Basic Binding and Bar Issues

There are many problems with the action bars in this game, let me begin in detail of the different problems they have.


A. Why cant we put macros on the main bar? What is the reasoning for this?

B. Why can we not bind Shift to keys? Shift is much more useful than Ctrl and Alt.

C. Why are keys 1-0 "Locked?" What's the point? Furthermore, why are any keys "locked?" Did it ever occur that some players would like to use these keys? Or at least the freedom to decide to? I would like to rebind keys on my main action bar.

D. Why cant we have more than one bar on the screen? It would be extremely useful to be able to bind say R F C Z Shift 1-6 etc. to multiple actions across seperate bars.

E. The current implementation of the macro system is just me binding another ability to that bar, like /ac "Moonrise" <t>. It is in no way me using a macro, it's just me binding an ability that i should be able to bind without having to hold alt or ctrl.

I'm kind of sad the actions bars are set up the way they are given how many abilities you are allowed you use at once, so please, open up more variety with the action bars and let us bind more keys at once.

The current implementation is NOT attractive and it is HIGHLY cumbersome. I find myself holding down Ctrl (when Shift would be just fine!) to use my skills more often then not, and my pinky is not very happy. Let's just say "Other" MMO's give much more freedom of actions and are very much more popular.

We would ALL like to be able to put more than one bar on the screen, and have COMPLETE freedom of key binding. It would make the game so much more fluent and easy to understand and play.

Thank you, in hopes you read my post.

Will have to wait and see what the "UI team" comes up with. But yeah, it would be nice to see them be like everyone else when it comes to mmorpgs!!!

And where are gone CTRL+I (items) CTRL+E (Equipment) and so on ?

Yeah, this would be nice to see.

Bump
10char

At this point I only have 3 macros I actually use in this game, compared to the 10-15 that I used consistently in WoW. Even then, I only use them for the /pcmd functions, because those are so annoying to type out.

And, yes, we should be able to use Shift. And Ctrl. And Alt. And Shift+Ctrl. And. . .

There's so much lacking in basic functionality as far as keybinding goes in this game. . .

Here's just one take on a system I believe would work for me. Apologies if the same suggestion has been made before.

Firstly, I think the selection of currently equipped actions needs to be decoupled from the setting of assignment to Action Bars. I would like this to be done through some kind of profile, that allowed different configurations to be selected from.

This would be an entirely new page, although the left hand column would be somewhat similar to the current right hand column when defining your equipped abilities at present.

Here is a very rough mockup of an interface.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images...nprofiles.png/

So the idea is that you make selections from the left and then add them to the current profile which is shown on the right. Once an ability is in your current profile it can be used regardless of whether or not it's in the action bar.

Next comes the action bar. The action bar settings would be linked to profile (not to current class), so when you first define a new profile it would be empty, but once you populate it you would get the same action bar settings whenever you set that profile. The action bar page would operate in similar way as currently, except obviously there would be no need to select from the class drop down when browsing for abilities, and the list on the right would only include things in your current profile. There would also be some new area where you can drag any of your defined macros onto the action bar (and possibly edit macros directly from the page. But I'd like macros to come from a global "pool", so a single macro can be used across multiple profiles).

The first row of the action bar would be accessible by pressing the buttons 0-9, as presently. The second row would be alt+number, and the 3rd ctrl+number.

Pro:

Easier to define multiple "builds" for different activities for any particular job.
Easier when selecting what should be equipped on action bar.
Able to assign macros to the "default" number keys.

Con:

Reduction in number of abilities that can be quickly access (this could be countered by adding "pages" when setting the action bar, with the up/down keys now changing the page).
More I haven't thought of.

I'd like to add it would be much easier if we could drag and drop in the attributes section and on the action bar itself. The bar should have a button to click on to lock and unlock (standard in many MMOs, hint hint) so that once unlocked the abilites can be moved around on the bar. When setting up attributes and abilities, being able to drag and drop not just from the list but among the bars themselves would make things much less cumbersome (a word I'm sure you've seen a lot lately, Square). I also agree that multiple bars on the screen would be lovely, and the ability to put items on the bars such as potions and food. Yes, adding macros to the main bar would be great.

We absolutely need to be able to toggle visibility of as many action bars as we want, and to be able to rebind action bar keys to non-1 through 0 keys with the ability to use modifiers if desired.

Ideally I would have all 3 action bars onscreen, scaled to about 60-75% of their current size without modifying the size of other onscreen elements, with actions bound to Q, E, R, F, Z, X, C, V, 1-6, and Shift and Ctrl modifiers.