Is it possible to play without a mouse?Follow

I played FFXI without a mouse. I want to play this game without one. At first I was dealing with it ok, but I'm developing some serious mouse related wrist problems. I'm a designer, so I spend all day every day on the computer, so this isn't just game related. I hardly play sadly, but when I do, I want to avoid the mouse at all costs.

So is there a way to map the keyboard to do this? Such as getting the camera to behave like it did in FFXI using the arrow keys. Right now moving the camera doesn't affect my character direction and it always springs back. This is a minor issue. More important is the inability to target and initiate conversation with NPCs without a mouse. Hitting enter initiates chat. Is there a way to change that? Hoping someone's successfully mapped their keyboard to play mouse free. I'm not accustomed to using a controller at all.

While you CAN use a keyboard setup without a mouse... I don't advise it.

If using a gamepad isn't an option for you, try one of these for your mouse hand: http://www.amazon.com/Innovera-Softskin-Wrist-Rest-Black/dp/B0012YS744/ref=sr_1_31?s=office-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1380408812&sr=1-31

Or something similar. I picked up a gel one at Micro Center once for like 10 bucks and it was the best thing ever. I used to get wrist pain using a mouse a lot too, until I got a pad for it. I've been using it for about 4 years now and it's been glorious.

Btw, the reason I don't recommend going mouseless keyboard is because it forces you to turn your character and camera with the keyboard... which... no... just don't do that.

Oh, that vertical mouse looks divine. <3 Expensive, but I'm sure cheaper than surgery. Right? Thanks for the link. Everything I do relies so much on the mouse, it's starting to take its toll. Thanks everyone.



I thought it worked quite well in 11. I use a laptop with a full keyboard. The arrow keys would move the camera and my character would turn with it, which was wonderful. I used the directional keys for more precise movements. I don't know, it just felt natural and smooth. I never could master that in other games, including this one. I loved the ability to play without a mouse. Hot keys/macros were quicker and in general it was more comfortable for me. Ah well. I might invest in both of the items above. That mouse looks amazing and the rest would come in handy for when I don't have access to that mouse.

My performance in fights has gone up since I eliminated my dependence on the mouse.

I remapped to legacy controls, to allow me to move backwards at full speed.

Then I remapped camera controls to ffxi, and remapped the keypad to the ffxi default.

I had to change the auto-run key to the / key, which eliminated the run/walk key, but I haven't needed it since I remapped it.

I use the 1 and 3 keys on the keypad for tab control left and right to interact with objects. t for target of target and f11 for nearest enemies.

Yah, I've pretty much eliminated the mouse. Need it for some drop down menus still, like picking the level 20 leves from a npc that offers both 20 and 25 levels leves.

But this is far more comfortable for me, since I have a decade of ffxi controls I'm used to.

1. Thumb has two little buttons above and below, and there's another button just behind the middle finger button, for a total of six with a 7th wheel click. All buttons customizeable with their software.
2. Nope, the mouse has a really responsive click. Nice and satisfying, and the mouse does not move when you click.
3. There is a tiny little wing that hangs out of the side for your pinky finger to rest on, so it's not being dragged around on the mouse pad or shoved around. This was an improvement over the mice 1-3 which is why it's better to just buy 4. I have unusually large hands for a female, and I have plenty of room.

It takes a day or so to get used to, but once you get comfortable with it you'll regret not buying it three years ago.

I always see this come up when people talk about keyboard camera manipulation, but it always strikes me more as a mix of performance anxiety and discomfort with the idea.

Realistically speaking, playing from a 3/4 overhead view at max distance or close to it is probably the most optimal way to position your camera. You can see floor dangers and even a fair bit behind you unless the terrain itself adjusts your camera. Like this, actual camera rotation isn't needed very often, but I can understand there are times where it's needed.

From here, we have a few additional facts to consider. The first is that ability use can auto-face you to a target. There's also a text command to do this if you want to wiggle it into a macro for whatever reason. From here, a simple button press can reposition the camera behind you. As well, there's a means to quickly look behind yourself. At best, arrow manipulation would never require moving the camera beyond 45 degrees by some combination of this. I could see some argue this might be disorienting, but I'd also say using the mouse to rapidly turn the camera can cause the same. In the end, it's simply a comfort thing and those claim they faceroll keyboarders perhaps overlook the fact that who they were beating might not have been a very good and responsive player in general.



