Profession inventory UI (and fishing)

iii

Here is a short feedback towards professions and fishing. (and how you can increase user-friendliness)
By the way, sorry for my bad usage of english and any grammatical mistakes I am going to make.

In my opinion the profession inventory (resources, craftsman and tools) is not well readable.
it would be much better if the game provides more filters and sorting orders in that field.

Sorting:
The most useful would be -
1) sort after professions:
like breaking the grid layer, and simply list all resources under the name of the profession.
If you look after a resource, you can find it more quickly.
Also you can have a overview for which professions you have the most resources and start planning to quickly lvl up.
If the resource is used in more then one profession, it is listed in both professions.
Temporary resources like the one from the summer festival are under it's own section.
Resources which are for restoration are listed apart.
Resources for all Professions are listed under "all" ([Bag of Crystals],etc)
2) sort after rank (common,uncommon,rare,epic)
3) alphabetical order (how it is now?)
4) for asserts only there should be the option to separate craftsman and tools (or always do it like that)
5) sort after gold sell price

filter:
1) show/hide buyable resources (with gold (like brimstone, charcoal etc))
2) show/hide base resources (like wood, pelt, iron ordered in tier)
3) show/hide refined resources (like vitriol, leather, gems, etc, ordered in tier)
4) show/hide common/uncommon/rare/epic resources
5) show/hide resources which you don't have (with a 0 as counter and grey)
6) show/hide refineable resources (don't know if there are any)
all filters should be combinable.

In the overview tab of the professions window the asserts should also be better sorted after professions and separated under craftsman and tools.
(view image). How it is now it is not very useful, when you try to plan how many asserts you want to add, and the first one possible is in the first line, the second one is in the 4th and so on.
And it would be useful if under the 9 job slots a small stripe for the "last 3 jobs" chosen, quick access would be added.

Now when I think again, it would be good to have a filter inside the job overview of a profession window, where you can select
-only show/hide "assert upgrade" where you can hire and upgrade craftsman and upgrade tools.
-only show/hide "resources", where only the collecting x or refine x tasks are.
-only show/hide "products", where final products are listed.
-sort after time used for the job
-show/hide rare jobs
-show only tier1(1-6), tier 2, etc
For leadership other filters would be better (like focus on profession exp (the 8 hour tasks), normal exp, gold, or crates/items). But it also is ok how it is now.

And I wonder, why "Assemble Sahha Ball" is not right under "Weave Sailcloth", but maybe it is just in the german version like that.

Towards the fishing;
I thought it would be good, if in the bait panel (which shows if you selected worms or krill) shows the amount of bait you have still left in your inventory (in a top corner in the panel).
If you want to keep 20 for future quests, you always have to open the inventory to check it.

And I noticed that if you start fishing and a fish is hooked and you right click, and you start fishing again (left click), you can have 2 fishes hooked at the same time (and both timers are running), and that gives problems and can be frustrating).
(or I didn't understand how to switch between them or let one fish go away)
It would be better if the old/first fish is just discarded.
Edit: i got a new angel, and in some heroic encounters this technique of double fishing can be quite usefull when you have common fish on the hook. Still seems like a bug when you don't get informative display feedback.

Thanks for reading my feedback (more suggestions).

And i really like this feedback:
some serious suggestions to make game better

wintersmoke

Your English is a lot better than my German.

There are many crafting items, charcoal for example, that are used in more than one (but not all) crafting tasks. These items would be difficult to sort. It would be better to sort by profession, and have any items that are not used by that profession moved to the bottom.

In the English version, Assemble Sahha Ball is under Weave Sailcloth. I don't know why that is different in German.

This is a good list. I enjoyed reading it. Happy fishing!

sobac

Interesting ideas.
And while i don't want to hijack your thread, after playing this game for many years, i just wanted to see all prof. resources account wide, only non bound ones of course. Not a prob for 1 or 2 toons, but for more... All BtC reagents/whatever, should have an unlimited slots bag, like "keys tab". Need more shared slots? Put them in store -> profit.
As for UI, would love to see a shrinked list for assets when you need to select one for crafting, i.e. instead of "green asset", "green asset", "green asset", "blue asset"... show it grouped, like "Green asset x3", "Blue asset x4", etc.
Oh, and of course some sort of "repeat" function for professions, like a checkbox. To avoid "abuse", checkbox must reset after each repeat or two, for example.

nunya

sobac said:

Interesting ideas.
And while i don't want to hijack your thread, after playing this game for many years, i just wanted to see all prof. resources account wide, only non bound ones of course. Not a prob for 1 or 2 toons, but for more... All BtC reagents/whatever, should have an unlimited slots bag, like "keys tab". Need more shared slots? Put them in store -> profit.

