[dev 1015] Adding Visual Identifiers for a Pyxis: "Pyxis Labels" and More

Hey Dev's /wave
1st, Thanks for the list of 12 recently infused Atmas! Works out nicely. ^^ Destroying chest is a nice touch as well! Could we please have the "/destroypyxis <t>" command to make macros with in light of this new feature as well? o.o

This Issue:
As Fell Cleaving hoards of enemies repeatedly for hours on end as a WAR has become a very common part of my Abyssean career (and other jobs too for that matter), so too has become the cumbersome task of trying to quickly and efficiently check, communicate the contents to party members, and open the dozens of pyxis that result from such an activity. While I find the Fell Cleaving part still very satisfying and rewarding to this day ^^ the latter part continues to be cumbersome and at times annoying for multiple reasons.

• Slow menu activation upon checking a pyxis
• Layout of the pyxis themselves occasionally based on possible bunching of enemies
• Difficulty to "quickly" identify and communicate to party members exactly which pyxis to open (example: amongst dozens of blue, and red pyxis that all look the same)
• Short despawn timers that ignore the time it takes to check the pyxis themselves

In a scenario where 15+ enemies all drop chests that are potentially desirable to the group, depending on how those chest are laid out, everyone checking the chest has only 180 seconds to try and quickly determine and communicate which pyxis are worth opening and available to all party members. While I'm not saying this is at all impossible to accomplish, because players have become very efficient at the process after so much practice, the process could be vastly improved with some intuitive additions.

Possible Solutions:
Additions that could help streamline the process:

• Adding a way to quickly "Visually communicate" the contents of a checked pyxis to other party members. Possible "Pyxis Labels", or "Pyxis Auras" could allow a player to check a pyxis and instantly Visually display the contents to effectively communicate to all party members in range the value of that pyxis. This could be accomplished by either adding an additional option to the pyxis menu called "Display Pyxis Label" or just perhaps making it an automatic response to the player "Peering through the cracks" of a Pyxis.
»Pyxis Labels example 1
»Pyxis Labels example 2
»Pyxis Labels example 3
----
**EDIT**
Maybe allowing 2hr boxes to be keyed open without releasing the effect until someone selected the contents similar to Gold key item boxes. This would work the very same way as the suggested pyxis labels in terms of communicating which box was the 2hr box. Since this is the only box that is player dependent in terms of who keys open the chest receives the reward all that would be needed is an added selection menu. No extra graphics needed. ^^
------
• Forcing uniform spawn layouts for pyxis's no matter how the vanquished monsters were piled together at the time of their killing.
»Forced uniform Pyxis Layout example 1

Thanks for listening Devs /salute

youre pretty much asking them to nerf fell cleaves

I haven't cleaved since the patch to the chests, should see how it works, but ya there is a large bit of lag when trying to chest the chest... and then having to retarget it after you check it... if you could keep the target (since i do it with mules) id find the activity much easier

So instead of having the person on chest duty key or destroy the chest, you want to have him call someone else to key or destroy the chest.

For blue chests, you key or destroy XP, Cruor, temps, and time extensions. No communicating on those.
ISL, you leave the blue chest and let your party know that its there; I'm sure they can see where you are and realize that the blue chest that you left is the right chest.

Red chests are key or destroy, no communicating.

For gold chests, you add items to the pool, call-out-and-open or destroy temps, and call out and open key items. The giant, open, gold chest is usually enough of a visual hint as to which chest it is.

Anyone who is checking chests should have keys, and if you're just opening ISL, you should also have keys for that.

The chest system in Abyssea is fine as it is.

Not an entirely horrible idea, but pretty unnecessary when there are so many other issues for the dev team to deal with.

Not a bad idea but not really essential either. I don't want a /dstroychest command because it would make it even easier to just kill chests without really looking at them.

Chest system is fine. Your idea seems like it would take way more resources then is necessary for an idea that isnt really needed.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Khiinroye

So instead of having the person on chest duty key or destroy the chest, you want to have him call someone else to key or destroy the chest.
For blue chests, you key or destroy XP, Cruor, temps, and time extensions. No communicating on those.
ISL, you leave the blue chest and let your party know that its there; I'm sure they can see where you are and realize that the blue chest that you left is the right chest.
Red chests are key or destroy, no communicating.
For gold chests, you add items to the pool, call-out-and-open or destroy temps, and call out and open key items. The giant, open, gold chest is usually enough of a visual hint as to which chest it is.
Anyone who is checking chests should have keys, and if you're just opening ISL, you should also have keys for that.
The chest system in Abyssea is fine as it is.

