Star Citizen's New Inventory Design Falls Short
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- Опубліковано 15 лип 2024
- I'm not very convinced by the new inventory design in 3.24 and so I'm a little concerned that we're in for a generally more cumbersome experience. Let me tell you about it.
#starcitizen #spacegames
0:00 Intro
0:55 Inventory Problem
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Just in case it wasn't clear in the video, I'm talking about personal inventory and the kiosk functionality for your character's gear and not about the cargo lifts in hangars.
I think the transition between the inventory kiosk and the personal Inventory is just a temporary solution.
I like the paper doll inventory being accessible anywhere in the station and not have to find a MFD to change armor etc but don't mind having a proper interface to distribute your gear to your ship be it as cargo or assigned to the ship.
whats an evocati?
@@webdude15 yes
Ya I'm not fan, hitting i was a totally acceptable mechanic it's what we gammers expect. I don't like the idea of complicating something you have to interact with constantly.
No search function.....like wtf no excuse that needs to be added to the normal inventory we have right now.
The things they are doing lately.....
It's missing a core thing that should be in every inventory system.
Able to search, stack, filter, and favorite.
Scrolling through paper doll, or scrolling through lines on a terminal, it all sucks if you can't find your one item through an inventory of 100s of items. Even worse if you can't stack multiple same items into one spot.
Too many things in the inventory can't be stacked when they easily should be.
The functionality of the UI in either case both need improvement, ignoring performance issues and bugs. A search function and favorite function would be a huge time saving feature, but I still think that adding more steps to effectively do the same thing as before doesn't add anything to gameplay. The step for going to the kiosk is fine though, I'm fine with inventory having a physical location.
Yeah I feel like it could at least be made fairly tolerable with some more quality of life UI features. Even just being able to create named sets of gear so you can quickly pull up all your favourite gear for a specific task.
Will be interested to get my hands on it and see how they improve but it seems like it leaves a lot to be desired right now.
We already have search for stores and map so I assume they'll be able to add it to inventory as well. Wouldn't mind that for ASOP as well.
which can obviously be added
Like legs, backpacks and chest pieces should stack when they have nothing in them and only unstack once the internal capacity has items
Evo here. It takes longer to pick out an outfit in game than it does to get dressed from my closet and dresser in the morning. That's all that needs to be said.
That's because your clothes aren't in effectively a automatic warehouse
Oof and that’s one of the things that really worries me about this change. It increases the time it takes (adds friction to use Morph’s term). This is already NOT a frictionless aspect of the game.
Additionally, I think it’s going to be a real PITA to outfit ships if we have to essentially hand load all of the interior/exterior cabinets/lockers/etc that are being added in the gold standard for all ships
literally, it should not take longer to get dressed in a game than real life
I was saying to the my org, that 'I don't mind putting on shoes, but I don't want to have to tie the laces'. There is a definite line of 'enough is enough', and the kiosk inventory crosses that Rubicon, more thank I mix metaphors.
That's a phenomenal way to put it.
This personal inventory change feels like the equivalent of a movie not skipping the mundane travel but showing the character walking for an hour without anything of interest happening.
And you can't scroll through it. And on top of that, every time movie player crashes, you have to re-watch the whole thing. Brilliant design.
@@shaftoe195 It's like self-inflicted A Clockwork Orange treatment... ... ... are... are we that addicted?
You make a very good point, not incorporating the paper doll system as the gear kiosk UI is a huge missed opportunity that just make sense and should be pursued by CIG instead.
If I have to use a kiosk to gather my items, and have to use the current "floaty and unphysicalized" paper doll system directly after gathering my items form said kiosk, why can't I just outfit myself inside of the kiosk ui itself?
Indeed, well said. I wish I could have shown the footage because it would have been easier to convey that this drag drop paperdoll UI still kind of exists.
Exactly this. And just add an option in the paper doll screen to place items that are not being equipped but that you want to physicalize into the kiosk dispenser drawer or an already physicalized nearby container.
As it currently exists they have added extra steps for no valid purpose.
Classic CIG move though. Nobody there seems capable of thinking ONE STEP further.
hes factually incorrect. the entire paper doll system has NOT been removed. he may not have seen how to open it, but its there. put stuff in the drawer, hit i and boom same exact interface, drag all the stuff onto your body, works the same. talk about mis information. video should be taken down its so bad
@@Christine-shield at 2:36 he literally says the exact same thing that you said
It is surprising they did not use the kiosk just as access to the local inventory, in the same way you access it in ships when clicking on cupboard. This would have meant near zero development and not added a new UI and a new step to manage.
The problem is we need armour lockers to go with our weapon racks, where we can store sets of clothing / sets of armour ... but CIG made inventory drawers that just add mouse clicks, when what we need is the ability to make gear sets so we can just put on (eg) the medic set or the pilot set and go.
but you know how CIG will implement them? The same way you load up your weapons locker: carry single boxes of each indivual piece of armour to the locker and load each one one after the other in there... have fun loading 6 of them very time your ship get's destroyed, or you loose the loadout.
"you get any game time in before work?" "Ya man, I got about an hour and half in and got dressed for a few missions I want to do later that I may get seal clubbed in 6 minutes."
Hahaha, perfect
Yeah, this new system will mean no more lunch break Star Citizen for me.
Probably shouldn't play an MMO if you're that limited on time (or have a job lol).
@@clark1066 Just don't take your suit off.
@@litterbox2010 Children should not be online. Go back to school.
100% agree. I love this game's immersion up until the point that it feels like I'm picking fly shit out of pepper just to accomplish basic tasks that, as you said, should have minimum friction. This almost reminds me of how in Fable 3 they got rid of a normal pause screen to physicalize the whole thing, making basic actions be way more convoluted and annoying than anyone wanted.
I still have nightmares about the Fable 3 menu. The Fable 2 inventory was a mess, but what they did was like trying to fix a flat tire by ripping out the engine block.
