[2.0] Usability regression: hotkeyed abilities should not sort alphabetically

[thelee]

Am I the only one who really used hotkeyed abilities?

 

Anyway, before 2.0, hotkeyed abilities would show up above your normal action bar in order of them being hotkeyed. Now, they show up in the lexicographic sort order of their hotkey itself (in ascending order).

 

This is a major usability regression. Before, every time I added a new hotkey, the ability would predictably show up to the right of all the existing hotkeyed abilities. Aside from retaining a consistent sort order for existing abilities, it means I could also order my abilities however I wanted, generally from weakest to strongest (very useful on a cipher since then my hotkeyed abilities also act as a "focus gauge" so I can see what I can use without having to read that super-small integer on my portrait).

 

However, by ordering hotkeyed abilities by the hotkey itself there is no more a consistent ordering for abilities. I either have to unintuitively alphabetically order my abilities as I want them sorted (which is very unintuitive for QWERTY keyboards where instead I just want to go from left-to-right on the keyboard and have that visually represented left-to-right as well) or I have to deal with the fact that my abilities are not going to have a consistent location on the screen as I shuffle stuff in and out.

 

I imagine that this is either a really low priority issue or one that only I care about, but I mean it's super annoying. It's almost like UX 101: don't shuffle around the user's buttons [which is what constant sorting by the hotkey does]. It just strikes me as annoying that someone felt the need to change this behavior for 2.0/White March and thought that this was actually an improvement.

[Aarik D]

Hello thelee,

 

You can set the hotkeys to anything you want, just as long as they are not currently hotkeyed to something else. For example "C" opens up the character sheet, if you want to hotkey an ability to "C" you just have to change the hotkey for Character Sheet. You can easily set your hotkeys to QWERTY, just as long as you change the hotkey for Take All (that is set to E). You can even set the hotkeys for the F1-F4 if you so desire. 

 

Thank you for your support. 

[thelee]

I don't think you understand the problem. I understand how hotkeys work.

 

Pre-2.0/White March: as I hotkey abilities, my hotkeyed abilities show up above the action bar for quick access. They show up in order of how I hotkey them. So if I hotkey Knock Down to Z and later hotkey Clear Out to Q, they will show up in the following order: Knock Down (Z), Clear Out (Q)

 

2.0/White March: all hotkeyed abilities show up alphabetized by the hotkey. So in the previous example, the abilities would show up in order: Clear Out (Q), Knock Down (Z).

 

The White March/2.0 behavior is annoying when I have a few abilities hotkeyed, but *really* frustrating when I have upwards of 10 or so hotkeys (common with my spellcasters). This means that instead of me being able to customize the order of the abilities, they will always sort in alphabetical order, which is a major usability problem as I summarized in my original post.

[Aarik D]

Hello thelee,

 

I apologize for the confusion and thank you for clarifying the issue for me. I went ahead and added a bug into our database and passed it along to the appropriate department. 

 

Thank you for your support.