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The “Contributing” art for the skill picker has been improved.

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
In todays patch (May 13th) Cryptic claims: "The “Contributing” art for the skill picker has been improved. "

In my opinion this is completely not true!

On the Skills tab of your game character a drop down is shown on the right top. It is a -Select- drop down to Highlight Contribution To show what skills are related to the selectable action.

Before the patch this drop down was scrollable allowing all actions to show, necessary when the list holds more items than fit on the screen. The list is alphabetically ordered. In My case I can only see actions up till "F" so lots of selections I now cannot select any more (even on 1680x1050). In my opinion that is a severe reduction of functionality which I would certainly not call an improvement.

So online Trekkie's do you agree or disagree?
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    i just saw this myself, all they needed to do was add a none option which they have done

    it cant be scrolled down and then when you then select an ability instead of taking you to it the skill tree does not move meaning you have you scroll around the skill tree looking for the items. the highlight is also less pronounced making it harder to see

    please go back to how it was and just keep the none option. the new patch has just made it worse
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    I have the same problem with not being able to select certain abilities due to no scroll bar. Other than that its fine.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    Ok at least I am no the only one that feels this way.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    ddgrfn11 wrote: »
    I have the same problem with not being able to select certain abilities due to no scroll bar. Other than that its fine.

    same.. but why are there so many abilities on there anyway? I have TRIBBLE like Rifle butt and things like that, how about removing everything that isn't affected by an ability for starters?

    and then having it only show skills which your BO's have that are assigned to your ship, rather than every single skill all of your BO's have
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    And how about adding power levels?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    The dropdown powers list ought to have a scrollbar. If it doesn't, that's a bug and we'll fix it. That was not the art improvement. :)

    The art improvement was changing the indicator of a contributing skill from a solid yellow background to a yellow border/decoration. This is because we're using the skill box background colour to indicate a lot of information:

    green = you have levels in the skill
    bright green = you have max levels in the skill
    blue = you have no levels in the skill but you are able to
    grey = you cannot have levels in this skill yet
    orange = you've bought levels in this skill but haven't finalized
    pink = (respec only) you've sold back levels in this skill but haven't finalized
    white = displaying detail window (or mouseover)

    All of that information is lost if we just override the whole background to yellow. Adding a yellow decoration *adds* the "contributing" information instead of overrides with it, as well as being better for people with colour acuity problems. It sounds like the yellow border isn't visually distinct enough; we're working on making its line thicker.

    Automatically scrolling to show the contributing skills is tricky because there's no guarantee that all the contributing skills will fit in the visible scroll window. I'm working on making it scroll to the first contributing skill, though.

    Thank you for your comments!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    UI_Maven wrote:
    The dropdown powers list ought to have a scrollbar. If it doesn't, that's a bug and we'll fix it. That was not the art improvement. :)

    The art improvement was changing the indicator of a contributing skill from a solid yellow background to a yellow border/decoration. This is because we're using the skill box background colour to indicate a lot of information:

    green = you have levels in the skill
    bright green = you have max levels in the skill
    blue = you have no levels in the skill but you are able to
    grey = you cannot have levels in this skill yet
    orange = you've bought levels in this skill but haven't finalized
    pink = (respec only) you've sold back levels in this skill but haven't finalized
    white = displaying detail window (or mouseover)

    All of that information is lost if we just override the whole background to yellow. Adding a yellow decoration *adds* the "contributing" information instead of overrides with it, as well as being better for people with colour acuity problems. It sounds like the yellow border isn't visually distinct enough; we're working on making its line thicker.

    Automatically scrolling to show the contributing skills is tricky because there's no guarantee that all the contributing skills will fit in the visible scroll window. I'm working on making it scroll to the first contributing skill, though.

    Thank you for your comments!


