I have switched the keyboard to WASD, and gone through the hour long process of trying to move all the colliding assignments to other positions.
The system will not allow you to proceed until you have gotten rid of all key collisions. A different system than we use but effective. However, a nasty trap anytime you want to change anything, because it will not tell you where to find the other key assignment. You get a report on one key assignment collision, and then have to hunt it down through multiple pages by guesswork. It could be highlighted at least. There is a highlight. Or it could just take you to the offending key assignment.
Changing to WASD puts my hand in a better location. But all the keys around the WASD need to be moved too, as those are needed for monster selection and fighting. The fighting keys cannot be somewhere across the keyboard.
The LEFT-CTRL does not work for attack as it forces using the little finger at an awkward angle. If first tried using the "f" key as it was close to the "e" and "r" keys that I used for target designation. Passable, but did not work in practice as my fingers would easily wander off the home position because the main finger was being dragged to the right with every attack. In the midst of battle that hand would get off the home position and there is no feedback except that movement has suddenly failed, and that happens often enough for other reasons.
Finally moved the attack to the space bar, which allows the underutilized thumb to do something. Do not know what the OK key assignment is supposed to accomplish, but I move that to "y" (for YES). The drop a bunch of items was to obscure to even keep on the keyboard.
This really should be an alternative key assignment that could be selected by one menu item. It is a massive amount of work for anyone not already familiar with the multitude of key assignments.
What prompted the sudden change to WASD, was that opening the chat using "ENTER" key, would block movement. So I could not have chat open while fighting. I had teamed with someone for some specific farming mission. I could not communicate and move both, it was one or the other.
After changing to WASD, the chat box is STILL stealing the movement keys, which are now WASD. I still cannot move with the chat box open. Using the WASD keys would do things in the chat box, like typing WASD characters, or sometimes scrolling stuff up and down instead.
The other player says that it does not work for him that way, but I cannot change it. This becomes a real problem for new players who are trying to join other players. Everything comes to a stop for 15 minutes while we try to diagnose why this is happening, and nothing we try works.
During the Christmas event, encountered two players and we fought the nutcrackers together. Found a new problem with group fighting.
The attack key will try to pick up items, many times in preference to attacking a monster. However, it will also try to pick up other player's items, and gets the message that the item is not yours. You cannot pick up the item. The attack key will not leave the item and will not do anything else. You are stuck in group battle not accomplishing anything, because the key that would attack a monster will not forget about the item that it cannot pick up.
I am forced to try to click on the monster in a melee where I can barely identify which is the monster and which is the companion. Considering what else has happened in group battles, I am very afraid of clicking on the companion by accident. Who knows what this fighting system would do. Even if it ignored the click, and you are left just standing there, you are still not contributing to the battle. I know, I can probably learn another complicated process to avoid this problem, but why not just fix that key. If it cannot pick up the item, why does it need to obsess about it.
One possibility is to react to getting that message by turning-off item-pickup until you have killed a monster.