Ideas to improve game playability/usability

Here are few ideas to improve usability and gameplay a bit, not that it’s bad at the moment but improvement is always better. If these already exists, instead of trashtalking please point a way how to do it as it has been few years since I played GD last time, I just came back :wink:

These ideas are most probably not picked up by Crate since there are no more expansions planned So they are also of course available for mod authors. Feel free to pickup anything you want. If such a mod already exists, would be nice if you comment and tell us about it.

Also note that this post is not about game mechanics, this is only about usability stuff.

Some of these ideas might already be available as mods as well, but I rather have the functionality straight in the game instead of having a need to twiddle with external mods/addons. Also some ideas might make the game bit too easy. But as I am a agile software engineer I tend to collect all ideas rather than drop them immediately. Agile sw design is not like dropping ideas before they are handled, every new idea should be collected and dropped afterwards.

So I will keep on collecting the ideas here, if something already exists or if the idea is discarded by the community I will mark it in the list, but not remove so we see it’s been handled. These are ideas and by no a list of demands, the game is already wonderful but there are ways to improve (like always with anything).

  1. **THIS EXISTS ALREADY AS POINTED BELOW! Shift-Click on an item.** A quick utton/action to move item between stash and inventory. I was transferring compotents from my characters personal stash to the inventory, I had to do it by dragging the component from the stash to the inventory. If I right clicked on a component in stash is started to apply it. I do not know if it already exists, I tried to look for it, but it would be nice to have a way to click one button/action/key on a item in stash to move it to the inventory. Like currently there exists a button in stash which moves all components to the stash from inv. Example could be (AddModifier)-RightButton or (AddModifier)-Leftbutton, or add an Keybinding option for us to configure it.
  2. **THIS EXISTS ALREADY AS POINTED BELOW! There is a filter button.** Loot filter improvement. Currently there are three ways to filter loot on the ground. If loot showing is enabled it shows ALL loot including the common quality loot. You can filter common trash out by pressing the bound key, so it kind works in reverse to myliking. If there already is not a way to set the loot filter so that it automatically shows everything but common trash it could be implemented. This filter could be configured to your liking meaning that if you want to show only Green items or better it shows only that automatically, or if you want Yellow items or better… etc.
  3. I can’t bind right mouse button to camera rotate. Please give us this option, many of us are used to it in other games. Not a big issue but atleast for me it would help a bit. I know that RB is currently a hard bound button for the game functionality but please allow us to change that. :slight_smile:
  4. Improve the visibility of usable/unusable items in stash/inventory. Could for example tint more towards red if the item is unsusable. The current method of having that “x” on the corner and slightly changing the color is not visible enough. Especially for components, I have hundreds of components in stash and with a new character I found it bit hard to see which one is usable. Yes, I have a big monitor. :wink:
  5. From tqFan: I would also like a bar to set up rotation speed with mouse and keyboard because the default camera rotation with keyboard is far too slow
  6. Give us autoloot and autoloot filter similar similar to loot filter. Currently components and some other items are autolooted but with this filter I could make a custom autoloot filter for my current class/spec. Rest stuff I can choose if I want to loot or not manually. Would this make the game too easy? But then, you can choose if you want to use or not.
  7. Continuing with the “automatic” functionality and filter functionality. Add an automatic sell filter. Quite similar to the previous idea. Set a filter which defines which items are automatically sold when a certain button is clicked on.
    • This is a dangerous operation but you can choose if you want to use it or not. I for example would like all yellow/common items to be automatically sold. Nobody needs them after the start.
    • Certain rival game staring with D* has separate buttons for selling each diffenrent quality of items, this sell filter would be much more advanced. But this would be a good start in GD too. Atleast I could sell all yellow/white stuff at once by click of a button.
  8. Improve the visibility of world items like boxes etc. option to enable a hovering item mane or a highlight for such items. Chests are already highlighted which is good. With an option for this functionality, purists can disable it.
  9. Option to automatically open a rift and teleport to the major town/hub in the current area. Not a big issue atm but you still have to use time to browse the map if you just quickly want to go to the main hub. Similar functionality exists in Diablo 3.
  10. Ability to sort the stash by item level. Especially usefull for components. Not a big deal tho but would still improve usability and especially the inventory handling. I want to keep items sorted by level so that I can easily see what items my alts can use (transfer stash). Atleast sort the completed and incomplete components separately, now they are just mixed up and it’s rather annoying.
  11. Separate component bag in stash. Might be bit too much to still. :wink:. Added with funtionality to sort the component stash by item where the component is applied to would be godly.
    • Not really needed because you can select any bag for this functionality already :stuck_out_tongue:
  12. Ability to zoom in/out the minimap some amount. Allowing to change the distance how far it shows. Just like in World of Warcraft.