---

-------------------
^^ To make sure to clarify the grounds of my Pyxis Label suggestion, streamlining the check, communicate, and open process "party wide" is the goal with the visual indicators.

Depending on how many chest have dropped after a major pull, there are times when one key person is simply not enough to do this entire 3 step process effectively with enough time to spare for opening. No matter how fast your targeting finger is, there is in fact a slight lag from checking a pyxis that can't be helped and thus slows the process down even more so in the event of lots of chests to check.

The pyxis labels would allow for anyone in the party to help quickly identify the contents of the dozens of blue and red pyxis whether they have keys or not. If that player that's on key duty (or anyone in the party with keys) could look at a handful of chest and determine which ones to key open with just a glance, then you would be correct in your saying, "No verbal communication needed". Without it, you still have to say things like,

"ISL by me. No, to the far right. Well I know there's 5 blue chest to the far right ><. (all the while time is being lost) Here, right where I'm standing."

In this same example, the person on key duty could simply say

"ISL.", and the now activated visual pyxis label would do the rest.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Leonlionheart

Not an entirely horrible idea, but pretty unnecessary when there are so many other issues for the dev team to deal with.

---

----------
^^ Well neither was the adjustment to the Atma infusing menu (New list of 12 recently infused Atma), but here we are! lol But yeah, it's not game breaking at all, just a suggestion for streamlining the process. ^^
Thanks for the feedback /

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alhanelem

Not a bad idea but not really essential either. I don't want a /dstroychest command because it would make it even easier to just kill chests without really looking at them.

---

-----------
Thanks, and /agreed, we would continue to pop chest without any improvements, but just wanted to suggest a quicker method to something we all have to deal with at some point or another inside Abyssea.

That's kinda the whole idea I'm afraid in regards to the /destroypyxis command. ^^; Try to picture using the command coupled with the functionality of the pyxis labels for a sec. Instead of having to recheck which pyxis to destroy, other members of your party may have already activated the pyxis label while checking through the group chests but didn't destroy the chest yet, and with a simple glance you could quickly determine which chests are worthy of being destroyed. ^^
Though, even without the pyxis labels, lets say your party has amassed 300+ minutes inside abyssea and have capped all the lights you wish to for that run. At that point, any and all red chests that drop is fair game to quickly destroy with extreme prejudice ^^ lol so having a quick /destroypyxis command macro'd would come in quite handy. At that point it would become a game of "Who has the fastest macro finger" to snatch the cruor reward. lol

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kimble

Chest system is fine. Your idea seems like it would take way more resources then is necessary for an idea that isnt really needed.

---

-----------------
Well, the chest system works as is, but it couldn't hurt to improve the speed of the process when it's being pushed to it's extreme, such as massive amounts of chests that potentially all need to be checked and opened within a window of 3 minutes. Again, not going to cause folks to quit the game or anything, but neither was the Atma infusing menu, but that got improved for very similar reasons. ^^ Improving the game experience is apart of the Devs job, so it's never a waste of time when they succeed in correcting a system that is not performing at it's best potential.

Technically speaking, since the data the pyxis labels would be displaying is already built into the system (the pyxis light color, rank/light strength, and despawn timer), adding a graphical identifier would literally be putting a face on top of it for players to visually see. Sort of like what warp npc's are. Both the coding and animation for warp already exist, so adding a new npc (pretty much a skin to the functionality) anywhere in the game isn't really much work at all.

I don't think you understand coding tbh. Really, if you are doing a good burn, you dont really have time to checking chests and just popping it wahtever it might be. If you are doing a cleave for EXP then its even easier because you dont really care what is in the red chests.

I'm no programmer no ^^; but I've had some education on the basics of a few programming languages here and there to know you can have a dozen of different faces/methods of activation for the same handful of code. It takes some tweaking depending on how you want the intended audience to interact with those different faces, but the end result of the action can still be based on that core coding.

Yeah, you lose 2hr chest that way... so I'm not too keen on the spamming open the chest logic, but different strokes for different folks yeah.^^ Red chest lose their worth when everyone is capped in the desired lights, so it just depends. I haven't done Fell Cleaving for EXP in a good while though.

Normally, if you aren't even cleaving for exp, you will cleave with your desired lights capped or near cap (azure, amber, pearl) so you can just destroy red chests and not even need it. Oddly enough, this is the first time ive even heard anyone complain about chest in cleaves. Other than not getting enough/being able to get rid of them.

Yep that's true about the lights, but technically, one can start Cleaving or mass killing by other means for time extensions once Azure is capped and then just build Pearl or any other lights along the way and still see valuable blue pyxis. Since Azure is the quickest to cap, in this scenario, red pyxis could still be used for a good while until everything's capped.

