The new quick slot bar

[Blaze1961]

When TABING between toolbars 1&2 it would be nice to have an option to change the QWER slot bar change as well.

I appreciate the developers wanting to be unique in the combat style and gameplay. I would also offer the developers to visit games such as WOW and LOTRO to see how they have implemented to use of quickslots/Tool Bars.

[priorGuesstimator]

Man, you really think that developers did not play any games before starting to make their own? Your first suggestion is completely reasonable and might be implemented soon. Your second, though, is just ridiculous.
For example. I did not play LOTRO, but I clearly remember that piano keyboard in WOW. What feature from it you want to see in Crea? Specify it, and we should discuss it.

[Blaze1961]

Since you asked....Do I think Devs have never played any other games? No of course not. Do I know for sure they have ever played WOW or LOTRO? No of course not. Nor do you, unless you are a developer of Crea or personally involved. WOW and LOTRO have a tried and true combat system that works for millions of users. So therefore in my mind, suggesting they play those games is far from ridiculous.

From the majority of comments I have read on this forum and from my own experience there seems to be an issue with the combat system and controls. Therefore giving any feedback to the Devs of an EA game is what EA is all about. Some may seem ridiclous, others may not. But in my 53 years on this earth I learned even the simplest and most ridiculous comments are sometimes the most over looked. I'll leave it up to the Devs of this wonderful game to decide how they make use of my suggestions.

[Blaze1961]

Originally posted by Follower:

For example. I did not play LOTRO, but I clearly remember that piano keyboard in WOW. What feature from it you want to see in Crea? Specify it, and we should discuss it.

Thank you for adding to your post it would have saved me a lot of explaining. lol but let me play around with the combat system some more when I am in better frame of mind and we'll discuss the issue.

[Jasson]

Hello! I played both WOW and LOTRO during their beta stages which were both years ago. I must admit that I don't recall how their toolbar and quickbar work. Perhaps you could explain how it works or point me to a page that does so.

I think a great deal of the issues players had with combat was from channeling which is now gone. There's also balancing that we'll be working on.

As for your suggestion on having the quickbar have a second set of actions. Did you mean that it would change when you press tab to change your toolbar or have an equivalent? I'll play around with the idea but one of the main points of the quickbar is to make using the skills on it stateless.

Thanks for the feedback!

[Blaze1961]

First of all I would like to say I am in no way trying to promote any other video game. I am just using them as an example of how they implimented their combat system and action bars.

Here is a basic example of WOW's action Bar and a few options they use.
https://youtu.be/AQX21Xzt2HM

Here is another example of WOW Action Bars.
https://youtu.be/q_yIdkui2Uc

Here is LOTRO's action bars and a few options
https://youtu.be/mMIvK3Z7Hsk

There are quite a few videos on WOW and LOTRO combat on you tube. LOTRO and WOW have extremly simular action bars and combat systems. The LOTRO video also shows an example of COMBAT NUMBERS which was discussed in another posting.

Basically during combat you select a MOB then appy an action via the action bar. As in the video you have the option to turn on or off as many action bars as you need for combat, crafting, building or resource gathering. Plus options for what you want to be displayed during combat.

It is very difficult for me to explain things, There is no substitute for actually trying it out. I do know LOTRO is F2P. I know you must be very busy but give it an hour to see how it plays and it may give you some more ideas for the feel of their combat/action bar system.

[Blaze1961]

I rather liked the channeling, Different MOBS having weaknesses to varying elements was fun. it was just the issue of being able to use it in an effective way which made it difficult.

Having an option for a dynamic multi slot action bar that changes depending on what channeling ability you select and being able to use the skills with one click or press of a HOT KEYED slot as in the examples above I think would make gameplay much more exciting.

[priorGuesstimator]

The main difference between MMORPG and 2D sandbox survival is that in former you want your skills to be used just as you press key on the keyboard, and in latter you want to select items in your hotbar and apply them with clicks of your mouse. Just imagine that to build house you need to press "3" 400 times and "4" 200 times, where as now you just click mouse buttons. Battle is important part of gameplay, but not exclusive. Another thing is that Crea (as all other sandboxes) have non-target battle system, so you can't and don't need to select mobs. What makes Crea unique is that it has dedicated skills, while in all other like Minecraft, Terraria, Starbound, Edge of Space etc. you have just only items. Now we have workaround solution - two hotbars. For sure it can get some improvements, but it's not wise to just copy random stuff from completely different games.

[Jasson]

Originally posted by Blaze1961:

I rather liked the channeling, Different MOBS having weaknesses to varying elements was fun. it was just the issue of being able to use it in an effective way which made it difficult.

