hotkeys, memory, and game design
PostPosted:Fri Apr 27, 2012 12:36 am
I was thinking the other day that most MMORPGs have a very large number of abilities to use, so people always talk about having programmable mouse/keyboard, macros, and whatever else that give you an edge. Clearly, this is because you cannot possibly remember 75 different abilities and what they do let alone what key you mapped them to on a regular basis. I sure can't tell you what every one of my keybinds in many MMORPGs did, especially if you start dealing with alts or games I don't play actively. There's a famous article about how the human's short term memory can hold 7 plus or minus 2 things, and obviously the average MMORPG has a number of abilities that far exceed this.
So doesn't this mean most MMORPG are inherently badly designed? MMORPGs aren't exactly turn based game, so being able to apply your skills quickly is clearly important. Yet, that requires memorizing a number of keybinds that's beyond the human capacity. I'm assuming you don't play MMORPG so seriously that you actually commit all that stuff in long term memory, as that'd mean you still know what your keybinds are for a game you quit say two years ago. As far as I can tell most people aren't anywhere near that dedicated, even people playing at a high level, since otherwise people wouldn't buy expensive programming keyboards/mouses if it was so easy to just memorize this stuff. So why design your game around something that the human species cannot inherently overcome? Sure you can make stuff easier with macros and programming devices, but why design tools to reduce complexity if you can just reduce complexity from the start? There are a few MMORPGs that operate with only 5-6 skills, and they're generally well received at least from a ability control point of view (they may lack content or whatever, but I don't really hear people complain about not having enough abilities).
So doesn't this mean most MMORPG are inherently badly designed? MMORPGs aren't exactly turn based game, so being able to apply your skills quickly is clearly important. Yet, that requires memorizing a number of keybinds that's beyond the human capacity. I'm assuming you don't play MMORPG so seriously that you actually commit all that stuff in long term memory, as that'd mean you still know what your keybinds are for a game you quit say two years ago. As far as I can tell most people aren't anywhere near that dedicated, even people playing at a high level, since otherwise people wouldn't buy expensive programming keyboards/mouses if it was so easy to just memorize this stuff. So why design your game around something that the human species cannot inherently overcome? Sure you can make stuff easier with macros and programming devices, but why design tools to reduce complexity if you can just reduce complexity from the start? There are a few MMORPGs that operate with only 5-6 skills, and they're generally well received at least from a ability control point of view (they may lack content or whatever, but I don't really hear people complain about not having enough abilities).