Help! With uh.. Everything
I've looked through some of the various wiki articles with basic setup and videos, and walked away completely confused. Firerescue17's stickied thread on the basics looked good, but he lost me immediately with key bindings. Many of the videos are great, but to me at least, it's been a series of "This is what I can do with ISBoxer" but no actual "This is how it's done".
So here's what I've accomplished so far, what doesn't work (hint: nothing works), current / future setup, and my box team(s), plus what I want to do with software. I'm hoping you old pros can dumb this down enough that I actually understand up from down.
Installed isboxer and inner space. Ran the initial wizard and chose... MMO Standard. The uh, default option. I set up the follow and assist keys in the menu when it prompted me, and I managed to create a 3 player team that is stacked on 1 screen. Once in game, the follow and assist keys never did anything. To remedy that, I moved my 3 ingame socials (/target SK, /follow) to the same key ( "=" ), and then turn broastcast on to make everybody follow the tank, then broadcast back off. The group invite solution was similar. socials on the cheerleader boxes that is simply "/inv" (to accept an invite they have already), and a social on the tank that invites all of the characters. again, broastcast on, shift+3 (for the hotbar the social is on), then 1 to invite/accept.
That is the extent of what I was able to get ISBoxer to accomplish. I stopped using it because in trials, i found my cheerleaders would often gate or origin (which is at a key i never hit, not even accidentally) during normal combat. I also experienced issues with alt tabbing to a browser, clicking back in and having my mouse frozen (so no cursor, but screen moved around via mouselook), and also the moment i tabbed back in, the 3 characters would all run in different directions. This is all on a default wizard install. I have no idea what gives.
Also, after discussing with a friend, he sorta explained the videoFX bit. uh, it took me 4 or 5 hours to figure the basics of this out (lets not discuss how long figured anything else took). I managed to get spell bars and group windows from my cheerleaders to my main screen, and able to click into them. My pal says he uses a nostromo to hotkey through videofx instead of manually clicking. No idea how that works. Nice, but it seems to take up a lot of screen real estate.
I currently run a 2 screen setup, and prior to isboxer, alt-tab through screens, manually cast the entire main screen. the two side screems (shammy/mage), have socials to sent pets, slow, and dot. the mage has one for sending pet and nuking. That's the extent of the socials. So, SK - SHM - MAG is the default team. I flip the SHM for a CLR occasionally. I also will usually have 1-3 other people in my group played by, well, 1-3 others.
Due to work, I'll be switching to a 17" laptop, and that is significantly more difficult to box on, just less ability to see what's happening.
What I want to do:
Be able to play the main character without tabbing to the two cheerleaders. So the mage can nuke, send pet, or whatever else is required of him, and the shaman (or cleric) can heal whomever requires it, slow/dot mobs, etc. I realize ISBoxer does not automate gameplay, so this has to be done via socials and hotkeys / keymaps or clickbar menus (I saw these in firerscue17's Aten Ha Ra video.. no idea what they do).
I want to be able to play, efficiently from the main, have the two cheerleaders follow me, unless I get to a camp, then have them stop following. Have them do their tasks as necessary, and, for multiples, I'm not really sure how to tackle the shaman slowing all mobs.. I currently manually aggro each on the tank then manually slow them all. Which is super inefficient.
Looking for the best way to set this up, be it videofx and hotkeys, or all hotkeys or with these clickbar menu things, or entirely on a keybank. At this time, I have 5 programmable keys on the keyboard (razer blackwidow), and looking at the idea of snagging a razer keypad thing.. I dont see an actual nostromo selling anymore, but a few newer models... since my laptop has software programmable keys, but no real additional programmable keys to work with, i assume the keybank is easier.
Any help is greatly appreciated! I really want to like this and be a user, but the learning curve feels like a sheer wall so far