Birdcage

This is of course ultimately my goal. Whatever the solution is, it surely must be better than what we have now. I just didn't want to complain about inconsistency without a potential solution

Actually my thought wasn't a time-based window, but rather that you only pick an item up when the mouse button is released. That way hardware has no impact and no need for a time window. Regardless, the option of instead using SHIFT+LMB to "force-mine" ground-storage remains, as this action is very uncommon. Very valid. I think the only solution to this is the force-mine option above, as mining a bush is a much less common action, especially with the recent update. Agreed that this would be a shift in perspective, can't deny that. The established pattern of "LMB = destruction" is indeed externally consistent with other games, and I acknowledge that this is a slight diversion. I will note that VS doesn't follow this religiously, as there are a few RMB actions that are destructive (ranged weapons, igniting with torches, dumping out liquid from a bucket). Still, the primary actions of mining, attacking, and interacting aren't actually changing, and a new player can still pick that up intuitively. Rather, it's VS unique system of storage that adds the idea that items can be placed on the ground and picked up. In that sense, VS gets to decide what pattern is used there. I also think it is clear that the unique storage mechanics of VS require full use of controls, and right now LMB is very heavily monopolized, which is what causes the excessive use of modifier keys. I believe it would be worth it to break from the "LMB = destruction" pattern established by other games to make room for VS's much wider variety of actions. Nono, placing a weapon would be RMB, which doesn't need to be prevented in combat because you aren't using it. In VS currently you can totally place a weapon in a tool rack mid-conbat. My solution was just to prevent LMB from accidentally taking something while holding a weapon, that's all. There would be no difference at all between taking/place weapons and tools in any other context. The rule is this: "While holding a weapon in hand, LMB is an attack, and won't take anything from storage". That's it; If you aren't holding a weapon, nothing is different. Fully agree. I'd prefer #1, which is just to not change animal interactions and keep it as RMB. I think the context of these actions being different than the rest (animals, not items/storage) works just fine. Having fewer contexts in the game is still better than what we have now, which is that everything is a different context. I actually disagree with this. There's no pattern that indicates "open" is LMB. Opening a chest is still RMB, and interacting with blocks like querns and anvils is still RMB. Currently, LMB can indeed sometimes harvest stuff. Right click already places without retrieval in some cases (torches). You could fix this my shoving even more actions onto RMB, but as more features are added to the game I think that is a mistake and will only lead to more modifier key bloat. I still think the prudent thing to do is break from idea that LMB has only 2 uses as this keeps the most important button from doing much of anything for a huge proportion of play time.

I wasn't thinking about a time-based window at all, I'll adjust the post to be more clear about that. Rather you only pick an item up when the mouse button is released. If you don't like that, the option of instead using SHIFT+LMB to "force-mine" remains, as the action of mining ground-storage is very uncommon and thus can reasonably be given a modifier key. I could even see both of these being config options depending on preference. You're right, we shouldn't apply this change to animals at all. This is not a big violation of internal consistency since interaction with animals is actually a different context than items and blocks. I think it is perfectly reasonable to expect players to recognize that. I still consider this to be better than what we have now, which is nearly no consistency at all because everything is a different context. Collapsing the game down to fewer contexts with their own internally consistent controls is still better. I fully agree that predicting player intent is a bad idea, but there is no predicting going on here, especially if you consider the "force-mine" option for these edge cases. It's just about making the most common use case more accessible, not predicting what they are trying to do. I actually disagree with this. There's no pattern that indicates "open" is LMB. Opening a chest is still RMB, and interacting with blocks like querns and anvils is still RMB. And also considering the context of animals as discussed above, I don't think it's reasonable to think a player would use LMB. I do still see your point though, which is that having the possibility for LMB to be used non-destructively is more risky, and I do acknowledge that.

Fantastic point here. I'll say this though, we can make use of a different mechanism for denoting "dangerous" actions, and that is whether it is held. For example, all ignition actions with a torch involve holding it down so you can't accidentally ignite something. Likewise, you destroy blocks only by holding down LMB. Holding requires knowing intent in all cases, which is perfect as a barrier. The only instance of a single LMB click being destructive is attacking, and that is only in the context of creatures. I've responded to this as well, and I think it is totally reasonable to either (1) simply not change these cases and keep interactions using RMB (sacrificing consistency) or (2) conditionally restrict attacking animals without a weapon.

