I just logged in to do the only thing left I had bothered to do with this game the doffing system and bam I get this piece. some messy ugly UI that is forcing me to use purple doffs where I don't need them nearly impossible to find the doff I want. and there is no reason for alot of missions needing all purple doffs when there is a max limit to crit at like 24% so please bring back the old UI or alteast fix this garbage back to something like the old one
I really wish that people would read the Dev Tracker more often.
We did - The post addresses ONE major issue (that they MAY get to; and I say tht based on Cryptic's past history of promised changes that never went Live for one reason or another) - not the remaining issues (that were posted the FIRST DAY the new 'Alpha' Doff UI was on Tribble of:
- The top screen only tell you the BROAD type of Doff needed (Sec/Tac/Eng/Ops/Sci/Med); but DOESN'T give any info on the specialization (Security Officer/Transporter Officer, etc.); or indicate the Doff traits that enhance success or contribute to failure. You have to do an extra click to see that.
- On that second screen, all the Doff positions are automatically filled. You no longer get to choose from recomendations yourself; or get an option to turn 'auto fill' function off.
- If you try to select a different Doff, the UI for that is extremely bad in that it's VERY easy to accidentally select a different doff than the one you wanted. Also, other Doffs that CAN actually be used (at least they could with the previous UI) DO NOT show up in the list of selectable doffs.
IMO - if would be nice if STO developers paid MORE attention to valid feedback and maybe conducted a dialogue with testers instead of posting a quick and hastily worded paragraph on how 'they're working on it..' Again they kept telling us 'Don't worry, it the 'Alpha version - the quickest thing we could get out for testing...please give feedback..' and after such feedback from DAY ONE -- the Live version IS the Alpha version with a couple of the UI button names changed.
Sorry, if that's the results of all our Alpha feedback (plus a promise of some sort of 'sorting function' returning -- maybe; color me unimpressed at Cryptic's evaluation of player feedback on this issue, and honestly, who knows if the sorting we get (if we get it); will be an improvement over what we had in original pre-9.5 Doff UI; or something that makes things worse.
Sorry, but the designer who approved these UI changes and through they were an improvement should be reprimanded and demoted. It's demonstrably obvious whomever did approve of these changes has never really actually played/used the STO Doffing system; at all.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Personally I prefer the old interface. It worked fine and suited its purpose. And there was no need to change it.
There is no need to change a lot of things, but cryptic changes em anyways. They do it all the time. The question here is not, why they changed it, the question is, why they changed it for worst??
Folks, we don't need 30 threads floating around the forums about the duty officer UI.
I've updated the original post to include the fact that Hawk HAS HEARD THE FEEDBACK AND IS WORKING ON SOME OPTIONS.
Yes, I'm that Askray@Batbayer in game. Yes, I still play. No, I don't care. Former Community Moderator, Former SSR DJ, Now Full time father to two kids, Husband, Retail Worker. Tiktok: @Askray Facebook: Askray113
Even without the doff sorting, the list of doffs seems more random than before. At least before you could quickly move between sections, skipping down to medical was a snap instead of trying to hunt down the right doffs.
I haven't seen it yet, but I have a good imagination.
My hope -- is that this is just the prelude toward exposing Doffing via the web and the interface will get more and more functional by the time we get to S10.
Because truth be told, I'd rather pop in on a web browser for a few minutes a day than take up a good chunk of my gaming time micromanaging the crew.
Yes, loss of filtering is quite a blow. But if we get that back, plus sorting, plus web access, etc. I can live with it for a little while.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
So you're trying to tell the community to just shut up and it will be fixed one of these months/years. Makes sense
Yep totally that's why Hawk specifically said it's upcoming in a soon patch.
How we moderate is simple - we don't need the entire forum flooded with the same thing everywhere. It makes it impossible to keep dev responses clear and concise. It makes it a THOUSAND times easier for anyone looking for a dev reply to an issue (example - DOFF UI thing) to just look at ONE thread, see the response in the first post and can either reply with their opinion/addition or move on.
Yes, I'm that Askray@Batbayer in game. Yes, I still play. No, I don't care. Former Community Moderator, Former SSR DJ, Now Full time father to two kids, Husband, Retail Worker. Tiktok: @Askray Facebook: Askray113
is there any possibility that Cryptic can implement a selection box so that players can choose between the old Doff UI and the new bulky cumbersome UI??
