Games

I'm probably gonna be the odd man out here, I think that WASD movement is easier and more intuitive to control, and so will be more accurate for most people, but if you play a lot of RTS or MOBAs and have a lot of practice with click to move the precision of a mouse is still beyond any other control scheme that I know of, it's just more like the other commenter mentioned where a lot of the benefit comes from decoupling movement and attacking.

It's easier to be more precise when one thumb is only focused on positioning, instead of the mouse pointer being the source of movement location and attack location.

Personally, I do think that WASD is more precise than point-and-click. When I am playing Diablo (point-and-click movement), I have a hard time getting my character positioned correctly to avoid AoEs that are telegraphed on the ground. When I am playing Factorio (WASD movement), I have never had any problems getting my character where I want him to be.

I think it depends on the person and what they want out of the control scheme.

I play Baldur's Gate 3 with my partner. She swears by a controller, I swear by mouse and keyboard, and we both have differing reasons for it. She feels her movement is more precise, but she loses precision on interacting with items in the world. I have less precise movement that I have to be more considerate of the games pathing AI just walking me through traps or fire or whatever, but I have very precise interaction with the environment when it comes to clicking on items and so forth.

Point-and-click movement has been a staple of "Diablo-like" action-rpgs since the 90s. However I recently found out that I enjoyed them more when playing with a controller like they were a top-down twin-stick shooter, starting with Lost Ark. I don't know about "more precise", but it feels more natural to handle the positioning with direct control instead of pointing towards the destination.

There is a (now basically dead) game that I had high hopes for, called Omega Strikers. Top down moba air-hockey blend. Tons of high octane fun.

It had both an option for wasd and traditional moba control. The consensus by /theydidthemath type folks was that clicking in non wasd axis directions meant you can get certain movements ever-so-slightly quicker since you move along a straight line instead of using whatever two lines that you need to get to that spot. Now it is a question of it it actually mattered but that was true.

The midle way would be an analog stick.

I don’t think that wasd or even analog can be called more precise either, they require you to stop the movement input precisely on the spot you want, where as with clicking you just point and click…

I think the precision comes from decoupling movement from attacks. So you can more easily dodge or reposition yourself while attacking. My guess is that people started to appreciate that with the rise of gamepad controls in popular ARPGs.

Basically all real time strategy games and ARPGs use click to move. MOBAs have inherited it from RTS games, namely War Craft 3 and the ARPGs got it from Diablo 1, which coincidentally got the requirement for click to move in real time from War Craft 1 as well. Although you could also trace back Diablo 1 to Rogue.

Whatever their reasons, I'm glad they opted for this. It makes the game translate better to controllers, and that's just a more comfortable way for me to play games.

The advantage that ESDF movement has (boo, WASD uses the wrong keys), is that you can stop movement by just not pushing any keys or buttons. With mouse-based movement there's rarely a "stop movement" button, you just have to click close to where you already are.

But, the bigger difference is that you can dedicate one hand to movement and the other hand to aiming. This is key when you're playing a ranged attacker. With a melee attacker clicking on an enemy is fine because you want to both attack it and move in that direction. But, if you want to stay away from the enemies and attack them from long range, a mouse-based movement system combined with a mouse-based aiming system means you're clicking on one side of the screen to aim and the opposite side to move. That's inefficient and imprecise.

ESDF movement does have its drawbacks though. The biggest drawback is that you can only move at one speed. That's especially bad for certain scenarios, like escort-type missions where you want to move at the same speed as whatever you're escorting, or stealth games / activities where the slower you move the more stealthy you are. Bit. for those, the mouse isn't any better. What's better is a joystick / thumbstick. With those you can move the stick very slightly to move very slowly.

Often I think the best of both worlds would be a mouse for aiming and a thumbstick for movement.

Its not precise because it usually is using AI pathfinding to make the dude(s) move from where they were to where you clicked. It often either sucks at getting around things, sucks at getting there fast, or sucks at being exactly where you want because everything about the movement is "fuzzy" and imprecise by design.

However a point and click system such as Ultima Online where you're simply driving the character using the mouse while one of the buttons is clicked works pretty good. Actually more precise than WASD since you can move more than 8 directions.

gamepad or bust