This is precisely the issue, even for veteran players. When there is no internal consistency, you can't even guess at the right answer, you just have to try everything. Internally consistent actions are not only easier to remember, but also give you reasonable guesses when you don't know something. Fantastic cases, I'll add these to the post! We definitely don't want to be left-clicking animals for these actions. I think I agree with coolAlias, we can easily just have animals use RMB for both "take" and "place" (equipment, ropes, etc). This does break from the larger pattern, but having all animal interactions behave this way is still internally consistent to a degree. Alternatively, it could also be that you simply can't attack your animals without a weapon, which I wouldn't want to do anyway.

I don't believe there is any prediction necessary. All that's needed would be to differentiate between a single click and a hold, which is already implemented (attacking with a knife vs. harvesting with a knife). You are likely right, this case in particular may need some additional thought. Multiple clicks was an offhand attempt to correct for potential balancing of the time spent, which I'm not even certain is a consideration. To clarify, this potential solution is that HOLD+LMB harvests only when you have an empty hand or the same berry/fruit in hand, and still mines otherwise (i.e. with a tool/weapon). And the block would still drop harvests when broken, nothing about drops has to change at all. You're right, thanks for this correction, I'll update the post. I suppose I'm used to harvesting an animal and then immediately mining the bones. Good to know! Boots do indeed pose an issue that needs to be addressed because they are also uniquely able to be placed in ground storage. However, I argue that this edge case should not be an obstacle to the overall change. I would like to workshop a potential solution to mannequins, as that is also something I hadn't considered. Good point - fighting enemies inside your base could result in accidental left-clicks on items in storage. However I think this is easily solved by simply not allowing you to take items with a weapon in hand. In fact, this is already the case in many places where you must have an empty hand to take things. Accidentally putting things in storage is less of an issue I believe, since weapons and food are used by holding right-click, and that is easily differentiable as discussed at the top. Your feedback is very much appreciated! I definitely think this would need to be thoroughly tested to work out all the kinks. I still strongly believe that standardizing actions across mechanics is a very important change, but you are right to point out the holes.

Ya you're right, any case where harvesting is equivalent to mining should remain as-is, and cases where harvesting is a different action can apply either solution. That feels internally consistent enough I think.

Thanks so much! I agree with all of this, I'd also prefer that harvesting be prioritized over breaking in these cases. I'd even tentatively suggest that harvesting doesn't need to be a held action. I can easily imaging picking berries being a single left-click, or maybe multiple left-clicks for multiple berries. This also applies to picking fruit from trees now that I think about it, and could be a common pattern used for all fruits.

