The assignment of items and weapons is really very cumbersome

[Pirate Dancer]

It would be better to recognize which ammunition belongs to which weapon faster and to assign the weapons and objects properly to the respective buttons.
The assignment of items and weapons is really very cumbersome.

[Greb]

For sure. 3 slots for weapons I can handle, but four slots for other gear isn't. At least two slots will be taken up by medical items and your binoculars, leaving two more for gadgets and other things. Having to single them out in your inventory, then equip them, to use them is really annoying too.

Ammo could use being highlighted in the inventory if you've currently got weapons assigned that uses it, or at the very least grey out ammo that isn't compatible with your currently assigned weapons instead - with an optional feature to "store unused" on the ammo tab for quick depositing of ammo you don't currently need.

Honestly I'd much prefer to have an item bar similar to Minecraft or whatever, your typical PC thing at the bottom of the screen. It would be a lot more intuitive. There's plenty of games that have different UI elements for console and PC, alienating console players is an issue or something.

The assignment system is very weird though, yeah. I get they're trying to go with a kind of "held weapon + back strapped weapon + sidearm" kind of deal, but it just seems overly cumbersome to me, especially the interface. [1] [2] [3] is barely any different to [4] [5] [6] [7] in terms of visual stuff, it's not very clear that the first three are weapon slots and the last four are item slots. It just feels untidy and unorganised right now, and could be much better.

Hopefully it changes at some point. Inventory management is extremely awful and clunky as it is, right now. I've almost stopped bothering to pick up stuff like radios, boom boxes and the like simply because they're so annoying to use, going through the process of assigning them before I can use them.

A system like that demands a nice grid based, lightweight inventory you can pull up at any moment, quickly mouse over the item you want to use, then right click and select "equip" and have it immediately appear in your hands, etc.

Also the game doesn't even let you know if you're being attacked when in your menu / inventory screen. Blocks out the entire screen and doesn't register any kind of feedback effect from taking damage. In a fight with a friend, I was trying to grab my fireworks and flares and was going through inventory hell, when I suddenly was downed because a robot had managed to "attack into" the house we were in and then kill me, and I didn't know until too late etc.

Hardly a game over situation but, annoying all the same.

[Pirate Dancer]

Dude, you got to the point. The menu is extremely cumbersome. The menu before the March update was better designed. Now it is only complicated. it slows down the flow of play very strongly.

[Greb]

Yeah I watched a lot of gameplay for this game when it was close to it's release, because I was interested in it. All of the series I watched had the old UI that looked very clean and easy to use. It's been a while now but I'm pretty sure you could drag and drop stuff and even sort things like that too, I know it presented everything so much better in a grid type system though, at least.

Was surprised to find it so different when I finally got the game the other day. It hasn't been a very comfortable experience so far, for sure. Even with the shortcut keys (Z and C I believe? What the hell is that?) it's still a nightmare to navigate. It feels definitely suited more for a gamepad, for the LB and RB triggers or whatever for quick and painless tabbing, but it's not suited to a PC M+KB set up, not in my opinion.

Always used to tabbing in PC games using the scroll wheel or simply clicking easy and visible buttons / tabs, scrolling down through the item list. I've never used keyboard shortcuts ever for menu interaction on PC games, it's always too cumbersome.

Another thing I hate is the size. It feels like Big Picture mode all over again, probably another thing to aid TV + couch using console users. The text isn't all visible either, you have to wait for it to scroll across sometimes, always having some of it off-screen. Especially annoying with ammo, the inventory icons are not nearly unique enough (besides colours, I guess) to spot them and the different types at a glance, so I find myself waiting for ammo to scroll through its name until (9mm Handgun) or whatever shows up, so I know what the ammo is.

You get the feel for the colours eventually, like brown being shotguns, red being magnums, etc, but the two ammo types for two sniper rifles I have (not counting the .50 cal) were infuriating to juggle. It's just annoying, a system like Resident Evil 4 or even STALKER would be much easier for discerning ammo types and other items, etc.

[Trouser_Dune_Worm]

Learn the keyboard shortcuts and you don't have to cry on the forums about it anymore.

[Greb]

Originally posted by Trouser_Dune_Worm:

Learn the keyboard shortcuts and you don't have to cry on the forums about it anymore.

Shortcuts work for gamepads because they don't really have a choice, the whole thing is essentially just a bunch of different keys but positioned comfortably for a pair of hands to use all of them efficiently, but there should be at least some room for mouse users. A mouse pointer is supposed to be fast and fluid, not clunky like this. Keyboards are not ideal for menu navigation.

Ideally you get the best of both worlds, you don't completely destroy one in favour of the other. The keyboard shortcuts suck, too. They might be reassignable, haven't bothered looking because I don't typically navigate menus with a keyboard when I have a mouse available, lol.

The whole thing has the feel of a bad console port, but I'm pretty sure it released on all platforms at the same time with the original UI and stuff, so it's really odd.