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

[Miravlix]

I have exactly 43 keybinds on my bm marauder and I feel perfectly fine.

I'm not even using the naga mouse.

 

Just using QERTFWXCV , 12345 mouse 3,4,5 , wheel up, wheel down, ensure you 19 keybinds

 

Now you can simply use the same with shift, alt or ctrl to double or triple this and you will have more than enough binds.

 

Sure it takes a bit time to get used to it, but eh, that why leveling is for right ?

 

I dunno what game your playing, but using shift, alt, ctrl messes things up in the one I'm playing.

 

I can't push mouse button four becuase shift + mouse button 4 is different than mouse button 4 and yes there is plenty of cases where I do one thing with my keyboard and another things with mouse buttons where the two actions would conflict if it's two buttons on the keyboard.

 

At the moment I use 1-6, q-y, a-h and z-b, my hand isn't big enough for 6 and y though, I can't reach them without moving my hand. With space and tab thats around 25 keys, but I have double that number of abilities and features I want to use.

 

Relics, healing pots, stims, Tab Target, Nearest Enemy, Center Target, Target of Target, Jump, Strafe, forward movement since we have mouse ground targeted abilities where I still want to be moving while I drop them on the ground.

 

Using shift/ctrl/alt is fine for Mount up, cast my buff or other OUT OF COMBAT things, but the only way for things to work in combat when using mouse and keyboard at the same time, is by everything on keyboard being one key.

 

20 years of MMO's and this is the first time I've run out of keys and every freaking day I'm trying to find the holy grail to make room for things, but when you run out of slots on your hot bars, before you run out of abilities and start to have to scroll through the abilities menu to cast some stuff things is beyond insane.

 

It's fine that some of you only play part of the game (PvP) where you don't need half the abilities since they don't work on players, but some of us play both PvE and PvP and I can't redo my bars every time I enter a WZ to redo them when I leave. Would be impossible to train anyway even if I could change bars on the fly.

[Lord_Karsk]

Most people i know agree with you OP.

You can tell they just made alot of skills with no real iq behind it for each class.

The system is really bad in so many ways.On my g13 i have hotkey almost every button u can reach + using alt to hotkey the same keys twice.That is just bad game design.

But this is biowares first MMO and you can tell they are a little clueless when it comes to creating good fluid gameply.Btw the most patetic skills i think are those pve skills that only work on stunned etc npc enemies under 30% health etc.Like most players i never use them.

[Redmarx]

"Piano playing" is not difficult.

 

Most good PVPers will bind what is close to WASD or ESDF, and then add shift/ctrl/alt modifiers to get to 36 hotkeys, which is enough for every class (and overkill on some).

[Mallegant]

there is way too many jedi sentinel abilities

 

 

 

Nice!!! Someone said it... lol

 

Not only this there are about 3 skills that are totally useless in PVP and hardly benefit you in PVE... Opposing Strike and Pommel are two.. Dont remember the name of the third one. And the best skills are on 3 min cooldowns ***? lmao

 

 

I agree I spend more time looking at the skill bar and cooldowns than I do my team, enemy, and other important tactical features i should be watching instead.

[Drilberg]

having so many abilities means you have to chose what you cast. if you have a slow on your main ability then it means you dont wanna chose when to slow him , you want him to be slowed 24/7 even if hes in range and not running. that means you wanna dumb down the game. DO NOT compare swtor or wow to BLC , i have played BLC on high ratings to , its deff a fun game even tho you only have 6 main abilities. However, those abilities are not everything put together no , you have for example , small fireball- big multiple hitting fireballs - an escape ability - a "cc" ability - and an ultimate ability which is either defensive or offensive depending on your class. BLC DOES NOT have a main ability with a healing reduction with a slow with everything combined either. its a completely diffrent playstyle and that game is all about hitting your skills because you can DODGE anything. the reason SWTOR would be boring if it had 6 abilities is because there is no actual skill in "hitting" the target compared to BLC.

learn to keybind and use modifiers if needed. if you can't do this go play a shooter.

 

edit: and to the players calling this a "bioware fail" , wow has even more keybinds required. its been a succesfull game for 7 years. stop crying.

Edited March 15, 2012 by Drilberg

[kuan]

Wow!!!!This thread earned for sure a place in the hall of fame for the most stupid threads ever!I know I will prolly get a lot of aggro now but I don't care some things must be said !This thread is for the bad gamer type , since this game lacks of special cd's it's good that it has a lot of DMg skills otherwise it would be extremely boring .And for u guys out there complaining about playing piano ,I know u kind of players u species was discovered with the born of the macros u !Most of u want a 1 macro pwn system ,press 1button and make 30things !For those guys complaining about having 43 skills on keybind , I mean *** !!!U know that u dont have to bind ur resting skill or fleet pass !!!!!!

Btw don't miss understand me I like the ideas of macros but everything in health proportions!

[OGsam]

I'm blessed with two opposable thumbs, go me!

[Luochaz]

Or they could simply introduce macros so people can design their own hot keys.

 

yes, rift style macros would benefit this game alot.. atm i have both bottom bars filed with moves i use often and half of the right bar filled.. this is too much

 

let us have macros

[mamosh]

i've only got 3 abilities in my rotation......

tracer missile

rail shot

unload

 

L2optimize noobs, there aren't too many abilities in the game there aren't enough decent ones.

