WASD - Can we please push for this? Accessibility + More Friends

PC General Discussion
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WASD is a common control scheme for PC players, anyone coming from World of Warcraft, FFXIV, ESO and a host of other games are very familiar with it. Isometric games like Hades even use WASD!

Diablo Immortal itself also on PC has this controller scheme where you can use WASD to path around which I found extremely intuitive and adapted to within genuinely a minute or two.

Clicking is amazing and is a long term staple of the franchise, I’d never want to see that go away! But what I think would be an amazing option that would DRAMATICALLY increase accessibility for people would be if WASD was an option for movement. Just like in Diablo Immortal.

As someone who DOES have a long history with other click games like League of Legends even I myself personally strongly prefer WASD movement.

I would like if we could get this as much feedback / awareness as possible. I really do believe this would genuinely be for the best for the long term health of Diablo 4.

Why this would be an accessibility feature and why it matters

First of all accessibility to players who may have a difficult time with mouse interfaces. Such as if you have carpal tunnel or arthritis the last thing you probably want to do is do a ton of extremely extremely repetitive clicking movements. But even people who may have slower reflexes will struggle immensely.

Letting them engage and play and have fun in the game is something we should all aspire towards.

Second up is simply put the more people that can get involved with a game the better. There are a ton of players of games such as FFXIV or WoW that would love to be involved in this game but we all know those games depend on WASD movement. This is familiar, this is their comfort zone. And so denying them that ability to interface in a familiar similar way WILL put people off of the game. (I have many people I speak with and have commented on this. They aren’t familiar and aren’t wanting to click a mouse to move. It turns them away.)

Let’s talk about reasons why to not want it:

\1. History of the game, it doesn’t exist before.

First of all Diablo Immortal has it, so this isn’t even true.

Accessibility features and the goal to appeal to wider audiences is something games have been working towards improving over years and years. Diablo 3 was launched a decade ago and ever since then the industry has made many strides and learned a lot as a whole. It’s not unreasonable to hope for more accessibility options for those who say do have carpal tunnel, arthritis or maybe they were born with slower reflexes or something similar.

Allowing all people to come in and enjoy would be amazing.

\2. “That it makes the game too easy”

I find this perspective a bit obtuse because if your idea of making a game harder is if a person can click between mobs to path and then click on the same mob to attack it and click around it to path and click on it to attack 5 clicks a second I don’t find that genuine difficulty-- I find that tedious.

Input controls should not be the barrier to entry. It should be the novel content in the game, not becoming overly familiar with your particular mouse brand. Things like the dungeons, the bosses, their mechanics, learning to play your particular class you chose with your particular build loadout should be what adds character depth and difficulty… NOT your choice of interface to interact with the game!

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it will be nice to have it for those who want it and give us lmb interact and pickup force move and fix the ui for pc that it is a proper pc ui

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I feel like moving with WASD in an ARPG is like voluntarily climbing into a wheelchair.

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This is the number one issue in the game right now. WASD support should be at the top of the list. Especially since it’s a very low resource implementation.

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It should be an option, if you don’t want it that’s fine.

Many games such as Hades use it. Even Diablo Immortal has it.

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I’m okay with options, but keyboard moving in an ARPG is like keyboard turning in an MMO.

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I agree, we should have wsad movement.

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Not really. It’s actually the most efficient mode of play. You can incorporate backwards movement while shooting in one direction without having to move your mouse back and forth clicking on both sides of your character like Pong. The current click only method is extremely inefficient and much more like keyboard turning.

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I would like to suggest a topic that shows how people with accessibility issues surrounding mouse and keyboard gaming can buy a controller on Amazon. That would solve this issue without Blizzard getting involved.

You want WASD because you enjoy twin stick more than click to move. Be honest about your reasons.

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Please give us WASD movement

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Depending on physical configuration and limitations, it may be the best option for some people to play. They may not be the most efficient, top of the leaderboard, but not everyone needs that to enjoy a game.

I don’t see how having WASD movement in addition to the current movement options, harms the game in any way.

I use it to strafe pretty much. Mouse controls forward and skills while WASD does the strafing/side movements. I also have mobility limitations now that I am older so the ability to re-map or use the other hand is helpful.

If you would like to make sure the Accessibility team sees this, you will want to email them. They are not likely to reply, but it does get it to the right place.

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What a **** thing to say. I have chronic tendinitis and currently use a controller, which is my only option. Not only is it more comfortable to spread my hand out across a keyboard (I wouldn’t use WASD but other keys that are more spaced out), it allows for more precision in targeting.

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Fully support WASD movement options in addition to current controls. My wrist hurts after clicking so much and I would prefer not to use a controller.

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There are quite a few different designs for both mouse and keyboard, including ones specifically made for various types of issues.

I understand your problem because I have similar issues but with motion sickness. I’ll ask if a game has the things that affect me, but I have yet to make topics or continuously posting, trying to shove my issue in the Devs face. I find that rude.

Do you understand why allowing WASD controls allow ONLY Keyboard + Mouse to strafe? Do you understand why that might be a rather large benefit over using a controller? Controller already struggles on variable distance attacks. There would be zero point in Console players trying PvP.

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I see you’re backpedalling from claiming we’re all just making up medical issues, nice.

Anyways, I’m not sure why you’d need to be able to strafe to use WASD, you could still make the turning animation be required between moving and using a skill. Sure ability to strafe would give you the most control but whatever.

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WASD harms the game if Blizzard want Diablo 4 to be at least a decent and accessible PvP game.

If WASD works very well for movement, then combined with mouse precision will easily beat mouse only players and people using controllers for when it comes to moving and fighting optimally.

If Blizzard and Diablo 4 doesn’t care about fully utilizing online with PvP and is only prepared to go balls deep into PvE and “mediocre co-op” then yea, it doesn’t matter at all and give people all the options they want but many hours every day of heavy WASD leads to injury.
League of Legends is easy proof that the non existance of WASD movement has almost no baring on player populations or enjoyment.

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Hard no. It changes the difficulty of the game being able to run in one direction while aiming in another. Everyone would be forced to use it because the game would have to be rebalanced.

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As a wheelchair user, I find that a bit offensive. Please be considerate.

Also I have nerve damage and WASD is a lot better for my health than pressing the mouse button constantly.

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