    I'll be honest in that Iliked the previous version we had where JUST the contributing skills became visible in the the skill picker window (though in that version there was no 'none' setting to get all your skills to displayagain - but you fixed that and added a 'none setting with the version we have now on Holodeck).
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    UI_Maven wrote:
    The dropdown powers list ought to have a scrollbar. If it doesn't, that's a bug and we'll fix it. That was not the art improvement. :)

    The art improvement was changing the indicator of a contributing skill from a solid yellow background to a yellow border/decoration. This is because we're using the skill box background colour to indicate a lot of information:

    green = you have levels in the skill
    bright green = you have max levels in the skill
    blue = you have no levels in the skill but you are able to
    grey = you cannot have levels in this skill yet
    orange = you've bought levels in this skill but haven't finalized
    pink = (respec only) you've sold back levels in this skill but haven't finalized
    white = displaying detail window (or mouseover)

    All of that information is lost if we just override the whole background to yellow. Adding a yellow decoration *adds* the "contributing" information instead of overrides with it, as well as being better for people with colour acuity problems. It sounds like the yellow border isn't visually distinct enough; we're working on making its line thicker.

    Automatically scrolling to show the contributing skills is tricky because there's no guarantee that all the contributing skills will fit in the visible scroll window. I'm working on making it scroll to the first contributing skill, though.

    Thank you for your comments!

    thank you

    improve the border, add the scroll bar and jump to first skill and ill be happy
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    UI_Maven wrote:
    The dropdown powers list ought to have a scrollbar. If it doesn't, that's a bug and we'll fix it. That was not the art improvement. :)

    The art improvement was changing the indicator of a contributing skill from a solid yellow background to a yellow border/decoration. This is because we're using the skill box background colour to indicate a lot of information:

    green = you have levels in the skill
    bright green = you have max levels in the skill
    blue = you have no levels in the skill but you are able to
    grey = you cannot have levels in this skill yet
    orange = you've bought levels in this skill but haven't finalized
    pink = (respec only) you've sold back levels in this skill but haven't finalized
    white = displaying detail window (or mouseover)

    All of that information is lost if we just override the whole background to yellow. Adding a yellow decoration *adds* the "contributing" information instead of overrides with it, as well as being better for people with colour acuity problems. It sounds like the yellow border isn't visually distinct enough; we're working on making its line thicker.

    Automatically scrolling to show the contributing skills is tricky because there's no guarantee that all the contributing skills will fit in the visible scroll window. I'm working on making it scroll to the first contributing skill, though.

    Thank you for your comments!

    can't you make the drop down only show skills from bridge officers which are assigned to your current ship? so we don't have a huge messy jumbled list.

    and also remove abilities which aren't affected by skills at all, things like Rifle butt.

    make those changes, fix the scrollbar and it's perfect...

    oh and it would be great if you added it to the respec window too so you can check things while speccing
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    Armsman wrote: »
    I'll be honest in that Iliked the previous version we had where JUST the contributing skills became visible in the the skill picker window (though in that version there was no 'none' setting to get all your skills to displayagain - but you fixed that and added a 'none setting with the version we have now on Holodeck).


    There is always the option in the filters to only show the contributing skills.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    UI_Maven wrote:
    There is always the option in the filters to only show the contributing skills.

    how do you feel about my suggestions?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    UI_Maven wrote:
    The dropdown powers list ought to have a scrollbar. If it doesn't, that's a bug and we'll fix it. That was not the art improvement. :)

    The art improvement was changing the indicator of a contributing skill from a solid yellow background to a yellow border/decoration. This is because we're using the skill box background colour to indicate a lot of information:

    green = you have levels in the skill
    bright green = you have max levels in the skill
    blue = you have no levels in the skill but you are able to
    grey = you cannot have levels in this skill yet
    orange = you've bought levels in this skill but haven't finalized
    pink = (respec only) you've sold back levels in this skill but haven't finalized
    white = displaying detail window (or mouseover)

    All of that information is lost if we just override the whole background to yellow. Adding a yellow decoration *adds* the "contributing" information instead of overrides with it, as well as being better for people with colour acuity problems. It sounds like the yellow border isn't visually distinct enough; we're working on making its line thicker.

    Automatically scrolling to show the contributing skills is tricky because there's no guarantee that all the contributing skills will fit in the visible scroll window. I'm working on making it scroll to the first contributing skill, though.

    Thank you for your comments!



    Thanks for explaining!

    As long as all the items in the -Select- drop down are selectable (which is now NOT the case if more items are available then fit in the window, I now only can see roughly half of them, the skills screen it self is scrollable, the selection drop down is not) I will be happy.

