Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Patch6, recuding hotbar real-estate

So, that's level two. With metamagic requiring additional space, and shortening hotbars (even for those not using it!!!!), an hour into the game the hotbar is already out of space (and not containing quite a few things, like special weapon attacks, scrolls&items I am carrying). Sure, there are other tabs, but that's really inconvenient to search through. Even in todays stream Sven had to search a bit to find a spell - and how will the current system help new players to wrap their heads around a wealth of options at thier disposal?

I sincerely hope that this is a temporary solution, and the UI will receive and overhaul and redesign once all the systems are in place.

I really, really, REALLY hope that we will get option to detatch reactions (and now even metamagic), move it anywhere else (abowe the hotbar would be my choice) and spread our hotbar to full lengts of our monitor ...

I would not even really mind if we would be able to move whole UI a little to the left, so we can spread it even futher.

They're still obsessively clinging to their hotbar design and refusing to explore more functional UI's for a D&D game.

The metamagic options could easily be moved to a separate open/close spellcasting interface (Solasta, Pathfinder, NWN 2....), where spells would also go and save precious space from the hotbar. And also be found intuitively, neatly sorted by levels rather than be randomly scattered on multiple pages of a hotbar between random potions, weapon abilities and whatnot with tiny icons and even smaller page turn buttons.

Why does everything, every little icon, need to be on the main screen by default in a turn based game? There will be more and more icons. High level spellcasters will be an absolute nightmare to play with this UI.

I don’t know, maybe it’s an “accessibility” thing. You know, for the same reason my Mum tries to story every file, document and photo on her desktop - and then complaints she has trouble finding stuff.

Again, I do hope it’s just temporary - flexible design to support features they add without a need for redesign every time. But as D:OS1&2 shipped with the same UI - I am worried.

I must also complain that now when I am forced to use multiple hotbars per character, I found that shortcuts to switching between hotbars don't work, and one is forced to click and misclick those tiny arrows at the side.

By default the buttons assigned are: "R" and "F". Those are also in conflict as other other functions are bound to those (at least R is). I made it so only "next/previous Hotbar" are assigned to those keys - nothing happened. Then I remap them to completely different buttons. Still no success. Comeon Larian - playabilty is somewhat important.

Remember this one...?



One of the things that was so nice about it, as opposed to these MMO inspired "show me everything at once" hotbars, is that it didn't turn the whole bottom of the screen into a rainbow colored panic attack lol.

The quickest way to throw an icepack on a hotbar is to clutter it up with everything and anything. A hotbar is not a spellbook. It's not a scroll case or potion case. It should only be used for what's hot. A hotbar is a place to quickslot the most common and frequently used commands.

If I drink healing potions and cast magic missile all the time, then it makes sense for those to go in a hotbar. But the hotbar shouldn't be the place for everything, such that if a spell or ability or potion isn't in the hotbar that it will likely be completely neglected and forgotten about. This isn't WoW or SWTOR, where we need to see like 100 things on screen at once, and have multiple hotbars that we can cycle through, because everything works on a cooldown keysmashing formula.

D&D and Baldur's Gate weren't like that. Instead they presented this information in a way that was organized and orderly and intuitive. Honestly, BG1 was like a case study in how to organize a bunch of complex D&D stuff in a way that was accessible. The everything hotbar is the absolute opposite of that. It's not only confusing, but also intimidating for the neophyte, because it's showing us way too much stuff at once.

+1 well said.

I'm not sure if it's what you're saying, but it would be great if they added a hotbar section with four icons to open menus (similar to the current spell level/variant selection menus) for spells, special moves, items and equipment.

The metamagic section of the hotbar should be removed, and metamagic should be with spells, as you said.
A way to split the hotbar into custom sections would also be helpful.

Also, not necessarily hotbar-related, but something about the way that spells are listed in the character sheet menu seems cluttered.
Possibly levels, since activating a level 2 spell also activates the level 1 spell.

But i like my hotbar to be spellbook. :-/
And i want it to work like that ... that and even more ... i want it to be spellbook, i want i to be scroll case, i want it to be potiom belt, i want it to be quiver, and i want it to be box of throwable things ...

