Guild Wars 2

Heyoo! I’m a total noobie to GW2. I’ve had it for quite some time but never really played it, so bare with me. :O)

I am using a Razer Nostromo and would like to move my abilities 1 2 3 4, so they are in the opposite direction, so to say. It’s easier to spam with your index finger rather than with your pinky. But I can’t see how to to it? I swapped the keybindings to 4 3 2 1, but that looks just awkward since the abilities are still shown in the opposite, normal 1 2 3 4 order.

Am I missing something obvious here?

Cheers!

You can’t move them, you’ll just have to get used to it. It shouldn’t take too long hopefully

Welcome to GW2 anyway

Meh! What if… I just want to have them arranged in a way I want them? What is it that sets the order of abilities? Alphabetical? Casting time? Cooldown time? Amount of damage they do? The order in which you learn the abilities? Random? Why would you restrict and hinder this?! This is… quite a big turn off for me. From a UX perspective this is… crap to be honest. Hmpf! :O/

Until the 9th, it is the order in which you learn your skills. After the 9th, not so much, but they would hardly change the UI just because of that.

It’s in the order you learn them…you learn ability one, then 2 then 3. It it’s a two-handed weapon then you’ll learn 4 and 5, if it’s an off-hand weapon, you have to equip that weapon in the proper hand to learn 4 and 5.

I can kind of understand why the devs did what they did, since when you weapon swap, it will also swap the skills in those slots and 1-3 represent the mainhand and 4 and 5 the offhand…but it does blow that you cannot reorganize in the visual order you like.

I’m used to it though. It’s only 5 skills

The one thing you can do is change your hot keys. The skills will still appear on the same order on your bar. But the key strokes for them can be changed to suit your play style.

Hm? I’m not sure I get what you mean. Up until my 9th ability it’s added in the order I learn them. After that… “not so much”? Meaning what? lost

It shouldn’t be hard to see why I would like the ability I will be using the most on my index finger. And second on my middle finger, third on my ring finger, and the ability I’m using the least on my pinky. And, being able to be left handed as well, using mouse with my left hand and some other external “keypad” like accessories for my right hand.

Telemin.7380:

The one thing you can do is change your hot keys. The skills will still appear on the same order on your bar. But the key strokes for them can be changed to suit your play style.

Yes, I did that, but it’s awkward to see them represented in the “wrong” way.

Leo G.4501:

It’s in the order you learn them…you learn ability one, then 2 then 3. It it’s a two-handed weapon then you’ll learn 4 and 5, if it’s an off-hand weapon, you have to equip that weapon in the proper hand to learn 4 and 5.

I can kind of understand why the devs did what they did, since when you weapon swap, it will also swap the skills in those slots and 1-3 represent the mainhand and 4 and 5 the offhand…but it does blow that you cannot reorganize in the visual order you like.

I’m used to it though. It’s only 5 skills

Yea, but it’s like you couldn’t text with your phone using your thumbs for some reason. You have to use your pinky’s.

Because on the 9th, and afterward, we will no longer learn all weapons skills in a particular order 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5, or in some cases, 4 – 5. Many weapon skills will be learned all at once.

You can read about it in the Feature Patch blogs. =)

Since weapon skill location never moves in relation to your screen, you can always place some opaque tape over the skill location(s), and write whatever key-mapped symbol in that spot, if it really bothers you.

Might be a work-around while you wait for the Devs to consider your suggestion, and implement it, should that ever come to pass. =)

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Since weapon skill location never moves in relation to your screen, you can always place some opaque tape over the skill location(s), and write whatever key-mapped symbol in that spot, if it really bothers you.

Might be a work-around while you wait for the Devs to consider your suggestion, and implement it, should that ever come to pass. =)

sigh

pepeu.6403:

Telemin.7380:

The one thing you can do is change your hot keys. The skills will still appear on the same order on your bar. But the key strokes for them can be changed to suit your play style.

Yes, I did that, but it’s awkward to see them represented in the “wrong” way.

U can always tape a piece of paper with the pictures of the icon on ur monitor so that it is in the right order? …

Why these boring trolling attempts all of a sudden?

The OP is quite right. Not having an option to move skills feels sort of backwards in this day and age. There are work arounds, and I understand why Anet went in this direction, but I think it’s better to be able to put skills where you want.

The two reasons Anet has done it this way is easy of use for people starting and easy of use for people returning.

It’s easier if all characters work the same for people coming back after long absences…of which there are many.

However, I’d still rather have the option.

You may consider it ‘trolling’, but I was offering a work-around I have used in other video games. Consider the tip withdrawn.

Thank you for your feedback, and, again, good luck with your suggestion.

pepeu.6403:

Leo G.4501:

It’s in the order you learn them…you learn ability one, then 2 then 3. It it’s a two-handed weapon then you’ll learn 4 and 5, if it’s an off-hand weapon, you have to equip that weapon in the proper hand to learn 4 and 5.