    Remark: the selection drop down WAS scrollable before todays patch.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    Intrepidox wrote: »
    can't you make the drop down only show skills from bridge officers which are assigned to your current ship? so we don't have a huge messy jumbled list.

    and also remove abilities which aren't affected by skills at all, things like Rifle butt.

    make those changes, fix the scrollbar and it's perfect...

    oh and it would be great if you added it to the respec window too so you can check things while speccing

    A very good point about the dropdown being useful in the respec window; that will be in the next version (as will the scrollbar fix).

    "Rifle Butt" *is* affected by skills (Tactical Officer - Close Combat Training, Tactical Officer - Special Forces and Tactical Officer - Martial Arts). That dropdown list is every power that you have that's affected by *a* skill, just maybe not skills you *have*. We will continue to refine the filtering as much as we can but the power/skill/trait relationship is a complex and terrifying thing.

    I'm not sure about filtering the list to exclude non-seated Bridge Officers; I'd think that you'd like the chance to plan ahead and see how your skill purchases might affect *all* your Bridge Officers. Also, limiting the display to those seated on the current ship would eliminate the officers you like to take to the ground on away teams, but who aren't used in space.

    What's the majority opinion on this? Do people not swap around their Bridge Officers as often as I do? :)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    UI_Maven wrote:
    A very good point about the dropdown being useful in the respec window; that will be in the next version (as will the scrollbar fix).

    "Rifle Butt" *is* affected by skills (Tactical Officer - Close Combat Training, Tactical Officer - Special Forces and Tactical Officer - Martial Arts). That dropdown list is every power that you have that's affected by *a* skill, just maybe not skills you *have*. We will continue to refine the filtering as much as we can but the power/skill/trait relationship is a complex and terrifying thing.

    I'm not sure about filtering the list to exclude non-seated Bridge Officers; I'd think that you'd like the chance to plan ahead and see how your skill purchases might affect *all* your Bridge Officers. Also, limiting the display to those seated on the current ship would eliminate the officers you like to take to the ground on away teams, but who aren't used in space.

    What's the majority opinion on this? Do people not swap around their Bridge Officers as often as I do? :)

    I swap BO's also regularly.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    What is this swapping of Bridge officer of which you speak???

    Seriously I need to make my addons more useful than they are now.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    UI_Maven wrote:
    A very good point about the dropdown being useful in the respec window; that will be in the next version (as will the scrollbar fix).

    "Rifle Butt" *is* affected by skills (Tactical Officer - Close Combat Training, Tactical Officer - Special Forces and Tactical Officer - Martial Arts). That dropdown list is every power that you have that's affected by *a* skill, just maybe not skills you *have*. We will continue to refine the filtering as much as we can but the power/skill/trait relationship is a complex and terrifying thing.

    I'm not sure about filtering the list to exclude non-seated Bridge Officers; I'd think that you'd like the chance to plan ahead and see how your skill purchases might affect *all* your Bridge Officers. Also, limiting the display to those seated on the current ship would eliminate the officers you like to take to the ground on away teams, but who aren't used in space.

    What's the majority opinion on this? Do people not swap around their Bridge Officers as often as I do? :)

    I swap my BO's, but couldn't said person just change the assignments to look at the skills? I think it would be better than cluttering the whole dropdown like it is now. and maybe sorting them by Space then Ground rather than all in alphabetical might help too.

    and some things show up multiple times, like say I have 2 weapons equipped, i'm seeing TWO Rifle Butts, for example, i'm seeing 3x Beam Setting, 2x Arcwave Setting, etc etc, because my BO's have these weapons equipped - do any skills even affect my BO's weapons damage? either way, perhaps it could filter those down to only show 1 if you have to show them at all?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    UI_Maven wrote:
    Also, limiting the display to those seated on the current ship would eliminate the officers you like to take to the ground on away teams, but who aren't used in space.

    What's the majority opinion on this? Do people not swap around their Bridge Officers as often as I do? :)
    Simple.

    Limit to Bridge Officers assigned to Ship Stations.
    Limit to Bridge Officers assigned to Away Team.

    Two options.
    Done.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    Sorry, I like having EVERY skill available in the drop down. Sure it is a bit cumbersome, but it does let you plan out for future levels. (Not everyone is an Admiral yet.... Sigh.) Please keep the complete list (but maybe add some sub filters?)

