Inventory Wars! (Lists vs. Freeform)

I support the Toggle idea

 

It might be this one:



Transcription available here.

 

I'm not opposed to having list for certain aspects such as venders in/out of town or that you do/don't own, as well as for inventory management of your personal bags, storage, houses, and other structures you have access to through guild management. I just don't think you should be able to view other peoples belongings or properties in a list format. That way if you want to hide something, or run a guild quest involving riddles, no one will have an unfair advantage of just having to pull up a master list and finding the exact item that way without adventuring for it.

Very similar to how I don't want to see nodes on a mini map of where a specific resource is located. At least not without owning a map and compass and having the appropriate orienteering skill level/check to read it and know where i am, as well as the proper tracking/geology skills to know I'm in the round about area where I should be to search for what I'm looking for.

Great comment on list for vendors though, agreed.

 

Letting people toggle it is a bad idea.
You either force everyone to go the immersive route (free form), or you de facto force everyone to use list inventory out of practicality.
Look at Quake III as an example; it gave you the option to change the FOV, and even though a high setting made the game look fish-eyed and ridiculous, everyone ended up having to use it for competitive edge.
Exact same thing with bags/lists. Lists give a speed and efficiency advantage, but at the cost of immersion, IMO.

 

While I prefer list and grid viewsin UO Enhanced Client (mainly because of how tiny the UO freeform containers have become over the years), I have to put my vote with the Freeform containers in SotA.

The only problem I see right now with the Freeform view is the scaling of items inside the packs.

Edit: Thinkinig a little further, List or Grid forms DO end up working better for house/storage containers and for Vendors. For what I have on my character, I prefer either the Freeform or Grid views in general.

Not sure if we'll be able to mix and match in that fashion though.

 

Agree 100%

I think there is a way to make both sides happy though, by allowing list to only be used as a reference as to where items, that only you personally own, are located, and make list modes none interactive, except for purchasing things from npc/player owned venders.

 

No one said anything about other people being able to view your belongings either in list form nor in free form. I mention vendors simply that it would be simpler for me to load up my vendor if everything is in a list format. Just to help ME stock my vendor, not the buyer.

Ans i just don't see why giving people a choice in game to toggle between the 2 views is a bad idea. We are talking about inventory management, not combat view, macros, mining locations, etc, just inventory management. If you don't like it then you have the option to NEVER use it.

 

I know, I was simply giving some added opinions and feedback as to how it could impact game play.

 

I vote for a toggle that is easier to get to than digging through options (perhaps a keystroke combination). I do like the immersion factor of an old school Ultima style bag but I get frustrated when I can't find something so I switch to the list view. My son and I were playing together of the weekend (I gifted him his own account). He totally didn't get the default bag option. I showed him the list view and really liked it compared to the default bag view.

 

Would it be possible to have free form and grid activated at the same time?

 

For some reason I seemed to think the list was nice to have because it organized my items, but I felt the need to go back to the bag system too.

My mind likes the visual for selecting the items like when I was crafting, but when I was just looking for an item I preferred the the organization factor of the list view.

I'm not sure why but the list view doesn't seem to be as appealing for selecting items to be used for crafting otherwise I would use the list view all the time. The bag view allows me to organize items by the way it looks, and the list view is very logical.

If there was a way to list what items are in each individual bag as well as still have the option provide the same info it does now maybe that would help make the list view more functional.... because i might place certain items that might not seem to have any relationship together in one bag but for me it does have a specific relationship.

EDIT: however there might be no true way of getting the bag view experience with the list view unless there was some kind of hybrid. There is something convenient about having a bag with an item and some visual empty space between that and another item. It's organized by our human minds not alphabetically.

 

The key is being able to choose the preferred format. Forcing it all one way or the other is not the way to go imo.

From the link posted earlier, Richard clarified this.

Although this was more of a list than a grid, it sounds like there WILL be the choice so you can setup your inventory the way you want and will not be forced into either format.

 

The problem with the free-form/ Some of the items are just too small.

Plus items easily get moved/bumped around when doing things like crafting. It just felt like a jumbled mess, especially since you can put more things in a bag then you can see (since they all overlap each other).

Grid .. even though "unrealistic" is just neater for a computer game.

 

Yes, I would be a big proponent of a slider to increase the size of the icons. There was another thread around here commenting on the size (I believe it was in regards to the use of a three monitor setup), and increasing the size of the entire interface would be a big advantage.

Also, definitely like the idea of the highlighting noted in this thread : https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/a-new-ui-for-freeform-bag-inventory.6903/

Hopefully the devs will consider some of the noted improvements.

 

I hope this ends up being the case eventually but after talking to DarkStarr he told me Grid Inventory isn't planned for episode 1 :-(

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk