Doffing was one of the few things I still enjoyed doing. The UI is a god awful mess and I shut down is disgust after 5 minutes. I can't even figure out how to order the "in progress" by remaining time left.
Sorry, that's as constructive and nice as I can be with this train wreck.
Nitpicking is a time-honored tradition of science fiction. Asking your readers not to worry about the "little things" is like asking a dog not to sniff at people's crotches. If there's something that appears to violate natural laws, then you can expect someone's going to point it out. That's just the way things are.
I agree with the earlier posts. The UI is too large and clunky. We have to be able to sort on rarity and traits. Big disappointment. We need a patch immediately or go back to the old UI!
Well done cryptic, you guys need to sack whatever muppet done the ui design, nobody liked it on tribble but you went ahead with it anyway.
Whats the point of a bloody test server if you dont listen to anyone.
Correct. Then again, according to CaptainGeko (Al Rivera) in the latest STOked interview, the STO forum "rants" about the problems; no one in the forum seems to have provided any substantial feedback.
* When Cryptic makes content available for "testing", they're only seeking showstopper bugs to squash.
* What you see is what you get: Cryptic isn't soliciting for suggestions how to make changes.
* Players willing to participate in testing will not receive anything in exchange for their time, eg Season Six tribbles for testers, etc.
I'd like to be wrong about that, but based on Season 9.5 (among other test periods), this is how their "testing" is conducted.
And imho, it's very unprofessional -- even damaging -- of Cryptic and their outreach to the players (aka customers), instead of taking a few clear steps to outline testing guidelines.
The officer selection windows is still TOO SMALL. The officer selection needs to take place in the existing doff windows (like it did before this "upgrade"), not a new pop-up screen that that only shows 5 officers. I have hundreds of officers, that good is looking at 5 supposed to do? It also needs to sort by department by default.
It would be nice if the system defaulted to "nothing checked" = "show all" like the older filters did. The uncheck system isn't entirely useless, though, it helps in removing poisonous doffs from the selection, as the system still fails if adding "Success" is actually poisonous to the mission after a point, but not immediately. Other than that, the autofill is quite good, which is a lifesaver since the manual fill is still kinda bad!
The autofill for "Missions That Kill Your Doffs" should also be smarter: instead of trying to kill your GOOD doffs, it should pick "best of your worst", starting with the lowest quality things on the roster and working up, instead. When I want to execute a doff for incompetence, it should pick me an actual incompetent doff, rather than my 80M EC best purples.
The autofill for "Missions That Kill Your Doffs" should also be smarter: instead of trying to kill your GOOD doffs, it should pick "best of your worst", starting with the lowest quality things on the roster and working up, instead. When I want to execute a doff for incompetence, it should pick me an actual incompetent doff, rather than my 80M EC best purples.
I entirely agree and I'm quite certain there are already many support tickets asking about disappeared doffs that were auto-slotted in such missions.
Maybe the auto slotting should be entirely disabled in assignement that take/kill doffs.
TOIVA, Toi Vaxx, Toia Vix, Toveg, T'vritha, To Vrax: Bring in the Allegiance class. Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider. Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
DOFF UI improvement suggestions
(1) Filtering The DOFF filter needs a "none means all" logic and use this as default starting point. Manually deselecting every DOFF category is way too cumbersome. Or at least have an option "check only requested DOFFs" or something like that, that selects only the DOFFs listed for the task.
(2) Hide or mark already selected DOFFs
Also, DOFFs I already selected for the assignment should either not appear in the DOFF list at all, or be marked that is already been assigned to another slot of the mission.
(3) Reduce the amount of clicks to fill assignment slots.
Also, the advantage of the old DOFF asignment system was that you moved directly to the next DOFF once you selected a slot - that was (if you knew what you were doing) a lot faster than selecting the next slot via mouse. You may want to have some kind of system so that a player can get to the next assignment more quickly, maybe add a "Assign And Go to Next" button to confirm a selection and open the next assignment slot.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Upcoming +50% CXP for doffing isnt even the slightest bit tempting enough to get me to use this new doffing system, only really bother coming on to check for Uniform Sale. Not been one for over a year now.
