Quality of Life Controls and Player Feedback

[WJohnston]

So we could always do with more responsiveness and visual feedback from the game, here's a few pointers for such:

1. Any time you pick up an item, you see it move and fade away towards you (think the attack animation but in in your direction) to indicate who picked up what.
2. Click+drag should function like regular clicking. That is, if you click+drag an object onto a container, it will put the object in that container. We already do this with emptying backpacks/toolboxes into other containers, so why not?
3. You should be able to rapidly collect any of the same kind of object off the ground by click dragging it onto a container, ala goon. This means standing next to a pile of shotgun shells and click dragging it onto your backpack will rapidly pick and store those shells into your backpack (could also be glass shards, paper sheets, ore, whatever, any of the same kind).
4. Click dragging shotgun shells into your shotgun will rapidly begin loading it (again, any of the same kind of shell). It's a NIGHTMARE to pick up individual shells from your backpack and putting them in.
5. Guns should make audible magazine loading sounds. I want to hear a "ka-chunk" every time I load a shotgun shell, or a "fwip-click" when I load a magazine into a pistol. It'll help people gauge if someone is busy reloading, too.
6. Containers being possible to open and fish items out of using the same hand that's holding it. It does nothing but complicate things for new users when saying "oh but you need to use your other hand to fish items out of the backpack you're holding). It's irritating.
7. Port bay's item size boxes for containers. It lets you know visually how much room an object is taking in your backpack without something as un-intuitive as reading their description to see their size and guessing "well shit, I guess collectively this is too much?". Being able to see that yes, all your items DO in fact take up the finite grey bar that is your inventory would be super useful.

Suggest your own! Make the game's controls more accessible, recognizable, or less a pain in the ass if you can help it.

[Shaps-cloud]

What's wrong with manually loading shotguns? It's consistent with how everything else works, and is an accurate representation of what your character is actually doing rather than just clumsily abstracting it away. Saying it's a NIGHTMARE is really an overexaggeration.

Seeing a big popup whenever someone picks up seems too "perfect information", if you're not looking at it and you miss it, that's just part of the game.

I don't think using a different hand than the one that's holding the container to take a thing out of the container is really that difficult to grasp, and is actually a pretty good "aha!" moment for understanding how to interact with things in that it shows that you're actually using your hand to interact with whatever you clicked on

Others I'm indifferent on

[danno]

I also think shotgun loading is fine as is.
I like the idea of dragging piles of a thing into a containers.

[WJohnston]

Manually loading shotguns requires a HUGE AMOUNT OF CLICKS. I think everyone can agree that by now, less clicks is better. There's no need to make the act of loading an 8 shell shotgun take *at least* 16 clicks or more. If you're worried about balance because it makes reloading too quick, you could EASILY make the loading period shells automatically take more or less time, at your discretion. Same with any auto pick-up/loading mechanic.

We had the same argument for when combat showed who was hitting who with what, saying it would give too much info, and I think we can all agree it was totally worth it.

That "aha" moment is not worth the frustration of fumbling around with your own inventory for so long. It's plain annoying. We're all very used to it because we've been around for years, but we could at least have the decency to not force those unnecessarily complicated controls (which serve NO PURPOSE, they do not enhance the atmosphere of the game or anything) onto new players. You'll still need two hands to effectively empty something out of your backpack into your other hand, it just won't have a preference on which hand you're using to do that.

[Owegno]

1 is just dumb, stealthily nicking things is often times important. Meanwhile 4 is straight up powercreep that you are trying to disguise as """""QOL""""" for the strongest non-antag weapon on station, I don't think anyone has ever complained about it until you have now either.

[BeeSting12]

Shotgun reloading is fine, this is coming from a regular user of a shotgun. IRL it would take a bit to reload too.

[oranges]

So we could always do with more responsiveness and visual feedback from the game, here's a few pointers for such:=
3. You should be able to rapidly collect any of the same kind of object off the ground by click dragging it onto a container, ala goon. This means standing next to a pile of shotgun shells and click dragging it onto your backpack will rapidly pick and store those shells into your backpack (could also be glass shards, paper sheets, ore, whatever, any of the same kind).
4. Click dragging shotgun shells into your shotgun will rapidly begin loading it (again, any of the same kind of shell). It's a NIGHTMARE to pick up individual shells from your backpack and putting them in.

Both of these functions are fufilled by ammo boxes which will pick up all ammo of a type on the ground and fill a magazine automatically.

I think there are boxes for shotguns, or maybe the bandolier acts that way for shotguns

[WJohnston]

Both of these functions are fufilled by ammo boxes which will pick up all ammo of a type on the ground and fill a magazine automatically.

I think there are boxes for shotguns, or maybe the bandolier acts that way for shotguns

Yes, but this should be applied to every type of container, I feel. Adds some consistency to the controls and how you can expect for them to work.

[onleavedontatme]

6. Containers being possible to open and fish items out of using the same hand that's holding it. It does nothing but complicate things for new users when saying "oh but you need to use your other hand to fish items out of the backpack you're holding). It's irritating

I think it is pretty intuitive that you cant search a bag with the hand holding that bag. You're gonna need an empty hand anyway or you'll have nowhere to put the item you are taking out

[FantasticFwoosh]

> Port everyone elses system but don't actually declare it in the title.

