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

[kingfury]

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.

[kingfury]

What would be the point then?

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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.

[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.

[kingfury]

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.

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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.

[Myrrh]

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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

[kingfury]

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.

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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.

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.

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

[kingfury]

Have you never played FFXI? O.o

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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?

[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.

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.

[HFX7686]

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.

[kingfury]

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.

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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.

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.

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^^ 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.