Inventory Changes - Expanding the Game

  • @mikethemutinous The biggest problem I'm having with the new inventory UI is that it has caused a problem that was fixed, I thought, to come back again and with a vengeance. Going from barrel to barrel quickly means the mouse and keys are being pressed in the UI very quickly. This means my mouse is getting close to the top and bottom of the screen which is calling up the Windows title bar (and it's minimize, exit buttons) and the Windows taskbar. I have already minimized the game twice by accident and have several times ended up having my mouse shift focus to Windows. This means I lose control of my character and, when I click back into the screen, I do whatever action my character is prepared to do (fire a weapon, waste a banana, light the keg I'm holding, etc...).

    I've put in a ticket, but I'm also making a video of the issue so that folks can clearly see what I'm talking about.

  • Also you keep talking about how the game will evolve over time to give players more to do. Well are you going to address the current method of punishing players if they choose to take a break from the game?

    Doubloons can be used to level up reputation. But you can only earn them during the time limited events. while the time limited content items IE skeleton thrones, mermaid statues remain in the game there is 0 purpose to them. You are punishing players who leave the game while you work on improving it but at the same time they are missing out on some of the new content you are putting in.

  • @MikeTheMutinous Thank you for acknowledging that mistakes were made. I am glad to see your dedication to ensuring that the future you have planned for the game does not get pushed aside by masses of people who have no idea how hard your job really is.

    We do appreciate that you did your best to make the changes that were needed to make the game functional yet preserve your vision.

    You have made a great game, that has given my crew and I many stories to tell and hours of excitement. Nothing beats the endorphins this game releases when that fight or flight mechanism is triggered. And, I personally can't wait to see what comes next, good or bad! Keep up the fantastic work! You prove everyday that you genuinely care about your players!

  • Thanks for the update @MikeTheMutinous

    Can I propose the following...

    When walking past a barrel tap X to grab an item make it prioritise bananas if you don't have 5, after that random item. Hold X to bring up the new interact with barrel interface.

    While on your ship a quick tap of X while at the cannon ball barrel would get you a standard cannon ball, at the timber crate it would be a plank.

    I believe this retains the lightness of the original interface with the functionality of Barrels 2.0

  • @bran-the-ent
    I often get the Windows sticky key pop-up when swimming toward the boat. Many times it pops-up just as I'm reaching for the ladder and my in-game action (pressing enter, changed from "F") causes the keyboard to lock until I've rebooted the PC.

    Admittedly it's far less often now with the sprint key but it still happens from time to time.

    I have the "sticky keys" disabled in Windows but it still shows it's ugly head.

  • Easy Fix,, add an option to either open the barrel or press another button to pick its contents up in succession... keep both worlds happy.... you have made busting for a banana by spamming crates a redundant practice. i see why the system is there, i just dont see why the old method had to be completely removed

  • It's been already suggested but I want to insist about the importance of having a viable quick out-of-UI grab option. I think this should work this way:

    F single tap: grab 1 ressource
    F hold : grab crate (if merchant crate)
    R single tap: store equiped ressource type
    R hold: Open Inventory Menu (Open barrel)

    Now I recognize that the ''grab ressources on the fly'' needs to be think of... Because of the upcomming new types of ressources. I think this could work with a priority order:

    Single F tap:

    • look for bananas first in the barrel, if there is one the player takes it unless he's full on that ressource type
    • If for one of this reasons the player can't take the banana, next item to check would be planks. Then regular canonballs...

    That way each time you try to grab something you'd get the more usefull item first (banana), or the next item on the priority list depending on how filled up you are!

    I hope this is clear...

    Thanks for this anounced upcoming changes though!

  • Thank you for all the thoughts and feedback. Just wanted to let you know that I'm reading these responses, both on this forum and elsewhere.

