Hotkey groups on marines. (adv. commanding)
SantaClaws
Denmark Join Date: 2012-07-31 Member: 154491Members, Reinforced - Shadow
Denmark Join Date: 2012-07-31 Member: 154491Members, Reinforced - Shadow
When ever I've watched fpv of marine commanders, including prem team commanders, I have never seen them hotkey their marines. I have tried explaining my way of hotkeying my marines, but my words seem to fall short. So I've decided to write this post to explain in detail, and I'm going to upload a short video demonstration.
What I really want from this post, is to make sure that I get it out clearly what I mean by hotkeying my marines, and then I'd like to hear why you guys don't like to do it.
But first I want to briefly talk about the benefits from doing it. During one of the ensl gathers the other day, we were talking about the inaccuracies of medpacks, especially the fact that if the marine is at the bottom or at the top of your screen, some times the medpacks just drop in retarded places. So it's important to center your screen, to the best of your abillity, on the marine so your medpacking is as accurate as possible. That's why I think hotkeying your marines is great.
It also lets you switch much more rapidly between your marines on opposite sides of the map, compared to clicking the map with your mouse.
and lastly, it also allows you to keep your mouse more centered to the screen, ready for medpack drops, because you don't have to move your mouse on the map.
The responses I got from the commanders I've asked, were often "It's too difficult to know which key you assigned to which marine" and so on. Which is what makes me think that my explanation of how I do it was bad. Because I don't assign my hotkeys based on a marines name. I assign my hotkeys based on where on the map he is.
Let's take Jambi as an example. I'd assign who ever goes offload or pub to 1 (because 1 is the number furthest to the left), who ever goes to gravity as 2 (because 2 is between 1 - 3) and 3 to who ever goes to repairs. And that's it. You might be thinking "well you have 5 marines, what about the other 2? Do they just not get medpacks?" Of course they do. I always make sure to hotkey the rine that is in the front, or in other words, who ever is most likely to be targeted first. Who ever is in his vicinity, will still get meds, even if he's not completely centered - and I still have the spacebar which helps me to center him.
"So what if my marines decide to rotate during the game?" Easy - you just reassign the hotkeys, so 1 still is left, 2 still is center, and 3 still is right.
On a map like jambi, I'd consider using 4 hotkeys though, but you get the idea I think. Anyway, here's the video demonstration. This is basically a pub stomp, I chose this clip because of it's relative short length and that I think it demonstrates the concept well enough.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/91554/Video Capture/Natural Selection 2/Commanding/Jambi.mp4
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/91554/Video Capture/Natural Selection 2/Commanding/Descent.mp4
Tl;dr - Why are people not assigning their marines to hotkeys?
What I really want from this post, is to make sure that I get it out clearly what I mean by hotkeying my marines, and then I'd like to hear why you guys don't like to do it.
But first I want to briefly talk about the benefits from doing it. During one of the ensl gathers the other day, we were talking about the inaccuracies of medpacks, especially the fact that if the marine is at the bottom or at the top of your screen, some times the medpacks just drop in retarded places. So it's important to center your screen, to the best of your abillity, on the marine so your medpacking is as accurate as possible. That's why I think hotkeying your marines is great.
It also lets you switch much more rapidly between your marines on opposite sides of the map, compared to clicking the map with your mouse.
and lastly, it also allows you to keep your mouse more centered to the screen, ready for medpack drops, because you don't have to move your mouse on the map.
The responses I got from the commanders I've asked, were often "It's too difficult to know which key you assigned to which marine" and so on. Which is what makes me think that my explanation of how I do it was bad. Because I don't assign my hotkeys based on a marines name. I assign my hotkeys based on where on the map he is.
Let's take Jambi as an example. I'd assign who ever goes offload or pub to 1 (because 1 is the number furthest to the left), who ever goes to gravity as 2 (because 2 is between 1 - 3) and 3 to who ever goes to repairs. And that's it. You might be thinking "well you have 5 marines, what about the other 2? Do they just not get medpacks?" Of course they do. I always make sure to hotkey the rine that is in the front, or in other words, who ever is most likely to be targeted first. Who ever is in his vicinity, will still get meds, even if he's not completely centered - and I still have the spacebar which helps me to center him.
"So what if my marines decide to rotate during the game?" Easy - you just reassign the hotkeys, so 1 still is left, 2 still is center, and 3 still is right.
On a map like jambi, I'd consider using 4 hotkeys though, but you get the idea I think. Anyway, here's the video demonstration. This is basically a pub stomp, I chose this clip because of it's relative short length and that I think it demonstrates the concept well enough.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/91554/Video Capture/Natural Selection 2/Commanding/Jambi.mp4
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/91554/Video Capture/Natural Selection 2/Commanding/Descent.mp4
Tl;dr - Why are people not assigning their marines to hotkeys?
Comments
For a majority of the stuff I want to do, this serves me well in allowing me to be constantly looking at the marines and then secondarily at the map, never having to actually put the camera over base.
Even with a macro to hotkey, it still takes time as well.
So yeah, you can do what works for you, but this is what works for me and I don't plan on completely changing it because I really don't see the benefits.
This is just a tool to rapidly switch between players on opposite sides of the map, while making sure the marines are centered and without ever removing your mouse from the center of the screen as well.
I'm not trying to offer an alternate way of playing, just a tool you can easily implement to improve mechanics without affecting much else.
But I have played with the thought of using hotkeys on marines as well, might give it a shot again.
Come back and tell us if you like it.
Gonna try it too.
It's not about being quicker than clicking. It's about the accuracy and consistency. The time you save, is not going to make any impact in 99% of games, but the accuracy and consistency will imo.