It takes as many buttons as necessary to give the combat system actual complexity. Whether that's two buttons, eight, or fifty, it really doesn't matter. The one and only thing that matters is whether or not the combat has any form of depth and complexity; is it fun, or does it get dull and repetitive after a few hours?
The problem is that Everquest Next's system of assigning abilities sounds very, very similar to that of Guild Wars 2. Now, Guild Wars 2 doesn't have a "bad" system, per se. It is, however, extraordinarily shallow after playing the game for a while. And regardless of the Profession chosen, that shallowness never gets any deeper.
This is what many players fear, imho. The fact that, yes, there are a metric crap ton of classes that will be available, but will it matter whether there are five classes, or five hundred, if they all play the exact same because of a lack of complexity? No. It won't matter. The game will be stagnant.
Now, open up the skill system a little bit, give more options for customization (Which brings with it an enormous amount of depth), and the game now takes longer to become repetitious and dull. That's the issue. Each and every game will, given time, become boring, bland, dull, stagnant. That time limit is highly dependent on how dynamic the game and the game systems are. The more limitations are thrown upon players, the less time it takes for said game to stagnate.
So do we want a game to play for a month and move on? Or do we want a game that's playable for years to come? That's the issue. Not how many buttons are available.
Shallow encounters rather than shallow combat.
Play through the Queen's Gauntlet in GW2 to see some MUCH better encounters
"As you read these words, a release is seven days or less away or has just happened within the last seven days those are now the only two states youll find the world of Tyria."...Guild Wars 2
Lots of folks think that the 8 button system will be too limiting.
So how many buttons do you need?
If they said 10 would that be all right?
How about 12?
20?
How many buttons make something complex for you?
Do you believe the number of buttons is the mark of engaging combat?
The good MMOs i've played didn't really concern themselves with limiting the number of buttons. They created interesting abilities, spells, usable items, etc. and let the players worry about how many of them they would find useful to have on a hotbar.
My answer being "no limit". If you want to have every single one of 50 different potions on your hotbar, that's your choice. Let people will find their own comfort zone.
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall Currently Playing: ESO
The problem is that Everquest Next's system of assigning abilities sounds very, very similar to that of Guild Wars 2. Now, Guild Wars 2 doesn't have a "bad" system, per se. It is, however, extraordinarily shallow after playing the game for a while. And regardless of the Profession chosen, that shallowness never gets any deeper.
This is what many players fear, imho. The fact that, yes, there are a metric crap ton of classes that will be available, but will it matter whether there are five classes, or five hundred, if they all play the exact same because of a lack of complexity? No. It won't matter. The game will be stagnant.
Now, open up the skill system a little bit, give more options for customization (Which brings with it an enormous amount of depth), and the game now takes longer to become repetitious and dull. That's the issue. Each and every game will, given time, become boring, bland, dull, stagnant. That time limit is highly dependent on how dynamic the game and the game systems are. The more limitations are thrown upon players, the less time it takes for said game to stagnate.
So do we want a game to play for a month and move on? Or do we want a game that's playable for years to come? That's the issue. Not how many buttons are available.
If you look at DoTA2/LoL any class does have around 3-5 skills and some additional skills for every weapon or usable items. That is of course not a lot, but does give almost any of the classes a unique feeling to them.. and you do have over 100 character/classes in DoTA2. So changing your character/class in DoTA does give you a new experience and it gives you more than enough variety.. and actually DoTA is based on different roles and based on team play to support each other.. some classes more and other not so much, and overall combat, especially group combat becomes rather tactical.
In that sense EQN is rather similar, because with multiclassing you can basicly play all 40 classes, and even mix them up to even more available classes.. although the mixed up classes may not be that unique anymore.
Another more important aspect as you pointed out as well.. the more interesting question will be how many skills do you have available for any class to choose from? We know we have 2 weapon sets for the first 4 skills.. thats not a lot. But how many class skills will we have? If you can choose from 20 class skills from any class you can come up with a incridible amount of different playstyles and skills.. if they only have 4 skills for any class it is by far not that deep.. but nevertheless similar to DoTA2.
