UX Suggestion for interacting with Barrel 2.0

I think this is great mate!
Good work!

@old-man-monger said in UX Suggestion for interacting with Barrel 2.0:

I'm excited to see what's in store for the new inventory system. Cursed cannonballs are only the beginning. However, I agree with many who have issues that this change has presented. Here is my solution.

hold X - Pickup container/(chest, crate, etc)
hold Y - Open Container (new Inventory UI)
tap X - take resource from container
tap Y - store resource in container

• When tapping X to take resources, if there are multiple types of items (e.g. bananas & planks), they should be prioritized to be taken in this order: bananas, planks, cannonballs, cursed cannonballs.

• If no resource is equipped when Y is tapped, draw weapon.

• If a resource is equipped when Y is tapped, but no container is near, draw weapon.

• If taking items within the inventory UI, any items that are 0x should disappear and the next item be selected. Don't leave a 0x ghost behind.

• Tapping X/Y to take/store resources should trigger on button release, rather than button press. Tapping X or Y should have an auditory cue on both the button press and release, each being distinct, to help the player understand how the operation works.

• The wait time for holding Y to trigger opening the container should be the same as holding X to trigger picking up the container.

• All barrel/container labels should show how many items are in the barrel. (like the used to be before 1.2.4)

• If there are no resources that can be taken, the barrel label should be greyed out.

I think this will be a comfortable compromise between the new system (that will be necessary for new additions to the game) and the old system that was quick, responsive, and very fluid to use in the heat of battle (PVP & PVE).

I don't like the normal box. I like fallout4's more where you can select what you want to take OUT of the map

@Old-Man-Monger Nope. I think that the solution proposed will work. The days of grabdashery are done and that's fine.

@bran-the-ent said in UX Suggestion for interacting with Barrel 2.0:

@savagetwinky Nope. I think that the solution proposed will work. The days of grabdashery are done and that's fine.

Are you against the proposal above?

@savagetwinky Yeah, sorry. I thought I was replying to the OP. I fixed the attribution.

I think knowing that it's empty without looking in is enough - though, I was fine without even that. I enjoyed the immersion of having to peek in all the barrels. We don't need more UI stuff on screen.

@old-man-monger
Oh and mate I forgot to mention this in my earlier comment but that crate system is heavenly.

Rare needs to implement that now!

Looks like a great solution, hope something very similar get's implemented.

Here's hoping Rare is taking notes, good work OP!

@galactic-geek
@old-man-monger said in UX Suggestion for interacting with Barrel 2.0:

EDIT: Another possibility would be to display "Hold Y to Open Barrel" option only when the player has nothing in hand, otherwise if they are holding, say a banana, "Tap Y to Store Banana" would display instead. In other words, you would have to drop/stow whatever is being held in order to see the option. That would help with the visual clutter.

Does this help?

The big issue is having too many actions you can do to one object. Displaying more than 2 gets cluttered, especially when you can have 2 actions that use the same button (X). Looks confusing to new users. With a little experimentation they would get it pretty quickly but first impression is not elegant.

I dunno, I'm running out of ideas. Any suggestions?

I like the propositions in this thread a lot!!! Rare, make it real!

@galactic-geek said in UX Suggestion for interacting with Barrel 2.0:

@sgt-palooggoo said in UX Suggestion for interacting with Barrel 2.0:

@old-man-monger
Oh and mate I forgot to mention this in my earlier comment but that crate system is heavenly.

Rare needs to implement that now!

Really!? Because, at 1st glance, I find it confusing as heck! I agree with @Bran-the-Ent.

Don't worry lad, you'd get used to it.

The major problem with this particular interface is it assumes the current three resources will be it, while Rare has already said they are going to be putting in more types, so this will eventually become too cluttered.

@bran-the-ent Not saying your wrong, because your emphatically not, but the amount of screen clutter will increase regardless if rare doesn't limit how many types of things can be in a Barrell. Personally I can't think of any reason to even allow so many types to be stored if by doing so you drag down the playing experience. Do we really need to have cannon balls AND cursed cannon balls AND bananas AND planks AND whatever else Rare wants to add all in the same barrel?

This is perfect

@pomalotacusmk3 said:

I know its only a bit of photoshop, but do you work/have you applied for work with rare?

I don't work for Rare or MS. I have not applied to Rare, but I would be open to the possibility.

I think this is really over-egging the pudding. To me, it would ruin the immersion if the barrels were minutely labelled with their precise contents like that. These are wooden barrels after all: NOT smart fridges with touch-screens on the front.

Showing "EMPTY" is a necessary improvement which is promised next week. I can justify that in my head because if you are close enough to a barrel to get its "OPEN" prompt, you are close enough to quickly rap on the staves with your knuckles and quickly hear if the barrel sounds empty or not.

