Mouse + Keyboard Accuracy
Posted: November 22nd, 2011, 7:29 pm
I made a TL;DR post about a similar subject a while back, but I think some sloppy gameplay recently needs to revisit this topic.
Note that this post is inspired by Day[9]'s video on fundamental computer game mechanics which I highly recommend people watch. While he is talking from a Starcraft 2 standpoint, the concepts are so basic that they apply to WoW as well.
http://blip.tv/day9tv/day-9-daily-252-s ... nt-4730506
Let's start off with the following statement:
*ANY TIME YOU HIT THE WRONG HOTKEY OR CLICK ON THE WRONG OBJECT (TARGET), IT IS AN ISSUE OF KEYBOARD/MOUSE ACCURACY*
Note that the above statement is different than not knowing what ability to use in your rotation or knowing what to target. It refers solely to execution problems -- you knew in your head what you wanted to do, but when your oven mitt hands made contact with your keyboard and mouse to do what your brain was telling it to do, you did the wrong thing.
The link below is to a YouTube video about keybinding for PvP. I recommend watching it since it explains a lot about keyboard distance which is very critical for rapid response time in PvP.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZLPzCue ... edded&hd=1
Here is a picture of a keyboard.
For PvE, I want you keep the subject of keyboard distance and reaction time on the back burner. I want you to focus on where your fingers are when you're playing. Most players have their movement keys assigned to WASD and their primary abilities assigned to 1234. What does this mean? If a player is moving with the keyboard, they have their middle finger on W, ring finger on A, and index finger on D hitting those buttons in accordance with where their brain is telling them to go. If a player is executing their DPS rotation when standing still, their hand moves off of WASD and rest on 1234. Let's use Inori's shadow DPS hotkeys as an example. I have mind spike bound to '1', mind blast bound to '2', mind flay bound to '3', and SW:Death bound to '4'. The other DPS abilities in my rotation (the DoTs) are bound to my mouse. According to my personal muscle memory, I'll rest my middle finger on '3' since I spam mind flay as filler in the shadow DPS rotation. I'll rest my ring finger on '2' since I use mind blast on cooldown every 6 seconds.
Next comes the question: "What happens if fire appears under my feet?". In my case, my first instinct is to just hit the left and right buttons on my mouse together to run forward. What's your answer? Maybe you slide your middle finger off of the '3' key down to the W and move forward. I sometimes find myself doing both if my mind is racing during a boss fight. How about: "What happens if running forward is bad?". In that case, sometimes my entire hand comes off 1234 and slides down to WASD so I can use A and D to strafe out of the fire. Sometimes, I'll right click with my mouse in the middle of the screen and jerk it to the right so I turn 90 degrees, then I keep the right mouse button pressed and click the left mouse button to move forward in that direction (which is equivalent to strafing). What's your answer?
Let's now revisit the issue of keyboard distance. If your action hotkeys are 1234 and your movement hotkeys are WASD, then the keyboard distance to shift your hand position is short. That does *not* mean you're immune to keyboard error. If you slide your hand down and are one key off, your fingers are now on ESDF. If you press your ring finger to strafe left thinking that it was A, but instead hit S because you were one key off, you now move backwards -- your keyboard accuracy caused your action to not match what your brain intended. If your action hotkeys are over at 6789, your keyboard distance is long. Does this mean you have to change anything? It depends -- how often is your keyboard accuracy an issue? I'm pretty sure that people will respond to this thread with recommendations with where to bind things and so forth -- I don't care. I just want people to be aware if they have keyboard accuracy issues.
Note that mouse accuracy has similar issues. I am always impressed with Waterdrop's healing videos because he displays tremendous mouse accuracy. Consider that his heal and greater heal are bound to distant keyboard hotkeys. Whenever he needs to cast these spells, he executes the following actions:
1) His eyes identify a healing target from among 10 raid frames.
2) His mouse hand moves his mouse cursor towards the healing target's frame.
3) His eyes identify that the mouse cursor is over the correct frame.
4) His mouse hand clicks the left mouse button to select the healing target.
5) His mouse hand moves his mouse cursor towards the hotbar icon for greater heal.
6) His eyes identify that the mouse cursor is over the correct hotbar icon.
7) His mouse hand clicks the left mouse button to cast the spell.
Note that he does all seven of those actions in under 1.5 seconds with impeccable accuracy. Why is 1.5 seconds important? That's the GCD. If you are mouse clicking targets and spells and can't execute the sequence in 1.5 seconds, that means that you will be idle (not casting) for any amount that you're slower. That means delayed heals. That means reduced healing throughput (although for back to back greater heals, you have 2.5 seconds).
