that_shaman, You're good! I have no idea how you found this, as I tried to cover my tracks, but you are correct.
I have been working on native controller support, as a side project in my own time. I've got a good deal of it all working, but it's still got a further to go.
My main goal is is to have accessibility in mind. If I can help just one person play the game that would would not otherwise be able to because of our current input controls, than I'll be very pleased.
that_shaman, You're good! I have no idea how you found this, as I tried to cover my tracks, but you are correct.
I would love to tell you but if I did that would mean there's going to be less for me to poke around at in the future.
But let me tell you that I'm very excited that you're working on this because gamepad support has been one of the features I would really love to have for things like smooth camera control, roller beetle racing and playing the game on my living room television from my couch!
Thank you for doing this
Oh good point, I haven't even tested it on beetle racing! I'll need to try this out tomorrow.
why is it that all the good stuff in terms of QoL over the years are always some side projects on their own from single devs apparently. <_<
I've got a few other side projects i've been working on that are also QoL that you'll see sooner than the controller stuff... You just wait!
Sure.
So I'm not too concerned about if the the default mapping should be one way or the other, but one of the first things I did get working was making it so you can change your bindings in our key-bindings edit dialog, the same way you would for mouse/keyboard settings. Everyone is going to have their own opinion of what works best for them, and many people will use different types of controllers.
Unfortunately, GW2 has soooo many keyboard input actions, (we have like 100+ hotkeys you can bind!) And that doesn't work too great for controllers. So one of the things I also have working already is making it so you can have button "modifiers", kind of how the keyboard has Shift, Alt and Ctrl keys. So maybe joystick Triangle would press Skill 2, Left Trigger + Triangle could be Jump, Right Trigger + Triangle could be something else, etc.
I also have it so you can press a joystick button (that you can bind, this is the one that_shaman just found) to turn your joystick analog stick into a "virtual mouse", and instead of moving your character around, it will move your mouse and tap buttons to click on the UI.
There's still a lot of UI work that needs to be done, as the "virtual mouse" is kinda last resort, ideally each UI panel kinda has its own sense of how the controller should natively work for it, but some of our UI panels are just so complex, using a virtual mouse is just easiest.
I'm also making my own custom action like camera default for the joystick input, so ground target circles + tab targeting will be automatic.
My only question would be, will there be chorded inputs? As in hold one button, other actions on other buttons become new inputs. o7
yes, that is my current plan and having it working like so already. There's just so many input actions you can do in this game, but so little joystick buttons :-(
I never Reddit, but I am now just to tell you that as a gamer with rheumatoid arthritis and fibromayalgia, who has been alienated and pushed away from this game in the past few years because of my chronic pain and lack of gamepad support, this means the entire WORLD to me.
I'm probably going to regret this and I'm about to get annoying, tangenty, and ham here, but so much of this game has been utterly prohibitive for me to play because of the 1-2 punch of the grueling and miserable (for me) requirements for certain grind slogs combined with the amount of agonizing pain using a keyboard and mouse puts me through. I suffered chemical burns while trying to cope with the pain that playing this game with no controller support leaves me in during the Skyscale grind, and I lost quite a bit of sleep due to the injuries said grind gave me, and I was forced to quit for my health.
I'm even not talking as if I non-stop played for HOURS at a time. This level of injury is possible for people like me just playing for two hours, which is like the bare minimum time sink to get any daily thing done in this game.
Just "Not playing" isn't an option for me, and I get that insult thrown in my face by abled people a lot. It is insulting, and ignorant. I am permanently disabled, incapable of work, far FROM 'lazy', and bored out of my MIND from being unable to do anything productive with myself! GW2 is one of the only things I CAN do with my disabilities (and general lack of transporation/mobility) and so it was very disheartening that the older I get the harder and harder it becomes to play between the worsening symptoms and the ever-piling-high list of chores I'm expected to do for things everyone else can knock out in a few days.
When the Skyscale came out, I became severely depressed and was pushed from playing the game altogether. I could not, for the sake of my health, do it. I was very, very lucky that the person who takes care of me was willing to sit through it for me. This should in no way ever be the case, in my humble opinion. I don't want people to do things for me. It's infantilizing, it's embarrassing, and probably against the ToS in some way or another-- idk. But it was that, or, I never get it and I never play again bc having abled people shove their Skyscales in my face constantly was making my miserable depression 10xs worse. The point is, I want to be able to do things myself, and be given the means to do so.
I've been playing Guild Wars since 2006. In GW1 I didn't need constant keyboard-mouse interaction because there was Pathing and Follow Commands. The removal of Follow was one of the worst things that this game has ever done to me, because I cope with my disabilities in other MMOs by having friends that let me Follow them automatedly using in-game functions or ride in 2-seater mounts (hint nudge nudge). I dropped out of playing GW2 in the past 2 years because it just puts me in so much miserable pain that I start to lose sleep because it injures me to play it for more than 20mins at a time-- and when all the metas, events, living story eps, last anywhere from 15-90 minutes, I may as well not play at all.
But I want to! Because this game is beautiful, and amazing, and has a crew of people that really care about what they are doing, which is so much more than some other companies can say.
If I could use my controller with this game... it would change. EVERYTHING. For me.
Sorry for the block of unnecessary text. I just. Not to be rude, but I often legitimately am made to feel like game companies have not a single thought or care for the disabled, and like we are being actively pushed out of the communities. I break down into horrible bouts of depression and feelings of isolation, alienation, and destitution, feeling like there will never be space or consideration for those of us who either were born underprivileged or suffered a fate that made us so.
