Hmmm seems I'm not clear enough, sorry English is not my native language.
So, what I propose is that we could have multiple quickbars, on top of each others, on the sides, etc, just like in any modern mmo, to get rid of all the item micro managing that makes a game tedious. I like my shortcuts as much as the next guy, I don't want cheap limitations that we bypass by constantly and tediously dragging and dropping, etc.
Now, among these quickbar, there would be a UNIQUE COMBAT BAR, which would be the LOCKED DURING FIGHTS, and the ONLY ONE WE COULD USE DURING FIGHTS.
The idea is to have us make build choices for fights, not have us do ton of drag and drops during fights.
This UNIQUE, LIMITED COMBAT BAR could have something like 6 skills and 2 items slots, I don't know this would have to be tested and yeah obviously I'm no game designer, but again the idea is that we don't end running Mageninjatanksofdoom that run into the middle of a group of ennemy, explode everything on their way and self heal while summoning pets and barely getting scratched.
I'm not proposing this for the sake of having a tedious interface or anything silly of that sort, no.
Why I'm proposing this is because I want tactic fights, with meaningful choices, and being able to do everything all the time will just prevent that.
So please, before you answer "nooooo we'll just drag and drop and it's tedious etc", please understand that it's not what I'm proposing, that I'm sorry for not being able to express myself in a cleared and more understandable way, and that I'm only proposing this because I firmly believe it would make fights -which should be a substantial portion of the game- more tactic and thus more enjoyable.
Of course I agree with the multi hot-bar idea out of combat, and I perfectly understand why you are suggesting a single hot bar in combat.
NWN2 (and any other D&D powered game ever made) limits the amount of spells you can cast through memorization, or per-day powers, so having all these hot-bars is hardly an issue. You still have a limit to the amount of spells/powers you can cast.
Having said that, being forced to rely only on 8-10 powers while fighting it's NOT a tactical improvement. It doesn't really change the way you fight, or if it does, it does it in the wrong way, tactically speaking. In games with limited hot-bars, once you have made your choice about your skill-set, your are stuck with it. If you meet the "wrong" enemy, in the best case scenario you have to flee the battle; in the worst, you have to die and reload. This issue can be addressed adding to the game the option to change skill-set during combat, at the cost of an entire round wasted doing that, but still we are talking of STRATEGIC improvements, not tactical improvements.
Now, normally I'm positive about any kind of strategic improvement in RPGs, but in a game like D:OS I feel it would be over-design. This game is first and foremost about exploration and quest-solving. It does't really need a deep strategic layer that slows it down. What it DOES need is a better balanced combat, and to achieve that developers just need to work on the AP cost of powers/potions, on cooldowns and on missing features like
delayed actions and spells that need more rounds to be cast.
