Having the QWER keys open build menus is particularly egregious, as it introduces extra key repetition as the most commonly build structures are also on the QWER row. Stacking abilities in a horizontal line is a convention that mostly draws from MOBA, but is considerably less efficient in RTS games as it increases the likeliness that a player must use a finger to pick a unit group or camera, then repeat that finger on a nearby key to use an ability, limiting their action speed or putting undue strain on one part of the hand when playing quickly. I’m thinking that this custom script from 2007 was the inspiration for the default hotkey layout in AOE4, but that layout doesn’t make efficient use of hotkey groups or camera hotkeys (I noticed there are none in AOE4?).

If players must use a grid layout, can we perhaps reorder the command card buttons for each unit? This was possible in WarCraft 3 through editing text files. The problem with only having a grid hotkey system is that the player can’t assign hotkeys based on the importance of a button - the importance of a button will always be mapped to an arbitrary location on a grid which is useful for players learning a game, but not useful when the player wants to adapt their controls for efficiency.įor an example of some research into hotkey ergonomics, search for TheCore and Chameleon layouts on the Team Liquid forums. It’s more or less impossible to set up a hotkey layout to reduce finger repetition, because the grid layout is designed to be visually clean rather than mechanically efficient. I’ve got something that is working alright now, but overall the experience has been pretty jank. I’ve just picked up AOE4 as my first AOE game in the franchise, and I’ve been trying to adopt the hotkey layout that I am used to from other RTS games. Look up a user named WTVR for the first implementation of a grid hotkey system in WC3 and Team Liquid forum for discussions which improved the formula further.ĮDIT 2: Limit of 2 links per post is actually a limit of 1 link.

EDIT: I was going to post references to various evolutions and discoveries in ergonomics of the grid system, but there is a limit of 2 links per post on new accounts, so you guys can use Google if you’re at all curious - sorry.

How to set up hotkeys in warcraft 3