I have a hard time imagining how that might be implemented, and I've spent some time thinking about it. For me, I would not want to have to access the bank in order for each character to access this storage. Also, I have some resources that are not bound that each character has, and yet I don't think I would want them put into this shared storage - and certainly not automatically. I make a lot of crates for donation to my guild's coffer and so my characters end up with 10k of this and 10k of that. A good example is they each have 10k Abberant Pelt and 10k Ebony Wood for making orange and purple vitriol. They also have 10k aqua vitae for making aqua regia, and so on. You get the idea. Three of my characters' resource storage is almost always on the verge of being full because of this. So while I would love to have more resource storage space, I wouldn't want everything to just go into a shared space because I would need a lot of it.

sobac said:

As for UI, would love to see a shrinked list for assets when you need to select one for crafting, i.e. instead of "green asset", "green asset", "green asset", "blue asset"... show it grouped, like "Green asset x3", "Blue asset x4", etc.

This would be fantastic because it would simplify choosing the assets to assign to the various tasks. Have a nice short list would make things so much better!

sobac said:

Oh, and of course some sort of "repeat" function for professions, like a checkbox. To avoid "abuse", checkbox must reset after each repeat or two, for example.

I don't see any reason why the checkbox must reset. Are there going to be people who manage to automate this? Sure. If that's a problem, then Cryptic needs to get after finding those people and correcting their behaviour. However, I shouldn't be punished by having to do that extra clicking twice or more per day simply because I actually take the time to log in and restart my tasks. The entire UI should be made as user-friendly as possible, while bots and script users should be dealt with separately. I'm able to run most of my tasks every four hours during the day, meaning I end up doing them at least four times per day and usually five times. Just leave the checkbox for "Repeat task?" checked until I choose to uncheck it. Even nicer would be a button for "Collect and repeat all", letting us collect all the tasks and repeat them with one click.

onin002

Some things I like to add to crafting interface:

1. The number of resources in a recepie marked as: Need/Have. This way I can see how many I can make
   
2. It would be nice if I select a recepie, all sub recepie is showed at same time in same interface, and I could do all crafting needed there directly
   

sobac

nunya#5309 said:

I have a hard time imagining how that might be implemented, and I've spent some time thinking about it. For me, I would not want to have to access the bank in order for each character to access this storage. Also, I have some resources that are not bound that each character has, and yet I don't think I would want them put into this shared storage - and certainly not automatically. I make a lot of crates for donation to my guild's coffer and so my characters end up with 10k of this and 10k of that. A good example is they each have 10k Abberant Pelt and 10k Ebony Wood for making orange and purple vitriol. They also have 10k aqua vitae for making aqua regia, and so on. You get the idea. Three of my characters' resource storage is almost always on the verge of being full because of this. So while I would love to have more resource storage space, I wouldn't want everything to just go into a shared space because I would need a lot of it.

Yea, should be transparent to the user, i.e. keep the same prof. bags, just make them/items inside account wide.
And i'd definitely pay for more shared slots for sure, so instead of sending/buying stuff for each toon where i want to craft smt, i can do that on only one, one time. Just imagine if you have alchemy on 8 toons and want to craft many Unified elements. Howly HAMSTER, you need to know how many of each reagent you need for each toon, each UE, etc. As i said, i'd rather prefer to buy, lets say 10 stacks of reagents on one toon and craft on any of them. This way you will use all resources you have without leaving some on toons you are not using too often but still have some there.

nunya#5309 said:

I don't see any reason why the checkbox must reset. Are there going to be people who manage to automate this? Sure. If that's a problem, then Cryptic needs to get after finding those people and correcting their behaviour. However, I shouldn't be punished by having to do that extra clicking twice or more per day simply because I actually take the time to log in and restart my tasks. The entire UI should be made as user-friendly as possible, while bots and script users should be dealt with separately. I'm able to run most of my tasks every four hours during the day, meaning I end up doing them at least four times per day and usually five times. Just leave the checkbox for "Repeat task?" checked until I choose to uncheck it. Even nicer would be a button for "Collect and repeat all", letting us collect all the tasks and repeat them with one click.

