Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone. I’ve been playing GW2 since launch back in August of 2012. I mostly play competitively in structured pvp and wvw. I haven’t played any other class very much except for the elementalist because an elementalist is just so much fun! I’ve also played TERA, which many of you know, is the only other MMO (NOT true, I made a mistake about this, sorry) with this action cam system. I’m not a fan of TERA’s playable content, although they have a very good battle system going on.

But there’s a problem with GW2’s attempt at the action cam system. When it is activated, you immediately lose access to any skills that are not hot keyed. This is more pronounced of a problem on the elementalist, who has 4 additional skills (the atunements) that need to be hot keyed bringing the count up to 14. When you play competitively, like I do, you know that constant attention is required. You can never look down at your keyboard when in the heat of battle to make sure you’re pressing the right keys. Even on a keyboard, it’s impossible to hot key 13 different skills and use them effectively without moving your hand off of your movement keys and losing mobility. Even using toggle keys becomes problematic when you have to constantly keep track of 13 different button combinations and remember which does what.

Hence the problem. This new action cam system cannot even be used in pvp. Maybe it can be with a specially designed mouse like the Naga Razor. But for players who cannot afford one, or those who are left handed like me, cannot even use this new feature. But it doesn’t have to be that way. It’s pretty obvious Arena Net copied this new system directly from TERA. But the reason why it works in TERA is because of TERA’s combo system. It allows you to hot key multiple skills to the SAME button. After using the initial skill, you have a predetermined amount of seconds to press the button again to activate the next skill. So I ask you ANET… Please create a combo macro system just like in TERA to accommodate the action cam system. Because at this point in time, the action cam system is a worthless addition that does nothing but make the game harder to play.

EDIT: I want to add that if you do this, you’ll probably win over many of Tera’s players as well. It’s just good for business. I really hope to see it in the future.

I am not commenting pvp and action cam but you can easily bind several hotkeys using combos with SHIFT, ALT, CTRL.

It’s not easy or effective to do that in pvp, especially when having to also hot key 4 atunements.

You use your mouse to activate attunements?

You can keybind anything to any button, including your attunments. The way I do this is the same with just about every online game. It really helps out being able to reach the maximum number of keys with the least effort. You keybind Q, E, R, C, V, Shift, Caps Lock and Tab. That in addition to numbers 1-4. Thats 12 buttons, I know you said elementalist has 14 but surely there are a couple you don’t use often and they can be put on harder to reach buttons

This is my solution for movement keys and skill keys comfortably taking place at the same time during combat.

Mice with side buttons like Razer products follow the same principle of fingers usage as console game pads or as cell phones, i.e. the user only moves his/her thumb while the other 4 fingers never move. This same principle can be applied to a keyboard once the user stops treating it as a typing device, but instead, as a gamepad/cell phone.

My left index, middle, and ring fingers are fixated for movement keys. These fingers never move; they only press.

My left pinky finger sits only on one key, a modifier key. Same as the above, this finger never moves but presses.

Now this is where the principle works wonder. My left thumb moves around and presses, covering 11 keys. Ofc, this number of keys the thumb covers can vary from person to person.

Combined with the modifier key activated by my pinky finger, I can use 11*2=22 skills accessed by my thumb and pinky finger, while the rest of my fingers comfortably control the movent at the same time.

Since 2006, I have been applying this principle of finger usage for many games such as WoW, Bioshock, Assassin’s creed series, Batman Arkham series, Shadow of Mordor, Warframe, early version of Blade & Soul, etc, without the need of any Raser mice.

As for how my left thumb can access 10 keys, I use my middle 3 fingers on F8-8-9-0 for movement, and pinky on 6 for the modifer, to make room for my thumb to access these 11 keys:

space right-alt, right-windows m , . / k l ; ’

Now comes the tricky part, to make the 6 key function like shift key or to make right-windows work inside a game, I use a free software called Autohotkey to re-map my keyboard layout.

If you know about the ICM mod (Immersive Combat Mode for GW2) or GW2 music instrument macro, you may have heard of Autohotkey.

wait wait wait you use mouse for your attunements?

from what i read you mean to say your attunements are not hot keyed to F1-F4?
I play an elementalist too and everything is reachable with my left hand without sacrificing mobility

Why are your attunements not hotkeyed?

F1-F4. <- Default for Attunements (Profession “Special Skills”)
1-0 <- Default for Skills (I have personally mapped my number pad as a secondary backup)

Seriously, what are you using F1-F4 for? You don’t even need to go through what the others are saying to have ALT+SHIFT+(key) to have some convoluted hotkeys.

I use ZXCV for attunements.

