I have Skyrim and Oblivion on Xbox 360 and Morrowind on PC. I like using a controller a bit better, as my hand gets kinda tired from using a keyboard for too long. To me, a controller feels better because it was designed to feel good in your hands(but I may just be spoiled by the XB360 controller). Whereas a keyboard forces your hand to adapt to it's configuration.

Also, If you play on PC, do you plug in a controller or not?

I don't really have a problem with a keyboard except that it gets a little uncomfortable after a few hours of play.

Either one works for me. Advantages and disadvantages to both. I play mainly on console so most games only use the controller.

I agree with the OP about the longer sustained comfort level, but for me I don't ever let it hit that point...need short rests every hour or so.

Never have been able to use a controller. Keyboard/mouse for me all the way.

Keyboard and mouse. I have literally never held a controller in my hands.

I'm an old fart that can not gt the hang of controllers. I can NOT for the life of me go in a straight line, as my thumb does not odd angles very well. I want to go froward, my thumb pushes straight up, not at an angle. My brain just refuses to be "retrained"

I laugh at myself when I play Madden NFL and try to run along the sideline. It does not take long for me to step out of bounds

So long as I have a good Keyboard and Mouse, I'm content. I hate the WASD keys with a passion though. Claw hands just ain't for me. Though, I don't mind using controllers either. Just sort of depends on the game I'm playing.

Which I prefer depends heavily on the game. I much rather controllers for First Person Shooters, and many action games (playing Wild Hunt on a keyboard was legitimately unpleasant...) But for TES it's always been mouse and keyboard. The wealth of actions really necessitates more hotkeys than a controller can offer.

I only game with controllers. Even games that don't have controller support like Daggerfall, Morrowind or Fallen Enchantress, I use Xpadder to map the keyboard and mouse movements so I can play with a controller. I don't enjoy using keyboards and mice. I game from an easy chair on a big TV in a reclining position, which is more conducive to using a controller.

There are not enough choices on a controller. My keyboard has over 70 keys not even counting combos. How could a controller make that many choices of possible actions? Have an onscreen menu pop up and use the controller to go down the list? Very immersive. I wish the games would make more use of keyboards. I would like to talk to the NPCs, not just pick from a couple dialog choices. Couldn't do that with a controller without a keyboard plugin.

Well, in defense of controllers,that's not really their fault. The use of dialogue choices is more to do with AI limitations than anything.

No. I mean do something like there was in one of the Zork games where you could while talking to a NPC type something like "Tell me about Riverwood" or "Give me the box" or "Where is whoever" and get a response. You had to think of the right things to say to get the information you needed or to get the NPC to do something. Even if a lot of the responses were "I don't know Riverwood' or "I can't give you that". I love text parsers and this was from a OLD game so computers now could do a lot more. It feels like you are really talking to a NPC. Of course if all you want to do is bash or shoot things a controller is all you need.

Simple language parsing from text is not all that difficult to do. We had it in a rudimentary form 30 years ago. In 1980s technology, it was possible for software to parse a question like "Where is the Mages Guild?" and give an appropriate answer. The problem is that nobody has bothered to improve it and incorporate it into a modern game. It's not so much an AI problem as a can of worms that nobody wants to open, because it would require more dialog writing and more voice acting.

Just look at the dialog simplifications from one TES game to another. In the earlier games, you could ask NPCs for directions. By Oblivion, only city guards could give directions, and in Skyrim, nobody can do it.

On topic...I use keyboard and mouse. I've been on computers since the 1970s, so a keyboard is natural to me. I've never used a controller (although I have used joysticks and rudder pedal controllers for flight simulator.)

Those same text parsers had a tendency to devolve into long lists of 'I don't recognise that' or 'I can't do that', were horribly unforgiving of spelling mistakes, and, most importantly, are slow as balls. Implementing something similar today, isn't just an issue of voice acting and writing, it's an issue of time locking, word recognition, spelling correction, NPC reaction, prose recognition... The voice recording is probably the lightest workload.

