EPTWouldn't it be much faster to use camera hotkeys? or are they just hard to reach? you can re-map hotkeys anyways so i don't see it to be an issue. i'm trying to find a reason for it but i see few discussions on this topic and i wonder why.
[Q]Many Pro/Top players don't use camera hotkeys?
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HellionDrop
281 Posts
Wouldn't it be much faster to use camera hotkeys? or are they just hard to reach? you can re-map hotkeys anyways so i don't see it to be an issue. i'm trying to find a reason for it but i see few discussions on this topic and i wonder why. | ||
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The.Doctor
Canada333 Posts
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coZen
United States192 Posts
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Dariusz
Poland657 Posts
But on topic: everyone is using whatever setup is comfortable for him, and it's players responsibility to find fastest and most efficient ways to do things. There are still pro players that play with default hotkeys. IdrA and Minigun are sometimes using camera hotkeys. | ||
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Silentness
United States2821 Posts
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Kaitlin
United States2958 Posts
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Eleaven
772 Posts
pretty much any player known for top level mechanics uses them religiously. Not many of these guys stream though, streamers tend to be the NA/EU "creative" players (creative is a fancy word for less effort on mechanics) | ||
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Moshikaro
135 Posts
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Eleaven
772 Posts
On July 12 2011 18:00 Moshikaro wrote: Yeah, I noticed that StarTale Rainbow uses them to quickly make bases, he hotkeys hit natural and his third. I guess this is a really good way to use them, you can make a new base in like 1 second with that. It's really good for worker transfers too(or just doing a quick drone count- it's also very slightly quicker than double tapping a queen hotkey). also for P players it's so good for chronoboosting upgrades. When i played toss for about 500 games, i'd have my forges in standardised locations every game, usually in range of my 1st cam location. Easiest chronoboosting around.. so quick too. Frustrating to know how easy and powerful it is, and see so many toss completely ignore one of their biggest advantages: Upgrades | ||
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NeonFox
2373 Posts
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Surili
United Kingdom1141 Posts
On July 12 2011 18:03 Eleaven wrote: It's really good for worker transfers too(or just doing a quick drone count- it's also very slightly quicker than double tapping a queen hotkey). also for P players it's so good for chronoboosting upgrades. When i played toss for about 500 games, i'd have my forges in standardised locations every game, usually in range of my 1st cam location. Easiest chronoboosting around.. so quick too. Frustrating to know how easy and powerful it is, and see so many toss completely ignore one of their biggest advantages: Upgrades I just hotkey my forges to the same hotkey as my nexuses and then if you double tap the nexus hotkey it will centre the screen on the forges, plus you have the nexuses selected for chonoing. | ||
Poopi
France12793 Posts
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Surili
United Kingdom1141 Posts
On July 12 2011 18:15 Poopi wrote: How do you use camera hotkeys? I mean what are the keys that you press? First you will want to rebind them to something closer to the left side, as they start off bound to f5,f6,f7,f8, for instance f2,f3,f4 and then you press control f2 to bind it, and then f2 to select it, like a normal hotkey. | ||
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tuestresfat
2555 Posts
very important for protoss/terran | ||
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Eleaven
772 Posts
On July 12 2011 18:36 tuestresfat wrote: not terribly important for zerg very important for protoss/terran Z could very easily use it for things like the watchtowers, and the space just outside your opponents natural. These are common places i'd leave a couple of lings without their own hotkey, and use cam keys to bounce around as soon as i see a red dot. | ||
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DaemonX
545 Posts
On July 12 2011 17:53 Eleaven wrote: sixjax Major uses camera keys all the time. pretty much any player known for top level mechanics uses them religiously. Not many of these guys stream though, streamers tend to be the NA/EU "creative" players (creative is a fancy word for less effort on mechanics) Koreans and good mechanical players (ie BW players) tend to use them. A lot of other foreigner pros don't, and there's no reason for it except they want to be slightly worse  It would definitely improve their games if they did.However I really take umbrage at your slight against 'creative' players. Foreigners generally have weaker mechanics than the SKs, who just spend far more time on playing. 'Creative' players like Catz or TLO sometimes have weaker mechanics because they are practicing more build orders or more experimental styles rather than honing one style 24/7 for 2 months before an event. When they aren't being 'creative' their mechanics are often just fine. It's an unfair generalisation and characterisation to say they put in less effort - they're exploring the game. | ||
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Scip
Czech Republic11293 Posts
 As zerg I use all 8 of them, 5 for my bases, 1 for my rally point and 2 for where Im spreading creep. I find them pretty critical for playing fast, though I myself am pretty slow player I imagine I would be even slower without them. | ||
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Eleaven
772 Posts
