its 11 as the ultimate is either or so its 2x(5+1)-1

would love to see an additional utility bar with 5 slots where you can place defensive skills like shields and cleanses and buffs. wich enables the 2x5 slots to be truly weapon related.

Also Xabien, am I right to say you can switch weapons at will(without cooldown) to have access to all 12 abilities?

Also to thread creator, ESO has a few skills which are bound to non hotbar keys that would also be concidered "hotbar abilities" in other mmo's, skills like:

-Speed increase(sprinting with shift)

-Interupt(mouse 2+1 bash)

-Block(mouse 2)

-Dodge(double click in any direction)

-Burst attack(hold left mouse button)

-Sneaking/stealth(Control)

In most MMO's I've played, ^these skills^ would all take up space on your hotbar

I have to say that this is one of the features that drew me to this game. I'm tired of MMO's forcing you to manage 48 different abilities and various hotbars on your screen. I always work to keep mine down to 1 hotbar for 90% of what I need, with a 2nd for some of the more rarely needed but still important skills. I've had enough of that.

During the stress test weekends, I often found myself feeling like 1 or 2 more buttons would be nice, but then I never got to 15. I think having the 2nd bar at level 15 would probably do it for me.

I'm willing to accept the 5+1 with a quickslot item and mouse attacks. I'm sure I'll adjust to it, and will not be that big a deal after reaching level 15.

I support this I want. 7 attacks 1 ultimant

Yep no cool down, just the time it takes for the animation to play out afaik

the industry is moving away from niche PC games to broader markets, so also goes your 72 hotkeys

with items like motion detection, voice commands, and virtual vision headgear on the advent 72 hotkeys is about as relevant as AM radio.

It is quite well known the demise of the PC and even now the laptop these devices are specialty items now for a niche market.

Smaller, lighter, less intensive, more user friendly UI, and innovative future oriented applications, is where the market is and will be.

You dont hinder quality by increasing the bar just 3 or 5 slots....where did that thought come from?

Think longer than just your own ESO game hype....im sure ALOT of people will be bored by the game in 6 months because choices in combat are so limited.

Give us bars with 10 slots atleast...and stop developing this MMO to consoles!

Except to have things bound to other keys that would typically be on the hotbar (movement speed increase, block, interrupt, stealth, basic power attack). GW1 lasted a very long time and was praised for it's PvP and it revolved around a very limited amount of skill slots. Stop assuming all these types of choices are because of consoles.

You have 5 and an ultimate... sure you can change your weapon but its not the same and not everyone wants to swap weapons every time they attack a NPC.

If you build smart, you don't have to switch everytime you attack. This is where this system encourages thought on your build.

I'm predicting a win for ZOS and TESO when the dust settles on this skirmish

actually this fight was fought and won over 8 years ago

72 buttons is a losing proposition

We have quite different views on what a good mmo is then.

You know I wouldn't have a problem with just 5 skill slots if the whole dodge / block etc was as smooth as it is in Dark Souls or something. But it's not. It is clunky at best. I commend ZOS for trying to mix the MMO elements with your usual hack n slash action but they fell into the same pit all TES games fell, inevitably. The game is a jack of all trades, master of none.

And this isn't 5 slots vs 72 skills. For the last time, I -want- the game to have limited spell slots BUT I want more slots, not just 5. There's a difference between wanting 7 slots and wanting all skills you learn to be available to you at any given time.

You have 12 including ultimates. Just because you don't want to change weapons to use the other 5 slots doesn't mean they don't exist. Obviously you havn't played GW2 that uses the same system, just takes some getting used to.

you have 10 skill slots, far more then 7.

Coming from guild wars one, I'm well used to this system, it alows for more builds, and needing to change per fight.

By quality i mean the abilites of games with fewer abilites tend to do much more. In MMOs with many skills you get all these attacks that do one specific thing, and that thing only and not much more, it adds a dot, and another that takes advantage of the dot and so on, it's complicated and interesting for like acouple of days but then you've got everything memorised and you don't even think about it anymore,it's just routine.

But here they have more than one function or they have a significant imapct on the fight depending on how you morph them, and there's 300 of them i can use in various combinations.

