Agree with this (and made me reconsider alittle, because when I was typing my previous post I actually thought GGG’s philosophical insistence made sense. But I agree it’s a false sense of weight. It’s also a noob trap if I were to argue that casual players would loot low value currencies anyway and create a healthy economy between endgame and more casual players). But disagree with
I think you alluded to this yourself, tediously looting crappy stuff feels awful (and it wastes time that could be spent clearing maps and looting valuable stuff to boot).
Keeping multiplayer in mind, it makes more sense why they don’t go straight to the forge. That is, if shards will be something that players can trade. I can definitely see the rare shards being a top seller, and low tier shards sold in bulk can still flip a profit and get you started in the trade scene.
I assume crafting and the use of shards will increase dramatically in multiplayer. So, those huge numbers of shards that we’re sitting on now, might get used up faster since we’ll feel the desire to craft for others and not just what we need for our characters and done.
True. The only thing I can think for that would obviously be cutting down on the number of common shard drops. Instead of seeing 8 shards drop, maybe something like 2 or 3.
This is where I see the auto pickup of the shards making it difficult to find more value in them. I’m sure this has been said and pointed out. By everybody picking them all up, then yes it guarantees that every player is likely to have a huge amount of common shards. If left to decide what to pick up, then only those who make an effort to pick them all up will have an abundance.
I think finding good bases to sell/trade, or good bases to craft on and then sell/trade, will be more common by far than selling shards.
Anyway, I really don’t think the “end goal” of what shards are for has any bearing on how you pick them up off the ground.
Gold is auto-picked up by a Proximity Trigger.
Shards are auto-picked up by a mouse-click Trigger followed by a proximity detection to sweep up all nearby shards with the single click.
This discussion is about altering the 2nd bullet in some fashion. The reason the thread was posted is because mouse-clicking shards is tedious and boring.
This thread has some ideas on how to make shard collecting less tedious and boring. The Devs likely have their own ideas. We already know there are more efficient, less boring ways - even just converting to how gold pickup works would be better. Add in “area vaccuum” would be even better. (you walk over 1 shard, and it vaccuums all the nearby shards identical to what mouse-clicks do now.)
Naturally, if you enjoy tedious and boring activities, you’ll oppose any changes to shard collection. But if there’s a toggle in Settings “Auto-collect shards” which converts to an alternate system (whatever the Devs implement), then those people can still pick up shards the way they do now, and the rest of us can eliminate this boring, tedious activity.
To oppose this proposal with no logical reason is naysaying, nothing more. I have yet to see any logical argument as to why having to mouse-click is important to gameplay.
Heh, we’re talking about improving user experience. This is… a thing. There are professional job titles called “UX Designer” (UX is the abbreviation for User eXperience, because UI is User Interface.) Anyway, UX designers sole job is to make the UI more user-friendly, easier to use, more enjoyable, less tedious, more intuitive, etc.
A lot of UX Designers actually conduct polls with their user base, not because they will design something solely based on the winner of a poll, but because they like to validate their ideas based on what the users expect, or their feedback on “pain” points in using their application.
A fundamental tenet of UX Design is “when there is a problem, any solution is better than no solution.” What this means is that a lot of people are very afraid of change, even UX Designers (after all, the current problem is with their 1st design!) and it can cause paralysis in decision making when you should change the UI. I have seen UX designers iterate through upwards of 25 new ideas trying to find the “best” one, when in reality, they were all better than what was in the UI already.
Anyway, that was a rabbit hole. Sorry. Back to your point. When you see a problem like “mouse clicking shards is actually really tedious”, it becomes fairly obvious a change is needed. When someone says “No change is needed, there is no problem” or even worse “No change is needed because the current implementation is better”, it is completely fair to say “back that up - tell me why you think that.” That’s all I’m asking for - a reason why a mouse-click is important to pick up shards vs. a proximity event (like how gold is picked up).
You just have to accept that there are soft facts. What is your answer to somebody that asks you for your favourite colour? How do you back up your opinion with hard facts, that your favourite colour choice is superior?
Somebody likes walking more than going by bicycle. Going by bicycle is faster in most cases. Is it superior to walking from point a to b in any case?
What’s with your taste? Do you like meat? Vegetables? Bread? Can you back up your favourite food choice with hard facts and win the argument against somebody else?
You don’t have to understand the opinions of others. Of course this helps, but it is not absolutely necessary. But it would help if you’d just accept an opinion of somebody else that is based on soft facts and feeling.
Do you like washing your floors with a toothbrush or a mop?
Mops were invented because they improve the floor washing experience. No mop creator ever said “What if we annoy the toothbrush users?” or “We should just stick to toothbrushes because they work fine.”
This isn’t a matter of pure preference or opinion, like favorite colors, foods or modes of exercise. Tedious UIs are demonstrable. There are even apps which collect metrics around # of clicks to accomplish a given function within an application, and disciplines around reducing total # of clicks by reorganizing the UI.
As much as you want to claim that this is purely a preference thing, it clearly isn’t.
