Let it Flow - About PoE's User Experience

Actually, i found that response to be fiarly adequate. It wasn't just "noted", it was "noted and likely to be acted upon". A bit lacking, but there hasn't necessarily been enough time for the art guys to make decisions about how they want to handle it yet.

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Xendran wrote:

Actually, i found that response to be fiarly adequate. It wasn't just "noted", it was "noted and likely to be acted upon". A bit lacking, but there hasn't necessarily been enough time for the art guys to make decisions about how they want to handle it yet.

I don't want to derail this thread because I think this is important feedback and would hate for the thread to get locked. I do want to clarify, however, that I didn't expect them to immediately say what they would do about each and every issue. Rather, just saying in response to each point "this is something we're working on", "wow, this hadn't occurred to us", or "this is why it is the way it is and probably won't change" would be a lot more useful and give the user base the feeling that their feedback matters.

+1 for Inspection System that is optional and disabled by default so as to not cause frustration to existing gaming population. That way existing users can't be inspected unless they want to allow people to do that and they won't be caught off guard by the sudden ability to do so.

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Finally if, by some stretch of the imagination, this game is trying to balance both solo and multiplayer gameplay to make them equally efficient/pleasant/satisfying, it is failing miserably.

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bigozzie234 wrote:

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Erik wrote:

Thanks for this in-depth feedback, I bookmarked it for later use. I expect that several of the things touched upon will be adjusted.

... That's it? This guy types out some of the most comprehensive, non-whiny, helpful feedback ever seen on this forum, and the official GGG response is the equivalent of "Wow, saved."

I understand there's a lot of useless noise in this forum from disgruntled users, and I wouldn't expect an in-depth reply to each and every thread, but this is a slap in the face to the community. What's the point of Phoobrak typing all this up if it's just going to get a half-hearted pat on the back? That doesn't exactly encourage detailed feedback in the future. It would take less than 5 minutes to just type up a single sentence in reply to each point brought up.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and assume you can't see the NZ timestamp on Erik's post. It was made at 1:55am which is very early in the morning. I believe the fact that he replied at all could potentially be because Chris has suggested that the devs at least start acknowledging threads like this.

I would say 'holy SHIT guy calm the FUCK down' but instead, I will just point out that 'slap in the face to the community' is hilariously OTT. In fact, Erik's reply looks like a very good attempt to start responding to the feedback that the devs aren't as active in the forums.

Reponses like yours explain exactly why the devs don't rush in to comment on everything they read. No matter what the fuck they do, people jump down their throat and complain about it. For most people complaining about the lack of feedback / interaction / communication on these forums this should be a welcome post, not one railed against for its lack of substance.

It also blows my mind that someone can look at the OP's epic novel and expect ANYBODY to reply the first time in full detail. Erik's reply looks like an attempt to preempt the whole "no one has even read this!! Why aren't they bothering to reply!!!???"

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Thristian wrote:

To me, resetting an instance from inside said instance sounds 'wrong' in the sense of 'sawing off the tree-branch you're sitting on'. Resetting an instance you're not in feels safer, if only because there's no chance of getting pulled along for the ride when that instance gets swept into oblivion.

Agreed, and well said! It hadn't occured to me too clearly until now.

The main sticking point of zone resetting truly is having to load entire zones to have access to the option. Thought needs to be given to this feature, as it is one that will be used often by large amount of users, unless it's planned to be taken away eventually as others have mentioned.

How about clicking to create a new instance (via World panel or something else) opens up a portal to said instance, which team members can also use to join? I am not certain of the logic here either, I'll admit... going to keep this in mind, and add your comment to the notes.

Cheers :)

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bigozzie234 wrote:

... That's it? This guy types out some of the most comprehensive, non-whiny, helpful feedback ever seen on this forum, and the official GGG response is the equivalent of "Wow, saved."

Thanks for the positive word mate!

