Custom Fighting Styles - Visual Indicators

[sir_blacksoutalot]

For BG's custom fighting styles—Northlander Hewing, Sembian Fencing, Athkathlan Triparte, and Turmish Flourish—it's tough to know when a particular is toggled active. I usually add one of these style's feat icons to my hotbar, and then click it every 10 minutes or so just to remind myself if it's set on or off.

With modes like Power Attack and Combat Expertise, their flashing icon makes it instantly apparent whether the mode is toggled on/off. Is there a similar visual indicator that could be applied to these custom fighting styles? It doesn't have to flash, could just change color or dim/brighten or add a tick mark. Anything would help.

Shield Bash has a similar issue. So if something can be done for the above fighting styles, I'd suggest applying it to this feat as well.

Not the end of the world to leave as is. I realize there are technical limitations, as well as higher priority issues, but if it's an easy fix then it sure would be nice to implement.

[Valefort]

A specific spell icon (those icons near the character portrait) ? One for all combat modes ?

[sir_blacksoutalot]

Sure, let me help clarify my meaning. So the feats Power Attack and Combat Expertise show up in the Modes panel (toggled with the G key). That's the same panel with Search, Parry, Stealth and so on.

For BG's custom fighting styles, even though these function like modes they don't show up in the modes panel mentioned above (probably too complicated to code). So I've dragged the feat—Northlander Hewing, for example—to one of my hotbars and that's what I use to toggle it on/off.

The problem is that the hotkey icon doesn't give an indication of whether that fighting style is activated or not. If I click the hotkey, the combat log will give a message saying it's either activated or deactivated. So that's the method I've been relying on.

Am I missing a more obvious way of telling whether the style is active? Is there a better way of doing this?

[Tantive]

What options can we get? Is it even possible to light up the icon specificly on the toolbar?

[Valefort]

Maybe but I can't see how, hence my question about an icon near the character portrait, that's the best I can think of.

[aaron22]

i think he means something on the icon to signify that it is active. like power attack does.

[sir_blacksoutalot]

means something on the icon to signify that it is active. like power attack does.

Precisely!!

But an icon near the character portrait would certainly be better than no indicator at all like it currently functions.

[Valefort]

Right, icon on the character portrait it will be then.

[aaron22]

fyi.. it is not just the custom combat feats, but could be accounted for all custom toggle-able feats. like blood mage's blood component, seeking and scarification are toggles on/off and would be good to have this as well. could be others out there as well, but this is what i could think of off the top of my head

[sir_blacksoutalot]

Just wanted to follow up with a "thanks for listening!" post. The added icon by the character portrait helps a lot in seeing whether the combat style is active.

I'm noticing that Northlander Hewing sometimes toggles off for no apparent reason. But at least now I can see when it needs to be turned back on.

While we're on the subject, are there known issues that turn off combat styles? And for clarity, this is for combat styles, not combat modes.

[chad878262]

I don't know all of them, but for instance activating some abilities will toggle off the custom modes such as fighting styles. For example when I recently tested combat modes with Parry I noticed that activating the Duelist Improved Reactions ability (Haste) it automatically shut off whatever custom combat mode was active, un-equipping a torch has the same effect (though equipping it and activating Torch Fighting had no effect). If you are able to document when a style gets shut off and what happened when it got shut off then it might assist further, though I am not sure if anything could be done about it or not, other than having a list that all players could use to understand what actions will shut off their combat style.

If you're interested, this is the recent thread with my testing results:
viewtopic.php?f=64&t=59973

[Valefort]

Casting a spell will deactivate Sembian fencing or Athkatlan Triparite, the other comabt styles are left alone now (since they don't give bonuses when giving up attacks).