Recently I am concerned about the hotkey system of AOE4. Apparently it’s far more modern and easy to learn than legacy AOE2 hotkey binding system. I believe they have fixed much attention on guiding the new players to use these well-designed default hotkeys.
But for those old fans whose operation habits are already fixed and hard to changed, these new-fashion settings may cause massive learning costs.
It seems that AOE4 and AOE2 share a huge number of traditional AOE bulidings like barrack, stable, blacksmith, university. It is so weird to use different hotkeys to build THE SAME bulidings in two different games. I think it’s unacceptable for many legacy and pro players in AOE2.
EXAPMLE:
Clearly the hotkey of Barrack in AOE4 is QS, which is not the same as WQ( DE version in AOE2),SQ (HD version) and BB( original version). In fact, all the hotkeys for buildings are completely different from AOE2. In addition, this shortcut key system will also not be accepted by AOE3 players, because AOE3 players only need to press one button to build a building.
So I strongly suggest that please enhance the custom hotkey setting option in game for those veteran
and elite players , or directly add a legacy AOE2 and AOE3 hotkey system in game settings.
9 Likes
What’s wrong with being easier to learn. Personally I hope age 4 will give a fresh start to gameplay that will even out the playing field some so less experienced and new players can have a fare game. Not interested in having all the really good players especially from two being given more advantages
2 Likes
Actually a large part of AOE franchise players who are accustomed to operate with the previous hotkey settings may feel uncomfortable when they use the brand new hotkeys. Learning and adapting to new hotkeys requires a lot of time. They are not necessarily high-level players, but they also put a lot of effort into studying the Age of Empires games. I think the gaming experience of them should also be taken care of.
There will be the feature to rebind hotkeys, so I expect we will be able to rebind them in any way we want.
3 Likes
yeah, this is the best way to solve the problem. I hope they can create a successful rebinding methods for all kinds of players
I’m mostly play aoe 3 de and I never even use hotkeys
Aren’t you ruining your own point with this sentence.
AoE2 changed its button layout 2 times already.
What should the legacy hotkeys even be?
They said they want the hotkeys to be customizeable anyway.
Customization is a must have. I bet they forgot that other layouts than the standard US layout exist.
3 Likes
You should learn. It isn’t hard to do and makes the game more fun to play.
2 Likes
Well I hope there is a built in alternative hotkey with legacy settings, im not sure how transferable it actually is… The hotkeys are split over age, rather than a ‘b’ for just building any building… maybe those keys arent necessary, but I suspect they are… maybe if you unbind them then you immediately hit just the unique key for the building…
its obviously designed well, and legacy players may be able to change them into something a little more familiar, but due to the inherent layout change of the UI, it might be trickier than initially thought.
They said in the interview below that you can rebind hotkeys but there may not be as much flexibility as they want at launch so they may have to add more customization after launch
1 Like
I just hope they implement the default hotkeys based on the physical position instead of doing customized ******** for each keyboard layout. 23 years later and still waiting…
By the way, I suggested them to add a simple feature to copy/paste keybindings in a easy way.
Being able to make your own hotkey layout is mandatory for a RTS. I plan on re-make my SC2 hotkey layout in AOE4.
Basically having everything I need on
QWERTY
ASDFG
ZXCVB
Also having a in-built support for grid layout is a must, for those that can not bother to make their own hotkeys. Having to reach the other side of the keyboard was ok 20 years ago, but not in 2021.
1 Like
