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The 1 billionth post about Uni Inv

Author
Cid SilverWing
Doomheim
#1 - 2012-09-14 21:22:13 UTC
CCP.

This has gone on long enough.

I was doing my obligatory surfing of the threadnaughts concerning the Unified Inventory (the biggest failure since the Jita riots), and found 1 particular pilot had written out a number of -extensively- well-detailed posts about what's wrong with this garbage.

The pilot's name is ZaBoB, and I'm quoting his posts whole-sale in a desparate attempt to make you muppets listen.
__________________________________________________________________
CCP RubberBAND wrote:

That is correct, the old system will not come back. We also cannot support two separately coded Inventory systems. The Unified Inventory is here to stay, but we will continue to work on it so that it is something everyone can be happy with.


Well, last time I checked on SiSi, a couple of days ago, you *still* have THREE inventory systems. [Update: Still true.]

Before: (1) The one where it just shows you the content of the container, and (2) the Assets window.
Now: (1) The one where it just shows you the content of the container, still available when you merge ship and items views into the station panel, (2) the Assets window, which is what needed this overhaul in the first place, and what you guys SAID you were going to do, before you went off the rails, and (3) This new thing, which still looks promising as a replacement for the Assets window.

But, of course, you don't actually need three implementations. One would do -- just reuse the CONTAINER part of the inventory window in exact replacement for the old CONTAINER views, and nobody will even know the code changed. Replace the assets window with a somewhat enhanced tree view (suitable for use in navigation, as the Assets window is now), and you're down to your magical one implementation.

But right now, you're at three. If you follow the general advice you've been getting from the player base, you can get it down to one, but that's not the direction you're headed, sadly.

CCP RubberBAND wrote:


This point is somewhat unclear. You want separate Ships and Items windows. You can do that. The windows persist in stations and remember their size, position, stack and icon view. Dock, grab the ship you want and go. In most cases the tree view is collapsed by default so you don't even have to deal with that.

We are discussing being able to open up separate windows with unique tree views, so a corporation window might only have the divisions in the tree view. Please elaborate if I missed the point here somehow.


No, you've missed so many points here, I hardly know where to begin.

It sounds like you assume that when we're in station, we just leave the windows open full time, so when we dock, and you reopen them, we don't have to do anything.

Sorry, but that's not even close. When we're in station, there are many activities, involving many different sets of windows. There is no guarantee at all that when we dock, the items and ships windows will be open. As likely as not, we'll have to open them first, and you have taken away all the convenient ways of doing that.

And, we're likely to have to do that several times while we're docked.

I also went through the early tutorials yesterday. Or at least I *think* I found the right starting point. If I did -- I think you're going to confuse the beep out of new players. You really haven't addressed the new player experience with this at all. Even with optimal tutorials, you've complicated the player model. The best way to fix that, is to bring back ALL the direct ways of opening things. THAT is the simple model.

AND, as has been repeatedly pointed out (hence my advice to read before replying), the tree view is not a good substitute for the tabbed corporate hangers. To briefly summarize what has been spelled out in great detail by others, a tree view takes up a lot of horizontal space, and when there are MANY MANY items on it, it becomes QUITE tedious to have to SCROLL THROUGH THE LIST to find the hanger tabs of interest.

This is a pain in stations. It is even MORE of a pain at a POS with multiple hangers, when you're flying an ORCA, etc.

Even if you provide a filtered tree (which is not a bad idea), you still end up wasting a huge amount of horizontal space and screen area.

If you actually provided the ability to select the "Corporate Hanger" and give you a *unified* view of all of the contents, so you could look for fuel blocks under any tab, for example, that would be a good use of the tree view. There, the tree actually adds functionality -- setting the scope of the search.

And it would be perfectly fine to access that from the assets view. No need for the tree view when opening the hanger directly.

Again, all of this has been addressed before. If you hadn't been AWOL on the thread that you guys set up to discuss this, leaving poor CCP Goliath to fend for himself but with no real ability to act (poor guy), you'd be on top of this, and we wouldn't have to be repeating ourselves.
Cid SilverWing
Doomheim
#2 - 2012-09-14 21:22:56 UTC
CCP RubberBAND wrote:

It used to be two clicks, it is now also two clicks (albeit one with a shift).

You could also use the tree view (which follows the same layout as the right click menu used to) and open the fuel bay as soon as you make the ship active. Then you have visibility at all times.

Prior to the Unified Inventory you would also have to open the fuel bay on making a ship active.


Nice claim. CCP Goliath made it, too. People challenged him and CCP to provide some documentation of just how this would be possible, what possibly we could be missing in the UI that would let us do this.

No response -- just the repeated claim, and the blind expectation that the entire @#$ player base is just too stupid to get the marvels of the new UI, but someday we'll magically see the light.

