First, let me start by saying that yes, I know you can rebind the hotkeys yourself, and yes I know that mods can cover this. Those things are great and I intend to make use of them. They do not preclude the defaults from being improved as well. Second, I’d like to specify that I’m talking about the build menu hot-keys. My first impression of the current hot-key system, when it was released a few builds back, was a very positive one. Everything follows the same pattern, if a build icon is on the top row, the hot-key will be a top row letter on your keyboard, if that icon is on the leftmost side, it’ll be q. The position of every icon correlates exactly with the position of it’s hot-key on the keyboard, what could be more logical? Sounds great, right? At first, I thought so. But after using it for weeks and still not really learning more than a few shortcuts, I don't think so. The problem is that a position based reference system has no semantic meaning. Meaningful designation/action relationships is what makes key-bindings effective, not a letter based coordinate system. The best implementation of effective keyboard shortcuts is one where you can think in terms of keystroke patterns. Want to build a metal extractor? You should be able to think in terms of build, economics, extractor, and be able to logically determine the likely key combination, not look at the menu and translate the positions of the icons to the keyboard equivalent. Instead, we have what, v+t? What does that mean, is memorizing that practical? You want to be able to use these things instinctively. How easy is that going to be when when your only point of reference is the specific position within the build menu, the avoidance of which is the entire point of keyboard shortcuts. Why not e+m for economy + metal/mass/mining/whatever? I won’t pretend I’m an expert on the most appropriate semantic bindings, and the above example likely isn't the best, it's just an example. The point I am trying to make is that it does at least mean something. Anyways, I’ll be working on my own thorough remapping, maybe even look into mod making, but I really would like to see what the community feels of the current system, and some reconsideration by Uber on this front, even if it’s not a priority.
I don't even use hotkeys, but i can imagine this is pretty important to anyone that does. When my mouse reaches 100 million clicks i might consider it
The main problem with your approach is the mouse and keyboard. You usually only have one free hand, so the combinations have to work in a way you can do them with one hand and moving it as little as possible. E+M for example is a terrible combination. try to do it with one hand without looking at the keyboard. It is almost impossible. I recommend you download the Hotbuild 2 mod. It is amazing for keyboard shortcuts, there are a lot of user made defaults and you can customize the keys in any way you want.
A fair point that I hadn't considered. Of course, that particular example isn't a necessity, but the point remains valid in general given how much more varied combinations would likely be. Even so, I find the current system unintuitive enough that I would still consider a semantic system an improvement, even were nearly every combination as awkwardly spaced out as my example. As for Hotbuild, read the first line of my post. I'll be doing that anyways, just discussing for the sake of the defaults not being so difficult to remember, if that is indeed a problem others have as well.
OP reminded me of voice system in Tribes series, there are tons of lines (130+ to be more precises) and you don't have to memorize anything, because it's logical. Say, you press VDF and it's "Defend our flag" (voice -> defend -> flag), VDG "Defend our generator", replace D with A and it is "Attack X", or, say, VRT for voice -> repair -> Turrets. You can say almost everything game related without memorizing lines (like in CS where there is Z X C followed by 1-10). In Tribes it gets even better, as Voice->Attack->Flag (VAF) and Voice->Flag->Attack (VFA) leads to the same line, so you can't screw up this part because you started thinking about flag first. I don't really know how to explain it, but it definitely feels right. And it's not hard to execute, I keep taunting (like VGTA - voice global taunt 'aww that's too bad') at enemies mid combat, and it's a fast paced shooter where you always need mouse, WASD and your thumb holding space most of the time. So, it'd be really logical to make something like F for factories, then V for vehicle factory, if you want advanced one, you just should add A, so it's FVA. If you want a radar, you go UR (utility -> radar), or URS for space radar, or URA for advanced radar etc. CA (combat -> AA), CF (Combat -> Flak) and CAF (combat -> AA -> Flak) could be both shortcuts to Flak (and there could be more such alternatives), so if your logic is slightly different, you can still get what you wanted. If system is well designed, you can keep most of the shortcuts on left side of the keyboard (like, use G for generator instead of P power generator, change Utility to something more left hand friendly). At this time, the only shortcut I memorized and use is VT and I have no idea how it corresponds with Utility -> Extractor. Today I've learn that wall is VA and I have no idea why.