On July 12 2011 18:55 DaemonX wrote: Koreans and good mechanical players (ie BW players) tend to use them. A lot of other foreigner pros don't, and there's no reason for it except they want to be slightly worse It would definitely improve their games if they did.However I really take umbrage at your slight against 'creative' players. Foreigners generally have weaker mechanics than the SKs, who just spend far more time on playing. 'Creative' players like Catz or TLO sometimes have weaker mechanics because they are practicing more build orders or more experimental styles rather than honing one style 24/7 for 2 months before an event. When they aren't being 'creative' their mechanics are often just fine. It's an unfair generalisation and characterisation to say they put in less effort - they're exploring the game. It's easier to win against someone with something weird than it is to win with something documented and solid. Creative plays usually net you wins without much effort until they get figured out. at which point they get abandoned. My point was put slightly "snarky" but i think it's a pretty true thing. If EU/NA pro's want to compete they get solid first, and then explore the game. and a lot of EU/NA pro's are doing that. I was targeting the streamer crowd in my comments (as i think i said?) because it's usually correct that these players do weird unusual things, rather than playing "straight up" and getting Korean level good. It's the same in BW, and my thoughts echo those of Ver's excellent "how to improve" .pdf The romantic idea of inner ability, and "outsmarting" your opponent, vs actually putting in 100% effort to be better than them. It's been shown over and over again that to be a top player you need top mechanics. Once you've refined one playstyle and "perfected" (used loosely) your mechanics it's much easier to switch around into new styles. It's much easier to switch around styles and hope you build order your way to a win, and that's what we see from a lot of streamers (not all of them, and not all of the time) but It's easier to make a roughly accurate statement, than to acknowledge every single person that doesn't fit into my assessment. The only people who'd take offence to my comment, are those that it fits 100%. The other type of players would have nothing to be upset about, because they know it doesnt apply to them. Longpost Correct me if i'm wrong on that | ||
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Toxi78
966 Posts
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IIIOmegaIII
Sweden319 Posts
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Poopi
France12793 Posts
On July 12 2011 18:28 Surili wrote: First you will want to rebind them to something closer to the left side, as they start off bound to f5,f6,f7,f8, for instance f2,f3,f4 and then you press control f2 to bind it, and then f2 to select it, like a normal hotkey. Thank you, I heard it was f# so I tried ctrl f2 etc but I didn't know you have to rebind them before. Definitely useful | ||
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Marsupian
Netherlands455 Posts
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lolterzard
United Kingdom17 Posts
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adwodon
United Kingdom592 Posts
I always have my rally point hotkeyed to F2 so I can quickly go back there and add units to hotkeys or reinforce as quickly as possible. In a game which is about gaining every small advantage I think its a great idea to use them, you'll find t hard at first but once you get used to it the speed at which they allow you to work means your apm will probably increase by a good 10-20 actions without any real effort from your part as things just flow smoother. | ||
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zylog
Canada943 Posts
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jstar
Canada568 Posts
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GreEny K
Germany7312 Posts
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XXXSmOke
United States1333 Posts
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DruidzHistory
Sweden231 Posts
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HyperionDreamer
Canada1528 Posts
I've been thinking of taking my queens off hotkeys all together and using these keys to jump b/t bases and inject, but that will remove the ability to tap-check energy. | ||
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bakedace
United States672 Posts
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gosuRob
United States319 Posts
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pat965
Canada274 Posts
Anyways, playing Terran in Broodwar I'd keep F2 as my Command Center, F3 as my rally point, and F4 as my production area, so I could easily rally my factories, as well as quickly switch to my factories and the place where all my units are being sent to. Now that I play Zerg, I use them to cycle between Hatcheries if I ever need to look at a specific hatchery. Very useful, but I guess for some double tapping a hotkey works well too. Also, I miss how holding ALT+NUMBER would automatically center on the unit/group, so I didn't have to freaking double tap. Oh well. Life goes on. | ||
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SageFantasma
United States383 Posts
 ). O_o If you watch at the start of almost all of his games he sets and cycles through his camera hotkeys. They are definitely very useful no matter what, the hard part is just training yourself to use them. As said before, they make maynarding easier, defending drops becomes a lot easier as Protoss as well. Just hit the F-key to go to the base being dropped, select your warpgates, and warp-in! ezpz! Edited for... the edit. | ||
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Excludos
Norway8060 Posts
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LMPeaches
United States157 Posts
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Swad1000
United States366 Posts
On August 09 2011 12:29 LMPeaches wrote: How can you tell a pro uses them in a replay? Am i missing out on a feature in replays? At the start of the game they hover the camera over a empty base for a second or two. Huk and Mc switch back and forth between the bases to make sure they are selected properly from what I have seen in reps-streams. There is no way to check if they have done it except watching them pan between bases incredible fast. I have no clue how players skip using the camera hotkeys. They make the game so much easier being able to pan between bases instantly. Switched F1-F4 to camera hotkeys and made my life complete. | ||
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somadbro
69 Posts