You may say, "But I use clique or mouseover macros.". Those still involve mouse accuracy and also involve keyboard accuracy. In the case of clique, if you use modifier keys like shift/alt/ctrl, you can have keyboard accuracy issues if you do not time those modifier keys along with your mouse click. In the case of mouseover macros, you have to time when you press the keyboard hotkey for the macro while your mouse cursor is over the intended target frame. What clique and mouseover macros do offer you is that it removes the mouse cursor transit time from healing target frame to hotbar icon back to next healing target frame.
Andy recommended that I shrink my UI scale to reduce the visual clutter of my UI in my videos. I responded that I don't like having smaller hotbar icons because it impacts my mouse accuracy for the times I have to hit them with my mouse cursor. He was puzzled that I would ever have need to do that while DPS. This segways into the other topic that I want to talk about which is hand contortion.
Since casters can't use cast time or channeled spells while moving, assigning those abilities to 1234 works well in almost all scenarios -- if you're standing still, your keyboard hand can slide over to 1234 for cast time/channeled spells. If you're on the move, your keyboard hand can slide over to WASD for movement. Is there ever a time where you want to hit one of your 1234 keys at the same time as WASD? How about Alysrazor? One of the big adjustments that I had to make for Alysrazor is that my brain wants to use WASD + my right mouse button for complex circle strafing. Why? Because I want to keep my camera optimally pointed toward the middle of the room so that I could visually confirm brushfire locations, flame thrower locations, and meteor locations. However, my brain also wants to use 1234 for my cast time/channeled spells because I could DPS while moving. At this point, there are several compromises you can make. One way is to continuously alternate your keyboard hand between WASD for circle strafing and 1234 for casting. This leads to stutter step type movement -- for example 0.2 seconds to hit '3' for mind flay, then 2.8 seconds of WASD movement while mind flay is channeling -- which is perfectly fine. Keyboard accuracy is important for me to alternate those two hand locations frequently. Another way is to contort your hand -- use your middle finger to hit '3' for mind flay, keep your ring finger on A and index finger on D for strafing and using left+right mouse button for forward movement (to compensate for your middle finger not being on W). That eliminates shifting your entire hand since two of your fingers are anchored on A and D, but it can be uncomfortable.
You may say, "Alysrazor is just a rare example.". It's not as rare as you think. Tanks frequently have to deal with this issue. On my paladin, I have judgement bound to '1', crusader strike bound to '2', hammer of the righteous bound to '3', and shield of the righteous bound to '4'. My other abilities like taunt and avengers shield are bound to my mouse. If it's just a tank and spank, my hand can rest on 1234 and focus solely on my tanking rotation. Whenever my tank needs to kite the boss backwards, my middle finger moves back down to press the S key. Contorting my hand to use the ring or index finger to hit 1234 is *extremely painful* since my hand is small. For that reason, whenever my tank has to execute complex movement, I keep my keyboard hand on WASD and use my mouse to manually click my hotbar buttons for my tanking rotation. Some people may slide their hand to use their index finger to press S while their hand angles to reach 1234 -- in any setup where you start shifting your hand, pay attention to keyboard accuracy.
What I think is commonplace is that whenever a certain action/rotation is uncomfortable to a player (due to hand contortion or inconvenient keyboard hand movement), they simply don't do it. For example, even though they buffed tank threat, on Alysrazor (this is an overused example >_<), the tank's rotation matters in order to produce maximum DPS. Players not accustomed to moving backwards (with S) while doing DPS (with 1234) will simply do them separately -- they'll stand still and DPS with 1234, then make a mental decision to move during which they forego 1234 (doing only autoattack) in order to move using WASD. This applies to DPS and healers as well -- if certain abilities are difficult to use while moving or frequently changing targets, those abilities are omitted. This means that some players have muscle memory *to not do certain things* depending on where their keyboard hand or mouse hand are resting. Another way to state this is that even though a person makes a mental note that it's important to move during a boss fight, their brain will omit the thought of moving if their keyboard hand is resting over 1234 -- it's a slightly different form of tunnel vision that is due to muscle memory instead of irresponsible meter watching.
After all of that TL;DR, what does this mean? It means two things. First, whenever you hit the wrong hotkey or click the wrong object, pay attention to your keyboard accuracy and mouse accuracy -- are you contorting your hand or shifting your hand position erratically over your keyboard. Second, pay attention to the compromises in gameplay that you make due to difficulties in your control scheme. The answer to these are not easy. If you decide to change your control scheme, it takes time to adjust -- it will feel terrible at first because your muscles will have no memory for it. You could adjust your personal strategy to compensate for it (e.g., stutter step casting on Alysrazor, optimizing your position during boss fights to minimize movement).
Remember, if your raid wants a 90% chance to kill a boss, each of the individual 10 raid members needs to perform at 98.95% chance of not making a fatal error (0.9895^10 = 0.9). Make sure that keyboard and mouse accuracy are not the reason you're failing.