And that the next point. All people compare EQN combat skill system to GW2, whereas DoTA2 would be most probably the better comparsion, because playing in any session another class(in DoTA) or switching between any combat to a different class(EQN) is a lot more similar as in comparsion to GW2 where you basicly have to stick with your choosen class and your skills.
As a DoTA2 player i could say that 3-5 character abilites + 3-6 item abilities is enough, as long as you have enough characters/classes and items available.
And as a GW1 player i could say that 8 skills, when you can choose those 8 skills from a few dozends skills, is more than enough for a very deep tactical game.
In conclusion.. it is not that important how many abilities you have at any given time(5 skills could be enough), but more important from how many skills you can choose to prepare for a combat. And with that said.. i really can't judge EQN combat with the amount of information available at this point and time.
PS: And you can ask almost any GW1 player, and he will answer you that GW1 was a lot more tactical, a lot more diverse, and a lot more role based in comparsion to GW2, although you could only use 8 skills at any time in GW1 in comparsion to GW2, where you got usually anything between 10-22 abilities. And yes.. almost any GW1 player will tell you that the combat system of GW1 was superior to GW2.
So.. maybe.. all players having concerns about the combat system of EQN should play a little bit GW1 or DoTA2 to experience that a limited amount of skills at any given time is not that much of a problem.. much more concerning is the overall amount of available skills.
Edit/PS:
Another important question would be about Cooldowns. How many of your skills do have cooldowns, how long are those cooldowns? Because having 30 skills but all with cooldowns of 10 sec. to 15 min. will reduce the amount of skills at any given time drastical. And this is another problem of GW2, because you do have usually a lot of skills with rather long cooldowns 10sec. and above.. which reduces your available skills at any given time sometimes down to just 3 skills or less.
Edit2: Any passive skill doesn't count anyway, because you don't need a button for it. And we don't know how EQN will handle passive skills, or even if there are any passive skills.
Edit3: In games like War of Roses, or Mount & Blade or Age of Chivalry you don't have any skills at all.. just attack and defense assigned to your mouse buttons. But nevertheless it is a engaging combat.. however i would argue that that are acutally not enough skills, and i would wish that they would implement some skills in such a combat system.
More than that and I feel it is the developers job to transmogrify the 1-6 buttons on certain skills, or embed skills being activated into the game world somehow.
Deepest combat I've ever played has 4 buttons: punch, kick, block, dodge. If you're not handy with entering directional and button combinations, then you'll need need more buttons.
8 is fine it really doesn't matter you keep adding more and its just a macro mash up then whats the point? That's not skill... just chain reactions. I would rather play where i could counter a spell or move with another instead of hit 1 buttopn and watch 3-4 things happen. Thats not dynamic nor challenging you would already know what happens instead of trying to use SKILL to gauge the situation. do you need 2 slows/hamstrings? How much CC you need?> or combat skills? 1 slow 1 to engage 1 to disengage couple dots/damages...what more do you want?
Dunno. I suppose after I try the mmo I could tell you if it's to my liking.
Or, I don't have enough info to make that call yet. Could be awesome with just eight, could be terrible with as many as 20 or vice-versa. Depends on the rest of the games combat.
Originally posted by Marcus- Dunno. I suppose after I try the mmo I could tell you if it's to my liking.
Or, I don't have enough info to make that call yet. Could be awesome with just eight, could be terrible with as many as 20 or vice-versa. Depends on the rest of the games combat.
I prefer the limited hotbar in theory. Guild Wars 1 managed to make it extremely fun I felt with a lot of flavorable skills you were free to swap in and out depending on the type of mobs you were expecting to run into/makeup of the party.
Hopefully EQN doesn't make weapons bottleneck your build like GW2 ended up doing.
Deepest combat I've ever played has 4 buttons: punch, kick, block, dodge. If you're not handy with entering directional and button combinations, then you'll need need more buttons.
right... why do people like this guy alwyas feel the need to put in a comment about how cool they are by using the most insane examples? you wouldn't play eqn if it was like that now would you so why even point it out?
to me, i just want to see my character do alot of crazy awesome powers, and not just see them do the same 4 moves over and over, its an RPG they are suppose to have alot of abilities. this game is as limited as a moba.
i think 2 bars of 8 would be perfect, enough to costumize and be diverse
Originally posted by dwarfkinglords Originally posted by FoomerangDeepest combat I've ever played has 4 buttons: punch, kick, block, dodge. If you're not handy with entering directional and button combinations, then you'll need need more buttons.
right... why do people like this guy alwyas feel the need to put in a comment about how cool they are by using the most insane examples? you wouldn't play eqn if it was like that now would you so why even point it out?