"I'm picking fly shit out of pepper" Absolutely wonderful phrase, evokes such futility, love it!!
the 20 minutes of sitting in menu's feels like youtubes unskippable adverts...
zero fun and delays you from getting to the thing you wanna do
Having to run over to a console on a wall doesn't feel any more or less immersive to me that just pressing "I" did and pressing "I" is a nice QoL feature. I'd appreciate that in any other MMO and would appreciate them allowing us to do it, but also keeping the wall consoles for people that want it.
Inventory management isn't the part of this game I want to be sim-like. The ships are, and sadly they aren't very simmy to fly right now.
It's totally backwards, right? The parts that are supposed to be difficult and interesting get dumbed down and the parts that should be streamlined and easy get complicated.
CIG have been dumbing down the sim aspect of the flight model for far too long. The skill ceiling is lower, especially now with the more arcade like master modes where pew pew for half an hour to blow up a ship you’re obviously creaming just to get the thing to soft death. It’s all ‘work in progress’ of course, but as with this, it’s frustrating when the translation is ‘worse than we had previously’.
Right, interacting with a magic vending machine isn't any more immersive or realistic than just pressing 'I' and interacting with a magic menu that way
@@CrowDawg11 If it spat out a box and you opened it and all the objects were there, fully physicalised inside, that would be immersion. Give us the paper doll system until such time..
@@Libertas_P77 not really, because how did those items get into that machine for it to spit them out in a box? You're telling me random vending machines just have whole sets of armor and weapons and clothes and bottles of Cruz just waiting for someone to come request one that's exactly identical to the ones they own?
It makes absolutely no sense at all. Buying a new item, maybe. But claiming items you already own through some sort of magical vending machine system is literally dumber than just pressing a keybind and having access to everything in a menu.
I'm a casual player and I enjoy some parts of SC a lot. but spending extra time on everyday mundane tasks is not why I play video games.
One addition I would like to see is a loadout system for FPS gear at these terminals, let me configure and save different loadouts and quickly call them up, then have them be displayed in the same way a looted enemy is displayed with the same functionality plus a claim function for missing "greyed out" items in the loadout as long as I own them with insurance.
This seems to be a major issue with the overall direction right now. Everything has to be physicalized, and it's a massive pain in the ass. You're not wrong about the time sink aspect. Every time I log in with friends we spend most of an hour while everyone runs around buying stuff, getting geared up, getting ready. Then we get wiped out by a bug 10 minutes into an activity, and do it all again just to quit after 2 fruitless hours of mostly trying to gear up.
I felt this in my soul (this has been especially bad in my exp over the last week or so)
I've never spent so long to accomplish so little as I have in Star Citizen lol
Oh, yeah, I also forgot -- the extra steps helps lessen the database load by splitting the tables. This was something that I used to do to reduce database workloads. CIG did the same with the ASOP terminals, splitting how the entitlements for ships are processed when accessing them for the first time. You can see a similar design with splitting the queries between the kiosks and the storage container, so there are fewer items being accessed while you access your inventory by moving them from the local inventory to the drawer. I'm sure CIG will refine the experience a bit more in due time but it's likely a way to alleviate database queries in the interim.
This! I think no1 sees this from this point of view.
We need Technology 4 gameplay, not gameplay for technology. Tech solution exist and are being made, but the priorities of the leadership are backwards.
I trust Ines and all the people who talk about a “fluid experience” in the game.
(perspective: 6yrs Senior Software Engineer & MSc in Interactive Arts)
Sure, but as a player I don't really care how the back-end works, I care about the player experience. If it's not fun or too fiddly and time-consuming, players are going to have a bad time and complain about it. If CIG can't build their game in a way that works for players then they just have a game that isn't fun. We shouldn't be here to make excuses for CIG.
Frankly, I think they know that keeping the game in an alpha nomenclature benefits their bottom line because it gives them the freedom to wait as long as they need to for technology to improve it keeps player hope alive that whatever they're worrying about could improve later on.
@@disky01You're not going to have ANY gameplay experience if the backend doesn't work...
That actually makes it so much worse. So they’re implementing poor gameplay on purpose because they can’t fix the foundational tech. I think the theory about MMs is correct that it was implemented not for parity but because the servers could only handle slowed down gameplay.
The Moore's law: every 2 years, the processing power doubles
The Christ Roberts law: every 2 patches, the time sinks increase by a factor of 2
I would have been happy if they just fixed the jank of the paper doll. I dont need or want deep inventory gameplay. Just one that works
They were so preoccupied on whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.
My two cents on this is that the only one that should be complicated is the loading of large physicalized containers for cargo missions and trade. They do not need to over complicate minor inventory management like this.
CIG at this point is gonna put in a feature where you get tired and take naps that work in real time in order to go playing again.
Seriously underrated comment, pure genius.. unless you work for CIG and are just testing the waters for their next patch, then .. pure madness.
Like a fucking mobile game...
All along one of my biggest concerns about this game has been that even if CIG does eventually manage to release a reasonably stable & bug-free 1.0 version of the PU with all the basic game loops & maybe 5 star systems or so...it'll prove to be just too focused on putting "realism" over "fun gameplay" for the average casual mainstream gamer who likes the sci-fi genre to enjoy.
Whenever I talk about aspects of the game like this physical inventory system, Death of a Spaceman, the new flight model, etc. to people I know who are still on the fence about trying SC, a lot of them tell me that it frankly just sounds annoying to have to deal with in a video game.
Thing is, this game was very clearly never intended to appeal to mainstream audiences. In spirit, it's really a quirky little indie game where one guy gets to play around with unusual game idea he finds interesting without caring too much about appealing to trends or the masses. The difference is, this quirky little indie game has $700 million raised, which makes people mistakenly assume this is intended to have the same kind of mass appeal ethos of typical AAA games.