Well. Let's take a look at this.

I want to open the fuel bay. So I hop on SiSi, and climb into my Moros (which is one hop away, since you turned the system I set up in into a combat system, sigh).

I see two paths:

1) I can open the cargohold, open the tree, expand my ship, shift click on Fuel Bay, close new tree, then click on the fuel bay window again to bring it to the front.

Hmm, that's 6 clicks, one shifted (thus requiring two hands).

Nope, that's not it.

2) I start with the inventory window. If I'm lucky, this saves me the step of opening the tree. Otherwise, exactly the same.

And that's only because both of these open the tree to the top, where my active ship is. If I wanted to access a corporate delivery hanger, for example, I'd have to SCROLL DOWN (using your unique scroll bars that respond to clicks differently than anybody else in the known universe) to locate the right item on the tree.

Is there some magic I'm missing? Me and everybody else?

Again, nothing new here. Please catch up with us, so we can have a productive conversation.



CCP RubberBAND wrote:

I'll take these points together.

First is a tree view that shows every container location. For consistency sake, everything is shown in the tree view. You can use shift click, but it is clear you would prefer to just double click. We are discussing having an option that would enable shift for the Inventory by default so windows would open up in a new window with a single click. This is not set in stone and we are not promising this feature, but discussing it internally if it makes sense.

One of the design goals for the Unified Inventory was to consolidate Inventory management into as few windows as possible. Theoretically (and this is often how I use the Inventory) you could open up a second window, expand the tree view and now jump between the locations in both windows as required.\


The first paragraph makes sense, more or less, except that doesn't play well with expanding/collapsing trees, especially if you give us the ability to select a higher scope in the tree and see the combined contents. But even without that feature, I predict it's going to be frustrating.

Double-clicking, however, does not have this problem, and extends nicely to being able to select higher levels in the tree.

As for the design goals -- people have ripped so many holes into this goal it's full of swiss cheese. But before we get there, let me point out that you've failed to meet it.

When you loot a container in space, instead of closing the container, you switch the window to the cargohold. That's always an extra, unwanted window. THAT one, you newly introduced. THAT one, get rid of.

Now, let's look at the consequences of your goal. Let's say I'm looking at a corporation hanger, and I want to move stuff from my cargohold to the hanger.

I right click on my ship and choose Open Cargohold.

Oops -- it just REPURPOSED my corpration hanger window.

This happens over, and over, and over again. This is perhaps the single most frustrating thing about this new system -- it thinks you want one window, and that any window you have open is not important, and it can just usurp it.

The assumption you're making is that you know what the player wants to do, better than the player himself.

WRONG. Here's a design goal for you: NEVER EVER usurp an open window to do something else. It fails with looting containers in space, and it fails differently here.

If you select something in the tree view, that is the ONLY time an existing window should change what container it focuses on.

And I have to take particular issue with your last sentence, specifically "you could open up a second window, expand the tree view and now jump between the locations in both windows as required."

First, expand the tree view is a new, added step.

But that's not the end of it. YOU LEFT OUT SEVERAL STEPS -- navigating the tree to the desired container, and clicking on it.

You're not even being honest with yourself here.

Please, as has been repeatedly requested, do a gesture-by-gesture comparison of the common tasks. Look not just for total count, but also predictability and consistency -- scrolling around a large tree view looking for something is much more expensive than just a click in a predictable location.

You'll find, point by point, that the new Unified Inventory is a fail as a replacement for direct access.

It's not really that the unification is a fail. It's that the REPLACEMENT is a fail.

But once again, we repeat ourselves.
Cid SilverWing
Doomheim
#3 - 2012-09-14 21:24:23 UTC
CCP RubberBAND wrote:

A few points to this.

You could open the Primary Inventory window, shift click on the windows you would like and then just deal with those.

To further clarify this type of functionality we have specifically done a few things for Inferno 1.1 which will be detailed in the patch notes. But to spell them out here, we are clarifying the difference between the Primary Inventory window and secondary windows. POS structures out of range will now appear grayed out and POS structures are now arranged into categories. The Jump Bridge in particular is within its own category.


And once again, this is a topic that has been well covered. This primary/secondary window distinction does not correspond to the user model, and adds, not removes, frustration and confusion.

As I've pointed out before, at a POS, the secondary windows end up inadequately labelled, so you can't tell which corporate hanger array you're looking at, for example.

But the primary/secondary distinction leads to other inconsistencies I don't feel like going and researching again. Go read the thread.



CCP RubberBAND wrote:

Always interested in more specific cases about this as there have been a number of bugs we have not been able to fix, but that should be resolved for Inferno 1.1. No distinction between the primary and secondary windows has also led to a lot of confusion and should now be easy to identify. For clarity the Primary window will always shift to display the most immediate Inventory location the user is dealing with, so it is dynamic and changing. Double click to open something, it will open in the Primary. Move off grid of something you were viewing and the primary reverts to the ships cargo hold.