The new UI is not suited to purpose, requirements don't fit into the small box and usually means having to expand the UI to the whole screen to see everything, choosing doffs is a chore and it isn't as clear when you cannot start an assignment.
Giving the player base a choice between the 2 UIs would be a great compromise and lessen a lot of the hate
Good idea... but bad idea.
I like choices. But asking Cryptic to update and maintain two different systems for the same thing is just asking for something else to get broken.
I'd bet they made some major changes to the DOFF system to integrate it with crafting and (hopefully) get it ready for a web interface via the Gateway. And I'd bet even more that the old UI is not compatible with any of those changes or any future design goals. There might even be a complete re-code under the hood.
STO has historically been crunched for resources for various reasons and adding one more thing to maintain is not going to work for anybody.
I do wish they'd put the brakes on the release schedules now and then. But I'm guessing some of the stuff in the Xindi lockbox depended on other things they did in 9.5 and they had to release the one to get the other. Lockboxes are money.
I could be wrong, of course.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
It's a bit odd to see a rather simple algorithm being pushed despite the fact that the complete user experience suffered - simple, because it's actually no art at all to sort lists based on multiple criteria. The bad thing about the automatic proposals is to keep track of valid replacements for unwanted doff assignments.
Example: Starting the Console Fabrication there are six doffs being found as best choice. Unfortunately one of them is urgently needed to start a colonization mission (sure, it's a technician).
So, trying to replace the technician with exactly the one that is missing in the automatic proposal but actually the desired first choice is too cumbersome because selecting the right one is getting a matter of luck, or perhaps just a funny mini game of trial and error, and even with the option to wipe the proposal it's just a weak way to circumvent the bad proposal and start the mission assignments as before.
Above that the replacement is being slowed down by using huge doff slots forcing the user to scroll around a lot while searching for the right doff, provided the user can identify the doff by name before he's being annoyed.
Another annoyance of these large scale slots is the general impact on the speed of mission starting. Having a couple of characters who need to assign ten optimal missions (max dil, max xcp, best doffs, best chances) in a row it's getting a waste of time since the scope of the automatic proposal algorithm is restricted to the current mission selection - no real news that local optima can be quite bad choices messing up the whole - so frequent and wanted reassignments are likely to happen often enough. Where's the "wipe" button for the automatic proposal?
Being earnest with the a thing like automatically computed optimal assignment distributions there is no way around a multi-step procedure like:
1. "Select all missions to be computed"
(click, click, click, .... okay)
2. "FInd and distribute optimal assignments"
(okay + review)
3. "Change assignment(s)"
(click, click, click, ... or not)
4. "Start prepared missions"
... and take care of optimal reassignment proposals ... estimate the necessary amount of clicks and the complete scroll distance.
All together quite expensive? Yes, it is.
Honestly, wouldn't it be much easier to provide stored mission assignment sets? No optimization needed, and I daresay that players know their intentions a bit better than any half-way-there algorithm. It's only creating a lot more work for players.
Yes, it had some grouping of assignments and DOFFs by category. Yes, it had the ability to filter the roster based on certain criteria. We need those features back asap.
But we were never able to sort the DOFFs themselves. Being able to do a full sort to order them exactly how we wanted would've been handy. Nor were we able to sort or filter assignments.
filter != sort
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Honestly, I would just revert to the old one if at all possible. It seems to take more clicks to do anything now. It's much more awkward that the old one, especially as we can't see as many doffs/assignments on one page now due to the entries being that much bigger than before.
The option to change the size of each element in the doff window would go a long way towards making it a bit more usable imo.
However, I can see the logic in moving the list of recently acquired doffs from it's own separate tab and into a submenu in the "roster" tab. It freed up some space for the R&B tab.
Thanks for killing off what was once an enjoyable part of STO.
I really feel bad because recently a r/l friend download the game and spent $$ for a Rom pack. Had he asked me today I would have told him not to waste his money.
I am also elated because I considered an LT recently also. Saved money there.