-HP
Note that this post is inspired by Day[9]'s video on fundamental computer game mechanics which I highly recommend people watch. While he is talking from a Starcraft 2 standpoint, the concepts are so basic that they apply to WoW as well.
http://blip.tv/day9tv/day-9-daily-252-s ... nt-4730506
Let's start off with the following statement:
*ANY TIME YOU HIT THE WRONG HOTKEY OR CLICK ON THE WRONG OBJECT (TARGET), IT IS AN ISSUE OF KEYBOARD/MOUSE ACCURACY*
Note that the above statement is different than not knowing what ability to use in your rotation or knowing what to target. It refers solely to execution problems -- you knew in your head what you wanted to do, but when your oven mitt hands made contact with your keyboard and mouse to do what your brain was telling it to do, you did the wrong thing.
The link below is to a YouTube video about keybinding for PvP. I recommend watching it since it explains a lot about keyboard distance which is very critical for rapid response time in PvP.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZLPzCue ... edded&hd=1
Here is a picture of a keyboard.
For PvE, I want you keep the subject of keyboard distance and reaction time on the back burner. I want you to focus on where your fingers are when you're playing. Most players have their movement keys assigned to WASD and their primary abilities assigned to 1234. What does this mean? If a player is moving with the keyboard, they have their middle finger on W, ring finger on A, and index finger on D hitting those buttons in accordance with where their brain is telling them to go. If a player is executing their DPS rotation when standing still, their hand moves off of WASD and rest on 1234. Let's use Inori's shadow DPS hotkeys as an example. I have mind spike bound to '1', mind blast bound to '2', mind flay bound to '3', and SW:Death bound to '4'. The other DPS abilities in my rotation (the DoTs) are bound to my mouse. According to my personal muscle memory, I'll rest my middle finger on '3' since I spam mind flay as filler in the shadow DPS rotation. I'll rest my ring finger on '2' since I use mind blast on cooldown every 6 seconds.
Next comes the question: "What happens if fire appears under my feet?". In my case, my first instinct is to just hit the left and right buttons on my mouse together to run forward. What's your answer? Maybe you slide your middle finger off of the '3' key down to the W and move forward. I sometimes find myself doing both if my mind is racing during a boss fight. How about: "What happens if running forward is bad?". In that case, sometimes my entire hand comes off 1234 and slides down to WASD so I can use A and D to strafe out of the fire. Sometimes, I'll right click with my mouse in the middle of the screen and jerk it to the right so I turn 90 degrees, then I keep the right mouse button pressed and click the left mouse button to move forward in that direction (which is equivalent to strafing). What's your answer?
Let's now revisit the issue of keyboard distance. If your action hotkeys are 1234 and your movement hotkeys are WASD, then the keyboard distance to shift your hand position is short. That does *not* mean you're immune to keyboard error. If you slide your hand down and are one key off, your fingers are now on ESDF. If you press your ring finger to strafe left thinking that it was A, but instead hit S because you were one key off, you now move backwards -- your keyboard accuracy caused your action to not match what your brain intended. If your action hotkeys are over at 6789, your keyboard distance is long. Does this mean you have to change anything? It depends -- how often is your keyboard accuracy an issue? I'm pretty sure that people will respond to this thread with recommendations with where to bind things and so forth -- I don't care. I just want people to be aware if they have keyboard accuracy issues.
Note that mouse accuracy has similar issues. I am always impressed with Waterdrop's healing videos because he displays tremendous mouse accuracy. Consider that his heal and greater heal are bound to distant keyboard hotkeys. Whenever he needs to cast these spells, he executes the following actions:
1) His eyes identify a healing target from among 10 raid frames.
2) His mouse hand moves his mouse cursor towards the healing target's frame.
3) His eyes identify that the mouse cursor is over the correct frame.
4) His mouse hand clicks the left mouse button to select the healing target.
5) His mouse hand moves his mouse cursor towards the hotbar icon for greater heal.
6) His eyes identify that the mouse cursor is over the correct hotbar icon.
7) His mouse hand clicks the left mouse button to cast the spell.
Note that he does all seven of those actions in under 1.5 seconds with impeccable accuracy. Why is 1.5 seconds important? That's the GCD. If you are mouse clicking targets and spells and can't execute the sequence in 1.5 seconds, that means that you will be idle (not casting) for any amount that you're slower. That means delayed heals. That means reduced healing throughput (although for back to back greater heals, you have 2.5 seconds).
