Guild Wars 2

So, after having alternating mouse and keyboard issues recently (keyboard with a loose connection stopping working midgame, mouse with a partially-obstructed sensor needing to be moved several feet to move the cursor a handful of pixels… Blow on your mouse bottoms, kids!), I have come to a few conclusions. First, it is pretty doable to play with mouse-only, if you bind a mouse button to jump. You will get stuck if you do not. It’s certainly not ideal or something you wanna do in pvp/wvw/fractals/dungeons, but you can get your dailies done. Movement, attacking, interacts, partying, inventory management, map travel are all basically covered. About the only thing you just can’t do is chat.

Can’t really say the same for keyboard-only. Combat is better (though camera management is awkward at best), but inventory management of any sort is impossible, and dialogue and confirmation boxes are a killer. With all of that in mind, I have some suggestions to reduce some of the reliance on the mouse. While these won’t make a mouse unnecessary, they will make it a bit less of a headache for someone who has a spotty mouse, who has a wireless mouse whose batteries die in the middle of playing, who has any sort of physical impairment that makes heavy mouse usage difficult, or just plain people who consider keyboard shortcuts convenient.

1. Arrow keys to navigate the character select screen. Fairly obvious one. While enter can be used to load the currently-selected character, the only way to change the selection currently is with the mouse

2. Bindable keys! Many common actions could easily be made bindable keys, unbound by default but in the options for those who want them:
2a. Dialogue 1, Dialogue 2, and Dialogue 3: To respond to NPC dialogue, counting from top to bottom, and can pull double-duty to also respond to confirmation boxes, counting from left to right.
2b. Deposit collectibles and compact inventory: Obviously doesn’t solve keyboard-only inventory management, but it’s about the only readily doable step I can think of.
2c. Open bonus chest: Those little pop-up chests above the mini-map. Pressing the key once opens it (or the first one if there are multiple), pressing it again accepts. Simple and straightforward.

3. Related to 2c, double-clicking an opened bonus chest should really just accept the items inside without needing to go back and forth between the chests in the corner and the accept dialogue in the middle of the screen. I realize that distance doesn’t seem like a big deal, but when you get 4 bonus chests from Teq and you have to move your mouse a full arm motion to go about 10 pixels on a 1920×1080 monitor, you feel the distance.