I think you're totally right. The new kiosks should definitely just open the 'paperdoll' screen to just drag and drop your gear onto your character. The only changes should be adding a search function and it just bringing up gear that your character can carry/equip/wear (bigger stuff comes from the freight elevators). Do people have to know exactly how much ammo, etc. they need before calling it? This new system seems to just add an extra step for no good reason. I think the kiosks are cool and add extra immersion by getting your gear from them, rather than pulling items 'out of thin air', but shouldn't cause players an inconvenience.
or, if they want the physicalised screen, how about a hologram display of your character on the physical screen that you can drag and drop to
Why even have the kiosks at all though? The magic vending machines aren't any more realistic or immersive than the magic I menu anyway, it's nothing but extra steps while still not making any more sense from a realism or immersion standpoint, which was the whole entire one and only point of them to begin with.
I get it that they are trying to make the BDSSE, but there also comes a point that they have to remember this has to be a GAME that is FUN.
As someone that has long periods of not playing then coming back, my main mission is bunkers, I think that spending even more time prepping to only die early in the mission would make retrieving my stuff even more frustrating.
I honestly feel like a mix between the current system and the planned system would be best.
Require the player to be in a specific area. Changing rooms, your cargo lift, airlooks or similar where he can just use the current inventory UI.
Improve that UI a bit with quick filters (just press 1 button instead of opening a dropdown from which you choose your filter). Let the same items stack. E.g. the standard yellow store bought multitool. If it's a white variant it can be a new item, if it's another yellow one just stack them.
I think this would be a good compromise between 'total immersion' and the need for players that those non relevant gameplay things go quick and aren't a bother.
I agree but not entirely, I do like the concept of physicalised inventory be a use it makes the game more immersive than a magic invisible menu to drag from.
The terminals are a nice idea but I think we should still be able to drag stuff onto ourselves from the terminal. While maybe things like guns and other larger items get physicalised.
I think the new system will be a lot better once they refine and streamline it.
That's what I thought the new system was going to be. The current system but only accessible at terminals, with a UI update.
Definitely not. That's not how it was ever going to be. I'm surprised there's so many people who didn't do their research and thought otherwise.
The inventory system is going to get even more realistic than this. Sorry, but facts.
Yes, please, this.
CIG: Adding unnecessary steps to everything, and making gameplay more tedious. Now THATS a game developer.
Just spend real Money to get that ship bro
Jesus Christ, why are you all surprised. It must be all the new players coming to the game. It’s not unnecessary this was the plan. How else you gonna grab your items, an invisible drawer that magically appears, what we have now is a placeholder and that has always been communicated. how you access everything that is physical. You go to a destination to retrieve it. There is no invisible drawer that magically appears out of nowhere. This isn’t like any other MMO and this has been the plan for years. Nobody does it like Star citizen where strategic decisions stump everything else. They could use a rework to the UI of the kiosk but doesn’t change the fact that everything is physical and not arcade like any other game.
This was talked about literally a decade ago. I'm sure a lot of people are going to be shocked about DOASM as well.
@@OO7BOND11 because they actually went through with this dumbass idea. Inventory management has the potential to become the most annoying and tedious part of any game if it's not done right. SC just destroyed a functional inventory system deliberately and replaced it with something that will cause nothing but tedium and frustration. If this was the plan then it's [insert avengers iron man meme] "not a great plan."
NO! That is a disconnected boomer of a developer whose ego has been an insurmountable hindrance to the development of this game; a.k.a. Chris Roberts.
Sadly, this one lends truth to the argument that folks brought up when they announced removing the "magic bag of holding" in that, at some point, it moves from increasing immersion to creating tedium.
The paper doll system is a vast improvement from the original item setup from years ago but the upcoming personal inventory setup takes what is now a 2 step interaction (Open inventory and drag item to equip) and turns it into 4 or 8 step interaction (go to kiosk, open inventory, extract desired item, equip item) depending on whether you are happy with your initial choices.
From a gameplay perspective, it makes sense because landing zones are safe houses. Once base building is implemented, the inventories there will not be managed through freight elevators, but instead, they might persist or be kept inside boxes.
Just wait until Chris brings in toilet, shower and permadeath gameplay! Then you will be lucky if you can make it to an actual piece of three minute long gameplay within two days!
Can't wait for the poop mini game. Maybe some QT events when afflicted by diarrhea
@@robynhighart2026 Indeed! Can't wait to take a dump during quantum jump! Just hope they fixed the bug that makes you getting ejected during q-jump until then.
I can picture it now. Certain foods upset your stomach and you have to run to the toilet every 2 minutes. Constantly on the verge of soiling oneself. Bent over with cramps. Toilet citizen.
@@robynhighart2026 they should take some inspiration from Abiotic Factor!
Captain I cant man my post I'm still shitting.
Ok, if I wanted to make inventpry access more immersive, I'd do it in a few ways.
At home or in a ship, a proper armory room, where I can get stuff of the walls or hangers.
Out in the world, the kiosk should have staal or rooms with lockable doors, most people want privacy while changing. And they don't want to get robbed, which could be with the current system.
As for the drawer, it shouldn't be tetris, it should be you asking for a set number of things and they being delivered, maybe in two boxes.
We also need different boxes for our gear so that we can recognize it. Comours, forms and logos.
well may be, if the game is stable you can outfit your ship with all the needed stuff and food to do several missions. Together with the new log off system, would indeed help a lot
They have those changing lockers all over the place in game... I kinda think they should have built the gear change stuff in that at the same time they did the storage kiosks. Access loadout at changing station, and outfit there. This provides separation between kitting out, and loading up on supplies from the kiosk.
That way they can still apply paper doll for just the outfitting stations, and the physicalized system for the kiosk. Which is the more ideal for each use case.
@@TheNefariousFox Good points. And yeah it's weird that they don't seem to use those stations that are in already.
Probably because they don't have the no-weapons zones not ready.
@@ericvandorp Yes, it would be great to be able to outfit your ship for a mission, even ones that take longer than one day. and access it whenver you want.
The magic vending machines are not immersive at all, but beyond that I agree with you. For it to actually be immersive and realistic, you should need to pick things up physically at the store or have them delivered to your hangar/hab/ship/whatever, and then physically put them where you want them...but some random vending machine in some random location magically being able to access all your stuff is not realistic or immersive at all...which was the one and only sole argument for adding them.