There was also that severely tasteless April Fools joke made about 'we added controller support' which was so repulsive and outright player & disabled-hostile that I could not even look at the game for months without being furious and nauseated. It made me feel like my chronic agony and need for interfacing devices was a joke to Arena Net, and it burned me inside in a way I cannot describe to anyone who has never suffered at the hands of constant benign ableism. I know it wasn't the intent, but it showed a complete lack of thought, tact, or care.
It is exceedingly disheartening when these fantasy worlds exist where we can make avatars of characters that represent us that have working, functional bodies able to run, jump, and do things we can't.. and then not even be able to play those characters because we weren't given the means-- and then we look around at all these other games, and indeed, mmorpgs, that do have controller support (FFXI has had it its entire run), and it's like... why is this or that company dragging their feet? Do they just not care about us? Is our money not as good as abled people money?
Salt, sulfur, and ire aside. Sorry if I singed or ruffled feathers. But I wanted to underline all of the points to further push home exactly how important this is not just to me but THOUSANDS of people. To hear that even ONE person thought about 'us', honestly, is a lot more than I ever expected in the face of all the alienation I've faced almost universally from MMO companies.
Anyways, I'm blabbing and everyone's going to downvote me and send me nasty messages for this post so I'm gonna go.
Point is; Thank you. This is extremely important. One of the most important things that there is. If you succeed, you'll have saved this game for me and many others.
edit: And inb4 anyone says 'joy2key' and 'steam controller'. Those have repeatedly screwed up my DPI on win10s broken hotmess of an OS, across multiple machines. If it isn't native, I cannot use it for fear of breaking my computer.
Wow, thanks for sharing.
I hear ya. I'm not really sure what to say, other than I better get my ass in gear and finish this task :-)
Could you create a "hotbar" with like 10 slots (that could be toggled on or off if users don't want it)? That way, a gamepad user could hit like "Start + Right trigger" to toggle through the options they put within the bar. You could solve some of those 100+ hotkeys, allowing players to choose what ones are available. Like if I played with joystick, I'd want my cool chair bound, but I wouldn't care so much about maybe emoticons.
I've actually planned to do something exactly like this, also as part of a side project, but not a part of game pad support.
This is really a QoL thing that would be used by keyboard/mouse users as well, just an easy way to access commonly used "things" like toys/tonics/chairs, but also inventory potions and items, or emotes and more.
Musicians could use it to make a "instrument" hotbar, speedrunners might use it to keep track of their potions and whatnot.
But right now this idea is just that, an idea, and I won't be able to get started on it for a long while, sadly.
Lol, pretty much.
Have you played Warframe? There is a very interesting system they have to make controller support more friendly and intuitive. It's this utility wheel that you can assign many items and functions to. Hold a button and rotate a thumb-stick to select items.
In the case of GW2, you could slot novelties, toys, outfits, chairs, emotes, mounts, consumables and quest items.
That was the issues I always found with trying to bind a controller. There are just enough buttons for core character control but not enough to get the secondary or more situational actions. A customizable quick select wheel would solve an enormous number of controller support issues.
This would be a very cool feature, and I think it would really help. I'll have to chew on this idea.
... Something something, mount wheel...
Thanks for the feedback!
I am in a worldwide group of Spinal Cord Injured people - little things like this can literally mean a huge difference. When so much is taken away from you, getting one thing back is like a beacon.
Thanks for sharing, and your support! I don't really know what to say other than I'm honored to be able to help, even if it's just a little.
Hey Jon I’ve been playing GW2 at a high level for the past few years using an Xbox controller, I would be happy to discuss my keybindings with you and any shortcomings I’ve had.
Sure, PMing you if you wanna talk outside reddit :-P
Here is the layout my wife and I use, if you're looking for more data.
Allows for easy jumping, dodging, and inventory controls. Didn't include [Hold] commands on Weapon Skills 1-5 due to many interactables (like WvW siege) requiring long presses.
Thanks for sharing!
If Anet are adding this to the game soon please consider a profile I have been using for years, I know that you’ll likely allow players to set up their own buttons but.. just incase... Please get in touch and I can send the profile for you to check out! Cheers
Yep, I'm still working on it, in my spare time.
And yes, it does support changing the bindings just the same way you can change mouse/keyboard bindings. So it should work for anyone, with any profile.
I gotcha covered, don't worry!
Hmmm some things require macros in order to work properly/well.
I still think it would be worth your time to peer into my own settings and test them out, if anything to bolster your own work 👍
For instance dodge rolling, how would you implement that? A lot of us like to combine our dodge roll with the space bar. And if timed correctly it is better than dodge rolling not to mention it looks cooler 😉. I achieve this by holding R1 + tapping X, normally X is to jump, and R1 is the 1st skill but when done together it does the leaping dodge roll as I mentioned.
I am currently running a poll to see what players would like to play with, and will be uploading my own profile there but I can send via private message too.
Hmmm some things require macros in order to work properly/well.
I'm adding gamepad support, not macro support. If something requires 2 hotkeys with mouse and keyboard support currently, it will still require 2 hotkeys with a gamepad.
Feel free to share anything with me though.
Any updates on how well this is going?
It was mostly done, but put on hold until covid goes away and the office reopens :-(
devtrackers.gg