Um hell yes Id play an mmo like that. The point I was making is that the number of buttons is irrelevant. Not sure why you'd feel the need to get defensive. Wasn't trying to be a "cool guy" lol
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
When you have a limited amount of buttons it gives you a limited amount of solutions to combat.
I took my experience with Burning Crusade WoW and a pvp duel with my mage vs a warrior.
It was 14-19 buttons not including any buffs.
Start duel (1) blink (past when he charges), (2) arcane missiles (for the insta turn), (3) arcane power, (4) presences of mind, (5) fireball (3,4,5 were macro'd for the insta cast), (6) slow, (7) fire blast, (8) mana shield, (9) ice nova, (9a) blink, (9b) arcane missiles, (10) frost bolt, (10a) fire blast or fire ball if far enough away, (11) cone of cold, (12)mirror image, (13) invisibility, (14) evocation and mix and match if he caught me and I couldnt get away it was (15) flame strike (my position and then), (16) ice block, (16a) blink, ...
and so on staying just enough out of range to get one channeled cast off and an instant cast and using blink as a distance opener and a pseudo-interrupt.
Dueling a rogue was about the same with me using (17) blizzard, and (18) arcane explosion (rank 1) to try and pull him out of stealth. I'd use (19) polymorph usually as an interrupt, and very rarely (20) ice lance or (21) scorch, as I was arcane spec.
And of course dueling spell casters was a little different. (22) counter spell, and silence from the (23) Blood Elf arcane torrent racial ability.
So yeah just eight buttons that include buffs and some kind of fucked up dual movement/damage ability and you dont see how people are disappointed?
Hell, I use just about 8-12 buttons in SWTOR combat, and more if Im a healer about 10-16.
This is how a GW2 fight goes and I imagine its will be damn close to EQ:N *these are the key binds for offensive abilities/skills, doesnt even matter what class or weapon you have, they all end up playing the same*.
1,2,3,4,1,1,1,1,2,1,1,1,1,3,1,1,1,2,1,1,1,4,1,1,1,3,1,1,1,2....just cycle and wait for the cooldowns.
Do you think that will keep people interested in combat for more than three or four months before it becomes monotonous?
Honestly, great post. n_n
Originally posted by Zaradoom
Enough to have the option no use every skill i feel like.
Saw a nice example somewhere on this side, forgive me for not remembering who that was:
"Hey mage, use your fireballs to destroy that pack of mobs that is beating on us, fast"
"Sorry, i can't, memed a stun spell... forgot how fireballs work"
Mount and blade's combat is far more intresting and complex then any mmo's combat I've seen to date, point being its not really about how many buttons you have, its about how they are used.
Personally I belive anything more then 12 buttons is a bad move, at that point the game basicly forces players to get special mouses or keyboards if they want to be competetive.
Still remeber playing as a marauder in swtor, I had around 35 high priority hotkeys, I did well, but it was just stressful and not fun, if I as a 24 year old found it stressful, I imagine the older crowd would find it even more so, or anyone with any sort of disability.
When you have a limited amount of buttons it gives you a limited amount of solutions to combat.
I took my experience with Burning Crusade WoW and a pvp duel with my mage vs a warrior.
It was 14-19 buttons not including any buffs.
Start duel (1) blink (past when he charges), (2) arcane missiles (for the insta turn), (3) arcane power, (4) presences of mind, (5) fireball (3,4,5 were macro'd for the insta cast), (6) slow, (7) fire blast, (8) mana shield, (9) ice nova, (9a) blink, (9b) arcane missiles, (10) frost bolt, (10a) fire blast or fire ball if far enough away, (11) cone of cold, (12)mirror image, (13) invisibility, (14) evocation and mix and match if he caught me and I couldnt get away it was (15) flame strike (my position and then), (16) ice block, (16a) blink, ...
and so on staying just enough out of range to get one channeled cast off and an instant cast and using blink as a distance opener and a pseudo-interrupt.