TLDR: My main proposal is for LMB (left-click) to be associated with retrieval, and RMB (right-click) to be associated with placement when involving items (ground storage, liquids, harvesting crops). In short, this follows a consistent, already established pattern, and significantly reduces the need for modifier keys. Preamble: I have looked around for similar suggestions but haven't found any at this scale, so please forgive me if this has been addressed elsewhere. The first thing I noticed when picking up VS was the strange interface patterns in the game (or lack thereof). Importantly, I see new players that I recruit get tripped up by the UX and nearly abandon the game because of it. I nearly did in the beginning as well. In general, confusing UX is often due to an incorrect or incomplete mental model, which in turn can be caused by a lack of consistency and unbalanced frequency-of-use. I'll clarify each below before getting to specific examples. Consistency: There are two types of consistency, external and internal: External consistency refers to how a platform uses well-established standards that a new user will immediately intuit. That's why CTRL+C and CTRL+V is the same in every software. As far as I'm concerned, VS does this just fine. Anyone who has played other voxel survival games will know how to move, jump, mine, place, attack, etc. Internal consistency refers to how the a platform establishes and re-uses similar patterns within its own constructions, building the user's muscle memory across similar actions. Take this forum, for example. To make text bold, you use CTRL+B, and to make text italic, you use CTRL+I. This clearly establishes a pattern for changing font style that the user can generalize. If the user wanted to underline, they could reasonably guess at CTRL+U and be correct. On the other hand, it would be considered a violation of internal consistency if bold used CTRL+B and italics used SHIFT+I. Even if you memorized this eventually, this idiosyncrasy would be a significant obstacle for new or returning users due to the lack of a recognizable pattern, and guessing the keybinds for underline is a shot in the dark. You likely already see where I'm going with this, but I believe that VS struggles with internal consistency, and is a huge unintentional obstacle for new players to overcome. It is also the reason that tooltips are absolutely everywhere because there's no consistent pattern to be learned. Frequency of Use: Another core principle that guides UI/UX design is how often certain actions are performed relative to accessibility: Common actions are more accessible, rare actions are less accessible. When applied to keybinds, this means that the primary mouse buttons (LMB, RMB) should perform the most common action, and adding the less accessible modifier keys (SHIFT, CTRL) should perform the less common action, thus keeping modifier key use to a minimum. Further still, combined modifier keys should only be used for very rare actions, if at all. There are several instances in VS where modifier keys are used unnecessarily, either because the primary action is actually less common or entirely nonexistent. Examples: Here I've compiled some of the places I see violations of internal consistency or frequency-of-use, and afterward I will demonstrate a potential solution. Harvesting Harvesting animals is Knife+SHIFT+RMB Harvesting plants or animal bones is LMB (mine) Harvesting plants to keep the roots is Knife+LMB Harvesting berries and fruit is RMB Getting a cutting from a fruit tree is LMB (mine) Getting a cutting from a berry bush is Knife+SHIFT+RMB This is quite inconsistent, but also uses unnecessary SHIFT keys because the act of mining with a knife isn't even possible in those cases. All instances of harvesting could be reasonably standardized so you don't have to guess for every situation. It doesn't entirely matter how you take a cutting (it's an uncommon action), but it should be the same for all plants that allow it. Torches Torches are inconsistent in several respects: Sometimes, igniting with a torch is HOLD RMB (firepit, torch, bomb), and sometimes it's HOLD SHIFT+RMB (forge, pit kiln, coal block). This is made much worse by the fact that performing the incorrect action still results in your arm moving, even though it doesn't do anything. This means that a player attempting to incorrectly light something thinks "I'm clearly doing it right, why isn't it working" instead of "Oh, I must be doing something wrong". This is a misuse of feedback, which is supposed to indicate when an action is being performed correctly. Regardless, igniting with a torch should be the same in all cases. You can ignite an unlit torch in your hand from a lit torch on the ground, but not from a lit torch in a holder. LMB (mine) to pick up from ground, RMB to pick up from holder You light a fire with a torch in hand with HOLD RMB, but light a torch in hand from the fire with HOLD SHIFT+RMB, which is also way you add fuel to the fire. There is no reason that igniting the torch/fire are different actions. Meals and Liquids Take liquid from the ground: RMB Place liquid on the ground: CTRL+RMB Take all liquid from a container: RMB Place all liquid in a container: RMB Take 1L from a container: SHIFT+RMB Place 1L into a container: CTRL+RMB Take liquid from pot in firepit inventory: RMB Place liquid into pot in firepit inventory: LMB Take food from crock on the ground: RMB Place food in crock on the ground: Not possible Take food from crock in inventory: LMB Place food in crock in inventory: Not possible Note again how internal consistency is broken