I can kind of understand why the devs did what they did, since when you weapon swap, it will also swap the skills in those slots and 1-3 represent the mainhand and 4 and 5 the offhand…but it does blow that you cannot reorganize in the visual order you like.

I’m used to it though. It’s only 5 skills

Yea, but it’s like you couldn’t text with your phone using your thumbs for some reason. You have to use your pinky’s.

More like, if you’re typing or texting and the computer forcing the text to appear from the right side of the screen instead of giving you the option to choose left justified, right justified or centered. It’s annoying in certain situations but it’s not impossible to adapt to.

After playing for a while, you won’t even be looking at the bars, I don’t even have the interface visible most of the time :p

pepeu.6403:

Meh! What if… I just want to have them arranged in a way I want them? What is it that sets the order of abilities? Alphabetical? Casting time? Cooldown time? Amount of damage they do? The order in which you learn the abilities? Random? Why would you restrict and hinder this?! This is… quite a big turn off for me. From a UX perspective this is… crap to be honest. Hmpf! :O/

In my opinion it’s made like this so E-sports can be easier to watch.Just look the mobas.There are 6 abilities but you can’t move them.The same is here i think.

You can’t, plain and simple. Take the advice given, don’t be a rude jerk and get on with life. Welcome (back) to the game. Good luck with your abnormal issue.

In what way have I been rude? Saying that putting stickers on the screen to represent icons is stupid since it is? And how is wanting the possibility to move your abilities abnormal?

moiraine.2753:

In my opinion it’s made like this so E-sports can be easier to watch.Just look the mobas.There are 6 abilities but you can’t move them.The same is here i think.

“Just so E-sports can be easier to watch”? I can’t see how this could be a valid point. I’m not complaining at you and your post, but I can’t see why it has anything to do with me and the usability of the game.

I play on a Nostromo and have done the same thing. Remapped the keys so 1234 are on the ind, middle ring, and pinky. It works great.

No, you cannot change the way they are displayed in game. Sorry.

Roybe.5896:

I play on a Nostromo and have done the same thing. Remapped the keys so 1234 are on the ind, middle ring, and pinky. It works great.

No, you cannot change the way they are displayed in game. Sorry.

Thanks! I get that. It’s just… sad and weird it has to be like that. :O/ But apparently it’s abnormal to want them represented in the way they you have them mapped.

Not abnormal, just the way it is. I try not to concern myself with why they limited this in this way…it’s just is. I wish it were different, but, I also wish I was a millionaire, buff, and 20 again. Don’t let it get to you and you’ll have a better experience.

pepeu…no game can implement everything. Even WoW has things it hasn’t implemented and it’s much older than this game. Every company has to choose what’s important to them and where their time is worth being spent.

This game has a lot of issues other similar games don’t have. For example, most games start with about 500 quests, but you need about three times that number of dynamic events to make things work. So the priorities were shifted away from the standard.

Anet decided they didn’t want people to wait in queues, which is relatively normal in new games. In Rift I waited in queues when it launched. When SWToR came out people waited in queues. With the exception of WvW you don’t have to wait in a queue here, and even there they made EotM so you can at least work on leveling while waiting.

It’s a different set of priorities. Anet didn’t give us first person. They didn’t give us movable skills. They put their priorities into other things that other games don’t have to.

It isn’t that they couldn’t do it, so much as it wasn’t high on their list of things to do. Because you want it, it’s a priority concept for you, but other things were priority concepts for them.

There’s nothing wrong with you wanting it, but expected any game to have every feature you want won’t help you enjoy it more.

The “abnormal” part was referring to Eight O Eight who for some reason thought that wanting this basic functionality was abnormal.

Vayne.8563:

pepeu…no game can implement everything. Even WoW has things it hasn’t implemented and it’s much older than this game. Every company has to choose what’s important to them and where their time is worth being spent.

This game has a lot of issues other similar games don’t have. For example, most games start with about 500 quests, but you need about three times that number of dynamic events to make things work. So the priorities were shifted away from the standard.

Anet decided they didn’t want people to wait in queues, which is relatively normal in new games. In Rift I waited in queues when it launched. When SWToR came out people waited in queues. With the exception of WvW you don’t have to wait in a queue here, and even there they made EotM so you can at least work on leveling while waiting.

It’s a different set of priorities. Anet didn’t give us first person. They didn’t give us movable skills. They put their priorities into other things that other games don’t have to.

It isn’t that they couldn’t do it, so much as it wasn’t high on their list of things to do. Because you want it, it’s a priority concept for you, but other things were priority concepts for them.

There’s nothing wrong with you wanting it, but expected any game to have every feature you want won’t help you enjoy it more.