Dueling a rogue was about the same with me using (17) blizzard, and (18) arcane explosion (rank 1) to try and pull him out of stealth. I'd use (19) polymorph usually as an interrupt, and very rarely (20) ice lance or (21) scorch, as I was arcane spec.
And of course dueling spell casters was a little different. (22) counter spell, and silence from the (23) Blood Elf arcane torrent racial ability.
So yeah just eight buttons that include buffs and some kind of fucked up dual movement/damage ability and you dont see how people are disappointed?
Hell, I use just about 8-12 buttons in SWTOR combat, and more if Im a healer about 10-16.
This is how a GW2 fight goes and I imagine its will be damn close to EQ:N *these are the key binds for offensive abilities/skills, doesnt even matter what class or weapon you have, they all end up playing the same*.
1,2,3,4,1,1,1,1,2,1,1,1,1,3,1,1,1,2,1,1,1,4,1,1,1,3,1,1,1,2....just cycle and wait for the cooldowns.
Do you think that will keep people interested in combat for more than three or four months before it becomes monotonous?
Honestly, great post. n_n
Originally posted by Zaradoom
Enough to have the option no use every skill i feel like.
Saw a nice example somewhere on this side, forgive me for not remembering who that was:
"Hey mage, use your fireballs to destroy that pack of mobs that is beating on us, fast"
"Sorry, i can't, memed a stun spell... forgot how fireballs work"
Another great post.
OK to that first post i played a mesmer and i would drop confusion down like a beast in WvW i had a rotation going in with both weapons utilized. By the time i was done the player was more than dead or fumbling trying to hold onto his last health. Same thing goes for my warrior spartan build i had. Though with my spartan build i used for spvp and every move was situational.
The poster is just going down the line of his keyboard using a lot of the same moves...that isnt skill thats 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0. Putting the same skill in conjunction with his rotation its more skill to have to go back to your first action slot and use the skill again instead of going down a line.Contin blink was annoying but they needed it for balance, ice block was just...NO
also those buffs were needed for balance because there was so much needed BECAUSE there were so many action slots. Why do you think people were crying for balance in WoW and dont get me wrong WoW is a great game one of the best. But there is a time when you have to look at your action bar and ask why. ----Balance
Moar than 8. If you have seen the movie The Colony, when the lead male asks what do you want!!! that's me MMMOOAAARRR. No honestly, I like having more buttons than what comes on a console controller. I read a blog on that new game Black Desert, and one of the developers said that he wanted to bring the combat of street fighter to mmo's. Well I spent a large part of my youth playing street fighter, I think he is making a mistake. If you want action/arcade style combat in your mmorpg have at it, I am not interested in it myself. Personally I think we should make a new genre mmoarpg, hell while we are at it lets segregate payment models as well. Then at least there are some developers who will make games for a niche market, maybe they won't garner enough investors but I'm betting they might actually be fun to play.
Usually, you have about 5 or 6 skills you use alot and then another 4 or 5 skills you use occasionally. Then there are a few specialty skills that using them at the right time seperates the good from bad players. I admit I usually forget to use them.
I find the 8 worrying as it seems to be very stream lined and limiting. The whole time I played GW2 I kept thinking, man I wish I had about 3 more skills or double the number of class skills.
16-24 is my sweet spot, anything more and it gets ignored.
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...
Originally posted by Kuinn 12 buttons at minimum, that would ensure at least some class identity and diversity in combat. Less than 10 buttons is fine for a game that you will play for 2 weeks or very casually. Neverwinter is a good example of a game that is fun for few days but gets dull very quickly for just few abilities in combat and absolutely zero misc skills.
Damn I hate to agree with a TR player, but you are dead on.
I thought the 15-25 or so in GW2 was pretty good, just wish it had buffs and healing as I like a lot of fluffy skills (shrink, grow, levitate, sow, etc).
20 probably the point where I start seeing diminishing returns, but even then, I'd rather only have 10 or so active skills and the rest be buffs/fun abilities.
FYI to those obsessing on 8....it is actually 12. Weapon swapping in combat is a go, just like GW2. So you'll have access to 8 weapon skills and 4 secondary ones.
They could still add in windows, bars, bags, whatever for other things like active gear abilities, potions, food, etc.
