This is a modding cry for help. I've been ridiculously excited about Skyrim ever since I found out what an emphasis dual wielding would have in the game. Unfortunately, though you can indeed dual wield just about everything, Bethesda neglected to include any way to quickly switch between dual wield combinations.

For example, if I bind 1 to my sword and set my axe as an off-hand and then set my bow to 2, I can move between those set ups with just the 1 and 2 keys. This works because the game will remember the last off-hand item when moving to two-handed equipment. However, let's say I want to keep my sword in my main hand, but swap in my heal spell to off-hand which is bound to 3. Pressing 3 will indeed swap my off-hand to healing, but pressing 1 again will not bring my axe back as the hotkey system does not recognize off-hand assignments.

The only way to return to my original dual wielding setup is to reequip my axe from the favorites menu. Clunky to say the least. It would be much easier and more fluid to switch from sword/axe to sword/heal and back with just the hotkeys rather than pausing the game by accessing the favorites menu.

Some other notes:

- Assigning the axe it's own hotkey (say sword on 1 and axe on 2) does not work, as the axe will simply replace the sword in the mainhand and leave whatever was already in off-hand in place.
- Dual wielding identical items is the exception to this problem. In this case (say two identical daggers bound to 1) pressing 1 twice will equip one in the main-hand and then the second in the off-hand. You can also switch between the dagger/heal combination as the heal will open in the off-hand and 1 will equip the second identical dagger back to the off-hand.

So here is my desperate plea. Please, genius modders, I beg of you. If this is within your powers - help a poor dual wielding dovahkiin out. Thanks!

[censored] a mod request, this [censored] should be in vanilla.......

I started a thread about it in general
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1260046-i-have-number-keys/#entry19176867

I AGREE 100%. To be honest, I started a thread about this in General as well, but I'm surprised this hasn't been a more popular source of anger and frustration. I love the game, but I am always hesitant to fire up a healing spell (the only magic I use) just because it's so irritating to get rid of.

Agreed. This is the most annoying part of the game for me at the moment.

agreed, i have to have my sword on 1 and my shield on 2, and quickly press 1,2 to get the combination i want.

check out my thread i linked above, i have some good ideas (IMO) on how to implement that, and feedback would be nice. That and i could use a bump cause i posted it late and it went straight off the first page .

Will let's face it they did the thing every one expected them to do which is to spit on pc users.
So let's be realistic and ask the people who actually made this game a successful game on the PC in the first place : The Mods

Do want!

While it's nice that they let me keybind from the favourites menu (though not as nice as if there had been an actual keybinding menu a la Oblivion), it boggles the mind that they won't let me bind combos.

There'd probably be more complaining about this if hotkeys themselves were more obvious.

I would also like to see this mod.

agreed... stickied... get me back em damn hotkeys... whats an fps without hotkeys

+1

+1

Dual wield hotkeys do work if you have 2 of the same weapon. If you have 2 swords of the same type, hit the hotkey twice, and you will pull out both weapons.

It is a major pain though trying to dual wield mismatched weapons. most of the time I just hit the Q key and assign them that way.

I saw where if you want to switch hands for a hotkey item you can press the key twice.

So if Sword is 1 and you want to switch hands you press '1' twice.

Not where I can test this



Also

From the PC manual - "You can also assign primary and secondary Quick Keys by pressing F to pull up the Inventory/Magic Menu. Then, holding down one of the number keys (1 through 8) from the Favorites menu for about a second. Swap between items during gameplay by tapping the assigned number key."

+1

100% agree with OP.

+1

Highly irritating to say the least. Did they play test this on a PC much?

Heh I thought I was doing something wrong. I've figured out a workaround, just favorite the offhand then bring up the Q menu and right-click it to equip it. Certainly not as elegant as a single press of a button, but it'll have to do until a better system is modded in.

With Oblivion, there is a mod called "Stealth Overhaul" by JOG that did a great job with hotkeys (in addition to the good changes it made to stealth).

