It has been for 18 years, though, and it’s been fine (for most of us) thanks to the addon support and ability to change keybindings. But it would be interesting to see a first-party effort to really improve the defaults. There are simply too many abilities for actions to be assigned to number keys, and movement is too critical for the defaults to encourage turning with the keyboard.
My own keybindings have evolved over the past 18 years and they work for me but they’re so counterintuitive that I’d be hesitant to share them. They at least allow me to access 30 action slots without taking my fingers off movement keys, but this is really asking a lot of casual players and I don’t believe I should be given a large advantage just because I‘m a configuration junkie.
For instance (and this is spitballing), the mouse is something that can be tapped into better, I think. We make fun of point and clickers, but imagine we had a modifier key that immediately locks the cursor over the box of abilities. Or maybe a modifier key that brings up an ability wheel over the center of the screen and then a simple mouse gesture in that direction activates the ability.
I’m not proposing the above idea, but I’m more just stating the obvious that we should consider that core gameplay elements (ie abilities, mechanics) are at odds with core UI (ie keybindings, movement). Blizzard has obviously taken a hands off approach to this previously, but now that they’re getting their hands dirty with UI updates maybe they can go a little further and create some sane defaults.
Of course it is. Unless you’re using a MMO Mouse and you’re using shift, alt and ctrl modifiers.
I don’t think it’s a big deal though. I have comfortable binds.
Shift + E for example is a bind some may find odd but for me is comfortable and is typically assigned to my dispel effect.
With that said, I think the proposed solutions are far more convoluted (mouse gestures).
I think the default UI meets all the criteria it needs to.
Um, I make full use of my mouse and keyboard using shift, control and sometimes alt as modifiers. No addon needed. Also, I wouldn’t say it’s a hindrance for “casual” players bc I am a casual players (by my interpretation of the word) and again, full use of my mouse and keyboard without addons.
Are you telling me you’re a competent player who uses WASD for movement and number keys for abilities or are you just trying to nitpick? Yes, you can use number keys and modifiers to get all the abilities. It’s not pleasant, though, and movement and awareness will suffer. But I suppose at least you’re factually correct?
Mouse for movement with a bit of WASD mixed in. 1-5 for main attacks. Shift 1-5 for some other key abilities. Buttons around WASD bound in a way that feels natural for you.
I think it is fine, though it can definitely be improved upon in many ways. The ability to smoothly set single button combos with icons that shift to match (without use of an addon) would be nice, for example.
Having 30 keybinds makes you a configuration junkie? I have 36 binds, and I don’t care, I’ll list them.
On the left hand I have 1-6, F1-F4, R, T, C, V, G, Shift-R, Shift-F, Shift, T and `
On the right hand I have 1-12 on my mouse, M4, M5, Ctrl Num Pad 1 - Ctrl Num Pad 3.
I could just as easily add the rest of my ctrl number pad binds, but there’s no reason to as of right now. Also yes, if you bother to keybind, and someone doesn’t, you should absolutely have a performance advantage over them.
Kudos for not ignoring my actual point, even if you disagree (can’t say that for everyone).
So you stated your case that you should have an advantage over someone who rebinds keys, but you never gave any argument for it. Why should you have an advantage over someone who hasn’t rebound their keys? There aren’t many modern games where choice of keybindings is much more than a preference. Earlier FPSs had inadequate default keybindings (much like WoW’s in that they put different weapons on different number keys), but they have since largely switched to putting abilities/weapons around WASD. FPS developers knew the merit of that and they had far fewer keys to deal with than WoW does.
I appreciate and take advantage of all the customization available, but the game should simply have defaults that don’t severely gimp the player right out of the box. So this isn’t about me at all. My keybindings are fine for me (some seemed to miss that point?). But while Blizzard seems to be making an effort to modernize the interface, maybe they could modernize the controls?
Let’s be clear on something first, and clarify something. You want the default controls to be better. But you’re comparing it to something like modern FPS games and such where controls are more intuitive.
Let’s take Resident Evil 8. It’s a modern FPS survival horror. You have how many keybinds with that? Swapping weapons, healing, crouch, movement, aim and shoot. Keep in mind, I’m talking about moment to moment gameplay. You can add sprint and guard on there. Counting the individual weapon keybinds (1-4) as individual binds, that’s ten keybinds (not counting WASD which is standard).
You can’t compare something like a survival horror FPS or something like that to something like WoW where you have baseline how many abilities, and then you have macros for them, frame macros, etc.
The default keybinds for WoW involving the keyboard itself are bad. There’s no question. 1-6 is fine. But anything beyond 6, unless you have mondo hands (in my opinion) is a reach that’s annoying. So either people are clicking those abilities or they’re playing finger twister.
Someone who takes the time to customize their UI for comfort and capability should absolutely have a, what I call, driver’s advantage over someone who doesn’t. Everybody’s comfortable with different things. People should actually explore so their keybinds and their HUD are intuitive to them.
Edit: To be clear on something, for the record, I completely agree the default UI is inadequate. But I do not consider the default UI to be something akin to keybinds. Keybinds is something different. There’s a lot of problems with the UI. The keybinds aren’t one of them.
I use the addon ‘Opie’ for this. A macro can be assigned to a key to bring it up. I have 3 keys currently bound to different Opie configurations: Mounts, Misc & Druid.