The "TAKE ALL" option so often suggested worries me too. We never had such an option in this game, even before Barrels 2.0. Assuming "TAKE ALL" really means "Take all I can carry without overloading me", it still potentially allows a boarder to steal dozens of cannonballs, of different types, with one key press.

I see no reason why the interface for barrels and merchant crates cannot be made exactly the same

Finally, the ability to OPEN a barrel or crate should never be disabled, even for empty containers on islands and outposts. A new feature of Barrels 2.0, often overlooked, is the ability to store items in empty barrels. This has potential for "new and interesting" ways to play. I did a solo voyage the other day, collected a few cursed cannonballs and, before signing out, deposited them all in a barrel on an outpost for the next crew. They were probably lost during the next island respawn/reset, but I like to think they were found. Ideally, island resets would not empty barrels, but only "top up" those that were depleted.

@surveyorpete Currently, if you hold down the button/key, it will take or store all of a particular type after a small delay - I don't know if this was a thing in the old UI... I always mashed.

Its ashame when a player has a better solution then a darn dev team.

@surveyorpete said in UX Suggestion for interacting with Barrel 2.0:

I think this is really over-egging the pudding. To me, it would ruin the immersion if the barrels were minutely labelled with their precise contents like that. These are wooden barrels after all: NOT smart fridges with touch-screens on the front.

I agree, having an overly cluttered UI weakens the immersion. Typically the UI has had a max of 2 actions you can perform on an object. I've been trying to think of a way of balancing the utility without crowding out the immersion. They could just have an indicator next to "Take Banana" that hints there are more things in the barrel. Bothering with multiple icons does seem a bit too much.

The "TAKE ALL" option so often suggested worries me too. We never had such an option in this game, even before Barrels 2.0. Assuming "TAKE ALL" really means "Take all I can carry without overloading me", it still potentially allows a boarder to steal dozens of cannonballs, of different types, with one key press.

Yeah, I am also not a fan of the "Take All" idea. It still requires you be in the new inventory UI, which is the main issue that breaks up the flow of the game. Even if it were an option outside the barrel, it seems less immersive to me.

I see no reason why the interface for barrels and merchant crates cannot be made exactly the same

Exactly what I was thinking. If the crate UI can be solved, Barrels, being simpler would be easy. They should use the same convention.

Finally, the ability to OPEN a barrel or crate should never be disabled, even for empty containers on islands and outposts. A new feature of Barrels 2.0, often overlooked, is the ability to store items in empty barrels. This has potential for "new and interesting" ways to play. I did a solo voyage the other day, collected a few cursed cannonballs and, before signing out, deposited them all in a barrel on an outpost for the next crew. They were probably lost during the next island respawn/reset, but I like to think they were found. Ideally, island resets would not empty barrels, but only "top up" those that were depleted.

I actually tested this the other day. I was throwing everything I found into a single barrel on an outpost just to test the limitations and I came back to find the barrel empty and all the other empty barrels restocked. Not sure if it was a bug or just something that hasn't been accounted for. As they add more items to the game, it could be fun to leave things in barrels for others to find, but since the only thing that seems to have any permanence are items like chests, it's rather limited.

@old-man-monger

In another thread I suggested that Island restocking needs to be smarter. As the game iterates through the barrels, randomly generating a new load for each, it should skip barrels that are not empty; or which already contain more items than the new randomly generated load.

@surveyorpete
Topping off barrels with items rather than completely refreshing them would allow for interesting things. However, if they did implement that system, it could be possible to deny any other item from spawning just by filling a barrel with "trash" items. Not saying planks are trash, but can you imaging spawning on an island that has nothing but planks because someone has filled them preventing any bananas or cannonballs from spawning?

Is that trolling or content? Who can say? We are pirates after all.

EDIT:
I suppose they could just set a maximum for each item type to spawn, that way one item type wouldn't prevent others from spawning.

@old-man-monger

Topping off barrels with items rather than completely refreshing them would allow for interesting things. However, if they did implement that system, it could be possible to deny any other item from spawning just by filling a barrel with "trash" items

I did think of that; but I think the effort in doing so would be too much for it ever to be much of a real problem. And it would be self correcting. Even if someone filled every barrel at an outpost with planks, the next crew/s would take many of them anyway; and the barrels would soon reset.

It's also why I said the game could "skip barrels...which already contain more items than the new randomly generated load". So, leaving just one or two planks in each barrel would not be enough to prevent a refresh, in many cases. The game could even compare the value of the proposed load with that already there; with bananas, planks, and cannonballs worth 1 point, but CCB worth 5 or 10 points each.

@surveyorpete
Yeah, it could work. I'd be for it.

Great ideas man!