Numbpad Bind Woes

[MagicalAct]

Hey all, so recently I rolled a demons/thermal MM, that I took to 50 and has become one of my favorite toons. I was aware of the whole numberpad bind system but looking in the stickied thread at the top just made everything look Greek to me. I did pretty well on teams and solo just managing with the basic macros, and knowing when to bodyguard and when not to. It didn't bother me so much that I didn't have it figured out until I read a post where someone was talking about how if you weren't using the numbpad bind system you were playing sub-optimally and I didn't want to be sub optimal on one of my favorite toons.

 

So for those who are experienced with it, A)How hard is it to set up B) How intricate do you guys get during a fight? Like if there's an enemy I need gone first I'll manually do attack target, then swap back to BG when it's dead. C) What do you hand placement wise? I play on a gaming laptop and do have a gaming mouse with a numberpad on the side however, the numberpad on the side doesn't have 0, so would I have to take my hand off to hit 0 and then back? Any and all help is appreciated, it's put a bit of a damper on playing the toon for me lately.

Edited August 22 by MagicalAct

[Stellarex]

I have the numpad system and rarely hit more than two buttons but when a fight gets hard it does come in handy for intricate commands. 

 

It's easy to setup. You can customize it to use something other than numpad 0 and it's easy to use. Yes even in a gaming mouse. 

 

No one is going to judge you for using the macros you are already using however. No one is even going to notice and you can get by on 99.9% of content using them. So do what's fun for you.

Edited August 22 by Stellarex

[Teklord]

Even at the peak popularity of MM numpad binds on Live, it had niche usage at best. I suspect that current players at Homecoming tend to be more engaged now but even then Stellarex is completely correct no one will even notice.

[Deadlymantis]

Here is the easy setup method for Demons.  Just copy each of the four /binds (all pets and three demon) and paste them into the game.

ALL PETS:
/bind numpad0 "bind numpad4 petcomall agg$$bind numpad5 petcomall def$$bind numpad6 petcomall pass$$bind numpad7 petcomall att$$bind numpad8 petcomall fol$$bind numpad9 petcomall goto"

 

DEMONS:
/bind numpad1 "bind numpad4 petcompow ling agg$$bind numpad5 petcompow ling def$$bind numpad6 petcompow ling pass$$bind numpad7 petcompow ling att$$bind numpad8 petcompow ling fol$$bind numpad9 petcompow ling goto"

 

/bind numpad2 "bind numpad4 petcompow mons agg$$bind numpad5 petcompow mons def$$bind numpad6 petcompow mons pass$$bind numpad7 petcompow mons att$$bind numpad8 petcompow mons fol$$bind numpad9 petcompow mons goto"

 

/bind numpad3 "bind numpad4 petcompow prin agg$$bind numpad5 petcompow prin def$$bind numpad6 petcompow prin pass$$bind numpad7 petcompow prin att$$bind numpad8 petcompow prin fol$$bind numpad9 petcompow prin goto"

 

To use it, pick the pet group (0=all, 1=minions, 2=lts, 3=boss), then give them a stance (4=aggressive, 5=defensive, 6=passive) and command (7=attack, 8=follow, 9=goto).

 

Hope that helps!

[UltraAlt]

Just don't forget to put a keybind on the numlock button.

DCUO does that by default.

 

[Maelwys]

On 8/22/2024 at 9:43 AM, MagicalAct said:

So for those who are experienced with it, A)How hard is it to set up B) How intricate do you guys get during a fight? 

A) It takes roughly 5 minutes to set up; assuming you're copying/pasting an already-defined set of keybind files and slightly tweaking them.

B) 99% of the time I don't bother with fine-grained control; beyond using the numpad keys for "targeting" individual henchmen quickly in order to heal/buff them.

I've covered this before, but my typical keys to hammer during missions are simply:
B "petcom_all defensive follow" [Bodyguard mode]
G "petcom_all aggressive" [aGgressive]
H "petcom_all passive follow" [Heel]
and usually also a Variable key which sets most pets to Bodyguard mode and leaves one alone (to instantly give me some survivability but let one pet continue to attack etc) e.g.
V "petcom_pow 'Battle Drones'follow defensive$$petcom_pow 'Protector Bots' follow defensive"

PowerTray #1 is set to "Attack this target" ("petcom_all attack" mostly, sometimes altered so just one pet attacks) and PowerTray #2 is set to "Go here" ("petcom_all goto").
On most maps I can enter a mission, press G then V and then amble around instructing my little engines of destruction to "go here" quite a lot. 

Don't switch modes too often unless you need to - shifting from Passive into Defensive or Aggressive will reduce your kill speed as pets take about 5-10 seconds to reacquire targets before they'll start shooting again.

An important thing to have though is a method of quickly resetting your pet AI whenever they're misbehaving - especially on teams. Setting pets to PASSIVE FOLLOW then immediately to DEFENSIVE FOLLOW (tapping H then B in my above examples) will clear their aggro list and force them to instantly start running back towards you... however if you just spam DEFENSIVE FOLLOW or DEFENSIVE GOTO then they will very likely just keep trying to chase whatever is currently shooting at them.
 

Edited August 28 by Maelwys