You may say, "But I use clique or mouseover macros.". Those still involve mouse accuracy and also involve keyboard accuracy. In the case of clique, if you use modifier keys like shift/alt/ctrl, you can have keyboard accuracy issues if you do not time those modifier keys along with your mouse click. In the case of mouseover macros, you have to time when you press the keyboard hotkey for the macro while your mouse cursor is over the intended target frame. What clique and mouseover macros do offer you is that it removes the mouse cursor transit time from healing target frame to hotbar icon back to next healing target frame.
Andy recommended that I shrink my UI scale to reduce the visual clutter of my UI in my videos. I responded that I don't like having smaller hotbar icons because it impacts my mouse accuracy for the times I have to hit them with my mouse cursor. He was puzzled that I would ever have need to do that while DPS. This segways into the other topic that I want to talk about which is hand contortion.
Since casters can't use cast time or channeled spells while moving, assigning those abilities to 1234 works well in almost all scenarios -- if you're standing still, your keyboard hand can slide over to 1234 for cast time/channeled spells. If you're on the move, your keyboard hand can slide over to WASD for movement. Is there ever a time where you want to hit one of your 1234 keys at the same time as WASD? How about Alysrazor? One of the big adjustments that I had to make for Alysrazor is that my brain wants to use WASD + my right mouse button for complex circle strafing. Why? Because I want to keep my camera optimally pointed toward the middle of the room so that I could visually confirm brushfire locations, flame thrower locations, and meteor locations. However, my brain also wants to use 1234 for my cast time/channeled spells because I could DPS while moving. At this point, there are several compromises you can make. One way is to continuously alternate your keyboard hand between WASD for circle strafing and 1234 for casting. This leads to stutter step type movement -- for example 0.2 seconds to hit '3' for mind flay, then 2.8 seconds of WASD movement while mind flay is channeling -- which is perfectly fine. Keyboard accuracy is important for me to alternate those two hand locations frequently. Another way is to contort your hand -- use your middle finger to hit '3' for mind flay, keep your ring finger on A and index finger on D for strafing and using left+right mouse button for forward movement (to compensate for your middle finger not being on W). That eliminates shifting your entire hand since two of your fingers are anchored on A and D, but it can be uncomfortable.
You may say, "Alysrazor is just a rare example.". It's not as rare as you think. Tanks frequently have to deal with this issue. On my paladin, I have judgement bound to '1', crusader strike bound to '2', hammer of the righteous bound to '3', and shield of the righteous bound to '4'. My other abilities like taunt and avengers shield are bound to my mouse. If it's just a tank and spank, my hand can rest on 1234 and focus solely on my tanking rotation. Whenever my tank needs to kite the boss backwards, my middle finger moves back down to press the S key. Contorting my hand to use the ring or index finger to hit 1234 is *extremely painful* since my hand is small. For that reason, whenever my tank has to execute complex movement, I keep my keyboard hand on WASD and use my mouse to manually click my hotbar buttons for my tanking rotation. Some people may slide their hand to use their index finger to press S while their hand angles to reach 1234 -- in any setup where you start shifting your hand, pay attention to keyboard accuracy.
What I think is commonplace is that whenever a certain action/rotation is uncomfortable to a player (due to hand contortion or inconvenient keyboard hand movement), they simply don't do it. For example, even though they buffed tank threat, on Alysrazor (this is an overused example >_<), the tank's rotation matters in order to produce maximum DPS. Players not accustomed to moving backwards (with S) while doing DPS (with 1234) will simply do them separately -- they'll stand still and DPS with 1234, then make a mental decision to move during which they forego 1234 (doing only autoattack) in order to move using WASD. This applies to DPS and healers as well -- if certain abilities are difficult to use while moving or frequently changing targets, those abilities are omitted. This means that some players have muscle memory *to not do certain things* depending on where their keyboard hand or mouse hand are resting. Another way to state this is that even though a person makes a mental note that it's important to move during a boss fight, their brain will omit the thought of moving if their keyboard hand is resting over 1234 -- it's a slightly different form of tunnel vision that is due to muscle memory instead of irresponsible meter watching.
After all of that TL;DR, what does this mean? It means two things. First, whenever you hit the wrong hotkey or click the wrong object, pay attention to your keyboard accuracy and mouse accuracy -- are you contorting your hand or shifting your hand position erratically over your keyboard. Second, pay attention to the compromises in gameplay that you make due to difficulties in your control scheme. The answer to these are not easy. If you decide to change your control scheme, it takes time to adjust -- it will feel terrible at first because your muscles will have no memory for it. You could adjust your personal strategy to compensate for it (e.g., stutter step casting on Alysrazor, optimizing your position during boss fights to minimize movement).
Remember, if your raid wants a 90% chance to kill a boss, each of the individual 10 raid members needs to perform at 98.95% chance of not making a fatal error (0.9895^10 = 0.9). Make sure that keyboard and mouse accuracy are not the reason you're failing.
-HP