  13. When combining components, move the completed components to existing stack rather than placing in to the slot of the original component parts. If I want to keep my completed components in certain order it’s currently impossible if I use the “combine componets” option in stash.
  14. Color indicator (or some other clearly visible one) for rare components.
    • We all have hundreds of components in stash, auto sort does not seem to care about the rarity order of components. It’s very time consuming to find the rare component from the stash.
  15. Bit more intelligent placing of item tooltips. For example, I am browsing my stash for components. I highlight an equipped item on my character and the stash highlights the components that fit to that particular item. However the tooltip overlaps the stash window. Btw, what is the game option “show item tooltips” supposed to do? I might be stupid but it seems to do nothing.
    • Obsolete actually. I finally noticed that you can press CTRL and the tooltip disappears :slight_smile:
  16. A possibility add custom map markers for important locations.This feature would be especially useful for newish players who do not know the regions well. I understand that one of the goals in APRG games is to familiarize the areas for future purposes, but in games with huge areas like GD it can be overwhelming for certain people. If the game allowed to add map markers for locations like “Dynamite sites”, “Aether barriers”, “Broken bridges”, etc. it could be useful for later use.
    • Often you can’t activate the barrier when you bump into one, and later you just have to remember the location (It is not visible in the map if you are far away, you have to remember it). A simple “add marker to current location” function which adds the current character location allowing to type a name for the marker. The list shows all marks and allows to click on it when the map pans to the selected marker location, if you are on a same level/zone (e.g outside marker and you are outside and not in a dungeon). Also the main map window should show the markers on currently visible map region. Functionality should be general, not limited to barriers, add a marker to your current location. Would be extremely useful atleast to me. :wink: Possibly a mod idea?
  17. An option to automatically toggle the loot name plates off during a battle and when fight is over turn it back on. The item names often hover on top of monster when you fight in the same area.
    • Example scenario: Steps of Torment, huge spawns in one room, lots of loot dropping. New monsters spawn before you get to loot. The loot item names on the floor clutter the whole screen.
    • Of course this can be done manually by using the “Toggle hide all items” keybind, but why not automatic? Surely the game engine knows when there is fighting going on between the player and enemies so implementing this would be trivial.
  18. More options for autosort for the stash window. Current sorting algorithm is too blunt. Try sorting components, it just messes everything up.
    • sorty by level, rarity
    • for components sorty by completion status and rarity.
  19. Undo for autosort
    • Ooh, how often I have accidentally pushed “sort” for my component bag and kaboom my carefully self sorted bag of components is a total mess where all finished and unfinished components are mixed together.
  20. Extend the range of “auto pathing” a bit.. Better target finding for automatic path finding. If you click on a world, your character finds a path to to that place if possible, no need to manually navigate.
    • This might be game mechanics already but it’s also playability issue.
    • Range is not an issue, its the target finding for some locations.
    • Often when you click on a perch/platform above your character, the game does not find a path to it even it exists. I’ve experimented a bit and it seems that to be able to find a path to the target, the whole path must be visible in screen. If not, a path is not found.
    • There are obvious bugs also in the pathfinding algorithm. Sometimes the char starts to move to a location you clicked on even there is no way to the destination. Or it moves along a wrong route and stops to an obstacle even a clear route exists.
  21. Is it possible to add a zoom in/out for the main map window (as requested for minimap above in idea 12)?
    • You can zoom the map which comes with TAB key, but when you are teleporting you see a map which can’t be zoomed in/out.
  22. Set active quest and see approximate directions on the map. Even a rival game starting with D* has this, shows a direction to your active quest.
  23. A visual indicator showing what damage type is coming in. Currently there is just your health bar diminishing.
    • Again, might be a game mechanics issue, but surely the game knows what type of damage is applied to you.
    • This should be an option which can be toggled on if so desired.
    • Take WoW as an example
  24. A visual available/new quest or new dialog indicator in minimap. Obvious reason really. Currently there is just that blue circle for interactive NPCs. And the state does not change on minimap at all.
    • Currently one needs to go through the entire hub basically on each visit to see if there’s something new.
    • Maybe color the blue circle differently, maybe yellow if the NPC has something new.
    • Since quest objectives are indicated in minimap with visible * why not indicate new quests/dialogs as well.
  25. A Visual indicator for portals in/out in all dungeons and areas areas. This indicator should show in minimap and in and local map (TAB). Currently not all areas show it.
    • Example is a Cthonic Rift, it’s a rather big area and map has no indicators exist at all.
    • However minor things like vital energy (food/meals) is shown in TAB map. :open_mouth:
  26. From Teyru in discord: Ability to search the inventory, just like the current stash search feature.
    • not sure how to handle the search so that it searches ALL bags instead the currently visible one. But it would be pretty neat.