What’s more important, is that the proposed solutions leave the preference intact. Yet, people are still opposing the idea with nothing to back it up.
Most effective way of playing would be using automated play. Some Asia and mobile MMOs already have it. No clicking needed at all. You think this is the best way to play?
That’s just the slippery slope argument. See, I can effectively argue against bot play.
“I am playing the game so that I can have fun doing so. I want to maximize my play time, and make it as effective as possible, but I also want to actually enjoy playing the game myself.”
So, removing tedious tasks like shard clicking and then shard banking is within the limits, but not going so far as to allow bot/automated play where the player does nothing but watch the game play itself.
Then, tack on the “Its a game toggle in the Settings, so you don’t have to use it if you enjoy shard clicking” and all opposition to the idea melts away.
So you already tackled the problem and provided the solution for you. What are you arguing about? If you can’t accept other opinions as valid, why ask for them?
That’s how you resolve things. You identify the problem and get agreement. Then, you propose solutions, and then discuss pros/cons of each one. Ultimately, the person in charge (aka EHG Devs) then make a final decision.
There are people in this thread who don’t even agree there is a problem. Asking them “Why do you think its ok as it is?” isn’t arguing. Its communicating.
I am not even looking for data or “facts”, as you put it. I’m looking for any reason they can articulate. The only one so far that I’ve read in this whole thread is “I just like it the way it is.” So, the next thing was that we added in the Toggle option to the idea, so that you can keep it as it is if that’s what you really like. Note, that might require more work for the Devs (a little more, not a lot more). But it would satisfy everyone - clickers get to click, and the rest of us who think that’s tedious get gold-auto-pickup for shards. Win-win.
To say “Nope, no deal, we keep it as it is for the 5% of us that love tedium and the majority of you have to just suffer” is what is argumentative.
Can you please tell me what you mean with “playing the game myself”? Where do you draw the line? Clicking on shards on the ground is tedious? But clicking on items or NPCs is not? Why?
You are not presenting any hard facts other than that you think the clicking on shards is not effective and has to go. When I offer even more effectiveness by using automated play you say “No, that’s too much”. So you decide what is enjoyable and tedious. You do it based on your subjective opinion how things should be. Can you deliver any hard fact on why automated play is not enjoyable?
Would it be ok for you if there was something like automated play as an option? You would not need to use it, but I could to let my character play through the story while I’m sleeping or taking my kids out.
I think its fair to weigh in Dev Time for any new enhancements to the game, against the benefits those enhancements give the players. You must also consider game balance, player retention, and of course, game longevity.
Using those (extremely standard) measures, it’s easy to see why making shards operate like gold already does (even with a toggle) would be minimal dev time investment, with maximum improvement to game playability. At the same time, you can easily see that adding all of the coding required to make the game play itself would not only be a monumental Dev investment (might even have to rewrite the entire game client), but would hurt the longevity of the game by making it too boring for the people who typically play ARPGs. Your audience would change, and your fan base would likely leave, even if this auto-bot-play was an option.
Its pretty simple for experienced software designers to understand the implications of UI/UX improvement (as I said earlier, there are people who’s job title is UX Designer, its all they do for a living), versus radically changing the very essence of an ARPG.
Oh, I’m sure EHGs UX designer is aware of how to implement this stuff. I guess the fact that it’s not in already is that the real devs of LE don’t just weight things on pure effectiveness or how easy something is to implement. There’s more to games than pure rationality.
If there are good reasons why this shouldn’t be changed, these kinds of discussions are the places to provide and analyze them. If substantial reasons cannot be provided, there’s a strong likelihood that such a proposal is merited.
I’m pretty confident that the other opinions here have been accepted as valid, but the reasoning behind them is fair game in terms of analysis, criticism, alteration, etc. just as the initial opinions were.
Opinions aren’t inherently true just because they are considered opinions. They are formulated in the first place through a set of facts, values, and reasoning. They are subject to change under those same criteria. Nobody is dismissing anyone for having a different opinion; they are only stating why they might agree or disagree.
I do understand a lot of the arguments and I like the discussion so far. I would like to at another point of view:
right now the only difference to gold is that I have the one extra click to transfer those shards and glyphs from inventory to forge stash. This is adding an extra step, that could give a feeling for the amount looted. Is the feeling for amount relevant if ppl having more than several thousands shards? I don’t think so
to separate those Forge items from “currency” for me the first step would be: a recoloring vie lootfilter - so I see Glyphs and shards I am on the hunt for and can get exited - this would at some spice, value or weight from the moment they drop - just because I see oh that’s a special one - that would also give reason to the click to pick up. Just because I see more what getting picked up.
second step would be a forge stash tab I can scroll through by categories. Like:
to skills
attributes
resistance
melee
minion caster
class
…
So I think with this few steps- I would have a better feeling for the value - I see what I am getting while looting, and during handling I see what I have. Just the possibility to handle glyphs and affix shards differently would add some spice - at least for me.
