Pre-set Control Groups in Option

#23

What about being able to control-group the train action itself. Hold tilde [say], click/press train buttons, then press a group number. Units of that type trained by the selected building go into the chosen group. You could do similar things for “all units trained from this structure” or “all units trained of this type” with key variations. No need for option configuration (which might get annoying for competitions on shared hardware).

This would work best with MBS (which hopefully is added alongside UUS, which it seems most people want).

#25

i think pre controls may be more for pro player then casual becus casual wuld use more mouse more then keyboard!
i am type to understand view of both sides wich probly removing 12 unit limit is probly more for the best but i can see pre set control make it alot easy for the players that want to go pro to optimize the controls more for them

#26

I still think this would be a great addition!

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#29

I really like this idea. Another suggestion would be that double clicking a specific unit would highlight all of that unit that are visible on your screen but if you hold SHIFT while you double click it would select them all across the entire map.

BUMP FOR BLIZZARD VIEWING

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#30

Very, very, very incorrect. People that don’t want to use this have to now spend the time to hotkey their control groups ingame while people don’t have to do this in the game, giving them extra time. They can forget to hotkey units or hotkey them far too late and now suddenly when they go to use that hotkey that forgotten unit doesn’t come into a fight but a person using this mechanic will never have to worry about that.

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#31

thank you for bringing that up!

but at least it would be a choice that player chose to play that way. the point is that if somebody is choosing to leave the preset control group option “off”, then they are choosing that “handicap” because that is their preference and they are able to not make as many mistakes as others.

when I say it doesnt give an unfair advantage, I mean that everything else (units, dps, hp, speed) is all the same, and microing is essentially the same. Nothing is boosted, it does not allow a novice to suddenly outplay a pro, and it doesnt allow one pro to perform actions any differently from another.

A bigger concern would be that a novice player who uses pre-set control groups would have a difficult time removing units from their group when microing them home or out of battle to heal or whatever. Thats why some players would argue that preset control groups is bad because it makes you a lazy player (similar to deathballing or unlimited group sizes and 1 hotkey to select all)

#32

But the game is not the same. Literally the game is easier overall for people that use this option. Sure, stats of their units don’t change. But a pretty subtly important gameplay element is made significantly easier for people that use it. People that don’t want to use it? Tough luck, you are forced to use it if you want to stay competitive against people that are. Two equally-skilled players with one not using it will be at an objective disadvantage against the one who is using it.

#33

Look, I’m not going to say your wrong, but IMO i think it would be a beneficial change to the game.

Lets say hypothetically, if we were to compare my idea of “preset control groups” to say “unlimited unit selection”, then I would argue that having unlimited unit selection (or 1 unit to select) would be degrading the game and not adding any value.

Maybe I went a little too far in saying “absolutely no advantage” occurs from preset control groups, but I think the advantage would be extremely minimal, and as I said in my previous post, preset control groups would cause laziness in players, but I think my whole point is that if blizzard is considering making any changes to unit selection, I believe preset groups would be far better of an option to have than unlimited unit selection.

I dont agree, most pros use default hotkeys but many prefer custom

#34

You don’t have to agree, this is a logically provable fact.

easier gameplay for one player->you are at a disadvantage when all else is equal->you must follow their principles or go with something better in order to be on an equal ground.

It’s literally why hacks are so popular. Because they do something like this for people. Other people either have to use the same hacks or be at a distinct disadvantage and it’s unfair and unfun. Similar problem here: People that use custom hotkeys and would use stuff like this are people that already know the game reasonably well and are already better than the casual player. This would just make the game harder for those casual players that don’t know about these things and don’t care to know about these things because they just want to f*ck around on a game for a bit every now and then.

This is why LoL already has the objectively most-optimized hotkeys you can get, for spells anyway, for their style of gameplay. Casual players don’t have to worry about things like hotkeys and can just play the game.

#35

well I guess we disagree there, but you do realize I said that your not wrong :wink: I just think your exaggerating the advantage slightly

any opinion on my comments about unlimited unit selection?

isnt that kinda the point though? expanding the audience? what I meant originally is that this change would not hurt pro players who prefer the default style

#36

On the one hand, it would be nice to be able to have that option with making a map. On the other hand, by having it at all as an option for map makers, map makers are then pressured by their fan communities to add unlimited selection even if they don’t want it for their map because they think it is a crucial part of their map’s design. But at the same time some maps definitely do need it like Azeroth Wars or Lordaeron: The Aftermath. Their design just does not work with 12 unit selection unless you’re unbelievably good at those maps. So I’m on the fence there.

As for actual WC3 gameplay, you really do not need unlimited unit selection. An entire 100 food army most of the time is barely going to be 25 or 35 units (considering 3 heroes, at least SOME T3). And you generally don’t have more than 1 or 2 production structures per production structure tier (almost all of your important need-to-be-hotkeyed buildings being >12). Unlimited selection would almost be entirely pointless for standard WC3 gameplay.