I got two Razer devises a few months ago. They are Tartarus Chroma, and the Nage Epic Chroma. I use the Tartarus for movement and all skills, including the up to five profession mechanic skills. I use the Naga for jumping, dodging, weapon swapping, seeing all enimies, seeing all alies, and interracting (talking to npcs, finishing enimies in PvP, etc.). It worked nicely. After HoT came out, I added Action Camra to the Naga (I have one key on the Tartarus and 10 keys on the Naga that do nothing at this minute) and it still work nicely. Note that I have only been doing PvE since HoT came out. Not to brag, but I just wanted to show a way that this can be done.

Between calling TERA “the only other MMO with action cam” and the insistence that you can only keybind like 6 abilities (Jesus Christ OP, have you played an older MMO like WoW?), this has to be a troll post. Please tell me this is a troll post.

Isarii.2804:

Between calling TERA “the only other MMO with action cam” and the insistence that you can only keybind like 6 abilities (Jesus Christ OP, have you played an older MMO like WoW?), this has to be a troll post. Please tell me this is a troll post.

what’s heartbreaking is to think he’s been playing since august 2012… he’s been using his mouse to attunement swap for 3 years… poor guy

I’m pretty sure none of you will agree with yourself if you take the action camera system into pvp. Try it. Even if you manage to make it work, its overly tedious when it doesn’t need to be. TERA doesn’t have this problem because of the combo system. You’re being very selfish if you think just because you can do it then the game doesn’t need to be programmed for other players to be able to do it too. Guild Wars 2 needs the same combo system to make the game much more practical to actually play using the action cam system.

Secondly, no, you cannot use ANY button as a hot key. Try using right click as a hot key. Maybe you guys need to know what you’re talking about before you try to make fun of me.

I have used the Action Camera in PvP. I’m Rank 22, meaning I haven’t played all that extensively. I really enjoyed using it! I main Elementalist, and was able to play quite effectively, having some fun with my guild members while trying a new Guild Mission. I find it is even easier than before, due to the speed increase when moving sideways or backwards!

I understand that it’s proving difficult for you. I can’t think up a creative solution, though. Either your mouse serves as a cursor so that you can click on skills, or it serves as the camera control.

The combo system could be a fine suggestion, but your stance that the Action Camera is ‘worthless’ without it is your personal experience, not an objective assessment of the system.

Hyrule, you use a Naga Razor mouse. or something similar correct? And secondly, no you cannot use ANY button as a hot key. Try using right click as a hot key. Please know what you’re talking about before you make fun of me. The solution is the combo system that TERA uses. If any of you played TERA, you would agree.

The action cam is amazing. Main benefit is being able to walk backwards/sideways without slowing down your speed. You still slow down if you attack of course.

Though I’m not entirely sure where the issue is, f1 → f4 covers attunements. 1 → 5 is just fine, with keybinding q,e,r,z,x,c,v for everything else. (I don’t like shift/ctrl, I feel its too clunky with that combo key press).

I have a Logitech mouse. I use Mouse 4 for push-to-talk in Mumble, but that’s it. I did rebind some of my skills: 6 is Q, 7 is E, 8 is R, 9 is F, 0 is B. My attunements are still F1-F4

My other point is, for many players, even if you can reach every key without moving your hand, its very difficult to keep track of it all and not constantly hit the wrong key by accident. That’s where the cursor comes in as a handicap for those who can’t manage so many hot keys all at once. With the action cam, you can’t use that anymore. Maybe I was mistaken to say its totally useless because it doesn’t appear possible to me.

Main point is its overly complicated when it doesn’t need to be. So much so that it makes if very inaccessible for many players.

I’m starting to wonder how big your guy’s hands are compared to your keyboard. I have very large hands so it’s pretty difficult to manage many hot keys close to each other as well. There’s too many factors that go into play for me to list them all. But TERA’s combo system can fix all of that.

IT easy to key bind in this game im using Razer Deathadder
QER-Utility
5-Elite
1234F Weapon Skills
ZXCV and Left Ctrl profession
T-Heal
Left Alt Interact
Mouse Button 5 Dodge
Mouse button 4 aboutface
Middle Mouse Weapon Swap
This games isnt like WOW or Tera in terms of keybinding

EdenEnix.6341:

Try using right click as a hot key.

You can if you really want. Simply rebind the mouse’s right click function. Use AHK for example.

EdenEnix.6341:

Secondly, no, you cannot use ANY button as a hot key. Try using right click as a hot key. Maybe you guys need to know what you’re talking about before you try to make fun of me.

I rebound my RMB as dodge. And I’m using a 10 year old logitech mouse. Nothing fancy there. Just use the software that’s provided with your peripheral of choice. Easy peasy.

Trinram said "IT easy to key bind in this game im using Razer Deathadder "

That’s precisely one of the problems. Why should anyone have to buy an expensive extra mouse JUST to make the game easy to play? The game might as well come with one in that case. And as far as I’m aware, there aren’t any left handed models, so, that leaves many players out of that option.

