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I've lost count of how many times I've shuffled hotbars of skills and spells in persistent online fantasy worlds. What I want is my abilities available on keys one-to-five, because those are the ones I can get to quickly from movement keys WASD. But there are never only five abilities, and different situations call for different abilities. Do I need my healing spells now or my damage spells, and what kind of healing spells do I need - group or raid? Are we fighting other players? That's a different kettle of fish altogether. It's like learning a fiddly piece of music - you get there eventually, with the help of macros and user interface modifications and a lot of practice, but not without some big f***ing swearwords along the way.
But what can you do? That's the way it's always been. Ask someone who's played an MMO to write down their keystrokes and they'll methodically punch out an alphanumerical code like some kind of medium relaying a message from beyond. MMOs are defined by it, and contained by it. But why? Black Desert Online raises the question by giving an inspired solution. It's so effective, so liberating, I'm not sure I ever want to go back.
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