Guild Wars 2

I was playing the SAB today and I realized that I really don’t like how the in game (inside the SAB) weapons work.

The reason is because they’re inconsistent, unresponsive, and unintuitive. When I am dealing with enemies that jump out and attack me, I need my weapons to be quickly accessible, and to react when I need them to.

Here are a few examples:

You are running over a bridge and suddenly you are attacked by an assassin. The enemy is at range, so it makes sense to quickly fire a few quick slingshot rounds at it. The problem is that the weapons move around and require multiple keyboard presses.

Another example are the bombs. I need to be able to quickly access my bombs for clearing out troublesome monkeys, but I have to press 3, then 2 to throw it. It’s worse if I’m the type of player that uses mouse clicks.

As well, many of the weapons are slow to react. The worst is the “push hand” in which it is very frustrating to time with anything coming at you because of it’s wind up. The shovel is also another one of the items that, because of the cool down make missing a dig site, or finding new ones a bit of a chore.

I think it would be better if the weapon/skill bar stuck to the traditional GW2 design. One set of weapons stay on the main bar, and the alternates can be accessed using the ` key.

Any thoughts, folks?

Yes. I don’t get why the bomb icon has to move to a new slot when I click it. If they were like the engineer kits and gave you a bunch of skills with each item, I could understand it, but with them usually having just a function for clicking them (and maybe an extra function from holding the button instead), it makes them clunky to use, which is bad when you have enemies that like to rush and surround you, smacking you relentlessly until you go down.

They were designed to be clunky to recreate the same clunkiness of classic arcade games. The whole idea of SAB is to recreate and emulate the old games that it stems from like LoZ and Mario. The trick to handling the weapons is to know their animation frames and timing so you can plan when they hit.

The whip is probably the worst offender of this as the range is deceiving and the hit animation is like a whole second after you activate it, but it’s a really strong weapon, and learning how the attack animation works will let you become a master at it.

Well, just because they’re referencing older games doesn’t mean they have to bring back the parts nobody liked.

It’s a little annoying, I agree. I wouldn’t mind so much if I had to switch between bombs and slingshot before I could use them. But that I lose all my other skills including my torch and shovel and can’t swap to those quickly is a little annoying.

I still think the Whip is pretty much useless. Takes too long to use, still have to be at the same distance as the stick, and only stuns them long enough for maybe one hit. It’s just not very useful.

I can only assume that somewhere in worlds 3 and 4, they’ll give us additional bomb and slingshot options. But for now, I really wish you could just use the skill by pressing the button. (Also, the whip is super erratic about whether it targets what I have targeted or where I’m looking. Quite annoying)

Nilkemia.8507:

Well, just because they’re referencing older games doesn’t mean they have to bring back the parts nobody liked.

Source please of an article that nobody liked it.

The swap button is unnecessary.

Just make it so the first time hitting a skill equips the skill.

Entrea Sumatae.7830:

I can only assume that somewhere in worlds 3 and 4, they’ll give us additional bomb and slingshot options.

It is not just an assumption, since some dev said exactly that during the initial SAB release. It should still be somewhere in the SAB archive.

Nilkemia.8507:

Well, just because they’re referencing older games doesn’t mean they have to bring back the parts nobody liked.

But it does mean that they should learn to have just as precise hitboxes and clear animation/hit detection.

The one good thing about it is, it keeps you from wasting baubles if you accidentally hit the buttons. You have that safety net there of two button clicks before you actually use a bauble.