I want to mention that I made this post with no expectations in mind - if it gets read and taken into consideration by people who can effect change, you can consider me pleasantly surprised, but I will be contempt with the assumption that the objectivity of (most of) the points I brought up is not in question.

Also, I noticed that simply having a GGG-Reply tag on this post has bumped its Read count to more than double what it had in a day - that's satisfying in itself, I'll say.

Motivating enough to clean it up a bit more (spelling's hard) and add some new material to the Addendum :D

Going to use spoiler tags to make this easier for others to view




Firstly, unidentified items are valuable in only a few ways. Firstly selling a RGB is a waste of a scroll since it will chrome before it would alt shard, so don't want to identify it. Secondly there is farming trans shards, such as to make trans orbs for wisdom scrolls (do this sometimes when running low. 10 items such as rings/belts is 4 wisdom scrolls), or if I am doing a lot of transing of items

Secondly I feel that right click can occur, such as I am messing with putting gems into items, but I put it in the wrong item and instead identify it. Or if I am in combat, I have my inventory open trying to do things (speed running for example this is common), and I misclick and identify an item I didn't want to waste a scroll on.

Finally, right clicking feels wrong. I wouldn't mind being able to hold the wisdom scrolsl and not have to move my mouse back and forth, but the effect of picking up a wisdom scroll is something I feel NEEDS to be there, and not having it as has happened in other ARPG's removes the gut feeling of identifying something.




Essentially it feels wrong in a 'way the game works' and a 'what is going on' way. Firstly as someone else touched on, you feel like you are walking through to a new area. Now its not assumed you would walk back, but all games need some sort of instance reset. How its done is up to the game, some handle it better than others.

Two examples from the 'other' games, D2 had you make an entirely new game to reset an instance. This was quite difficult in terms of time. D3 had you exit back to the menu and start a new game. This was quite difficult in terms of time. PoE allows you to just reset an instance with a ctrl+click. I wouldn't mind it being shortred to shift+click for automatic NEW instance, but I would not like the idea of just resetting an instance while in it.

It also feels wrong in that waypoints exist. Should we allow you to use a waypoint to teleport to a new instance without actually leaving the current? Using teh waypoints kind of shows the feeling I am trying to explain. It makes sense that you could waypoint teleprot to base, and then waypoint teleport to a new docks. It doesn't make sense that you could teleport to yourself, as you wouldn't go anywhere.

Would this reset only be available at the change instance portals, or at waypoints. What about at portals. How would portals interact. Could you use this to never enter an instance yet grind the instance before it (no known benefit but may be vlaluable in future if an instance triggers something). I just dislike the idea. I understand the complaint of double loading, but it just feels like it would be wrong to me




So in this case its not actually me with an invisible build. But I do completely understand. Say you are doing racing practise, you think up this amazingly new build which utilises poison arrow and fire trap. You don't want people to know how you are farming up SO quick compared with them, because it is a competitive situation.

Or say you are tweaking a build as one of the famous high levels, and people always try to check you out. If they could see your items they would start petitioning you with 'heres a better amulet' 'why do you not use this' 'can I buy your shield.

Or even just that you like the uniqueness of your build because there are almost none out there (for example a trap based ice nova build that is working very well), but it is strong. Maybe you don'tw ant to share, why should you have to give them your items and your link setup.

It would also lead to the potential 'i'm better than you' thing, which has bugged me in all games with a ranking system, where someone would check your items and then say "What do you know about level 70+ maps, your gear is so bad you must be a noob"

First of all - OMG, your post is long, one of the longer ones I've ever seen on a forum :)

Now to the details:
I appreciate you sharing your thoughts on PoE, from what you're writing you're a professional graphics designer and it's great you took the time to share such detailed commentaries on almost all aspects of PoE UI. I agree with most of your comments. Most of the issues you mention never ocurred to me in the first place :) Here are the tidbits:

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Phoobrak wrote:

IDENTIFYING RARES

Agree completely. Although, mind you, having to click scrolls in slots seems to be a homage to Diablo 2, and is your classical "old school" solution, maybe for the sake of sentiment.

