Guild Wars 2

I’m a very, very experienced player. I’ve played video games since I was around 4, and now I’m 24. I played GW1 from July 2005 until GW2 came out, and GW2 since the beta weekends. But this thread isn’t about me. It’s about my wife :O

My wife expressed interest in trying out GW2 recently, and yesterday she made herself a blue, agave-looking sylvari ranger. that was all well and good. Then the prologue instance started, and she had no idea what to do. I tried explaining the controls, but she was obsessed with killing things and getting out of there. After the prologue, I explained a few things, and she started to enjoy killing spiders with her throwing axe and summoned hawks. But she’s having trouble figuring out how to control her character in a way that’s comfortable to her. I changed my setup a bit so the left and right arrow keys turn instead of strafing, and that’s helped her a bit, but she keeps using both hands on the arrow keys and is obsessed with tapping the keys until she’s right where she needs to be. Also, she doesn’t like using the mouse to move the camera. Can anyone recommend a control scheme that might be easier for her to use, or a good way for her to get used to using the mouse and keyboard at the same time? It’s been so long since I started gaming that I really can’t offer much useful advice to her—it’s like second nature to me, but she’s never touched a game before (other than Angry Birds).

On the plus side, she got really excited at some points and wants to keep trying. She likes her character and the way everything looks and feels. I’ll never forget my normally cute and perky wife viciously screaming “die you [expletive]!” at the spiders in the cave in Caledon Forest :p

EDIT: I use arrow keys and the mouse personally, but she’s a blank slate. Recommend anything you might think of.

What bugs her about turning with the mouse? Does it feel ungainly or too slow/fast for her, or does it just feel odd to use the keyboard and the mouse at the same time? I’m afraid I’m not much help when it comes to keyboard setups, since I’m a chronic clicker, but if she’s right-handed, it may be more comfortable to shift movement to WASD so her keyboard hand won’t be too stretched. I do recommend that she get used to using the mouse to turn (especially if she wants to try dungeons, PvP, or WvW), since it’s much faster and more precise than keyboard turning.

That being said, the absolute best advice is to keep practicing. If she needs practice with 3D games (and this is an odd suggestion), I’d recommend that she practice avoiding damage by moving. Have her set her pet on standby, let her aggro a drake or two, then stop attacking and let her run while they chase her. Have her try to avoid being hit, just by dodging and running/strafing, preferably in circles. It’s a rather dumb suggestion, but it lets you think about how movement helps in the game, and doing it helped me when I started out. I’d recommend she try it on ettins (since they’re slower and easier to read), but there aren’t any in Caledon and they have a wide cleave range- they’re better suited for dodging practice.

Depending on her frustration threshold, I’d also recommend attempting an easy jumping puzzle. The first two or three stations in Spekk’s Lab are good- the jumps are fairly easy but timed, so it pushes you to stay on your feet and keep moving. Spelunker’s Delve is another nice one, as falling in it won’t kill you. There’s Morgan’s Leap, but falls there are lethal and the jumps can be nerve-wracking. In addition, if you don’t mind getting trolled by other players, there’s the Sanctum Sprint, which is all about movement.

mouse was hard for me when I started
This was my first MMO, but I had played other games. When I started GW2, I tried desperately to come up with a scheme to only use the keyboard, because that is how I was used to playing FPS games. But there really is no substitute. You need to be able to cast aoe skills, mouse turns much faster and more accurately than keys (my belief is everyone who has a hard time at JP don’t use a mouse).
It took me like 3 days of trying a few different keyboard bindings before I gave in and resolved to use a mouse. Never looked back; it’s awesome.
For me, I put the primary attack (skill 1) and dodge on mouse button #3 and #4, making them REALLY easy to use while doing everything else with the left hand: moving, all other skills, etc.

I’d recommend switching to “wasd” or similar instead of the arrows – it will put her fingers close enough to easily reach the 1-6-ish keys without having to take the other hand off the mouse. I still have that and “v” for dodge which I hit with my thumb.

Do you guys have a mouse with lots of buttons on it ? Those can have a higher learning curve and might be best to not use at first.

She doesn’t have to use the mouse to turn at first. I had been playing WoW for a few months (the first game I played where it was used) before someone told me about that and while it’s useful it’s not the end of the world to not be doing it unless you’re doing PvP or something. You can do PvE just fine most of the time without it. Personally I use a combination of keyboard and mouse turning based on what I’m doing. I would just show her the options and let her work it out – I know that I switch back and forth even during the same content. I use keyboard turning to line up some JP jumps, while for things like Skipping Stones I’m only using the mouse on the floating rocks part. Sometimes I use strafe+keyboard turn in combat to run around things in circles while using the mouse to target and move camera to keep the enemy on screen. Whatever the situation calls for. Always using just the mouse makes my wrist pretty unhappy – days where I do a lot of JPs I can always feel it cramping up so I relieve that by using keyboard when there’s no disadvantage.

I would honestly just recommend having hers use the “default” control scheme for now, and if she finds something else she’d rather like she can customise it to fit her needs better. It lets her start with a clean slate (one that’s pretty similar across many MMOs and games in general) and go from there.