8 (12) is just the number for active combat buttons that everyone will have by default.
Comments
Shallow encounters rather than shallow combat.
Play through the Queen's Gauntlet in GW2 to see some MUCH better encounters
"As you read these words, a release is seven days or less away or has just happened within the last seven days those are now the only two states youll find the world of Tyria."...Guild Wars 2
Damn, beat me to it. :-(
The good MMOs i've played didn't really concern themselves with limiting the number of buttons. They created interesting abilities, spells, usable items, etc. and let the players worry about how many of them they would find useful to have on a hotbar.
My answer being "no limit". If you want to have every single one of 50 different potions on your hotbar, that's your choice. Let people will find their own comfort zone.
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall
Currently Playing: ESO
If you look at DoTA2/LoL any class does have around 3-5 skills and some additional skills for every weapon or usable items. That is of course not a lot, but does give almost any of the classes a unique feeling to them.. and you do have over 100 character/classes in DoTA2. So changing your character/class in DoTA does give you a new experience and it gives you more than enough variety.. and actually DoTA is based on different roles and based on team play to support each other.. some classes more and other not so much, and overall combat, especially group combat becomes rather tactical.
In that sense EQN is rather similar, because with multiclassing you can basicly play all 40 classes, and even mix them up to even more available classes.. although the mixed up classes may not be that unique anymore.
Another more important aspect as you pointed out as well.. the more interesting question will be how many skills do you have available for any class to choose from? We know we have 2 weapon sets for the first 4 skills.. thats not a lot. But how many class skills will we have? If you can choose from 20 class skills from any class you can come up with a incridible amount of different playstyles and skills.. if they only have 4 skills for any class it is by far not that deep.. but nevertheless similar to DoTA2.
And that the next point. All people compare EQN combat skill system to GW2, whereas DoTA2 would be most probably the better comparsion, because playing in any session another class(in DoTA) or switching between any combat to a different class(EQN) is a lot more similar as in comparsion to GW2 where you basicly have to stick with your choosen class and your skills.
As a DoTA2 player i could say that 3-5 character abilites + 3-6 item abilities is enough, as long as you have enough characters/classes and items available.
And as a GW1 player i could say that 8 skills, when you can choose those 8 skills from a few dozends skills, is more than enough for a very deep tactical game.
In conclusion.. it is not that important how many abilities you have at any given time(5 skills could be enough), but more important from how many skills you can choose to prepare for a combat. And with that said.. i really can't judge EQN combat with the amount of information available at this point and time.
PS: And you can ask almost any GW1 player, and he will answer you that GW1 was a lot more tactical, a lot more diverse, and a lot more role based in comparsion to GW2, although you could only use 8 skills at any time in GW1 in comparsion to GW2, where you got usually anything between 10-22 abilities. And yes.. almost any GW1 player will tell you that the combat system of GW1 was superior to GW2.
So.. maybe.. all players having concerns about the combat system of EQN should play a little bit GW1 or DoTA2 to experience that a limited amount of skills at any given time is not that much of a problem.. much more concerning is the overall amount of available skills.
Edit/PS:
Another important question would be about Cooldowns. How many of your skills do have cooldowns, how long are those cooldowns? Because having 30 skills but all with cooldowns of 10 sec. to 15 min. will reduce the amount of skills at any given time drastical. And this is another problem of GW2, because you do have usually a lot of skills with rather long cooldowns 10sec. and above.. which reduces your available skills at any given time sometimes down to just 3 skills or less.
Edit2: Any passive skill doesn't count anyway, because you don't need a button for it. And we don't know how EQN will handle passive skills, or even if there are any passive skills.
Edit3: In games like War of Roses, or Mount & Blade or Age of Chivalry you don't have any skills at all.. just attack and defense assigned to your mouse buttons. But nevertheless it is a engaging combat.. however i would argue that that are acutally not enough skills, and i would wish that they would implement some skills in such a combat system.
Joined - July 2004
IMO, 20 is just about right.
My typical set up is
1-6
shift 1-6
6 mouse buttons (not counting standard R and L)
More than that and I feel it is the developers job to transmogrify the 1-6 buttons on certain skills, or embed skills being activated into the game world somehow.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
Deepest combat I've ever played has 4 buttons: punch, kick, block, dodge. If you're not handy with entering directional and button combinations, then you'll need need more buttons.
