Shenanigunner

Okay, thanks to @Number Six for the detailed explanation. It leaves me with two takeaways — That it wasn't an idle "let's tidy things up" move by a dev. (God knows any of us who have worked in a code-driven environment have seen egregious examples of such well-intended... fixes.) The 'differential' model of how user bind changes are stored; interesting. But my third takeaway is this — because some vanishingly minor changes were made to the default bind set;, and because some subset of the user base will have a shrieking conniption fit because by-god something changed; a system of bindfile selections was added ('Modern' 'Classic' etc.); and to enable some stability of this new selector, the ability to simply export the current binds was essentially eliminated... even though any 20 years of "incompleteness" or hackiness to this function never caused a known problem to anyone who wasn't trying to implement a selector system to accommodate some incredibly luddite user faction. But I guess it's a very good thing that the huge surge of new users can choose all these "Classic" throwback options despite never having had the slightest idea anything under them existed. The lunatic wonks who actually tinker with binds as one of the ways to thoroughly streamline and customize the game on a level with few equivalents will just have to settle for the "Oh, Well, Good Enough" bind setting, I guess. To boil that down to one serious question: was the need to have an instant "Classic" revert-setting for this, or really for any of the other UI tweaks that were assigned this nearly meaningless label, so special and essential that breaking a key method of customizing the interface had to get scrapped?

Clever; kudos. But we shouldn't have to use a laborious hack to simply list a long and complex configuration setup because a Dev thought it was "better" to just export one setup directive instead... after 20 years. No one exporting the file is an anti-bind noob who is going to get confused, or appreciate that single setup keyword.

I have a dump of raw keybinds dated 30 January, which as noted was right on the cusp of release. Besides the above issue that makes any discussion here laborious, your notes indicate there have been subsequent changes, so using it to (mildly) argue my notions about basic binds would probably be useless. Not happy. I don't see any actual improvement except to allow truly luddite players to switch back to the dusty, broken, original bind set from the very slightly tweaked P7 one, which doesn't lead to any reason for "boxing in" the bind list file system.

Well, I came into this to answer your points and throw a little good-natured argument back, but I discover that sometime between the last version of P7 and its first release on live (and I'm pretty sure it's the latter), the whole keybind management system has been "improved" — and by improved I mean "hacked at by someone who thinks keybinds are a kind of useless thing to bother with." I don't think the drop-down list of options adds much of anything, but that's neither here nor there... the problem is that if you now try to save the standard keybind list, for comparison (as I was going to do here, making sure I had any very-recent changes) or as a starting point for mods... you get a one-line file with 'keyprofile classic' in it. Nothing else. This is so massively below useful I'm actually a little startled any Dev thought it was a right direction to go. I realize those of us who munge the binds more than a command-line tweak here and there are in a minority, but closing up the system so that they only way to review the standard binds is by paging through the Options menu (which historically has been incomplete and sometimes even wrong) is pointlessly crippling a customization process that goes back to day one. Please revert this "feature" and make keybind saves actually save the current, active key bind list, not an indirect Dev shortcut.

I just went to pull a list of default keybinds, with any minor post-P7 changes, as part of a discussion over in General. And I discover that it's no longer possible to save the standard keybind list; you simply get a text file with "keyprofile classic" whether you use the default save command or direct it to a file name. Regardless of all other changes to the keybind system, this aspect is crippled and useless. I don't really need to DL "classic" just so I can go look through the right page on the endless (and incomplete) options menu. Put it back, as it was, please. Saving a keybind file should be saving a keybind file, not a memo-generator.

I also don't usually have any trouble seeing my entry point on a cave map; if there's no entry marker, there's usually a characteristic room shape, positioned more or less centrally. Some caves (may they burn in hell) are pretty complicated, but even fully revealed a map zoom shows the most likely entrance point. That is, zoom your map large. A quick zoom-return bind helps a lot in this and if you're peering at a tiny map trying to see things, or panning around with the map zoomed in the window... well, yeah, you're gonna get lost. 🙂

One part of me says having something like breadcrumbs to drop would be useful. The other howls from its cage that some part of a game like this just has to be carried in wetware, and that's the point. To automate a game so that the player doesn't really have to pay attention to anything is... not the right direction. But you'll note that part is in a cage in the basement, so. 🙂

