Nightfall Skill Menu Needs Redesigning

No matter how you design something, someone is going to be unhappy. I imagine a great deal of thought was put into the new skill menu for Nightfall, but I feel that it needs to go back to the drawing board.

I use a custom interface, with my skills in a 4x2 configuration (fairly common in custom interfaces) down in the corner, rather than the 8x1 default; my skill activation keys are 1-4 for the top row and qwer for the bottom row. The new menu now forces me to arrange my skills using the 8x1 layout, which is very disorienting for me because of how I use skills with this setup. Attempting to drag skills around in my skill bar brings up this big, clunky menu, giving me no choice in the matter. To make matters worse, the new menu (which you can't even use to activate your skills from) won't even let you rearrange your skills while out in explorable areas.

The default size of the new menu is way too wide. It's visually difficult to tell which attribute I'm adjusting because there's too much space between the attribute names and their values/arrows. Of course you can make the skill menu narrower, but it forces the skill bar you use for arranging skills to get smaller as well.

Please consider redesigning the new skill interface. A default menu size shouldn't have usability issues, nor should a menu make it a pain to use for users with customized interfaces.

i do believe they have added the ability to make presets...perhaps you should look into that. i personally havnt ever had a problem with the new one. maybe you should just slow down a little bit =] no hurry when your in a city.

If your talking about the skill choice menu to change you skills which they altered for Nightfall, I agree that it could be improved. But because I am on percaset right now, I really can't comment :P

You never could.

While we’re on the topic of how the skill bar needs redesigning, I guess I’ll finally voice my small complaint.

I too use a 4x2 skill bar, and yah, the new skill/attribute menu is a bit weird to use when trying to organize a 8x1 skill bar into a 4x2. Certainly arranging a 8x1 to a 4x2 isn’t difficult and tbh I don’t mind doing so since I’m often not in any particular rush to change my skill bar, it’s just again a bit weird.

My complaint with the skill bar design has been with the skill tool tips. I’m sure someone else has suggested a toggle for viewing the skill tool tips, but I’ll go ahead and re-suggest that here.

In the January 26, 2006 update it said:
Now I know I’m being picky with words when I say they should have added at the end “for the default skill bar,” but I’m quoting it because I understand that a quick fix was attempted to be made, and that it apparently worked for most people. But for people like me...

(please note that for both bars, random skills have been placed)
My older custom UI:


My more current one:


When I’m playing it’s often hard to see when a skill has finished recharging or if an adrenaline skill has been filled. In the case for my older custom UI, I had trouble even seeing my health and energy. I tend to like to hover over a skill I’m about to use, as well as try to see what else I may be able to use after I use the skill I was hovering over. The newer custom UI I use is definitely better at seeing the skills, but it would still be nice not to have the tool tip there. When I’m in battle, I don’t have much time to read the skill tool tips anyways.

Yes there is the possibility to use hotkey, and I do enjoy using hotkeys (that’s all I ever used in games like Diablo 2), but I haven’t been able to figure out the best hotkey customization for me yet. There are just too many options I’d like to have under the reachable keys of my left hand, and no option to combo keys like shift+something.

This want for a toggle for the skill tool tips is just a want and not a need. So if it came down to fixing a tiny bug for a quest in Nightfall, or working on toggling skill tool tips, I’d say fix the bug without a second thought. I’m just simply voicing a small inconvenience I’ve had for awhile, not demanding for a change in anyway.

That, I agree with, I want to be able to turn off tooltips - I know what my skills are.

I love the new skillbar, I love every new thing that comes in to GW, I have nothing to complain on so far. (Besides the silly stylist idea) but otherwise everything is just fine. Anet does alot for us as it is.

This isnt about customizing the skillbar, it's about the new skill menu introduced in Nightfall which uses the old 8x1 skillbar.
If you read the thread more carefully you will understand what we talk about.
I want to assign skills to my 4x2 skillbar and not the old 8x1 skillbar

I am at work so I cant make it clearer than that as I have to go...