Enhancement Request: Ability to 'move' skills in bar during battle

I understand the need to _not_ allow users to alter skills during adventures/quests/missions, but I'd love to be able to hit the skills menu and still be able to "drag & drop" skills to different positions in the skill bar.

I've noticed people have a specific 'pattern' to how they layout skills in they're bar. For me, I start with offensive and work my way to defensive from left to right.

Sometimes I'll swap out an offensive, for defensive spell and head out on a quest or a guild member will enter the mission. As I'm going along I instinctively click on my defensive spell because its the 2nd one in the skill list moving left to right. Causing me to cast the wrong spell over and over. "OOps, I forgot to re-order my skills before we left town, can we go back for a second...?"

A few guild members have done this a few times with they're fighters too (casting "I'll avenge you!" rather then they're bleeding spells). But once your out in battle you can't alter the order.

It would be great if you could

CodeMonkey

Um... I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to say. If you mean that you should be able to swap the orders of the skills already on your bar, then there's nothing wrong with that and I think it's a good idea. If you mean being able to bring up the skills menu and change skills back and forth between them then well... yeah. Just checkin-

Not swap _out_ spells, just reorder. but since you can't really "drag&drop" when your not on the skills dialog box (because you'd "cast" the spell) I figured that dialog would have to be open to enable you to move them around.

Again, definately NOT switch them out with other spells, just move 'em around.

I.e.

[Poison Arrow ] [ Heal Other ] [ Hunters Shot ] [ Heal Area ]

reorder to:

[ Heal Area ] [ Heal Other ] [ Hunters Shot ] [ Poison Arrow ]


CodeMonkey

Sometimes I go offensive to defensive, sometimes I organize by attribute, when I will use it in battle, etc. (Although I always have the rezz skill in slot 8). And sometimes, if I hastily swap out skills in town because my psycho group is rushing to the EA, I don't always have time to put the skills in the best order for me.

I would like to see the ability to change the order of skills during a battle, especially if once I get into a skimirish I always think a spell is in a different slot

i have a big problem with being unable to reorder skills in battle
so many times i use the wrong skill because its not in the slot i wanted it to be in
so i think being able to reorder them is a good idea

another idea i think would work
would be to let us have lets say 3 different skill bars that we can switch between in town
so you can go and set up 3 different sets of skills, and just change to the set you need before you leave town
that way you wont have to worry about having them in wrong order, because they are already in the right one

now of course that wont help out everyone, some people dont really have different sets of skills that they use
but for those like me, it would help alot

My idea was to be slightly easier on the developers (as I myself am a software developer). Your template slot idea is great, but mine probably would take an hour to implement, yours would require more rework and still would require my suggestion in order to remove the issue completely Good concept idea though!

CodeMonkey

I would like this too. I would think simply having "keep mouse button in for 2+ seconds to start a drag" would not be too difficult? For example, to cast you click and release, but to move/swop it you keep the mouse button in and drag it to the other slot, and it will swop around etc]. How hard can it be?

Limited uses, but it should definately implimented due to no negative cosequences.

I fully agree.

/sign

You should be allowed to reorder the skills on your bar, outside of town, but only while you have your Skill Window up and you are out of combat. Why? Because that would prevent you from dragging when you don't want to drag.

i mean they can make it so you can't salvage when you have recently fought they can do the same with this

yep, I'm sure that would be a workable situation as well.

CodeMonkey

Hmm, if they use this I want a mesmer skill that randomly scrambles your skills

That's a great idea, quite a few times I've found myself wanting to rework the order of my skills because I put one in a wrong place, but I was so far from an outpost or town that I couldn't without disrupting what I was doing. I also like the idea of having to have your skill menu open and be out of battle, it would certainly prevent accidental movement of skills during battle--but I think it would be easier (for players) to only have to be out of battle; I find it a bit of a hassle to make sure I'm running in the right direction when I have a menu in the middle of my screen. Still, good idea, I think ANet should definitely implement it.