Using third party software to chord additional keys/buttons
So I've been experimenting with keybindings since buying a new macro keyboard and MMO mouse and I have discovered some very interesting things.
Firstly, I remember investigating to determine whether ZOS had implemented hotkey modifiers, which some parties refer to as "chording," and being disappointed that I couldn't use CTRL, SHIFT, or ALT as modifier keys. This was sometime around November, when I first started playing ESO. However, after having installed the software for my new mouse and keyboard last week and subsequently reinspecting the hotkey settings, I discovered to my joy that chording had been implemented in all three keys at some point.
For those who are unaware, hotkey chording refers to the practice of allowing certain keys to function, while pressed, as modifiers of other keystrokes, to produce geometrically greater numbers of possible keybindings. It is called "chording" because of how it resembles a musical instrument's ability to produce different tones when various keys/struts/valves are used in combination with each other. You could think of it in terms of layers, where a modifier key will activate an alternate layer of hotkeys, and using two modifier keys together will produce a third layer, and so on, basically multiplying the number of assignable keys on your keyboard by however many modifier keys you have available (in the case of ESO, you could theoretically create over 500 hotkey assignments by using SHIFT, CONTROL, and ALT in various combinations with other keys, if you were using a standard 104-key Windows-based keyboard).
So, for example, in the context of ESO, I could assign the F1 key to open the World Map, while CTRL+F1 could open the Friends Menu. SHIFT+F1 could be assigned to the Crown Store, and CTRL+SHIFT+F1 for the Help Menu (you wouldn't want to use the ALT key in this example because ALT+F4 is not conducive to gameplay). You could map pretty much every menu in the game to just four keys, with modifier keys allowing for a kind of "super-positioning" to occur.
This is important for the reason that it reduces the need for your keyboard hand to leave the area where your movement keys are located, reduces the time needed to activate various game functions, and can eliminate erroneous keystrokes from having to move your keyboard hand to press keys on foreign areas of the keyboard. Some of these reasons are only critical in specific domains of gameplay, such as high-level, competitive PVP (which is why you might hear some pro-gamers touting the advantages of using MMO mice--they never have to move their fingers away from the movement keys during combat, even while casting abilities), but generally speaking, the convenience of having all of your hotkey assignments in one area within a finger's reach of your movement keys is an advantage to everyone in a game like ESO with so many character abilities and UI menus needing to be used on a regular basis.
So, I've been trying to come up with an optimal layout in the last few days, which, even with the newfound use of the additional modifier keys, is quite a brain buster. I've been reading a lot of older threads around the web, on this forum and others, written by people complaining about how difficult it is to find a layout that is intuitive, efficient and not overly convoluted, and I have to agree; it is near impossible. I'll struggle away for hours finding a good arrangement for combat actions and abilities, only to realize that I've neglected Roll Dodge or Interrupt, or the Ultimate Ability. Or I will discover yet another add-on that has some ingenious function incorporated into it (AUI now allows players the ability to assign hotkeys to summon the banker, merchant, and fence assistants), and will be forced to go back to the drawing boards all over again.
Yesterday I stumbled across a program called X-Mouse, which allows the user to apply chording to any of the basic mouse buttons. So in this case, I can have the RMB act as the ALT key at the same time that it is also the RMB, and I can assign the BACKSLASH key to the L-ALT key using my keyboard's software, so that the L-ALT key becomes BACKSLASH, which is then assigned to Weapon Swap, leaving the ALT key modifier function to my RMB, which also functions as Block. Basically what I've done, is I've turned my L-ALT key into BACKSLASH, mapped that to Weapon Swap, and applied the chording function of L-ALT to my RMB, so that the RMB becomes the modifier key instead of the physical L-ALT key on the keyboard, while also preserving the ability to use the RMB to right-click on UI elements to trigger drop-down menus.
Now, of course, the question is whether or not this is against the TOS? I feel like this might actually be in a kind of grey area, since if you think about it, the SHIFT key already acts as both Sprint and a modifier key, and you can also map character actions to CTRL or ALT so that they are both hotkey modifiers and the trigger for Crouch or Activate Synergy, etc...