I want it all there prepared for me to use without need to search through bzillion other shits. :-/
I doubt Larian will create two UI so everyone will be happy tho. :-/
Personaly i believe that dedicated icons that can be put into hotbar should be sufficient for your needs ... but i was told in the past that "it just dont" without any explanation. -_-

What is odd, as far as i can see, Larian wants the same ... as i do so far ...
That is most likely why they even created this hotbar as they did ...
Yet in every single patch they both add things for hotbar, and reduce its size at once ... why? I fail to see reason behind this contradiction, is that half of the Larian Crew thinks Hotbar is great and second one thinks its horrible so they work against each other and hist mess is result? O_o

I think i can only dream that Hotbar would ever come back to this beatutiful version, that never was in EA ... and we know about it just bcs Swens first gameplay:

Just look at that beauty ... what was wrong with this so they decided to give it away.

Precisely. That's why we need a better UI. Also I would like for them prepared for me, without me having to do a cleaning everytime I level up, get a new item I want to use, change my prepared spells.

Now when you quoted just this part ... its hits me that i should have say that includes other sides of the very same hotbar ...

I mean, we all agree on that this game really need better UI ...
Problem is that we are unable to figure what that better UI should be.

In this picture we see a tab above the hotbar showing us how many spells we can cast this day. This sould be a tab where we can click and see all the lvl. 1 spells. Then we need a second tab for lvl. 2 spell etc. And one tab for the hotbar wich we can customize. This would be much better.

+1

shouldn't every professional UI/UX designer know this? Why is BG3 UI so awful?

Now with the new weapon skill spam the UI is pushing me over the edge completely and I can't play the game at all without grinding my teeth in frustration.

So to clarify further, the design philosophy behind the sort of hotbar which Larian has adopted comes out of the Real-Time tradition. Specifically real-time massively multiplayer games, where the player cannot pause the game state (because that would be putting the good of the one ahead of the many.) In that context, where Time is ultra-sensitive, a hotbar of this sort is very desirable. It allows the player to graft the rows of the hotbar onto keys on the keyboard, typically F1-F12 or the numpad. Also to rapidly cycle between hotbar rows of like twelve or twenty+ (F1-F12 or 0-9 with like a shift click say), since there are generally more abilities than a few dozen, to quickly execute the commands when time is of the essence.

BG1/2 were real-times games as well, but it was understood that there was an upward limit of only 6 players at a time in MP, and typically fewer than that. The game was designed primarily with the single player experience in mind, and so pause was a given. Instead the emphasis was on pre-organizing everything in a set position within the main interface. So if you wanted to cast a spell, you click that little icon with the crescent moon and 3 stars, and it would bring up a horizontal tab that showed all the prepared spells listed in a set order.

There were only a couple spaces available to customize, and we called those places the Hotbar, because that's what the end user could control. The player could determine what was hot and what was not, but it was obviously very limited. The benefit there, was that it didn't require the player to organize everything for themselves, only a couple things, and also that it didn't take up a whole ton of screen real estate. The tabs would open when the icon was clicked and closed when the player was done. The downside was that if you didn't like how the spells or whatever were laid out in the default scheme you couldn't really do anything about it. The whole thing was very point and click oriented, such that you didn't really need the keyboard at all. It wasn't MMO style in that respect. If they player needed some time to get at the right spell, they'd just pause and the game was built around that concept. The "see everything at once layout" really follows the rise of games where the player cannot pause or take their time to navigate through pop up or radial menus, they need it extra-fast to play effectively at a high level. Not really my style of play to be honest, but it was certainly popular with many others.

The ideal compromise would be a default layout that prioritizes the new first time player and which does a lot of the busy work for them, so they can concentrate on playing rather than building their own version of the UI, but then also allows for exactly that (building the UI layout) if the player so chooses. MMOs adopted this approach, with SWTOR being a good example. In that game the end user can design, not just the layout of their massive hotbars, but also just about everything else in the GUI. The entire screen is divided into a graph layout, which allows all the various tabs, portraits, menus and mini-maps to be moved around or rotated in any way the player might want, then saved as custom UI profile. SWTOR isn't KOTOR, they're pretty different games at bedrock, but the point is that you can make SWTOR feel a lot more like KOTOR with a some tweaking, and that really helps bridge the gaps.

I think this is the approach that Larian should adopt, because it is the one that allows everyone to be happy. Right now the Hotbar itself is a little perplexing for a PC game designed for a keyboard and mouse, and a TB one at that. This I think is why many people feel that the game is actually being designed for controller based play, and specifically for co-op controller based play on a split screen, like you mentioned elsewhere. It's very hard to imagine that the people in the Larian offices are playing the game the way many of us are at home. But then you'll see other things like Font scaling which would seem to indicate the opposite. So I think you might be onto something, and that there are probably two factions over there, butting heads about which way this thing should go.

