Fight and Attack: Having Our Cake And Eating It Too

Nice neutrally toned OP.

Personally I like a grid layout if I'm playing different races/facs within the one game. So long as the functions are the same across races, this allows me to adapt to different mechanics easier. In starcraft, grid layout allows me to hit 'q' for house every single time, whether that be pylon, overlord, or depot. In ZK, if I ever got around to learning the hotkeys, this would allow me to hopefully have standardised hotkeys per unit roll (worker, raider, assault, skirm etc.).

This however does get messed up when games place the same commands in different places, without letting me customise the location of the icons. This makes it more difficult to play ZK alongside other games, and since the availability of people to play with in ZK is opportunistic, this hurts the number of hours I spend on ZK further, as each time I return it feels like an investment just to learn how to operate the game again.

As for the issue at hand, I think we should split from the spring tradition in order to appeal to a wider audience if we're taking steam seriously. A-move is a bit of a meme in starcraft (depicting a sloppy finish or a thoughtless decision). The UI and customisability is already a huge learning curve that most people aren't used to, we need it to be as inoffensive as possible if we want to retain a steam influx.

@_shaman Yeah it's attention, but I think GoogleFrog was right to discern the reading/learning element. I have infinite attention for particular aspects of games and their learning, but UI and hotkeys isn't one of them. I get pissed off within minutes if I am required to fiddle around in getting the gaming experience I am after.

My initial impression when I realised that A and F were in reverse for ZK was 'why?', and I still haven't found a good answer.

GoogleFrog:

quote: I don't think the words "Attack" and "Fight" are particularly useful for distinguishing the difference between those two commands. Their meaning to us comes from familiarity. I think "Force Fire" is much more descriptive of the command and at least "Attack Move" fits with other RTS terminology.

"Their meaning comes from familiarity." That will be true regardless of the names we choose. No name on its own will adequately express the actual function of these two commands given that the commands are a) different from StarCraft and b) rich, complex, and subtle.

I suggest the goal should not be to find names which best explain the commands to new players, but rather names which support the commands as new players discover what they do and how they work. That discovery will take place in several ways. The main way will be simple trial and error during play. A player who A-clicks blindly will see that his units do what's expected, but then when he tries to use A to focus fire on a target he'll be puzzled when some of his units keep pursuing other targets. This is better than the other way around, but it still leaves a gap in the player's expectations. The player will naturally fill that gap by exploring the game's interface.

That's where the tooltips come in. Players won't even know what the names of the commands are at all, no matter what we call them, until they look at the tooltips. The tooltip - in addition to showing the name of the command - should have a short explanation (very, very short) that both fills the gap in their expectations and leads them towards a deeper understanding of what the commands actually do (i.e. "A" is more than attack-move, "F" is more than focus-on-a-unit or fire-at-ground). I suggest that the tooltips I offered earlier do exactly that.

The third method of discovery - after trial-and-error and exploring the interface - will be using the tutorial material that we provide. This includes tutorial missions, player guides, and videos. Few people will start with these, and probably most won't even bother with them at all. But those who want to go beyond what they can learn by just playing the game will eventually turn to those resources, and here is where they'll get exposed to our terminology of choice as well as a full explanation of the commands. In this material, the names of the commands don't need to explain the commands, since the material will do that. Instead, the names of the commands need to make sense given the explanation of what they do. And then later, as the players put what they've learned into practice, the names need to evoke the commands' functionality so that the players have a mental hook upon which to hang their conception of how to use the command.

And finally, the fourth method of discovery is participation in the community. Here is where we - you, me, Anarchid, TheEloIsALie, and the new guy who just started playing and is posting a newbie question hoping for an answer - we all need to be using terminology which expresses what the commands are actually doing, so that as we explain them in depth - and discuss how and when to use them, how to use them more effectively, and whether to make any changes in the game to make them better - we can be confident that our explanations are easily understood. We need terminology which supports the discussion rather than obscuring it.

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I suggest that "Attack" and "Fight" are very good names in all these regards.

The term "Fight" is unique to Zero-K, as is the command's functionality. Once the player learns what is unique about the command they'll appreciate having a unique mental hook for that command.

The Attack command includes pretty much all the functionality that anyone could reasonably expect a command labeled "Attack" to have (and then some - Zero-K's Attack command has power and flexibility that other games don't offer). All, that is, except attack-move. But once a player has gotten far enough into Zero-K to start figuring out how to use all of the interface's power and flexibility, they'll have already learned that the attack-move functionality is just Fight, or even just Move. But everything else that's attack-like is on the Attack command, and the name "Attack" is thus a very good fit for that command.

While it's true that "Attack" and "Fight" are essentially synonyms in English, within the context of Zero-K they'll have clearly differentiated roles, and those differences will be readily understood by anyone who has done anything more than blindly press hotkeys during gameplay. And while "Attack" and "Fight" are somewhat generic terms, their broadness means that they accurately (if not precisely) encompass all of the functionality inherent in the two commands. "Attack Move" and "Force Fire" are too specific; they don't match the commands because the commands do more than those names imply.

And finally, "Attack" and "Fight" are concise. "Attack Move" and "Force Fire" are not. That makes a difference as well. Concise names help in discussion, in explanation, and in forming the mental hook for the concept.

I hope you'll give this further consideration at some point. Thanks for your hard work on this excellent game.

quote: The term "Fight" is unique to Zero-K, as is the command's functionality. Once the player learns what is unique about the command they'll appreciate having a unique mental hook for that command.

I agree with this and have agreed with this previously, but:

quote: "Attack" and "Fight" are concise. "Attack Move" and "Force Fire"

"Attack" and "Fire" are even more concise.

