To many abilities - piano playing must be reduced...

[jaakkeli]

I don't mind having a lot of hotkeys, I've got some really fast hotkey fingers. But this game does have a lot of unnecessary ability bloat.

 

I like the way for example a Merc healer's Rapid Shots work: if you target an enemy, you damage them, if you target a friendly, you heal them. They could have just made another skill for the heal but this is much more elegant.

[Vikassi]

I play an operative, many many abilities .. I have no issues .. I have great hand eye coordination ... Called skillz .. Go play mario bros or contra

[PostalTwinkie]

Searching for holes in whole much? Tweaking the cooldowns to balance the consolidated abilities for all classes would come after consolidating them. So the outcome will be one: comfortable binds for all classes and remained balance. Point is you of course cant change things without changing them, so saying "consolidated ability A and B will be worse cause they are two different abilities" is unwise.

 

Really?

 

I don't know how many times I have been pounding on someone and seen someone else go flying by with almost no health and tossed a Vicious Throw at them for the kill. Something I wouldn't be able to do if it was on CD because I used Saber Throw to start the fight with the person I was on.

 

I am sorry you struggle so greatly with multiple skills and multitasking in general. But your idea is terrible! Having the two skills as they are allows for a lot more agility in game play.

[MuNieK]

Smart way of implementing need of mastering the class' abilities is implementing just a handfull abilities with plenty of different effects accordingly to the state of the target, kind of the target and state of the caster. That applies to friend/foe, target HP, target CC status, target buffs/debuffs, range, caster buffs/debuffs (like one ability can be follow up of several others and have different effect with each of them), etc...

 

So you dont need piano playing and you still must invest a lot of practise in mastering the class. Thats how decent ability development looks like. Several keys and plenty, plenty of outcomes dependant of their timing, situation it is being used and follow-ups.

Edited March 15, 2012 by MuNieK

[Rynis]

I play a Vig Guardian and use a Razer Naga. I have 36 bound keys it's ridiculous. That being said...I LOVE IT!

 

I love having sooo many abilities to choose from and having to be on my toes to do my best. That being said, if I didn't have a Naga or if I was a clicker it is a crazy amount of abilities.

 

Apparently we are getting ANOTHER ability in 1.2 >.<...we will see!

 

Happy swtor everyone!

[laiboch]

I agree with the OP on this issue, and its not because I want a game with a 4 button rotation or anything like that.

 

My reasoning is that not all classes have the same difficulty of play.

 

A Merc does not need to use more than a few keys to not only play effectively, but out play other classes simply because their class is EZ mode compared to others. I am not downing the class there are several builds that require far more keys. Like 6 instead of 3.

 

They need to make all classes equal in play requirements. If one class requires 400 key binds to play the class than EVERY class should require 400 key binds to play, but each class has a huge gap in playability.

 

Many people simply use Keyboards that they can macro everything they want while other players are not using macro's at all.

 

Its far more reasonable to sit down and streamline every base build so that they require the same number of keys lets say 6-8 instead of having one class have 5 and another having 18.

 

The simple solution is to allow Macro's or "combo keys" (combo keys are where you have X number of slots you can put skills into like a macro, but built into the UI) You get the best of both worlds. Players that like having 500 key binds can keep them and players that are sick of spending all their time watching nothing but their hot bars can look up and say OMG there is a cool looking game here!

 

Anyone that tries to argue "the purity of the game" as their excuse as to why they shouldn't allow macro's miss the single most important part of the game, and that is to have fun. The vast majority of players are not having fun with the current system, and among other things that is costing a few more players every day. If having a healthy game with a good population means adding in macro's and streamlining classes I would rather have that than a few people that try and equate A.D.D play style to being fun.

[ArkthosaSWTOR]

For all the people who keep saying "Its okay just wait for Macros" Bioware said at the Guild Summit there will be no Combat Macros. Now on what the OP is saying the amount of abilities is fine. The hardest problem I have is sorting them out in a compforable way on my action bars but thats on me not the game and once the new UI layout comes out in 1.2 it'll make it easier for me to do so. I play a Juggernaut Vengeance and a Sith Assassin and have both bars at the bottom completely full with my defensive CDs on the right bar. Just got to learn whats usefull for your spec and whats not. Not every ability is intended to be used for every spec.

[MuNieK]

Not every ability is intended to be used for every spec.

 

Its funny, how people defending huge amount of unnecesarily scattered abilities agrees with what you wrote: that not all of them should be used and that only important ones should be used and binded on comfortable hotkeys...

 

SO they basically claims they are so good at the game that they dont have problems using all those huge amoutn of abilities and in same time saying they use only important ones...