Spock: "It has always been easier to destroy that to create"
McCoy:"Not anymore! Now we can do both at the same time"
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid." Q Join the 44th Fleet. [FED and KDF] Apply Online: startrek.44thfleet.com
But don't worry , you can go back to "expanding yourself" with ship & uniform making .
We don't need the Doff UI anyway ... .
I mean what is it good for anyway .... ?
Doffing ?
Crafting ??
Pfffft .... . Who likes that ???
GEEEEZUS .... :mad:
... here's a CRAZY ... CRAZY ... thing ... -- how about creating a Doff UI for tablets / phones (for Gateway) , and giving back our a PC UI , that actually works for ... this game ... that's on a PC ...
I'm expecting too much from your hard working self ???
Well then ... -- I'll return the favor and say that you're expecting too much from ppl who actually enjoyed Doffing in this game .
We've heard you guys and we do have our UI artist and programmer working on adding filtering and sorting options back in to the new UI at the soonest possible patch.
I'm sorry Hawk, but if this is the best they can come up with, they need taking out side and given a good thrashing. The overall feel of the the new UI is just plain terrible it really is. The old one worked just fine. So far no one that I know to has a good thing to say about it so what on earth gave anyone the idea that the new one is better?
Please put the UI back to the way it was.
Yes, it had some grouping of assignments and DOFFs by category. Yes, it had the ability to filter the roster based on certain criteria. We need those features back asap.
But we were never able to sort the DOFFs themselves. Being able to do a full sort to order them exactly how we wanted would've been handy. Nor were we able to sort or filter assignments.
filter != sort
You had the ability to filter the Doffs it showed you for manual selection yourself (by color, branch, etc. all the way down to specific traits); and you could then select the ones you needed with a simple click.
^^^
That functionality has been 100% eremoved from the 'new/improved' Doff UI (and again this feedback was brought up the FIRST DAY the new UI was on Tribble.)
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Whose bright idea was it that when you go to sell goods, the R&D materials goes right to the top of the sell list? What a major pain in the Impulse Engine. :mad:
DOFF UI:
Completely and utterly unfriendly. The old UI was perfectly fine and easy to do. The new one is an utter disaster.
What's stupid is that I can't choose my own DOFFs anymore and put them in any mission. There are certain DOFFs I prefer doing missions.
Yes, it had some grouping of assignments and DOFFs by category. Yes, it had the ability to filter the roster based on certain criteria. We need those features back asap.
But we were never able to sort the DOFFs themselves. Being able to do a full sort to order them exactly how we wanted would've been handy. Nor were we able to sort or filter assignments.
filter != sort
Replace "filter" with "sort out" if it helps to clarify the choice of terms.
Fact is that any automatic proposal claiming to provide some optimum needs some weighting that is being evaluated, and determining the "heaviest" choices actually requires sorting. The grouping before never was a real issue (the display of some drop down elements might have been), as little as the lack of a general roster sorting possibility before was (perhaps only requested in order to fasten the assignments from the complete roster view).
The only functional annoyance was the funny proposal automatism. Now there is better one, that is unfortunately creating more work than benefits, because all doffs are being assigned automatically. Replacements of these assignments, resp. reassignments, require more work than simple assignments.
Just a scenario: Having 300 doffs and a set of about 10-15 interesting doff missions being started in a certain order, but without being able to predict the availability (due to cds) of these missions still required "some" reassignments, simply because compromises regarding the success chances are common if it helps improve the chances of some (perhaps rare, perhaps lucrative, or both) missions. That of course hasn't changed with the new GUI and new proposal routine, but the click amount was increased.
You had the ability to filter the Doffs it showed you for manual selection yourself (by color, branch, etc. all the way down to specific traits); and you could then select the ones you needed with a simple click.
^^^
That functionality has been 100% eremoved from the 'new/improved' Doff UI (and again this feedback was brought up the FIRST DAY the new UI was on Tribble.)
I agree. Filtering is critical and we need it. If we hadn't already been told that the Devs are aware and plan to address that asap, I'd be more worried about it. I don't expect smooth launches anymore.
I'm just pointing out that sorting and filtering are not quite the same thing. I want both.
I've already idly speculated why 9.5 got pushed out 'on time', so I won't repeat it here other than to say that perhaps coupling a lockbox for release together with a major new feature is a decision they might want to revisit in the future.
