|
Playing a game to the limit means that there can be no weak links. Assuming, you have know your templates and tactics, the only thing between you and r0xx0rhood is connection, right?
Not quite. Knowing what to do when, doesnt mean much if you cant pull it off with your game controls. Anyone who has pvp:d can relate to healing the wrong target and dieing because of it. UO is not exactly known for its smooth interface, and although it has improved over the years, there is still much to do. Perhaps the most important step any UO player can take to improve the interface, is to upgrade the account with UO Assist.
This is the program that had features such as Arm/Disarm and Target Self/Last Target bound to keys, way before OSI added similar functions to the client. If you are into pvp, and you do not have UOA, stop reading now, head over to Tugsoft and download the trial. The trial is free, but if you want to keep using UOAssist after the trial its $15. Considering we all pay $10 each month, thats the best UO-related investment you can make.
Now that you have UOA, we can move on. UOAssist strength is that you can hotkey almost any command (you can even record a set of commands into a macro and bind a key to execute it all in one). This is especially useful to drink potions, arm certain weapon combination for example. Simply using a spell or skill can be done just as well with the normal UO game controls.
If you are anything like me, youll want 10-15 UOA commands, 25-30 spells and perhaps 5 skills on hotkeys. The problem is, where do they all go?. Keyboards only have 12 function keys. Well UOA has some predefined hotkeys, like Insert/Delete, Home/End, PgUp/PgDn and various alt/ctrl combinations of these. But the thing is, to eliminate game controls as your weakest link, you must be comfortable with the controls. And I dont like ctrl+Ins very much.
My personal settings have evolved a few times, and I recently redid my configuration again. To give you an idea on how to configure, Ill share my new configuration here:
First off, I use the mouse in my right hand. Which leaves my left hand free to use the hotkeys. I feel most at ease on the left half of the key board- Also, I dont really like the function keys, at least not those on the right half. I also want to separate offensive and defensive commands to minimise the risk of healing my enemy or blasting myself when Im redlined. Ive used the keys on the left half (in combinations with ctrl/alt) in earlier configurations for voice commands (bank guards, recdu/recsu etc) as well as to bring up gumps like the Paperdoll, Radar and so on. Well no longer, those are now all moved elsewhere. Instead I use those keys (1-6, Q-Y, A-G, Z-B along with control for my offensive spells. Then, I set up basically the same keys for defensive moves with alt combinations. That yielded me roughly 40 keys to use, heres how I decided to configure them:
Ctrl+/Alt+
- 1 Explosion/ Disarm (UOA)
- 2 E-Bolt / Arm (UOA)
- 3 Flame Strike/ Arm1 (UOA)
- 4 Mind Blast / Arm2 (UOA)
- 5 Mana Drain / Arm3 (UOA)
- 6 /Disarm Left Hand (UOA)
- Q Poison /Target Self (UOA)
- W FireBall / Drink Gheal (UOA)
- E Harm /Drink Gcure (UOA)
- R Mana Vampire / Drink Trefresh (UOA)
- T /Protection
- Y /Reactive Armor
- A Paralyze / Heal
- S Lighning / Cure
- D Magic Arrow / Greater Heal
- F Meteor Swarm / Invisibility
- G Chain Lightning /Magic Reflect
- Z Weaken /Strength
- X Clumsy /Agility
- C Feeblemind / Cunning
- V Curse /Bless
- B Reveal /
Whats missing? The obvious candidate is Last Target. I have a three button mouse so I bound Last Target to the middle button. Its that important to me.
Other than that, I had a few more options with Alt+ because I use my thumb to press ctrl/alt and when I press alt, I can reach a bit further to the right confortably. I also made a point of making the buff/debuffs being in the order of SDI (Strength/Dexterity/Intelligence), as well as being tied to the same keys for both ctrl and alt. Ie, weaken is ctrl+z and strength alt+z, clumsy/agility goes to x etc. Buff spells cast so quickly, that if you get into a buff/debuff duel youll need to be real fast to come out ahead. Earlier configurations Ive used, have always been lacking in this one.
Odd keys:
After experimenting a bit I found out that UO allows tieing macros to the key between ”Shift” and ”Z”, but they wont save. Same thing with the key to the left of ”1”. After some rechecking with UOA I found out that I could tie UOA macros to the ”key left to 1”. So I promptly tied the Use once agent (to blow up pouches and break para), as well as bandage self to the ctrl/alt kombinations with that key. I use the Tab to toggle war/peace.
So I now have most of my combat related macros set up, and I still have the function keys left:
/Ctrl+ /Alt+
- F1 Recall/ Mark/ Unlock
- F2 Teleport /NightSight/ Magic Trap
- F3 Gate Travel /Resurrection/ Telekinesis
- F4 Hiding /Wall of Stone/ Monochrome ;)
I decided to make F5-F8 individual for each character. So My disarm theif would have a few macros for stealing and disarming and so on.
F9-F12 are not really favourite keys for me to use in fast situations (I need to move my hands too much back and forth when reaching for these, which makes for more missed keys), so I put the slow summoning spells there, along with some field spells. Using control on this side of the keyboard is a bit awkward, but work; alt on the other hand is really messy so I decided to not use those combinations:
Ctrl+ / Alt+
- F9 Blade Spirit /Poison Field
- F10 Energy Vortex /Fire Field
- F11 Summon Demon /Energy Field
- F12 Dispel Field / Paralyze Field
All other macros, mostly voice commands, some skills, a few spells and opening gumps, were moved to my PC-Dash. The PC dash controller, made by SAITEK, is a secondary keyboard, which connects along with the normal keyboard cable. The great thing about it, is that it lets you tie all sorts of weird keyboard combinations to a single key on it (like ctrl+alt+shift+7 - try doing that one with one hand). However, the downside is that the feeling of its keys is pretty sloppy, and it cant hold all my commands on it. I never liked switching back and forth between the PC-Dash and the key board in a fight. More often than not I had to look at my hands whenever I switched, and thats never a good thing in PvP. So my idea is to keep all nice and slow playing commands on it and focus on the real key board when I need to get the hell out of Dodge. As most of you wont have one, you might have to prioritize between your combat macros.
How you choose to configure your game controls is up to you. Everyone is different; I like to have a lot of commands available, or, my playing style means I may not be using the same commands as often as you do. Think before you assign your commands. I always placed my most important spells/commands where I was comfortable reaching them. I gave some thought to matching the buff/debuff spells on the same keys, making it more natural to find them. This is just to give you some ideas on how you can improve your own configurations and push your playing that much further.
|