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Phoobrak wrote:

Itemlevel being quite an important concept in this game, why does the method for finding out the itemlevel on items have to be so complex and awkward? It uses a method that is not in use in any other areas of the interface, and was certainly not designed with intuition in mind. I see no truly logical explanation to having such a complex interaction when the obvious solution is to show itemlevel directly on the item tooltip (it could be made much more subtle than the rest of the information!) As for confusing and making things needlessly complex for players... please see this forum (and obviously, this very post) for an extended list of worse offenders.

Exactly!! Why GGG left it out is a mystery to me. I posted a similar suggestion here http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/111321/page/1

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Phoobrak wrote:

SKILL & SUPPORT GEMS

Skill and support gem visual design is quite pretty when looking at each gem separately, but very bad when looking at them all side by side. The level of detail doesn't help at all for quick reading and only slows down the flow when searching for a particular gem. Subtlety is the key in icon design (which, in essence, this is).

Support gem visual design is very inconsistent and rough on the eyes. Placement of gems inside the square inventory slots fluctuates massively, which is a major hindrance to the user's eye when searching through. It's paramount in any design to help guide the reader's eye with fluidity and a certain constant rhythm, which the gems definitely don't have.

TBH, this is pure nitpicking, IMHO. I like the gem design, but it's a matter of taste, obviously. But you're saying it's bad design - that's taking it too far :) Every 10-year-old you show them to will be able to learn the shapes in 5 minutes, I think what you're suggesting is just a current "trend" in graphical design, similar to the current trend in customer support which says that you shouldn't say the words "problem", "can't", "unfortunately", etc. to a cutomer on the phone.

Uniform doesn't equal good. You're suggesting that the gem icon design should follow some common principles as to where the gem is placed inside the square and how big it is. I say the lack of principle here makes it beautiful :)

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Phoobrak wrote:

CHARACTERS

In town, characters can walk and stand inside each other with no problem (see what I mean when there are 15 people in the same Sarn Encampment instance, all standing around the stash). Once we enter any other instance, however, characters are blocked by each other. Why is this a thing at all? What makes the interaction of bumping into another character a more pleasing, fluid user experience? I can understand bumping into mobs, as they must feel solid and must be able to block you from running away when you're cornered - having other players do the same breaks up the game flow more than anything.

For example, my poor ranged Shadow playing in a group with 3-4 Melee Marauders had a hard time ever reaching one piece of loot, since the Melee characters would be standing on it already, and Marauders have very large "hit boxes" for their character. I had to click repeatedly on the same piece of loot (4-6 times per) to have any chance, enough time for the timer to run its course on most occasions - frustrating is an understatement.

Well... as far as I know it's intentional - characters in instances are solid and bump into each other to make the tactical combat (and looting!) more intense. You can get blocked during combat and die. You can get blocked and not pick up the Kaom's Heart... tough luck. Now imagine you've blocked someone who was entitled to the Kaom's and picked it up instead when his timer ran out... :D This fits nicely into the "unforgiving" theme of the game.

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Phoobrak wrote:

LOOTING

As a side note here, and as a massive amount of players have already pointed out, having people team up to kill monsters and then having them fight for the reward is counter-intuitive, regardless of how you might want to spin it. From a user-experience aspect, it makes logic stand on its head and will make people doubt their gut.

This is not couter-intuitive, this is exactly what's happening to allies after the war is won, with numerous examples in the history of mankind. You gang up to defeat a stronger enemy together, and once he's fallen, you go back to fending for yourself. I don't want to be unsubstantiated, I'll find examples and edit the thread here with them.

I think it only seems counter-intuitive because we are generally poorly educated history-wise as a whole and we've been (an average) taught an over-simplified, cookie-cutter (and "politically correct") version of our history.