In SWOTOR i had 1 tank build and 2 dps builds, that was it, that's all i could do,and it's the same in pretty much every MMO i've played the last 10 years. You have a million diffirent skills but hardly any variety at all.

With a deck building sytem i have alot more options to change the way i play.

And i'm not hyped, not even alittle(i'm acually pretty luke warm about the game, it's good but you know..nothing mind blowing) and i don't need to think beyond it to give say what i think about it. It's not an objective assessment ofcourse some people won't like it, so what?

Just beacuse you don't like deckbuilding games or this system dosen't mean no one else will, Guildwars1 had even fewer skills and it was a very popular game for a very long time.

No one is forcing you to use the same 12 abilites for 6 months, i mean it's 12 out of 300, that's not even a fart in space.

If that's too many options, or you'd rather just pick a set and stick with it i get that, but then again a deck building game like this might not be your bag even if you are a TES fan, that dosen't mean it's objectivly bad or that no one else will like it.

And you have 10 abilites, that's not counting the 2 ultimates you don't need a diffirent weapon and the swap has no cooldown, you just can't swap during an animation.

I feel it will leave allot of people choosing between a VARIETY of different skills. I didn't like it at first, but now i understand it. I prefer not to have a giant bartender4 thing going on like wow due to i had everything i needed. On this situation, you have to be specific on what type of skills you want, for the type of situation . the variety is huge with all the skill points one can achieve. 150+

Thats why i believe this game CAN have a DK healer, or a very successful prot shield/1hand PVP dk, things like that, where those choices are somewhat limited in allot of MMO's. in ESO, they're not. I feel this opens up so much in terms of putting skill points where YOU want to, thats best for YOUR group, or for YOUR solo experience, etc. instead of just doing it because everybody else does it. thats one thing i hated so much about wow, the choosing of different talents and the likes were so dull, practically everyone always had the same spec. This game gives us all tons of different options.

A game released for PC should never have to deal with shortcomings because of console-port.

Like Dark Souls-II which looks like complete crap on PS3 and 360 because their hardwares svcks,

so now PC-gamers are worried that it will look like crap on their high-end PCs.

PC-gamers should never have to suffer for the shortcomings of consoles..

As someone with small hands and that do not currently owns a gaming mouse, I am happy with the number of skill slots.

Trust me, 5+1 x 2 will get routine too. Dont lie to yourself.

Here's the thing people overlook it seems. The designers went with 5+1. Some people want 6, some want 7, some want a dozen. Whatever.

So they give and they say "well, here you can have 7".

Then people are like "well...how about 8? It's only one more than 7. Surely 8 is a better number".

So they give in and say give us 10 slots. 10! Can you imagine.

Then people complain and say "well, how about an even dozen, that just makes sense."

I'm glad there is what there is. It could have been like other ES games where you could have something in each hand and that was it

Well yeah, and? Never said it wouldn't, ofcourse i'm gonna get sick of certain decks, diffirance is i have more variations(diffirent decks) to choose from.

I was just explaining why i don't think more abilites are automaticlly better just beacuse i have more buttons to push.

I'd agree to a point. Swtor was fairly ridicules. I had about 20 hotkeys set for that game. And I used all of them.

However, can you agree that 5 is fairly limited? Consider that 2 of those buttons are for straight out attacks using mana and stamina. (Unless you plan on gimping yourself). So now your left with 3 buttons, you would likely want some defensive ability, and you probably want some sort of debuff. That leaves one button, and in all my builds I like some sort of opening attack, or gap closer.

So now I have zero buttons to play with. So unless I ditch everything and make a one trick pony.

And before anyone says you really have '10' abilities. You don't. Its called weapon swap for a reason. Not hotkey bank change. In my mind that means its actually meant for swapping *weapons*. Like a melee going to ranged in a siege. Instead of sitting on ones hands.

There are several add ons in the works that will swap your selected skills, similar to how a clothing add on swaps gear.

No thanks. This more of a throw back to older MMOs. I was so sick of 30+ spells/skills/nukes. Much prefer this system over a 7+ toolbar. This ain't no WOW man! (or EQ2 or any other game w/ toolbar after toolbar after toolbar)