Strafing shifted from QE to AD

[Astralporing.1957]

9 hours ago, Randulf.7614 said:

Not that I’m feeling fair towards them, but the control change is listed in the patch notes

It is not. What is listed in the patch notes is "Updated default selections in the Options menu for new accounts". Notice the "new accounts" part. The fact that this change ended up being enforced on already existing accounts (with some unfortunate, and probably unplanned consequences, i might add) is not documented at all.

[Jukhy.2431]

Them 1st world "problems" getting real serious now I see. Will you all be demanding compensation for the "shock" this issue caused and your precious lost minutes to rebind the keys?

I'd guess the likely reason for this "game breaking" change is the upcoming Steam release.

Edited August 3, 2022 by Jukhy.2431

[Astralporing.1957]

1 hour ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

To anyone affected (rather surprised about this, I have had AD for strafing since pre release and I don't keyboard turn), see this as an opportunity to break with this habbit.

 

At least give action cam a try if you can't break with keyboard turning.

 

If that absolutely doesn't work, remapping 4 keys shouldn't take long. To anyone not remembering what their QEAD keys did... after hundreds to thousands of hours of gameplay, really?

 

The change might be disorienting but is absolutely in line with how nearly all games of todays day and age (and probably the past 15 years, keyboard turning was already oudated when GW2 launched) handle WASD movement and as such will be easier for new players.

The problem is not with the change as mentioned in patchnotes (making it a new dfault settings for new accounts). The problem is with the fact that it got applied also to those that were already used to old settings, to those that have remapped those keys to something else, and with the fact, that this forced remapping ended up bugging out in many cases.

In case someone missed it: I already had Q and E swapped with A and D for years, so theoretically the change should have done nothing to me at all. It did however - my keymappings for strafe left and strafe right got deleted, and my keys A and D eneded up not mapped to any function.

I also heard from people that got more than one function mapped to some of those 4 keys, or people that had Q and E mapped to utilities having that mapping either reset to turn left/right or outright removed.

That's definitely not how this was supposed to work. And that's even when ignoring the fact that this change was supposed to affect only new accounts which is definitely not what happened.

Edited August 3, 2022 by Astralporing.1957

[Luthan.5236]

This is a bug - since the default changes were only intended to affect new accounts. Old accounts should (which fortunately worked for me) - still have the settings they manually set.

Personally I use the wasd to move - like in the shooter games where this is default. Just too  used to it. Turning the view I do with the mouse (right click hold and move around).

I can see that manual turning of the char (not the view) ... might be important for some rare reasons - therefore used by a small amount of players maybe. Especially for roleplaying maybe? Or is there a real gameplay advantage (I do not play optimized stuff as raids or other things - just "casual") to have this on the keyboard?

I use skills on q and e - like someone else here in the thread mentioned. Have the elite and heal skill there - for easiest access. The other ones at other keys.

Edited August 3, 2022 by Luthan.5236

[b k.1648]

For me, strafing shifted on launch day, since AD have always been the right keys to use.

[Cyninja.2954]

1 hour ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

The problem is not with the change as mentioned in patchnotes (making it a new dfault settings for new accounts). The problem is with the fact that it got applied also to those that were already used to old settings, to those that have remapped those keys to something else, and with the fact, that this forced remapping ended up bugging out in many cases.

 

Yes, and all of that is easily fixed by remapping the keys again. The "bug" is nothing more than having possibly more than 1 action now mapped to keys which should not have more than 1 action mapped.

 

Yes, it is annoying that it happened. No, it's not the end of the world. Players are once again just going absolute hyperbole mode over a well meant change which overall will benefit the game in the short and long-run.

[Astralporing.1957]

1 minute ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Yes, it is annoying that it happened. No, it's not the end of the world.

I did not say it is the end of the world. I said that this change was implemented badly and definitely did not do what it was supposed to do. Yes, it is recoverable, but i'd rather they did not repeat it again. Especially since we do not have any easy way of saving custom keybind settings in case we'd have to restore them in a hurry after another messup like that.

[Danikat.8537]

5 hours ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

Most people (atleast I hope) have A and D mapped to strafe and don't have character turning mapped at all. 

Character turning is a waste of buttons. 

I kept turning bound, because I use it when posing my character for screenshots and occasionally in jumping puzzles, to precisely turn my character on the spot. Mouse turning is superior in the majority of cases, but if you want small movements or turning without moving forward keyboard turning is better.

[Graymatter.4723]

6 hours ago, Sirius.4510 said:

Having A/D mapped to strafing is the most logical way to do it and arguably the change should have happened years ago, but now is better than never.