The secondary windows are not dynamic they will show the thing you set them to show in the way you set them up (size, stack, position and icon view). If these locations are no longer available these windows will close (warping off grid, jumping, etc).



I've already covered why the behavior of the primary windows are bad. If you combine the point about not retargetting open windows, and the points about the inconstant behaviors, and the additional point I haven't repeated here yet, that there is no reliable visible distinction between the two very different window types, you get to what, to me, is an inescapable conclusion:

Get rid of primary windows. They are a bug.

And no, even on SiSi, they are not easy to identify. If they happen to be the same size and shape, as near as I can tell, they are pixel-for-pixel identical, in many cases. As near as I can tell, the only time they differ, is that a primary window will show the path in the title bar, giving you context of just WHICH hanger's "SHIPS AND EQUIPMENT" division you're looking at, but secondary just says "SHIPS AND EQUIPMENT".

But if you're looking at a top-level container, there's no distinction whatsoever.



CCP RubberBAND wrote:

Why specifically did the loading of a carrier take five minutes? How many windows did you need. What part took you a long time? Locating the ship? Finding the Inventory windows you needed?

Depending on how many windows you needed you could open the Primary window shift click all the locations you needed and then just move the items as you would have in the old systems.

All the quality of life changes in Inferno 1.1 (now on Singularity) should make POS logistics management much, much easier. We have allowed players to rename all POS structures, they are now grouped under one of four types. Each type has a unique icon in the tree view, POS structures out of range will display gray in the tree view, to name the most prominent.

Finally as stated in the opening the old Inventory system as you knew it will not come back, but with enough open discussion and constructive debate you guys can help shape the Unified Inventory so that it is something we can all be happy to use.

Also a "+1" says nothing to us, so if you have specific use cases please elaborate. Unless each of you had EXACTLY the same problems Makalu Zarya had...

Changing a workflow some of you may have been dealing with for close to 9 years is undeniably difficult, so we will continue to iterate and build a Unified Inventory that meets the requirements you guys need.

Thanks!
Cid SilverWing
Doomheim
#4 - 2012-09-14 21:24:35 UTC
The reason things take longer are pretty much covered in the points I repeated above, and more that are covered in the original thread.

Opening all the inventory windows you need is much more time-consuming now, and it involves messing with inventory on both sides of the transfers. It not only takes more time, it is less predictable, subject to frustration as the primary windows go do random unwanted things, or the secondary windows leave you guessing as to which hanger you're looking at (even though you NAMED the friggin things precisely to avoid that confusion).

By the way, yes, the ability to name things is a VAST improvement. What took so long? But I've named all my guns and things, and now when I play starbase defender, I can tell what I'm doing. See, that's what a UI improvement looks like -- making things more clear, saving steps, reducing confusion.

But please take note of this: The reason you're seeing all these 1+'s is because THESE ARE NOT EDGE CASES. These really ARE things where lots and lots of people are hitting the exact same issues, over and over and over again.

And they've been telling you about them, over and over again. And you're not listening.

You don't need people telling you more specific details. The problems have been detailed into the ground. Until you start actually responding to the details already provided, you're just annoying the customer base.

Lots and lots of us have put in CONSIDERABLE effort in giving you guys constructive, actionable feedback, both with respect to a process and communications, that won't **** off your player base, and detailed suggestions for how to properly integrate this and make it work well.

People have even gone to the trouble of making actual prototypes, and walking you through them with YouTube videos.

Frankly, I think the player community has put more thought and analysis and work into the design than you have. And I say that knowing full well what's involved in doing a UI design -- we're talking about a LOT of thought, and a lot of work in attempting to communicate these thoughts to you.

But it is plain that there's a lot of players out here who have a better handle on what the players have been telling you than you do.

This makes for an enormous amount of frustration.

And finally, please get it out of your head that the issue here is changing workflow. This isn't players resisting change. This is players struggling to work even half as efficiently with these things. And despite having been repeatedly challenged to demonstrate how the new system is even no worse than the old, CCP has repeatedly demonstrated that you cannot.

The general challenge has gone unanswered. There have been a few attempts, as you did, to suggest a parity, but on closer examination, that "parity" has been an illusion. Every. Single. Time.

There was nothing wrong with the old workflow. There was not even anything incompatible with the new inventory windows. The old model was simple and direct: To look inside something, open it.

"Too many container windows" was not a problem that needed solving, and you didn't solve it.