I'm usually farming for TE's over anything else, while the rest of my party is hunting down key items and so forth so my frustrations over the process stem from my experiences trying to mass kill then rummage through dozens of chest in a timely manner. Although, even when amongst my party members while mass killing, there are times when the process slows down killing due to the necessary rummaging. Again, I'm not saying it's not possible to check chest at a decent pace and find what you're looking for here, because we do it everyday, but only that the process can be improved.

Can, but doesnt need to be, and rather they use their time on something more useful/fun.

^^ Good thing it's a suggestion for the Devs then /

Right, so, i guess the rest of us shouldn't say anything (unless its supporting your idea) because this is clearly not a place for discussion.

No topic with Kingfury is ever open for discussion.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kimble

Can, but doesnt need to be, and rather they use their time on something more useful/fun.

---

Quote:

---

While we would like to implement fun things into the game, we have found that it is currently more difficult than we had originally anticipated. We have no plans to implement fun into the game at this time. We appologize for the inconvenience.

---

Sorry, couldn't resist.

On the topic of improving the chest's functionality, if you're going to suggest a "/destroypyxis <t>" command you should also include a "/checkpyxis <t>". If I were programming it, I would use a main and sub command for this.

Main command:
/pyxis

Sub command:
open (launches the guessing game)
check (displays the content of the chest)
destroy (destroys the chest)
key (uses a key on the chest provided you have one in your inventory)

^ Just makes it more generic and reusable provided you want to add more functionality to it later.

While it might seem like a good user friendly idea... I'm not so sure I want to see info displayed above every chest. Depending on how they would render it, it could cause some lag issues when dealing with a ton of chests.

As for self organizing chests, it would be nice, but I don't see them giving a positive response on that one. If you add collision detection upon spawn for chests it could go wrong if not tested thoroughly. Say you pull the monsters in a tight spot and kill them, there's always the possibility that the chests could fan out up a rockface, up a tree, under the map, etc... Now I'm not saying it can't be done, but this seems like something they would come back with and say was "too difficult to implement."

I would like to see the first, I don't care for the second, and I'm indifferent about the third.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kimble

Normally, if you aren't even cleaving for exp, you will cleave with your desired lights capped or near cap (azure, amber, pearl) so you can just destroy red chests and not even need it. Oddly enough, this is the first time ive even heard anyone complain about chest in cleaves. Other than not getting enough/being able to get rid of them.

---

^ This ...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TybudX

No topic with Kingfury is ever open for discussion.

---

And this.

i like the drawings. good job as always

@ Kimble:

lol say wha?! You stated your opinion at the end of our discussion, and I simply pointed out that it's a good thing the Devs actually want suggestions about possible improvements, that's all.^^

We just had a 5+ post discussion lol I didn't bash or put down your opinions anywhere. I love discussions lol. Never said anyone has to agree with anything, and I haven't bashed the handful of folks on the 1st page for saying they believe the suggestion wasn't really needed. Go look! ^^

I think the Devs actually want good/worthwhile suggestions/improvements is all.

@ CrystalWeapon:

I'd love those commands to macro in man! It just would make things cleaner ^^

I would hope not in regards to the lag from the pyxis labels. Technically they wouldn't pop up until the pyxis content was "peered" at by a player so they wouldn't all just pop up once the chest dropped.

Yeah, I can see the challenge with programming the "Forced layout" thing with all the wonderful things that can get in the way. Just hoping the Devs continue testing ways to improve the outcome when lots of chest spawn. In any case it's good to let them know right?

It'd be nice to have those labels, but I'm pretty sure it would create a tremendous amount of lag.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kimble

I think the Devs actually want good/worthwhile suggestions/improvements is all.

---

-------------
Oh boy, see now you're just baiting for a little slap fight lol I'll /pass this time, thanks ^^

Your opinion is noted Kimble, thanks for the feedback /

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Selzak

It'd be nice to have those labels, but I'm pretty sure it would create a tremendous amount of lag.

---

-----------
Again, I would hope not since they wouldn't appear until the player "peered" at the contents, or perhaps after choosing a "Display Pyxis Label" option after checking the contents. So you wouldn't just see a label instantly upon them dropping.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JovialRat

i like the drawings. good job as always

---

------
Thanks for the feedback and compliment Jovial ^^/

**Edit to OP**

"Additions that could help streamline the process:

• Adding a way to quickly "Visually communicate" the contents of a checked pyxis to other party members. Possible "Pyxis Labels", or "Pyxis Auras" could allow a player to check a pyxis and instantly Visually display the contents to effectively communicate to all party members in range the value of that pyxis. This could be accomplished by either adding an additional option to the pyxis menu called "Display Pyxis Label" or just perhaps making it an automatic response to the player "Peering through the cracks" of a Pyxis."