Or, I don't have enough info to make that call yet. Could be awesome with just eight, could be terrible with as many as 20 or vice-versa. Depends on the rest of the games combat.
You win in my opinion.
I prefer the limited hotbar in theory. Guild Wars 1 managed to make it extremely fun I felt with a lot of flavorable skills you were free to swap in and out depending on the type of mobs you were expecting to run into/makeup of the party.
Hopefully EQN doesn't make weapons bottleneck your build like GW2 ended up doing.
right... why do people like this guy alwyas feel the need to put in a comment about how cool they are by using the most insane examples? you wouldn't play eqn if it was like that now would you so why even point it out?
to me, i just want to see my character do alot of crazy awesome powers, and not just see them do the same 4 moves over and over, its an RPG they are suppose to have alot of abilities. this game is as limited as a moba.
i think 2 bars of 8 would be perfect, enough to costumize and be diverse
Um hell yes Id play an mmo like that. The point I was making is that the number of buttons is irrelevant. Not sure why you'd feel the need to get defensive. Wasn't trying to be a "cool guy" lol
AVVLAUSZ
So let's see, that's...six? But only on NES.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Honestly, great post. n_n
Another great post.
Left mouse button + right mouse button. (2)
Mount and blade's combat is far more intresting and complex then any mmo's combat I've seen to date, point being its not really about how many buttons you have, its about how they are used.
Personally I belive anything more then 12 buttons is a bad move, at that point the game basicly forces players to get special mouses or keyboards if they want to be competetive.
Still remeber playing as a marauder in swtor, I had around 35 high priority hotkeys, I did well, but it was just stressful and not fun, if I as a 24 year old found it stressful, I imagine the older crowd would find it even more so, or anyone with any sort of disability.
OK to that first post i played a mesmer and i would drop confusion down like a beast in WvW i had a rotation going in with both weapons utilized. By the time i was done the player was more than dead or fumbling trying to hold onto his last health. Same thing goes for my warrior spartan build i had. Though with my spartan build i used for spvp and every move was situational.
The poster is just going down the line of his keyboard using a lot of the same moves...that isnt skill thats 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0. Putting the same skill in conjunction with his rotation its more skill to have to go back to your first action slot and use the skill again instead of going down a line.Contin blink was annoying but they needed it for balance, ice block was just...NO
also those buffs were needed for balance because there was so much needed BECAUSE there were so many action slots. Why do you think people were crying for balance in WoW and dont get me wrong WoW is a great game one of the best. But there is a time when you have to look at your action bar and ask why. ----Balance
Irrelevant.
How many buttons does EVE have, exactly? How do you even count that?
Favorite MMO: Vanilla WoW
Currently playing: GW2, EVE
Excited for: Wildstar, maybe?
About 12-15.
Usually, you have about 5 or 6 skills you use alot and then another 4 or 5 skills you use occasionally. Then there are a few specialty skills that using them at the right time seperates the good from bad players. I admit I usually forget to use them.
I find the 8 worrying as it seems to be very stream lined and limiting. The whole time I played GW2 I kept thinking, man I wish I had about 3 more skills or double the number of class skills.
The number of buttons in any past MMO are too little. There needs to be AT LEAST 500 skill buttons one the screen at once.
Anything less than this is made for casuals and takes absolutely no skill whatsoever.
Little forum boys with their polished cyber toys: whine whine, boo-hoo, talk talk.
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...
Damn I hate to agree with a TR player, but you are dead on.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
Whatever makes the game challenging and fun.
I thought the 15-25 or so in GW2 was pretty good, just wish it had buffs and healing as I like a lot of fluffy skills (shrink, grow, levitate, sow, etc).
20 probably the point where I start seeing diminishing returns, but even then, I'd rather only have 10 or so active skills and the rest be buffs/fun abilities.
FYI to those obsessing on 8....it is actually 12. Weapon swapping in combat is a go, just like GW2. So you'll have access to 8 weapon skills and 4 secondary ones.
They could still add in windows, bars, bags, whatever for other things like active gear abilities, potions, food, etc.
8 (12) is just the number for active combat buttons that everyone will have by default.