We could've waited for crafting and the DOFF system update till later. And maybe they should've focused on the DOFF system first, but there might be a reason why they couldn't separate the two.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Listed in the Known Issues section of the patch notes is the inability to sort or filter DOFFs. Now, this is only true when manually selecting the DOFF to be used for a particular asignment, but the purpose of this post is to explain why this is utterly unacceptable.
Example 1 - Resettle Colonists assignment - All you need to get 100% success is one green Quartermaster and any two random whites, assuming none have negative traits. The system will autoselect three Quartermasters. But if you accept that, you have a good chance of not being able to do another assignment, because all your Quartermasters are needlessly tied-up.
Example 2 - Any assignment where you get an item, BOFF, or DOFF as reward - Most of the time, you only want the Purple reward; a Green or Blue is as good as a Fail. So you want to stack the critical success traits to max your chances of a Purple result. But the system will autoselect a purple DOFF with no critical success traits over a green DOFF with two critical success traits.
In example 1 above, you need to be able to filter by quality.
In example 2 above, you need to be able to filter by traits.
This is not a minor issue, it goes to the heart of the basic mechanics of the DOFF system.
Seriously, guys, good job on the new tradeskills, but you need to fix this problem ASAP. This was a major mistake.
Comments
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1167031
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1167811
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=18023131&postcount=31
I've been here since beta
We did - The post addresses ONE major issue (that they MAY get to; and I say tht based on Cryptic's past history of promised changes that never went Live for one reason or another) - not the remaining issues (that were posted the FIRST DAY the new 'Alpha' Doff UI was on Tribble of:
- The top screen only tell you the BROAD type of Doff needed (Sec/Tac/Eng/Ops/Sci/Med); but DOESN'T give any info on the specialization (Security Officer/Transporter Officer, etc.); or indicate the Doff traits that enhance success or contribute to failure. You have to do an extra click to see that.
- On that second screen, all the Doff positions are automatically filled. You no longer get to choose from recomendations yourself; or get an option to turn 'auto fill' function off.
- If you try to select a different Doff, the UI for that is extremely bad in that it's VERY easy to accidentally select a different doff than the one you wanted. Also, other Doffs that CAN actually be used (at least they could with the previous UI) DO NOT show up in the list of selectable doffs.
IMO - if would be nice if STO developers paid MORE attention to valid feedback and maybe conducted a dialogue with testers instead of posting a quick and hastily worded paragraph on how 'they're working on it..' Again they kept telling us 'Don't worry, it the 'Alpha version - the quickest thing we could get out for testing...please give feedback..' and after such feedback from DAY ONE -- the Live version IS the Alpha version with a couple of the UI button names changed.
Sorry, if that's the results of all our Alpha feedback (plus a promise of some sort of 'sorting function' returning -- maybe; color me unimpressed at Cryptic's evaluation of player feedback on this issue, and honestly, who knows if the sorting we get (if we get it); will be an improvement over what we had in original pre-9.5 Doff UI; or something that makes things worse.
Sorry, but the designer who approved these UI changes and through they were an improvement should be reprimanded and demoted. It's demonstrably obvious whomever did approve of these changes has never really actually played/used the STO Doffing system; at all.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
FED: Matt Torell, Lavinia Molinero, Zindox
KDF: Che'ko Tenda'All
ROM: Ecural Mendak
There is no need to change a lot of things, but cryptic changes em anyways. They do it all the time. The question here is not, why they changed it, the question is, why they changed it for worst??
I've updated the original post to include the fact that Hawk HAS HEARD THE FEEDBACK AND IS WORKING ON SOME OPTIONS.
Former Community Moderator, Former SSR DJ, Now Full time father to two kids, Husband, Retail Worker.
Tiktok: @Askray Facebook: Askray113
My hope -- is that this is just the prelude toward exposing Doffing via the web and the interface will get more and more functional by the time we get to S10.
Because truth be told, I'd rather pop in on a web browser for a few minutes a day than take up a good chunk of my gaming time micromanaging the crew.