Basically, when setting a hotkey, the character's entire setup is set to that hotkey--weapon, spell, armor, rings, etc. While this maybe overkill for this topic, it's a pretty good place to start.

So, if any modders out there are looking for a place to get started, check out the mod Stealth Overhaul to possibly get some hotkey ideas for this type of mod with Skyrim.

Yes dual wield hotkeys work as long as you have TWO of the same weapons, once you accidentally pick up a 3rd weapon and have THREE of the same weapons, as the ones you're dual wielding,
your hotkey gets reset and you have to drop one of the weapons to go back to 2 again so the hotkey will "stick"

Same with a bow, if you have a bow set to 2 for a hotkey, and pick up an identical bow, the hotkey stops working until you drop one of the bows and re-assign the hotkey again.

I keep losing my hotkey for any weapon (aside from arrows) that I have more than one of.

Same here! And it's irritating me!

I keep setting 1 to imperial swords L/R, 2 to Bow, 3 to Health, so when I hit 1 to dual wield, it's OK, then I need to heal I hit 3, I still have a sword in my Right hand, and I heal with my left,
then I hit 1 again to bring back the sword in my left.

After doing that however, if I switch to bow by hitting 2, then hit 1 to switch to dual wield again, nothing happens, and I bring up the quick menu, and the 1 is gone from in front of "Imperial Swords (2)"

I've died a few times because of this

Favoriting a dual wield combination would be nice too. Overall the favorites system could use a few changes. For example, not being able to use 90-= for hotkeys for no particular reason.

Hopefully Enhanced Hotkeys for Skyrim comes out. :/

I've got:
MH weapon on 1
Bow on 2
Arrows on 3 (I keep changing it to the best arrows I have, I like that whole "auto-pick arrows" thing but I don't know what it picks)
Dagger on 4
Heal on 5
Offhand favorited but unnumbered

But pretty much the same, I've died because my mh weapon's hotkey disappeared. Now I try to only use ones that I won't easily find a duplicate of (Chillrend, Nightingale Blade, etc.) but the best one I have right now is an Elven Mace. I like to keep my best one in my offhand, so that I still have it when I switch to a dagger.

I really hope something of this nature gets released of Skyrim: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=34735 . The hotkeys in Skyrim are such a mess to get working right that its not funny, I would kill for a version of Enhanced Hotkeys for it, because I just don't want stuff fixed, I want more of them too.

Glad I decided to do a search rather than start another topic.

This is the one mod above all others that I need for Skyrim. Other than this, I can pretty much play Vanilla and be happy with things. Technically I'd be happy even with just a hotkey system that allowed you to hotkey an item to a specific hand. I just find it ridiculous that the most prominent, most core mechanic of the combat system is not supported by hotkeys.

Indeed, unless you're using a two handed weapon or a bow, you're going to be doing some manner of a dual wielding - either two swords, sword and an axe, sword and shield, spells, spell and sword, spell and shield, etc. Of these, currently only one handed weapon/shield or two of the same spell is supported through hotkeys effectively. Right now if I want to fight with a sword but also cast say, oakflesh - I can bring those out fine, but how in the hell do I put away oakflesh so I can actually block with my weapon once it's cast? Oh...I can't do that through hotkeys. Or what if I want to be a caster who uses a shield? Well every time I use a hotkey to switch spells, it replaces my shield. So I have to double-tap the spell key, then hit my shield key again while my character fumbles around like a moron on the screen. Or I want to wield an axe in one hand and a sword in the other? Can't do it with hotkeys, because trying to bring out the other will replace the one you've currently got.

Please, please someone make a mod that can hotkey dual-wielded setups, or simply let you hotkey something to a specific hand. Either of these things would be perfectly acceptable solutions that should've by all means been in the original game.

If you could somehow simultaneously fix the fact that poisoning a weapon removes it from the hotkey, that would also be great.