But again, its not the controllers fault.

It's not fun to type text from a controller. It can be done but I will pick up a keyboard to enter text. So when doing spellmaking or enchanting I will use a keyboard to type the names of the spells or custom enchanted items.

But other than typing text, you can program a controller to play just about any game. There are two anolog sticks, 12 buttons and a Dpad, which had eight different positions. That's effectively 20 buttons, plus the two anolog sticks. But that number can be doubled or tripled by using "sets" where the button/anolog stick mapping changes when you hold a certain button down. That's how I can easily play a complex old school PC games like Daggerfall and Morrowind with a controller and have full functionality, with all PC hockey's etc.

At some point there will be too many buttons to keep track of, and that point will be reached before you reach the 70 buttons you have on the keyboard. I can map my controller with 60 different buttons plus three different mapings for the sticks with only two additional sets. More than 60 buttons would be too much for me to keep track of on either a keyboard or a controller.

You can't really blame fewer dialog choices in TES on a controller though. The reduction in dialog choices is because of voice acting and general streamlining. Morrowind and Daggerfall are perfectly playable with a controller and neither had text parsing.

Good point. Alternatively, with the Kinect or some other voice recognition software, you could say what you want to tell an NPC. It would be more immersive if done correctly. You could do it on PC as well, as most PCs nowadays have some kind of built in mic(Or you could use a headset)

With Kinect you can literally shout "Fus Ro Dah" (or whatever shouts your character knows).

I use keyboard and mouse. Like Pseron, I don't have any history of playing on consoles. So I've never played a video game on anything but keyboard and mouse.

I see no votes for "PC with a controller plugged in." Did you forget to vote?

Perhaps it's because I grew up playing on consoles since my N64 in 1997, but I definitely prefer the feel of a controller. I've tried getting into the whole keyboard thing but it just doesn't feel the same to me.

Damn the limits of neuroplasticity.

No, I just voted "controller". The "PC with a controller plugged in" sounded like a wired controller and I use a wireless 360 controller (the same controller I use with the Xbox). I also play on consoles sometimes, particularly in these "competitions" we are having in the Skyrim forum. So I just voted "controller."

PC with Xbox One controller plugged in for me. I normally use kb/m with most games, but with TES I like to kick back and relax... I just find the Xbox controller to be more comfortable, especially for longer sessions.

I use the Pinnacle Game Profiler (got it for 75% off) for games that don't have native controller support. (i.e. Oblivion) I can download pre-made controller layouts for Pinnacle too, so I can get straight into a game without having to mess about setting up controls in the Profiler.

I find the controller vastly more comfortable. I started playing video games in the 90s on the PC with keyboard/mouse, but the moment I saw Morrowind on XBox I had to switch over (even with its limitations). Now I play Skyrim on PC with a wireless controller.

This is interesting. I think you may be right about what we grew up with. My first gaming device was a Commodore 64: Keyboard only. Then I got an NES and handled the 6(?) buttons well. Most of my time was spent on the Commodore, though. I did get an SNES before my first Windows PC (with a mouse), but computer games is where I spent most of my time. So I "grew up" on a keyboard and mouse. Many players today have grown up on controllers mainly.

Controller plugged into my laptop, it just feels more comfortable. But then again it depends on the game I'm playing, there is no way that I'll use a controller for an RTS, 4X or several MMO games, but I do use Xpadder for ESO and Realm Reborn has controller support(but I switch to my keyboard when RPing)

My first gaming device was an Atari 2600 which had a joystick, with one button and a stick. A couple years later, when I was just starting high school, we got an Apple II plus, and I played games on a keyboard (no mouse). Then my dad got a 286 and I played games on that (again no mouse).

First time I tried gaming with a controller was some 20 years later and the thing seemed really awkward and odd the first time I picked it up, with two joysticks and so many buttons. But I got the hang of it quickly and now prefer it to keyboard, largely because I am the worlds worst typist.