Healiz said “You can if you really want. Simply rebind the mouse’s right click function. Use AHK for example.”

No one plays like that so that’s not even a real response.

Action camera is an employee free time project, not a planned feature on ANet development roadmap. BTW, Halloween was started as an employee free time project too. This is the culture in this company to allow employee giving something back to the community.

EdenEnix.6341:

Trinram said "IT easy to key bind in this game im using Razer Deathadder "

That’s precisely one of the problems. Why should anyone have to buy an expensive extra mouse JUST to make the game easy to play? The game might as well come with one in that case. And as far as I’m aware, there aren’t any left handed models, so, that leaves many players out of that option.

Healiz said “You can if you really want. Simply rebind the mouse’s right click function. Use AHK for example.”

No one plays like that so that’s not even a real response.

There is left handed option for the deathadder and also it only 2 extra buttons this is mmo game it ment to have alot of skill options you think this is bad try playing world of warcraft your going to need the extra buttons or you can just use modifiers theres many cheap gaming mice out there your not limited to razer i was only giving what mouse I use This is PC Gaming there advantages no matter where you go like hardware and so on

Trinram, I have played WoW and not had any problems. I think you’re misunderstanding the problem.

EdenEnix.6341:

Trinram, I have played WoW and not had any problems. I think you’re misunderstanding the problem.

I read your question again seems i was mistaken about some things but there is a left handed naga but like other said gw2 is not like tera even though I Agree with some of your point in your post about the targeting

Wouldn’t a combo system for key presses actually slow you down? Haven’t played TERA, but one button press will beat pressing 2 or more keys for a single ability?

There’s indeed a population of players who can’t handle 14+ keybinds, I have some buds who can’t get used to the action cam, since it pretty much disables using their mouse to click on skill icons. At the same time, it’s a great feature to the players who -can- handle 14+ keybinds. Makes the game feel a lot different. Though the best part is still the mobility you get from it.

Haven’t decided how efficient it is in terms of PVP, but if it doesn’t suite you, just don’t use it. I wouldn’t expect any large updates to the system as this was a spare-time project as Doug mentioned above.

I have small hands. Which limits the number of keys I can press without moving too far from movement keys.

WASD – movement
1-5 – skills 1-5
Jump – spacebar
Dodge if you don’t double tap – v (puts it easy to hit that and space bar for the jump dodge)
Heal – Q
Z – Utility Skill closest to heal
X – Utility Skill in the middle
C – Utility Skill closet to Elite
E – Elite Skill
G – Fire Attunement (F1 skill)
H – Water Attunement (F2 skill)
B – Air Attunement (F3 skill)
N – Earth Attunement (F4 skill)
R – Auto run
F – Interact/Loot

There, that’s all of the skills and necessary features. Without messing with combinations.

Seera, don’t you think it would be much easier and better if we were able to hot key 2 or 3 skills to one key? These kinds of lay outs are messy and prone to error. Eles have long cool downs, so if you hit the wrong key, you’re kind of screwed.

Valiant, it doesn’t slow you down because when you use a skill, there is a pre-determined amount of time that you set, and if you hit the key again in that amount of time, then you use the next skill. In TERA, mine are set to 0.5 seconds, s it doesn’t slow me down at all.

Here’s what a full key bind would look like if this system were implements (using my keybinds as a left hander)

IJKL – Movement
> – Jump
UO – Target nearest and next
M1 – auto attack
M2 – Skill rotations 1-5
M3 – Elite
N – Atunement changes

Doesn’t this look much better? This can be possible with the combo system from TERA. It would vastly cut down on errors, vastly increase playabilty for most players, everyone could easily and efficiently use the action cam system, AND it would probably make players abandon TERA for GW2. I don’t see any reason why this shouldn’t be done and every reason why it should.

And just because I was curious, I asked in a very populated Heart of the Mist pvp lobby if ANYONE was able to, as an elementalist, use the action camera system efficiently in pvp. You know what the reply was? Complete silence. Even if some can do it, it doesn’t make the fact that most can’t OK. So for most players, the action cam system is pretty much useless as it is. It doesn’t have to be that way.

I want to say this though, even though some people would have stopped reading long ago it seems, I’m not in any way asking for this to be done right now. I’m perfectly fine using the old camera. But I really love TERA’s battle system and the addition of the action cam made me remember just how awesome GW2 would be if everyone could use it all the time like in TERA. But I think this is something that should be done sometime in the future. If you disagree, then I’m sorry for trying to make the game better.

