Interface: Drag and drop to re-order abilities

Poutineman·Aug 18, 2017·7 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

AFilthyCaitMainAug 18, 20172 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.

ModKnightsKemplarAug 18, 20172 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.

PoutinemanAug 18, 20171 votes

For the "Lingo", even if I agree with what you are saying, this shouldn't be a major consideration since Riot already offers the possibility to re-assign the keys. I could play for instance using 1, 2, 3 and 4 for my abilities. Most players who do so will remember what the original use to be.

And if it is not enough, here are two options (that ask for more dev & resources obviously... dam! ) to fix this:

1- Add a reminder in the visual icon that shows the original assignation (showing in parentheses the grayed out letter Q for example). 2-Allow for a "Quick toggle" button that, when pressed and held, re-position the keys as they should be "by design".

Now, for the resources, I quite understand your point, believe me I've been there. But in the case of a major studio like Riot, they have a department that can quickly assess the importance and the demand for such a feature by doing a case study (which would require a bit of marketing ressources still). So I would leave it to them to define if it is worth their time. :)

Maybe I am the only one who would like such a feature... ;)

ModKnightsKemplarAug 18, 20171 votes

Yeah, maybe even a poll... which I'm not sure you can attach to the post with tools after you'd posted. Just a quick poll to see how many players are interested in a feature like that would be useful info. I doubt you're the only one, but it's likely not a huge number of players, either.

PoutinemanAug 18, 20171 votes

Yes, polls, or something like Reddit. :)

SalronAug 18, 20171 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?

PoutinemanAug 18, 20171 votes

A good thing would be to show the name of the ability with the letter. I think in terms of knowledge, this would definitely help players learn the names, not just their position on the keyboard. So add the default letter + ability name in chat.

Anyways this has already been "dealt with" by Riot. Try it, you will see:

1-Start a game 2-Press ESC, and reassign your Q to 8 on your keyboard 3-Go back to game and ping your ability (that you re-assigned on 8)

Q will appear in the chat... not 8. So problem already solved! ;)

And I would like to add that the Q is really called: SPELL 1 in menus... so if they want to do it right, they should start calling the spells SPELL 1, SPELL 2, SPELL 3 and SPELL 4 (or S1, S2, S3 & S4 for short).

TheTariansAug 18, 20171 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.

BrousselaineAug 18, 20171 votes

Those are irrelevant, as we're talking about customization. It's about what a single user feels more comfortable with, not about what should be the most efficient interface globally.

The keys customisation already exists, this proposition is just pushing it further on the visual side, and allowing consistency on the cognitive level.

Riot makes a point about giving all player the same « basic chance ». Right now, keeping the visual set as it is is a disadvantage to someone tweaking his keys or with a different visual approach to interpretation.

PoutinemanAug 18, 20171 votes

I like the fact that you argue on the "Ergonomic aspect" of the design, and I find you have good points in there. I started with ergonomics, but the truth is, it's more about visuals...

So here I go:

Point 1: This is a good point, but may vary from one player to another. Some people might agree with you, some with me. Now, by offering the possibility to reassign or not, and make it "à la carte" from one player to another, actually solves every argument. My approach gives both players like me and players like you the possibility of choice. Thus, I think this point actually goes in favor of my idea.

Point 2: Excellent case, I haven't tough of this. But then again, I have both Summoners spells on my mouse... and I could remap those to other buttons as well. My feature is not about re-assigning keys (since you can already do this). The point of my feature is focused on VISUALS, the GUI. Some players like their map on the right, some on the left... Giving room for customization is crucial when creating a GUI. The only reason devs add constraints for visuals (in the GUI) is when it can screw the competitive aspect of the game or give an advantage to certain type of roles. But in this case, I can't see what advantage it would give to a specific character or role. It may give an advantage to certain player, but nothing a G13, a good mouse or a special monitor (with high refresh rate) won't give.

Point 3: Again, I am not saying that RIOT didn't do a great job. I am not arguing that they didn't design properly their character or game... I am saying that there is no UNIVERSAL logic... and by allowing players to customize, you are giving players the ability to change thing following THEIR logic. If it doesn't mess with important mechanics, what is the problem then? (of course, Riot must also spend resources to do so... but that is covered in the other post).

In short, preventing players from customizing a game base on a "generalization" or "judgement" of what is good or not for EVERYONE, is not a good argument, in my opinion. Your argument sound like "developers logic should prevail" and "there is only one true way". I don't think that a bunch of developers, as intelligent as they can be, can determine the best design for all. Especially when the pool of players is over 10 million: that makes a lot of different players with different prefs.

So why not then?

PoutinemanAug 18, 20171 votes

You just made me realize that we should be able to do it with Summoner Spells...

And you know what? We can already do it with items!!!

So I didn't come up with something so crazy after all! :)