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UI Feedback: Materials Inventory (Crafting)


EricMusco

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  • Dev Post

Hey folks,

 

One of the things you may have noticed is that with the Onslaught expansion we are making a number of UI improvements. Some of these are improvements on existing systems, others are completely new interfaces for new systems. Reminder that all of this is still a work in progress so don't focus your feedback too much on visual fidelity and focus on functionality. Also, please avoid gameplay feedback as we are really seeking thoughts about the interface only in this thread.

 

Please share your feedback on the Materials Inventory. The types of feedback we are looking for:

  • Do you understand how to access the Materials Inventory?
  • Do you understand how to put items in, and to withdraw them?
  • Do you understand what can or cannot be placed into the Material Inventory?
  • Is the way items are displayed in the Material Inventory clear?

Those are just some examples, share any thoughts you have!

 

Thanks.

 

-eric

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Do you understand how to access the Materials Inventory?

 

I didnt know it even existed, stumbled on it by pure accident. Need to make it more obvious somehow.

 

Do you understand how to put items in, and to withdraw them?

 

It seems to be bugged. When I run Hammer Station, some color crystals that bosses drop went to my general inventory and not into the materials tab. When I attempted to move them there, game said there is a problem with depositing materials into the storage.

 

Do you understand what can or cannot be placed into the Material Inventory?

 

Didnt test it. Assume only crafting materials can go there.

 

Is the way items are displayed in the Material Inventory clear?

 

Yes.

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Do you understand how to access the Materials Inventory?

I first looked for it at the personal/legacy cargo hold, yet considering you are able to access it from everywhere it makes sense to have the access button attached to the inventory.

 

Do you understand how to put items in, and to withdraw them?

I understand it, but the withdrawing works differently than what we are used to and what it works like with any other stacking items. With non material items, left click picks the whole stack up to be movable (without holding the left mouse button) to another place, either inside the cargo hold/inventory or from one to the other, right click directly transfers the whole stack to the inventory/cargo hold. To split a stack you have to shift+left(or right) click the stack

 

With the Materials Inventory though, left click does nothing, holding left mouse button lets you drag and drop exact one item, not the stack nor opening the "split stack" window, right click also moves just a stack of exactly 1 to the inventory. The stack splitting with shift+click then again works the same as with other items.

I guess you'd get used to it working differently, but for people moving materials around often for trading or giving them to other players it might be confusing.

 

Do you understand what can or cannot be placed into the Material Inventory?

Haven't tested it yet with anything but actual crafting material.

 

Is the way items are displayed in the Material Inventory clear?

It's sorted by type and withing that category by name like vendor items usually are. By type is clear, for within that, my preference though would be to sort by grade instead of name, since for crafting I'd like to know what grade of material is running low, sorted by grade that would be much easier to track.

Edited by Khaleijo
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Do you understand what can or cannot be placed into the Material Inventory?

This one is one of a tricky question. Sometimes, things that are clearly materials won't go in. Probably a bug.

 

Is the way items are displayed in the Material Inventory clear?

NO ! :mad: Just one big "NO". Even bigger.

 

A long list with all the materials is the worst solution you could think of. Everything mixed up.

Make it an X×Y grid and put everything into the Type×Grade table. (Maybe look how Guild Wars 2 has it's crafting storage and make something similar.) Pretty please.

 

In addition, it's divided by every single skill, not by your main crafting profession. :(

For example, for the Artifice :wea_03: : you may put all the various colored Crystals and Artifacts from the Archaeology, Gemstones form the Treasure Hunting and Bonded Attachments from the Artifice all in one single page in the storage. This would let you see what you have and can craft for any tier any time.

Within the new materials storage it's simply not possible. You'll have to constantly go through that list over and over again till you'll find all the components you'd need. :mad:

Edited by Solarmind
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I would prefer the materials inventory to be similar to the legacy bay, so that we can arrange the materials in the way we want to. Arranged by type and alphatically is just not very practical.

 

I like to arrange mats by type/grade/level so it's easy to see what I'm getting low on.