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Phoobrak wrote:

Another frustrating aspect of looting is having a full inventory when clicking on an item and having the item instantly drop back to the ground, available for all to pick up. Why not have the item that can't currently be looted, for lack of space, stick to the cursor instead? In the advent of a user clicking once to pick up the item, it feels jarring to have the item not looted and will often take 2 or 3 clicks before realizing what is happening.

I've been feeling the same, this is very annoying.

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Phoobrak wrote:

GEAR

I can't inspect my friend's gear.
"Say what?"

I can't inspect my friend's gear!

Yeah... I'm ashamed I haven't thought of that earlier... That's an obvious feature request! And a good one at that, Phoobrak.

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Phoobrak wrote:

FRIENDS LIST

Recent online trends make having any semblance of intimacy/privacy a very hard thing indeed. Why is it that just by adding my character's name, any single person is able to keep tabs on my activity (character selection, current level, zone currently playing, etc) without my consent? This is flabbergasting and a huge user-friendliness issue. Newer generations may feel less deeply about this issue than older players, since this is the "new normal" - however here, again, options would definitely shine. How about when declining a friendship offer, the other person doesn't have access to our whereabouts anymore? The same when removing a friend from our list? How about an option to appear offline? These seem to be common sense issues more than anything - again, it's unimaginable to me that this would have been overlooked for so long.

This is a very good one.

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Phoobrak wrote:

When adding a new friend, I can't use their account name, but must use one of their characters' name. However, once added, the UI shows their account name - why not make it so I can use either a character name or their account name to add them? This is mostly a hassle when trading from the message boards, and complicates things greatly.

Nailed it - it's very confusing, and has been confusing up till now for me.

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Phoobrak wrote:

CHAT WINDOW

To reply to a private message, I will have to first click in the dialog box, then right click on the user's name (hopefully it hasn't been bumped up 20 lines by trade chat yet), hit Whisper this Player then type my reply.

No you won't, son :) I thought so too, for some time. But just hit Ctrl+Enter and you reply straight to the last whisper. But I agree it's not intuitive and R seems much simpler.

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Phoobrak wrote:

MICROTRANSACTIONS

Items with mictrotransaction effects applied should also have some form of visual cue to more easily identify them. If I like to switch effects from item to item, I shouldn't need to rifle through all the equippable items I have to find the effect - it should be readily available.

How about applying a microtransaction effect doesn't remove it from the microtransaction tab, but simply greys it out while keeping the option of right-clicking to disable it from an item without logging on to the character that has it equipped? It would make it much more user-friendly to switch the effect from one character to the other.

For example: I've applied a Halo Effect to my main's helm, but then begin playing with friends on another character and would like to impress them with my shiny head thingy. I'll have to log off, log back in, enter game with main, disable microtransaction effect, log off, log back in, enter game with new character, enable effect. The new flow would be: right-click on effect in Microtransaction tab, disable from main's helm, right-click on effect again, enable on new character helm. Voilà!

Agreed completely.

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Phoobrak wrote:

Thanks for reading :)

Thanks for taking the time to write & I hope my comments will prove useful.

Good feeback... But missing the "end all" experience.

DESYNCS...

That topic alone, outweighs every single thing in this game, whether positive or negative...

Nearly everything in this game is ruined by it...

Want a "User Experience"... Start with "Desyncs" and about 3 pages later start everything else.

Because the desyncs have turned off an enormous amount of people, and every day that passes for the past 2-3 years just causes more and more people to give up or just ignore this game.

But in all honesty if you read their "Desync Manifesto" you'd know they can't fix this problem, no matter how many bullshit excuses are listed in there for why the game desyncs, the fact that they didn't address it in Alpha, Closed Beta, Paid In Closed Beta, and now Open Beta means they can't fix it.

That boat has sailed... And so has a great percentage of the playerbase from just 6months ago.

GGG's priories were messed up from the beginning... Just look at their armor formula, their CI design and their evasion formula and you'll see a company that thinks it's smarter than everyone who came before them.

That ignorance bit them in the ass and is why this game will be forever plagued with bad code, bad design choices and desyncs...