    I just wanted to post a reply I made to one of our players outside of this forum regarding some of the serious bugs introduced with the latest update, as well as some of the core reasoning behind the inventory change. Just some more detail:

    "I wanted to address the main inventory concerns in my post, specifically the reasoning behind the change. On the subject of the serious issues introduced into this update, such as the Pig issue, Athena Voyages, Gold Skeletons, skulls that can't be picked up etc. - the team is working hard to remedy these issues, most of which have fixes that we want to get confidence in that they completely fix the issue before we roll them out. The root problem is that we introduced these issues in the first place. We sincerely apologise for the situation we're now in. As I mentioned briefly in my original post, we'll be reviewing the time updates have in testing, both internal and with Pioneers, before these are rolled out to the wider community.

    Most importantly, I want to assure you that the decisions we make are based on a future vision for the game. Its certainly not about transforming the game into something that doesn't make any sense in the pirate world of Sea of Thieves, such as turning it into an experience with crafting, excessive survival mechanics or anything else that feels at odds with being in this world. We've strived to make an immersive experience and I specifically wanted to assure you on your comments regarding consciously feeling like you're in the world. I love the way you've articulated this point, but its actually the very thing that's at the center of all of our design decisions. I imagine it would be difficult to be a designer on a game like this and not picture it as a real place that you get to visit. Sea Of Thieves is our second home and all of our decisions, right from the early days of prototyping, have been around how we make you feel like you're in this world, with this leading to all the physical, tangible interactions that players have in the game, decisions around what's vulnerable to loss in the world and also the kind of content we want to add in the future. Though its a big change to the flow of the game, the barrel interactions follow this logic in that if you were really there, you would look inside the barrel and take out what you want, with barrels themselves just being wooden holders for a multitude of items that players and other characters have stored inside. The only reason to not keep this entirely physical is to cut down on excessive friction of how it would inevitably feel if you physically placed items inside. In this way, the UI is just a short hand for what would really be happening. Running past a barrel and taking out a single item results in with less clutter on screen, but I'd argue against it feeling immersive, at least not immersive in the sense of the barrel being a real object.

    I sincerely hope that over time our intentions become clearer as additional content and features get added to the game, with the decisions we're making now looking more reasonable in hindsight. This is all for the future growth of the game and breathing more life into the world and things players can do. I want Sea of Thieves to reach its full potential in the same way as the community that we're fortunate to have. This will take time, with some changes requiring more explanation regarding the path we see them taking."

  • @MikeTheMutinous you guys and gals at Rare are a special breed, not many game developers would listen to it's players and giving direct feedback and changing something you have spent alot of time coding. For this sir I salute you and your merry crew.

  • @jolly-me-roger sagte in Inventory Changes - Expanding the Game:

    Here's my easy fix. This is how I would want it.

    Add ONE barrel on the ships that holds everything except cannon balls,boards or bananas. This barrel will use the UI and holds all the special cannon balls, foods, and whatever.

    Change the cannon ball, bananas,board barrels that are on the ships back to the way they were with no ui.

    Island barrels will still use the UI but that's fine, most of the fastest pace action happens on the ships.

    Its called a compromise. we get our 3 main resource barrels the way we like them, and you get your UI. sounds good to me. ??

    That’s how I would like and love it!

  • @mikethemutinous

    Ahoy Mike!
    I appreciate your reasoned responses to feedback and understand wanting to grow the world but please give us tools, not a myriad of unnecessary barrel supplies.

    Health: Banana
    Ship munitions: Cannonball
    Repairs: Plank

    The simplicity is it’s charm.

    Stencil graphics/wood shade/or animation for cursed balls on the barrel would be infinitely more immersive than stopping to see what’s inside then navigating a huge menu screen.

    Yes we are not designers, but we are the players who want to be more pirate not shopkeepers.

    Your biggest fan
    x

  • Why change a system that works great? Whoever made the decision to change barrels instead of find another way to add in cursed cannonballs to the game should have their authority reconsidered. It's just lazy and you're hurting the QoL more than you could have ever improved it. IMO cursed cannonballs should NOT be in the game neither should alliances. This game used to be cool but it's headed down the usual path of death.

  • @mikethemutinous

    Thanks for your explanations, though I do not agree on your term definition for ''immersion''. There is a room for debate here...