I use action camera in pvp on my elementalist and do better than I do without it. I hotkeyed my attunements to tab f1 f2 f3, and my other skills to q, e, r, etc. It works amazing for me

If your using you mouse to uses atuments/skill/etc its slower than using a hotkey for them(imo). I personly use game pads for my pc games insted of my keyboard way more quicker to click buttons than reaching arcos the keyboard back and forth. The camra option shouldnt prevent you from playing with just a basic keybord and mouse thou.

Tera is not the only MMO that has action combat, Wildstar has it, Blade and soul, dragons Prophet..etc… theres alot that use a action combat came in some way.
And GW2 “action Combat” is not really on par with how Tera douse it. GW2 is more of a conveniences than a core macanic of game play as it was orginaly designed with out that in mind. All this douse is hold your left click down to move your camra in sted of you constly holding it down mauly. You still have the targeting system in the game thats not gone its still technically a tab target system.
Thou the action combat camra is a bit clunky its still insanely great to use in GW2 its made my game play even more fun. The new camra option is not a requirmt to play GW2 its just another option for peope to use if they want. If you find it easyer funner etc to play how you were befor they added the option play like you did. How you enjoy play a game is the import part(imo).

The point is to give another option for playstyle. It may work well in some game modes and worse in others. Some people may hate it, some may think its the greatest thing ever.

It’s a toggle that you can bind to a key. If you don’t like it, toggle it off. If you feel the urge to use it, toggle it on.

The point is that it is an option. There really doesn’t need to be any more explanation than that as far as I’m concerned.

EdenEnix.6341:

Seera, don’t you think it would be much easier and better if we were able to hot key 2 or 3 skills to one key? These kinds of lay outs are messy and prone to error. Eles have long cool downs, so if you hit the wrong key, you’re kind of screwed.

Valiant, it doesn’t slow you down because when you use a skill, there is a pre-determined amount of time that you set, and if you hit the key again in that amount of time, then you use the next skill. In TERA, mine are set to 0.5 seconds, s it doesn’t slow me down at all.

Here’s what a full key bind would look like if this system were implements (using my keybinds as a left hander)

IJKL – Movement
> – Jump
UO – Target nearest and next
M1 – auto attack
M2 – Skill rotations 1-5
M3 – Elite
N – Atunement changes

Doesn’t this look much better? This can be possible with the combo system from TERA. It would vastly cut down on errors, vastly increase playabilty for most players, everyone could easily and efficiently use the action cam system, AND it would probably make players abandon TERA for GW2. I don’t see any reason why this shouldn’t be done and every reason why it should.

And just because I was curious, I asked in a very populated Heart of the Mist pvp lobby if ANYONE was able to, as an elementalist, use the action camera system efficiently in pvp. You know what the reply was? Complete silence. Even if some can do it, it doesn’t make the fact that most can’t OK. So for most players, the action cam system is pretty much useless as it is. It doesn’t have to be that way.

I want to say this though, even though some people would have stopped reading long ago it seems, I’m not in any way asking for this to be done right now. I’m perfectly fine using the old camera. But I really love TERA’s battle system and the addition of the action cam made me remember just how awesome GW2 would be if everyone could use it all the time like in TERA. But I think this is something that should be done sometime in the future. If you disagree, then I’m sorry for trying to make the game better.

No, that wouldn’t be better. I’ve got small hands. Like tiny hands. Petite hands. The layout I gave is one that I can work without going to far from the movement keys.

I would double hit the key too quickly and hit the wrong skill. I would get hit by skill lag and hit the button too quickly and activate the wrong skill. Because I do sometimes in the middle of a zerg have to hit the button more than once to get it to actually register that I’ve hit it.

And those elementalists may not have tried the action camera. May have had map chat off or not paying attention to it. May have just decided to not respond to you because they were in the middle of a conversation with someone else. Or just decided to not respond for any other reason. Just because you got no response, doesn’t mean everyone agreed with you or even a majority.

Im sorry you play pvp while clicking skills?Ok i think i see your problem.No expensive mouse will help you there.
This is what i use for my ele (been playing it since release)
skill 1-5 – 1-5 numbers
utilites and elite – R,E,Q,C,X (in that order)
attument swap – Shift+1-4 numbers
All the keys are super close and easy to use no matter how big your hands are.You can change it up however you want.
To get anywhere in any competitive game you NEED hotkeys-clicking skills is the worst rookie mistake you can make and there is not excuse for doing it. Your reaction time is reduced which is deadly in an action-y game like gw2.

I’m using action camera with my elementalist.

My binds are as follows:

WSAD movement
0-9 weapon & utilities (defaults really)
QEZC attunements
Shift-E elite skill
Wheel up heal
Wheel down first utility
Wheel click second utility
Shift wheel down third utility
Left click weapon 1
Right click dodge
Shift-X target lock

Using ICM to rebind mouse buttons, of course.