Dear Devs,
I left this idea pack on Steam forums too about how controls should be changed for a smoother gameplay experience. And because i think it very important, i signed up here, to leave here too! 
I hope my suggestions will reach You, and will consider it seriously - because the game can be much more better with these changes:
- Weapon attachments are detached when weapon placed to storage box.
When i set my weapons’ attachments i’d like them to remain intact until i myself don’t disassemble them. Because if the attachments are detached, there are risks. For example:
A. When i take the weapon again, maybe i don’t remember exactly what attachments were set at last use - but most often i’d like to use the stored weapon again as before i stored it.
B. The homelessly wandering attachments can be easily recycled by mistake.
- Equipment hotkeys forget their set if the equipment is out - so it has to be set again.
It is a very clumsy principle of operation - If i’m out of a type of medkit - like simple first aid kit - in the middle of battle, trying to escape the shots and looting meanwhile quickly - luckily finding a saver one medkit - it is not enough to push the set button - because the program forgets that hotkey - so i have to go into the inventory, and have to set it again.
A. To do that, more illogical steps have to be taken. I push “I” to get in the inventory. The first page which is showed the “Equipped” page. It is meaningless, because out of battle, when the player has time, that page could be the last page in the inventory menu - because it wouldn’t affect the gameplay negatively - but in battles the “Equipped” page is the most unnecessary to be the first page - so this affects the gameplay and the possible effectiveness of the player in battles harshly.
But it is not all of the issues with the inventory page. If i pressed “I” to get to the inventory, and also clicked on the “Equipment” page to get there where the just picked up medkit can be found, it is not on the screen! Why? Because the sorting in the menu shows the oldest picked up item, so i have to scroll down, and scroll down more, because the last item picked up is at the bottom of the page.
While this is happening, the bots are shooting continuously, and there is a high probabilty that the player loses not a few health points, or even could die while trying to manage to set that newly picked up medkit to that hotkey which was originally set, but the program forgot it.
Let’s suppose this maneuver was successful, the hotkey is set… Escape… back to the action screen, push the set number key - that one first aid kit gets used, some health is healed - but again, the hotkey forgets again it’s purpose, so if i continue the battle mixed with evasion in the interest of looting one more medkit, and if i succeed, i have to press “I” (goto point A.)
B. The inventory item lists’ sequence is not logical, it begins with the oldest picked up items, but all player, if they open the inventory, there is no way they are doing that to check that item which are the oldest picked up ones!!! The oldest picked up ones are known, they should be at the bottom of the pages, and the new ones should be on the top of the list. Because the player opens the inventory for checking a newly picked up item and being at the bottom of the list is completely unnatural.
Let’s see the “just picked up a simple first aid kit” problem again: Why the character needs to reach down to the bottom of the bag, to rummaging through all items for that item which is picked up just now? It should be above every other thing in the bag, because there is no method to put an item to the bottom of a stuffed bag.
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When the hotkeys are set to visible on the right bottom of the screen, icons of the hotkeyed equipments are there - its great, it shows which number key has to be pressed to get that equipment - but there is no indicator of how many of that equipment is available, however that would be the important information, not the hotkey numbers, because after dozens hours of gameplay, that can be remembered easily, because the player sets the equipments generally to the same hotkey.
I understand why the hotkey numbers are highlighted, but that stems from another design issue - which is that the 4 equipment hotkeys’ representation is not in line but in a tilted square’s corner points - so it is really a great help to highlight the numbers.
But the best solution in my opinion is to change that tilted square, form it to a line, as the weapon icons are represented. It couldn’t be mixed for the players, because the weapon line is 3 elements from 1 to 3, and the equipment line would be above of it with 4 elements which are logically 4 to 7.
By this layout, highlighting the hotkey’s number would be unnecessarry, and there would be space to highlight the amount of the hotkeyed equipment on the icons. -
Stand/Crouch/Crawl
The game has serious issues in performing those basic and tactically essential actions, i hope that will be solved soon, because it is very important. But the problem what i’d like to discuss is not that.
The player can turn on the screen indicator of stealth. But it shows the just activated Stand/Crouch/Crawl for 2 secs. Which is pointless, because when the player just activated a posture, it can be visible from the change of the character’s angle of view. The player doesn’t need that indicator for that, but for to check that indicator after moving in a stance for long minutes - to see which he is in at the moment, when an enemy just spotted to decide that if he needs to crouch or if he is already crouching.
It is not a problem with the crawling, because it is visible from the movement speed, but deciding that if the crouch or stand is active is not really possible without trying to activate another stance - which is not always possible because the game’s problems with crouch and crawl - but that issue would be eased if that indicator showed the momentary stance permanently, and not just flashing for a sec.
- Chaotic Inventory
Inventory list items should be sortable - to sort the ammo in regards of their type (size), to sort the equipment page’s items like gas-air tanks, emps, medkits, and the flares in groups, because now they are mixed, and not easy to find an item.
If automatic sorting is not wanted by the Devs, just let us capable to move the items in the inventory please!
- Few assignable slots
Please make the assignable keys to bear alternative assignment, which would activated by double-pressing of the number key!
This way we’d have 6 assignable weapon slots at least - it would be great! And we’d have 8 assignable equipment slots, and that would be more greater!
I don’t really understand why the equipment keys go only from 4 to 7, while it could be go from 4 to 9 at least - with the lined visualisation which i suggested in my 3rd point it would be a perfect solution, and then we’d have 12 (!!!) assignable slots for equipments! The game would be much more playable, enjoyable and we wouldn’t feel our avatar so clunky like now.
I hope dear Devs You will think over my suggestions, because i enjoy the game very much, but these silly control issues break the dynamics of the game, which is still hard enough without these control issues!
Thanks for the great game!
Instead of placing a few icons which would help to select different sorting methods…
Also, headset (good ones) help to immerse yourself into the game a lot more since with proper outside sound isolation, dog barking or wee-woo going pass doesn’t interfere with the superb sounds of a game.
, while terrain draw distance goes roughly as far as 5km or so. I have a good PC and there would be no problem for my PC to render machines at greater distance.