True, but it's not a simple gauge. The primary engine etc. might need only those specs or a little more to chug along, but there definitely seem to be weak areas that do not process heavy graphic demands well, even on vastly more powerful cards. Look at FSAA — on many modern games, I can ratchet that up to 16 with only modest framerate hits. Go past 4 on CoX and it's intolerable. That is, some aspects are full power on older systems and fine on modern ones, but some old code and such still chokes things if pushed too hard, with high settings or a mothership raid or 64 newbies demonstrating how many particle effects they can show Ms. Liberty at once. 🙂

Ah, good ones. All pretty trivial START powers, though. Have I overlooked any primary/secondary powers — attacks, buffs, debuffs, shields — that have that combination of control? (My general thinking is that any such change would need to be very, very carefully evaluated for balance etc.)

Where's this "Chat Bar," does it come in pink and can I get the Devs to make it go sideways when I'm doing a dance emote? And is there ANY way to communicate with other players in the game? <GD&RAVF>

No, it wouldn't. Not unless it was perma-enabled, at which I would vociferously temper tantrum; or if enabled by default, which some large portion of the user base would thusly temper-tantrum about, if the recent VERY minor "look at this" features of P7 are any indication. Look at how many thought cooldown timers were new... Nothing is ever going to stop Help and General and Broadcast from being filled with "Which one is the ANY key?" questions. Nothing. There is always going to be a not-insignificant percentage of players who want to Molly Hatchet* their gameplay and can't be begged or beaten into ever going and looking anything up. They don't have time to read a page on Incarnates, you see, they have the menu open and want someone to explain it to them, with every nuance of min-maxing, right now. Or have to ask what something like their level shift is when they're not an advanced enough player to be level-shifted. You know, the ones that installed the game and AE-PLed to 50 without ever learning what the Zones are. Kudos for wanting the UI t be intuitive and self-teaching; that is near and dear to my UI-designing professional heart. But the bottom line is that, other than running around and whacking on Hellions, it's a complex game and a successful player is going to have to invest some time learning the 'whole' of each feature, not trying to figure out optimal set slotting as they're falling into a mothership raid. * "I got the pedal to the floor and my life alt is runnin' faster / We got our sights set straight ahead but I ain't sure what we're after... Hey, what's a "Giant Monster and can a fire/kin solo it?"

Okay, maybe. The question is a little clearer with that in mind. Are there any other powers that are both limited duration/with a cooldown, and cancelable?

No. All powers cannot be made perma. Regardless of the reasoning or justification or lore or backstory, the game is built around powers that have differing levels of application, and to make short-term debuffs perma unbalances the whole concept.

And as a very casual badger who hacked together a similar pop-tool (using ATC's data, no less), I can affirm that no second resource of any kind is needed whether you occasionally chase a badge or are Collecting The Whole Set™. 🙂

Eh, a little harsh, but yes, a 15-16 year old system that may not have been peak-of-the-gaming-wave then is into obsolescence UNLESS the game is dialed back to what that system could manage in 2010. Expecting to run any of the added UI features or at higher resolutions/settings is not reasonable. I spend a lot of time in forums for complex development tools, and there's a similar and persistent class of users who are furious they can't run WhoopTeDo/2024 (1) without paying for an upgrade and (2) on the same system that's run WTD/2009 just fine all these years, thank ya very much. CoX at least has the advantage of being largely the same software as then and should run fine on any non-glitchy system of the era... but only within the scope of how it played in that era, yer welcome a whole bunch. 🙂

As noted, I can't remember any prior discussion of this issue. I think — with all due good humor and respect to the OP — that it's a very small dot at the center of a Venn diagram of CamLook | R-Click | PlayStyle | and just perhaps ThatSystem (as in, maybe jittery key debounce in that mouse or mouse driver?) If some tiny adjustment can be made to right-click response time — that is, if there's already a debounce/hysteresis delay in the code — bumping it a little couldn't hurt and might solve this problem for however few users who run into it.

Well, now, that might be a little extreme. Even I enjoy running around a zone or two collecting the Explo ones as a break from incessant combat. Let's face it, this game has several factions, each largely convinced they're playing the right way, that everyone else are just sad puppies, and want the game features developed and optimized to suit their preferences. Fortunately, so far, most niche features are configurable or optional, so all the factions can get along on the same platform. Badgers are among the most harmless in this regard, although the grand mal fits the first few days of discovering the Atlas badges had been shuffled were... intriguing. I don't know why Badge Monitor was disabled. By all means, bring it back. But under no circumstances make it required or not hideable.