Calling things up from a central warehouse in your freight elevator makes sense, but doing the same thing through random vending machines all over the place makes absolutely no sense at all whatsoever. As stands, all this new system does is add tedium and take away convenience without addressing the concern it was made to address.
As Evocati myself I agree with a lot of what you are saying here.
I like how it felt experiencing this new system at first but overtime it will certainly become more of an annoyance and time sink than I think its worth in immersion.
As you put it a revamped Paper doll system with the Item Kiosks being the point of access to your wider stored inventory rather than universally and instantly accessible as is currently in Live would be a better compromise for the FPS inventory.
The Freight Elevator Kiosks though for bulk or larger gear and for ship cargo though I think is great, just need some polishing and features to tie it all together, particularly a search function like we have with store kiosks.
What about those outfit changing stations strewn about?
If we move from using the kiosk for outfitting, and they apply paper doll to the outfitter closets, then the kiosk system is best for its use case, and we then have the proper gear changing system at an entirely different terminal.
I have a feeling somebody may have already been thinking about this? And if they haven't somebody should really try to get that memo to CIG.
Something I was talking about in Spectrum. Not all real-life processes are suitable for a game with mouse and keyboard. If we had VR controller in a VR game, it would be different. The more physical interaction, the better, but only in VR. With mouse and keyboard, it becomes some annoying micro management if the devs are not careful. There is a reason most games don't do that.
Its what I still worry about a lot in Star Citizen -- the flow of a gaming loop and how long it takes to do it. Most of the community only has a few hours a day for some fun.
I saw your frustration when we were in game together :-). I assume it's hard for non-EVOs to comment on the system until they start using it as we can't share videos or screenshots.
I love the personal hangars and that you can load vehicles and ships into your ship. That you can customise the hangar and even buy furniture or invite friends. It's all great and definitely a step forward. And if you for some reason don' t like it there is always standard ASOP / hangars available.
You are absolutely right about the freight elevators: they are great as well and will add a lot to the game (they're almost stable). The interesting thing is that if you don't want to manually load your cargo you can avoid that by using the AI to load your ship. The time it takes is atrocious at the moment (5+ hours for a C2) but that is something that can and should be tuned as CIG learns the right balance. But why would you? 3d Tetris is fun.
The new personal inventory design on the other hand is just so tedious to use and can't be avoided unless you don't use it altogether. One of my experiences this week:
1) Go to the kiosk and realise you don't have an armor.
2) Go to the shop to buy armor and also a backpack.
3) Walk around the station to find a kiosk.
4) Using the UI is hard when you have a lot of stuff as there is no search option and the filter options have less functionality than those of shops.
5) Move items one by one to the drawer (left side of the UI).
6) Press the retrieve drawer button.
7) Realise that you want to change your undersuit and you take it off.
8) Kiosk reset and you need to go through all the steps again.
9) Then when you put on your armor you realise you bought a light armor and not a medium armor so your backpack doesn't fit.
10) Leave the kiosk and walk back to the shop to buy the right armor.
11) Walk back to the kiosk and go through the whole experience again.
12) Then you notice that you forget to move the medpens from the hospital inventory to the station inventory.
13) Walk to the hospital inventory to get the medpens (this still has the 3.23 local inventory).
14) Finally! It's time to leave. Start your ship and request take off.
15) Take off and glitch into the hangar doors as there was desync and the doors weren't open.
16) Find yourself back in the bed and you can start all over again.
I expect most players will just give up and go flight suit only most of the time or do a naked run and loot the armor from enemies just to avoid this system.
And say you want to prepare your ship because you group up with some buddies and you know most will forget basic stuff. It's no longer possible to prepare personal SCU boxes (they should be nameable or colour coded as you mentioned). The way around this is to go to your freight elevator and retrieve all of the items and the SCU boxes. You then have to manually move each item in a SCU box - not drag and drop but physically move it. A tiny minority may enjoy this but I expect most will not do this.
I think physicalizing the world CAN be great, but the devs must constantly ask themselves whether it is in the service of good gameplay. The fact that they don't seem to realize how much time they're asking of players already and persist in doing things like this tells me that they aren't considering gameplay. The seem to be more interested in creating a more realistic world. If I really wanted something like this, I could just as easily go play any of the games which are made for this kind of content, or you know, go clean my apartment.
This is a point that many forget: Looking back through Chris Roberts' games production history, he has never had good gameplay ideas. He has great ideas for scope, setting and player freedom, but not for actual gameplay. He was fired from Freelancer and Digital Anvil because he couldn't get the game made. I had hoped the man, being a decade older when SC was kickstarted, would have learned something about execution. But here we are, 12 years later.
@@jackinthebox301 Yeah, I've made the same point in other comments. I feel like the reason he has been able to deliver anything in his career is because he always had peers and/or managers that gave him good advice or forced him to make tough choices. Back at Origin, he was surrounded by people at his level that very likely said the things he may not have wanted to hear but needed to. After Origin that disappeared, and I think its why his later projects were always so fraught.
How often are you guys accessing inventory anyway? Don't you just gear up and go?
They aren't considering Your type of gameplay. You're not the only one playing and there are other opinions.
@@SirMadsen Let me put it this way then - they aren't considering a player's time. If "gameplay" to you is spending hours organizing and preparing, fine. But for most players, I don't think they're particularly interested in spending an hour or more getting ready for the core elements of gameplay in this game. Most SC players are adults with limited time, and Star Citizen has timesinks galore. This is yet another fiddly and unnecessary timesink.
I think the thing they could would be to have a paper-doll preview directly on the kiosk screen where u put together the outfit you want. When ur done you click 'dispense' or whatever and the kiosk gives u a box that u can interact with like any other box. U could then directly equip the boxed outfit or carry it to a locker and "slot" it into that locker for later use or even store it as a ready outfit inside containers to quickly and easily outfit your org in the field
this is a great idea, I'd just add one more 'equip' button that just equips the dang thing instantly for the 90% of the times you're outfitting. I like the dispense to a box idea too a lot though. dispense pre-made/ready made outfits to boxes that you can slot in your ships vehicles or lockers or whatever and just 'use' the box to equip it all whenever or wherever you have the box. or even a 'send to ship' or 'send to cargo' button to send it to your cargo hanger! with options to send multiple premade outfit boxes at once! I can imagine this being an improvement in QoL rather than a step back. to anyone doubting, just imagine if we were selecting ships by pressing 'o' on your kb and dragging a ship to a pad (lol)
Agreed. At the end of the day they need to undersrand many many backers only have a few hours to play. This is going to sour many people.
