like, Weapon Swap is automatic, Attack in place... if it is even needed with WASD... makes player stationary,...))
- "Direct Minions" and "Detonate mines" - allow these actions to be assigned as skills and move the dedicated keybinds to, like, 1 and 2 (if flasks aren't there) or, like 3 and 4 (if flasks are); yes, conflict with WASD, but, given ability to assign these actions as skills, that shouldn't be a significant issue.
- Inventory - move to the left side of the keyboard; as an option - to F1 (and move Performance graphs somewhere else)

Now as to why default keybinds conflict with PoE 2's stated game-design intent:
> Your stated game-design intent was for players to combo multiple skills durng combat and, it seems like, in general have a lot of skills in use.
> Yet, with default WASD keybinds, actively using more than 3 skills directly interefers with movement (because in that case keybinds for some of the skills need to be pressed with fingers that are used for movement), which kinda disincentivises/disadvantages using more than 3 skills.

Given how fundamentally bad (i think) default, and, thus - most people's keybinds are, come questions of weither and, if yes, then how to change people's keybinds. I would say yes and see two options:
1) Forced reset, but
- Warn people and explain why
- Give an easy way to look up pre-reset keybinds
2) An in-game poup prompting people to reset (probably a worse option because, realistically, most people will not follow such prompt, because following it requires effort, and ignoring it - doesn't)
- Also (or, even more) requires an explaination as to why
- Also requires an easy way to look up pre-reset keybinds

Control system in general

Also has a rather severe issue - action cancelling system is too aggressive and, if two or more skills are used in quick succession, frequently cancells one or more of them (see this (https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3660855) (rather old (and partially fixed?)) bugreport for more information).
This is, again, kind of a problem for a game where players are intended to combo different skills. (Like, i'm using Spark as a main skill and Flame Wall, Orb of Storms and Sigil of Power as buffs/support skills, and rather frequently have one or more of my support skills get eaten when i'm recasting them)

Ability to have 2 keybinds for each action would be a usefull addition.
For example, because while A and D are used for movement, they are not in use simultaniously, so you could bind, let's say, flasks to "1 or 4" and "Q or E" and have them not really interfere with movement despite being assigned to the same fingers as movement.

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_rt_#4636 wrote:

You know you can rebind your stuff, don't you?

I know (and have done so). But ability for a player to change their keybinds isn't a reason to have deeply bad default keybinds. Especially since most players will be using defaults or something close to them. Because
- the badness is in default keybinds limiting you, not in them being outright unusable
- to drastically change their keybinds a player needs to consider that it is a possibility
- significantly reworking your keybinds is effort and most people (including me) tend to avoid effort in favor of doing things they like doing (i.e. actually playing the game instead of doing keybind experments).

"

DeepSpaceWanderer#0155 wrote:

"

_rt_#4636 wrote:

You know you can rebind your stuff, don't you?

I know (and have done so). But ability for a player to change their keybinds isn't a reason to have deeply bad default keybinds. Especially since most players will be using defaults or something close to them. Because
- the badness is in default keybinds limiting you, not in them being outright unusable
- to drastically change their keybinds a player needs to consider that it is a possibility
- significantly reworking your keybinds is effort and most people (including me) tend to avoid effort in favor of doing things they like doing (i.e. actually playing the game instead of doing keybind experments).

Or... hear me out... it might sound absurd at first, but I promise it makes sense: we can leave it as is and let players rebind their keys to suit their builds and needs, and leave it on a per-user basis like all games do.
It's 2025, players all over the world know they can rebind stuff when playing a game.

I've played a lot of games, a few that required "piano" playstyle with WASD movement and even a few where the default keybinds are objectively bad (e.g. Counter Strike, Rocket League).
The default keybinds in PoE are more than fine. Just don't put your "spammy spammy" skill around your movement skills and you're fine.

PoE is a 1-3 button game:

1) One skill you spam (RMB/mouse2 or MMB/mouse3)

2) One movement skill (Q, E, F, C, V whatever you prefer, since movement skills follow your mouse, so it's more than fine o remove the finger from WASD to press the other hotkey)

3) One skill you may use from time to time (Q, E, F, C, V, whatever you prefer, you won't spam this, and it's not like you can freely move when casting stuff anyway)

PS: The fact you're actually suggesting Z and X as default very used keybinds prove me you don't have experience in what you're talking about. Either that or your hands are minuscule/your keyboard is comically huge. Even C is arguably a bad keybind depending on a player's hand size and keyboard

PS2: Forgot to mention, but the suggestion of detonating mines and directing minions is 100% good. I don't know why GGG decided to make it something separate. It's not as if this game requires you to bind 5 different skills you'll be using while mapping, so there's no shortage of skill slots

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<...> we can leave it as is and let players rebind their keys to suit their builds and needs, and leave it on a per-user basis like all games do. <...>

I think it is better to have good default keybinds, than to have default keybinds with known major flaws and rely on players to fix them.
Also, games don't leave keybinds as a per-user-basis thing. Because... they give you a set of (usually - reasonably good) default keybinds, not rely on you to make your own.

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<...> PoE is a 1-3 button game: <...>

If PoE 2 is indeed a 1-3 button game for most players, then GGG utterly failed at what they wanted to do.

"

<...> it's not like you can freely move when casting stuff anyway)

Ehm... yes you can. It slows you, sure, but... i at least am still usually moving while using skills.

"

PS: The fact you're actually suggesting Z and X as default very used keybinds prove me you don't have experience in what you're talking about. Either that or your hands are minuscule/your keyboard is comically huge. Even C is arguably a bad keybind depending on a player's hand size and keyboard

I am necessarily making suggestions based on my experience, and, in my experience, Z, X and Alt are, while not the most convenient, still reasonably good and by far the best options once C, V and Space have been taken. But other people having hands different to mine is a fair point.
But also, the core point of "having the same fingers be used for moving and using skills (and also flasks) is bad and should be fixed, probably by moving skills usage to the thumb" still stands.

I don't know if there is an ideal solution here.

This is relatively similar to keybinds for Quake players. In Quake you often have Rocket Launcher and Plasma Gun etc bound to Q, E, R, F etc.

I do find it difficult to play with WASD on keyboard and use more than a couple skills.

I did bind life/mana flasks to mousewheel up/down with a simple AHK script, because the delay in trying to fumble for 1,2 above the WASD keys got me killed many times.

That said I can't go back to point and click so I just decided to live with it and play builds that don't require using 5 skills all the time.

I think keybinds is highly personal. Everyone has different skills at keyboard as well as agility with their hands. I'm 50 and even holding down right mouse button all the time is inconvenient, so I adjust my build on that.

I don't see what the devs can do I can't think of any keybind setup that would work for me.