Again, please try to be constructive, if something already exists, point me a way how to do it. If something sounds bit too much, leave a comment. If not please take these ideas into consideration. :slight_smile: I will continue to add more to this post while I play more.

Thank you again for a great game and continuing support Crate :slight_smile:

Now back to the game!

  1. Shift + Left Click
  2. It works that way
  1. shift + click

Thanks, like I said, It’s been few years for me. So thanks :wink: I edited the original post to indicate that the functionality already exists!

I found the loot filter magical button. Maybe I should wear my glasses now :wink:

filter

Works like a charm, just what I wanted! Even more.

  1. You can use AutoHotkey [Tool] AutoHotkey scripts
    Rbutton::Send {r} ; set "r" to rotate in GD options
    or some software to configure your mouse
    or maybe this tool to rotate the camera quickly with keyboard or scroll
    [Tool] Faster camera rotation using keyboard or scroll wheel

Yes, addons exists but this functionality should be in the game :wink:

Sure. I agree. I would also like a bar to set up rotation speed with mouse and keyboard because the default camera rotation with keyboard is far too slow

I will add this to the ideas list and make you as an original author, is that ok?

1 Like

By the way, in the editor of this board, is there a way to apply a strikethrough effect for the text. Now only italic and bold exist.

some old text
strikethrough

Thanks :slight_smile: It was not directly visible in the editor itself.

Offtopic: As a new user I can’t post new threads yet so I just reply here. Is there a guide for text formatting? The editor is lacking controls for certain formatting options. For example, can I change the text color?

Discourse forums use a combination of Markdown…
https://commonmark.org/help/

and HTML even. I did start writing a forum guide months ago but I got side-tracked with other things and actually never got much into the “editor” side of thing in the guide…
[HOW-TO] Use This Forum Effectively

@omnitrio began a test thread around the same time (this is roughly the period immediately following Crate’s move to the current Discourse forum software) and him and I both used it as kind of a learning tool…
🔥 My Test Topic (Nothing Interesting)

The further down you go the more interesting it gets. It served its purpose.

You can do it via HTML:
Red Yellow Blue Green

^Happens like so:
<font color='red'>Red</font> <font color='yellow'>Yellow</font> <font color='blue'>Blue</font> <font color='green'>Green</font>

…or bbcode:
Red Yellow Blue Green

^Happens like so:
[color=red]Red[/color] [color=yellow]Yellow[/color] [color=blue]Blue[/color] [color=green]Green[/color]

Here is a color table for color names you can use:
http://www.farb-tabelle.de/en/table-of-color.htm

Unfortunately, this is the way it must be done in Discourse.

3 Likes

Thanks m8 :slight_smile: I know HTML well so I can use that. I think I tried bbcode earlier but it didn’t work, maybe I typoed something.

Anyhow, thanks for the info. Admins should post a link to a guide of discord text formatting rules because people are posting guides here and such stuff that might require special formatting.

Keep in mind that if you are curious how someone is formatting their guide you can simply click on the ‘Reply’ button for the post in question and then click the ‘Quote whole post’ button…

…to view the formatting they are using (as long as the thread isn’t locked).

1 Like

powbam, aye, I noticed. :slight_smile:

Would looove a feature to auto-sell all non-MI greens.

1 Like

Yeah, I originally suggested total automation for selling, a filter based auto sell when vendor is opened. Filter could be similar than the loot filter currently. I changed it to having a button to apply this filter so that accidents are avoided better.

In WoW I have an addon which sells all crap automatically when I open a vendor, I could not live without it anymore. I hate clicking through a huge inventory, item by item, to sell unneeded stuff.

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