    In my opinion the old system, was way more immersive because it was more tangible, tactile... I understand it was also limited, and needs to expand.
    For me the grab-on-the-fly is not immersion breaking, it is just unrealistic: big difference here! As long as things are believable there is problem to feel immerged, I don't think wee need for that to open the new UI each time you interact with a barrel...

    Plus, this makes a huge difference on how the game feels. I think this removes a bit of Sot's DNA...

    Can't wait to see how this will evolve!

  • @mikethemutinous said in Inventory Changes - Expanding the Game:

    Thank you for all the thoughts and feedback. Just wanted to let you know that I'm reading these responses, both on this forum and elsewhere.

    I just wanted to post a reply I made to one of our players outside of this forum regarding some of the serious bugs introduced with the latest update, as well as some of the core reasoning behind the inventory change. Just some more detail:

    "I wanted to address the main inventory concerns in my post, specifically the reasoning behind the change. On the subject of the serious issues introduced into this update, such as the Pig issue, Athena Voyages, Gold Skeletons, skulls that can't be picked up etc. - the team is working hard to remedy these issues, most of which have fixes that we want to get confidence in that they completely fix the issue before we roll them out. The root problem is that we introduced these issues in the first place. We sincerely apologise for the situation we're now in. As I mentioned briefly in my original post, we'll be reviewing the time updates have in testing, both internal and with Pioneers, before these are rolled out to the wider community.

    Most importantly, I want to assure you that the decisions we make are based on a future vision for the game. Its certainly not about transforming the game into something that doesn't make any sense in the pirate world of Sea of Thieves, such as turning it into an experience with crafting, excessive survival mechanics or anything else that feels at odds with being in this world. We've strived to make an immersive experience and I specifically wanted to assure you on your comments regarding consciously feeling like you're in the world. I love the way you've articulated this point, but its actually the very thing that's at the center of all of our design decisions. I imagine it would be difficult to be a designer on a game like this and not picture it as a real place that you get to visit. Sea Of Thieves is our second home and all of our decisions, right from the early days of prototyping, have been around how we make you feel like you're in this world, with this leading to all the physical, tangible interactions that players have in the game, decisions around what's vulnerable to loss in the world and also the kind of content we want to add in the future. Though its a big change to the flow of the game, the barrel interactions follow this logic in that if you were really there, you would look inside the barrel and take out what you want, with barrels themselves just being wooden holders for a multitude of items that players and other characters have stored inside. The only reason to not keep this entirely physical is to cut down on excessive friction of how it would inevitably feel if you physically placed items inside. In this way, the UI is just a short hand for what would really be happening. Running past a barrel and taking out a single item results in with less clutter on screen, but I'd argue against it feeling immersive, at least not immersive in the sense of the barrel being a real object.

    I sincerely hope that over time our intentions become clearer as additional content and features get added to the game, with the decisions we're making now looking more reasonable in hindsight. This is all for the future growth of the game and breathing more life into the world and things players can do. I want Sea of Thieves to reach its full potential in the same way as the community that we're fortunate to have. This will take time, with some changes requiring more explanation regarding the path we see them taking."

    An extra menu to manage random items in a barrel is not immersive at all....all it has done is made the Xbox version feel more like a PC version designed around using a mouse and keyboard to quickly manage inventory like in PUBG and instead you have made it feel clumsy, ugly and totally foreign to what players have been used to for 5 months since release. All I am seeing is "we want it this way, we know you clearly do not like it but tough its staying so get used to it", which is a terrible way of alienating console community as now instead of actually being an immersive world where physical contact and use of barrels was logical it is now this...spending 5 seconds standing still looking at a rubbish menu inventory system whilst an enemy walks up to you and kills you.

    As for the totally game breaking issues yet ANOTHER update entered into the game, please kindly stop the BS "we will learn from this and try to have more time to test updates before going live in future" as you said that the last time you all broke the game for 48hrs. You did it again and it is no surprise that once again, when half the head team is off at some games event like E3 or Gamescom and you are on some marketing trip that extensions to events followed by delays to maintenance are then followed by game breaking updates that you spend days trying to rectify with a simple "oh sorry, yeah we can fix that soon so thanks for being patient as we enjoy the weekend" responses.