Attack is "take military action against a target or position". The command is given on a position.

There are other concise words for this that start with A, of course.

If Fight (F) and Attack (A) switch places for some reason, I'm just going to go into Hotkeys and switch them right back, because ZK's default setup is just what I'm used to. If players get too disoriented by the A key making troops shoot at ground instead of moving, then I'd suggest for them to do the same, and switch Fight for Attack.

This is an issue that should be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, not with sweeping changes to the status quo. Let new players take some knocks while getting to learn ZK's quirks, both endearing and frustrating. They should be encouraged to work with their own hotkeys and widgets anyway, since Target (which places a priority attack order on a unit in range) and Rearm (the command that sends aircraft back to the pad for repairs) aren't hotkeyed by default (I set them to Ctrl + T and Q respectively).

I very much doubt this has ever been, or will ever be, an issue large enough to warrant intervention from the game developers. I mean, I came from games like Warcraft 3 (which I've dumped more than 8 years of my time into), Starcraft 1 & 2, Supreme Commander and Total Annihilation. None of those had ZK's setup, but I still picked this game up quickly without needing to change the keys.

quote: (newbies) should be encouraged to work with their own hotkeys and widgets anyway, since Target (which places a priority attack order on a unit in range) and Rearm (the command that sends aircraft back to the pad for repairs) aren't hotkeyed by default (I set them to Ctrl + T and Q respectively).

No. Tinkering with stuff is for power users. People are supposed to play the game, not sit in the settings menu. The defaults should be good, and in this case they are:

• Attack commands are converted to Target commands if you Move away, so for focus fire people can use the method they're familiar with. The hotkeyed version is useful for hardcore Kodachi micro and not much else - for newbies it's mostly clutter.
• Rearm is a terrible thing to hotkey. Planes without ammo get the command automatically and planes with ammo don't need it.

quote: autoskirm etc on Fight is super important and warrants a custom name

No. The command should reflect usage and intent. The command is there so you can make stuff go and break things. This is the "attack-move" abstraction which RTS people are familiar with.

The ZK implementation also makes raiders jink but it is not at all different to Starcraft Medics doing healing in their implementation: both things are just something that increases effective health (dodging damage vs healing) by removing UI strain (because Heal is actually a spell you'd else have to cast manually, the same way you'd need to micro Glaive dodging manually).

The ZK implementation also makes skirms skirm but that is not at all different to Warcraft Shamans casting Bloodlust in their implementation: both are just things that increase damage output (skirms' by not being dead and keeping shooting, bloodlust by raw stat bonus) by removing UI strain (because else you'd need to cast Bloodlust manually, the same way you'd need to skirm manually).

Fair enough but I'd argue it's still an overall bad idea:

• automation. Retreat does the same except doesn't waste APM.
• efficiency. For GS use, airpad is strictly worse than nanos so you should just use nanos.
• rarity. GS can use pads but they're fragile so the only one that really survives to use them is Bro'lor.

Imo if hotkeys are changed, the commands should also be renamed to "attack-move" and "(focus) fire", because it's more precise and with different first letters it would be even more difficult to remember. Calling the fight command "attack" would be confusing with the old terminology, which will still be used for a while.

I never had a problem with the old hotkeys, but if it is better for new players, ok. The main reasons against the change are:
- technical effort to change the code (but @Googlefrog said, it's possible)
- change the players' habits (not needed, because old players' hotkeys don't have to be changed)
- change in terminology in everyday speech as well as manual

The actual keybinding or name isn't super important I think.

A much deeper issue is how focus fire (doesn't) work intuitively in ZK, which is something you get to experience when playing with large weapon cooldown units.
Normally if you right click on a target, your units will still attack nearby enemies before getting in range of the target enemy.
This means that for snipers, penetrators and the like you're almost guaranteed to waste the first (few) shots. What you really want to do is to change the unit's fire mode to "Hold Fire" and then issue the attack order on the unit. Once the target dies, your units should then return to "Fire at will" mode automatically.

I'm not against the hotkeys being swapped over in the defaults for new players, and I think the Attack command could be renamed since it's not of itself explicitly clear that the unit will fire at the ground if no target unit is actually there. So something like 'Force Fire' or better, 'Attack Ground' would be fine. 'Attack' is not terrible once you start getting used to it, though.

What does need fixing is the bug that sometimes units will recieve an Attack command when the unit they were told to target has moved or has died. Possibly this happens when you see the unit in a slightly wrong position due to radar wobble, then when the unit comes into visual range, it effectively 'jumps' to a different place compared to where the radar blip was. This results in units sometimes firing at the ground when the player had right-clicked an enemy unit; not useful in a battle.

'F' for Attack and 'A' for Fight would seem silly, but who cares? If people know that they were swapped over, it wouldn't stop them learning the hotkey, and if it did cause a block to learning it, they could swap them back if they were told how.

'Fight' is a mechanic very dissimilar to mechanics of other RTS games that I've played, and so would benefit from remaining as it is, or if it must be renamed, being renamed to something else which is also hard to confuse with Attack-Move. Attack-Move would make it sound like auto-skirmishing and the other clever ZK behaviours would not happen.

The cost of failure for units like the Pene attacking anything they see on the way is actually not miniscule, because it makes using them a bit more frustrating; they run forward into a dangerous position, unable to fire for a few seconds after wasting their shot. This especially affects units like the Black Dawn with a large damage weapon but short range. Then again, the simplest and also perhaps the best solution would be to have them build with the default state of the unit set to hold fire.

A lot more things need optional tutorials, like something on widgets, setting default fire/retreat states for different units, rebinding keys and how to use map markers and drawing.