I appreciate your reply and am grateful for it. It was just that the posts started suggesting me to put stickers on the screen as a solution. I said it was stupid and/or trolling, and got the post deleted. I know this game have these weird limits and that’s how it is.

Rebind the keys in the options panel.

They cannot be moved.
Get over it.
Either learn to work with it, or re-keybind them to q,z,e,x,r,c,f,v,t,g,b or whatever works for you.

Seriously? Why do you keep posting? I KNOW you can’t move the abilities. It’s been established several posts ago. And no, just changing keybindings is not the same as you still have them represented in the wrong way in the action bar. Please read the posts before posting.

I’m just glad that you can rebind the keys to whatever buttons you want.

I remember back when I was playing FFXI, you could not rebind the keys! And that game had some weird controls, like the numpad 8,4,6 and 2 taking the place of normal wasd movement. It forever screwed up my PC gaming experience since I’ll play everything with numpad instead.

pepeu.6403:

Seriously? Why do you keep posting? I KNOW you can’t move the abilities. It’s been established several posts ago. And no, just changing keybindings is not the same as you still have them represented in the wrong way in the action bar. Please read the posts before posting.

They are not the wrong way. They are set in order to keep them from shorter recharge to longer, and from smaller to bigger areas as much as possible.

That’s the right way.

MithranArkanere.8957:

pepeu.6403:

Seriously? Why do you keep posting? I KNOW you can’t move the abilities. It’s been established several posts ago. And no, just changing keybindings is not the same as you still have them represented in the wrong way in the action bar. Please read the posts before posting.

They are not the wrong way. They are set in order to keep them from shorter recharge to longer, and from smaller to bigger areas as much as possible.

That’s the right way.

“The right way”? What on earth suggests that THAT is the correct order to present abilities. Any UX designer/developer would disagree here. Common sense as well.

First of all, they shouldn’t be “locked” the way they are. And if there ever was a “right way”, it would probably have the ability you spam most at your index finger, as it would be the finger we usually find it easier to do a frequently tapping with, working your way left to our pinky.

OP, I think at this point it is clear that what you want is not how the game works right now and you feel this hampers your experience. Perhaps you could make a post suggesting this functionality to Arenanet, because at this point the the thread just became a discussion about whether or not the current design is bad, which probably was not your intention for this thread anyway.

Who knows, you might find support.

“Takes everything you love….”

pepeu.6403:

Why these boring trolling attempts all of a sudden?

geez.. yes, it seems silly that you cannot adjust your hotbar. Yes, it is not optimal. We all see that. But your continuous moaning about things that be is not leading anywhere. You wrote your complaint – a justified one I might add – maybe it will be noticed, maybe not, now you can move along.

Remember Skill #1 is auto, no need to spam it

Galespark.7835:

OP, I think at this point it is clear that what you want is not how the game works right now and you feel this hampers your experience. Perhaps you could make a post suggesting this functionality to Arenanet, because at this point the the thread just became a discussion about whether or not the current design is bad, which probably was not your intention for this thread anyway.

Who knows, you might find support.

Algreg.3629:

pepeu.6403:

Why these boring trolling attempts all of a sudden?

geez.. yes, it seems silly that you cannot adjust your hotbar. Yes, it is not optimal. We all see that. But your continuous moaning about things that be is not leading anywhere. You wrote your complaint – a justified one I might add – maybe it will be noticed, maybe not, now you can move along.

Yes, I know it’s not how it works. And yes, my point is clear on this matter. Though I felt I had to comment on the post stating that the way it works, is the “right way”. Now it’s done and we can close this thread.

If you have a Nostromo… just use the software to keybind the abilities wherever you want them. :-|

I’ve been using the n52te for YEARS (the precursor to the Nostromo), and just bought an Orbweaver. It always frustrates me when I see people try to modify the game around the keypad, rather than modifying the keypad around the game. They give you the option of literally DOZENS of profiles for a reason. They even let you auto-switch profiles when you open a game.

pepeu.6403:

It’s easier to spam with your index finger rather than with your pinky.

Pretty sure weapon skill one still defaults to “auto-attack,” so there’s no reason you ought to be spamming that key anyway…

pepeu.6403:

It’s easier to spam with your index finger rather than with your pinky.

I actually have my “1” key mapped at my pinky, and I spam fine with it. What is “easier” is all a matter of personal preference and muscle memory.

If you use a certain finger for one thing more often, that one finger will get better at doing it.

I don’t even know why you feel the need to spam anything. The first weapon skill (the one that is usually the only one without cooldown/initiative) casts just fine on auto-attack. The others have either a cooldown or an initiative cost (for Thieves) which means spamming it more than a few times is not possible nor ideal.

Your complaint on being able to move the abilities around would be a valid point in most games, but for this one, I’m gonna say with the way it was designed, it’s probably best way, in my opinion.

