PTS Update 30 - Feedback Thread for Ability Bar Timers

Shantu

Bodycounter wrote: »

I have to agree here. Just take the code from Action Duration Reminder and add your layout to it which is really nice. There is no reason for you taking 7 years to add an action duration to the game just for it to be worse than an already exisiting addon in almost every aspect.

^^This^^ X 1000.

kringled_1

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

To demonstrate a couple points here further:

1. We need numerical timers for back bar skills.

Here is an example, two skills are running out soon, which should I recast first when I swap?


The correct answer is skill 1, despite skill 2 having a smaller "timer bar". Here are the timers right after swapping (note the swap was also a little early, due to how imprecisely the bars convey information).


2. Darkening active skills does not help. They do not lighten early enough to actually use this feature for a dynamic rotation. You will always have 1-2s of downtime on each DoT if you wait for the darkened icon to end.

This same issue has been plaguing Necromancers for years. Blastbones is still greyed out on the skill bar when we have to decide whether to press it (every 3rd GCD) or delay (for every 4th GCD). In order for most humans to observe and react to something, they need close to 1s. Sorcerer's Crystal Fragments is a beautiful example of this, since it alerts the player of a proc 1s before they need to adjust their rotation and use the skill. Blastbones leaves you blindly guessing, which leads to frustrations when wasting a GCD on a button press that isn't ready, or using a spammable when Blastbones is actually ready despite appearing grey.

Thank you for writing this. It puts nicely into words and clarifies some of my struggles with Necro rotation.

ghost_bg_ESO

@ZOS_GinaBruno

any inside how ability bar is intended to work will be appreciated. some new number at right upper corner always staying 1; after casting couple of skills on some of them timer and dimming disappears, and is visible after bar swap (yellow line); wall of elements works at mysterious way...

Edit: multiple edits to not bloat discussion with multiple posts as it is last for now...

* gamepad ui

(starting to look more finished - I already feel more powerful )

seems disappearing dimming and timers goes for magcro to X - blastbones, Y - wall of elements, another skill and/or blasbones hits the target (couple of skills); wall of elements again magcro on back bar yellow line goes to end and restart to full at 0.9 to 0.0 (lightning staff, infused weapon damage)... and still can't figure out what is the purpose of that number at right corner.

same for magsorc and dimming and timer disappearing - wall of elements 2x crystal frag (different staff).

Malver170

Meditation

gariondavey

Please just do action duration reminder. It is superior in every way.

Critchfest

PC platform players will continue to use ADR as its superior presently. I prefer to play ESO on Series X and for console players this cannot come soon enough - it will be game changing in terms of combat efficiency but it's not working well in its current form.

Changes required;

Larger numerical countdown on main bar (perhaps even adjustable font), some of us play on 65 inch 4k TV's so adjustable font scaling would be great.

Remove the back bar timer bar and use a floating numerical slightly smaller than front.

Remove the dimming, not helpful at all.

Skills like barbed trap could have a slider bar showing the armed stage countdown but then switch to numerical timer for the dot stage on trigger. Or green/red numerical for armed stage but when dot is triggered it switches to yellow under the dot stage.

You have the capacity to make this a great UI change for console that's 5 years late to the party, don't lose momentum on it.

colossalvoids

If it hits live in a current state it will be another lost opportunity by devs and a big loss overall for consoles as they'll lost their only chance for an actually informative way of recieving necessary information. It's better than nothing at all but no pc player would uninstall ADR in favour of built in timers which are not only user unfriendly but often misleading is pretty telling.

ghost_bg_ESO

ghost_bg_ESO wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno

any inside how ability bar is intended to work will be appreciated. some new number at right upper corner always staying 1; after casting couple of skills on some of them timer and dimming disappears, and is visible after bar swap (yellow line); wall of elements works at mysterious way...

Edit: multiple edits to not bloat discussion with multiple posts as it is last for now...

* gamepad ui

(starting to look more finished - I already feel more powerful )

seems disappearing dimming and timers goes for magcro to X - blastbones, Y - wall of elements, another skill and/or blasbones hits the target (couple of skills); wall of elements again magcro on back bar yellow line goes to end and restart to full at 0.9 to 0.0 (lightning staff, infused weapon damage)... and still can't figure out what is the purpose of that number at right corner.

same for magsorc and dimming and timer disappearing - wall of elements 2x crystal frag (different staff).

still the same

colossalvoids

So it's going live like this I suppose. Or one more week is ahead to address all this feedback they've got?

gariondavey

Can we still use action duration reminder when this goes live?

Shantu

gariondavey wrote: »

Can we still use action duration reminder when this goes live?

The new timers are an option. You can still use the addon...thankfully.

eaglexk

Discovered few issues with timers:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/574602/skill-timers-issue-pts-7-0-4#latest
Sorry, posted as a new topic. If moderators can move the topic here - I will appreciate.

TumlinTheJolly

I recently started playing again and just discovered this feature. I'm sorry to say I'm quite disappointed with it. The back bar indicators NEED countdown timers that show the # of seconds remaining (similar to Action Duration Reminder), otherwise it's too difficult to think ahead regarding the exact order you'll be casting each skill over the course of the next 10-20sec. Adding this feature was a step in the right direction, but larger icons for back bar skills, and second counters for both front and back bar are a MUST if this feature is going to replace Action Duration Reminder.

aCat

Another vote for "copy Action Duration Reminder".
Please - without actual timers for the backbar the feature is half useless.