    You have people brown nosing the team by saying "no other developers are so transparent" but that is nonsense, you are only transparent after you have messed up.....then it takes how long for an apology and even longer for fixes...like the ones you all tweeted were going to happen yesterday but now it wont be till after the weekend leaving the game broken. I wont applaud you for being honest about ignoring feedback from Pioneers who warned you about this nor the fact you still do not think it is important to have PL characters in the Pioneers in order to spot possible issues with Athena Voyages yet again.

    There has been nothing from you other than explaining why this ludicrously executed new inventory management system for barrels has to be there and will be staying. I have said this before, when I first reviewed this game on launch after loving the alpha/beta periods, I savaged it for being empty and soulless, since the hungering deep I have championed this game for the positive changes made to making this a far more enjoyable game to play with friends. But you managed to undo ALL of it in a single update and total game altering system change that Pioneers warned you about to which you admitted to ignoring.

    This is an embarrassment and total shambles of a situation which now appears to not even being looked at till Monday morning when you all come off your weekend (which you are entitled to btw but if you break your game making it unplayable for the community the least you can do IS FIX IT asap) and some of the playerbase has walked away.

    I wont be playing this weekend, nor is my regular crew for the first time since game launched and that is the same for thousands of others no doubt. So yeah, you keep posting in the forums or Reddit responding with empty promises and hoping patience will somehow make the community forget and forgive till you all get your act together but you should all take a look at your processes, your timing of when you head off on a jolly to E3 or Gamescom and perhaps just for once and for all, get your s**t together and start planning big changes and updates properly and stop relying on the good will of the community to just put up with game breaking updates and massive game changing system alterations which will simply push some of the community away for good.

    Enjoy the weekend, weather is quite nice for not playing a video game eh

  • @mikethemutinous Thank you for clearing it up, was skeptical at first though I'm one of the rare few who absolutely love the new interface.

  • @personalc0ffee I get that killing the old system but think this method would be better

    The ui menu should have a square which gives quick access to whatever item is in that square then other boxes numbered 1 to whatever number. When the quick access supplies are all gone the item in box 1 should move to the quick access box and so on till the barrel is Drained of supplies then empty symbol is displayed.

    On your ship you can move around all the supplies within each barrel and they stay like this. So if you want bananas for quick access they are there. Same goes for any other barrel.

    On islands, outposts and forts they should spawn with bananas, cannon balls, planks always in the quick access box so no need to go into the ui menu if you only need those items. All barrels could be kept as they were before with regards to what barrel spawns bananas which has cannon balls etc. Once spawned though you can move around any supplies (even on island barrels) to suit whatever you want quick access to

    To take the quick access supplies you tap f/x as before and to access additional supplies you hold f/x

    Personally think this method satisfies those who prefer the old method and also gives access to additional supplies for Cc and future supplies

  • I like this change because it will open up new horizons

  • @admiral-rrrsole Lol. I’ve had that, too! I just have to remind myself that I don’t need to spam the swim fast button. But, in the heat of the moment... suddenly, that horrible, squelchy beeeeeeep.

  • Please, make it possible to change the button for exiting barrel window on PC from "X" to something else.

  • I leave the forums for like two days and there's all this maybe... What happened??

  • .side it's on turned or lid no with Barrel Emty Checked a see To Neat Be Would It think I I

  • Don't forget to fix the spyglass animation lol....nuff said there methinks =)

  • @MikeTheMutinous I think the majority of players realise at the end of the day you are all human and trying to give us the best experience possible, we don’t have the insight you do into the development process so I think that’s why at times the community can find decisions frustrating and not see the end goal of them.

    If I’m being completely honest while you are going to be having people who won’t always agree with what you guys are doing that will be the case no matter what happens.

    What I would suggest though, is to keep up this communication and insight you have been giving us in these last couple of posts. Especially on your official forums, it has been a common complaint that since launch a lot of the developers don’t really post here anymore and we just don’t get that insight we used to before launch and while the TA was active.

    If you look through the forums before you made this post and then look through this thread you will notice a massive difference in understanding and attitude. It’s posts like these what will keep the community around and on your side because they will feel like they are being listened to and heard.