here. Sometimes the difference between taking and placing is the addition of a modifier key (taking/placing liquid on the ground). Sometimes it's which modifier key (taking/placing 1L). Sometimes it's a different mouse button (taking/placing in inventory). Sometimes the mouse button is flipped entirely for the same action (taking liquid in inventory v.s. taking food in inventory). Ground Storage (GS) Here's where things get hairy. Placing items in ground storage is categorically similar to placing regular blocks, but with a completely shuffled set of actions: Take from GS: RMB Place in GS: SHIFT+RMB Take tool from GS: RMB Place tool in GS: CTRL+SHIFT+RMB Take from shelf: RMB Place on shelf: RMB Take from pile: RMB Place in pile: SHIFT+RMB Take from pile (many): CTRL+RMB Place in pile (many): CTRL+SHIFT+RMB As seen above, there is little consistency when it comes to placing items (can be RMB, SHIFT+RMB, or CTRL+SHIFT+RMB). This is made worse by the fact that the mess of modifier keys is entirely unnecessary. For the majority of common cases, using RMB on a ground-placeable item does not have another purpose* (edge cases addressed in the next section). Placing many items in a pile and leaning tools against a wall are also very common actions, so the fact that they use two modifier keys is especially awful. Additionally, for quarter-GS items the placement keybind actually changes if there are already occupied slots, but this does not happen anywhere else. Whether you require an empty hand to pick up items is also wildly inconsistent: Shelves do, tool racks don't. You can pick up an item from GS with another identical item in hand... unless it was placed in center GS, in which case you need an empty hand. More than that, sometimes you can only pick up an item from GS if you have a certain type of item in hand. For example, you can pick up bowls from GS (quarter only) while holding a crucible, but not when holding a mold or tool. But rocks in a pile can be picked up when holding a bowl or tool (many only), but not a mold. Pies slices can be picked up when holding a bowl, but bowls can't be picked up when holding a pie slice. But even after all that, torches use RMB to place and LMB to take, while oil lamps and lanterns use RMB to both place and take. That is unless the torch is in a torch holder, then it changes to RMB. But then you need an empty hand for lamps/lanterns, but not for torches in holders. And even then, SHIFT+RMB works to place a lantern, but not an oil lamp. I wanted to make a table here showing all the possible variations of requirements for placement, but I legitimately couldn't because there were too many exceptions with no discernible pattern. Regardless of all the above inconsistencies, using RMB for picking up items means that LMB is left entirely unused, which is why every other GS-related action must be relegated to RMB with modifier keys as seen above. Technically you can mine items in GS, but this is a very uncommon action and should not be prioritized when the entire purpose of GS is for convenient storage. Solution: This is where I introduce my proposed solution to this entire mess: Use LMB for actions related to retrieval. Simply put, taking items from GS, shelves, tool racks, piles, etc. could just be a simple left-click. Currently, left-click has no other purpose because mining a placed item in GS is done by holding LMB. If you are unsure about how the game would differentiate between clicking and holding, it can be the same as how the game differentiates between attacking with a knife (LMB) and harvesting grass (HOLD LMB). Alternatively, taking the item could simply occur when the button is released, meaning that the action isn't dependent on a time window. If you still don't like that, you could easily designate SHIFT+LMB to be "force-mining", which is already a precedent set by "force-placing" blocks on top of interactibles with SHIFT+RMB. Importantly this proposed change leaves RMB available for placement in nearly every case. This beautifully follows the pattern of LMB for "taking" and RMB for "placing" established from regular blocks, chiseling, and clay/smithing. Let's look at the relevant keybinds again with this change (underline indicates where there was a change): Take from GS: LMB Place in GS: RMB Take tool from GS: LMB Place tool in GS: RMB Take from shelf: LMB Place on shelf: RMB Take from pile: LMB Place in pile: RMB Take from pile (many): SHIFT+LMB Place in pile (many): SHIFT+RMB This is so much more consistent across the board and completely eliminates CTRL and all double modifiers. I won't take a stance on whether you should be able to pick up everything with full hands, but whichever is chosen should be consistent. Either you need an empty hand to pick things up or you don't. *There are some minor edge cases where RMB has a conflict, so let's address those: Eating food or using a ranged weapon is not just RMB, it's HOLD RMB. This is easy to fix: place the item down only when RMB is immediately released within a short window. This ensures you can never accidentally place a food item you are trying to eat (which, for the record, is already a current problem for users who bind SHIFT to sprint). Boots specifically are GS-placeable and equip with RMB. Again following the frequency of use principle, this edge case should not compromise the more common cases. With my suggested changes, equipping wearables (as a less common action), could then be SHIFT+RMB or CTRL+RMB, doesn't really matter. This solution also fixes the food and liquid issues: Take liquid from the ground: LMB Place liquid on the ground: SHIFT+RMB (placing