For my part, I think a better approach would be to have several options available. One for prioritizing the Single Player and another prioritizing MP, and then for either scheme, an option which is more mouse and keyboard and another more for a controller. Is that a lot of work? Probably, but the upside is that then they can give their entire playerbase a reasonable shot at finding a scheme which suits their sensibilities, instead of pitting one against the other. I think the chain movement and the party size convos are the two discussions where these issues seem most intractable, but it comes up just about everywhere right now, and definitely with the UI preferences.

Because I'm a returning BG1/2 player my preference is for systems and UI layouts that look more like those games, but there is an equal number of players and perhaps many more who want the game to feel and play more like Divinity, or DA, or insert whatever RPG gave them the warmest and fuzziest recollection hehe. However challenging it might be from a development standpoint, I do think there is a way to make just about everyone happy, and that they should shoot for that. But I don't think that can be achieved with a singular presentation. One size will not fit all in this instance. It needs something a bit more bespoke.

I think its sensible for the default organization to be based more on the Divinity games, since Larian is the developer I guess. If they left the onus on me to arrange my UI more like BG2 I'd be fine with that, and having to make the extra effort there in the settings or whatever. But right now I don't have that sort of option, so it just results in frustration. Like "why can't they just make it the way I want?" I'd settle for having to do it myself, from the ground up if I could. But it would nice if there was an option called "Classic" that arranged everything in a way that looked instantly familiar to returning fans of the old BG games.

I think because Dragon Age: Origins UI was awful - Larian seems to be more inspired by that game (hotbar, "party chain", underdeveloped cinematic dialogue) more then anything else. I think a important detail to mention is that - dragon age offered very few skills with no way to swap between them, and even less items - meaning I never had to use a second hot bar, and it worked differently (more on tha below). As to chaining, there was little to no reason to seperate/switch control to other characters.


I find even that questionable. I am playing Starcraft2 a lot at the moment - I don't think the system would be more efficient if all available options were listed in the row. It's easier to tap multiple buttons in proximity (either physically on keyboard, or with mouse), then have to jump all over the place.

Never played an MMO, but I think important detail is that Dragon Age: Origins and Divinity:Original Sin1&2 were using cooldown based abilities. Meaning there was a handful of abilties/spells that you would constantly in every encounter. It made sense to have it all hotbared because:
1) things like levels didn't matter - all spells use the same resource and work the same way, so the order they are listed in is irrelevant. Some organization might make it easier to find spells, but there isn't much that they have in common.
2) You will be using same skills over and over again in every encounter. Be it DA:O or D:OS2 just attacking is not the best approach - you will have sequence of skills that you will use over and over again. Having them grouped together is more desirable, then having them seperated.

None of those apply to BG3. Skills work differently, some can be used once per short rest, some per long rest, some use resources, some use actions, some use bonus actions. There is really no such thing as "skills I always use" as once I use those couple times they can become unavailable sometimes for hours of playtime. Sure, have a generous hotbar, especially for items with otherwise will be forgotten about only filling the inventory, but BG3 UI has to support BG3 systems, not follow design of games with a completely different design.

This is false asumption ...
I get that you people know hotbars mostly from MMO ... but to claim that is the only possible source is just nonsence. -_-

Dragon Age series ... both pause, and hotbar ... no conflict detected:
You could ofcourse say that this is actualy real time game, and not turn based ... not sure how much it matters, if you can pause every second.

Heroes of Might and Magic 8 (possibly even 7 & 6 ... not quite sure about them tho)
I Failed to find any screenshot, but since i played it im totally sure that at least 8 certainly had hotbar, since even Ubisoft understanded eventualy its so much easier and covenient to simply click and cast ... instead serach in quite nice made, yet (especialy on high level) kinda crowded spellbook. :-/
And yes im aware that will be problem for BG-3 too ... that is why i keep saying that we would need at least twice as big hotbar. :P

Even Pathfinder have something quite simmilar to hotbar
Yes i know, its actualy closer to popup window in matter of game mechanics, since you need to open it manualy ... but still, in the end you get what? Bar with spells.

And ofcourse there is divinity ... yet another turn based game with hotbar.

I obviously dont know where Larian take this idea originaly ... but neither do you, unless you are Larian employee in discuise, but in such case you would never admit it, so ... the point stands.