    Thanks,
    Duncan
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    btw. i think it sucks hard that everything that is benefitial for usual Ground Weaponry (Dual Bolt Settig, Split Beam Setting... and so on) is exclusive to the Tactical officer Skilltree.

    I'm not sure but does that mean that TACs actually get higher DPS on Ground Weapons if they skill up those *benefitial Skills*?

    If so, that should be avaible to every class...
    that would be like only allowing one officer class to improve starship beam weapons and the others are stuck with the basedamage.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    UI_Maven wrote:
    A very good point about the dropdown being useful in the respec window; that will be in the next version (as will the scrollbar fix).

    "Rifle Butt" *is* affected by skills (Tactical Officer - Close Combat Training, Tactical Officer - Special Forces and Tactical Officer - Martial Arts). That dropdown list is every power that you have that's affected by *a* skill, just maybe not skills you *have*. We will continue to refine the filtering as much as we can but the power/skill/trait relationship is a complex and terrifying thing.

    I'm not sure about filtering the list to exclude non-seated Bridge Officers; I'd think that you'd like the chance to plan ahead and see how your skill purchases might affect *all* your Bridge Officers. Also, limiting the display to those seated on the current ship would eliminate the officers you like to take to the ground on away teams, but who aren't used in space.

    What's the majority opinion on this? Do people not swap around their Bridge Officers as often as I do? :)

    On my Admiral i use the same set of bridge officers for everything - ground and space. I saw no reason to use a dull set and swap them in and out. But i don't PvP so maybe that has some bearing on how i play.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    UI_Maven wrote:
    The dropdown powers list ought to have a scrollbar. If it doesn't, that's a bug and we'll fix it. That was not the art improvement. :)

    The art improvement was changing the indicator of a contributing skill from a solid yellow background to a yellow border/decoration. This is because we're using the skill box background colour to indicate a lot of information:

    green = you have levels in the skill
    bright green = you have max levels in the skill
    blue = you have no levels in the skill but you are able to
    grey = you cannot have levels in this skill yet
    orange = you've bought levels in this skill but haven't finalized
    pink = (respec only) you've sold back levels in this skill but haven't finalized
    white = displaying detail window (or mouseover)

    All of that information is lost if we just override the whole background to yellow. Adding a yellow decoration *adds* the "contributing" information instead of overrides with it, as well as being better for people with colour acuity problems. It sounds like the yellow border isn't visually distinct enough; we're working on making its line thicker.

    Automatically scrolling to show the contributing skills is tricky because there's no guarantee that all the contributing skills will fit in the visible scroll window. I'm working on making it scroll to the first contributing skill, though.

    Thank you for your comments!

    When will the -Select- dropdown on the scrollable skillstab screen been fixed?

    Why is the previous version (before 13th May dropdown was scrollable) not rolled-back if the new version is not working properly.

    See screenshot: http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/6814/may13thsto.jpg
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    capraibex wrote:
    When will the -Select- dropdown on the scrollable skillstab screen been fixed?

    Why is the previous version (before 13th May dropdown was scrollable) not rolled-back if the new version is not working properly.

    See screenshot: http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/6814/may13thsto.jpg

    Anyone know when above will be solved/implemented correctly or rolled back?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    capraibex wrote:
    When will the -Select- drop down on the scrollable skills-tab screen been fixed?

    Why is the previous version (before Th May drop-down was scrollable) not rolled-back if the new version is not working properly.

    See screen-shot: http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/6814/may13thsto.jpg

    Today 19Th again a patch was released. Sadly the above mentioned issue is still not solved.

    I am disappointed that also no answer is given when this is expected to be solved.

    Also what is the use of raising a bug in-game, they do NOT seem to get picked up, and no status or feedback is provided.

    Please ROLLBACK the the non working functionality implemented on May 13TH! (Because before it was working properly). :mad:
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    capraibex wrote:
    Today 19Th again a patch was released. Sadly the above mentioned issue is still not solved.

    I am disappointed that also no answer is given when this is expected to be solved.

    Also what is the use of raising a bug in-game, they do NOT seem to get picked up, and no status or feedback is provided.

    Please ROLLBACK the the non working functionality implemented on May 13TH! (Because before it was working properly). :mad:

    It's already fixed on the test server, so when that update goes live the fix will be in it.
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