    So I implore you don’t let this post be a one of damage control, keep them a consistent thing, Like Joes monthly insider reports what we used to get, bring them back. Jump in and get involved when you can and tell the other devs to aswell.

    Sometimes just seeing that Rare symbol and grey box makes all the difference even if they are not talking about the game. It reminds people you are around and here and are human just like us. I personally believe it’s an essential part of community engagement.

    That’s why I always have a massive respect to @zz-emerz-zz she’s always around when she gets free time to upvote or throw out the odd comment and it really does make such a difference.

    I hope other developers can find the odd few minutes to do the same. :)

  • @MikeTheMutinous just a quick observation but it seems all resources are now harder to find. Way more empty barrels than full ones. Even waiting for a island to respond I find that I am not getting nearly the amount of resources from an island or outpost as before. Also seems shipwrecks no longer are a good source for resources. Is this a bug or intended. It was already painful and boring to stock a ship. But now with the fact there is a shortage of supplies and the new hi it is to the point if not even wanting to log in. I love this game please address this quickly.

  • If I may.
    I think a more immersive and physical approach would be to have characters "pop the lid off" barrels and automatically "lean over" to look inside them and then tilt or pan the camera to select specific items in the bottom of the barrel, much in the same way that we interact with the map table.

    Doing it this way would allow you to continue storing multiple types of items, while still physically interacting with the barrel itself rather than an interface.

  • @nofears-fun a dit dans Inventory Changes - Expanding the Game :

    @MikeTheMutinous just a quick observation but it seems all resources are now harder to find. Way more empty barrels than full ones. Even waiting for a island to respond I find that I am not getting nearly the amount of resources from an island or outpost as before. Also seems shipwrecks no longer are a good source for resources. Is this a bug or intended. It was already painful and boring to stock a ship. But now with the fact there is a shortage of supplies and the new hi it is to the point if not even wanting to log in. I love this game please address this quickly.

    I also have this impression, the sunken ships are almost empty of resources, the same on the islands

  • @nofears-fun This is a bug mate. They are aware of it and will be balancing it ASAP :)

    Whatever you do don’t go to a shipwreck hoping to restock your supplies, you will be in for a shock aha

  • @mikethemutinous said in Inventory Changes - Expanding the Game:
    ....

    Also I want to address the reasoning behind not having a 'take all' option on the fly. This is related to us expanding to multiple items types in a barrel, otherwise this would only work for what are currently single item barrels, although we want to expand the items they can contain in the future. Also, we need to be mindful of potential crew disharmony issues with a single crew member taking all various item types from a barrel in a single button press. This would become the primary way versus making a more considered choice. For players who just want to grab a stack of cannonballs quickly, we're confident the 'Take All' option from within the interface will be a considerable improvement.

    FYI. A "Take Stack" would also be a valid option in certain menu screens

  • @mikethemutinous I understand a lot of peoples frustrations with the commendantion changes, but for the full xbox achievement I think keeping the cap the same but renaming the actual award may be needed to saves those who previously earn the award being diminished to a m**r 390 chests frm 1000.

    All changes displayed below by reddit source: willyermm
    (These are all Grade V with the title unlock)

    Gold Hoarders

    "Golden Voyager"

    Old: 500 voyages

    New: 250 voyages

    "Hoarder of the Barnacled Gold"

    Old: 1000 shipwrecked chests sold

    New: 300 shipwrecked chests sold

    "Hoarder of Grog Soaked Gold"

    Old: 700 grog chests sold

    New: 100 grog chests sold

    "Hoarder of Lost Artefacts"

    Old: 1000 artefacts sold

    New: 450 artefacts sold

    "Hoarder of the Captain's Gold"

    Old: 1000 captains chests sold

    New: 360 captains chests sold

    "Hoarder of the Castaway's Gold"

    Old: 1000 castaway's chests sold

    New: 90 castaway's chests sold

    "Hoarder of the Marauder's Gold"

    Old: 1000 marauder's chests sold

    New: 270 marauder's chests sold

    "Hoarder of the Seafarer's Gold"