I'm fine with that, but as there are 2 or 3 or more numbers involved, I would sure hope any such display is configurable to turn it all back off. Put me in the crowd that doesn't need a continuous market ticker of alt value. I never did serious work on teletypes, but my first hands-on computer had a 24-character, 1-line ASCII display. The hugely sophisticated and complex 40x24 monitor and its interface box came around after I'd moved on. 🙂 I'm good with whatever setup any player wants, as much as I may argue for my choices. But I will always be found in stubborn resistance to cluttering up the screen with yet more micro-numbers for the spreadsheet faction. Add the feature, fine... but make sure it has an off switch.

FWIW, I don't find the bind labels on the trays of much use, unless you've gone to a really strange mapping for your primary and secondary trays. I'd wager upwards of 95% of players simply use 1-0 and C1-C0... one of the few areas of the original bind set that made and make perfect sense and can't really be improved on. I've also never found the slot/column mapping to Insps very useful, since it means you have to load and sort the trays continuously. I find a set of binds that always fire A Green, or A Blue, etc. more useful; other than for tidiness before combat and after a store visit, it doesn't matter how well sorted your table is or what slot or column a green is in.

Other than at lower levels, who carries around more than one ding? I am just sorta-kinda baffled at the idea of being confused what level you "actually" are, when — It's displayed right in front of you on the one window you can't hide; If it's flashing there you're (very most likely) XPed to one level higher; The CA window indicates any level shift in play.

What's to learn? TeamMate 6 in the window is dropping, hit '6.' Repeat. The only "learning" is which buff you put on which shift key, and for the most part, there are only two. AoE heals can go on 9 or 0 or ENTER. All under one hand, a pigeon could do it. 🙂

That's what the numpad is for. Put your heals and buffs on the 1-8 keys; with shifts, you have four options for each player. No targeting required. Make NUMPAD0 the targeted one, for a backup. That's the basic idea for MM pet buffs etc. but it takes a little more setup since pets aren't inherently numbered in the window. /bind NUMPAD1 "unselect$$teamselect 1$$powexec Heal Other" ... /bind NUMPAD8 "unselect$$teamselect 8$$powexec Heal Other" ...etc,

Have you tried simply adding the Level Shift monitor to your screen, maybe on a toggle bind? /bind EQUALS "monitorattribute Level Shift" ? 🙂 (You can scale that with /windowscale combatmonitor 1 — range is 0.65 to way too big.)

I've no doubt something like that could be corrected. As I've heard, to date, in ~15 years, one (1) report with a "me too" 🙂 ... I'd suggest looking into a few band-aid fixes on your end while you're waiting. It's an old-school play/interface style and I can see how anyone more (recently) used to modern games with a more integrated interface might be catching on these snags.

We're talking about slightly different things here. Some of us — what I would hazard are the majority — don't switch between look-around and UI mode as frequently as you're doing. I'm in lookaround mode about 95% of the active play time, and in UI mode pretty much only when stopped and not in combat. So there's very little window for collision of things in the way you're experiencing. Not everything in the window is "clicky"; only the menus and active elements like characters/foes. So it should be possible to keep from mixing the inputs, but I fully understand how it happens. This is, IMVHO, one of the faults with the click-everything playstyle, that of the macro-mania crowd. It's just wearying to me to consider trying to both play, as such, and control everything at the same time, using basically one input device. (Even console games with a controller have a dozen basic inputs and generally don't mix their functions.) This is why I am a champion of binds over macros; it spreads the effort out across two general realms of input and reduces all kinds of conflicts and effort. (And even I use macros... but not for rapid-access, combat functions.) The only good solution, since I wouldn't begin to suggest you change your play style, is to move mouselook to another key or mode. As noted, I know some players prefer it to be a left-hand shift key, and some have taken to making it a toggle as well. Either solution would combine with your playstyle, with a little adaptation time (that is, staying out of big teams and boss fights until the training wheels come off 🙂 ). But as long as your focal point is zipping all over the screen and switching rapidly between look and click, on that one input device... I can't think of another solution. It's not a game or technical fault that can be corrected, per se.