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gillrmn
Member Posts: 7,800 Arc User
Before we start on opinions, some facts:-
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It is a well known fact that humans have a short term memory of 7+/- 2. Hence the number of buttons which they can simultaneously keep in mind to take an action would be 5 to 9.(This has been backed by numerous classic experiments in human behavior)
At a time, NW will have 2 at-wills, 3 encounter powers and one shift power. Thus you should be able to keep all the moves in your head while fighting and this makes it more action oriented.
Dailies are separate as you have to fill the the yellow dice and you get notified when to use it. So it does not interfere with your normal hotbar.
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Even after knowing this, would you prefer more powers than you can remember at a given time (like 10-12) or would they be sufficient?
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It is a well known fact that humans have a short term memory of 7+/- 2. Hence the number of buttons which they can simultaneously keep in mind to take an action would be 5 to 9.(This has been backed by numerous classic experiments in human behavior)
At a time, NW will have 2 at-wills, 3 encounter powers and one shift power. Thus you should be able to keep all the moves in your head while fighting and this makes it more action oriented.
Dailies are separate as you have to fill the the yellow dice and you get notified when to use it. So it does not interfere with your normal hotbar.
~~~~~~~~
Even after knowing this, would you prefer more powers than you can remember at a given time (like 10-12) or would they be sufficient?
Post edited by gillrmn on
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E.g. if we have powers ABCDEFGHIJKLM on hotbars, I would fight one undead with ABCDE in mind then get bored and fight with DEFGH and so on. Otherwise combat will become a bit boring and repetitive.
Anyway, a 20th level character, in 4e, has 2 (or 3 if it's human or has other options) at wills, 4 encounter powers, 4 dailies and 4 utilities (5, actually, but i'll discount PP utility power). Not counting item powers, i think that 2+4+4+4=14 may be a good number for endgame. Especially since we get "only" 5 classes.
St. Augustinus
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I second that sentiment. I am looking forward to a minimalist hotbar experience. I can't wait to try it out, at the very least!
Also, while you are accurate about humans having short term memory this is only in the short term. Anything which is done with any repitition or translated into a long term technique results in far better results. Example.
While the claim the average person can only remember 5-9 things in the short term is accurate this subject can be exploited by putting a long term memory within a short term memory. For example I could memorize that Elmer Fudd is equivalent to the number 724, Don Knots is 406 and George Washington is 001. Therefore I can remember 724406001 by simply remembering Elmer Fudd, Don Knots and George Washington.
The mind is a horrible thing to waste. Like any computer there are exploits and loopholes. Learn them and exploit them if you can
While it's impossible to judge the combat until we have tried it but limited combat is one of my major concerns for the game and that it could turn out to be a simplistic combat to the point of mind-numbing.
I think I would be happiest with anything that falls between the two ;-) Knowing though that we are likely to start off with even less in this game does not actually bother me. I am willing to wait to play it to see how it goes.
But with some tricks (pattern based) we can easily remember many more.
I'd love to see at least one optional auxiliary bar of up to 10 items.
I like having random buttons to click on and a variety of abilities... as long as they can keep it from taking 13 hotbars.
I can comfortably toggle 13 hotbars, but I'd really rather not. Four should be more than enough. One bar should handle almost all if not all the abilities I use regularly (of course with the option to change them out and around at various places).
I'd rather play a game that affords me customization in other areas than clutter my screen with clunky interface.
While a slightly separate discussion, I think part of this comes from the "builds" approach they are taking. Rather than making classes flexible the builds allow them to focus classes, so every power a class gets is meaningful and potentially tactical. Now I want more builds mind you, but I think the fact that powers don't lose meaning is in part because each class build is a "role".
Well DDO's toolbars was by far mostly gear inventory and clickies unless your a caster. All my non-caster toon's abilities wouldn't even fill up one toolbar.
I was a multi-class mainly caster. I did play other classes but seemed to have no less than 8 bars after the gear anyway.
Maybe this game is going to be a lot more different from NWN than i thought ... customization used to mean builds, not just appearance. I liked the generic way of NWN, and i did spend most of my time designing and testing my own builds/setups. This included appearance and stuff, also hotbars. But ok lets see what we get, i am getting impatient 7p
We've known from a long time that this wasn't going to be a new Neverwinter Nights game. While I like the pnp D&D feel of being able to do nearly anything I want with my character class of NWN games. I can appreciate what I believe it is that Cryptic is doing with Neverwinter and it actually fits the 4e rules pretty well as 4e seems to be a little tighter on making classes fit into a role. This approach may not be everyone's cup of tea, but if they offer enough variety in classes there should be plenty of room to grow.
That would give you some flexibility while keeping the skills hotbar lean and clean.
if this is 4e, then i cant wait for dnd++ hoping that the whole system is generic enough to be adapted later on. we saw quite a bit of change in CO while i played there and i am positive Cryppy arent going to shy away from major changes, once the new edition of dnd comes out.
i think we will see a resussitation of some 3.5 techniques, a broader ability tree and better multiclassing. and a review of the cd/resource HAMSTER.
It's definitely not perfect but it is a balance between the camp of people who want less and those who want more hotbar slots. The responsiveness can always be tweaked with coding. One thing I will say as far as my opinion over twitch game play. Although this is meant to be an action take and the game plays almost like a third person shooter I really hope it doesn't turn into a run and gun third person shooter otherwise I'm going to be disappointed. I don't want the gameplay to be twitchy where I need to go train my fast twitch muscle fibres just to play this game. It just wouldn't feel right. There has to be an element of strategy in the combat also for my enjoyment. Quick pace combat is fine but twitchy combat with constant rapid button presses ... I hope not.
Curious which you think is more twitchy, GW or D?
So only skills that you would want to time properly (dps etc) should be hot bar stuff.