Main reason I came on really was the doffing on my chars and do some fleetie stuff inbetween.
DOFF UI improvement suggestions
(1) Filtering The DOFF filter needs a "none means all" logic and use this as default starting point. Manually deselecting every DOFF category is way too cumbersome. Or at least have an option "check only requested DOFFs" or something like that, that selects only the DOFFs listed for the task.
(2) Hide or mark already selected DOFFs
Also, DOFFs I already selected for the assignment should either not appear in the DOFF list at all, or be marked that is already been assigned to another slot of the mission.
(3) Reduce the amount of clicks to fill assignment slots.
Also, the advantage of the old DOFF asignment system was that you moved directly to the next DOFF once you selected a slot - that was (if you knew what you were doing) a lot faster than selecting the next slot via mouse. You may want to have some kind of system so that a player can get to the next assignment more quickly, maybe add a "Assign And Go to Next" button to confirm a selection and open the next assignment slot.
(1) Agreed. In the old system all doffs of all specializations would appear in the list with all filter boxes unchecked. Any specialization boxes you checked would make the list show *only* the specializations you had selected. The doff roster section remains unchanged and is still using the old filter system. So what needs to happen is just that: when selecting doffs while planning an assignment, have all specialization boxes unchecked with all doffs in the list. Checking a box means you only see the doffs you want.
(2) Fixed in a recent patch. I noticed yesterday while selecting doffs for assignments, doffs that were already slotted for the assignment had their head image replaced with a shuttlecraft icon indicating they are already on assignment. I didn't try to select a doff like this but it made it so much easier to tell that those doffs were already selected so I can avoid slotting it in another slot thus making the slot it was in completely empty.
(3) If you go to the department heads and check the box at the top to allow department head recommendations, doffs will be automatically selected for assignments. It seems they may have improved their algorithm to favor success traits more instead of basing it on critical success traits only. Now most of the time I only have to switch out 1 or 2 doffs and more often then not I don't have to switch any doffs at all that are auto slotted for assignments. So with department heads recommendations turned on, and the recent improvements to the system, I actually have a lot less clicking than I use to in the old UI, based on my own experience. Your results may vary.
Other improvements needed: when planning assignments the doff filter window can't be moved. It either shows up in the middle of the screen covering the whole assignment window or if I click on a bottom doff slot (select button in the assignment window) the filter window appears in the very bottom right corner of the screen.
When viewing current map and personal assignment lists, if I click the arrow to minimize various departments such as diplomacy or engineering, then plan and start an assignment, when it goes back to the current map/personal window all departments are maximized. It would be nice if they stayed minimized at least until I completely close the doff window. Having them minimized means I have less scrolling to find assignments for departments I want to do assignments for.
Aside from all that, once I got use to the new UI it's really not that bad.
Also, when viewing your 'In Progress' assignments, they are no longer listed from top to bottom in the order of what will finish first. This makes it hard to see how many are going to finish soon when you have to scroll the window. I think they are being listed in order of which assignments you started first but sometimes it seems like it's just random.
Comments
Sorry, that's as constructive and nice as I can be with this train wreck.
Awful.
Seriously. I was about to drop more money on the game and then this TRIBBLE UI and cluster nerfs happen to the Doffing system. RIP.
Joined January 2009
Did you have any doubt? This is what people have been saying since PWE took over, be damned the community, they are going to do what they want.
See this thread for counterpoints:
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1171331
Cryptic/PWE needs to provide SPECIFIC GUIDELINES when soliciting for feedback in the forum.
After all, when bug issues are reported in the forum, Cryptic asks the OP to follow these guidelines:
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=925341
Going forward, the assumption is:
* What you see is what you get: Cryptic isn't soliciting for suggestions how to make changes.
* Players willing to participate in testing will not receive anything in exchange for their time, eg Season Six tribbles for testers, etc.
I'd like to be wrong about that, but based on Season 9.5 (among other test periods), this is how their "testing" is conducted.
And imho, it's very unprofessional -- even damaging -- of Cryptic and their outreach to the players (aka customers), instead of taking a few clear steps to outline testing guidelines.
