What do players expect for equipping inventory items in the right hand for a first-person game, if there are several carried items allowed (usually displayed as icons across the bottom of the screen). In some games the first inventory item is automatically shown in the hand, and you can switch by hitting numbers 1 thru X to select one of the others. Is that the most common method?
Pressing numbers for weapons or items used to be the most common, but as games have become more complex it seems like drag and drop style equipment UI systems have become more popular. They are definitely more flexible in that you can have more than 10 possible items to equip, and don’t have to memorize the numbers to press, but they are slower to use.
Some games have gone to using either both systems or a hybrid, like how in PUBG you open an equipping menu to set what your 3 guns are, and can’t hold more than 3, but specific gun types aren’t tied to specific keys (pressing 1 doesn’t only bring up an AK-47 for example).
“Best” is generally an impossible question, since it always comes down to what is best for your game, how it impacts the speed of your game, how many possible inventory item options are you putting in your game, where are your player’s hands likely on the keyboard when they need to change item, etc.
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Yeah, PUBG is a solid example for this. I would definitely encourage all developers to look at PUBG’s inventory system to see a good example. Players can kit out three weapons and then select those three with keys 1, 2, and 3 on their keyboards. Key 4 is for a melee weapon, and 5 is for a throw-able. Keys 7, 8, 9, and 0 are for using medical items. PUBG’s solution is very flexible and very quick.
Another neat thing about PUBG’s overall solution is that there is a secondary (though much less efficient) method for new users who are not yet familiar with the “tab looting” feature in PUBG. New users can look toward an item and press the “F” key on their keyboard to pick up an item, and then scroll their mouse wheel to cycle through weapons. It is inefficient, but it offers a secondary method for new users. So if a new user feels initially overwhelmed by the flexibility of the inventory system, they can somewhat ignore it during their first plays.