Oh yea, we shouldn't be punished for what bots do, but we are unfortunately (RIP gateway), so that's why i said/mention a temp repeat function, so you will still need to connect and recheck that box again, sorta anti-"check and forget" for alt armies. Still can save you a few hours you are not online, good start at least.

nunya

sobac said:

nunya#5309 said:

I have a hard time imagining how that might be implemented, and I've spent some time thinking about it. For me, I would not want to have to access the bank in order for each character to access this storage. Also, I have some resources that are not bound that each character has, and yet I don't think I would want them put into this shared storage - and certainly not automatically. I make a lot of crates for donation to my guild's coffer and so my characters end up with 10k of this and 10k of that. A good example is they each have 10k Abberant Pelt and 10k Ebony Wood for making orange and purple vitriol. They also have 10k aqua vitae for making aqua regia, and so on. You get the idea. Three of my characters' resource storage is almost always on the verge of being full because of this. So while I would love to have more resource storage space, I wouldn't want everything to just go into a shared space because I would need a lot of it.

Yea, should be transparent to the user, i.e. keep the same prof. bags, just make them/items inside account wide.
And i'd definitely pay for more shared slots for sure, so instead of sending/buying stuff for each toon where i want to craft smt, i can do that on only one, one time. Just imagine if you have alchemy on 8 toons and want to craft many Unified elements. Howly HAMSTER, you need to know how many of each reagent you need for each toon, each UE, etc. As i said, i'd rather prefer to buy, lets say 10 stacks of reagents on one toon and craft on any of them. This way you will use all resources you have without leaving some on toons you are not using too often but still have some there.

nunya#5309 said:

I don't see any reason why the checkbox must reset. Are there going to be people who manage to automate this? Sure. If that's a problem, then Cryptic needs to get after finding those people and correcting their behaviour. However, I shouldn't be punished by having to do that extra clicking twice or more per day simply because I actually take the time to log in and restart my tasks. The entire UI should be made as user-friendly as possible, while bots and script users should be dealt with separately. I'm able to run most of my tasks every four hours during the day, meaning I end up doing them at least four times per day and usually five times. Just leave the checkbox for "Repeat task?" checked until I choose to uncheck it. Even nicer would be a button for "Collect and repeat all", letting us collect all the tasks and repeat them with one click.

Oh yea, we shouldn't be punished for what bots do, but we are unfortunately (RIP gateway), so that's why i said/mention a temp repeat function, so you will still need to connect and recheck that box again, sorta anti-"check and forget" for alt armies. Still can save you a few hours you are not online, good start at least.

Your first paragraph helped me see that suggestion in a different way and I think that it could be done. I was initially thinking it would be hard to work, but now I think it's pretty reasonable. It would require people like me who do crafting for the guild only on multiple characters to change how we buy stuff. (I tend to overbuy so I don't have to bring the vendors to the SH again for months.) I would actually be happy to make that change. As of right now, I have 7 characters doing 3x Mass Variegated Vitriol Extraction (orange and purple vitriol), one doing 1x crates of gold and 2x Empowered Aqua Regia. When the one gets low on vitriol, I mail a bunch from my other characters. I'm hoping to get to the point real soon where all the characters are making their own vitriol and aqua regia so I can make crates of gold on all of them.

You make a good point about the checkbox being reset. I have eight characters (and five on my wife's account that I also manage the crafting for) and I actually log onto each of them to restart their tasks. It would be nice to be able to automate, but frankly I'm too lazy to learn about that even if it weren't (at best) in a grey area with respect to the terms of service. My feeling is that you don't deal with bots and scripts by punishing legitimate players/users. You deal with bots and scripts by figuring out how to tell the difference between those and real players, then take steps against them without harming your real players/users. You shouldn't make things objectively worse for real players just because you have an automation problem. That's like saying you're going to fumigate your home to kill roaches while the people are still inside.