Having an option for a dynamic multi slot action bar that changes depending on what channeling ability you select and being able to use the skills with one click or press of a HOT KEYED slot as in the examples above I think would make gameplay much more exciting.

I really love the concept of channeling too and wish that we could have kept it. The challenge with channeling is that it made your actions have a state. Meaning that, depending on the situation, you may need to change that state in order to perform skills. In a turn-based game this would be great; however, Crea is an action game and we found that the majority of players (including ourselves) typically avoided the majority of skills since they were so much work. Perhaps in a future game we'll try channeling once more.

We will keep working on the interface until it is solid but I think that the quickbar is a major improvement. Time will tell! Feedback is of course more than welcomed.

[priorGuesstimator]

So, I told my brain (not literally ofc.) "There is a problem with battle interface". And brain was like "Man, I love this kind of stuff" and generated a whole lot of ideas (including exact image of me posting them). So I'll just dump them here.
1. Buffs. They are a real nuisance to cast.
1.1 So we should have new hotbar, ranging F1-F8 (F12?) on the very top. As you unlock buffs via Syle talents, you can bind them there and cast them instantly.
1.2 Buffs should be unaligned with any elements. Also no forms, just plain skills.
1.3 We should have party interface or much bigger hitbox on players (only for that matter, combat hitbox still small), so we can reliably support other players. And maybe even have dedicated healers, that with new "2 talents per char" stuff.
1.4 Maybe make buffs like weaker, but with a much longer duration. Or not, so dedicated healers will be more useful. Single/multiplayer changes this?
2. Channeling. It was a great idea.
2.1 So I want it back. Bind healing aer to Q, elemental to E-Y. So it will be easy to choose. Of course, remapping in settings.
2.2 No physical aers. They were completely useless. I even did not managed to use base form that gave crit properly.
2.3 Have like a hunting log. So if you hit monster with some element like 20(?) times, there will be some arrow, upward or downward, colored to element (or maybe arrow with some + and - on it?), showing resistance compared to baseline.
3. Now things get interesting. Battle mode (stance?)
3.1 Bind to Z. Activated by hotkey and (or? settings?) getting hit x times. Sneath weapon animation. Very, very short, like 10 frames. You say like "I want to build wall to keep mobs away". Well, we do have skill for this now.
3.2 One hotbar for each weapon slot. Hit F, get another one. Both are completely different from peaceful hotbar (which have a lot of mud in it, obviously). Only skills usable with current weapon are highlighted.
3.3 Two modes. Switch by CAPS LOCK(?) Physical mode - after using skill, get back to slot that was selected. So like you press 3, use skill and get back to 1 automatically. Magical mode - select slot and stay there. Wands default to magical, weapons to physical.
3.4 Small lock near hotbar. Default locked. When locked, you can only bind skills to LMB, RMB is reserved to offhand weapon slot. If there's shield, all the better. When unlock, hotbar becomes double (it's always double in peaceful mode) and you can bind stuff to RMB too.
3.4.1 A lot of people like to dual wield, mostly because of stats bonuses. Maybe better dual strike animations? Maybe make spears and bows 2H and buff them, and swords 1H and nerf them? Maybe dedicated slot for shield and bind shielding to left shift? Also shield slot changes with F too.
3.4.1.1 So if you have many shields instead of duals, you want them to have AGI, INT or ATK. Maybe make CC interface accept remnas (like 5 total)? And stats improvements get weighted (but not completely) depending on remnas used? So like if you put 5 fire there, there's greater chance of getting ATK. And if like 3 light, 2 water, then good chance for MND and some for INT.

Looks like I forgot something, but ok for now.

[Blaze1961]

Nice job follower, I wish I had your talent of projecting your thoughts in writing. :) I concur with all your points

[Jasson]

You may be surprised to hear but I've been thinking about this topic since it was posted. I'm constantly thinking of ways to improve Crea in every aspect and that definitely includes the game's interface; both the visual and physical (controls).

I appreciate all of the thought you put into that post Follower and it gave me a good deal to think about. Particularly, how I'd like player's to connect with the game as well as how players expect to connect to the game.

While at Minecon I was very attentive to how new players picked up the game and experienced it the first time. While I did see many people quickly pick up the mostly familiar controls with ease, I also saw a lot of confusion and key miss presses. I've gotten this exact same feedback here on the forums and in reviews. This and years of observing and playing Crea has lead me to a few conclusions about how I’d like player's to interface with Crea.

I took the time today to redesign the interface; however, I feel it is important to explain some of my reasoning before getting into the details.