Use a tray or number of objects that already pick things up. Trays are pretty indiscriminate besides from size.

[Qbopper]

6. Containers being possible to open and fish items out of using the same hand that's holding it. It does nothing but complicate things for new users when saying "oh but you need to use your other hand to fish items out of the backpack you're holding). It's irritating

I think it is pretty intuitive that you cant search a bag with the hand holding that bag. You're gonna need an empty hand anyway or you'll have nowhere to put the item you are taking out

I like the system as is but "intuitive" is a bit of a stretch

The idea of an "active hand" isn't intuitive at all and the system is absolutely confusing for new players

That being said I don't want it changed, and I think some level of complexity is going to be there no matter what we do

[Cobby]

Number 4 is a balance change, not so much a QoL because the gun is slightly balanced around the more clunky nature of it.

[Wyzack]

Making shotguns easier to load would be a massive buff that they do not at all need

[Dr_bee]

Making shotguns easier to load would be a massive buff that they do not at all need

not if auto-reloading took more time than loading manually, if you arent time constrained, you can auto-reload, if you are, manual reload.

[WarbossLincoln]

Loading a shotgun manually is how it should be, you're loading a single round into a chamber or magazine at a time. It's just like loading a pistol magazine, you can't put more than 1 round in at a time. Shotguns with detachable magazines exist for a reason, you just don't have access to any on station.

Something I would like for shotguns in SS13: inspecting a loaded shotgun telling you what time of shell is loaded. IRL you can open the chamber of a shotgun just a little bit to see what kind of shell is loaded.

[MisterPerson]

Poor controls as a balance feature is a completely unacceptable justification. End of story.

[Wyzack]

How is it poor controls to click on shotgun with shell to add shell to shotgun? It is easy and intuitive

[Cobby]

Poor controls as a balance feature is a completely unacceptable justification. End of story.

They're not poor, they're just not as simple as OP would like them to be.

Also I think there's a difference in saying "I want poor controls as a mechanic to balance this gun" and "changing the guns controls will have effects on balance that need to be addressed since many of its features were balanced around that clunky nature".

[ShadowDimentio]

Poor controls as a balance feature is a completely unacceptable justification. End of story.

If you're too retarded to take a shell out of the box and click on your gun you shouldn't be allowed near machinery like a computer for your own safety.

[danno]

Yeah what is "poor" about that? It's the most logical process for that particular action, I would argue.

[WJohnston]

It's not DIFFICULT to load shells into a shotgun, it's just tedious and requires a huge amount of button clicking to achieve, which is annoying to do.

You could easily counteract the balance by putting a LIMIT on how rapid the loading is. It doesn't have to be instant or anywhere near goon's speed.

It's the same thing as complaining about click delay being too short or too long in combat, it can be TWEAKED. We did this with tasers and no one liked it, but it CAN be tweaked.

[FantasticFwoosh]

Poor controls as a balance feature is a completely unacceptable justification. End of story.

If you're too retarded to take a shell out of the box and click on your gun you shouldn't be allowed near machinery like a computer for your own safety.

---

It's not DIFFICULT to load shells into a shotgun, it's just tedious and requires a huge amount of button clicking to achieve, which is annoying to do.

You could easily counteract the balance by putting a LIMIT on how rapid the loading is. It doesn't have to be instant or anywhere near goon's speed.

It's the same thing as complaining about click delay being too short or too long in combat, it can be TWEAKED. We did this with tasers and no one liked it, but it CAN be tweaked.

I know from discussion on IRC that you're some kind of action nut who despises quiet RP, but we don't nearly have enough bullet gunplay (laser focused Nanotren) to even justify making guns more common. Its a feature for CM (which has okayish gun loading mechanics, because they have a SHITTON of guns) not TG domestic station life.

- Nuke ops shotguns have speed loader magazines, so there's no point, i can't readily think of another group of gun based antags that come to mind.

With our current meta of shotguns & speed loaders im not sure anybody particularly cares, if you really want to do anything you could have it so picking up a bullet & clicking yourself will load the appropriate ammo into the gun opposite your hand in a fashion similar to how cigarettes & smokables light when you attack yourself on helpful intent with a source of fire, but that's just useful for spare & loose bullets you might find in a situation as the det. (In the rare case you dont have a speed loader)

TL;DR - stop pushing guns steelpoint 2.0

[Qbopper]

It's not DIFFICULT to load shells into a shotgun, it's just tedious and requires a huge amount of button clicking to achieve, which is annoying to do.

You could easily counteract the balance by putting a LIMIT on how rapid the loading is. It doesn't have to be instant or anywhere near goon's speed.

It's the same thing as complaining about click delay being too short or too long in combat, it can be TWEAKED. We did this with tasers and no one liked it, but it CAN be tweaked.

I'd say the majority of people think shotgun reloading is fine as is, I don't think we need to fix what isn't broken