Keyboard Controlled Bars
 

Maybe I'm a mutant, or something, but I usually Don't use the mouse for most controls, when I'm playing. Yes, I have to use it to open doors, collect resources, and loot my foe, but all of that is OUT of combat.

But I'm a key-presser, not a mouse-clicker.

In combat, my fingers are on the number-pad, controlling targeting and movement and on the number-keys, activating powers, or shifting to the F-keys to select a team-member.

The 'problem', if you want to call it that, is LotRO's cool 'tiered' combat system, where basic powers and in-combat events unlock progressively more potent powers. This is, quite possibly, the funnest part of LotRO combat! But it leads to an interface filled with greyed-out options which become available for only a brief time, before timing out. And players get to hunt through the grey, hoping to catch the right power at the right time, to win the fight.

So Many Powers that I'm running out of places to put them!

All well and good, this is what the bar & slot management plug-ins are supposed to help with. The good ones present you with the available options at the right times, so you can choose the tool for the situation.

Except, as far as I can tell, you have to use the Mouse to use these cool plug-ins. I can't 'Alt-4' and use the next tier attack, or 'Alt-6' and take advantage of that healing-power. Instead, I've got to stop controlling my character, grab the mouse, and poke the icon!

Is there any plug-in or mod for the key-presser? Or, perhaps a way to control one of these Bar/Slot management plug-ins from the keyboard? I'm running out of buttons and I've already run out of fingers to press them with!

Be Well!
Fireheart

I'm afraid that Turbine has not given plugin authors the ability to set keybindings to plugins. This, unfortunately, is a feature that is not currently possible unless Turbine makes some alterations to the LUA API.

Hmm, how frustrating. So, this means that the various bars & slots plug-ins are creating wholly new power-bars, which are not part of/controlled by the core UI?

I can see ways that this might be very useful. Particularly for characters with lots of optional and/or out-of-combat powers, like a Hunter's 'Guide to' powers, or someone with multiple mounts, or costumes, or clickable items, or the new multiple home-stone abilities. These could be kept off the core power-bars and only called-up at need - leaving more space for the more critical powers.

But it sure would be COOL if dynamic power-bars could be accessed from the keyboard, so one could assign a key to that unlockable power-slot and when the power became available, one only had to press the key to fire it. Even better, if the dynamic power-slot automatically held whatever power was now available... So, when my Guardian unlocked Retaliation, I could press one key and when the next tier of Retaliation unlocks, I could press The Same Key to continue the chain upwards.

More powers, with fewer buttons.

I guess that's something to look forward to, in the future, then.

Be Well!
Fireheart

You don't need to use the mouse to loot stuff or even gather resources/open doors.

Just bind the following lines in the keybindings to some keys you think would suit your needs.

Under the "Selection" tab:
Select Nearest NPC - To target NPCs obviously but also to target their corpses.
Select Nearest Item - To select resource nodes/doors/boxes.

Under the "Miscellaneous" tab:
Use Selection - To use whatever you've targeted.

I've put these three keybindings next to eachother and use them a lot.

I agree, I actually have those set up, though they don't always work for items. Also the target-selection is fairly short range (which is probably a good thing). For those longer-ranged and more specific targetings, the mouse simply works best.

However, the auto-target and 'next target' keys I have set up work superbly in combat - I only very rarely kill passing rabbits by accident. :)

Be Well!
Fireheart

Yeah, pretty much. On one side, it is a bit frustrating to have to wait for Turbine to give us access to new information or features - but on the other, since the plugin system is completely separate from the actual UI, they have full control over how they want things to be used/done. Theoretically anyway, meaning that they won't have to release a patch because someone found a way to do something Turbine doesn't want them to (i.e. exploits etc).

So potentially - in the long run, it's a great idea. In the short term, especially with how slow Turbine seems to be with everything, it pretty much sucks.