There have been several pressure points in Crea’s interface that have time and time again got people caught up on things. Such as how to collect, how to interact with the backwall, and how to get back the Use Tool and/or Use Weapon skills. So I decided the pivotal question to ask for any design decision is “Does this make the interface simpler or more complex?”

Something I learned through nearly a year of trying to make Channeling work is that inputs need to be stateless while in combat. It is unreasonable and often impossible for players to press a series of 3+ key presses in order to perform a skill in an action game. If Crea was a turn base game then Channeling would then be great.

With all of that being said, here’s what I came up with Aaron earlier today. Oh, and this is just an idea and needs to be prototyped and tested before we actually make it official. ;)

The interface would be split up into two modes: passive and aggressive. Passive mode is about building and exploring. Anything unrelated to combat falls into the passive mode. As you’d expect, aggressive mode is centered around fighting and is only really useful while engaged in combat. Switching between these two modes is a single button press that is instantaneous.

Aggressive mode is the simpler of the two since it only contains combat related things.

• Equipped weapons are always available with either mouse button clicks or LT/RT.
  
• There is no traditional toolbar only a quickbar (1-4 or dpad).
  
• Pressing Tab/(B) will change both your weapons.
  
• Changing your weapons also changes your quickbar. So you essentially have two loadouts.
  
• Characters can jump, dodge roll, grapple and have access to a single quick item while in this mode.

Passive mode contains a bit more complexity; however, it is still a much simpler interface than the current incarnation.

• The toolbar will be trimmed down to a 1-5 x2 (removing 6-0)
  
• “Use Tool” and “Collect” will be replaced with a single “interact” which is always on 1
  
• Interact will dig if you hover over a block, chop if you hover over a tree, “interact” if you hover over an NPC and so on.
  
• Weapons and combat skills are not available in this mode.
  
• Characters can also jump, dodge roll, and grapple while in this mode.

I'm a little uncertain that the mode switching will work; however, it does simplify a lot of things so that added complexity may be worth it.

Again, this is all still in a concept stage and will likely change or may not even happen. I’m sharing this with you now to let you know I am thinking about it and to also get some initial feedback/thoughts. This is of course open to everyone! :D

[menghao]

Originally posted by Jasson:

The interface would be split up into two modes: passive and aggressive. Passive mode is about building and exploring. Anything unrelated to combat falls into the passive mode.

I like the idea. The best part is that it divides the different areas of the game that require different types of control.

From what I've gathered, some of the difficulties in the UI boil down to basic design principles in the game. Dividing the combat and building portions of the game to a different set of controls could solve it, but the combat and building portions of the game are somewhat entangled. You build everywhere you go and you fight monsters in your home, there are no divisions between areas that would be strictly for building and for fighting. If the combat mode UI needs to be switched on to hit any level 1 slime trying to visit the house it needs to be the single most smoothest transition in the game.

If you consider the 1-9 bar as the building UI and the Q, W, E, R quickslots as the combat UI then the idea is already in the game. It could be fine as it is with a little tweaking. The biggest issue I have with it are that the skill durations and cooldowns make just about everything painful to use. The combat skills found in the Arms talent might aswell not exist in the game for how much I care about them. They have two major problems: They take a quickslot for convenient use. Their cooldowns are so long that I won't accept using a _quickslot_ on something I'm spending so much time waiting to use again. Something like a slowslot would be appropriate! :)

The buffs suffer from a short duration. If they had longer durations, like say 15-30 minutes each, I could bind them to some far-away corner of the secondary toolbar. Since they have so abysmal durations I basically have two choices. Either have them on a quickslot or not use them at all. I tend to favor the second choice since it's less annoying. The long casting times for the buffs is such a penalty when reapplying them every couple minutes, often in the middle of combat.

I understand the concern that the buffs may be overpowered, but this way they go mostly unused even if they were.

A summary of suggestions for enhancing the current UI:

1. More quickslot keys Q-P + Function keys. Alternate quickslots (SHIFT+key etc.), secondary quickslot row. Tertiary quickslot row. Alternate secondary and tertiary quickslots. Another set of alternate quickslots with ALT+key. More quickslots, always more.
2. Make the buffs last longer, nerf later. This saves quickslots for more important things (remember to add more quickslots).

[Maligner]

I tend to press "W" a lot when trying to move towards the top of the map. I'm not sure if that's just ingrained in me, but I am adjusting to the control scheme. I'm getting used to it. Still only about 6 hours of play-time up to the point of this post so not much experience to go off of. That's about the only issue I've had with the current scheme.

I guess I'm saying that as I get used to it, I like the current set-up. Reading your new setup sounds cool too though so I'm curious to hear more about how testing goes.