As an example: first person action rpg. You’ve got one button for fire spells. Tap once, shoot a bolt. Hold it down, shoot flames. Tap once, then hold down, shoot a fire ball. Tap repeatedly, do a fire storm.
Does that sound dumb?
Anything that adds to repetitive motion injuries is a bad idea in my opinion.
So would you say buttom combinations are better?
Maybe with tap and hold variations. So like hold R2 for fire, then tap L1 for fire bolt or hold it for flames. Then R2 + L2 tapped for fire ball, or hold for storm.
I just realized that that would mean that one button could do 14 functions in combination with the other buttons on an 8 button controller. 22 if you include the D-Pad.
Then do two shoulder buttons and you’ve got 44.
If the D-Pad changes the shoulder settings, you’re up to 176 skills all on a controller within an instant. Nice.
I agree with @Telia about the tap-repeatedly input for fire storm. However, I think tap, hold, and tap-then-hold are all fine, and could be significantly easier to learn and remember than involving other buttons as modifier keys.
You see this in non-gaming UIs all the time: iOS has both tap and “long press”; mice have single-click and double-click. It’s a good design when it makes sense. If flames begin exactly the same way as a fire bolt, such that “bolt” is really just a brief application of “flames,” then absolutely, pay attention to how long the button is held down and apply the resulting effect.
Fireball is a little trickier, but you could look at it like this: when you release a quick burst of fire, there is a cool-down period during which you can’t fire again. But if you attempt it anyway, during the cooldown period, what happens is that you build up power internally. And then when you release the button — after the refractory period is over — all that power gets released at once, i.e., fireball.
Basically, what I’m trying to do is to encourage of you to think of it less in terms of button mechanics, and more in terms of simulated things going on. And keep that simulation as simple as you can, while still having a decent range of effects. Then the player will be able to form a mental model of what’s going on, and manipulate it in very natural ways.
Conversely, if there is no rhyme or reason to it, and it’s just arbitrary mappings of button-combos to effects, then the user can’t easily make a mental model of it, and will be confused.
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Well now I’m thinking of magic similar to Might and Magic 6.
Fire
Water
Earth
Wind
Mind
Body
Soul
Light OR Dark (not both)
The triggers are held to access the school of magic, then a second button is tapped or held to use one of two spells per button. The D-Pad swaps the schools of magic. And since the inputs are relatively common in theme it’s intuitive.
Yep, that makes sense.
Also, with this sort of elemental magic, combos can actually make a lot of sense (though it means more work for you as the designer). That is, if there’s some easy way for the user to press “fire” and “water” at the same time, then you should unleash a steam attack.
There’s some iPad game my kids were playing recently that takes this to the extreme, and they really liked it… the name escapes me at the moment, but I can dig it up if you want to check that out.
I thought this was going to be a question about contextual controls. What you’re describing kind of sounds like how fighting game combos play out.
I personally enjoy modifier keys but maybe you can see how well the idea was received on Fable? I think they used triggers to turn the face buttons into spells. Depending on how you want this to work, you have a bunch of options.
Holding a trigger turns your other buttons into spells from that modifier’s set
Holding a trigger opens up a radial menu of spells that can be selected via analog sticks
Pressing a spell button opens up a menu where all items and skills are available (reference : dot hack)
Or maybe left and right on the dpad cycle through your spells which are then mapped to the triggers and face buttons.
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Time-based controls and context sensitive controls are fine for me. I prefer control systems like Button 1 press = attack … Button 2 press = Jump … Button 1 held for 3/4 second = heavy/special attack … Button 1 and Button 2 = standard jumping attack … Button 1 and Button 2 held for 3/4 second = special dash attack … over having 5 different buttons required. Just need to do it in a logical manner. Anything that requires a delay (holding) should be more powerful. Kind of balance things out.
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No. Just no. The more complicated the controls become, the less likely anyone is to use them. People are much more likely to stick with the first thing that is proven to work, and use that exclusively.
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What about the special meter from that game I forget the name of? While you’re fighting rapidly using a basic attack, a meter is filling up. Based on where it is you press your special button and it uses the entire meter. The skill used depends on how charged the meter was.
It’s a horrible idea, but for that game it worked. Skill affinity didn’t matter, just spam attack and use the biggest abilities you can all the time. That’s modern ARPG philosophy, thoughtless button mashing.
Warriors series? (Dynasty, Samari, and Hyrule Warriors)
It’s much, much older than those.
OH…
MY…
GOD…
Secret of Mana (aka, my all time favorite 16-bit game of all time)
Btw, there’s a trick where you can charge them weapon, then have the 2nd player nab the weapon you’re using, then the bar will continue to grow indefinitely.
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That’s not what I was thinking of xD
It’s this really old, isometric arcade-looking game that has a pharaoh mage character that has 3 attacks. Normal attack is some little magic bolt, the first level of the 3 charges is a larger magic bolt, the second level is falling rocks and I don’t remember the third level.
Most of the time complex key orders will just become button mashes for players. Something simple like holding triggers to modify an action works (I’m thinking assassins creed). But complex stuff like A A A Y becomes difficult for low level players to conceptualise and use. Especially where timin is important, and the action is fast paced.
Why only one button? Is this intended as a touch interface?
Console controller.
But, more for an exercise in design than a project.
Messing with conventional controls is basically reinventing the wheel. Ya know all those games that tried to have jumping be B instead of A? Or Dying Light with it’s right bumper for jumping… madness! People can get used to anything, but those games were huge already.
You can try making the face buttons control looking and then use each degree of the analog stick as a unique action 
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Personally for me,
I would say, touch screen commands, on a touch screen gamepad controller, similar to the Wii U gamepad/other, would do a game like this justice, for all of those different magical attacks. 
But then again, “Oh well, that’s just me.”