Gamepad & action bar (fatigued)

In the old battle content forums I brought up the issue of selecting skills from the action bar with a gamepad turns tedious after the first few fights.

I believe implementing an Auto Attack (AA) would help alleviate some of the unnecessary inputs for navigating the action bar. But thats not what this topic is about.
I want to turn the discussion away from AA since it quickly turns away from constructive feedback and into flamefest between supporters non-supporters.

I want to see this thread replied with ideas on how to better the UI (from a gamepad users standpoint) to reduce the amount of input needed to take actions during battle.

If you believe the UI is fine the way it currently is as a gamepad user, do not reply. this is for ideas on how to change. If you like an idea quote it and respond with your support or additional ideas. If you don't like a proposal, write your own w/o a response to the ones you dislike.

I myself feel that currently the action bar becomes increasingly tiresome to navigate during battle.

For example
If you're action bar looks like this:

1) basic attack 2) guard 3) TP move 4) TP move 5) Cure

your battle scenario might go like this:
1 1 2 3 1 1 3 4 1 1 5

your required input on a gamepad is this:
1 1 > 2 > 3 < < 1 1 > > 3 > 4 < < < 1 1 > > > > 5

25 user inputs for 11 actions taken.

I've read great ideas of setting the action bar into 3x3 square UI with your basic attack in the middle so 8 other skills are 1-2 inputs away

your UI might look like this:

TP move|Guard|TP move

AltAttack|Basic |AltAttack

Buff | Cure | Buff

If we can set the defaulted position to the middle when no direction is pressed and a user uses the Dpad to select attack each attack is basically 1 move away. Now the tricky thing is, is switching palettes to accommodate 30 (i guess this set up only allows 27) slots. Do the R2 L2 or L/R triggers currently used for macros become inputs to change palettes? My vote would be to remove the "Emote" function from the controller and use that for palettes changes. 3 presses would take you through all 27 slots and back to original.

P.S. the 3x3 grid UI idea credit goes to someone, other than myself. I just can't find the post to give credit where credit is due.

Radial system looks good few posts down.

I would propose an alternative where you don't select the abilities with the d-pad, but with the right analog stick. It would still control the camera by default, but when you hold your "action button" (left shoulder, or one of the triggers), you'd activate the skillbar, and the stick changes from camera control to ability selection.
There are a few possibilities from here:
- you could use the 8 directions of the stick without any modifications.
- you could use a system where moving it into one of the 4 cardinal directions activates a sub-set of the action bar.
Example: move the stick up, then left or right activates the upper half with 5 slots, move it down, then left or right activates the lower half with 5 slots, same with left and right, for a total of 20 skill slots.

Overall, I would also propose to rebalance the number of action points to reduce the number of active abilities slightly. A gamepad simply has limits to how many skills you can comfortably access, and the game design should reflect that.

This would have the side effect that people would be forced to be more selective in which abilities they slot, and would incentivise to actually specialize your abilities for a specific role.

I really like the idea of one-press actions, esp. holding a trigger and moving a stick to select, then releasing a trigger. Right now the action bar is the main reason I can't play with a controller. I just can't switch actions nearly as fast as when pressing number keys.

How about a rotary system like the one you see in PS3 games like dragon age, or spare parts and the like. Take a page out of the RPGs that were designed specifically for controllers. I think a seperate UI is REQUIRED between keyboard and controller, and I am suprised that SE hasen't thought about this yet.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Linnear

How about a rotary system like the one you see in PS3 games like dragon age, or spare parts and the like. Take a page out of the RPGs that were designed specifically for controllers. I think a seperate UI is REQUIRED between keyboard and controller, and I am suprised that SE hasen't thought about this yet.

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I support this. I'd like to see a radial menu similar to Neverwinter Nights 1 (the one released around 2002). Basically you press the and hold the attack button down(preferably a shoulder button so that both thumbs are left free) on your game pad. A 10-entry circular pinpinwheel pops up, and you can use your camera analog stick to move to the entry that's in the direction you press in. Once it's highlighted, let go of your attack button and it'll choose that attack and execute it. If it's a spell, it'll take you to the single/aoe selection as normal.

Something like this:

Quote:

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```````````1-Wand
``````0-Shell`````2-Cure1
``9-Poison```````````3-Cure2
``8-Drown```````````4-Sacrifice
``````7-Thunder``5-SiphonMP
```````````6-Aqua

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I hope that makes sense.

Funny thing is, Square was one of the first to use a radial menu system. Anyone remember Secret of Mana?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Naqaj

Funny thing is, Square was one of the first to use a radial menu system. Anyone remember Secret of Mana?

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Yes! That game was awesome!

Agreed on a radial menu.
Thing is, I don't think they will implement this since they are fixed on having the same UI on each platform.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Soukyuu

Agreed on a radial menu.
Thing is, I don't think they will implement this since they are fixed on having the same UI on each platform.

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There isn't any reason why the radial menu wouldn't work on both platforms, though?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dreamer

There isn't any reason why the radial menu wouldn't work on both platforms, though?

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....I guess that's true. Personally, a radial menu on keyboard and/or mouse just feels weird. I know it would work as well, probably, but i can't get use to that idea.

So.. let's just say I agree on a radial menu for gamepads? :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dreamer

I support this. I'd like to see a radial menu similar to Neverwinter Nights 1 (the one released around 2002). Basically you press the and hold the attack button down(preferably a shoulder button so that both thumbs are left free) on your game pad. A 10-entry circular pinpinwheel pops up, and you can use your camera analog stick to move to the entry that's in the direction you press in. Once it's highlighted, let go of your attack button and it'll choose that attack and execute it. If it's a spell, it'll take you to the single/aoe selection as normal.

Something like this:


I hope that makes sense.

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EXCELLENT. I actually thought of this before. would be a good improvement. Secret of mana anyone?

You can use a radial menu with a mouse pretty easily, and if you prefere using the keyboard, you can still map the ability slots to keys.

A good gamepad UI can be used with mouse/kb as well.

A radial menu system for gamepad and mouse does indeed sound like a great idea. It would make actions more compact yet highly accessible.

Perhaps such a method could be considered for other ingame menus as well.

It would certainly be unique in MMOland.

I get tiggles just thinking about seeing in-game.