The officer selection windows is still TOO SMALL. The officer selection needs to take place in the existing doff windows (like it did before this "upgrade"), not a new pop-up screen that that only shows 5 officers. I have hundreds of officers, that good is looking at 5 supposed to do? It also needs to sort by department by default.
TOO SMALL! ---> http://i398.photobucket.com/albums/pp62/thomasp94/Star%20Trek%20Online/WTF/DOFF_TOO_SMALL_zps2455e7ec.jpg
I've been here since beta
This filter-function is a joke!!!
Your DOff-Proposal still sucks on the most assignments, and if i try to choose better ones you want me to demark two dozen check marks???...
The autofill for "Missions That Kill Your Doffs" should also be smarter: instead of trying to kill your GOOD doffs, it should pick "best of your worst", starting with the lowest quality things on the roster and working up, instead. When I want to execute a doff for incompetence, it should pick me an actual incompetent doff, rather than my 80M EC best purples.
I entirely agree and I'm quite certain there are already many support tickets asking about disappeared doffs that were auto-slotted in such missions.
Maybe the auto slotting should be entirely disabled in assignement that take/kill doffs.
Toi'Va, Ti'vath, Toivia, Ty'Vris, Tia Vex, Toi'Virth: Add Tier 6 KDF Carrier and Raider.
Tae'Va, T'Vaya, To'Var, Tevra, T'Vira, To'Vrak: Give us Asylums for Romulans.
Don't make ARC mandatory! Keep it optional only!
DOFF UI improvement suggestions
(1) Filtering
The DOFF filter needs a "none means all" logic and use this as default starting point. Manually deselecting every DOFF category is way too cumbersome. Or at least have an option "check only requested DOFFs" or something like that, that selects only the DOFFs listed for the task.
(2) Hide or mark already selected DOFFs
Also, DOFFs I already selected for the assignment should either not appear in the DOFF list at all, or be marked that is already been assigned to another slot of the mission.
(3) Reduce the amount of clicks to fill assignment slots.
Also, the advantage of the old DOFF asignment system was that you moved directly to the next DOFF once you selected a slot - that was (if you knew what you were doing) a lot faster than selecting the next slot via mouse. You may want to have some kind of system so that a player can get to the next assignment more quickly, maybe add a "Assign And Go to Next" button to confirm a selection and open the next assignment slot.
Main reason I came on really was the doffing on my chars and do some fleetie stuff inbetween.
(1) Agreed. In the old system all doffs of all specializations would appear in the list with all filter boxes unchecked. Any specialization boxes you checked would make the list show *only* the specializations you had selected. The doff roster section remains unchanged and is still using the old filter system. So what needs to happen is just that: when selecting doffs while planning an assignment, have all specialization boxes unchecked with all doffs in the list. Checking a box means you only see the doffs you want.
(2) Fixed in a recent patch. I noticed yesterday while selecting doffs for assignments, doffs that were already slotted for the assignment had their head image replaced with a shuttlecraft icon indicating they are already on assignment. I didn't try to select a doff like this but it made it so much easier to tell that those doffs were already selected so I can avoid slotting it in another slot thus making the slot it was in completely empty.
(3) If you go to the department heads and check the box at the top to allow department head recommendations, doffs will be automatically selected for assignments. It seems they may have improved their algorithm to favor success traits more instead of basing it on critical success traits only. Now most of the time I only have to switch out 1 or 2 doffs and more often then not I don't have to switch any doffs at all that are auto slotted for assignments. So with department heads recommendations turned on, and the recent improvements to the system, I actually have a lot less clicking than I use to in the old UI, based on my own experience. Your results may vary.
Other improvements needed: when planning assignments the doff filter window can't be moved. It either shows up in the middle of the screen covering the whole assignment window or if I click on a bottom doff slot (select button in the assignment window) the filter window appears in the very bottom right corner of the screen.
When viewing current map and personal assignment lists, if I click the arrow to minimize various departments such as diplomacy or engineering, then plan and start an assignment, when it goes back to the current map/personal window all departments are maximized. It would be nice if they stayed minimized at least until I completely close the doff window. Having them minimized means I have less scrolling to find assignments for departments I want to do assignments for.
Aside from all that, once I got use to the new UI it's really not that bad.