Either make the A key for item pickup contex aware, or make item pickup an active skill.

Xbox Series X. One of my biggest frustrations with the key binding layout is that the A key defaults to picking up items in combat rather than using the skill. While being swarmed with enemies i am trying to use Power Siphon which is bound to A, and the interface prioritizes picking up items off of the ground rather than using the skill. This is a serious design oversight that further limits the functionality of the controller which already has it's own inherent limitations.

Why not make that item pickup function context aware? If there are enemies aggravated on the player do not pick up items and use the skill instead? That seems like an obvious consideration.

The alternative is to make item pickup an active skill rather than the A key default behavior. Let me bind Item Pickup to RT/A so that item pickup does not interfere with my main combat layout.

What is wrong with binding power siphon to RT/Y or something besides A? Absolutely nothing after many hours of practicing the new layout, and getting over the motor skill curve of introducing additional keys to the combat sequence. The better question is why is my main combat key layout compromised by a default behavior that has nothing to do with combat?

First off, I always *strongly* recommend not binding anything to X (PS) or A (XB). There are multiple reasons for this, the primary of which is what you're describing--except not specific to "pick up" but also to talk to NPCs, activate strongboxes, etc.

Second, the game previously prioritized skill activation if there were any targets in a wide range around you.

One of the things this made impossible (while using that bind for a skill) was looting a valuable/important item in a crowd of monsters you didn't intend to kill.

There were some other detriments as well.

So they changed the behavior (or maybe they changed it for other reasons, it's only my assumption as to *why* they changed it).

As with any sort of control/interaction change, there were lots of people who were happy, and lots of people who were unhappy. Some of the unhappy people weren't unhappy anymore after getting used to it. A few of the happy people became unhappy after playing with the change for a bit.

Both solutions have issues. Forced to choose between the two, I prefer the current system. If ground loot is interfering with combat, your filter isn't as strict as it should be.

Personally, I'd like to see an *optional* ability to bind pickup and interact (separately or together) to individual buttons.