by JR Cook - 12 years ago     show comments

One of the big buzz phrases going around World of Warcraft is “ability bloat”: the idea that because of the need to grant new abilities every expansion (and during them) as a measure of power increase, players are becoming overwhelmed by the sheer number of abilities they need to keep track of. While most DPS “rotations” generally consist of about five or six abilities, it’s the situational and cooldown abilities that are really starting to pile up, particularly for classes that also have to deal with things like pets. Add in on-use trinkets, potions, healthstones… you get the idea.

The problem is also two-fold in that players also need effective ways to use physically use their abilities. Sure, you can make do with default action bars and (to a lesser extent) keybinds, but third party options for software (eg. add-ons) and hardware (eg. an MMO mouse) are almost necessary for success at the top level. However, it seems silly that the game is unable to support itself in this regard.

But it is a serious problem. The above image is of my protection paladin’s bar (I use and recommend ElvUI). It’s far from a perfect layout. There’s some method and some madness eg. “4” has been my bubble key since Vanilla. Of the 36 abilities above, I technically only need about nine or 10 to actually do my job. So what are the other 25+ buttons for? Cooldowns and situational abilities, of course. Aside from Turn Evil which probably doesn’t need to be on my bar, and the hopeless on-use effect from Soul Barrier, I wouldn’t dare remove any of those abilities from my bar, even if I only used them once a fight (or less). But is it really necessary to have three separate damage reduction cooldowns in addition to Shield of the Righteous? Do Consecration and Holy Wrath have too much overlap? What happens next expansion when I (presumably) learn one or two new abilities?

What can or will Blizzard do?

Following Ghostcrawler’s tweets on the matter, it seems inevitable that we will eventually see some serious trimming, but there’s not really any elegant solution. Take something away and players will cry “nerf!”, or worse, “you’re homogenizing my class”. Combine a few synergistic abilities together and Blizzard will be “catering to casuals”. Remove non-combat abilities like Eyes of the Beast and they’re the “fun police” or “ruining the flavor”.

Community manager Bashiok recently weighed in on the topic on the forums, addressing the perception issues related to taking away abilities because of how it affects class definition.

Classes are largely defined by their abilities, so taking things away can be a touchy subject. It’s something that we will need to give another go at addressing, because classes getting new abilities as level caps raise is essentially a given.

He also went on to rebut claims that removing abilities “dumbs down the game”, arguing that simply having a greater number of abilities doesn’t necessarily imply greater complexity.

If you have 30 buttons and your rotation is to push each button in order from 1->30, is that a smart game? Can you as a skillful and smart player press those buttons from 1->30 better than a worse player? Now what about if you have 5 buttons that require situational awareness, combo off each other, and a skilled player can achieve let’s say a ~10% DPS gain over someone else using those same 5 buttons just by making smart decisions of when to press them.

It will be interesting as we get closer to the upcoming next expansion to see what methods they will use to address the issue. From Bashiok’s comments it certainly sounds like there will be some consolidation coming.

What you can do about it now

If ability bloat is getting you down, it might not help to know that change is likely to be coming in the next expansion. You want solutions now, right? Well, there are a few things you can do right now to help you play more effectively and efficiently, even with 30+ abilities to keep track of. Here’s three steps to dealing with it:

• Get yourself a bar mod such as Bartender, or an all-in-one solution such as ElvUI
• Keybind (more) efficiently
• Macro abilities together where practical

The first step is to free yourself of the default UI. The basic action bars are functional but not really customizable nor aesthetically pleasing. Adding a mod like Bartender will allow you to resize, reshape and reposition your action bars into whatever works for you, whether it’s a standard three-bar stack or something a little more innovative. The default UI spreads out its action bars a lot, which makes your abilities harder to keep track of, so condensing them down is a good first step if you don’t know where to begin. If you want a solution that will allow you to make similar adjustments to all aspects of your UI, check out ElvUI.

Have a look at the above image again and you’ll get a sense for how I use keybinds. While default keybinds use number keys 1-0, the problem with using a long lateral line of keys is that you’re required to move your hands to comfortably reach them. Comfort is key when it comes to selecting where your keys are, but there are a few basic rules you can follow. You want to minimize hand movement, so select keys around the WASD cluster (or the ESDF cluster if you prefer). Left-handers that use the numpad can use keys around there. Once you’ve got your base keys, choose which modifier you want to use. Some people like shift, others control; alt is generally more difficult to reach. Then map your more frequently-used abilities to the keys you find easiest to reach. Generally, you’ll want cooldown abilities and things you don’t use often to be mapped on modified keys, but it will depend on the number of rotational and cooldown abilities you have. Having clutch abilities (such as Lay On Hands) unmodified is a luxury; it’s good to have but not necessary as long as you’re comfortably able to hit them when needed.

The third and final step is to look for abilities that can be combined together in a macro. Building a macro within WoW’s macro interface isn’t intuitive, but it is surprisingly simple to just whack a couple of abilities together. As a tank, there’s not a lot to gain for me by macroing a few things together, though I’ve often considered combining the weak on-use trinket effect with Crusader Strike. For a DPS, look to combine cooldowns with similar timers that aren’t on the global cooldown. Things like Avenging Wrath and Holy Avenger (Retribution paladin), Recklessness and Skull Banner (Warrior), or Icy Veins and Alter Time (Mage). On-use trinkets and DPS potions are easy to combine into macros as well. Often using these abilities at the same time is a DPS increase anyway, and you’ll be saving time as well as action bar space by combining them.

In order to create a simple dual-ability macro, use the following (this one’s for Unholy DKs):

#showtooltip
/cast Unholy Frenzy
/cast Summon Gargoyle

As well as making your abilities easier to manage, you can save on a few action bar slots, making ability bloat slightly easier to deal with. However, the key is always making sure that what you use feels comfortable and works for you. Bars and add-ons that help you track abilities are a start, and macroing keys together is a great convenience, but only Blizzard can really fix ability bloat “for real”. While I think that the WoW’s ability system is what sets it apart from a lot of contenders, MOBAs included, it is starting to get to the point where playing without some kind of third party solution is generally sub-optimal, and that’s before taking into account having to research your most efficient rotation.

I don’t know what Blizzard will do in the coming expansion (if anything, though it sounds like they will), but I do know that every time I gain a new ability, or choose an active talent over a passive one, it’s more of a hassle to actually work out where I’m going to place it on my bars than it is exciting that I have learned a new ability. Instead of abilities being a reward for player power, as they are intended to be, they instead become another piece in a puzzle that they need to work around.

I’m usually a fan of Blizzard’s solutions to things like this (I’m a fan of the new talent system) so I’m confident they’ll find a good balance. As Bashiok states, there’s no inherent correlation between amount of abilities and complexity. Figuring out the solution is only half the problem. How they deal with the fallout will probably be an even greater challenge. Somebody pass the popcorn.