Critique of crafting UI/Features - Discussion plea.

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Obviously guys we gotta remember we only have 1/5th of the final thing here so it'll change as it's implimented but let's have a little discussion. What do we feel about crafting? 



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Critique of crafting UI/Features - Discussion plea.
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7 years 179 days ago
+1

May I suggest that whilst trying to avoid semantics, where anything is technically a discussion, it would be helpful to remember how much of this is speculation and thus subjective. Also that before any other unfortunate comment is made I have watched the video and, that I have repeatedly successfully crafted items for more than one character.


The crafting system that the players are currently aware of, would appear to be the most basic of 'place holders'; this may also extend to a lesser extent to the inventory function. The following observations form the basis for my assumption.


In the video comment is made about the limited ability to select and salvage items and, how 'AH' uses it to store gear that he may want to use on his character. - At this time one cannot access the inventory when on a mission, so when it can be accessed it performs the same function as the chest on the command bridge. However, the chest is accessible account wide ( a point that I will raise again later).


Comment is made about alternative ways, that have been used in other games to speed up the 'processing' of an item once it has been selected. However, the existing method does remove the need for a 'confirmation' button to prevent the over enthusiastic player from deleting their prize piece of gear (and, conceivably a number of threads by some of those people wanting some form of a form of safeguard added, lol) Additionally  I find myself wandering if the existing method requires less coding.


Whilst the unusual use of left/right clicking and, material layouts are valid observations in themselves, it should be noted that there are numerous tabs across the top of the screen that cannot be accessed indicating that at least it is envisaged to be a more sophisticated system and, there are 3 different qualities of materials of which we can currently only select the basic variety at the moment.


Currently and, to state the obvious this may change, the available choice of gear that can be crafted is account wide, so the 'low level' character can commission the same variety of items as the higher level character.


Before watching the video personally I could see no valid reason for crafting to take time. However, whilst I think the use of the word economy could be misleading, I can see how it helps to create a sense of achievement when creating gear with the ideal combination of bonuses due to RNG. But, as indicated above, all gear can be used by any character on the account. So once a useful piece of gear is created, it can stored for later use by any character. Indeed it is possible to create a level 1 character and equip him with all purple gear so his attack/defence value is in excess of 66 before he even takes his first mission.


The current crafting system is thus I would suggest little more than a place holder, with many indications that it is or was at its creation destined for far greater sophistication. So, until it has been developed further, maybe any suggested improvement at this staged should be tempered by acknowledging how much speculation that is based upon. 


Meaningful forum discussion is often something different from one person's opinions in a Youtube video. Though if that video attracts more attention to the game, which in turn sells more copies and, brings in revenue that is spent on development of it, then in addition to any other personal objectives, it serves a constructive purpose for the game.







7 years 179 days ago
+1

Thank you Hydra for another interesting video! 

 I have to say that I do see the validity of the points you raise, but to be blunt what I ended up thinking about is that we're at a point right now where we are kind of stuck. It's nearly mid-April and the next patch is nowhere to be seen still, and although I do get that development takes a lot of time, some meaningful communication of where development is at at the moment, would be nice. Also your video brings me back to a point I've made before: the devs have a tool in us, one underutilized at the moment, in my opinion. We should know what is a placeholder (apart from the obvious items that are marked as such), what is merely there for the alpha and what is closer to done already, so we can focus on play testing the bits that are closer to being complete. 

The crafting system seems to have potential, although I believe it does need some quality of life alterations could be made to it. For instance the right clicking of materials to add them to a recipe, when on the recipe list is clearly indicated that you can make an x amount of said item, could be streamlined for the lower tiers by having the system auto select the basic materials needed to make the item. Further down in the game -and if the option to swap lower tier materials in recipes will indeed be there- it could give you the option to swap the lower tier mats for higher tier ones and get different roll modifiers or add material specific bonuses to the end result, as it seems that specific stat picking is limited to specific recipes (the ones that can be found as loot in game). At least that's how I am getting it, and I know I may be way off here, cause much of this is speculation anyway. 

