Lefty/Southpaw settings - BioWare feedback request

I want Ryder to wield his weapon on his left hand!

When it comes to KB/M set up, I just use the default settings. I've tried a left handed mouse, and gaming pads... but nothing feels right. A mouse is the only thing I use my right hand for. My aim is a bit wonky with a mouse, but I feel nothing different with a controller.

Well I just play on console so never really had struggly struggles like some may have with a mouse/KB when they game. I don't change the settings, just live with whatever righty throws at me.

I'm not left handed but I did enjoy the different feel that playing as a left handed character in resident evil 5 offered. From the trailers it seems we'll have the ability to swap so left hand advantage look out.

Same. This is essentially what I tweeted back to him

Generally use default set up: mouse with right hand (do not switch buttons) and WASD/hotkeys with my left. I don't think I could even control a mouse with my left hand, despite being left-handed. Also makes writing while mousing difficult if you use the same hand for both.

Yes... and no. Things (this is a broad term, but it's meant to be) are designed for right-handed people, and left-handed people subconsciously adapt. Take a piano, for instance. The right hand is frequently doing far more complicated finger work than the left hand, which sometimes is only repeating the same sequence of chords to convey the rhythm or what have you, while the right hand is busy with the far more complicated melody. That's just how western music evolved. The piano could have just as easily been created so that the higher notes would be on the left and the lower notes would be on the right, but it wasn't. It is built to accommodate the dominate hand for most people: the right hand.

(At least this is what I believe -- musical scholars please call me out lol!)

(I do play piano, but I'm not historian.)

As for the keyboard and mouse and controller, again, they are built to suit right-handed people. The number pad is always on the right (this was very difficult for me when I did cashier work or had to look up products in the computer). We all learn to use the mouse with our right hand, so in a game that uses the mouse, left-handed people are at a disadvantage. My right hand will NEVER be as fast as the right hand of a, well, right-handed person. I can choose to switch to a left-handed mouse, but then I have relearn how to use the mouse with that hand all over again, and that also become a disadvantage. As for controllers, the "trigger" button is often the button on the right, not the left. To use the "power" buttons (x, y, a, b on xbox), you must use your right hand. Again, I've gotten good on it b/c I've been using a controller since... um, I was a wee tot lol But if I had been trained with a left-handed controller... you bet your ass I'd be just a little bit faster, just a little bit more dexterous. 

It is what it is, and for the most part, it is just easier to adapt to the right-handed world.

My point is that when lefties are easily able to adapt, that means the base design isn't so much righty-oriented, as ambidextrous.

As to the piano: The example you give makes sense for a particular style of music, or rather musical texture. Schoenberg called it 'homophonic' to contrast it with 'polyphonic' (i.e. contrapuntal) music. The keyboard layout on clavichords, organs, etc., which predated the piano all evolved before homophony, i.e., accompaniment/melody texture became the dominant form, really. They were supposed to work for sheer polyphony (independent voices, at equal levels of 'complexity', working contrapuntally [generating chord progressions, etc., through contrapuntal motion]).

You won't find 'simple left hand', 'complicated right hand' music in Bach, for instance, the king of the harpsichord and organ.
In the 'classical' period, a semi-contrapuntal style developed, which is basically a matter of according the 'accompaniment' some added contrapuntal sophistication, make it interweave with the 'main' theme, etc. So in the music of the masters, from Haydn onwards, you won't find much 'simple left', 'complicated right' configurations either.

So yeah, keyboard instruments are ambidextrous devices; and that's why lefties don't require special keyboards.

As to string instruments, where the two hands have pretty different roles, it makes more sense to have lefty and righty versions. I can see why someone might prefer plucking or strumming or bowing over strings with one hand rather than the other. I play guitar like a right-handed person, because I find that my left hand has much better control over the fretboard compared to my right hand; though I can see why someone might want to pluck or strum with the left hand.

lance "Ryder" Wilson Oh I see! I never played any Bach, mostly stuck to Chopin and Beethoven