New Hotkeys/Controls PLEASE! Grid?

[Pastah]

Can we modernize the hotkeys and controls? Maybe adding custom hotkey controls configuration too, like being able to change 'Alt+t' to 'z'?

UnReal World follows the old retro style of hotkeys where you once you press S for skills you press P for Physician, i.e. you press the first letter of the menu option name. Old RTS games did the same thing where you would press A to attack, H for hold, and P for Patrol; but they went away from that to adopt grid style hotkeys. That is 1234 QWER ASDF ZXCV, etc, where all the hotkeys are reachable to each other. Perhaps the menu options can go down from Q being menu option 1, W being menu option 2, etc?
Ideally whatever is easy to press many times, easily reachable within each other, and can be memorized with muscle memory (actions don't change chords/combinations and remain the same).
If you do add these grid styles, I think you should make them changeable like "Menu options 1" "Q" can change to "W", incase players want to switch from WASD to ESDF for more keys to press easily.

Why change these? I tend to play left hand on WASD and right hand on Numpad. But everytime I have to do menu actions I have to constantly move my hands around finding the right button to press for a menu option, like moving my hands to touch type home row mode "ASDF JKL;". It honestly makes me want to drop playing the game when I have to tedious menu navigation so frequently (R repeat action helps a little). This is especially true with NPC chat interactions where I have to press 'T' for trade then reach other for the '0' to go back to main menu. Even the mouse click distance is quite far where bottom left is for some chat options and on the right side are others instead of all options being next to each other.

Also I found it extremely annoying tracking Elk in thick dense forests where I have to either spam press the awkward Alt+t or get epilepsy menu flashes on my screen quickly pressing S > T over and over.

Another idea for controls is you could press TAB to change modes from movement/actions to menu stuff. So Numpad controls can be moved to WASD, but when you press TAB you have menu interactions like Make, Build, etc. Not sure about this one to be honest, but food for thought I suppose.

I beg you that we make controls more intuitive and easier to interact with so the game is more enjoyable to play 🙏

[JP_Finn]

With the game’s visual detection mechanism: I don’t think wasd can ever cater to the numpad.
E.g. numpad1 turns your character 180 degrees to the left. If there’s hostile in the “rear right quarter: you won’t detect him/her/it. Numpad3 turns 180 to the right. You won’t detect rear left quarter. WASD can’t cater to that.

I’m all for less key jockeying if possible. So I can see the fatigue where the suggestion stems from.

As for tracking, modified 10-finger typing layout has worked decently for my characters’ tracking needs. Left pinky on Alt, middle or index on “t”.
If anything, I feel like traversing spruce more in any way is aggravating. I might need to write suggestion on movement speed deduction in exchange to pass spruce trees.

[Pastah]

With the game’s visual detection mechanism: I don’t think wasd can ever cater to the numpad.
E.g. numpad1 turns your character 180 degrees to the left. If there’s hostile in the “rear right quarter: you won’t detect him/her/it. Numpad3 turns 180 to the right. You won’t detect rear left quarter. WASD can’t cater to that.

Just make Numpad 7 as Q, Numpad 9 as E, Numpad 1 as Z, Numpad 5 as X, Numpad 3 as C.
But tabbing through modes is just an idea. Would have to use it to see how good it feels.

[Senthe]

or get epilepsy menu flashes on my screen quickly pressing S > T over and over.

This one tiny thing is something that actually bothers me a lot. I have mild photosensitivity and it's really something that messes with my eyes and brain. I have to sometimes close my eyes when I do this, which makes no sense as I'm (the player) not even seeing the terrain I'm trying to navigate anymore 😅

[Plotinus]

or get epilepsy menu flashes on my screen quickly pressing S > T over and over.

This one tiny thing is something that actually bothers me a lot. I have mild photosensitivity and it's really something that messes with my eyes and brain. I have to sometimes close my eyes when I do this, which makes no sense as I'm (the player) not even seeing the terrain I'm trying to navigate anymore 😅

Do you know about the alt-t alternative to s-t? It doesn't bring up the skill menu so you don't see the flashes. You can use alt with any of the skill keys.

[Senthe]

Do you know about the alt-t alternative to s-t? It doesn't bring up the skill menu so you don't see the flashes. You can use alt with any of the skill keys.

I know, but it's extremely inconvenient. I usually have my left hand near [a]pply, [d]rop, [q]uaff, [e]at, [w]ield and kill (like I expect most players do), and for unrelated reasons, on my keyboard there's only right alt and no left alt. And well, since it's currently impossible to customize any keybindings at all, I'm stuck with either using s-t or moving my hand to alt only for this one action