I completely agree. Jared always emphasizes making the game as immersive and realistic as possible but bring it back to fun and practical. Making the storage access terminals the paper doll system would maintain the current speed of the system while introducing the new storage mechanics. The extra steps are unnecessary and I hope CIG listens to the community here and makes the changes.
I've heard the phrase "they have to listen to the community" With every major mechanic they make now. They just can't get something right the first time, this game is such a bloody timesink to play already and they're making it worse.
Dang, so no more accessing station inventory while flying outside in my ship 😢
Yup, correct.
This is interesting. CIG on one hand wants us to travel around Stanton (just the placement of various equipment shops shows this), but at the same time they seem to be forcing us into putting down roots at one specific place and doing everything from there...
They could make the paperdoll system as a "preview" to the armor or outfit you wanna wear but then when you decide on getting something you bring it up via the elevator kiosks i just love having everything physicalized this is what sets star citizen apart, not to mention that the future iterations of the inventory system will have physicalized lockers on which you hang on cloths and armor and also the boxes for the armor sets
Having been able to play a little bit of the last build, three things I'd say would help the new system a lot:
1. Have the drawer be the "local inventory" we're currently used it, but smaller, i.e., ~1scu or so. This would allow you to pull a bunch of items and equip your character, but not holding up a kiosk at the same time.
2. Presaved loadouts. If we were able to save a "loadout" including armor, weapons, consumables, etc, and equip that in one click from the kiosk, that would help as well. The items in the loadout could pull from your inventory, and give some indication if an item in the loadout was unavailable.
3. More ways to store and display items. Two big things that'd be helpful would be weapon racks/crates, and armor stands/containers. Weapon racks could be SCU sized open containers, so you could see what weapons are in it, like the weapons racks on ships. An armor stand is self-explanatory, but a container could be a more compact, SCU multiple container, that could hold a full suit of armor and undersuit. (good example, the MCRN power armor frame and crate from the Expanse)
That would allow for the immersive element I think they're going for, but take the tedium and turn it into something a bit more interesting.
yep.
If CIG was trying to build a fun game, that would be the direction.
A fun game is not CIG's goal.
Why go to kiosk at all ? Even now in the 21st century I can use a watch, phone, tablet or laptop to just do things. I can even automate things with many sensor variables. It seems there is no thought at all behind this. Heck if I request a ship it should have my kit waiting, if I take a mission my load out should be there ready based on pre selection or even AI support based on current operational data. CIG really need to get out of the office and speak with people.
Well said
I’d really wish CIG would spend developing new systems, missions etc instead of redesigning existing systems that work to make them more inconvenient.
I mean, this was the plan all along. If you like the placeholder that's fine, but it was never meant to stay that way.
@@wavion2
Yeah this also seems to be a placeholder. It’s not a better system in anyway.
some systems are dependent on others and have to work before developing new ones.
At what point is there going to be a hotkey to blink so your vision doesn't get blurry? Is it going to the the visor wipe button?
The simplest change they can make that fixes a fair amount of issues (other than obviously search, etc which should naturally come) is making it go from "Click item>Click move, repeat>Click Confirm>Open Draw" to "Click item, repeat>Open Draw". Just have the items immediately go into the draw, and keep the screen there for me to put them back if I made a mistake, but there should be a minimum of clicks.
What CIG do in the personal inventory system is like
1. open your store room of personal item
2. Instead of put you gun in your holster or item to you pocket you pack what you want into a box
3. take out the box and close the store room door
4. open the box and do what you should do in step 2
What happened is you access a big magic storage to pack a second small magic storage so you can get your thing after two loading screens and left a empty box, it is just a silly design
Knowing the number of time system are temporary unavailable in SC, I am sure this 4 steps process will always be done and buggy especially when the servers are bad.
i dunno :D gotta play it first
The kiosk should add a search bar to the inventory, making inventoy easier to sift through. Hopefully i can just double click on the drawer items to equip them, as well as open the minimal loot screen we just got to move items to a backpack and pockets
Thank you for being real about this Morph.
I totally agree with you the personal inventory was unnecessary.
If they enhance the old system by just adding search functionality that would enhance the experience.
No, I fundamentally disagree. Hovering over a station to pickup items is immersion breaking. I like the concept here, it's just been poorly implemented. They can do better!
@@dtrjones you have the right to disagree, I love immersion to the level of practicality, but searching for a needle in a haystack that is not immersion neaither fun!
Hyper sim, with high fidelity with the physicalized world!
Also, full on arcade space flight...
...lol someone has played master modes yet.
And all the physics is very obviously fake. Like ground vehicles driving on walls.
No kidding, 20 mins to get dressed just to go slam against the arbitrary walls of MM flight.
F.U.N.
To be fair, if you compare a Fly By Wire system to the old hydrolic systems of the past, then FBW will feel arcade. How would you anticipate the personal VTOL systems in the future, if it doesn't feel like arcade then they would have done something wrong I feel. So it's a balance between realistic perception and realism (which in 2949 could very well feel like arcade).
I'm still hoping for a realistic space combat sim. I'm thinking fuel would have to be very limited so making a lot of maneuvers in space would get you stranded quite fast. Also the weapons might still need to be less realistic if you want to be able to actually see who you are fighting. I don't think Children of a Dead Earth would be that fun in first person view.