Elsdragon.5109:

I don’t even know why you feel the need to spam anything.

Listen man, sometimes you just want to hammer on a button. It’s cathartic. Especially when an enemy is REALLY kittening you off and you JUST WANT HIM TO DIE. In a fiery blaze. Because you play Guardian, and that’s just how you roll with your Judgement.

one problem with the tape method is switching weapons or characters. I run into a similar problem with a couple special equips:
I have “1” bound to my mouse’s 3rd button, 2-5 as ZXCV, 6 (heal) as G, 7-9 as WER, then 0 (elite) as A.
This works great for me, everything is within easy reach and flows well for all my characters.
but… that Bell Choir Ensemble was a nightmare. mouse3ZXCVGWERA. I tried it once, failed like 3 notes into it, took a screenshot of my keybindings, reset them to default, beat bell choir easily, set them back, never stepped foot into bell choir again.

ShadowDragoonFTW.3418:

I’ve been using the n52te for YEARS (the precursor to the Nostromo), and just bought an Orbweaver.

The Belkin Nostromo n52 is the original. The n52TE is the one they let Razer handle afterward. Razer improved the hardware and faceplanted on the software, though. A pity, really.

On the other hand, you can gut a TE and put the original n52 circuit boards into the shell and make a nice hybrid.

GammaBreaker.9102:

ShadowDragoonFTW.3418:

I’ve been using the n52te for YEARS (the precursor to the Nostromo), and just bought an Orbweaver.

The Belkin Nostromo n52 is the original. The n52TE is the one they let Razer handle afterward.

Um, nope, you’re wrong. The n52 was first, by Belkin and co-branded with Razer. Then they released the n52TE a couple years later, again Belkin with co-branding from Razer.

After that, was the Nostromo, which was Razer’s with co-branding by Belkin.

Here’s a link to a PDF of the product manual for the n52TE, dated 2008. The Nostromo was launched in 2010 (which I also linked the manual to, also dated).

http://cache-www.belkin.com/support/dl/man_f8gfpc200_p75561.pdf

http://dl.razerzone.com/master-guides/Nostromo/NostromoOMG-ENG.pdf

EDIT: Hmm… after looking into it further, I did find that the original was also referred to as the Nostromo, which is quite odd. Sorry, I’ve never seen the original before just heard it referenced. However, you were still partially wrong. And now I’m just annoyed by the kittenty naming convention Belkin and Razer used…

ShadowDragoonFTW.3418:

If you have a Nostromo… just use the software to keybind the abilities wherever you want them. :-|

I’ve been using the n52te for YEARS (the precursor to the Nostromo), and just bought an Orbweaver. It always frustrates me when I see people try to modify the game around the keypad, rather than modifying the keypad around the game. They give you the option of literally DOZENS of profiles for a reason. They even let you auto-switch profiles when you open a game.

I know very well I can change the keypad. The issue here is not keybindings. The issue here lies within the game and the visual representation of abilities, which can’t be changed.

ShadowDragoonFTW.3418:

pepeu.6403:

It’s easier to spam with your index finger rather than with your pinky.

I actually have my “1” key mapped at my pinky, and I spam fine with it. What is “easier” is all a matter of personal preference and muscle memory.

If you use a certain finger for one thing more often, that one finger will get better at doing it.

I was just making a point. 99.9 % would use their index finger when tapping on a screen, or given the instruction to hit a specific key. It’s all about usability and UX design.

ShadowDragoonFTW.3418:

EDIT: Hmm… after looking into it further, I did find that the original was also referred to as the Nostromo, which is quite odd. Sorry, I’ve never seen the original before just heard it referenced.

Yep, I’ve got about 10 original black/silver/orange Belkin n52’s — spares, and also multiple gaming PCs. Released way back in 2003. It wasn’t immensely successful, but it wasn’t a flop either. That’s when Belkin got the idea to cooperate with Razer to establish a stronger presence in the gaming peripheral market, which unfortunately didn’t go as well as it could have. If you’re running a TE, you should consider yourself blessed to have one that operates properly. The drivers are notoriously dysfunctional on that model.

The naming was a bit of a cluster****. “Belkin Nostromo SpeedPad n52” is kind of a mouthful. Even though the original was the SpeedPad n50, for whatever reason, it was “Nostromo” that stuck rather than SpeedPad when it comes to referencing.

pepeu.6403:

I know very well I can change the keypad. The issue here is not keybindings. The issue here lies within the game and the visual representation of abilities, which can’t be changed.

And this I agree with. It’s been one of my gripes with the game since day 1. While I’m content enough with my n52 configuration, the immovable skills speak of an aggressive effort to idiot-proof the controls.

Not expecting it to change, either. It’s just the way it is.