suggestion for skill tabs

[dollarbill]

I pay both engineer and commando and I've noticed all my skills cannot fit on the 2 sets of skill buttons. Maybe you guys can add another set or make it 5 skills in a set. I just think it would help out game play a little bit. Thanks sts for all your hard work. Keep it up guys.... And possibly gals.

[bronislav84]

For some reason they neither wanna expand how many skills show up, nor make them all show up. As more skills are added this will be more and more of a problemm.

[Kraze]

On the + it could lead to some varity in builds

[Liathea]

I do miss the PL layout for skills. A lot. The SL layout has forced me to choose four skills to concentrate on. In the heat of battle, I do not want to be switching back and forth between the two sets. The way the SL layout is wrapped around the auto attack button looks good, but looks aren't everything.

Honestly, this is my only major complaint about SL, now that they've done away with the crazy walls in Numa.

[Kalielle]

I was about to make a thread about this but I see there is one already.

The 4 skills only layout is the one thing that really bugs me. I end up spending a lot of time in combat pressing that little triangle that's both small and easy to miss, when there would be tons of room on the iPad to have all the skills visible. I end up using that button more often than any other skill, which is terribly annoying. Pressing the skills is a fun part of combat; pressing a triangle to keep changing the interface layout isn't fun and shouldn't be a regular part of combat.

I can only imagine the idea was to make the game more thinky and less clicky, but doing so by making the interface annoying isn't fun. It doesn't make me think about the game, it makes me think about how to use the intefrace. "Where did I put that skill? Am I on the first page of skills or the second? Is the skill I want to use on cooldown? I can't tell because it's on the other page, so I guess I'll switch over just to check and then switch back. Where's that little button - oh be careful not to miss it." By the time I'm done with figuring out where I put the buff button, I'm already dead. Plus, "where did I put that button" really shouldn't be something I ever have to think about while playing a game. It takes me out of the fun of combat and into worrying about the interface.

The skills are already different enough that I think about which to use, and mana is expensive enough that I don't spam them all the time. Plus there are both global and individual cooldowns. There really isn't any need to make the interface hard to use in order to make us thoughtful. My WoW bar layout has about 30 skills on it all visible at the same time but you can be sure I'm thoughtful about which ones to use.

[McBain]

I do miss the PL layout for skills. A lot. The SL layout has forced me to choose four skills to concentrate on. In the heat of battle, I do not want to be switching back and forth between the two sets. The way the SL layout is wrapped around the auto attack button looks good, but looks aren't everything.

+1. Switching skill screens is kinda a pain in the nards in the heat of the moment. Plus, ultimately you only have 8 skills available to you at any one time, as opposed to 10 in PL. I guess the good side of it is that it forces you to think more about which skills you really use and how you use them, but personally I'd prefer the PL type layout. At the very least, keep it at 8 assignable skills, but make it an option that all skills can appear on the screen at the same time like in PL, where you can tap a button to make the skills menu shrink and expand if you so choose.

[bronislav84]

I made a thread about this BTW and it had like zero support. I don't get people.

Those who are interested, search my posts.

[Kalielle]

I made a thread about this BTW and it had like zero support. I don't get people.

I looked at it, and actually a lot of people seemed to be having trouble with missing the skill switch button or finding it inconvenient to use.

Anyway, many of us haven't had a chance to look at the game until a few days ago (if I may remind all you lucky Android users ;)), and then it took a few days to get used to the interface and see what was really a problem and what was just different.

[Dracula]

+1 To changing the skill arrangement.

I don't think this is just a matter of people needing to get used to an new interface. The way it is leads to many problems. Not only is the little arrow inconveniently close to the skills, but there is no visual differentiation between the two pages. In the heat of battle, constantly switching between skill sets, there's a very good chance of confusing skills with similar icons when flipping between pages.

[thequickone]

I know this will make me a bit unpopular, but I rather like the SL skill tab setup. It has forced me to focus more on the skills I would like to develop, which I would have done anyway. At the current time, with only 10 skills available, I see no huge problem with leaving out the skills I will not use. In fact, I have even seen skill loadouts that only utilize 6 of the available 8 slots. Thinking back to PL and its "skill wall", there were skills I just did not end up wanting to load into the available slots. That may have changed as I levelled up and was forced to assign points to skills I did not plan to use.

I am running the game on an HTC Evo 4G. While the screen is large for a phone, it is nowhere near as large as tablet devices. Despite this, I have very little to no problem with the function of the skill switching button. However, that does not mean there is no room for improvement. What about keeping the button, but also adding swipe-gesture support to the skill button bank itself? Then, you could either press and release a skill button to activate the skill, or press, swipe, and release a skill button to switch between the two skill banks. If implemented well, it could solve the problems some users are having with the skill bank switching button.

Also, I do not see the harm in adding a third skill bank. For those that plan to develop a very specific set of skills, one or two banks would suffice. For those that would like access to all of their skills, the third tab would be an option. Just don't complain about switching and getting mixed up if STS decides to give us another bank! ;)

[Archyx]

+1.

I think the button layout is terrible, A change on this front would be really appreciated!

Its not practical to have to priorotize which skills you deem as more important as all the skills together make your class what it is.

You have a perfect working skill layout on PL which i personally think is much more user friendly, Adding additional tabs only adds the the lack of user friendliness.

My 2 cents.

[SssoulSsshine]

I pay both engineer and commando and I've noticed all my skills cannot fit on the 2 sets of skill buttons. Maybe you guys can add another set or make it 5 skills in a set. I just think it would help out game play a little bit. Thanks sts for all your hard work. Keep it up guys.... And possibly gals.

I don't particularly think the whole setup is going to change dramatically, but I think having 5 instead of 4 available at one time would be a HUGE boost in usability. Maybe even 6 might be possible. I like having some skills duplicated on both pages. e.g., "HEAL MAGE!!!!" :-)

[Hullukko]

+2

I can live with the lay out and constant switching between the "tabs", for now anyway that so many of the engineer skills are worthless, but there's no denying that it's absolutely terrible and a massive step back from PL. In all honesty, the only supporting argument for it that I can come up with is that the 12 skill layout might have been smallish for the smallest of devices. But again, do everybody have to suffer for the sake of the smallest devices. Make it optional or something?

Oh, there is another "supporting" argument. Currently it slightly hides the gcd, which in PL skill layout is rather prominent. It also makes us slower in skill spamming, which was a known source of server lag and a reason for the gcd to begin with, as I understood it. So, that's, well, eh, ... better not gonna get into that now. :)

Just fix it, please, put more skill visible.

[Kraze]

I like the fact there is less screen smashing in sl. I wouldn't object to moving this system to pl. The only issue I've had is that the page switch button could be a tad higher sometimes I switch pages instead of using skill 4 or 8