There's a happy medium with this system for sure. I think the system should be how you suggested. Use the kiosks to open up a menu like the character customizer, then be able to drag and drop all of your inventory items as you please. You can then save loadouts, and what not, and once you hit confirm, then the box containing that gear is spawned, and you can equip it with ease.
personally, what i would change is having the ability to have personal hangers in every major city not just your set home and have everything spawn from their instead of those terminals placed every where. cause your going to interact with the hangers anyway, so way do it multiple times around the city. while just have the new inventory system for your armor/bag slot
I last played over a year ago and Holy moly that was literally the worst inventory I ever saw in a a game. And it's STILL missing the most basic features... Bruh.
Ive helped make games and it really shouldnt be this hard to make a inventory with a search function😐
@@guynamedmaggi5520 I know man I used to code too. An amateur can do it. And it's not one of those ingorant statements where people underestimate the complexity, it's a no brainer
This system physicalized cargo, and MM have one theme, 'make gameplay more cumbersome.'
I can't wait for my laundry folding mini game in my space simulator😂
I completely agree with your personal inventory assessments Morph. I want the kiosks to be just a place we go in order to open the paper doll menu. Skipping all the ui elements and transfer of things through the kiosk. We can use our imagination
Simulation isn't the same thing as immersion. Immersion is a mental state that is created by fluid interaction with the game. Some of the most immersive games where a player can lose the most time aren't first person games with any amount of simulation. Like red alert, stellaris, factorio, ARPGs. Immersion is hurt by getting in the way of the player. Being indecisive and trying on different armor's quickly is better for immersion. Not being able to do that reminds the player they are bound by rules of a piece of computer software and that they must navigate its rules.
Lucky Scamper was 100% right when he said that logistics, engineering and heightened server caps would break most orgs out there.
Don’t see how engineering would break orgs, literally gives them shit to do as the crew rather than stand around.
Who is Lucky Scamper and wtf were they talking about? How would any of those things break orgs?
Stacking in the inventory screen would be a life saver. Also the ability to group items, like armor sets, weapon bundles, etc... would be a nice feature to have and maybe make the experience of swapping armor and gear a little less chunky.
if they want things to stay first person, avoiding the 3rd person stuff for the current tech, they should just bring back something equivalent to the old mobiglas paperdoll personal gear menu, maybe let us save some gear sets or something, and when we go to the terminal, if that gear is present in the system, it should be available to equip saved outfits and gear sets at the click of a button
The changes to personal inventory seem like a straight downgrade that doesn't add anything other than frustration.
I would love to see a system where we retained the paper doll system, however we expanded that paper doll system to include dolls for ships or vehicles in close proximity.
For example, if you were stood in close proximity to the Corsair, or even onboard the Corsair itself - you could drag weapons from the personalised inventory in to one of the weapon slots within the armoury.
This way load up would be simple, but you would still retain the physicalised immersive experience of having to go to that weapon rack/suit rack/container to grab that item when you are out in the verse.
Thinking further, we already have maps now for every ship in the game. It doesn't seem like it would be enormously difficult to use those same maps as the method of selecting onboard containers to transfer items to.
this game was not meant for you then. begone pleb
Very good idea indeed, far better than the current component selection UI that is totally non physical.
I'll reserve judgement until I can play with it, but this has been the plan for years.
I've been here, this specific way of doing it hasn't been specifically in the plans. A physical inventory has been planned, but what that means hasn't been spelled out explicitly and for good reason. CIG tends not to be specific with their plans because it gives flexibility to change direction if something doesn't work internally.
And that is the problem, if something is in plans for years, tech, ideas, everything changes so fast. It is not an agile way of creating software.
@@Morphologis the last time I remember CR talking about inventory, he wanted everything physicalized inside the containers they were stored in.
Open a closet, and the stuff in the closet is hanging there... (We saw that way back in the Demo on Microtech that also introduced the weather effects from wind, and precipitation, and suffering from the cold without proper equipment.) THAT (IMHO) would be a step too far. I think what I yelled at my monitor at the time was "Please, God, No!"
What is being implemented seems like a compromise on what Chris envisioned.
I'll wait until I can play with it to see what I think...
And yes, Star Citizen it not going to be a game you can just hop onto and go do something without planning and preparation... Groups I play with normally make a plan ahead of time to do something specific. I make it a point of pride to be at the rallying point prior to the appointed time, fully equipped and ready to roll,. and log into the game at the appointed time.
I did the same back when I did 40 man raids in WoW.
The Demo: ua-cam.com/video/pV5ubC7fRAk/v-deo.html
Plan and execution are two totally different things, don't get them confused! It's clearly not finished but an interim solution which is odd because the paper doll system was also interim...
I bet the first revision will be quite bad but maybe they'll be able to make it better than the current system.
I think it was completely unneeded to be adding these Kiosks for an extra step of tedium. How long is it going to take till I can have fun in the game from when I log in? When is the fun supposed to start? That time keeps seeming to be taking longer and longer
I was in the evocati testing and I do like the way they implemented it.
1. It prevents accessing location inventory while on any ship, and can add to the feel inventory is fully physicalized where they wanted to go with it, although not fully there yet, more polish needed. Then they need to do this for all outposts and distribution centers that should have local inventory.
2. Although not to the point you were asking about It makes cargo handling loading and unloading mean something other than instant the ship is loaded.
It's so funny how so many people defend this by saying "this was always the plan". That may be the case, but that doesn't mean the plan is a good one.
Adding more tedium and time to a system without any return other than immersion is never a good idea.
Dragon's Dogma 2 is a perfect recent example for this. The devs of that game made the deliberate choice of limiting the fast travel system for added immersion, claiming it's just a case of making traversal more interesting.
And what did they do to make traversal more interesting? Absolutely nothing. They didn't even bother putting some rng into enemy spawns, so as a result you would always fight the same bunch of enemies at the exact same places over and over again cos the game forced you to backtrack a ton.
My prognosis: they'll roll this back for the 1.0 launch or make a hybrid system that still allows classic inventory access because by then they'll have realized (hopefully) that adding massive amounts of tedium for the sake of immersion won't sell the game well.
Especially when it's not actually even any more immersive! How are magic terminals any more immersive than a simple paper doll menu? They aren't! More tedium and time investment are literally the only effects of the new system.