#37

Like I’ve said, its my opinion (not a provable f’ing fact) that preset control groups would be a beneficial change, a sort of evolution without major degradation.

I’m not trying to say you are wrong. its fine if you think (or can statistically prove with hard evidence ,jk) that preset control groups would ruin/destroy the game or force players to change style and become lazy. I’m not disagreeing with you. I just think you are exaggerating slightly. And if we were to compare my idea to unlimited (1key) unit selection, I would say that preset controls groups would be far less harmful to the game.

#38

Well, the thing is this wouldn’t really be the big game changer for a huge casual audience to flood into the game. Things like this is generally not what’s holding most of a casual audience back. It’s just that the RTS genre as a concept is uninteresting or doesn’t sound fun to them or maybe they have some experience with RTS games and just don’t like it. Or any number of other reasons, really.

#39

I’m just going to keep repeating myself. I wasn’t trying to say this one feature would draw in more players, but it might just get people to stick around longer than they might without it. Also consider all the newb WoW players who are trying out the game for the first time. It could even help those who play single player only. Now are you going to try and say that preset control groups would be bad for single player? Obviously theres no reason why it would be bad for campaign, except then people will want it in multiplayer

#43

Didn’t really read all thread so this has maybe been already asked/adressed.

With your system, what happens if you begin to create some units while your army is on the other side of the map fighting.

With current W3 system, if you plan on creating units that you’ll add to your army when going back to your base, you just let them hang at your base until you return.

With your system, the design choice seems weird since you accustom the player to use hotkeys for his unit groups but did you already came with a solution for the player to blacklist some hanging units from these hotkey groups ?
If you don’t have one, the player will either be unable to use his hotkeys; or his hanging units will start to depart 1by1 to join the far away army, which is a situation you don’t necessarily want as a player.

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#44

@Gray - thank you for asking a legit question :slight_smile:

I believe that can already happen to some people when they forget to switch their rally point or dont know how to use shift? theres already several ways to go about handling that, and maybe theres a way to improve the situation further!

Current solutions:
1- use shift to multi-rally units from buildings to different area
2- use shift to remove units from group
3- use default settings by disabling preset groups

New solution:
Maybe there could be an auto-group on/off button in each building queue, like you could right click on the set-rally button similar to auto-cast, and maybe it could have hotkey such as “set rally point without grouping when using shift” … this could be really useful imho

I repeat: this feature would be optional so if you want you can still use default settings

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#45

This i could see being integrated (or at least a variant of it). A simpler version would be to have a toggle for autogrouping (thus having an effect on all your buildings at once) that you disable while in fight for exemple.

Interesting solution to say the least.

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#47

Hi Blizzard and Everyone.

Warcraft 3 is a very enjoyable fun and fantastic game I agree with so many people on this posting that what would make this game that much more unbelievably fun and gratifying and take it to the next level is to set up the troop control grouping just like that of Starcraft 2 !!! To be specific I mean when a new unit is made you simply press one key like F2 and then ctrl + 1 and you can just keep on adding an unlimited number of troops by pressing f2 again and then ctrl + 1 where theres no grouping max limi it makes the game play so much more better and fun and a huge difference because you’re constantly trying to build up your army it’s just so much more user-friendly and easier to locate and control your army and find your troops and keep adding more troops without having a limit to one number like 12 troops to ctrl + 1 there’s many times where you end up overlapping the same troops or harder to locate your newly made troops or army because you’ve got to move guys away from the screen and then put in another number to assign another set of 12 and then if you make a new troop you have to add them again and you could ebd up with having to assign troops to 2-7 different control groups cuz of the 12 max per # limit it’s just such an inconvenience and interferes with playing the game. Pleaae please please pleaae make this change to setup the unit control grouping like that of starctaft 2 !!! That would be FREAKIN AWESOME AND MUCH APPRECIATED where you can just keep adding more and newly made troops to your grouping by pressing one key and one more key to recall them. As you know you’re almost there with this because you can press f8 to find idle workers which is also a fantastic great thing you guys did.

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Can we get quickcast? And Custom Keybinds ingame?
#50

I signed in to just put my 2 cents in on this. What a fantastic idea. As someone just trying to train myself to use control groups in SCII and WC3 (despite playing both games for years I’ve only ever really used 1 control group).
It’s such an important factor in getting to that ‘next level’ of playing and this is a great Quality of Life improvement idea. Would love this.
Would save a bunch of annoying grouping control clicks and let us get on with playing.

Reminds me of when they changed auto-rally from resource gathering buildings between SCI and SCII. Yes it was something only good players were good at managing but at the same time it just frees up APM for more meaningful clicks.

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#51

yes exactly, less time wasted!