I fail to see how "I like your drawings" is considered feedback.

Aura would really be a bad idea because "aura" type stuff is what causes the most leg in the game. SMN avatars, Confluexes, Teleport crystals, etc.

The main problem I see with labels is that its not something currently in the game so its not as simple as "just turn this on to make it visible", it would be something totally new for the game and could cause the same kind of lag.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by kingfury

-----------
Again, I would hope not since they wouldn't appear until the player "peered" at the contents, or perhaps after choosing a "Display Pyxis Label" option after checking the contents. So you wouldn't just see a label instantly upon them dropping.

---

What would be the point then?

What they need to do is work on where the chests drop in the first place. If they could somehow make them behave like they actually have some physical properties so they don't spawn on top/inside of each other, most of this would all be mute.

Adding the labels could create even more problems. Without the chests paying attention to collision/occlusion rules in any way shape or form, the labels would also get stacked on top of each other, in some cases rendering them useless as you wouldn't be able to read them. Also, doing so may negate the tweak they just made to increase the number of pyxis spawning. There is a limited amount of memory and address space to assign to NPC type items in a zone due to the PS2 hardware limitations--those same restrictions are built into the programming code as well, so they exist as a soft-cap on the other platforms as well. In short, this could reak a little havoc if implemented.

As I mentioned in the last thread on this idea, what really needs to be done is to streamline the menus. They need to change it so that we stay in the menus until we are done with the chest or exit out of the menus ourselves. This way we can check it ONE and ONLY one time:

/Check <t>
scroll down to peek inside the chest and we see the contents
--STAY IN THE MENU SYSTEM---
"Attempt to open chest" -->start the manual chest open sequence, staying in the menu system until we succeed, fail, or giveup.
"Open with a Forbidden Key"-->receive items and exit, or stay in the menu to add to lottable spoils, take items (again, staying in the menus system until we've taken all items or exited ourselves)
"Destroy the chest"-->chest is destroyed and get the cruor reward

As it is now, you have to check it multiple times to get through all the steps. This presents the bulk of the problem when the chests are spawning on top of each other.

Though I didn't illustrate the "Pyxis aura" example in the OP, these wouldn't work like the current in-game auras you've named in that they wouldn't distort the visual graphics around them and such. They would look like three vertical lights affixed to the top of the pyxis that displayed the pyxis information through how tall and short they were. I just used the term "Aura" to describe the energy-like lights that would represent the information of the pyxis. I'll pop in an example to help convey the concept.

The kind of graphics I'm thinking for these identifiers actually do exist in the game already, they would simply have to be altered to work for this process. Graphically, they would be on par with the selection arrow we use to point at things with, and wouldn't need to have the graphic weight of say a crag pad or avatar. The programming of pairing these kinds graphics to display the pyxis information would just take a bit of tweaking.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Selzak

What would be the point then?

---

------------
In case you missed it,

"To make sure to clarify the grounds of my Pyxis Label suggestion, streamlining the check, communicate, and open process "party wide" is the goal with the visual indicators.

Depending on how many chest have dropped after a major pull, there are times when one key person is simply not enough to do this entire 3 step process effectively with enough time to spare for opening. No matter how fast your targeting finger is, there is in fact a slight lag from checking a pyxis that can't be helped and thus slows the process down even more so in the event of lots of chests to check.

The pyxis labels would allow for anyone in the party to help quickly identify the contents of the dozens of blue and red pyxis whether they have keys or not. If that player that's on key duty (or anyone in the party with keys) could look at a handful of chest and determine which ones to key open with just a glance, then you would be correct in your saying, "No verbal communication needed". Without it, you still have to say things like,
"ISL by me. No, to the far right. Well I know there's 5 blue chest to the far right ><. (all the while time is being lost) Here, right where I'm standing."
In this same example, the person on key duty could simply say
"ISL.", and the now activated visual pyxis label would do the rest."

The suggestion is targeted at times when a party has lots of chest to check when quick and accurate communication is needed to pop open all the desired chest before they despawn.

meh.. that's just more internet traffic to continually spam the already clogged connections. An additional 8 byte check packet going up and down the pipe every second (or less) may not sound like a whole lot to you, but when you are dealing with about a 200ms (or more) RTT for that check, then multiply that by the hundreds of thousands of players....hello additional lag.