 

If the mats inventory goes live as it is then I'll probably keep using the legacy bays for most of my mats.

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I would prefer the materials inventory to be similar to the legacy bay, so that we can arrange the materials in the way we want to. Arranged by type and alphatically is just not very practical.

 

I like to arrange mats by type/grade/level so it's easy to see what I'm getting low on.

 

If the mats inventory goes live as it is then I'll probably keep using the legacy bays for most of my mats.

 

Could not agree more with you on this one.

 

Most and I do that today, since it's simpler to use the grid system to sort them and then you know what you have and what you need to collect.

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First, I want to say how much I appreciate the materials inventory. It will free up so much room in my Legacy cargo hold! I liked the button on the main inventory screen. Moving materials by right-clicking was very straightforward.

 

However, I completely agree with the people who are asking for a grid interface option, preferably one that's either wide enough or long enough for all mat levels. If that isn't possible, it will be important to make sure there are multiple sort options available for people who don't like the current alphabetical version. I saw what looked like a sort menu, but it didn't seem to be working.

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UI visual design is not inline with current UI.

 

Please make all the UI match the old style of windows or make the old style match the new UI windows.

 

At the moment they are so different, it feels extremely unprofessional and amateurish like I’m running multiple third party addons, like you would in games like World or Warcraft.

 

I know you guys are better than this. Please don’t release it live or you will get bad feed back from players and I dare say from industry reviewers in the gaming media. You don’t want it to become a meme like Anthem’s disjointed systems.

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The concept is great, a separate storage for materials ha sthe potential to free up a lot of inventory and bank slots.

 

However the execution is extremely poor. We need to be able to self organize this stuff - a giant list of all items broken down by skill is not very helpful.

 

Also please fix the styling of this and the other new windows to match the existing UI while this is still on PTS so that we give appropriate feedback on appearance with any associated issues.

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New materials window was not too hard to deal with or learn how to use.

 

Don't link that it acts like a vendor as I want grab and drop the whole stack when I want it in my inventory

 

I do not like how it is in a list format but understand that it cant be in a grid format without limiting the space.

I would rather have unlimited storage than limited.

 

It needs to be sortable in several different ways.

1. High to low low to high

2. Rank 1 to rank 11, rank 11 to rank 1

By current skill. Seeing biochem if you are a biochem or artifice if you are artifice.

I am not so worried about seeing what I might be low on if I can sort by high to low or low to high.

 

Having tabs stay closed or open until opened or closed again. This would be really nice or have the different types of materials always closed as it would be faster to find what I then want by targeting only the one tab.

 

Once this blends into the current UI I think it will do well, but as it looks now it looks grade school level and not professionally done.

 

Window looks much better.

 

Do you understand how to access the Materials Inventory? YES

Do you understand how to put items in, and to withdraw them? YES

Do you understand what can or cannot be placed into the Material Inventory? YES

Is the way items are displayed in the Material Inventory clear? YES

 

Thank you for the search window will help with finding a certain material.

 

Can we get a sort by crafting rank?

Can we get a sort by craft IE biochem, armortech, Armstech so only those materials of that type of crafter needs is shown???

Edited by Hawkebatt
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It took me a while to get to this, but here we go.

 

Do you understand how to access the Materials Inventory?

 

Yes. It took a little bit of poking to figure it out, but it wasn't terribly hard. If you want to eliminate any confusion, a single tutorial pop-up should cover it.

 

Do you understand how to put items in, and to withdraw them?

 

Yes. This also took a little bit of poking to figure out, but wasn't too hard.

 

Do you understand what can or cannot be placed into the Material Inventory?

 

This one is a little less clear, not helped by some buggy behavior. If putting a tag/tooltip on each item is too complicated (that does seem like a big task), I'd suggest adding a single line in a tutorial pop-up or in the interface itself that lists what qualifies as a crafting material. Basic mats seem obvious, but I can see people wondering: do white screw skill items count, does jawa scrap count, do conquest mats count?