What im trying to say is that no matter where this idea originaly gets from, they obviously have seen that its working in this kind of games quite well, when done properly.
That is why they stick with it ... the only problem here is that its not done properly (yet) ...

But to scrap whole design before its finished, when its working as intended and just need a little tuning ... and start to create something entirely new instead, just bcs some other studio created entirely different desing in their not so entirely, yet still quite different game (Solasta) and *SOME* people are exited about it and want it now everywhere ... that dont seem like good decision to me at all. :-/

Its wrong context, for reasons i explained abowe ...
So, im gonna skip the rest on this matter.

Heard, seen, still dont like it ...
Hotbar is still much more covenient for my taste ... and i still believe that to set "spells" icon to hotbar should fill your desires, while keeping mine intact ...

I dont see any point here.

That is my point.

But some people DO WANT to organize things by themselves ... and i believe (read as: Hope) Larian undersrands that.
That is whole reason for this bar. -_-

That could easily be once again done by:
1) Icons causing popup windows with specific content ... spells, scrolls, arrows, etc.
2) Options in settins to adjust transparency of unused slots on hotbar ...

Voila!
Everyone happy. :P

That is my point.

Agreed.

As the matter of facts, Dragon Age: Origins did something quite simmilar.

Problem here is that it all costs money ...
So i gues they just do what they feel its best and keep the rest for moders ...

After all, if you search for WoW UI ... you can quite fast find out that every player have different idea about what is effective UI.

Both games work very differently then BG3 (see my post above) so that's not very relevant. You design UI for the game you are making now, not for the game you made or someone else made.


That's much better, as while Pathfinder does offer a generous selection of hotbars, it also has a functional UI. I would prefer to have the balance scewed another direction (like in BG1&2 and Pillars of Eterniry) and I thihnk there are some major design issues with it (I should have to click and hide/unhide UI to access "proper" UI, some important buttons are far to small, while useless things you will never use take a big portion of the screen. Pathfinder overall like to propritise presentation over usibility IMO) but at least I can get straight to playing without a need to waste organise the hotbar. I have to mention that I did find overall Pathfinders hotbar to be rather useless for casters - the required management after every rest/change of spells was too much. But it was an optional tedium that I could ignore, not mandatory, as it is in BG3.

Sorry perhaps I explained it poorly, I was just trying to describe what I think the design philosophy of that style of hotbar developed out of, not what it is now or what Larian necessarily wants it to be. Just to say that it's not novel, the 1-10 cycling bar, or an invention that we're seeing for the first time here. I recognize it from elsewhere, same as you. But I also didn't mean like RTS zergin' with keybinds on a hotbar would be better than a proper RTS UI. I can imagine getting rocked into the ground, if I had to play those games that way too. I think it comes more from elsewhere in the RT genre. I really only see an advantage to the 10key/cycle hotbar scheme like in those RPGs that took real-time to the MMO format, with the flashing cooldowns and such. Which is the last thing I want from a Baldur's Gate game hehe. You know, people going all blitzo mode and not sleeping for days, cause the game just commanded one's full attention in real-time like that. Not trying to say that I feel that would be proper implementation for a game like BG3 in any way. Just exploring the sources as they appear to me, and I suppose making some assumptions too based my own impression of where it arose. But I think we're in general agreement. I also don't think anything I said was nonsense, but I suppose that's a given lol


Can you elaborate? I don't understand what 'set "spells" icon to hotbar' means. I want my prepared spells in a spellbar, that I can access from a spell casting icon, and which would then present the spells to me in an orderly manner. Something that was consistent, that could be saved, that I don't have to do each and every time. Something a new player could get their head around. I don't need it to be all fixed and immovable I just want something that doesn't feel haphazard. I don't want to get stuck with a bunch of micromanagement and constant shifting, but I don't want to take the thing you like away, if there's a chance to accommodate us both. I thought you'd basically like the same, except you want the bars always up, and modular so you can re-organize them however you prefer. What I don't want is an empty spellbar, that is filled at random, or which includes things other than spells within the same bar. There can be a general hotbar if players want to mix and match for that, as large as you might wish, but it shouldn't be the only way for me to cast my spells.

