Get rid of weapon swap

DevlinMonroe

I'm not entirely sure; I may be alone in my thinking, but I really dislike weapon swap (I love the game; just hate this feature). I know some people likely enjoy the idea of having 2 weapons at their disposal (like a dual wield / bow assassin comes to mind), but I personally think this choice by zenimax limits builds/customization, rather than enhances it.

Anyway, the biggest reason I have heard for the introduction of weapon swap is to make it "console friendly" but I dont see why that would make weapon swap necessary.

You have 5 abilities and 1 ultimate. 6 buttons. For a controller (using PS4 as an example) that would obviously be x, square, circle, triangle, R1, and R2. Then weapon swap would be L1, and quick slot would be L2.

Soooo, why cant we just have a 12 slot ability bar? you get 1 weapon (no swapping) and call it a day. Abilities 1 - 6 would be the same, and then 7 - 12 would just be "hold L1 plus x or whatever....

I think this would fundamentally be a better system. You could then have far more options (specialize in 1h+s? - have ALL of the 1h+s skills on your bar + another 6 slots to spare!!!)

As it stands now, whether you "specialize" (have bow in both weapon slots) or not (2 different weapons), you end up, depending on your build, wasting a ton of slots. Want to be a sorcerer with pets? Thats 4 slots (2 on each bar). Want mage light active at all times? Thats 2 more slots....Things like would no longer occur.

My last suggestion would be ultimates. It's a separate resource anyway, so letting us have more than 1 (or 0) on our 12-slot bar wouldnt change anything. Have 6 ultimates on your bar if you so desire (pointless; but possible). Dont care about ultimates? Have 0 ultimates on your bar and just run 12 "normal" abilities. You'd be "wasting" a resource as you'd have ultimate points just sitting there (much like going all magicka or all stamina) but thats your choice.

The only flaw i suppose is the inability to have two "builds" going at the same time (ex....be a destro staff DPS and then insta swapping to resto for heals). But I think the loss of that is a good thing. It would (in my mind) encourage deeper specialization on your "role" and perhaps encourage more grouping. And even though you are "limited" to one weapon type, because you wouldnt have wasted slots, your build would be more customizable, not less.

One of the best parts of ESO is the ability to design a build that suits you. You can be anything you want and all that. I like this idea, and am not trying to take that away, but I think the no weapon swap / bigger bar thing encourages deeper more thought out builds and designs.

Lastly, though I'm sure this will be fixed in time regardless so I wont harp on it, this change would rid the world of the annoying "delay" in weapon swap.

Anyways, this was way longer than intended, and perhaps the weapon swap thing is too deeply engrained at this point, but I thought I'd throw out my idea for your thoughts.

Drazhar14

Bigger ability bar? Maybe. Only allowed to use one weapon? No! I see where you are coming from, but I enjoy being able to swap between two weapons depending on the situation. Someone can still be specialized with two weapons.

UPrime

Adding any active slots would totally change the balance of the game drastically. They'd also have to change the abilities a lot more so that they play off one another. And maybe add some CD's. If I wanted to play a game like that, I'd play one of the many other games that do that.

No thank you.

technohic

No. ESO has 99 problems but the hotbar and weapon swap system is not one.

Soliss

Sure! Convince Zenimax to stop forcing us into console mode for a PC game and see what happens.

andre.roques.3b14_ESO

Although there may be merit to your idea, I think you are suggesting a complete rewrite of the game ability and combat mechanism. I just don't see it flawed enough to warrant something completely different.

SFBryan18

No. Learn to play with a controller before guessing where the buttons should be.

Muletide

I dislike the swap lag/unresponsiveness, but I like having a second bar with a different weapon. Some boss fights don't require face tanking so having that Resto Staff on bar 2 helps a lot in those cases.

jrgray93

I appreciate the thought out points, but I do not like the idea. I really enjoy having to weigh my choices and be able to swap roles in an instant. I like it the way it is. Had it been different from the start, perhaps my opinion would have been different.

Artemiisia

its like they are multiplying these threads today

I rather they nerfed threads that aint serious

jrgray93

Artemiisia wrote: »

its like they are multiplying these threads today

I rather they nerfed threads that aint serious

Or replies that aren't. It's clear that the OP is being serious, but whether or not you agree with the proposal is your own business.

UrQuan

I like weapon swap, because I generally like my characters to have a range and a melee option. I also don't mind the limited ability bar (it's very rare that I feel like I need another ability on there, except for purely leveling purposes), but I wouldn't be opposed to increasing it either.

snowmanflvb14_ESO

simple question why? As it stands now if you want to use 1 weapon and have 10 skills and 2 ultimates you can. If you want to use 2 weapons, 2 ultimates and some combination of the 10 skills you can. So why change?

Sighlynce

I really like the swap ability - on one side rest healing staff and all healing abilities, the other all damage options . Like it like it is.

Azzuria

Hrmmm... lemme think...



No.


The weapon swap is a nice touch, as is the limited hotbar. Adding more buttons would change the tactical nature of combat into something more WoW-clone-ish and Mama no like.

Caroloces

I think weapon swap deepens the strategy element of the game, which is a good thing. I have an alt NB that does dual wield and bow (pretty typical). It's fun to do long-range bow work, and then when the mobs get up close and personal, swap to dual wield (I'm fortunate in that I don't have the problem with weapon swap delays; it's always been pretty fluid). My main is a templar in which I do a resto staff for heals and two-handed for melee. He would be toast if all he could do was heal (resto), and healing would be lost if it was just 2-handed.
I appreciate the thoughtful post, but I'd vote no on this one.

GnatB

Wrong solution to fixing the design flaw that summons currently need to be on both bars. Better solution would be to simply make it so they don't need to be.

