Crafting table interface, salvaging, single stack item behavior, etc

Just some thoughts on the crafting table interface and salvaging. I've been using "List Inventory Mode" and I've been salvaging various items the last few days. I'm a big fan of item deconstruction so I'm glad to see this system in the game. From my experience there is one slightly annoying element of salvaging items in the list inventory mode where you salvage the item and it returns 1 stack of crafting resources such as wood scraps, metal scraps, etc.

Lets say the result of salvaging a rusty sword is 7 metal scraps. You have to shift+left click and drag the stack of metal scraps to your inventory which brings up a quantity window. The quantity defaults to 1, then I have to adjust this to 7 (usually I hit 22 and this brings it to 7) - having to adjust this quantity isn't a big deal if you have to do it a few times, but if you have to do it 50 times....it's not so desirable.

Keep in mind this is a non-issue when the salvage results in multiple stacks of items because left clicking and dragging multiple highlighted stacks can be dragged into your inventory with ease.

Here are some brainstormed ideas/options for the salvaging functionality, individual item stacks and crafting table interface. In no particular order. In the poll just vote for the ideas that you identify with the most if you feel like it.

1. Change individual stack movement to function as quantity of 1, regardless of item quantity. Right now to move an individual stack of items, you need to hold down the shift key then left click and drag and it brings up the quantity box then you select the quantity and click OK. That's 3 player actions. Currently items with a quantity of 1 move from one container to another in one simple motion. This means when you left click and drag a stack of items, the entire stack should move...I would like to have the option to set this as default. I think this should mainly apply when you are dragging things from crafting table interface to inventory, or from your inventory to storage containers, etc. To move specific quantities, you shift+left click which will bring up the quantity selection, which defaults at qty 1 and you enter the quantity you wish to move per usual.

2. Keep the individual stack movement behavior the same - left click and dragging a stack, moves quantity of 1 from the stack to destination. This is the way it works now, but change shift+left click quantity to maximum. (specifically for the salvage interface or where ever it would be appropriate) This way if I have to drag the stack of 7 metal scraps, it already understands I'm trying to drag the entire stack not individual units.

3. Create or change a gump/clickable button on the crafting table interface after salvaging an item that lets you take just the salvaged resources and automatically transfers them to your inventory. eg: salvage turns to 'recover' which only moves scraps into your inventory.

4. Make the crafting tool persistent on the crafting interface. By dragging your Artisan Smithing Hammer
it simply creates a pointer for the server to know what tool you're using, but clicking the Take All gump on the interface will ignore the crafting tool and only take the consumable/crafted items.

5. Allow players to process bulk quantities of items to be salvaged - by dragging a large quantity of items into the crafting station interface, and hitting Salvage, the player will process all of the items, one at a time. It still takes about the same amount of time to process the items, and a skill gain/salvage xp is registered for each item - but you don't have to drag each individual item from your inventory and hit the salvage button. (the lazy person's approach to salvaging) The scrap items would need to be allowed to accumulate in the crafting interface window, and I suppose you could set a maximum amount of items that can be salvaged at once.

6. Going in the opposite direction - a more detailed and interactive deconstruction method, I'm not entirely sure what it would look like...but you process each item individually and by doing so you have a higher chance to find more obscure materials. Or a higher chance to recover more scraps than you would by processing the items in bulk because you're focusing more attention on each item.

Just some ideas. Perhaps some of the stack movement functionality could be configurable in Game Options.

Also not sure if this is a bug but when I drag quantities of items from a vendor, it drags the entire stack of items into the purchase window - Small Ankh (25) for example. Seems like the default behavior should be dragging individual units or left click and dragging the item into the purchase window and it brings up a quantity box.

 

I agree completely about the "new" crafting table stack move introduced around R21 or so. Cntl-click already selects one, so just clicking on a stack should select them all. It's worse since, vendor purchases work the "good-old" way and not the "new" way.

I don't know what "gump" is. Is this a forest for the trees sort of thing (ha-ha, a terrible pun)?

The current crafting system is somewhat off-putting with the different selection system and having to do each thing one at time, then clear the table of any results. Selecting what you want either by dragging the various items to make a new recipe or just double-clicking the recipe is good, but I wouldn't mind seeing a batch mode once you know the recipe or maybe have done that particular recipe, say, 10 times. Shift-double-click the recipe and it would allow you choose a quantity, the system would add the appropriate tools and items for that quantity. The system would subtract the correct number of uses from the tool(s). Maybe even have a skill that improves the batch tool use and/or supplemental items to allow greater output than expected.

I'm surprised that more people haven't complained about the "new" crafting UI actions.

 

Gump is just a 'button' on an interface window... so the "Take All" button or whatever is considered gump I believe? Perhaps I just made it up...it's possible. I might have heard it from Lietgardis in Shadowbane...not sure!

 

Any of those suggestions would be an improvement.

I love the crafting system by the way. Can't wait to see how it evolves.