Maybe one day I'll settle down and try to emulate the XI scheme, as I honestly prefer that for reasons of hating how my right hand does so little at the mouse, but for now I feel like it isn't entirely feasible due to tab-targeting inefficiency and how stupid the camera can be with dictating LoS.

While it's true you can't just palm press your entire keyboard and get the keys to all pop up, I don't believe general play will hit that limitation, especially with the GCD in place. Depending on whether or not you strafe, direct movement will require 2 keys at once tops. Camera manipulation is pretty much similar, where ideally you shouldn't be fudging with the vertical positioning much. Ability input then comes to down to the numbers with ctrl/alt variations. Yes, XIV is faster paced than XI, but it's very rarely "never stop moving" or otherwise I'd never get anything done on BLM due to cast times. :/


Like I implied, I'd like to see a few more UI tweaks before I'd give it a more serious shot. I haven't done it in other games because they seriously don't allow you to navigate various windows without point-and-click. At that point, shifting your hand back and forth just becomes a hassle unless you know you'll be doing something for a long period where you wouldn't need the mouse.

Some of us have wrist injuries that make gripping a regularly mouse for extended periods of time very uncomfortable. People can have ergo keyboards, so why not ergo mice?

I personally type correctly using the "float" method so my wrists are just fine on the keyboard - I don't even need a wrist rest since my wrists are properly arched and not bent downward. But using a standard mouse for a long time makes me long for my wrist brace.

First it sounds like you want to go into the Character > Movement menu and change the"Camera Auto-adjust" to either "Never" or "Only when Moving".

Secondly, at the very top of the "Keybind" menu is "Enable Direct Chat". Uncheck that box.

Now you can keybind the entire keyboard. Under Chat Keybinds, I changed the one that says something like "Enter chat box" to be the Spacebar.

I used to play FFXI like you with numpad and arrow keys while doing macros and such with the left hand. I also work with PCs all day and like to game without a mouse at home.

For FFXIV, I have the following setup:

numpad keys to move
arrow keys for camera
numpad enter to confirm, numpad . to cancel and numpad 0 to jump
spacebar for chat
wasd for menu interaction / target selection

It might seem a bit wierd to righthanded people but as a lefty it works rather well :)

Edited, Sep 30th 2013 1:03pm by kasumisan

No, this is inane drivel that was brought about by WoW and the many following games that copied its movement scheme completely. If the game isn't lacking in the proper functionality you can easily perform movement that is quick and precise without a mouse. WoW and many other games did not have this functionality. FFXIV has almost all of the functionality, but the targeting system is currently not efficient enough to allow you to abandon the mouse in battle yet.


Yes, it is.


The crux of your argument is "If you use a sh*tty keyboard, you will run into problems!" No sh*t. This does not occur if you have a quality keyboard.


And even in the case that you do have a sh*t keyboard, you're still wrong. Having a mouse does not all of a sudden allow keyboard combinations that didn't work before to work now. You simply have more lee-way, which would fall under the attack of the very argument you just tried to make.


I definitely wasn't moving at all during early Kirin or King Behemoth, nor was I moving constantly to be behind a party member, in front of a party member, behind the enemy, in front of the enemy, etc almost all the time while in a party. Nope, definitely just imagined doing these things. If you cherry picked specific situations and specific jobs you would be right, but blanket statements don't allow you to cherry pick.

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If they could fix the targeting issues that stem from objects causing LOS problems based on camera position, I could make keyboard only more effective than KB+Mouse in battle. More text commands would help too, and they really need to fix their functions so that they accept FirstName LastName so I can stop being forced to use quotation marks.

For now I'll have to live with gathering/crafting being more effective and/or fluent via keyboard only.

Edited, Oct 1st 2013 3:29am by Deadgye

Excellent! I'll try this tonight.. if I get enough work done today. One of my clients cancelled on me today, so I can play catch up with the others and maybe sneak in a little time to play. Yay!

I learned to type fast and furious in the Compuserve chatrooms in the late '90s Nothing makes you learn to type faster than trying to keep a conversation going amidst a dozen other conversations.