Created an account just to report these very frustrating hotbar issues that are wrecking my enjoyment of an otherwise awesome game:
(1) Temporary "item skills" that are learned upon activating another skill (for example, the Petrifying Visage skill that is learned after activating Medusa Head) – none of these will stay on the hotbar. Every time I reload a saved game the slots where I placed those skills are simply blank.
To use the skills, I have to cast the base skill, open the skillbook, and drag the temporary skill back to the hotbar. Every Single Time. It's incredibly annoying.
The option to "Remove Unmemorized Skills" is not selected in the options menu, so that is not the problem.
(2) Items and skills are still being randomly added to the hotbar, even though I have it locked and have all automated hotbar behavior turned off in the options menu.
The biggest offenders seem to be bedrolls (I currently have seven of them in my hotbar, even though I only have one in inventory), as well as teleportation pyramids and skills from items (Flurry, All In, etc.).
This problem can be avoided by simply ignoring the top hotbars – using e.g., hotbar #5 instead. I'm concerned though that eventually *all* of the hotbars are going to fill up with bedrolls.
Of course, I have all of the "Automated Hotbar" behavior turned off in the options. This doesn't fix the problem. Random items are still added to the hotbar.
I honestly don't understand why automated hotbar behavior is included in the game at all. It has no useful purpose, and surely in a game as tactically complex as this, the users can be trusted to accomplish the very basic activity of adding the items we want on the hotbar?
These are incredibly frustrating problems for what should be a simple and straightforward function. Open skillbook or inventory. Drag skills or items to hotbar. They stay where you put them. When those skills or items are available, click on them to use them. It should not be this complex and difficult.
Anyway, there's so much to like about this game, but the continuing pointless hotbar issues are just driving me nuts.