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[General Request] Hotkeys[message #335530]

Sat, 06 September 2014 12:52

smeagol

Messages:2704
Registered:June 2008
Location: Bremen, Germany

Okay, this might be an old one... nevertheless I think it is an important one...

There have been additions of several new hotkeys now, some good, some bad, some ugly. It's reached a point where it is really confusing to keep track of.

We really need a complete overworked hotkey list. And while we are at it, maybe we could rethink a few hotkeys if they are needed, if some could be exchanged and so on.

I'm thinking about keys like "k" which opens the key submenu (yeah, real keys, as in "opens a door"). Is anyone actually using this hotkey to open the key submenu? Seriously, some of the old vanilla hotkeys are just a waste of a useful hotkey slot that could be used with better choices (w for wireframes... how often is that actually used during a game?).

There are a few more horrible hotkeys, and there are a lot of very useful ones only experienced players know about or are only found by chance.

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Lieutenant

Re: [General Request] Hotkeys[message #335531]

Sat, 06 September 2014 13:10

Nasenbaer

Messages:36
Registered:July 2013
Location: Germany

i am totally with you smeagol!

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Private 1st Class

Re: [General Request] Hotkeys[message #335532]

Sat, 06 September 2014 13:40

Deleted.

Messages:2634
Registered:December 2012
Location: Russian Federation

There was a similar discussion some time ago
HOTKEYS thread

@Smeagol what are your suggestions?

I personally hate all hotkeys that require 2 or even more modifier keys like ctrl+alt+shift+T, they are hard to remember and not convenient to use.

Agree on [k] key, never used it in my games.

Another thing I don't like currently is tactical merc selection.
They are usually divided into several groups in my games, and the order of the mercs in groups is different from mercs in tactical panel. Using ctrl+arrow helps, but it's buggy (in my games) so I don't use it currently.
I think it would be good to split the squad in subgroups, so the space selects mercs only in subgroup, but show them in one team panel, as usual, to be able to select one with mouse and see the overall situation (merc's health, number of enemies etc)

There's a good (strategic) hotkey request also here
strategic hotkey request

[Updated on: Sat, 06 September 2014 13:42] by Moderator

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Lieutenant

Re: [General Request] Hotkeys[message #335534]

Sat, 06 September 2014 14:10

smeagol

Messages:2704
Registered:June 2008
Location: Bremen, Germany

The list in the hotkey thread is rather confusing.

I'd prefer a clearly divided alphabetical list, like this:

Tactical

A
A + ALT
A + CTRL
A + ALT + CTRL

etc.

I agree on the two or more modifier hotkeys being very inconvenient. I'd reserve those for very specific stuff that is not used very often.

Sure, changing hotkeys will lead to some confusion in the beginning, but after some time it will be more convenient if people get used to it.

I'm not talking about changing each and every hotkey. Just a) a list of existing hotkeys and b) rethinking of some odd hotkeys that are never used at all or only come up really rarely.

I think there is quite a bit to do in the user interface to make the game more intuitive (for example the buttons in the merc inventory that do stuff like prone, toggle cursor etc etc, why not, at least in higher resolutions, move them out of the merc inventory to the bottom left/bottom right. This would have the advantage for those people who actually use those buttons over hotkeys not having to open merc inventories again and again if they want to go prone/toggle burst modes, etc).

Using the buttons is totally stupid, as the hotkeys are way easier to operate, but I've seen a lot of people in several let's play vids actually use those buttons... (not that it's a good idea, but if they are actually used, why not make them easier accessible). Sure, interface work is still tough to code from what I hear, but a easily useable user interface is what makes a good game great (while bad interfaces make even good games horrible).

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Lieutenant

Re: [General Request] Hotkeys[message #335540]

Sat, 06 September 2014 16:38

Headhunter

Messages:260
Registered:November 2009
Location: Sweden

Totally agree with this.

Buttons should have some connection to each other, it shouldn't be "button A: Grenade launcher angle, button A + Ctrl: Open load screen".

One example that I can think of is stance/movement keys.

This is how it works now:
R: Run
S: Stand
C: Crouch
P: Prone
Page Up: Stance up
Page Down: Stance down

Not only are the buttons all over the place, you have two sets of keys doing basically the same thing.
This could be lowered to one button and one or two modifier keys (shift, ctrl, etc) like this:

S: Stance up
S + Ctrl: Stance down
S + Shift: Run

I think that would be better, anyway.

[Updated on: Sat, 06 September 2014 16:38] by Moderator

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Master Sergeant

Re: [General Request] Hotkeys[message #335541]

Sat, 06 September 2014 17:59

Sargeno

Messages:67
Registered:December 2001
Location: Oregon, USA

H is used for help screen but who really uses that but new people and then not often.