The regen I cast when using my healing staff doesn't stop ticking when I switch to my destro staff. Why should my pet stop attacking/tanking when I switch to my destro staff? And heck. in the first case the regen isn't even possible to cast using that destro staff.

cronius77b14_ESO

i fall into the group i like the weapon swap ability but also would like to see 1 or 2 more ability slots on your hotbar because some builds require way to much swapping to play them effectively which is why you see a lot of players just doing the standard spam 1 or 2 skills over and over in combat. A good example of this is play a dual wield sorc running a reaver build or a battle healer templar in pvp. You are forced to spam 1 or 2 buttons on each build , it gets boring and old fast.

Evergnar

I like the idea of weapon swap. The problem is it's just not reliable or fast enough. I've pretty much given up on it ever working properly. Would be in favor of the devs trying something different.

NorthernFury

SFBryan18 wrote: »

No. Learn to play with a controller before guessing where the buttons should be.

Controllers belong on a console, not a PC. L2mouse and KB instead.

Exarch

snowmanflvb14_ESO wrote: »

simple question why? As it stands now if you want to use 1 weapon and have 10 skills and 2 ultimates you can.

Well, you can't really; in order to use the same weapon type in both bars you need two weapons of the same type, you can't use the same one. If you're using any toggle abilities they need to be on both bars, effectively taking up two slots. I don't advocate for the OP's suggestion, necessarily, but I see where s/he's coming from; I'm starting to feel like I spend almost as much time juggling skills between bars as I do my inventory.

Orchish

No i like my weapon swap. I am a melee DK, my second bar is both range and support. I would be bored crazy if i didn't have a second bar for range during siege battles.

I do however hate how unreliable weapon swap can be.

NorthernFury

Orchish wrote: »

No i like my weapon swap. I am a melee DK, my second bar is both range and support. I would be bored crazy if i didn't have a second bar for range during siege battles.

I do however hate how unreliable weapon swap can be.

Agree.....the only issue I have with the weapon swapping is the unresponsiveness/wrong skills being activated when you swap out in combat.

RSram

I would like to have all of the abilities on the hot bar persistence when swapping; for example, some abilities like "Encase" stay active while switching weapons, while others like "Daedric Summoning" don't.

Except for the expert players who have really practiced using only one ability per slot, the majority of players that I chatted with do waste at least one or two slots due to duplication because these abilities are not persistence across weapon swaps.

I would even like to have ALL of the ultimates persistent across weapon swaps and also be able to toggle all of them off or on.

And, as other have previously posted, the lag is still there when trying to weapon swap during an intense battle.

Another option would be to show all ten bars, but use the SHIFT-Number keys to access the upper five abilities, or allow any key to be bind to function as a SHIFT key.

Of course, doing what I proposed would be a big game changer in how many players approach a fight.

Just my two cents.

Xeres14

I'm going to agree with the OP. People say they like that you really have to think and choose your abilities carefully. Well then let's keep going down that road.

andre.roques.3b14_ESO

Exarch wrote: »

Well, you can't really; in order to use the same weapon type in both bars you need two weapons of the same type, you can't use the same one.

This has always bothered me. I should be able to swap skill bars without having to have duplicate weapon/shields. I would have thought that one weapon + ~-key would just swap out the bar. Oh well, maybe one day.

MorHawk

Hahaha. Can you imagine the rage from two-handers and bow users if they did? Oops, now your weapon has to actually stand up on it's own. Ooooh wait, it can't.

That's too precious.

Ardeni

The only thing that's wrong with the weapon swap is the delay. While it no longer seems to have small delay all the time, it now has a huge delay every now and then. You can just smash the button and it says "cannot swap weapons now" and this can last seconds. Very annoying in Cyrodiil, but luckily it doesn't happen more than once or twice every few hours.

Thralgaf

Artemiisia wrote: »

its like they are multiplying these threads today

I rather they nerfed threads that aint serious

While I completely disagree with the OP's suggestion, I find your reply ridiculous. It's not a serious thought because you disagree? Silliness.

DevlinMonroe

Based on the "lol" badge I just received I assume not too many support the idea. Since I'm on my phone now I will skip quoting but to respond to a few things:

Why someone asked. Because of duplication of skills many people lose out on a number of slots. This would eliminate that.

To the "skills standing up on their own lol" comment. That's a balance issue which is separate. And they wouldn't have to stand on their own anyway because you have more slots. So pick 4 bow skills and 6 class skills (or whatever).

To the "want to switch to range dk". Well than specialize in a range weapon and or put range abilities on your bar (I know those are few and far between with dk though)

And to the "have toggles/passives stick through weapon swap" that would be problematic as then most people would have their "main bar" and then just a bar full of toggles and/or skills that add an effect just because they are slotted (across numerous weapons)


I know it will never happen anyway. But with the 5 per bar I just feel very limited but not in a good way. People say they like choices but this current system seems to stifle that. There are some "must haves" for most classes taking up a slot or 2. Add in some toggle abilities that you put on both bars and you are left with very little play room. So little in fact that the weapons themselves often get ignored because of weapon passives being almost more important than weapon skills.

Anyway; I guess most don't agree which is cool. Was just something I was thinking about.

MorHawk

DevlinMonroe wrote: »

To the "skills standing up on their own lol" comment. That's a balance issue which is separate. And they wouldn't have to stand on their own anyway because you have more slots. So pick 4 bow skills and 6 class skills (or whatever).

Indeed. I should probably mention that comment wasn't directed at you, rather at certain persons who feel that it's okay for certain weapons to be missing certain vital skills. It just made me laugh at how much of a crapstorm would come down if this idea was implemented, because of that balance issue.