 

But to be honest, if you've got limited time for tweaks, I wouldn't worry about this one, because worst case scenario a player just right clicks and goes, "Welp, guess that doesn't go in, okay." You've definitely got bigger fish to fry.

 

Is the way items are displayed in the Material Inventory clear?

 

Clear, but far from ideal. This is where the most refinement needs to happen.

 

  • All categories should default to collapsed whenever you open the inventory. Having to close categories or scroll through hundreds of mats to find the category you're looking for is tedious and unnecessary.
  • Sorting options are absolutely pivotal. Even if this was still broken down by category that would be all right. We need to be able to sort, ascending or descending, on the following parameters minimum:
    • Grade of the mats (1-11)
    • Name (which is the current default)
    • Amount of mats

    [*]The materials grade needs to be clearly noted to be seen at a glance in the list.

    [*]A color outline to indicate mat rarity needs to be visible in the base list.

    [*]The ability to easily move a full stack of items needs to be insured, in whatever form that takes after the dust has settled.

 

I agree with others that a grid would be preferable, because many of us really enjoy playing inventory Tetris. But I will take infinite storage over a grid if that's the trade off, so long as we have the ability to auto-sort upon the multiple parameters already mentioned.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Whenever I add or remove something from the materials inventory, it seems to expand all the categories and scroll back to the top, which is really annoying

 

It's also not clear that the materials inventory is accessible legacy-wide, but other than that I was able to figure it out pretty easily

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Do you understand how to access the Materials Inventory?

It was not intuitive finding the new panels--the side-tabs aren't very prominent--but once found, they're awesome and very easy to use.

 

Do you understand how to put items in, and to withdraw them?

Adding the shift-right-click functionality was very straightforward and VERY welcome. Likewise, the diamond icon at the top-left of the Inventory dialog was both obvious to see and use, and the right-click settings change is nice and simple. A possible tweak could be checkboxes for each quality, but probably not that helpful. I especially like how items automatically go into it when clicking the Accept button, only I wish you guys would give us a setting so we don't have to click that Accept button at all! :)

 

1 improvement I'd make would be to add the Inventory dialog's diamond icon to Cargo Hold and Legacy Stronghold Storage. I think I got RSI from all the friggin' clicking to move EVERY SINGLE item, 1 at a time, from all FOUR pages of my stronghold storage into 1 toon's pack and then use the pack's diamond button to move them into the new storage. Really, you guys made this diamond icon and it's _really_ useful, now just put it everywhere that's appropriate instead of just 1 window.

 

Do you understand what can or cannot be placed into the Material Inventory?

I have NO idea what can/can't be put into the new inventory, but I assume it's only crafting mats. However, it's easy to find out by experimentation.

 

Is the way items are displayed in the Material Inventory clear?

The display method is clear, just not very functional. Let us toggle between List and Grid views, for starters. The Filter textbox is very helpful, but it can't take the place of a browse feature, e.g. grid view; instead, they'd complement each other.

 

 

I'd like to see a similar storage tab for all bind-to-legacy drops, e.g. Jawa Junk. This is especially important now that I'm getting so many of those drops from failed crafting missions. :D

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  • 2 weeks later...

  • Do you understand how to access the Materials Inventory?
  • Do you understand how to put items in, and to withdraw them?
  • Do you understand what can or cannot be placed into the Material Inventory?
  • Is the way items are displayed in the Material Inventory clear?

Those are just some examples, share any thoughts you have!

  • Yes
  • I thought I did... see Below...
  • Mostly
  • No, Absolutely NOT... see Below

 

In addition to the standard right clicking or dragging, to move materials between an open inventy/materials window There also seems to be a Filter at the top of the charactery inventory panel...

 

Expected Behavior:

I Right click the filter, chose a Quality (which should include "none", and a grade selector also with "none"), and any material that would automatically go in my inventory matching those settings, instead goes into materials inventory

 

Actual Behavior:

Setting only affects what material go from inventory to materials storage when left clicking the filter.