Yes, loss of filtering is quite a blow. But if we get that back, plus sorting, plus web access, etc. I can live with it for a little while.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
So you're trying to tell the community to just shut up and it will be fixed one of these months/years. Makes sense
Yep totally that's why Hawk specifically said it's upcoming in a soon patch.
How we moderate is simple - we don't need the entire forum flooded with the same thing everywhere. It makes it impossible to keep dev responses clear and concise. It makes it a THOUSAND times easier for anyone looking for a dev reply to an issue (example - DOFF UI thing) to just look at ONE thread, see the response in the first post and can either reply with their opinion/addition or move on.
Former Community Moderator, Former SSR DJ, Now Full time father to two kids, Husband, Retail Worker.
Tiktok: @Askray Facebook: Askray113
If I want to send my Gorn Chef to sing at the Opera, I damn well should. Even if my Entertainer is better at it.
Good idea... but bad idea.
I like choices. But asking Cryptic to update and maintain two different systems for the same thing is just asking for something else to get broken.
I'd bet they made some major changes to the DOFF system to integrate it with crafting and (hopefully) get it ready for a web interface via the Gateway. And I'd bet even more that the old UI is not compatible with any of those changes or any future design goals. There might even be a complete re-code under the hood.
STO has historically been crunched for resources for various reasons and adding one more thing to maintain is not going to work for anybody.
I do wish they'd put the brakes on the release schedules now and then. But I'm guessing some of the stuff in the Xindi lockbox depended on other things they did in 9.5 and they had to release the one to get the other. Lockboxes are money.
I could be wrong, of course.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Example: Starting the Console Fabrication there are six doffs being found as best choice. Unfortunately one of them is urgently needed to start a colonization mission (sure, it's a technician).
So, trying to replace the technician with exactly the one that is missing in the automatic proposal but actually the desired first choice is too cumbersome because selecting the right one is getting a matter of luck, or perhaps just a funny mini game of trial and error, and even with the option to wipe the proposal it's just a weak way to circumvent the bad proposal and start the mission assignments as before.
Above that the replacement is being slowed down by using huge doff slots forcing the user to scroll around a lot while searching for the right doff, provided the user can identify the doff by name before he's being annoyed.
Another annoyance of these large scale slots is the general impact on the speed of mission starting. Having a couple of characters who need to assign ten optimal missions (max dil, max xcp, best doffs, best chances) in a row it's getting a waste of time since the scope of the automatic proposal algorithm is restricted to the current mission selection - no real news that local optima can be quite bad choices messing up the whole - so frequent and wanted reassignments are likely to happen often enough. Where's the "wipe" button for the automatic proposal?
Being earnest with the a thing like automatically computed optimal assignment distributions there is no way around a multi-step procedure like:
1. "Select all missions to be computed"
(click, click, click, .... okay)
2. "FInd and distribute optimal assignments"
(okay + review)
3. "Change assignment(s)"
(click, click, click, ... or not)
4. "Start prepared missions"
... and take care of optimal reassignment proposals ... estimate the necessary amount of clicks and the complete scroll distance.
All together quite expensive? Yes, it is.
Honestly, wouldn't it be much easier to provide stored mission assignment sets? No optimization needed, and I daresay that players know their intentions a bit better than any half-way-there algorithm. It's only creating a lot more work for players.
FED: Matt Torell, Lavinia Molinero, Zindox
KDF: Che'ko Tenda'All
ROM: Ecural Mendak
What is this "sorting" you speak of?
The DOFF system never had it.
Yes, it had some grouping of assignments and DOFFs by category. Yes, it had the ability to filter the roster based on certain criteria. We need those features back asap.
But we were never able to sort the DOFFs themselves. Being able to do a full sort to order them exactly how we wanted would've been handy. Nor were we able to sort or filter assignments.
filter != sort
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
The option to change the size of each element in the doff window would go a long way towards making it a bit more usable imo.
However, I can see the logic in moving the list of recently acquired doffs from it's own separate tab and into a submenu in the "roster" tab. It freed up some space for the R&B tab.
I really feel bad because recently a r/l friend download the game and spent $$ for a Rom pack. Had he asked me today I would have told him not to waste his money.
I am also elated because I considered an LT recently also. Saved money there.