 

Now im from the other hand trying to put in use all abilities i have cause there is always good occasion of using them - i know i have them, i am using them and thats what makes the gameplay uncomfortable for me: They are not consolidated and reaching them requires uncomfortable hand moves. Yet plenty of them insults me, patronise me and elevate themselfs above me as a player... Here is the irony of this situation... I see all the opportunities they are missing in battle and i see how uncomfortable it is to reach the abilities then, while they dont even see the opportunity and dont see what they are missing.

 

Low amount of hotkeys and big amounts of outcomes and combination is the way to go. Not unnecesary fingers struggle. We are not here to play pick-up sticks and show off of how agile and durable our fingers are, but to use our wit and reflexes against other players.

Edited March 15, 2012 by MuNieK

[aiwahead]

Actual musician reporting in. If I only had to deal with ~30 different keys (lol, not musical keys), I think music would be terribly boring. You have 101 keys, and about 30 of these are in easy reach of one hand, even with a small hand, with modifiers to bump that up to 90 or so. You can very easily keep your keystrokes to a minimum with use of modifiers.

 

"It's too hard," is not an excuse. Yes, it takes time and effort to get together your rotations, but muscle memory is a powerful thing and you wont be thinking about what you're doing within a week or two.

[MuNieK]

Actual musician reporting in. If I only had to deal with ~30 different keys (lol, not musical keys), I think music would be terribly boring. You have 101 keys, and about 30 of these are in easy reach of one hand, even with a small hand, with modifiers to bump that up to 90 or so. You can very easily keep your keystrokes to a minimum with use of modifiers.

 

"It's too hard," is not an excuse. Yes, it takes time and effort to get together your rotations, but muscle memory is a powerful thing and you wont be thinking about what you're doing within a week or two.

 

Someone didnt got the metaphor? It wasnt meant so literally to compare to actuall piano...

The fact that someone is actually counting the number of keys proofs it was good metaphor tho.

 

ANyway, as i said before, game where you struggle with controlls insetad of their outcome is poor game. I would first decide to spend my time playing piano over playing keyboard piano watching bars and hotbars. But im not musician and i dont like finger struggle. I prefer transfering my will easiest way to have challenging outcome. Not the other way around: having struggle with transfer to have easy outcome...

Edited March 15, 2012 by MuNieK

[kweassa]

For all the people who keep saying "Its okay just wait for Macros" Bioware said at the Guild Summit there will be no Combat Macros. Now on what the OP is saying the amount of abilities is fine. The hardest problem I have is sorting them out in a compforable way on my action bars but thats on me not the game and once the new UI layout comes out in 1.2 it'll make it easier for me to do so. I play a Juggernaut Vengeance and a Sith Assassin and have both bars at the bottom completely full with my defensive CDs on the right bar. Just got to learn whats usefull for your spec and whats not. Not every ability is intended to be used for every spec.

 

There's a very standard PvP key-binding scheme that handles at least 20 hotkeys without much of a trouble.

 

Open up both left, right keyslots, and open up two center key slots.

 

I usually sort them out so that upper center slot left side is ALT+1, 2, 3, 4, 5... the right side is SHIFT+1, 2, 3, 4, 5.... the lower center slot left side would be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5... and the right side would be CTRL + 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. That's 20 slots used within the reach of my left fingers.

 

Additionally, I use Q, E, R, F, C, X, Z as hotkeys for skills as well.

 

 

This way, the only problem is getting used to the variety of skills so that I don't get confused what to press.

[Nichoice]

I really like the abundance of abilities in SWTOR.

Depending on your build you can always ignore a few

but most of them are really useful.

But indeed for someone using a standard mouse and kb

it really must be like playing piano given the additional

bindings for stims,relics etc.

 

Well said. I love the flexibility of my class. E.G. I don't HAVE to open with a stun out of stealth. I can choose a jolt to interrupt and keep the low slash or spike for later.

 

But there are just too many skills that are soo similar and yet require too many hotkeys for me to play my class effectively.

 

This is the first game that has made me consider buying a Razer Nostromo or a Logitech G13

[Spetzel]

Stop insulting other people and stop trying to boost your virtual ego. If you like piano playing or your character dont need it good for you. Its not good for others. And you wont get hurt if they consolidate them in logical manner. Even in most simple game you can make outstanding things so dont be worried about no room for skill show-off. The only thing people like me want reduced is skill of keyboard piano-playing. Not skill of playing pvp efficiently and thats 2 difference things. If you dont understund it tell me where you have troubles with compehending and i will try to guide you.

 

So you want to nerf the ability of better players in PvP because they are better than you at actually doing what is intended or as you call it Piano playing?

 

I want Bioware to punch you in the face because its in my best interest... I doubt that will happen anytime soon.