 

Im not 100% but i always thought "gump" was a window, because in UO the close all gumps command, closed all the windows (inv, skills, char sheet, etc)
Therefore every window was a gump
The G and the U must stand for Graphical User, cant recall the M or the P (M might stand for Moveable

Im gonna have to re-read the OP because i read it, but apparently arent currently awake enough to remember what was written

 

This makes me question the usefulness of the Craft window. Since we can already multi-select from the inventory window, then dragging items to the craft window is a wasted action. If selecting a stack resulted in a quantity selector, one could specify the number of resource items.

 

OK I'm incorrect about gump - according to the internet it is Graphical User Menu Pop-up. Here's clarification:

#3 clarification
https://www.dropbox.com/s/coprynibdo3cfol/option-3-clarification.jpg?dl=0

#4 and #5 (my preference)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xudeh1m7fajyap5/bulk-salvaging-persistent-crafting-tool.jpg?dl=0

 

After having a repetitive injury almost 20 years ago in my right hand/arm, the crafting system right now in this game is killing my hand.

Oh how I wish I could have a ''repeat" button, or the ability to salvage in batch. Wish I could smelt faster as well.

Making ingots with scraps is almost a nightmare now. Single click all the items, salvage each one separately, then click again to remove the materials and start over again. You could have a giant stack of one sort of weapon or armor, yet you will receive different results. It is so much easier when the results give more than one type of scrap and one mouse click/drag is enough. But if you get 14 metal scraps without any leather or wood pulp and try to drag that back to your inventory to replace with another item to smelt, you have extra mouse clicks to determine if you're going to take the whole stack or just one at a time out of the stack.

I have noticed it varies with each item. Sometimes you can click/drag an entire stack no problem, and other items you're forced to either type in the number directly and press enter, or add extra mouse clicks to move the quantity bar over to the right. I would love to see one single click/drag for all stacked items, not just some. Extra clicks would be necessary to choose one from a stack but the entire stack should go in one swipe as a default.

 

FYI, dbl clicking the recipe icon will place everything needed onto the crafting table to make that item... It will even remove all, before placing the new ingredients & tools... So a lot of info in this thread is wrong or misc understood....

I do agree that the click drag was changed from a better system to what we have now, but maybe it's s bug that should be reported instead of discussed about with polls etc... Dragging the entire stack was pretty convenient, now with it being a count of 1 causes more key strokes, where having the full amount there would make it easier, but still having a player click "ok" before dragging the entire stack...

I liked the old system better because if you wanted just 1, you could simply hold ctrl while dragging, I don't know why it was changed, seemed like a wasted effort...

 

While This may be true for known recipes both discovery and salvage require too much mousing.

 

Which info is wrong or misunderstood?

 

Well #1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ... of your OP...

1- It used to work that way, until this new crafting gump came along with your inventory along side it.... I for one don't understand why they changed it...
2- The same as what? The new system or the old system...
3- I think all they need is to have a "salvage iron" recipe in your book, so that it acts like normal... dbl click the icon, it places the first item & tool on the table after taking all, then just hit the salvage button... But, I guess some new guy would not be paying attention and salvage their main weapon and start complaining...
4- It is persistent, if you dbl click the recipe icon, problem is there's no "salvage" recipes... If you have the proper tool in your inventory, it's placed on the table for you...
5- Already been asked in r21 postmordum by me, answer was "well we can do that, maybe", but I can see why they haven't done that, because you raise your salvage skill more when doing individual items...
6- Opposite direction, what? This is already planned, and I bet if you got your salvage skill in the 90s you would probably get a "hilt" or other component of whatever you salvaged, but if you want something other than parts, I don't think that's in their plans... Whatever the item was originally made of is what you salvage back...

You can learn a lot from those postmortems and dev chats... They're all archived...

 

You're right I should watch more of the postmortems and such. I'm commenting mainly on R22 that's why I put it in R22 feedback. I haven't been playing very long so my point of reference is mainly from R21-R22. I played previously but I couldn't tell you what release it was. I'm making observations on current game functionality and the purpose of this particular post was to try and figure out a way to make the existing crafting/salvage interface more streamlined based on what is implemented. Also to figure out what specific game mechanics players prefer. I'm not a fan of salvaging one item at a time, but if I comes to that, I'd like the process to be more involved (#6)...and I'd even go as far as making certain items unstable when trying to deconstruct them...causing potential side effects or damage to your character when working with powerful items. eg: deconstructing a non-recipe based item from monster loot. You wouldn't have the recipe so you wouldn't know the material requirements until you deconstruct it. That would actually be a cool way to learn recipes. Perhaps a recipe shows up in your book but you can't create it until all of the ???? are figured out through deconstruction, and the particularly rare materials would require high salvage skill or a more interactive process (tinkering?) to figure out. Just long term ideas.

#1 and #2 are addressing the same issue, the behavior of individual stack movement...not sure how it worked before. If the default behavior of left click and dragging an individual stack means moving individual units one at a time from a stack to destination, then I think when you hold down the shift key to move that stack, it should start at max quantity. (#2) This way you don't have to enter in the quantity. It would save players 1 game action. And I think #1 would save players 2 game actions because moving individual stacks would simply move to their destination by default and splitting the quantity of a stack would be optional. Am I missing something about the way it is configured now, where it drags individual units by default? I don't seem to be using that feature very often. I was thinking some of this functionality could be adjusted through game options depending on a player's preference.