The UI needs improvement, for sure - but let’s look back to when localized inventory was being introduced. People doomposted a LOT. Given time to adjust, I think this is a step in the right direction - Star Citizen is a slow paced game that’s supposed to reward planning and thorough preparation.
All that said - I think this system will be significantly less painful when, like CIC have mentioned, we can log off/log on wherever we left off, and bedlogging is a buff one gets rather than a requirement.
Careful does not mean it has to be tedious and time consuming.
@@jackinthebox301 True enough, but item banks represent a standardization of inventory systems that allow our personal holdings to not just consist of FPS items and components but real cargo that wouldn’t be able to be handled with the old inventory system.
I haven't played this new system. But I remember not long ago when they started with the disguised inventory system. And you had items linked to locations. There were people complaining about how I made things harder and frustrating to be able to be able to access large components because they were on a different planet. So this is the first iteration of this part of the system. Give them feedback, give them time to adjust and streamline things. The fact that it sounds like we've been getting a system. That means we don't have to go back to the one box in the one location you get the one item is a good thing. I also know there's a big bug with the current paper doll system that people are using to loot enemies and get all that lube back to the ship easily. I know I used it.
This seems like a step to reduce server load... but they need to make it smooth. If we have to sort through a list of things that we cannot see graphically, it's going to be a huge problem (especially with armour). The filter will also have to be way more categorised than it currently is.
When game designers don’t play games, you get stuff like this.
It's clearly not finished though is it, which for me means they should have used the paper doll system when accessing item banks until it was implemented properly.
@@dtrjones That's always their excuse. They've had over a thousand people working on these 2 projects for years now. We shouldn't be at this 'until its implemented properly' stage still. UI and UX are as old as video games themselves; they have a plethora of good and bad designs to learn from. They need to stop trying to reinvent the wheel.
In the world of CIG, immersion = wasting your time. They don't know what immersion is.
I think they know pretty well and that’s why I’m a backer since 2014.
A lot of SC players seem incapable of being immersed in a game and because they arent able to, they think a game requires more tedium than real life to immerse them. A low rez or voxel game can be immersive AND fun.
I like the idea of a paperdoll being inside the item kiosk, but I also want to have a dressing room or wardrobe room with a mirror and proper lighting where I can look at my character when he tries out different clothing pieces to really color match them, and this is especially important because UIs always get the colors wrong due to the different UI theme colors. The current personal inventory also doesn't show the clothing items in a size where I can recognize them easily. I would like it much more if we combine lockers and clothing racks with hangers or even trolleys with hangers to move clothing around. This would be the better way. Gearing up should be as immersive and as frictionless as possible.
First... Hello Morph.. great seeing your take on this. I always enjoy the topics you choose to dig into.
So...
5:12
My take on the inventory and set up time is this: Once is fine.
What I mean by that is that I think the issue I have with it is not so much that I have to do it, but that the game isn't ready to allow me to ACTUALLY do it.
If I'm going to set up for a long campaign in 3.23, I'll call a large ship and then fly it out of the hangar first... just to see if I survive that event. I then load it from local inventory.
In 3.24, I'm forced to call my ship... spend an hour or more loading it manually... and THEN... have the hangar doors kill me because they weren't synchronized.
So my biggest complaint is that I can't really do what CIG THINKS I can do. My experience is likely going to be one of additional frustration and anger that CIG is making me do something that is impossible... because they aren't holding their end up. And that's a bad look for them.
So I offer this thought experiment: Imagine if your inventory NEVER crashed in your personal hangar. You NEVER lost a ground vehicle. You NEVER lost anything out of your personal inventory. You could purchase a box from the local cargo inventory and organize your inventory putting things in boxes BEFORE you brought them up the freight elevator.
Imagine if you could then store this ship and it NEVER got destroyed in the process. It was ALWAYS able to be recalled with EXACTLY what you put on it.
And finally... the hangar NEVER just suddenly decided to kill you while flying out or landing (unless it actually was your fault).
In the thought experiment above we now have a situation where over the course of a week or so... you have all your ships outfitted. You have your hangar skirts outfitted with the vehicles you use frequently and you are actually able to repair them to full health in your own hangar.
In such a case... I put to you that none of this really matters. You take the tram to your hangar wearing your pajamas if you want to. From the moment you break the threshold of your hangar... you get to work. You call the ship you want to use for your day's activities... and that ship is already festooned with equipment and anything it doesn't have you can probably put in a ground vehicle and drive one onto the ship.. and off you go.
So I think what they have in mind is fine, but as usual CIG has gotten themselves out over their skies.
It's not that we have to do all these new things... but that they are forcing us to do them over and over and over and over.
over complication of the inventory
i completely disagree. it may not be perfect but it is absolutely a step in the right direction. about the only thing it really NEEDS is a search function.
With a more reactive system, less lag, a "add as favorite item" option and "favorite" tab, finally as you said the search bar.
Nah, A search function isn't immersive. Tedium is such an important and realistic part of immersiveness and realism. You SHOULD have to take an appreciable amount of time to find things in game, just as in real life if you have alot in storage you have to spend time to rummage through storage bins. Immersiveness isn't about constant dopamine hits.
@@2drealms196 We already have automated logistical systems today. Not having a feature as basic as a search engine in 930 years would be greatly non-immersive.
@@2drealms196 I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or serious
They need to find a way to minimize the item database to stabilize Live servers especially later when more features are in play. Moving the database to a different stand alone server, and pulling items as needed to the live server via a kiosk is a great way to lower the load on the Live environment while making the items easy to access.
I think it could be a question of presenting, for example: on the terminal you have something similar to the old inventory system where you can equip what you want on a 'virtual' character and then the elevator brings up those items.
Funny to see all these people being surprised that CIG does what the concept planned for a decade by now…
What were you thinking? They’re making it another call of duty in space?
Ok but Arma has a paper doll inventory. Making things less tedious doesn't make it cod.
You havne't watch the video isn't it?