As detailed in the ORIGINAL dev post about this, the problem to be solved was "finding all my stuff". That's the assets window. But you veered off the track, and made it hard to get the stuff we already KNOW where is.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Paul Oliver
Doomheim
#5 - 2012-09-14 21:24:42 UTC
Mind giving us a tl;dr summery of all that?
Its good to be [Gallente](http://dl.eve-files.com/media/1209/QEQlJ.jpg).
Bernie Nator
Seal Club Six
Plug N Play
#6 - 2012-09-14 21:31:26 UTC
tl;Dr

Who the hell is this guy?

what's his point?
Cid SilverWing
Doomheim
#7 - 2012-09-14 21:31:30 UTC
Nope. Everything must be read in full.
Marcus Harikari
#8 - 2012-09-14 21:33:06 UTC
Yes, I totally read all of that!
Bernie Nator
Seal Club Six
Plug N Play
#9 - 2012-09-14 21:34:00 UTC
Yeah, I'm gonna need you to condense that into maybe a paragraph or two. If you could do that, that'd be great.
Paul Oliver
Doomheim
#10 - 2012-09-14 21:34:04 UTC  |  Edited by: Paul Oliver
Cid SilverWing wrote:
Nope. Everything must be read in full.
Well I have no problems with the UI as it is so whatever this muppet sees no reason to read all that.
Its good to be [Gallente](http://dl.eve-files.com/media/1209/QEQlJ.jpg).
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#11 - 2012-09-14 21:37:13 UTC
…speaking of which, I should probably update my blog post and/or write a new one about how to make the uninventory stop being stupid and instead behave almost-kind-of-nearly like the old inventory.
Rengerel en Distel
#12 - 2012-09-14 21:54:03 UTC
Tippia wrote:
…speaking of which, I should probably update my blog post and/or write a new one about how to make the uninventory stop being stupid and instead behave almost-kind-of-nearly like the old inventory.


Got a way to make the My Filters stay condensed? So annoying to condense it every time you dock.

With the increase in shiptoasting, the Report timer needs to be shortened.

Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#13 - 2012-09-14 21:55:21 UTC
Rengerel en Distel wrote:
Got a way to make the My Filters stay condensed? So annoying to condense it every time you dock.
No. The filter list is part of the tree view pane, which I never use or have visible unless it's absolutely necessary.
Paul Oliver
Doomheim
#14 - 2012-09-14 21:55:44 UTC
Rengerel en Distel wrote:
Got a way to make the My Filters stay condensed? So annoying to condense it every time you dock.
Yeah that one is annoying, seems like it would be easy enough for CCP to fix too.
Its good to be [Gallente](http://dl.eve-files.com/media/1209/QEQlJ.jpg).
Rengerel en Distel
#15 - 2012-09-14 22:01:35 UTC
Paul Oliver wrote:
Rengerel en Distel wrote:
Got a way to make the My Filters stay condensed? So annoying to condense it every time you dock.
Yeah that one is annoying, seems like it would be easy enough for CCP to fix too.


I guess they won't fix it because they keep telling us they already did:

Quote:
Patch notes for EVE Online: Inferno 1.1

Deployed on Monday, June 25, 2012.
Features

Unified Inventory

The "My filters" section of the Index tree in the Inventory will now remember if it has been collapsed. The collapsed state in station and in space are remembered separately.


Have yet to get any dev response to the issue.

With the increase in shiptoasting, the Report timer needs to be shortened.

Dorian Wylde
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#16 - 2012-09-14 22:01:41 UTC
I haven't had any issues with the new system, pretty easy to use really.

It's different. That's the only thing you hate about it.
Rengerel en Distel
#17 - 2012-09-14 22:11:39 UTC
Dorian Wylde wrote:
I haven't had any issues with the new system, pretty easy to use really.

It's different. That's the only thing you hate about it.


No, i hate that My Filters pops up every time i dock. Then it's 2 or 3 clicks to close it. Other than that, i've learned to work around the other problems.

With the increase in shiptoasting, the Report timer needs to be shortened.

Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#18 - 2012-09-14 22:13:15 UTC
Dorian Wylde wrote:
It's different. That's the only thing you hate about it.
Incorrect.
Alea
Pator Tech School
Minmatar Republic
#19 - 2012-09-14 22:22:49 UTC
People who don't have a problem with the UI most likely don't have to deal with more than one storage location at a time, or maybe just a few at best.

Try to work within a fleet of orca's, carriers or an invention/reaction POS and you will instantly hate the UI, it's no where near as fast or easy to use as the old inventory system was and sadly it never will be.

Whomever is making the last few years decisions on what changes are to be implemented in this game, must hate Eve with all their being.

Sturmwolke
#20 - 2012-09-14 22:22:49 UTC  |  Edited by: Sturmwolke
OP, it's hard to read. Put a "quote= and /quote" for those paragraphs to differentiate who's writing what.
Yeah Tippia, go for that blog. Thumbs up. I know I'm still annoyed over univentory, but have run out of willpower to say something about it :P
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