Hot bars. I get the idea. Offensive to one bar, utility to another etc. I do. But the result is simply that Im key binding stuff to the buttons I want them on anyways, that's not stopping me. So the net result is that instead of me having my abilities (all of them) laid out exactly as I want, I'm bound to a non-standard layout that games just don't usually follow. I feel as though this is one of those changes that will inevitably get walked back once we discover it's not adding value, but instead forcing players to play in a very specific way. It has no bearing on gameplay. I want to make my HUD my own, and this really stops me from doing that. I want to drag and drop my abilities onto bars, wherever I see fit. It shouldn't have an effect on anyone else. If I want pet attack as button 2, and next to it auto attack, and next to that a heal spell, that's ideally what I'd like to see happen. Letting this be open for total customization was always a boon in EQ. As a plus, you guys nailed casting, animations, the characters are great. Loving watching my dwarf swing and fight. Really excited for this.
It feels like Player 1 and Player 2 up there have very different ideas of what Player 1 is Saying, and a spell gems motif may not be quite right for Pantheon, but Player 2's idea is simply right out in my view. Limited action bar spots is an important issue to me, but I do like what Player 1 is trying to get at at the same time and I look forward to seeing how this evolves (maybe it remains the same? -more or less fine by me-) maybe less slots - would also be fine - with an adjustment to the macro window that'll resemble Player 1's suggestion with spell gems? Who knows. The devs are smart, and I'm sure they're onto the macro bar adjustment regardless.
To clarify, I think we could boil my comment down to simply "give us generic hot bars with limited slots", and then "you tell us how many of each type of ability we can place on those hot bars", but stop there. Don't tell us where they have to go or define the size of those hot bars.
If you only want us to have 8 main abilities, 6 utilities, and 4 action abilities, fine. You set that limit on us, that's fair. But let us choose how to lay those buttons out and what key maps to give to them all. I've watched some videos of popular streamers and you can tell they're just mapping everything to what feels good but the result is key mappings all over the place that looks very disconnected.
If you gave us the ability to turn on up to 4 hot bars, each with (up to) 10 buttons, and then left it at that, we'll place the limited number of abilities you've said we can use on those, wherever we see fit. We'll use macros or whatever to fill up the rest (item clickies at some point perhaps?) etc.
I think that sums it up better?
I support an 8 slot spell set (with spell sets) with a better macro window,(like EQ, but better) if that clears anything up. No thanks on multiple hot bars. Or Custom UI, ever. (I don't mean I'm against a customizable ui within the context of the default UI or anything, but you know the ones.)
Then the question "Can Tanks Dps in a group with another tank?" etc can easily be answered by TWO tanks loading different sets of abilities entireley (as well as any other classes).
I have many times thought I am hitting ALT-1 but don't have enough pressure on the ALT key and end up just pressing 1, and vice-versa.
I find I get hand cramps from constantly having my thumb hovering over the ALT, instead of being able to rest on the edge of the keyboard for support.
I agree 100% with Fulton... I would NEVER use the Alt key for a primary ability (like we have to do now) if I could bind the keys myself - I find my thumb cramping very regularly as well as sometimes not fully hitting the Alt key (likely because my thumb fatigues) and end up using the wrong skill. A bit frustrating now, but would be infuriating at end game.
Does everyone know that they can change all their keybindings in the settings?
We do, yeah. It's more about the fact certain abilities must be placed in certain spots. Meaning if I have a rotation I like to use of Q to pull, and perhaps 1,2,3 then 4 or something, while I certainly can keybind those to the abilities I want, visually, all of those abilities might fall absolutely all over the place across 3 hot bars, for no valuable reason.
The point is, if the developers want to limit us to using 4 utility abilities and 8 main abilities, that's fine, we support that, but don't also tell us they have to sit in this exact hot bar here, or there. That's not adding to gameplay value, it's just forcing us to play from the perspective of the dev who came up with the idea.
Thanks. I was fairly certain most everyone did. However... when you deal with enough complaints from players - as mods get to do - you encounter enough people that somehow don't know something that EVERYONE else knows, that you just get in the habit of stating the obvious early on in conversations :)
I totally agree with the direction of this thread too. When I had 2 separate hotbars, it didn't bother me much.When we got to 3 however, it just became too unwieldy. I map my own abilities as everyone else does. And I get what you describe, the main keys of asdfghjkl; in upper and lower case wind up mapped all over the hotbars.
My main hope is that VR's stated intention for a long while now - to eventually get a UI Dev onboard who can go full out on a complete overhaul of the various combat and crafting UI's - will involve many of the improvements that players have been asking for. I don't expect that overhaul soon, since they are still working on higher priority items. But I do expect it eventually.
Yup, that's totally fair. In the grand scheme of things this isn't high priority - Totally get it. I think I just wanted to ensure it was mapped here as I know they'll do a peruse of things to get going once they have the resources, and it's important enough that I'd love to see it addressed once that time comes.
To add do this thread, being able to drag the pet commands on to any of your hot bars once once this is live would also really help. It falls into the same bucket of abilities and slots to place them in, and let us figure out the mapping/position.
@Jothany,
I'm aware that we can rebind keys, but for someone like myself, it would be quite nice to be able to do something like with my ranger to have melee skills on one bar and ranged skills on another (especially with engage and disengage... it just feels bad), or just otherwise arrange my abilities how I want them... maybe some would want to organize their skills by duration or cooldowns and effects. It's "personally" awkward having abilities with cooldowns (or otherwise unable to use because maybe I have to build a resource while in combat 1st) on my primary bar... again, just personal preference, but also something that doesn't change anything about the game for others, but makes it more enjoyable for the player.