Also, if she’s really interested her own account might be a good idea so you can play together and to not have to switch things back and forth. Just saying because I’ve seen a few posts about people sharing who ended up attached to a character but now want to be able to play together but they can’t and have to start over.

If she’s enjoying the game and the controls aren’t driving her crazy or putting her off playing I’d suggest just making sure she’s aware she can change them and how to do that and then letting her work out her own set-up as she’s playing.

If there’s one thing this forum has taught me it’s that controls in this game are a very personal thing. Everyone seems to have their own set-up and what works perfectly for one person sounds impossible to someone else.

Here’s the main problem…

This is how she moves:

Hold the up arrow key
stop
tap the left arrow key a few times to change direction
stop
hold the up arrow key
stop
tap the up arrow key a few times until she’s right next to the NPC or body she’s trying to loot
stop
take right hand off of arrow keys and use it to click on body
hold up arrow key
etc.

I guess we just have to keep trying, but in the mean time I’ll try getting her to customize the controls for herself. The difficulty in that is that she wants to go out and do stuff, not waste time on menus or learning what things do. I still haven’t been able to get her to stop and read skill descriptions :O

Also, she doesn’t like the camera because, since she isn’t familiar with it yet, it gets caught behind tree branches and hills, and she has to keep adjusting it as she moves. I think she was expecting something more similar to the fixed behind-the-shoulder views of a Zelda game or something like that.

I was an arrow key user when I started in WoW long ago. Then I learned that holding down both mouse buttons made me move forward, and sliding the mouse side to side turned me as I moved. I could rotate my view smoothly via one mouse key held while strafing the mouse, then add the other mouse button and instantly run on the new facing. Glorious! Give her that hint on mouse movement.

As to the sidling up to loot, get another key set to aoe loot, and set options to loot all. It has a much longer range than clicking on the body and you can see the little sparkles flowing from the body to yourself so you know something’s gone in your bags (plus icons show up on the right edge of the screen).

I utterly sympathise with game controls blocking play, by the way. Fable and Oblivion balked me due to that; Skyrim only worked because they added the ability to swap the mouse keys so the right button moved the right hand, as should have been the default, I mean, really. DCUO failed me because I couldn’t move like I wanted to due to the console simulation they were doing.

But I do think once she tries the mouse moves a bit more she’ll suddenly hate moving any other way.

I would suggest having her move with the mouse entirely by holding in left and right buttons- it is very natural and you just move the mouse to the side to turn.
Camera isn’t as bothersome then either.
and no menus to read
You have great control over your character and you can keep your left hand free for skills to kill stuff with

I’m having a funny mental picture of you duct-taping her right hand to the mouse and left wrist to the desk near the wasd keys.
The best might be to show her where to change the settings, then let her play as she wants. maybe have one sit-down with: what do you want to do to go forward? ok, let’s set that key, now turn left? k, now right? etc. If you try too hard to have her play as you do, it will ruin the game. best to have her work out for herself what is best.
btw: ESDF is a bit better than WASD imho (more keys within range). also, backpeddle isn’t exactly required – it’s far quicker to turn sideways and strafe (the only movement keys I have are D for forward, S/F for strafe)

Equinox.4968:

The difficulty in that is that she wants to go out and do stuff, not waste time on menus or learning what things do. I still haven’t been able to get her to stop and read skill descriptions :O

I’d suggest just letting her do what she finds fun for now and worry about things like skill descriptions and menus later. I played for a long time before I paid much attention to skill descriptions, as I found it tedious and boring to read them all, and I just wanted to play the game too. Did that make me a great player? No, but I had a lot of fun. Once I realized I needed to be more familiar with skills to be effective in a group I started to pay a lot more attention to them. Initially though you want to her just enjoy herself.

Eventually you might look into a game pad like the Logitech G13 or whatever fits her hand the best since it has a joystick and she can custom program her own keys to her liking. I had trouble using the keyboard and this worked out for me very well. I use the mouse as well as the gamepad and it works great.

Though definitely start with showing her how to change the settings and let her see if she can work something out that she likes as she is playing. A lot of this is just getting comfortable and confident in what you are doing which does take time. As long as she is enjoying herself the skills will come.

Hubby and I have our own accounts but created a guild for ourselves for extra storage. We have had a blast playing together and helping our various avies level up. I believe there are quite a few couples out there playing (there was a thread out there once about it, I think). Main thing is have fun and learn as you go! I introduced hubby to GW2 and laughed myself sick watching him walk into a wall for 5 minutes straight when he first started (he had never played anything like this before)… He figured stuff out on his own, had a lot of fun doing it and still is.

In the end, if she is enjoying herself it doesn’t matter how she controls the character, however if she is finding it awkward then she might need to practice the alternatives.

One that hasn’t been suggested yet (as far as I can see) is to go into a city (a quiet one, not Lions Arch) and explore. Its good practice for moving, gives XP and there are always the vista and JP for a sense of achievement.

I nearly always use the mouse to move, either by holding down both buttons or keying the forth mouse button (if your mouse has one) to auto run then all you need worry about is turning, and not running off long drops (laugh if you want, I’m sure we have all done it)