What CIG do in the personal inventory system is like
1. open your store room of personal item
2. Instead of put you gun in your holster or item to you pocket you pack what you want into a box
3. take out the box and close the store room door
4. open the box and do what you should do in step 2
What happened is you access a big magic storage to pack a second small magic storage so you can get your thing after two loading screens and left a empty box, it is just a silly design
I hope CIG takes none of this opinion into context going forward.
He’s right though.
I good compramise would be letting you queue up what you want from your mobi then going to a kiosk and getting your stuff immediately
great vid! yeah I think the answer is: a) inventory kiosk to access paper doll. b) physicalized cargo from hangar kiosks.
My personal thoughts, maybe keep the paper doll system for local management, fitting out, and the like. However for transferring from one location to another, or just to a ship, you have to manually load your inventory (at least in the form of boxes) onto your ship, keep the Item banks for retrieving/storing gear for transfer in the hangers, pledge item recovery, and even as an optional form of immersion if a player really wants it
I personally think the old way with a search function but requiring you to go into a locker room that could have it's own instance when it's shut to put on gear would be better. It would be the old way without your character completely undressing and having gear appear and disappear being a problem anymore.
Having a 3d representation of our character, and be able to build the set we want to load could be better than having everything instanlty applied, so once you have fiddled with your character, you could click on "equip or apply set" like you do on ships loadouts (even if ships loadout ui is "not great")
At least we would get a preview, be able to filter immediately to attachements spots, weapons slots, ammo. Insead of selecting "i want this armor, this bag and helmet" and not having a clue of compatibility for example 😅
I have to agree with most of what you are saying, and there is a saying that i think represents what I think very well "keep it simple, stupid" or "if its not complicated then dont complicate it" as I foresee more inventory issues like items being stuck in the "drawer" before even getting to the player or issues with other locations where you find a nice piece or set of equipment but now with the changes to the system you have to drag or tractor beam to your ship which then adds another question of how ship vehicle inventories work and if they will even pop up like they do now.
your solution of having the terminals act as a giant local loot box seems like the best compromise, though an Idea specific to private Hangers have the cargo elevator a physical loadout with something like a weapon wall, armor/suit stands and attachment/ammo displays like the shops and galleries.
I've been saying this for soo long. This system might work if we didn't have tons of items to move or super tiny backpacks, but we do. Having something like Minecraft and Skyrim just doesn't work because in those games, you can hold literally everything.
I feel like this goes back to the early years when I argued they are/planned to push some things too far and ignored the fun vs realism factor. Along those same lines I would also argue "realism" does not equate to "immersion", as its hard to immerse yourself if your not having fun.
The inventory system would be great if we can custom categorise our personal inventory into set custom names such as cold weather industrial, Hot weather ground Combat, Space rock mining etc… QoL would be vastly increased if we could just click a categorised container and have all the gear auto placed onto our bodies after stepping into the personal gear equipment station.
This could be nice if they allowed us to save loadouts so we could 1 button equip for mission types - or even grab multiple sets to put in a cargo box for travel.
Just imagine - 6x bunker loadout and it just packs a box with 6x a heavy helmet, chest, pants, arms, backpack, the weapons you like, ammo, medpacks, grenades, food and drink - then you call this bix.on your cargo elevator and just put it in your ship.
I think the middle way here would be to add the paper doll on the screen. So, dress yourself(or a humanoid representation) on the item bank screen, then hit a button that moves all of those items to the drawer. (with search, folder organization, etc.) This way you could also easily save loadouts/sets. And when the drawer opens, the option should be to "put on/swap all", instead of just opening up the legacy inventory system.
I absolutely agree and had the same idea about some kind of 'wardrobe'. Just open the inventory at one of the access points and switch out the gear directly, without an in-between step.
I want to check at least which gear fits together visually, before going through all that hassle. It's a real step backwards like this :/.
I hope they react to the community's feedback. Shouldn't be too hard to implement, since they have all the parts already.
The Item Bank or Storage Access seems like their attempt to move toward their goal of having a place where things are while still allowing similar behavior as the past. It seems like a stopgap solution as they are in the transition phase and I think the added friction is due to that. Right now we, as players, do not have places we can persistently store things so we have to rely on their inventory system and the additional depth to access things through it. With persistent hangars, we can actually place storage boxes (which they have mentioned they want players to be able to personalize) and sort things into them as we see fit. I will probably play around with having a closet made up of a varying number of the storage boxes that I leave in my hangar so that I can prep without having to wait for the freight elevator or storage kiosk and can directly access with the paper doll inventory system which will remove that friction you discussed.
If/when persistent Habs become a thing in game, that will likely be another place where you can store and sort things the way you want to minimize the friction of working through the storage kiosk most of the time. Then the kiosk will become a place you use rarely when you want to transfer things between your hab or hangar.
You did beautifully with the cinematic musical transitions!
So the kicker is that the new inventory system is only part 1 of the final inventory system. Eventually everything will be physical, that's what the suit racks are for in your ships. Same with clothing lockers etc.
In my feedback thread I gave the example of an interactive dressing mirror and a mannequin you simply click once to get dressed in whatever you choose to wear. I think this system works if you want to pull only a few items, but not if you want to prepare for a days worth of adventure.
@Morphologis On the discussion of extra time syncs when claiming a ship not at your personal hanger is it instant like is was or each time do you have to wait for it to rise on the elevator?
And if so does it happen when you call it from the old terminals or only when you get to the hanger?
Should be a paper doll, where you can drag items onto a representation of your character.
Then, when you press apply, it can either show an equip animation, or have like a 'scan laser' that goes from head to toe 'phasing' in the items on your body.
I kind of agree. It’s a little too much with the drawer. Clicking a screen to access the inventory as it is now but with a more robust UI would skip a step. Maybe CIG will find a balance point.
My only main want for the personal inventory system (but also for cargo) - is the ability to transfer it from remote locations to where I am now setup as home base...
I have heard from this only in this video. But I can imagine the inventory process can make sense if seen in a larger context. To prepare for a longer trip may take more time to equip yourself. Also you likely will hold more equipment on your ship later. But also it makes moving from one place to another planet or even system, once ready, more challenging so players are more locked to one area.
Awesome content and feedback for the updates!