Obviously, accidentally breaking existing players' controls is not what should have happened. Unsure how that one slipped past QA. I did notice that I saw no impact from the change so it's possible the repro rate is low enough that it didn't happen to them?

Using A/D for strafing is much more difficult for people with motor issues. It's much easier to reach 1-5 with your fingers remaining over QWE than it is for you to keep your fingers on AWD and reach up.

[Jimbru.6014]

WASD with A and D being left and right turns has been the MMO standard for a couple of decades. Only a minority of MMOs depart from it, and they're annoying as kitten to play. The control change was nothing more than change for change's sake, and will end up confusing new players more than helping.

 

[Graymatter.4723]

2 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Yes, it is annoying that it happened. No, it's not the end of the world. Players are once again just going absolute hyperbole mode over a well meant change which overall will benefit the game in the short and long-run.

I can change my keybinds in a heartbeat. A lot of other players are the same. Some players aren't great on PC's and generally don't like changing stuff. It's not the end of the world but it really shouldn't happen. This should absolutely have been picked up in QA and there are no excuses for that.

[Ashantara.8731]

6 hours ago, Sirius.4510 said:

Having A/D mapped to strafing is the most logical way to do it and arguably the change should have happened years ago, but now is better than never.

Indeed. Any other action-based game uses A+D for strafing, not turning. That's whay it's called WASD, not WQSE. 😉

[Danikat.8537]

11 minutes ago, Graymatter.4723 said:

Using A/D for strafing is much more difficult for people with motor issues. It's much easier to reach 1-5 with your fingers remaining over QWE than it is for you to keep your fingers on AWD and reach up.

I've never understood how anyone can use WASD or QWES and 1-5 with the same hand at the same time. I can't do it because I'm left-handed so my right hand is on the keyboard and it's all backwards, but even trying with my left hand I can't work out how you'd hit the letters and the numbers at the same time. I can only see it working in games where you never need to move while attacking.

(I use the number pad for skills and my thumb on the arrow keys to move, and yes I have the left and right keys bound to strafe, not turning.)

[cyberzombie.7348]

Gaming/MMO mouse, they usually have extra buttons with the MMO types typically having 12 side buttons.

Or being a good clicker.

Edited August 3, 2022 by cyberzombie.7348

[Graymatter.4723]

10 minutes ago, Danikat.8537 said:

I've never understood how anyone can use WASD or QWES and 1-5 with the same hand at the same time. I can't do it because I'm left-handed so my right hand is on the keyboard and it's all backwards, but even trying with my left hand I can't work out how you'd hit the letters and the numbers at the same time. I can only see it working in games where you never need to move while attacking.

(I use the number pad for skills and my thumb on the arrow keys to move, and yes I have the left and right keys bound to strafe, not turning.)

Normally I am not pressing left and right at the same time so if I have to strafe at the same time as attacking, I press 1 and strafe right or 3 or 4 and strafe left. I can press 2 and mouse move if necessary. 5 is more difficult but I can strafe left and press that at the same time if I have to. Healing I have on R. 6-9 are a pain in the neck and normally require some hand movement. The elite happens seldom enough that I either move my hand or use the mouse for that one.

[Luthan.5236]

This won't affect new players - as someone above fears: They will just learn the new setting without having ever used any other one. (Or can manually decide to change it once they start with the game.) It only is  annoying for existing players that got the change forced upon them because of some bug. (Though if it really only changed 1-2 settings - not a big problem. Some reportedly have all the keybindings changed or empty though. Then this could be a lot of work especially if you do not quickly remember every minor thing for less used stuff.)

Good thing for new players is that this basically is like they are most likely used from any other games. (wasd most commonly  used.)

I understand that it is hard to reach the numbers with the fingers. When typing with 10 fingers the special symbols/chars - and numbers ... needs more training.

I have no problem reachign them. I misclick every now and then there. Most commonly for f1-f4 though where I accidentally despawn the mech on mechanist sometimes in PvP. (f4 instead of f3 pressed)

I know: "you could just bind it to somethign else" - but I have a lot of stuff and not that many keys. Reaching other letter buttons is much harder. I am also left handed - using keyboard and mouse like a right-handed person though. With 1-hand you'd have to reach for certain letters used actualyl be the other hand (when typing with 10 fingers/both hands) - if using a lot of stuff. (Already have the mounts on the numpad and mainly using one main mount key to equip the one that I set the button in the bar to - the num pad for rarely using direct mount to some other mount without having to change the main mount.) I still need to figure out which key to best use to bind the special action to. Atm at number button 6 and having to look at the keyboard or clicking it on screen. (Might need to switch some of the more rare used stuff from PvP - buttons easier to each for me left hand where I still have mapped stuff like the team/stats window - butto to show it ingame. The one window that appears automatically at the end of the game.)