I don't feel that what we have now is particularly intuitive and easy to use, and I don't think the hotbar they've given us has sufficient space to make it hum even if it was. Absent some actual menus for spells and the like in BG3, with some default organization provided beyond first come first squared, then yeah, for sure, I'd want the hotbar to be as massive as possible. Because then I'm going to have to build it for myself and I know that hehe. I don't actually care about quick binds for hotbar slots myself or any of that stuff, I'm more the scan and quick click player anyway. But I can see why they'd perhaps be trying to graft it to keybinds, if the idea was that the player is under the pressure to react to stuff quickly in real time, or if its simply a nod to what's come before. I just think that's sort of a poor fit for this game. I also think that could be really overwhelming for a new player, because it requires so much extra management, and not everyone delights in that.

If they don't organize it for me then I want space, absolutely. More space and then some. The pop up menu display bar I recognize from earlier games like BG, or DA or radials from games when ported to console. But when it comes to the really large hotbar, where the hotbar includes essentially all the things one can do, that I believe began with the rise of the MMOs with the cooldowns and such. I'm not a big MMO player honestly, when that craze took off was the time I was off at school, and I sort of missed the boat there. The point was just that those types of games have now developed a modular UI, where players that prefer to can have complete control not just of the hotbar, but everything, and can just create what they want from the UI. I think perhaps people really do enjoy the colors and seeing all the many icons all the times. Which I thought was what you were after more or less?

I kind of like to hide all that stuff, but still have a way to get at it, so the game can function, but with a minimal visual load. It's an aesthetic preference I'm sure, and personal.

In this game I feel that the hotbar is way too small right now for what it is being asked to do, given the lack of built-in organization. I dislike having to toggle/cycle and parse tiny icons, with potions and scrolls all getting in the way and needing to be moved about constantly. I don't really want to build out a UI for each character every time I level or gain some new items in every playthrough. But I totally support your desire to have that and to have as much control, or as large a hotbar as possible. For myself, I'd like the same basically, but being able to collapse them into something more manageable and simpler to parse and to have the default presentation be very easy to collapse into more generic icons.

Sorry if it came off like I was trashing your preference for the full up display, or coming across overly pedantic or like I know the secret of the dragons orbs. That's not really my aim, I just think its interesting to think about how these things came about in games.

Right now I don't have any alternative to the hotbar as the workhorse in BG3, and the bar is way to small to boot. If they return to the giant hotbar that we never got to see, I'd be happier than now. No doubt. But I'd also have some serious work cut out for me, even with hotbars of like 68 squares each cycling to infinity. Cause I'm that just level of obsessive hehe. I don't know that I'd enjoy it as much as you would, but if they gave me the option right now, I'd try to use it as best I could. To me that basically turns the hotbar into another inventory that needs to be managed constantly, but one that is way more critical to the gameplay than the regular equipment/item inventory. I think it'd probably drive me half crazy, compared to them just giving us a spellbook and such. I mean a spellbook to spellbar has been my constant request. I want it to have a default organization, and to remove some of the load from my hotbar.

Wait what "second hot bar" ?
I play with all DLC, and thurst me ... when you reach certain levels, you use every space possible.

We either played quite different Dragon Age games ... or you played only as a Rogue.
Since Rogue was the only one able to lockpick, there was a lot of reasons (actualy 1, but lot of cases) to switch characters.

They even improved this in Inquisition (not sure about II.) where every class have some unique ability, you need ... so have at least single caster, rogue and warrior is recommended, and you are switching between them quite often.

Try Warlock.
Eldrich Blast > Eldrich Blast > Eldrich Blast > Eldrich Blast > Eldrich Blast > Eldrich Blast > Eldrich Blast > Eldrich Blast > Eldrich Blast > Eldrich Blast > Eldrich Blast > ...

Well ... i mentioned them only as example for "not MMO" games that also uses hotbar, to show on practical example that claim "hotbar is MMO matter" is incorect.



That is main problem in this topic ... as i also mentioned abowe, there are people who WANT to organise the hotbar.
That is also the reason why i believe that we should be easily able to do both.