the bowl or bucket in GS is RMB) Take all liquid from a container: LMB Place all liquid in a container: RMB Take 1L from a container: SHIFT+LMB Place 1L into a container: SHIFT+RMB Take liquid from pot in firepit inventory: LMB Place liquid into pot in firepit inventory: RMB Take food from crock on the ground: LMB Place food in crock on the ground: Not possible Take food from crock in inventory: LMB Place food in crock in inventory: Not possible At first I was skeptical of LMB to fill a bucket from a water block, but honestly? I'm on board with it now. LMB is effectively unused when carrying a bucket; there's no reason that "mining with a bucket" gets such a primary action. As for harvesting, here's what that might look like: Harvesting animals: Knife+LMB Harvesting animal bones: LMB (mine) Harvesting plants: LMB (mine) Harvesting plants to keep the roots: Knife+LMB Harvesting berries and fruit: LMB Cutting from a fruit tree: Knife+LMB Cutting from a berry bush: Knife+LMB This keeps everything consistent and removes modifier keys. The pattern is clear: LMB is used for mining (which can harvest in some cases), and Knife+LMB is used for more "specific" harvesting actions. Potential issues: I obviously don't expect to have thought of everything, but I'll try to address potential problems here, and I am adding more as they are brought up along with potential solutions. Please let me know if you think of others, I would really like to workshop this because I strongly believe this aspect of UX to be important for player uptake and retention. "Won't this be disruptive to current players?" Not necessarily. An easy solution is to offer the current controls as a legacy option for veterans who have built the muscle memory. Regardless, untangling a mess like this only gets harder as more players join. A change like this is inevitable, so it will be important to do it as early as possible to mitigate disruption. "But we don't want to be accidentally placing things in GS all the time" I agree, but we won't be. As suggested above, the biggest problems like food and weapons use HOLD+RMB, which is easily differentiable from a single right-click. "I don't want to accidentally take things out of storage when fighting enemies inside" Brought up by @LadyWYT. The solution to this I think is just to disallow taking items from storage when you are wielding a weapon. In fact, this is already the case in many places where you must have an empty hand to take things. "I don't want to accidentally hit my animals when trying to interact (e.g. take equipment, remove rope, milking)" Brought up by @jerjerje. Importantly, interaction with animals wouldn't be part of this change, so it would remain RMB. This sacrifices some consistency, but given that the context is very different (animals, not blocks/items), I think that is totally reasonable. "Harvesting berries and fruit trees would conflict with mining them (HOLD LMB)" Edge case brought up by @coolAlias. This has a couple solutions that could apply to all fruits: HOLD LMB harvests only when you have an empty hand or the same berry/fruit in hand, and mines otherwise. Also with a modifier key to "force-mine" in all cases. Harvesting doesn't even need to be a held action. Instead, you could harvest berries and fruit with a single left-click, or even multiple repeated left-clicks to balance time spent. "This would break the idea that anything involving LMB is a destructive action" Brought up by @williams_482. It is true that current LMB actions are all destructive (mining and attacking), and that this is a pattern established by other voxel games. However, I'd argue that we already make use of a different mechanism for denoting destructive actions, and that is whether it is held. For example, all ignition actions with a torch involve holding down RMB so you can't accidentally ignite something. Likewise, you destroy blocks only by holding down LMB. The only exception here is attacking, and that's only with melee weapons (ranged weapons use HOLD+RMB). I personally think it would be acceptable to use HOLD as a denotation of danger rather than LMB, especially when the benefit is making VS's unique storage system more accessible. Veteran players may take a bit to get used to this, but I suspect that using this pattern consistently will make it much easier in the long run, and it is very much worth removing the mess of modifier keys that we have currently. "Having a time-window for clicking LMB vs holding LMB can feel inconsistent and is easy to use incorrectly" Brought up by @LadyWYT. This is very true, though using a time window is just one of the possibilities. The alternatives suggested are: The item is taken from storage when the button is released, regardless of any time window. The item is taken instantly no matter what, and in order to mine something in GS you need to "force-mine" with SHIFT+LMB Final Justification: I know this was long, so thank you for making it this far. The current state of UX in the game appears to be a result of choosing keybinds independently for every unique situation, rather than through any consistent framework or intended mental model. This has resulted in inconsistent controls, misaligned frequency-of-use with accessibility, and tooltips everywhere because it's impossible to memorize everything. This is a problem that will only grow as features are added, and I believe there is a strong case that a global standardization is inevitable at some point in the future. With that in mind, I believe it would be best to get ahead of this before it becomes a pressing issue. The longer we wait, the harder it will be.