(Only using 2 mouse buttons and mouse wheel though. A mouse with just 1-2 more buttons might mean a lot more convenience in this cases.)

Edited August 3, 2022 by Luthan.5236

[BatelGeuce.3591]

4 hours ago, Jukhy.2431 said:

Them 1st world "problems" getting real serious now I see. Will you all be demanding compensation for the "shock" this issue caused and your precious lost minutes to rebind the keys?

I'd guess the likely reason for this "game breaking" change is the upcoming Steam release.

 

Yeah, imagine people being upset about someone forcibly changing their settings while no one asked for it. How dare we.

 

Especially since it was delivered with a half-kitten solution where some of the keys they changed (like D) were completely unbound so I could neither turn nor strafe right.

 

Screw testing, let's deploy straight to prod and see how it goes.

[Einsof.1457]

This is a great improvement and hopefully helps more players to understand how to play properly from the beginning. 

[Asum.4960]

The fact that keyboard turning was still the standard setting actually boggles my mind. That must have been the first thing I rebound 10 years ago five minutes into the betas, so I never thought about it again nor included it in new player tips for settings and rebinds. 

 

The change rolling out to existing players probably isn't ideal, as players will either have immediately changed the terrible setting way back already, or are so used to it at this point that they will dislike any change no matter how superior the new default is, as lack of muscle memory for the better setup will make it appear worse to them at first - likely causing them to go back, with not much achieved other than some outrage. 

But hey, maybe some people try it out and stick with it after all, and will be way better off in the long term.

 

Anyway, this (maybe minor) blunder aside, big props to Anet for finally investing in modernising the new player experience which the game desperately needs to grow in the future! 

It's kind of frightening how many players never engage with settings and keybinds and are left playing a far inferior product (or quit).

[Infinity.2876]

I use TYUH( T/U for strafe) now because I use 13 more buttons than strictly necessary and I needed more room so I shifted to the middle of the keyboard and it's a little up more so I can reach the number keys. Sometimes I think I'm playing organ.

Edited August 3, 2022 by Infinity.2876

[Randulf.7614]

Whether it’s a good change or a bad is irrelevant (and no it won’t force people to play better, the positioning of strafe keys has never been a factor in overcoming mechanics - will defiance bar breakdowns be affected? No). The fact is, you don’t change your 10 year existing player base controls off the cuff like that. It sets a precedent that anything can be changed without warning. And yes they can do that if they wish, but it’s not good for community relations to know that even your controls can be changed on a whim.

The excuse that other games have those controls doesn’t hold water either because these worked for ten years for those who hadn’t changed them. The new player experience or the steam launch should not take precedent over long term, existing players. 

The fact that snobbery exists over how someone uses their controls and thus makes them inferior to someone else is a whole new level

Ultimately it’s a small, utterly bizarre change easily reverted, but it’s a annoying precedent as well - assuming it’s not a bug (which it looks like it isn’t from the lack of response)

[Einsof.1457]

4 minutes ago, Randulf.7614 said:

Whether it’s a good change or a bad is irrelevant (and no it won’t force people to play better, the positioning of strafe keys has never been a factor in overcoming mechanics - will defiance bar breakdowns be affected? No). The fact is, you don’t change your 10 year existing player base controls off the cuff like that. It sets a precedent that anything can be changed without warning. And yes they can do that if they wish, but it’s not good for community relations to know that even your controls can be changed on a whim.

The excuse that other games have those controls doesn’t hold water either because these worked for ten years for those who hadn’t changed them. The new player experience or the steam launch should not take precedent over long term, existing players. 

The fact that snobbery exists over how someone uses their controls and thus makes them inferior to someone else is a whole new level

Ultimately it’s a small, utterly bizarre change easily reverted, but it’s a annoying precedent as well - assuming it’s not a bug (which it looks like it isn’t from the lack of response)

It will teach new players to turn using their mouse, which is magnitudes better. 

[Einsof.1457]

The fact that this change has so much discussion speaks volumes as to why this change is so important. Many people have no idea how to optimally move their character. 

[Sobx.1758]

Pretty hilarious clash between the "omg, why are you making this change now, I'm so used to my regular keybindings!" and "I don't even know how to re-bind these 6 buttons now 😕 " in some of these posts.

According to patch notes, they clearly wanted to make that change to new accounts, but something didn't exactly went as planned (case-by-case, apparently). The fast and easy solution here is to remap 6 buttons instead of acting as if you can't play anymore. 🙄

[Tinker.6924]

I logged on yesterday and my movement felt really off.  I could have sworn that I had Q/E for strafe and A/D unassigned before, but it seemed like the keybindings had changed on me.