On July 12 2011 18:55 DaemonX wrote: Koreans and good mechanical players (ie BW players) tend to use them. A lot of other foreigner pros don't, and there's no reason for it except they want to be slightly worse It would definitely improve their games if they did.However I really take umbrage at your slight against 'creative' players. Foreigners generally have weaker mechanics than the SKs, who just spend far more time on playing. 'Creative' players like Catz or TLO sometimes have weaker mechanics because they are practicing more build orders or more experimental styles rather than honing one style 24/7 for 2 months before an event. When they aren't being 'creative' their mechanics are often just fine. It's an unfair generalisation and characterisation to say they put in less effort - they're exploring the game. I think the idea that Koreans aren't exploring different builds has largely been proven to be a false assumption - every new style we're seeing explode after a tournament weekend is often from Korean players. What this means is that foreigners "exploring the game" don't have the same level of mechanical refinement that we see present in the games of top Koreans, regardless of the build. | ||
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CatNzHat
United States1599 Posts
A lot of the mechanics of sc1 that made camera hotkeys so necessary have been made obsolete with the better game engine in sc2. Having a single hotkey for your rally point is nice, but other than that, whatever you're going to be looking at should be hotkeyed (scouts around the map, your main army, your tech/upgrade structures, bases). | ||
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somadbro
69 Posts
On July 13 2011 02:47 Excludos wrote: I think the main problem is that the edge they give you is very small compared to the effort you have to put in to constantly use them. I wont deny that they will help you in the end, but its incredibly hard to learn your brain to do something else than what you've done the last 5000 times in a tense moment. (ie, clicking f1 instead of on the minimap) This is not only true, it's indicative of the difference between Ks and Fs: Ks are willing to spend countless hours developing an aspect of their game that will give them any type of advantage, whether it's early-game mineral stacking or camera locations. The time you spend re-learning or unlearning behaviors might seem like a big investment, but for the Ks it's part of the process of being a SC player. For Fs it's something that 'takes too much time." | ||
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Cyanocyst
2222 Posts
Actually the one i use the most i almost forgot about, cause i do it so often i don't even think about it anymore. I use Space bar for a camera save, and it always has where my hatches rally too. very helpful for reinforcements. Though to answer your original question, i don't actually know of any pros that use camera saves, for certain. Also i will say that my hotkey set up is very unorthodox and i all my camera saves were placed much closer than F5 - F8 + shifts. | ||
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101toss
3232 Posts
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RoboBob
United States798 Posts
Basically I remapped the "save camera" hotkeys from Ctrl+F12345 to Shift+12345 to make it much more comfortable. On most maps I have a four base gameplay, so instead of spamming I set up F1,2,3,4 to my 4 bases. And then I use F5 as my "floating" camera. In the early game its my ramp, in the midgame its where I want to build production facilities, and in the lategame its my rally point. I like the F5 as the floating camera because on my keyboard I have a gap between F4 and F5 and that helps prevent misclicks. I use camera saves for so much more than just worker maynarding. I use F1 and F2 a TON in the early game to defend harass, it really helps. I play T, but I think the other races would benefit even more by using camera saves. Z for creep tumor spreads, P for proxy pylons. | ||
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chipman
United States139 Posts
On July 12 2011 18:03 Eleaven wrote: It's really good for worker transfers too(or just doing a quick drone count- it's also very slightly quicker than double tapping a queen hotkey). also for P players it's so good for chronoboosting upgrades. When i played toss for about 500 games, i'd have my forges in standardised locations every game, usually in range of my 1st cam location. Easiest chronoboosting around.. so quick too. Frustrating to know how easy and powerful it is, and see so many toss completely ignore one of their biggest advantages: Upgrades It's only so hard to throw tech buildings to a far off ctrl group. The only difference between doing this and what you're suggesting is it takes fewer actions to do the same thing with ctrl group, with the con of course being you're consuming a ctrl grp. That said, I don't use 8-9 for things I need to be button mashing (I keep my army in 1-3 and my production/scouting 4-7 for quick/easy access) so I have no problems binding upgrades per race to those further away hotkeys, as opposed to a location, as I'm not really trained from broodwar in the matter like others are, this is how I've compensated in my learning by just feeling/thinking things out myself. That said, I'm sure there are many uses for locations, like multiple base locations or proxy pylon locations etc I could use to ping around the map faster (or when I'm off-racing, rally locations), but it just feels so odd for me, I'm sure my play would suffer while learning to do it, and my mouse accuracy needs a hella lotta work anyways so I don't mind having to click around on the mini map at all. Will note that using f keys on my tiny laptop buttons in particular is relatively impossible to do (and save time/effort) with my meaty fingers. I used to use f1-f4 all the time while playing on a desktop set up where the " ~ " or " ` " was spaced off a little more to the side to also let me *feel* where the fkeys began and spaced after f4 or f5 or something to let me *feel* where they ended... Neither of which I have on my ghetto laptop keyboard. | ||
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PhiliBiRD
United States2643 Posts
dont really feel like i need 2 | ||
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TypeDBS
Germany134 Posts
On August 09 2011 16:05 PhiliBiRD wrote: im not pro but as a top player i have never used camera hotkeys in SC2. dont really feel like i need 2 im not pro but as a top player i have never used camera hotkeys in SC2. im going to start using them today EVEN THOUGH i dont really need 2 | ||
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