[Stovokor]

tanks in pvp play in this manner in most MMO's. Battlefield control requires full utilization of the skillset. Roll a dps class if its tires your hand.

[Crazylor]

We want to play some pvp, not be musicians to piano play the keyboard... Consolidate the skills and let us focus on awaraness whats happenign around, teamwork and timing insetad of constant full time piano playing we are forced to do if we want to use all the abilities in pvp... Its just bad design Bioware... PvP should be about reflex and quick thinking, not player vs keybinds tetris or situation where you force people to be clickers due to not enough comfortable hotkeys...

 

For example jaggernaut immortal:

 

- taunt enemy attacking our ally

- shield ally being attacked

- intercede ally for more protection

- aoe taunt for reduced dmg to ally

- aoe slow to make pvp with enemy acceptable (slow on ability that is not in main-rotation is also huge mistake - in pvp slow is crucial and should be on all classes' main abilities)

 

and thats just to start using actuall combat abilities... wihch also are scattered around to many skills not neccesarily...

 

Whats the point?

 

Why cant we have charge and intercede merged into one ability that works two ways accordindgly to type of our target (ally/foe)?

Why cant we have smash have the effect of aoe slow?

Why cant we have execute lightsaber throw effect merged with normall lightsaber throw (when enemy under x% of HP it do additional dmg)?

Why cant we have our 3 survival defensive abilities merged into 2 abilities(one short cooldown and one longer)?

 

Why do we need so many unneccesary keybinds?! Im fed up with this cooldown-tetris, hotkey piano-playing and i wont be a clicker you want me to be - if thats not gonna change i will just go play games where skill is measured with what i wrote above: wit, reflex and combat awaraness.

Swtor is first mmorpg i had to bind so many often-used shift+hotkeys... and im using half of the keyboard already...

 

Learn to consolidate abilities effects to show some respect towards your player's comfort. And for Christ's sake start playing your own game so we wont have to notify you about such a gamebreaking, funbreaking, UNCOMFORTABLE issues.

Learn to utilise chance-on-hit and chance-on-receiving-dmg effects... Just give our keyboards and hands a relief, cause its NO-GO at least for me atm. Im not willing to spend my time doing pvp this way.

 

The point is to make player often use only those keys:

Q,E,R,T,F,X,C,V,~,1,2,3,4, mouse3, mouse4

 

those are comfortable hotkeys we can use all the time without piano-playing.

 

But its not enough to bind all those abilities you created as individual abilities.... Learn from games like Bloodline Champions where you had only handfull of keybinds and the PvP was intense and skill based like in no other 3rd person battleground/arena-like game. Playing that game your hand was on contstant dance of quick strokes yet it was comfortable. In swtor you have to move it around the keyboard all the time and stress it with all the modifier keys... unless you want to just abandon some abilities and never use them >.<

 

On top of that you still didnt thought its enough and you implemented relics with "on use" ability... thats 2 aditional things to use in combat... this is madness. Please admit you are making game for a clickers and keyboard+keyboardmouse (like naga) only! Thats why you dont want us to have macros to utilise all those abilities by using only keyboard binds? Seirously, its 21th century.

 

edit:

to save you reading trough whole thread im copiyign here what concluded from discussion with people defending so many uncomfortable binds:

 

I believe that skill in a game is:

agility of the mind and bit of reflex

They believe that skill in a game is:

agility of fingers and a bit of thinking

so we cant understund each other.

 

edit2:

Smart way of implementing need of mastering the class' abilities is implementing just a handfull abilities with plenty of different effects accordingly to the state of the target, kind of the target and state of the caster. That applies to friend/foe, target HP, target CC status, target buffs/debuffs, range, caster buffs/debuffs (like one ability can be follow up of several others and have different effect with each of them), etc...

 

So you dont need piano playing and you still must invest a lot of practise in mastering the class. Thats how decent ability development looks like. Several comfy keys and plenty, plenty of outcomes dependant of their timing and follow-ups strategies.

 

 

I value being able to dance around my keyboard and use every single skill with ease. Please do not listen to this man and dumb pvp down. Bioware you created an amazing learning curve for each skill introduction, if anyone can't keep up with that and implement it into their rotation they need... idk. JAYSUS

[Bnol]

I agree with the OP on this issue, and its not because I want a game with a 4 button rotation or anything like that.

 

My reasoning is that not all classes have the same difficulty of play.

 

A Merc does not need to use more than a few keys to not only play effectively, but out play other classes simply because their class is EZ mode compared to others. I am not downing the class there are several builds that require far more keys. Like 6 instead of 3.