Lets take casting system for example okey?
In some old patch (2? 3? not sure right now) popup window offering you all spell levels was implemented.
Many people cheered, bcs that was exactly what they wanted ...
Some and i admit i dunno how much, but i was one of them without a doubt ... cryed on the other hand, bcs this change bring a lot of problems for us:
- first of all, Icons no longer show minimum Spell Level you can use them ... so if you want to plan your moves in advance, you must either actualy learn all your spells, or check every tooltip you have ... otherwise you can easily end in situation where i personaly was a lot of time, when i used my last 2lvl spell slot to attack, thinking that since Misty Step dont have any "II." on icon, it can be casted with 1lvl spell slot ... but it cannot, so my caster died bcs my UI was playing against me. -_-
- second, it was the fact that casting everything was prolonged ... not by much, aproximately in matter of seconds, somethimes not even whole ... but it the end, combat laster longer, bcs you rarely cast only single spell. But that is not the problem, problem was it was more tedious for no real reason.
Take it if you have party of 4 Wizards and you wish to buff them all with Mage Armor ... in old system you would just click on spell and target ... meaning 8 click top ... in "new and better" casting system its 12 ... and that is just single spell preparation, add False life to that and you have 24, instead of 16 add darkvision and you have 36 instead of 24 ... etc. you get the idea.
- third and that is my personal favourite, Larian didnt implement any kind of sorting since begining of EA ... so all those spells in those popup windows are ALLWAYS sorted randomly ... not so big deal, while you have only 2 spells there of wich one is level 1 and other one is level 2 ... much more anoying if you search for right HEX ... or, now witch patch 6 if you search for right Chromatic Orb

Why do i mention this?
Glad you asked, Ragnarok.
Well, its simple ...
Spell casting system is in some matters quite simmilar to UI debate ...

While Larian can easily do what some people (lets call them Group A) requests (just as they did with popup window) and ignore the other group (B), i believe its a misstake ... ESPECIALY!!! since the other party just want this new system they will implement for the Group A, to be aplicable for system we allready have.

And that is where we return to our spellcasting example:
What Larian did?
Implement popup window, that opens all possible spell levels for certain spells, removed ALL spell levels indicators on icons, and saved lot of space on hotbar in the proces.
Not exactly bad work, but it have its own problems.

What were Larian supposed to do? (in my opinion ofcourse)
Simply add to our existing spellbook icons that would be dragable to our hotbar ... one icon for every spell that would open exactly this popup window with all possible levels for THIS specific spell ... and other icon, that would open exactly this popup window with all possible SPELLS for this specific spell level!
Why would it make difference you ask?
Bcs then everyone could be happy ...
people wanted to sort it by spell level > they can ...
people want to sort it by specific spells > they can ...
people want specific spell with specific spell level on Hotbar > they can ...
Now only one of theese three groups is happy, and that is simply not result they should be satisfied with, especialy since all they need to do is simply dont delete things they allready have ... simply add to them some new possibilities.

Another example is Chromatic Orb itself ...
https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=792836#Post792836
The best Suggestion you find in this topic is to let people decide if they want to cast Chromatic Orb with big numbers, or sacrifice 1d8 for surface effect ...

You see the similarity here?
IF larian will delete hotbar and create litteraly anything else, it would be the same problem as with spellcasting, or with chromatic orb ... there allways will be someone who will be sad they destroyed system he liked (most likely it will be me ).
BUT if Larian will preserves curent system (hotbar in this case) but alterns it so even people who dislikes it can use it properly ... much more people would be happy, and since group i represent in this matter (even if some people around here presume its group of single person) wish them to preserve curent way ... it costs nothing, since that was allready implemented.

Now, when we explained why ... lets look at how.
That i was talking about abowe.
In my personal opinion dedicated icons & ability to make unused slots on hotbar semitransparent, or fully transparent is exactly what we need.

I cant judge, i didnt play it ... only watched videos and decided its not game for me.

Hmm... I spend a few minutes at the start organizing my hotbars. I spend a few minutes doing the same for each companion as I recruit them too. I've done the same thing in every game I've played that has a similar system, and it's not an insignificant number of games. Baldur's Gate had hotbars. It had quick slots too, for potions and other useable items, like wands/scrolls. The same for games like KotoR, IWD, NWN/NWN 2. So it's far from a new concept, and I agree, it's not limited to MMOs, or cooldowns. They are there so that some skills will be readily available when one wants to use them.

Here, we have multiple pages of hot bars available, at the click of a mouse, or a hotkey. So one looking to organize spells/items in a specific way have the freedom to do just that. One can even use this system to assign a slot to a specific spell level. So, in essence, the system that's being asked for here already exists, and is, in fact, simpler than what's being requested, once the player actually takes a moment to set them up. Since this is turn based, it's even easier to gain access to them, since the game is essentially paused at the beginning of every turn. So I don't see what the difference is between clicking to change a hot bar, and clicking to bring up a new hot bar? Except that, in the former case, you're taking up less screen real estate, which is the point of the thread?