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Crafting UI Improvements


bjpbjp

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The big increase in crafting has exposed some weaknesses in the Crew Skills UI, specifically the extremely large number of clicks to do anything.

 

I believe the following improvements would help and I do not think they would be very difficult to implement:

 

1. Provide an option to keep the Mission window open after either clicking "Send Companion" or double-clicking on the mission. Currently if you're running missions for any level other than the level 9 you have to reselect the crew skill, then go to the dropdown and select the mission level (probably the same level you just used for the previous companion), scroll around again - assuming you didn't miss-click and get the wrong mission level, and then repeat. When spamming missions across many characters this makes a very tedious process even more tedious.

 

2. Show the level of materials returned in the Mission Level dropdown. Currently the Mission Level dropdown box consists of "Mission Level 10-16", "Mission Level 17-24", "Mission Level 25-32", etc. Of all the things that could be in the dropdown this is easily the most useless choice possible. If I know I need level 4 crafting materials why do I have to translate that in my head to "Mission Level 33-40"? What does 33-40 even mean? Why not show the required crew skill and the level of items returned instead? So it would be "Missions 401-450 (Level 9)" instead.

 

 

I don't think either of these is asking a lot. #2 especially is probably just updating some hard-coded text and #1 would help reduce the # of clicks when spamming gathering missions on multiple characters.

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The big increase in crafting has exposed some weaknesses in the Crew Skills UI, specifically the extremely large number of clicks to do anything.

 

I believe the following improvements would help and I do not think they would be very difficult to implement:

 

1. Provide an option to keep the Mission window open after either clicking "Send Companion" or double-clicking on the mission. Currently if you're running missions for any level other than the level 9 you have to reselect the crew skill, then go to the dropdown and select the mission level (probably the same level you just used for the previous companion), scroll around again - assuming you didn't miss-click and get the wrong mission level, and then repeat. When spamming missions across many characters this makes a very tedious process even more tedious.

 

2. Show the level of materials returned in the Mission Level dropdown. Currently the Mission Level dropdown box consists of "Mission Level 10-16", "Mission Level 17-24", "Mission Level 25-32", etc. Of all the things that could be in the dropdown this is easily the most useless choice possible. If I know I need level 4 crafting materials why do I have to translate that in my head to "Mission Level 33-40"? What does 33-40 even mean? Why not show the required crew skill and the level of items returned instead? So it would be "Missions 401-450 (Level 9)" instead.

 

 

I don't think either of these is asking a lot. #2 especially is probably just updating some hard-coded text and #1 would help reduce the # of clicks when spamming gathering missions on multiple characters.

 

1) This would be nice. IMO, the best way to do this would be to make the Mission Window an independent window that just stays open until you intentionally close it. Open window, select companion, select mission, launch; mission window doesn't change, so you can select another companion and run another mission of the same level (this is what I think you want). On top of that, I'd make the Crafting Window be independent as well. Currently, opening the Mission Window closes the Crafting Window, and vice versa. This is annoying if I am looking through schematics and a companion returns and I want to resend it, as that causes the Crafting Window to close, and when I reopen it, it has to reload all of my schematics.

 

2) This would work in most cases, but remember that some missions do not follow that pattern. Companion Gift missions cap at Rank 5 (e.g., Level 6 missions return Rank 5 gifts, and some Level 9 Treasure Hunting missions can return Grade 9 or Grade 10 Lockboxes). Since the Crafting Windows and the Mission Windows are technically different, and Level really applies only to the Crafting Window (since some schematics take mats from different Grades/Levels), just remove the reference to character level from the Mission Window entirely...however, I don't know that Skill Level is really relevant, since it only shows you missions that you can run (there is not Show All / Show Usable toggle like with Trainers). Just list what categories are available...e.g., for Underworld Trading, you could have:

 

Grade 1 Metals and Fabrics

Grade 2 Metals and Fabrics

...

Grade 6 Metals and Fabrics

Grade 9 Metals and Fabrics

Rank 1 Companion Gifts

...

Rank 5 Companion Gifts.

 

Internally, the list could still be randomized as it is, this would just affect how things are displayed. Furthermore, this could be changed to have more than one filter:

 

Grade [Max, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, All]

Mat [All, Metals, Fabrics, Gifts]

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Honestly I just think the level should be displayed in the dropdown. i don't really care whether companion gifts are "ranks" and crafting mats are called "levels". Also I can't say I've ever thought to myself "you know what I really need are companion gifts rank 3" anyway. But I suppose it could list the material level and the gift rank separately but I'm not sure how useful the companion gift rank really is.

 

I understand how the crafting mats relate to the level of the item produced by a crafting skill but I really don't think anyone would go "OK so I need a lightsaber for a level 34 juggernaut so let's just start randomly running these "level 34-range gathering missions." What really happens is you look at your crafting skill and pick out what you want to make. Then you go run missions that return level 3 power crystals, etc. So again it seems to me the only useful thing to show in the mission dropdown (the only dropdown I'm referring to here) is the level of the items returned. I suppose it could still list the crew skill required or the level as it does now. I just want to also see the level of the item returned along with it.

Edited by bjpbjp
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I forgot to mention the biggest reason to put the crew skill level in the mission dropdown:

 

If you get a special mission (a drop) it's always "Slicing 340" and when you use it you have to poke around until you figure out if that's a 33-40, 41-48, 49-50 mission because the dropdown doesn't tell you anything even remotely helpful. It's just in there somewhere and naturally it's at the bottom of the list so you have to flip between the levels scrolling all the way down until you spot it. If the dropdown had the crew skill levels you'd instantly know where to find it.

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