I've never played an MMORPG like this where there were a.) so many levels and b.) SO MANY SKILLS! I have no idea what to do with them all! I have no idea what a good way to organize them is or if I should redo my hotkeys or what. Any tips?
It's all very personal. Your hotbar organization will likely be different depending on play style, purpose (solo, grouping, raiding), available skills, skill types, usable items, and class. My recommendation is just play the game and tweak as you go until you're comfortable and feel like the UI isn't hindering your effectiveness. I usually start off a new character with 5 hotbars stacked (1 at the top, 5 at the bottom) on the bottom middle of the UI. The top two are my hotbars with quick keyboard access. For damage dealing non-pet classes it goes like this: Direct damage, damage over time, master strike Area damage, encounter damage Taunts, stuns, buffs, debuffs, in-combat utilities Out of combat utilities, "until canceled" buffs Melee/ranged buttons, mounts, calls and teleports, sprint, cry for help For damage dealing pet classes, either the 4th or 5th bar will hold my pets, depending on which has room, and the 5th bar will also have a pet melee button. For healing classes, healing takes precedence: Single target heals, group heals, rez Direct damage, damage over time, master strike Cures, buffs, debuffs Out of combat utilities, "until canceled" buffs Melee/ranged buttons, mounts, calls and teleports, sprint, cry for help Utility classes will typically reserve two hotbars (3 and 4) for buffs and debuffs. I try to keep spaces between skill categories so that they're easier to differentiate. I'll also place oft used skills on the left and left oft used skills on the right. So my "until canceled" buffs are placed from right to left on the 4th bar, but combat buffs and debuffs are placed from left to right. I like to organize each category in order of effectiveness or usefulness. So for damage skills, they're in descending order of damage for a full lifespan of the cast. As I play, I'll reorganize things until I feel that they're comfortable and efficient for how I'm playing the class. It's also not unusual to completely reorganize and try new things as the skills accumulate. Usually I'll take a break around the top 3 tiers to optimize spec and setup when things start getting a bit more challenging. But my play style is mostly solo with a bit of grouping. For a primarily raid setup it might be quite different as there are items I'd like to have quick access to and skills I wouldn't use except in a raid situation. In such a case I'd probably open another two hotbars and put them on the side of the UI.
EQ2 does have a lot of ability bloat. Sooo many abilities. And lots of situational stuff that you will need, just not often. I wonder how many people in EQ2 are true key binders, I bet EQ2 has far more at least partial clickers than any other game.
For my setup I have the first row as my combat skills which are bound to my 1 through \ set of keys, the second hotbar is also used for combat but I bind them to my numpad keys, all of them including / * - + 0 . and enter, emergency skills are bound using pgup, pgdn, home, end, ins, del. All my buffs and other non combat related skills are all clickable. I mostly play casters and healers so this works great for me but for melee classes that require a lot of movement this might not work so well..anyway like what was mentioned earlier its all about what works for you.
I have main combat skills on one or two bars of hotkeys then the other more frequently used ones on another two. I have spinners on so I can cycle to other less used ones (such as until cancelled buffs) when I need to. I group specific types together. So AE ones go together and stealth attacks together and single target ones together. I keep meaning to put them in refresh speed order but not got round to it yet!
