Hotkey Feedback

The new hotkey system is turning out quite good, but it still feels a bit insufficient. WtiiWarcraft uploaded a video where he mentioned a website that allows hotkey editing check the video “Blizzard ACTUALLY are LISTENING! ALREADY HOTkey Changes are here!” in the description is the link to the hotkey editor page. In my opinion, this is the most complete hotkey editor available for Warcraft 3, as it allows repositioning and customizing all commands for every unit in the game, including campaign units. I believe this is the editor developers should be studying and trying to replicate for the game instead of replicating the W3Champions editor, as not everyone plays Warcraft in multiplayer mode.

Personally, I’m a MOBA player, and in both Starcraft 1 and 2 as well as Warcraft, my hotkeys are usually tied to a combination of QWER and grid. I primarily use QWER for abilities on my units and heroes, while I use the grid system for buildings and purchases.

My current issue, aside from the bugs reported by the community, is that the system being implemented only edits hotkeys used in multiplayer, while campaign units’ hotkeys cannot be modified.

In my opinion, every hotkey should be tied to the selected unit rather than the specific command. When using the hotkey editor website that WtiiWarcraft mentioned in his latest video, conflicts arise when editing neutral and campaign units because multiple units share the same command. For instance, the Blood Elf barracks has the upgrades Research Marksmanship and Research Defend, which in the human barracks and Ancient of War grid occupy the same position. This creates conflicts when reorganizing hotkeys. The website allows changing the position of these two upgrades, but personally, I find this solution insufficient.

The same issue occurs when editing hotkeys for neutral units since many of them share commands, and the problem repeats itself over and over. Additionally, these hotkeys are tied to the language settings. For example, when playing Warcraft with Spanish (LATAM) text, some hotkeys cannot be edited, such as the Banshees’ skills.

I believe redesigning the system would be the best solution. I’m not referring to the graphical aspect, as I think that part is coming along quite well, but rather its functionality hotkeys should be tied to units and structures, not to commands and abilities. I understand it’s a long and tedious task to redesign the entire sistem, and it’s unlikely to happen, but I believe this would be the best way to make the entire community happy with this quality-of-life improvement.

I agree that the github editor is the best one, but I don’t think the in-game editor needs to go that far. It just needs to cover the core multiplayer functionalities. The other hotkey editors will still exist for people to customize campaign, custom map, tooltips, button placement, etc.

Just like how anyone that’s played World of Warcraft knows that third party addons do a lot to enhance the WoW UI, but they don’t need all their features added to the core game.

The amount of content that can be added to the customkeys is virtually limitless, and for that reason I think Blizzard should limit their scope to multiplayer/ladder hotkey mapping. The effort to include all the mercenaries from the melee maps was a nice touch, but I don’t think they need to add support for units from other maps and campaign nor tooltips and etc. Maybe having QWERDF button support for spells would be a nice touch, as I’d prefer that to grid, and it’s what MOBAs use.

The only units that are relevant that I think might be missing from PTR off the top of my head without checking are the item-summoned controlled units such as fel hound and Ice Revenant. Even adding the neutral creeps in the event they are stolen with rod of mastery, charm, or posession is not necessary in my opinion. To include those you’d have to account for current and future maps, which I guess would mean every single unit available in the editor would need to be added.

StarCraft 2 has hotkey customization for its campaign content; in my opinion, Warcraft 3 should have it as well. That’s why I try to direct people towards the GitHub solution instead of the W3Champions hotkey customization. However, as a South American user, the GitHub tool doesn’t work that well for me because hotkeys are tied to localization.