I certainly don't mind the whole thing (although I got the irretrievable item bug as well) but it looks like a system that could be easily overlooked by many in the final game, given the other avenues already provided to the player for getting loot (Uther's Tarot, loot cases, chests and drops from enemies), and become obsolete by the endgame.  But again this is judging from the current state of the game, and without knowing whether the things we spend so much time talking about are to be scrapped all together for something else later down the line.  



This comment was edited 7 years 179 days ago by Evil Beard
7 years 179 days ago

I would love to answer this, but since its been bugged for me since day one, I can't. Have a feeling a lot of folks won't be able to comment for the same reason.

7 years 179 days ago

If you watch the vid you will notice i'm also bugged with an un-collectable item and have never actually successfully crafted anything. But that isn't actually required to discuss the system or make any of the points which I talk through such as it's layout etc. 


For those players who literally can't log into the game, that sucks... But the visuals I would hope provide enough demonstration for people to at least discuss the points i've mentioned.


7 years 179 days ago
Airsick Hydra

Fair enough, but at this point the crafting is so basic & incomplete that I think discussing it in any detail is premature.

7 years 179 days ago

No offence but you clearly didn't watch it lol it's a world away from an in-depth discussion as I talk about basic functionality and layout. It's the perfect time to talk about that. 

7 years 179 days ago
Grey Knight

@Great stuff beard - i'd comment though that although we only have 1/5th of the crafting system.. We still have "1/5th" to critisise. Much like the argument for having a staged release of the game, I think every time we have an opportunity to critique anything however small, it's always valid to do so. 


@Grey - My comment to Ctig wasn't meant to be offensive, but by stating it was premature to judge in detail did imply he wasn't familiar with the topics and points I was discussing. Salvaging etc and the foundations of crafting have been implemented, the devs want feedback on all system and therefore here I am here with my keyboard. Ready to give my thoughts.

As you have put together a thorough post and taken the time to make some good points, i'll try to respond to each point in turn.


- While the crafting system is placeholder I haven't commented on its aesthetics. Instead i've discussed it's position on screen and mouse button functionality. If they replace any placeholders then all of the points made will still remain valid. 

- I think the safeguarding feature is and has been suggested by some to accompany a "salvage all" feature, yes the current system allows you to funnel certain color types however I don't see this sytem as being entirely optimised given we will have purple power level 2 items in our inventory that are worse than power level 4 green items etc. The argument can be made that we should all be putting items in our stash and this makes the current systems perfectly adequate. Just from my own experiences I would point out that many players like to carry items on themselves so they can quickly change between missions at their convenience, this doesn't fit well with the current salvage system.
- Having to right click to select something I just can't see any purpose for it goes against the natural intuition of every mouse user (windows) in existence. No matter how many other tabs are added in future and how many functions are added, the history of computing has relied on one constant - left click to select. I'm happy to wait for the completed crafting though to raise this point again.
- It's partly repeating myself but waiting for items prevents players from instantly equipping themselves with entirely green gear or even purple gear the moment they hit a new power level, it would just break the games progression and leveling system and remove (as an estimate 50%) of total game time required to gear a character for their power level. It would = having a free blue set of armor in world of warcraft (for free given how common mats are) every time you level, without ever having to leave the base because all recipes are already included.
- Returning to point number 1 - Yes it's placeholder, the visuals will change, but they wouldn't implement layout 1 and then change it to layout 2 when updating. It's safe to assume the current layout (ui) is what their vision is and therefore that's what i've been discussing.

Lastly the entire purpose of these videos isn't to promote my opinion or prove that i'm right over anyone else. I'll freely admit i'm stubborn and unless i'm met with what I consider an equally thought out counter argument then i'll usually come across as a bit of an ass. My aim is to stimulate more in depth debates (like this one!) - Opinion sharing without justification, i'll usually criticize but only with an aim to stimulate debate and more in depth thought. Just as a closing remark to this blurb - My views are no more important than any single viewer, reader or alpha tester.

Good talks and apologies to Ctig if my comment was offensive. 

1 year 215 days ago

True enough, but I don't believe it's appropriate to go into ength about the craftsmanship at this stage since it's so fundamental and unfinished.

This comment was edited 1 year 215 days ago by heronwalty