Spock: "It has always been easier to destroy that to create"
McCoy:"Not anymore! Now we can do both at the same time"
Join the 44th Fleet. [FED and KDF] Apply Online: startrek.44thfleet.com
But don't worry , you can go back to "expanding yourself" with ship & uniform making .
We don't need the Doff UI anyway ... .
I mean what is it good for anyway .... ?
Doffing ?
Crafting ??
Pfffft .... . Who likes that ???
GEEEEZUS .... :mad:
... here's a CRAZY ... CRAZY ... thing ... -- how about creating a Doff UI for tablets / phones (for Gateway) , and giving back our a PC UI , that actually works for ... this game ... that's on a PC ...
I'm expecting too much from your hard working self ???
Well then ... -- I'll return the favor and say that you're expecting too much from ppl who actually enjoyed Doffing in this game .
I'm sorry Hawk, but if this is the best they can come up with, they need taking out side and given a good thrashing. The overall feel of the the new UI is just plain terrible it really is. The old one worked just fine. So far no one that I know to has a good thing to say about it so what on earth gave anyone the idea that the new one is better?
Please put the UI back to the way it was.
You had the ability to filter the Doffs it showed you for manual selection yourself (by color, branch, etc. all the way down to specific traits); and you could then select the ones you needed with a simple click.
^^^
That functionality has been 100% eremoved from the 'new/improved' Doff UI (and again this feedback was brought up the FIRST DAY the new UI was on Tribble.)
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Whose bright idea was it that when you go to sell goods, the R&D materials goes right to the top of the sell list? What a major pain in the Impulse Engine. :mad:
DOFF UI:
Completely and utterly unfriendly. The old UI was perfectly fine and easy to do. The new one is an utter disaster.
What's stupid is that I can't choose my own DOFFs anymore and put them in any mission. There are certain DOFFs I prefer doing missions.
Replace "filter" with "sort out" if it helps to clarify the choice of terms.
Fact is that any automatic proposal claiming to provide some optimum needs some weighting that is being evaluated, and determining the "heaviest" choices actually requires sorting. The grouping before never was a real issue (the display of some drop down elements might have been), as little as the lack of a general roster sorting possibility before was (perhaps only requested in order to fasten the assignments from the complete roster view).
The only functional annoyance was the funny proposal automatism. Now there is better one, that is unfortunately creating more work than benefits, because all doffs are being assigned automatically. Replacements of these assignments, resp. reassignments, require more work than simple assignments.
Just a scenario: Having 300 doffs and a set of about 10-15 interesting doff missions being started in a certain order, but without being able to predict the availability (due to cds) of these missions still required "some" reassignments, simply because compromises regarding the success chances are common if it helps improve the chances of some (perhaps rare, perhaps lucrative, or both) missions. That of course hasn't changed with the new GUI and new proposal routine, but the click amount was increased.
I agree. Filtering is critical and we need it. If we hadn't already been told that the Devs are aware and plan to address that asap, I'd be more worried about it. I don't expect smooth launches anymore.
I'm just pointing out that sorting and filtering are not quite the same thing. I want both.
I've already idly speculated why 9.5 got pushed out 'on time', so I won't repeat it here other than to say that perhaps coupling a lockbox for release together with a major new feature is a decision they might want to revisit in the future.
We could've waited for crafting and the DOFF system update till later. And maybe they should've focused on the DOFF system first, but there might be a reason why they couldn't separate the two.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Example 1 - Resettle Colonists assignment - All you need to get 100% success is one green Quartermaster and any two random whites, assuming none have negative traits. The system will autoselect three Quartermasters. But if you accept that, you have a good chance of not being able to do another assignment, because all your Quartermasters are needlessly tied-up.
Example 2 - Any assignment where you get an item, BOFF, or DOFF as reward - Most of the time, you only want the Purple reward; a Green or Blue is as good as a Fail. So you want to stack the critical success traits to max your chances of a Purple result. But the system will autoselect a purple DOFF with no critical success traits over a green DOFF with two critical success traits.
In example 1 above, you need to be able to filter by quality.
In example 2 above, you need to be able to filter by traits.
This is not a minor issue, it goes to the heart of the basic mechanics of the DOFF system.
Seriously, guys, good job on the new tradeskills, but you need to fix this problem ASAP. This was a major mistake.