OpenRA

In current release you need to press Ctrl + Shift + 1 to add units to Control group 1. In some games it is simply Shift +1.
OpenRA supports Shift + 1 for little different purpose, what might be preferred, so not sure, but I think the proposed change (implementation easy and ready) might be little better.

What do you think?

As you're required to include SHIFT by default anyway, I don't see the downside with it. One extra finger free.

*edit: Apparently has trade-offs.

Never even knew openra had this. I seem to remember RA2 2 had this and was possibly shift only too. Though my memory is hazy of that.

Yep, sounds good and intuitive to me.

In the current version of OpenRA and the original C&C games:

If you click on a unit or drag-select multiple units without the shift key then the game will select these and deselect whatever you had previously. Pressing a number key without the shift key behaves the same way.

If you click on a unit or drag-select multiple units with the shift key, the the game will add the new units to your selection. Pressing a number key with the shift key behaves the same way.

Your proposal changes this second case to:

If you click on a unit or drag-select multiple units with the shift key, the the game will add the new units to your selection. Pressing a number key with the shift key adds units to a control group.

This doesn't seem very intuitive to me...? Creating/updating control groups is a different thing to updating your current selection, and so it should have a different hotkey.

This proposal is suggesting to remove the ability to select multiple groups using hotkeys, for the sake of saving one keypress on another combo. I use that feature all the time (press 1, then shift + 2 to have both groups selected and issue orders), so think this is a poor tradeoff.

Proposed change breaks the possibility of selecting multiple control groups into a single select.

...what Sleipnir said

Ok, so if I understand correctly: ctrl is used to create groups, shift is used to create selections (which are 'lost' when deselected, since they're not saved as a group).

Hmm, that sounds reasonable as well. What I especially liked was making it easier to add units into a group, and if the group didn't exist then create a new group. Shift would've been a nice separate hotkey for that, but it would be a shame to lose functionality just to make something a little bit easier.

Im a bit more leaning towards shift being a selection tool or group adding tool rather then used for creating groups tool.

Another shift method here: https://youtu.be/BjaMDtspi7g?t=3m53s

noobmapmaker wrote: ↑Hmm, that sounds reasonable as well. What I especially liked was making it easier to add units into a group, and if the group didn't exist then create a new group. Shift would've been a nice separate hotkey for that, but it would be a shame to lose functionality just to make something a little bit easier.

Thanks all for your feedback. I was aware of this issue as described also (less clearly) in my initial post.
noobmapmaker's comment summarizes it well. I wasn't sure players use this feature to combine selections/groups, but at least more players might try it after this discussion.