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Interface: Drag and drop to re-order abilities

Poutineman·8/18/2017, 6:43:38 PM·7 votes·839 views

Hi,

By design, the position of the abilities are "reversed ergonomically": Naturally, the R button, which is underneath your index finger, should be the one you spam the most... not the Q.

I would really appreciate seeing a feature that would allow re-arranging the order of the abilities in the GUI.

http://www.ekite3d.com/others/lolreorderabilities.png

And before anyone tells me to re-assign the letters.... here are the reasons why this solution isn't enough:

1-I am a visual person, when I reorder my keyboard, the icons at the bottom of the screen stay in the same order. When I am playing a new character, I tend to forget what each ability does so I look at the bottom of the screen to remind myself. Guess what, I get even more confused as my brain has to figure which icon goes with which finger. Not intuitive at all.

2-Some characters have the same kind of cc on Q, the others on E and some on W. While some have the same idea behind their design (lux & morgana for instance), in many cases there is no continuous logic from one character to another. By having the possibility to re-order them, I could format the order of abilities to my liking. Thus insuring that some type of abilities are at the same place from one character to another.

So what I would like ultimately is:

1-To be able to drag and drop directly in the GUI the order of abilities at any time 2-To have the order "saved" per character 3-To have a "toggle button" in the option menu that could, in one click, disable this feature or enable it.

What do you think? Will we see this in an upcoming version?

P.S.: While some players are very experienced and don't want to relearn their order, a lot of new players will enjoy, I am sure, this feature.

P.S.S: We can already do it with items... so why not with spells! ;)

11 Comments

AFilthyCaitMain8/18/2017, 6:49:25 PM2 votes

This didnt make sense when i read the title, but you provided a good explanation and backed up your point.

We need more posts like this.

ModKnightsKemplar8/18/2017, 6:52:42 PM2 votes

It's an interesting idea, and I certainly can't argue with many of the "pros" that you mention, but there are also a couple of notable "cons."

The "lingo" of the game is pretty entrenched for these keys. It's at the level where people talk about a character's Q or R rather than saying the name of the ability. Having a large percentage of players using a different interface does have a communication cost there whether its in game, on the Boards, or for eSports.

Then there's the catch-all con of game development; any resources they spend on this takes away resources from other things, and could even lead to bugs that would have otherwise been avoided. If this feature isn't going to be widely used, it's better to not have it, generally. They almost didn't bring back item sets for this reason (though the community outcry was enough to change their mind on that).

For the record, I'm not necessarily convinced one way or the other; I thought this could turn into an interesting discussion, so I decided to play devil's advocate so there's something out here for people to talk about. It's a neat idea, at the very least.

Salron8/18/2017, 6:51:11 PM1 votes

Lets say you reorder your abilities, and then you want to ping the cooldown of one of them to your teammates What is it supposed to show in chat?

If the ability that is normally Q is bound to E, what should it show your teammates?

TheTarians8/18/2017, 7:14:35 PM1 votes

Okay, so from what I can see. You're proposing that the position of the Q and R abilities be switched, and that players should be able to control where they put their abilities?

Here's a few things as to why things are the way they are.

Your ultimate ability (R) should remain where it is. Like you were inferring with your change, the index or pointer finger has the most relevancy on the hand. That being said, the most relevant finger should have the most relevant job. For most champions, excluding a few such as Quinn, their ultimate ability is the ability that is the most needed for a good fight. Having that ability be in a spot where the quickest reaction is needed is the most ideal part. Simply having quick reactions on the ability that you want to spam isn't necessary, but having quick reactions on an ability that is the most important one in your kit is necessary. In short, having the ability that can have the most impact in a fight, rather than the one you spam the most, on the quickest reaction finger is the best fit, and that is why in EVERY SINGLE MOBA it has been the case that the ultimate is on the R button.
Your Summoner spells (D and F) are also two of your most important abilities to use. Having your three most important abilities all in one close area greatly affects efficiency with how you can preform. Let's use Cassiopeia as an example. It would take more time, and be less intuitive to newer players to have to do a Q prep Flash, then to simply do an R prep Flash. Having three abilities that are very impactful to how the game can play out all in the same area creates more fluid design than having them on opposite ends of the ability keys.
As for your point of having the ability to do this champion wide, I can think of a few reasons of how this is already implemented into the game. Most champions that Riot designs already have a few overlapping things when it comes to their kits. Most notably it's having their main source on non ultimate damage on the Q, their defensive ability on the W, and their movement ability on their E. While this does differ, with some champions like Morg who have their defensive ability on their E, it's still intuitive. These champions are highly immobile, and don't have any sort of movement ability. Now of course there are some outliers, but most of those champs are older, or not as well designed, or awaiting a rework. But what matters the most is that the ability makes sense for it to be there. Take Fiora's Q for a moment, it's her main form of damage in abilities and her movement ability all in one, but having it placed some where else wouldn't feel nearly as fluid.

In short, while a change like this may help one or two players over here. It's an idea that should not be implemented due to its own lack of fluidity with champions and important cool downs.