Their networks already suffer enough with stability issues....don't need to poor more salt on an open wound.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RAIST

meh.. that's just more internet traffic to continually spam the already clogged connections. An additional 8 byte check packet going up and down the pipe every second (or less) may not sound like a whole lot to you, but when you are dealing with about a 200ms (or more) RTT for that check, then multiply that by the hundreds of thousands of players....hello additional lag.

Their networks already suffer enough with stability issues....don't need to poor more salt on an open wound.

---

--------------
Perhaps ^^; Though, I'm always optimistic that there are problem solvers on SE's staff that are constantly working to solve the "difficult" stuff so the Devs can continue to add new and interesting content both big and small.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by kingfury

--------------
Perhaps ^^; Though, I'm always optimistic that there are problem solvers on SE's staff that are constantly working to solve the "difficult" stuff so the Devs can continue to add new and interesting content both big and small.

---

Have you never played FFXI? O.o

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RAIST

What they need to do is work on where the chests drop in the first place. If they could somehow make them behave like they actually have some physical properties so they don't spawn on top/inside of each other, most of this would all be mute.
Adding the labels could create even more problems. Without the chests paying attention to collision/occlusion rules in any way shape or form, the labels would also get stacked on top of each other, in some cases rendering them useless as you wouldn't be able to read them. Also, doing so may negate the tweak they just made to increase the number of pyxis spawning. There is a limited amount of memory and address space to assign to NPC type items in a zone due to the PS2 hardware limitations--those same restrictions are built into the programming code as well, so they exist as a soft-cap on the other platforms as well. In short, this could reak a little havoc if implemented.

---

---------------
I agree and disagree with you here. I agree that the pyxis labels will not work without the improved pyxis layout tweaks 100% which is way I put the "Forced pyxis layout" in the OP. If the Devs in fact cannot remedy the pyxis pileup issue, then yeah, the labels could very well be useless in many situations involving certain types of monsters that just love to bunch up in Abyssea.

Where I disagree here, is the ability to quickly and accurately communicate which pyxis has what and where, won't be solved by placement issues alone. The labels would solve the problem of having to pretty much stand on a pyxis to identify to which pyxis you're are talking about when there are lots of chest surrounding the party.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RAIST

As I mentioned in the last thread on this idea, what really needs to be done is to streamline the menus. They need to change it so that we stay in the menus until we are done with the chest or exit out of the menus ourselves. This way we can check it ONE and ONLY one time:

/Check <t>
scroll down to peek inside the chest and we see the contents
--STAY IN THE MENU SYSTEM---
"Attempt to open chest" -->start the manual chest open sequence, staying in the menu system until we succeed, fail, or giveup.
"Open with a Forbidden Key"-->receive items and exit, or stay in the menu to add to lottable spoils, take items (again, staying in the menus system until we've taken all items or exited ourselves)
"Destroy the chest"-->chest is destroyed and get the cruor reward

As it is now, you have to check it multiple times to get through all the steps. This presents the bulk of the problem when the chests are spawning on top of each other.

---

-------------
I do agree with this point! ‹Yes Please!› Devs to this ^^ /

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Myrrh

Have you never played FFXI? O.o

---

-----------
Oh come on now ^^ you can't forget how many new things we've gotten over the years even after SE initially said it would be "difficult" or "hard to implement" now.

80 inventory plus a satchel, new avatars, little stuff like adding our names to the stagger menu, and more ^^ Some things take longer than other of course, but they've shown improves.

btw, I friggin dig your signature Myrrh ^^ did you create it?

Well as far as the inventory went, they said they cant expand it past 80, which, is still true, they were just able to add, locker, sack, satchel to give us more inventory.

And sorry, Alexander and Odin still dont count as "new avatars" Their reasons for not being to do something stayed true, they just did a kind of "work around" to get around the issues.

I don't think this is a necessary suggestion and improvement to the game. Chests work fine the way they are now. It is a waste of time and resources to change them. I'd rather have the development team working on new and interesting content and fixing older content that has been outlevelled and made obsolete than screwing about with a system that is fine the way it is.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kimble

Well as far as the inventory went, they said they cant expand it past 80, which, is still true, they were just able to add, locker, sack, satchel to give us more inventory.

---

----------
I'm talking pre 80 inventory of course. Still, they said this was "difficult" to even do at one point, and now we have it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kimble

And sorry, Alexander and Odin still dont count as "new avatars" Their reasons for not being to do something stayed true, they just did a kind of "work around" to get around the issues.

---

----------------
^^ Well, I'll give'em credit for at least attempting to "work around" the issue for now. Still lots of time to add new stuff. The point is they're continuing to try to fit "difficult" things in as time goes on.