 

and what do you do when you get targetet just stand there and spam your 3 abilities?

or do you use your two knockbacks, shield, stun, vent heat?

 

 

ohhh and you dont use trinkets? and you dont use aoe i take it no DfA? do you use your break free ability?

 

there i gave you another 9 keybinds

Edited March 15, 2012 by mamosh

[RenegadeSLX]

War/Knights need macros. Melee without macros is just dumb. No arguing.

 

Please do though. I love reading the musings of fools.

Edited March 15, 2012 by RenegadeSLX

[Crazylor]

Macros suck! What's the point of playing if you hit everything in one button, I can't believe anyone like watching numbers that much.

[Redmarx]

War/Knights need macros. Melee without macros is just dumb. No arguing.

 

Please do though. I love reading the musings of fools.

 

You need macros? That pretty much means you're either playing with mittens on or are a clicker. 36 hotkeys is enough for my marauder.

[Apphael]

I completely disagree...

 

I took a 2 year break from mmos before i started swtor and had to get used to keybinds again. It was a bit hard in the beginning, but by now im doing very good again.

 

I dont understand what the problem is. I mean, all the keybinds i have are easely reachable, i know exactly what skills are bound where and have no need to look at my quickbars for anything less then cd on relic + adrenals. Im very sorry if u have to look at ur quickslots to determin what to press to use it, i do not, and so i can keep my eyes on the battlefield and play properly. Maybe u should learn instead of trying to make things easier.

 

Lots of skills, as minor as their individual effects might be, make the gameplay interesting as it allowes u to use them EXACTLY when u need them, not in conjunction with another skill that applies an effect u dont want. It gives more depth, more playstyle differences etc. Why anybody would want to dumb this down is beyond me.

 

Im using:

 

1,2,3,4,5,6

alt 1,2,3,4,5,6

q,e,r,f,g,s,x,c,v

alt q,e,r,f,c,v

right mouse button

 

and i can reach ALL of them and know what ALL of them do.

 

I dont want to be rude, but this does sound like L2p issue for me.

[BrutalPain]

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".

 

 

Can you link a source for it pls? I missed this thats but if its legal i start using it, i could make some macros like use endure pain and rakata medpack in the same time.

[wtfnonamefree]

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 beg to differ. You seem to be overwhelmed by the many binds. Solution - get a more suited gaming peripheral (e.g. naga, nostromo, etc) or find a better working modifier system for yourself or switch from wasd to tfgh or something.

 

Just because you can't handle it, doesn't mean the system itself is flawed. Others manage - why is it the game's and not your fault, if you can't? Your above claim on game design is your opinion, nothing more. Some might agree and many don't.

 

Having fewer ability only makes it easier for your manual skills - this does not automatically make the mind game more complex, as you put it there. Quite the opposite actually.

 

I like the plethora of binds and the 'piano playing' very much (I've got 46 of my 48 slots bound to a key - I only click fleetpass and quick travel).

 

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 >.<

 

BLC was far from a quick dance actually. It was more like constantly pressing certain buttons due to the different activation method of the game (that game broke 3 deathadders in a row...). Yes, it had few binds and was still complex and skillbased - but that was possible by the additional elements of player collision and ofc every ability being a skillshot. I'd be curious what your grade and charname was - given the small community, we probably know each other (g21, fru5c14nt3, 5h3ld0r, et. al.)^^

Edited March 15, 2012 by wtfnonamefree

[Cowflab]

I use a naga mouse and use 1-5 and the ~ key(comfortable reach for my non mouse hand), shift 1-4, control 1-4, f1-f4 and seem to manage fine on my assassin. Edited March 15, 2012 by Cowflab

[namelless]

Good thing i have piano hands. They're long, slender; flexible, beautiful; seriously they're pretty great.

 

Anyway there aren't that many abilities, i have everything keybound from 1-7, letters and a lot of shift. The shift key is awesome.

Edited March 15, 2012 by namelless

[Scotland]

i have no problem using the 40+ buttons i have to use.

[BrutalPain]

Just wondering what are u guys bind to 40+buttons? I just counted all the marauder abilities(you always say that marauders use the most keys) and its 36 so with biochem stuffs and relics its 40. And i counted every usable abilities, and ofc you shouldnt keybind many of them. I counted channel hatre, buffs, every form, every ability what you get from 31/31/31 talent.

[Emmerick]

Being new to mmos it was hard at first. but then I learned to use most of those 30keybinds in different situations as most of them aren't part of my every rotation so it's no big deal.

[QuinteX]

You cry about too many abilities to use? well,

.

[angryca]

Or they could simply introduce macros so people can design their own hot keys.

 

It wouldn't suck.

[Scotland]

It wouldn't suck.

 

It would.

 

Pressing buttons is hard.

[AetherMcLoud]

EDSF for moving around.

 

QAYXCVBGTWRZH12345 for abilities. The same keys + shift and/or + ctrl. More than enough comfortable keybinds.

[angryca]

It would.

 

Pressing buttons is hard.

 

I am doing fine.

 

It wouldn't suck if people who found the amount of abilities trying had some way of better managing them outside of dropping 80$ on a naga.

 

Pressing buttons would still occur.