Playing Soulbeast at Beta weekend i’m find him very entertaining, but i’m find myself strugling to get used to new keys in Beastmode.
- Just look at attached picture and you understand what i mean.
I think here some design issues in keybinding in transition between core Ranger and Soulbeast.
One of first questions puzzled me first was:
- Why our core Ranger F2 beast ability became F3 beast ability in Beastmode?
And i think here lies some serious game and human player mechanic issues, not just ordinary “you just need time to get used to new keys”.
Let’s take a look at our core Ranger F1 F2 and F3 abilityes:
- F1 and F3 is command pet abilityes, their our main control tools to our core class mechanic – Attack and Passive Pet moves.
- Good Rangers know how valuable that skills, they give us everything to make sure that we save pet from AoE, attack, reagro, don’t attack targets which we don’t want to attack, switch targets and etc.
- They have 0 cd and we push them very often, to ensure that our pet is listen to us, we get used to it.
- If we try to classify them, they our Minor skills – important and used heavely, but don’t have great impact at it self.
- Because they have “on/off” switch nature, usually people keybind them very close to each other.
- On opposite, our F2 beast skill is used very rarely, because of some CD on this skill and because of his tactical usage.
- This is our Major skill, we use it rarely and it can give great impact, like with traits or just some skill itself (Smoke Assault for smoke filed or Bristleback burst)
- Sometimes we even keep it, because our pet just not in range to use it.
- So we have F1 and F3 Minor Skills and F2 Major skill.
- Minor Major Minor order.
And things suddenly became odd in swithching to Beastmode:
- F1 dosn’t changes at all – most of “Pet F3” skills is additional attack with low CD, so transitioning from default Core Ranger F1 Pet attack to Soulbeast F1 attack dosn’t give us reason to struggle.
Here things starts feels wierd:
- F2 our Rarely used Core Ranger skill, all time as we play ranger we don’t use it so often, but now it became our Second “Pet F4” Soulbeast spammable skill with reasonable CD like 15-20 seconds.
- Our Core Ranger F3, which can be used very rarely, became very important Soubeast F3 Beast skill.
- I find it hard for myself mentaly switch to cituation where Button controlling our Pet Passive state became important Clutch Skill.
And here lies strugling to control and remebering it everytime switching in and out of Beastmode.
- Order became Minor, Minor, Major, from Minor, Major, Minor.
- And even Pet Portrait switch sides to opposite.
For example Druid’s Celestial Avatar not bring that problems, because he just change whole weapon bar to even simular skills.
Autoattack became “heal autoattack”, skils 2-5 feels just like another weapon.
- But in transition from Core Ranger Gameplay, where F1 and F3 used heavy and F2 used rarely we switch to Soulbeast Gameplay, where all skills important, but F2 became F3.
- “F1/F3” core Ranger Keybind, which used with “on/off” mindset, in Soulbeastmode became separate skills “F1 And F3”, where F3 more important than F1.
And because of this i can’t solve my keybinding problem:
- My Core Ranger F1/F3 keybind setup lies on my Mouse Button 4 and Mouse Button 5, right under my right hand thumb.
I’m used to change my pet direction on and off in one click.
- My Core Ranger Beastskill F2 is MiddleMouseButton, because usually it have 20-30 second CD and that perfect spot for me.
- If i’m change to Beastmode, my MouseButton4 F1 became one more attack skill, that’s ok, but my close to it MouseButton5 F3 became important F3 beast skill!
- But i’m already have important Core Ranger Beastskill F2 on my MiddleMouseButton!
- And my MiddleMouseButton F2 Beast Skill became Spammable F2 skill in Soulbeast mode.
- Look at picture below again.
I can’t rebind it as i used to it, because switching to Beastmode keep F1-F5 skills at their positions.
Maximum that i can do for myself is just add Alt+click everything to second bind column, to recreate order to which i get used, but i just dosn’t like remembering to press even more buttons again.
- I know, because of limited Beta time i don’t adapt quickly, but i still think here is some design flaws.
If that changes be made, things become very easy to remember.
- Our Pet f2 is out Soulbeast f2
- Our Pet f1 attack is our Soulbeast f1 attack type skill
- Our Pet f3 passive can be attack or save skill (Like bears Defy Pain F4 pet skill if Soulbeast F2 skill) in Soulbeast mode.
- Pet portrait stays at same position, where our eyes used to see him.