Thoughts and opinions? Would love to hear from someone from ZOS on this.
Edited by Rillawenria on May 12, 2018 10:50PM Firstly, I remember investigating to determine whether ZOS had implemented hotkey modifiers, which some parties refer to as "chording," and being disappointed that I couldn't use CTRL, SHIFT, or ALT as modifier keys. This was sometime around November, when I first started playing ESO. However, after having installed the software for my new mouse and keyboard last week and subsequently reinspecting the hotkey settings, I discovered to my joy that chording had been implemented in all three keys at some point.
For those who are unaware, hotkey chording refers to the practice of allowing certain keys to function, while pressed, as modifiers of other keystrokes, to produce geometrically greater numbers of possible keybindings. It is called "chording" because of how it resembles a musical instrument's ability to produce different tones when various keys/struts/valves are used in combination with each other. You could think of it in terms of layers, where a modifier key will activate an alternate layer of hotkeys, and using two modifier keys together will produce a third layer, and so on, basically multiplying the number of assignable keys on your keyboard by however many modifier keys you have available (in the case of ESO, you could theoretically create over 500 hotkey assignments by using SHIFT, CONTROL, and ALT in various combinations with other keys, if you were using a standard 104-key Windows-based keyboard).
So, for example, in the context of ESO, I could assign the F1 key to open the World Map, while CTRL+F1 could open the Friends Menu. SHIFT+F1 could be assigned to the Crown Store, and CTRL+SHIFT+F1 for the Help Menu (you wouldn't want to use the ALT key in this example because ALT+F4 is not conducive to gameplay). You could map pretty much every menu in the game to just four keys, with modifier keys allowing for a kind of "super-positioning" to occur.
This is important for the reason that it reduces the need for your keyboard hand to leave the area where your movement keys are located, reduces the time needed to activate various game functions, and can eliminate erroneous keystrokes from having to move your keyboard hand to press keys on foreign areas of the keyboard. Some of these reasons are only critical in specific domains of gameplay, such as high-level, competitive PVP (which is why you might hear some pro-gamers touting the advantages of using MMO mice--they never have to move their fingers away from the movement keys during combat, even while casting abilities), but generally speaking, the convenience of having all of your hotkey assignments in one area within a finger's reach of your movement keys is an advantage to everyone in a game like ESO with so many character abilities and UI menus needing to be used on a regular basis.
So, I've been trying to come up with an optimal layout in the last few days, which, even with the newfound use of the additional modifier keys, is quite a brain buster. I've been reading a lot of older threads around the web, on this forum and others, written by people complaining about how difficult it is to find a layout that is intuitive, efficient and not overly convoluted, and I have to agree; it is near impossible. I'll struggle away for hours finding a good arrangement for combat actions and abilities, only to realize that I've neglected Roll Dodge or Interrupt, or the Ultimate Ability. Or I will discover yet another add-on that has some ingenious function incorporated into it (AUI now allows players the ability to assign hotkeys to summon the banker, merchant, and fence assistants), and will be forced to go back to the drawing boards all over again.
Yesterday I stumbled across a program called X-Mouse, which allows the user to apply chording to any of the basic mouse buttons. So in this case, I can have the RMB act as the ALT key at the same time that it is also the RMB, and I can assign the BACKSLASH key to the L-ALT key using my keyboard's software, so that the L-ALT key becomes BACKSLASH, which is then assigned to Weapon Swap, leaving the ALT key modifier function to my RMB, which also functions as Block. Basically what I've done, is I've turned my L-ALT key into BACKSLASH, mapped that to Weapon Swap, and applied the chording function of L-ALT to my RMB, so that the RMB becomes the modifier key instead of the physical L-ALT key on the keyboard, while also preserving the ability to use the RMB to right-click on UI elements to trigger drop-down menus.
Now, of course, the question is whether or not this is against the TOS? I feel like this might actually be in a kind of grey area, since if you think about it, the SHIFT key already acts as both Sprint and a modifier key, and you can also map character actions to CTRL or ALT so that they are both hotkey modifiers and the trigger for Crouch or Activate Synergy, etc...
Thoughts and opinions? Would love to hear from someone from ZOS on this.
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