How do ability keybindings work?
Sir
Member
Can somebody enlighten me on how the ability keybinds work?
There's 2 hero abilities an a Basic unit ability, which are straight forward. But then there's 4 Primary abilities, 2 Secondary abilities and 2 tertiary abilities. The Primary abilities, from what I've seen, are regular combat abilities. The secondary and tertiary ones are things like toggleable stances, like Purifier's Root, "special" stuff like Vespid Carrier's Unload, and mutually exclusive auras, like Windray's auras.
Now, what I'm not getting is, how do I know on which key will an ability end up? For instance, if I have Sabres and Zephyrs as the only Primary ability holders, Sabre's Sprint ends up on Primary ability 1, but Zephyr's Gust and Squall end up on Primary ability 3 and 4, respectivelly. So Primary ability 2 is empty.
Another example. If I have Purifier, Vespid Carrier and Windray, then Purifier's Root ends up on Tertiary ability 1, Vespid Carrier's Unload ends up on Secondary ability 2. Windray's first aura ends up on Tertiary ability 2, and the second aura on Secondary Ability 1. I think that's happening because in the "ability card" Tertiary abilities are shown before the secondary abilities. That is, Tertiary abilities are on the left of the Secondary abilities. Going from left to right on the lower row of the "ability card" you have Tertiary ability 1, then Tertiary ability 2, then Secondary Ability 1 and finally Secondary Ability 2.
If I pick the same units in a different order, some of the abilities end up on different places and keybinds, but not all of them.
What's happening here? I need to be able to predict where an ability ends up based on my "deck" order and composition in order to have the right keybindings. Help!
Comments
Thanks for the detailed feedback! This is an area we haven't had time to improve yet, but it's on our list to make this easy to discover and customize. E.g we could show you what the "default" hotkeys will be for your composition, and maybe even let you change them.
In the short term, the way the system works is that every unit has "preferred" hotkeys for its abilities. E.g, Sabre Sprint defaults to W. When you pick your units, the units on the left get to claim their preferred hotkeys first. If a hotkey isn't available, it will try to take a "nearby" hotkey (e.g, if E is used, it will try to take W , R, or T).
If you have the same units and the same deck order, the hotkeys chosen should be the same, so that's one way you can make sure the picks are stable in the short-term.
That makes sense, thank you.
Being able to customize the preferred hotkeys of each ability would be awesome.
Also, I think that unit order affecting both their production hotkey and their ability hotkeys makes it less flexible. That is, we should be able to say that Sabre is produced with Q (assuming Q is first production slot, I'm not using defaults) but Sprint is on E, while another unit is produced with D and its ability is on W.
Btw, have you seen my other feedback regarding hotkeys?
https://guardiansofatlas.xyz/forums/discussion/820/allow-more-granular-keybinds#latest
ah, thanks, will respond there too