I do like how the recipes auto-load the materials and tool. This could work too. Are there going to be different qualities of tools in the game? Does salvaging items reduce durability from hammers? If I had multiple types of smithing hammers in my inventory how would it choose? If I'm going to be dealing with multiple hammers in my inventory and the recipe can't figure out the correct one, then I might as well do the salvaging through the standard crafting interface/gump. Both methods should be streamlined imho.

As far as bulk salvaging - I should have adjusted where the XP gain is shown in this pic: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xudeh1m7fajyap5/bulk-salvaging-persistent-crafting-tool.jpg?dl=0
The Salvaging skill gain occurs at the end of a batch of items in the pic, but in this concept the skill gain can occur at any item because it's processing the items individually in a queue. So 10 items = 10 chances for xp gain or 10 chances towards your minimum skill gain, etc.

Probably poorly worded but I meant 'going in the opposite direction' of bulk salvaging. Bulk salvaging means you're basically just churning through items to get raw materials. But say if items were too complicated or powerful to deconstruct, you would need to spend more time focusing your attention on them. (#6) If these types of items were dangerous to deconstruct, doing a batch of these items might kill your character.

 

Although this is a cool idea, it is out of the main plans for SotA, as they have always maintained that "Crafted" items being the most powerful in the game, and their plans of having these items migrate into the loot tables by crafters selling to NPCs, and Monsters looting dead players...

1 & 2, I feel it needs to go back to the way we did it in r20 (left click drag= entire stack, left click drag & holding shift= a portion to be entered, left click drag & holding control= 1 off the stack), this method I found very easy, why they changed it, I don't know...

There're different quality of tools now, prosperity tools don't wear out, artisan tool (coupled with skill) give a chance of increasing quantity like instead of getting 1 gem, you would get 2 or adds another buff to an item being made... and of course if you craft your own tools they're to have higher durability over store bought tools... but the back end coding isn't in yet... There're plans for quality table too in r23...

If you have a prosperity tool and a artisan tool in your inventory, the game always picks the artisan tool, as it's alphabetical...

I think the simplest solution is to have a "salvage" recipe, dbl clicking on a salvage iron recipe should search for the 1st item and tool and place them on the table to light the salvage button... If the item is crafted, there should always be a chance to get all it's different components or scrap materials (copper, brass, white iron, gems, hilt, bow string etc), dbl clicking the icon again would "take all", and repeat... I know when I create many ingot out of iron, I place my recipe book & crafting gump close together, and it's a breeze to do a batch of iron, so maybe a bulk salvage wouldn't be needed if we had a recipe for salvage instead... There wouldn't be any need to adjust Xp as it's doing 1 at a time...

I don't think we need anything "dangerous" added to salvaging or crafting for that matter, if you're a Master craftsmen you would not fail (very often)...

No rare resources, please... That would turn SotA into an item based game and ruin the economy, IMO...

 

One thing not mentioned that would make me a lot happier here (and in other windows) is MORE KEYBOARD CONTROLS. My wrist just loooooves having to move the mouse all over the screen to click on those little buttons, especially the Take All button in the loot windows.

 

I would love to be able to add multiple items to the table to be salvaged and then just hitting the Salvage button once... even if it took the accumulated time of each individual item to complete. To do one at a time, hit Take All, add another set, Take All, repeat... it's just silly to have to do the same process over and over again in a row.

I realize this is probably there to prevent macroing, but in reality I don't think it does prevent it the way it is currently. I've never done this myself, but I think I understand how they work (please correct me if I'm wrong). It requires a program that lets you repeat a series of mouse clicks at various points on the screen and I would think involves some sort of timing options between each programmed "click". The way it is now, I pretty much just manually repeat a pattern of clicks in the same spots to salvage all of my stuff. The Take All button is in a static spot so that's easy to clean the table between sets. Even choosing the item to be salvaged is a click in the same spot because once you do one, it disappears from the inventory list and the next one moves up to that spot. So if you wanted to set up a macro, it sounds very possible to me.

So what's the harm in letting us add a bunch of salvageable items to the table at once, hitting one button, and then waiting for the process to complete? Is it simply a means to prevent setting up a mass Salvage and going AFK?

How about putting in "crit" chances where if you hit a random pop-up button during the long process you can gain a few extra pieces of scraps, or perhaps a higher quality component in full (say the hilt of the sword remains intact or something)? This would give us incentive to be at the computer watching the process without physically having to destroy our fingers/wrists/elbows/etc. to do 50 combines in a row.

As for stack dragging, I too was a fan of the CTRL-Click for 1 piece, Single-Click drag whole stack, and Shift-Click to select amount. But if it stays as is, I would definitely prefer the Shift-Click selector to default on the max quantity instead of 1. I mean, if I needed 1 (or a few even) it would be easier to just click/drag one at a time... so if I need to move the whole stack, then Shift-Click would be quick and painless.