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Corporal

Re: [General Request] Hotkeys[message #335551]

Sat, 06 September 2014 22:39

silversurfer

Messages:2787
Registered:May 2009

Headhunter

Totally agree with this.
One example that I can think of is stance/movement keys.

This is how it works now:
R: Run
S: Stand
C: Crouch
P: Prone
Page Up: Stance up
Page Down: Stance down

Not only are the buttons all over the place, you have two sets of keys doing basically the same thing.
This could be lowered to one button and one or two modifier keys (shift, ctrl, etc) like this:

S: Stance up
S + Ctrl: Stance down
S + Shift: Run

I think that would be better, anyway.

No thank you. The current assignment is easy to remember because the key represents the first letter of the function.
Unless someone implements fully customizable key assignments for all functions I'm against changing the logical and well known current assignments.

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Lieutenant

Re: [General Request] Hotkeys[message #335553]

Sat, 06 September 2014 23:57

smeagol

Messages:2704
Registered:June 2008
Location: Bremen, Germany

silversurfer

No thank you. The current assignment is easy to remember because the key represents the first letter of the function.
Unless someone implements fully customizable key assignments for all functions I'm against changing the logical and well known current assignments.

I'd agree with that.

My suggestion was more to take the really unnecessarily blocked simple hotkeys no one ever uses and replace them with useful stuff that has strange combinations.

R(un), C(rouch), S(tand), P(rone), L(ook) all work well. No reason to change that. It's convenient and we don't need tons of hotkeys anyways... It's just those few that totally do garbage you don't need that should be replaced. And yes, moving the help menu somewhere else (and thus freeing hotkey h) would be useful as well. Encyclopedia or a new laptop page might be a good place to put that in my opinion.

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Lieutenant

Re: [General Request] Hotkeys[message #335554]

Sat, 06 September 2014 23:59

Headhunter

Messages:260
Registered:November 2009
Location: Sweden

silversurfer

Headhunter
Totally agree with this.
One example that I can think of is stance/movement keys.

This is how it works now:
R: Run
S: Stand
C: Crouch
P: Prone
Page Up: Stance up
Page Down: Stance down

Not only are the buttons all over the place, you have two sets of keys doing basically the same thing.
This could be lowered to one button and one or two modifier keys (shift, ctrl, etc) like this:

S: Stance up
S + Ctrl: Stance down
S + Shift: Run

I think that would be better, anyway.

No thank you. The current assignment is easy to remember because the key represents the first letter of the function.
Unless someone implements fully customizable key assignments for all functions I'm against changing the logical and well known current assignments.

Perhaps I should have been more clear, but if you read the line that you didn't include in your quote you'd see that I was talking about an example on how to avoid using multiple buttons to for the same task (W, L and the MMB all have the "Look" command assigned, for example) and how to to use modifier keys to slightly alter the base function. Another example of this would be:

Current system
E: Cycles through all enemies seen by the selected merc
ENTER: Cycles through all enemies team knows

Proposed improvement
E: Cycles through all enemies seen by the selected merc
E + Shift: Cycles through all enemies team knows

[Updated on: Sat, 06 September 2014 23:59] by Moderator

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Master Sergeant

Re: [General Request] Hotkeys[message #335561]

Sun, 07 September 2014 01:39

silversurfer

Messages:2787
Registered:May 2009

smeagol

My suggestion was more to take the really unnecessarily blocked simple hotkeys no one ever uses and replace them with useful stuff that has strange combinations.

Yes, functions that are hardly used could be moved somewhere else or maybe assigned a key combo instead of a single key.

Headhunter

Perhaps I should have been more clear, but if you read the line that you didn't include in your quote you'd see that I was talking about an example on how to avoid using multiple buttons to for the same task (W, L and the MMB all have the "Look" command assigned, for example) and how to to use modifier keys to slightly alter the base function. Another example of this would be:

Current system
E: Cycles through all enemies seen by the selected merc
ENTER: Cycles through all enemies team knows

Proposed improvement
E: Cycles through all enemies seen by the selected merc
E + Shift: Cycles through all enemies team knows

That's still a 'No' from my side. Changing often used functions to key combos is a bad idea in my opinion. I'm playing with mouse + keyboard and the need to use key combos will only cause knotted fingers especially if we cannot remap the keys.
'W' is a recent addition that I didn't support as well because it just blocks another single key and is redundant.

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Lieutenant

Re: [General Request] Hotkeys[message #335563]

Sun, 07 September 2014 02:25

Flugente

Messages:3499
Registered:April 2009
Location: Germany

Whatever you might come up with I can only advise in the strongest way possible against any user-defined keymapping. If that happens, modders will define their own key setup, the defines change more than even now, and soon enough nobody has any bloody idea where the key combos are. It's bad enough already, I often have to debug to find out what key does what.

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Captain

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