One thing that is very much needed is an area of effect around the attacking animals in melee combat. As it is now, unless you are in an absolutely bare spot when attacked, you are more likely to whack plants and then their seeds, or glowing mushrooms or rocks, than you are the attacking animal. To put it mildly, this is seriously frustrating, especially in caves where you need much higher hit points to kill off mutated beasties. Inevitably I kill off all the glowing mushrooms in the area, then the glowing beasties kill me.
This same principle is also needed when chopped trees spew out their contents -- when you pick up the logs and resin and other bits, it is extremely annoying to pick up all the plants in the area as well, even if you take utmost care trying to avoid vacuuming them up. You end up denuding whole areas of forest undergrowth -- which I like to preserve, especially in the tropical biome. I end up replanting a great deal of vegetation because of this. If there could be some pick-up preference created for recently generated items, that would be a godsend!