Config + Setup

What are the optimal setup choices for KZ?

I come from shooting CS and there is quite a bit of practical wisdom there about what commands to bind to what keys, and other matters of setup like video/graphics card settings, launch commands, mouse settings, and even issues of form when sitting/playing.

If the key to KZ as many say is comfort (and I agree), then there must be some concrete answers as to what constitutes a good setup rather than the common argument that it is merely "preference."

Problems that I frequently run into:

1) My pinky finger is weak, and I use ctrl to duck. Often I will push down my pinky finger but it will just happen to be not strong enough to press duck and I'll fall in the middle of a run. Also, continuous perfect duckstandup bhops seem fairly impossible for me to perform. On easy-to-medium bhop maps I can get by, but trying to beat even the first section of a map like prochallenge_bhop is a joke.

2) I use my middle finger to scroll the wheel. Sometimes, I will fail to scroll the wheel, obviously ending that run on the spot. Since you never need to use either +attack or +attack2 in KZ, I saw in another thread here that many KZers use their pointer finger. Trying it for a bit myself, I find that it is simply superior in every way, but awkward because of how much shooting cs I play. I wonder if there can be a general consensus about this.

3) Head hitters sometimes require being able to execute duck and jump at the exact same time. With a scroll wheel, this is fickle, because the jump will always execute a fraction of a second after you scroll. I've heard that many good KZ players have both keyboard key and their scroll wheel ready for jumping for these occasions, although again, a general consensus would be nice.

4) Whenever there is a long series of bunny-hops that form a path that travels in many directions and around corners, I often find that I am at the end of my mousepad and I have to strafe more and more in that particular direction, so with no more mousepad space, I fall. These parts of bhop maps seem impossible for me to complete - sometimes I will start with my mouse on the very edge of the pad so I have the full pad to follow the path - but I will still wind up at the other edge a bit later with no room left to do the strafing necessary to get to the next block, and I will fall. I am not sure what to do about this although I think part of it might be that bhoppers just have higher sens to make this a non-issue, whereas climbers have lower sens and for that reason don't do bhop.

5) On some maps, seeing the edges of blocks can be quite difficult, leading to unnecessary falls. I wonder if there are graphics card settings (aside from super high/gamma brightness) that can render this a non-issue.

These pitfalls seem to be unsolvable from a purely practice perspective. I know that you are supposed to figure out for yourself what works, but I don't think it's out of line to suggest that world record holders probably have nearly identical setups and make use of the same setup ideas. This is because some ideas are simply superior for the vast majority of people.

If you're going to be a pianist, to some degree technique depends on the individual, but there are still common practices that will help pretty much everyone improve by a substantial margin. Saying that there is no right way or wrong way is simply wrong, because I can just as easily say, that must mean I can be pro by not using mwheelup to jump!

Thank you very much for the helpful answers. I will give them a try. I am thinking that I will create a separate config file for kreedz and just execute it when I play. That way I will be in the mindset of shooting CS and KZ being different games.

1 : i've used ctrl to duck aswell , i've acctualy changed to "shift" for some weeks now and i can say its easier to press and much more confortable .. leading to more constant and better-timed stand-ups.

2: i'm using the middle finger aswell. i've always used it. i dont think the finger u acctualy scroll the well with has anything to do with ingame performance.. its all about personal feeling.


4:if you always played low sensitivity and theres no way u can acctualy raise the sensitivity up , i would recommend getting the qck+ (sk,fnatic or whatever edition ) they have a really huge size and i dont think ur problem will still occur.otherwish , just raise the dpi up while playing kreedz .. then change to your favorite shooting sensitivity while playing normal cs , would work fine , but if u tend to play kreedz alot .. due to sensitivity changes u would not get the same reflexes in shooting afterwards , so i recommend the first option.

1. turn on the windows screen keyboard
2. since you turned on the screen keyboard, u can now scroll with your pinky.
3. midgets dont even need to duck...
4. decompile the map and make the paths straight
5. get glasses

naah im just kidding, my real answers would be:

1. Well, you can buy finger weights and train your pinky haha, but that would be too timeconsuming i guess. Instead, change the duck button to something you can easily reach.

2. Well, i play/played with my index finger and i never had problems. In regular CS, i think you just know that you have to use the mouse-button and not the scroll-wheel, i guess you wont have problems if you switch to the index finger. At least i had not.

3. i dont understand this one lol ^^

4. I had the same problem. Its a question of getting used to a higher sens combined with lifting your mouse from the mat and dragging it to the opposite direction of which way your going to strafe to. That way you can allways quickly get a little more mousepad space for the next jump. Of course, you can buy a bigger mousepad instead/aswell.

5. if you have nvidia, look for a setting called digital vibrance, and turn it to medium. This setting is a special kind of contrast, but it works in another way i can't explain. Try it and you'll see :)