Are hotkeys needed?

[Ven]

now this is something i've wanted to post for quite some time. and it might be a stupid question. but are hotkeys, control groups and the likes needed for higher level play?

if you watch my streams you know i make limited use of hotkeys. i use hotkeys for abilities and retreating but i do not use hotkeys for changing stances, melee, attack ground, and more importantly; unit selection.

will this hinder me as i try to grow and improve as a player? or will i need to try and force myself to learn hotkey and control group usage? up until this point i've been doing quite alright without and i've grown use to not using them. with the units on the right side i dont feel its needed. and the few games i have tried to force myself to use unit hotkeys it felt... weird.

i feel like it is hindering me. i feel like i've hit a sort of brick wall in terms of me "getting better". over my first 500 hours or so i felt like i got better the more i played. but for the last 150 hours or so i dont think i've grown nearly as much as a 150 hour time period in my first 500 hours.

thoughts?

[Dark Riku]

It helps (a lot), but it's not necessary in dow2 imo.
One of the more important parts of dow2 is strategy.

[Vapor]

Unit selection is very helpful, as is force-melee. I would learn those. But as Riku pointed out, it's not really the most important part of improving. You can get better at just figuring out what to build, where to send your units, what to focus fire, etc. without hotkeys.

[Wise Windu]

I'd say the use of hotkeys is definitely very helpful, control groups at the very least. It can prevent any misclick-induced retreats, greatly decreases reaction time to abilities and movement just by not having to move your mouse back and forth between the unit portrait and the place you want to go, which can help in hectic fights. You can press the hotkey and move the unit almost instantly rather than having that 'lag' between knowing something should happen and actually making it happen. And you can much more quickly cycle between units and, by extension, locations on the map, so your reactions and situational awareness over distant areas can be improved even more.

So yeah. It might take a few games to get used to using the hotkeys, and you might mess some up at first, but it's definitely worth the time to figure it out, in my opinion.

Obviously, like Riku and Vapor said, it doesn't trump strategic decision making and composition decisions. Those should always come first, and usually have a bigger impact on how well you play.

I might be slightly biased though. I used to play a lot of StarCraft, and hotkeys were really important

[Ven]

i've had very little experiences with the RTS genre in terms of playing a verity of RTS games. the only RTS games have have really grabbed me and made me spend more than 10 hours on them is DOW1 and obviously DOW2.

DOW1 i never played the multiplayer of and i only ever played vs the AI. and as you may know, the DOW1 AI is infamous for being horrenoisyly shit in terms of difficulty scaling. on easy they never even attempt to attack your base and just camp. and all other difficulties they rush you down as for some reason the AI gets more resoruces at the start than you. but thats besides the point.

DOW2 is the only multiplayer where i've actually wanted to get good at, and i think ive done an alright job. i like to consider my micro to be pretty good considering my lack of hotkey usage, and i also think i have a decent grasp on strategy. i have yet to face an opponent that has forced me to have a higher reaction time. the only one who i've played in a 1v1 (forestradio) that would i would consider to be that, just stomps me to the point of that reaction time not mattering; its a very weird grey area.

[Atlas]

I can't imagine playing any strategy game, let alone Elite, without using the hotkeys as much as possible. Atm, I'm using the control groups, the ability(grid) shortcuts, the retreat shortcut and the force melee/ change stance hotkey. All so helpful.

[Eclipse]

The fact that we can't have units in multiple control groups drives me batty, but I assume that's an engine limitation.

But for the love of all that is holy the positioning of the unload key throws me off. I'm using grid keys so if I have a transport unit selected, it changes all of my hotkeys on everything else in my control group

[Toilailee]

At a high level hotkeys are a must. You need to know the hotkey for every ability from muscle memory and be able select it insantly when needed.

Then again there's no1 is playing this game at a "high" level anymore.

[Torpid]

Then again there's no1 is playing this game at a "high" level anymore.

Exactly.

Hotkeys are absolutely mandatory at high level because using hotkeys full stop is not indicative of good micro, it's just indicative of NOT HAVING HORRIBLE MICRO.

Micro is far more important than macro at low-level. You can have the optimal build order in mind but if you can't use it properly or if you keep throwing away squads as part of it then it's useless.

Later on, once you hit a certain thereshold of basic micro - which is definitely after using hotkeys for squad selection and all ability usage including repair - improved micro after that doesn't matter too much and macro is far more important. Before then though I'de say micro is far more influential in skill.

[Eclipse]

Micro is far more important than micro at low-level.

Typo methinks.

[Torpid]

Micro is far more important than micro at low-level.

Typo methinks.

Aye aye, thanks.

[Cheekie Monkie]

I can't imagine playing without hotkeys, especially the unit hotkeys. So much so that I find it impossible to click the portraits on the right.

Of course, this does have the inherent disadvantage of me having difficulty in controlling more than 7 units at a time, as my fingers simply don't reach that far! Perhaps some piano lessons are in order?