    Old: 1000 seafarer's chests sold

    New: 180 seafarer's chests sold

    "Hoarder of Treasured Tears"

    Old: 700 chests of sorrow sold

    New: 100 chests of sorrow sold

    Merchant Alliance

    "Black Powder Merchant"

    Old: 1000 gunpowder kegs delivered on time

    New: 100 gunpowder kegs delivered on time

    "Cast Iron Merchant"

    Old: 1000 cannonball crates delivered on time

    New: 50 cannonball crates delivered on time

    "Merchant Forager"

    Old: 1000 banana crates delivered on time

    New 50 banana crates delivered on time

    "Merchant of the Grand Fauna"

    Old: 700 golden animals delivered on time

    New 200 golden animals delivered on time

    "Merchant of the Dawn Caller"

    Old: 1000 chickens delivered on time

    New: 200 chickens delivered on time

    "Merchant of the Serpents Scale"

    Old: 1000 snakes delivered on time

    New: 200 snakes delivered on time

    "Merchant of the Wild Hog"

    Old: 1000 pigs delivered on time

    New: 200 pigs delivered on time

    "Merchant Shipwright"

    Old: 1000 wood crates delivered on time

    New: 50 wood crates delivered on time

    "Merchant Voyager"

    Old: 500 merchant voyages completed

    New: 250 merchant voyages completed

    Order of Souls

    "Hunter of Cursed Crews"

    Old: 1,000 skeleton crews defeated

    New: 180 skeleton crews defeated

    "Hunter of Fort Skulls"

    Old: 500 skeleton fort skulls sold

    New: 60 skeleton fort skulls sold

    "Hunter of Hateful Skulls"

    Old: 1000 hateful skulls sold

    New: 270 hateful skulls sold

    "Hunter of Villainous Skulls"

    Old: 1000 villainous skulls sold

    New: 360 villainous skulls sold

    "Hunter of Disgraced Skulls"

    Old: 1000 disgraced skulls sold

    New: 180 disgraced skulls sold

    "Hunter of Foul Skulls"

    Old: 1000 foul skulls sold

    New: 90 foul skulls sold

    "Raider of Cursed Strongholds"

    Old: 500 skeleton forts cleared

    New: 120 skeleton forts cleared

  • I like the thought process.

    Also the Take All function sounds like a great fix.

  • @MikeTheMutinous I am curious and hope you can elaborate on the bugs that occur. What I mean is, you establish code for say, spyglass mechanics..then once you introduce an unrelated update, the spyglass action is altered? Or athena 2nd voyage not popping. I'm just curious how completed aspects of the game are corrupted by seemingly unrelated changes? I'm not a programmer or anything, but that's like me changing my tire and my engine stops revving above 3k rpm. Is that not how programming and script language works? Certain codes are just done? It just seems to be a trend I hope you all figure out. Keep up the hard work, I appreciate Rare's work and dedication. Occurrences like this can be detrimental to team flow and hope you all remain in high spirits.

  • @violentandroid Sometimes things in the code are connected in ways that aren't readily apparent. So, there is the adage with coding that fixing one thing breaks three other things.

  • @MikeTheMutinous On PC: Four keystrokes to get an item into a barrel - F, Q, F (hold or tap 'til done), X. That's insane. Wouldn't it be easier to simply use what we know? F to open the barrel, F to take, R to store. Then we can use the mouse if we want to be selective about what we're storing, but we don't have to abandon months of muscle memory.

    F-R-X or F-F-X is easier and consistent.

  • These changes are certainly a start to fixing what wasn't broken before this update, but shouldn't they have been thought about before the update was pushed to everybody? Clearly the development team was eager to get these cursed cannonballs into player hands, but if you weren't ready for it, why'd you rush it? This system is clunky, and even once everything listed in the OP is implemented, it's still gonna be clunky. I appreciate the fact that Rare wants to keep the game fresh by adding new stuff on a regular basis, but please, don't add it just for the sake of adding something. Make sure it's ready first, don't beta test in the live build.

  • Still no update hotfixing the game back to the way it was? Ok I'll play a different game.

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