I’ve seen many “pro players” avoid using the “Select all [building]” hotkeys in favor of control groups, because they like to have control over which buildings are being selected, which can be useful in specific scenarios. For example, if you want to spam Militia using the Barracks you just built in the enemy base, it might be a good idea to avoid using the one you built in your base at the beginning of the game to make travel more efficent.
I really like using these hotkeys: they are more customizable and accessible than control groups. So it would be nice to add some flexibility to them.
My proposal is to put a toggle button on each building, so you can exclude them from the selection. For example:
Build 3 barracks in the enemy base.
Go to the one at my base and toggle the exclude button.
Now, “Select all baracks” hotkey selects the 3 in the enemy base only.
Hotkeys are quick access to different actions in the game using a key or a combination of them. For example, you can use the key H to select the Town Center by default. You can customize them in Options, under Hotkeys tab. Control groups are, in fact, hotkeys. Each building type has it’s own hotkey for cycling and select all. You can include buildings in control groups as well.
Seems like a reasonable idea, as long as it doesn’t mess up being able to cycle through all Barracks buildings on the map, including ones near the TC that you’ve clicked that toggle, with the basic CTRL+B (HD Hotkey) ?
its a good idea on paper but in practice its probably not the case
the goal is to make the process more efficient but think about the scenario you gave with the forward barrack. the player’s screen would mostly be forward and to go all the way back to base they’d need several actions not limited to just 1:
use a hotkey to rotate through multiple barrack until they find ones to exclude, proceed to exclude it with a hotkey or button
click on minimap to directly where the earlier barrack is located, click on said barrack to exclude, proceed to exclude it with a hotkey or button
mouse/screen scroll until they found the barrack and click on it to exclude, proceed to exclude it with a hotkey or button
then once 1/2/3 is said and done, they would need to do similar to go back to where forward battle is at, minus the excluding part of process.
now if you are already looking forward its actually easier and quicker to double click the barrack and select all on display, which is almost guaranteed to find ones thats all forward, thus actually quicker and more efficient with less overall action performed.
now thats not to say excluding buildings from select all doesn’t have it’s place and I think it can be useful in certain situation, as to when that might require several play test to really find ways to use it to its full extent
Good points. I thought the same, too… seemed inefficient and not worth the effort, imo.
Yeah, I don’t really need the OP’s idea, personally. Using control groups or double-clicking buildings in areas works well enough for me and seems like minimal effort.
Plus, by the time Imperial Age rolls around and I’m mass-producing I usually have enough resources rolling in that I don’t mind the cost or from where the units are coming if I were to select all buildings of a certain type.
In this respect, I could get streams of military from all over the map. And if my starting TC has one or two barracks, it’s not breaking the bank or causing any issues for me. In fact, it can be helpful to have this, since if my forward-base units die, there is a stream of units coming soon from my TC to support the effort… which can be a good thing.
I’m no “pro” eSport Tournament caliber player, though, and don’t aspire to be… if that’s a factor
the issue here isn’t so much the res, but reenforcement time. if 1/4 of your army is marching half way across the map, they aren’t in the fight, so your army is 1/4 smaller
I guess for me, it’s still not a big issue. But if the idea enhances the game for you and others without screwing up other mechanics, then it sounds fine to me.
On the surface, if I understand correctly, it sounds like something that wouldn’t mess anything up and is completely optional to use