 

They need to make all classes equal in play requirements. If one class requires 400 key binds to play the class than EVERY class should require 400 key binds to play, but each class has a huge gap in playability.

 

This is part of what makes classes unique. If you have a problem with a certain class because of X number of keybinds, then you can try a different class that might not have as many essential keybinds.

 

Classes have different skills they need to excel at, while a Merc might not have to use as many buttons, it also needs to be more aware of positioning and LOS, where as a Jugg has more mobility that positioning and LOS are not major concerns.

 

I currently have enough space to bind all essential combat skills (even the PVE only damage abilities) on both my operative and my PT, and have been fine with my lvl 30 Jugg and don't foresee any issue.

 

P.S. Don't forget to use the S key (plus modifiers) for additional bindings!

Edited March 15, 2012 by Bnol

[Sylriana]

They need to make all classes equal in play requirements. If one class requires 400 key binds to play the class than EVERY class should require 400 key binds to play, but each class has a huge gap in playability.

 

 

I'm sorry, but that's a horrible idea. No matter which way you go with such a design change you're going to upset part of your playerbase, and why do something like that?

[Vaipyr]

No thank you. I have always played tanks (and the occasional interesting healer) in mmo's and as such have always had to juggle rediculous keybinds (and macro's when supported) while paying attention to positioning and enemy activities. This is what I find enjoyable. My op healer (go fig. reminded me of my bear shaman from AoC slightly) 1-6, q, e r, t, f, g, c and shift variants for each along with ctrl q, e, r, f, c and I love it.

 

My PT is the same way practically. If anything I wish BW would give more classes this depth of ability usage/reliance, not less.

[Crazylor]

No thank you. I have always played tanks (and the occasional interesting healer) in mmo's and as such have always had to juggle rediculous keybinds (and macro's when supported) while paying attention to positioning and enemy activities. This is what I find enjoyable. My op healer (go fig. reminded me of my bear shaman from AoC slightly) 1-6, q, e r, t, f, g, c and shift variants for each along with ctrl q, e, r, f, c and I love it.

 

My PT is the same way practically. If anything I wish BW would give more classes this depth of ability usage/reliance, not less.

 

+1. The games dumb enough, don't make the mechanics easier too... sheesh

[Vaipyr]

+1. The games dumb enough, don't make the mechanics easier too... sheesh

 

Indeed. I wish they'd drop the gcd from changing "stances" on my vanguard tank (and PT's too) along with commando's in order to add stance dancing to the game. Used to be one of the things that really seperated good player from great players in WoW, WaR (I played a chosen, ) and AoC on certain classes was not only juggling the abilities but dancing in and out of the correct stance at any moment to maximize potential as well.

[Jahor]

BW allready said, they tolerate semi-macros.

 

So you are allowed to combine some actions (for example all your 15 sec cooldown abilitys).

It's no realy macro but more a "use one key for several keys". If you have a Razor, Logitech or any other keyboard where you can program the keys it's easy to do.

 

Just as example you could use "1" for AoE slow and "SHIFT+1" for AoE tount.

Now you attach both ("1" and "SHIFT+1") to the 1 KEY without breaks between. If you hit the 1 KEY it will spam both but as there is a global cooldown just one skill fires.

If AoE slow is on cooldown it fires the AoE tount. If AoE tount is on cooldown the AoE slow fires. If both are on cooldown nothing happens .

 

As Jedi Knight you have 4 high damage abilitys with 15 second cooldowns. Just bind them all to one key.

2, shift+2, alt+2, ctrl+2 and use the 2 key.

To activate them all you need to push the 2 key 4 times.

 

So it is NO macro (you need to press the button active) but a "group actions".

[lawsonn]

Threee different classes can be effectively played by spamming ONE button and you make a thread like this? lol

[UncleJimbo]

I like this game that it offers you a lot of abilities to chose from.

Most are situational and used rarely; also a good tip to binding:

 

- you can use Shift + key/moue buttons/mouse wheel. Keep in mind that Shift + T does not work while pressing another key like strafing key

- use Alt + key/moue buttons/mouse wheel

- use Ctrl + key/moue buttons/mouse wheel

[Tourne]

While I do not think the abilities themselves are the issue- it's the lack of appropriate keybinds beyond using a naga mouse or such.

 

I could squeeze in a few more "comfortable" hotkeys if I was at least able to bind them...but nope- CAPSLOCK for instance.

 

Also, just being able to combine two abilities to a keybind would be nice instead of macros...like a "primary" and a "secondary" if BW wants to avoid macro abuse.

 

That way it allows a little more room for any additional abilities in the future...as it stands- if anything else is added there is no way I'll be able to find a slot that doesn't border on absurd.

[lawsonn]

yeah i really need to be able to rebind caps lock