 

many people on the forums understood the above expected behavior to be the intention, and even mistakenly claimed that's how it works

 

second problem

grouping in the Materials storage is woefully lacking. First things first, Alphabetical sorting is essentially useless for organization. secondly, entirely too many items are dumped into "Miscellaneous"

 

Expectation:

  • Materials within a category are sorted by GRADE, then TYPE (eg Metals, compounds, etc) then QUALITY (eg premium, etc), in DESCENDING ORDER, by DEFAULT
  • There needs to be a category for each craft skill, (and 1 "common") to hold crafted assembly components, so they aren't clogging up "Misc"
  • Vendor Additive Materials (eg Protonic Flux) War supplies, PreFab Components, Augment Slot commpnets need to go in the previously mentioned "Common" group
  • Materials that are also Currency (Universal Prefabs, Invasion Forces, Flagship Plans, etc ) do NOT belong in materials storage
  • Categories should default to closed, not open (see additional bug)
  • Filters should be a checklist for Grade, or a search for name

 

BUG: currently any change to a count inside the Materials storage resets the entire storage UI, opening every closed category, and resetting the view to the top.... if this can't be stopped at least make the default view collapsed (as it should be anyway)

 

BUG: Crafting Window does not update counts in a timely fashion (if at all) for materials in Material Storage... Seems to work better (but not perfectly) for items in legacy bank or inventory

Edited by Void_Singer
typoe clarification
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Expected Behavior:

I Right click the filter, chose a Quality (which should include "none", and a grade selector also with "none"), and any material that would automatically go in my inventory matching those settings, instead goes into materials inventory

 

Actual Behavior:

Setting only affects what material go from inventory to materials storage when left clicking the filter.

 

Ditto with clarifications:

1. Mats received from clicking the Accept on the companion mission results window adhere to the new filter quality setting; the mats (less than or equal to your setting) go straight into legacy Materials storage. However, canceling a companion mission returns mats to the character inventory, not the legacy Materials storage.

2. When tasking a companion on crafting an item, mats come out of the legacy Materials storage ok, but the UI doesn't accurately reflect the mats remaining; it's always 1 click behind. Clicking again on the schematic will update the remaining Materials quantity, however. This is a major PITA because it screws up planning mats for complex crafting sessions. (E.g. I often task 8 companions on each of 19 toons at a time, wash, rinse, repeat.)

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I have an initial post from a few days ago, but I'd like to add a bit more based on extensive crafting throughout the week...

 

The new Materials window needs serious enhancements as many have already mentioned. (I even posted in the Suggestions forum.) I'll only mention here that there needs to be additional data available in the Materials window:

1. Put the mats in grid view, not list view that's 300 miles long.

2. Data columns we can toggle on/off

3. Data columns should be sortable, both ascending (the default) & descending by just clicking on the column heading. This is ubiquitous on the Internet just about anywhere a table of data is displayed.

4. Retain UI changes so they're restored when we open the window again. (You already do it with screen location, and some screens retain setting already, e.g. the GTN window although there are bugs there like the right-most column always resetting between Search/Sell window changes.)

5. We need multiple ways to organize mats: by type, by quality, by grade, etc.

6. The Filter textbox should have a Type filter to the left of it, defaulting to All. This would provide easy category filtering instead of being forced to see everything at once with only Skill collapse/hide options (which don't even persist between window openings).

 

FWIW, please tweak the Mission Complete dialog. (I have a post in Suggestions for that as well.) Basically, give us control over that window so we don't have to be constantly interrupted by having to click Accept, especially since there IS no alternative...there's no Cancel/Later/GoAway option and simply closing the dialog throws it back into the queue which continues to allow mission rewards to flow into inventory. (That tiny "more" feature in the top-right of the screen helps a tiny bit, but let us manage the items in that list.) Furthermore, give us some legacy UI settings that control the dialog's behavior like Auto Accept all, Only Apply To Companion Missions, and Only Apply To Crew Skill Missions.

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  • 3 weeks later...
Where do I find basic information about it? Specifically, what's the capacity, and is it legacy-shared, or character-specific?

 

This is legacy shared, and I have no idea what the maximum capacity is on it, I know I haven't reached it yet, and I have thousands of mats in mine.

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