Hating the new market interface so far...
By
AgentMountaineer,
Posted on: 2010-05-04 18:46 in The Market and Inventions
I guess I'll join in.
I like the speed of searching/browsing with the new UI.
I dislike almost everything else. Inability to search in categories, tabbed transactions interface which is only needed because now you can only see a handful of transactions at any one time and trying to manipulate them gets progressively more painful the more you have, and tendency for putting items in or taking them out to not "stick"...
I'm neutral about the fact that the last price you put in stays. It messed me up constantly at first, but now that I'm used to it it makes things quicker... sometimes. So it's a wash, really. It's quicker when I want to sell lots of common salvage, but slower when I want to sell several disparate things.
Same with autocomplete. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it hurts.
As has been said countless times in this topic, the interface is generally harder to actually USE now, and I do find myself avoiding it whenever possible.
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Originally Posted by Ironblade
Your suspicion is mistaken. My system has 2GB and had exactly that problem.
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Ditto... my system also has 2GB and i am in the same boat
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It's more complicated than just the amount of RAM. It also depends on hard drive speed and amount of disk fragmentation on the drive your game is installed on. Remember, all these little files are stored inside PIGG files. When the game has not already cached them, it must read all the images, all the item names, plus all the item descriptions. Not only is the drive then seeking around inside a single PIGG file, it's actually seeking around in multiple ones. (This doesn't involve any secret digging around - just look at the file names and you'll see there are separate ones for text and grapics resources.) Having your game on something like a 5400 RPM "green" drive that's also badly fragmented (something that patching can do for you over the long term) could really degrade the market load screen time.|
Originally Posted by Silurian
I suspect the people that complained about this had systems with 1GB of RAM or less. The desktops that I run the game on have 2GB or more, and never had any noticeable response lag. But when I loaded it onto my laptop with only 1GB, opening the market window, especially on red side, might result in a disconnect as the machine was busy swapping to accommodate the data influx. These may be the same people that are "slow loaders" when zoning or entering missions. Even before ultra-mode, the game seems to need a 1.5GB to 2GB machine for smooth sailing.
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My game's installed on a 10,000 RPM drive that I periodically defrag. I'm thinking that's pretty atypical.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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I'm not going anywhere, but I get it, and the market isn't even that much of my time spent playing. What I've realized while it's malfunctioning, though, is that it's part of my daily draw. I want to see what happened with the doo-dads that I tried to buy or sell.|
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
Seriously I read this thread, and I see people saying that they can't play because of the new market interface and its what is causing them to leave the game ? and people accuse me of hyperbole ?
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More importantly, I look forward to toying with a new build ... that the market is providing me the raw material to create. It's the same sort of feeling people get when they level. You go get something new and go back and take it out for a spin. But new builds and IOs provide a much longer-term version of that experience for a single character than leveling to 50 does.
The market isn't what I come to play the game for, but it's functionally essential to what I do enjoy about it. Take the market away and my dose rate of new shinies drops off, and that reduces my interest in play.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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When I upgraded my system and installed CoH on a solid-state drive, the improvement to the loading times for the old market interface was immediate and enormous. Slightly off topic, but I can't recommend a SSD enough for gaming - if you get the right kind (OCZ Vertex or Intel X-series) and use it for the right things (sequential reads, not random writes).|
Originally Posted by UberGuy
It's more complicated than just the amount of RAM. It also depends on hard drive speed and amount of disk fragmentation on the drive your game is installed on [...] My game's installed on a 10,000 RPM drive that I periodically defrag. I'm thinking that's pretty atypical.
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Anyway, as I said before, I'm glad that they removed the enormous preloading present in the old market interface, but I'm not at all hot on the other changes they decided to make while they were at it. The one justification I can think of is that the new market interface had to be written with a new set of tools in order to avoid preloading, and that new set of tools didn't allow them to keep some of the much-missed features of the old interface (horizontal item list, category/name searching), so they had to redesign using the tools available. That still doesn't explain some of the other questionable decisions, though (price persistence, I am looking at you).
@SPTrashcan
Avatar by Toxic_Shia
Why MA ratings should be changed from stars to "like" or "dislike"
A better algorithm for ordering MA arcs
Good points, guys. I'm going to have to patch up the laptop copy and see if performance is any better.
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I just had to register my approval of this phrase. |
Originally Posted by UberGuy
... my dose rate of new shinies ...
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As a developer myself, I kind of doubt that. The new market interface looks an awful lot like the stuff we got with the AE. My guess is that the performance problems were an excuse to make changes at all, and they decided to use new, better interface components to revamp the design while they were at it.|
Originally Posted by SpittingTrashcan
I'm glad that they removed the enormous preloading present in the old market interface, but I'm not at all hot on the other changes they decided to make while they were at it. The one justification I can think of is that the new market interface had to be written with a new set of tools in order to avoid preloading, and that new set of tools didn't allow them to keep some of the much-missed features of the old interface (horizontal item list, category/name searching), so they had to redesign using the tools available.
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On the face of it, I think that would be fine. Unfortunately, I think they then committed a sin game devs everywhere are guilty of (and some other software devs too). I think they designed a new interface without a good understanding of what their users were actually doing with the old one.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
I'd rather have random crashes when going to the market than have to deal with this poopy new interface anymore.
FYI I ended up losing 20 MILLION due to the new and "improved" market.
I've got two computers I ran CoV most of the time, one has 8gig of ram and the game installed on a striped raid array; unsurprisingly the market load times never bothered me on it. My other box is a sub 1gig microthingy and the eco-hard drive was last defragged over 5 years ago; I'd click the market guy on that and go make a coffee. Rarely I'd come back and the game would have hung.
Now the lesser computer can't run the game at a high enough resolution to use the 'improved' interface without spending half my time scrolling trying to find the right market slot.
Massive improvement.
I had problems with the old interface up until my system upgrade. Video card aside, I also upgraded from single- to dual-core and from 2 GB of RAM to 4 GB (no change in hard drives). After that the interface worked like a charm and I stopped having issues until the new interface. The market interface actually runs slower now. Nowhere near as bad as before my upgrade, of course, but it's still a minor performance decrease, and that's not good for a supposed "upgrade".
"You don't lose levels. You don't have equipment to wear out, repair, or lose, or that anyone can steal from you. About the only thing lighter than debt they could do is have an NPC walk by, point and laugh before you can go to the hospital or base." -Memphis_Bill
We will honor the past, and fight to the last, it will be a good way to die...
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I think you're too kind here. Even someone who never played CoX before should be able to design a better interface. It's not like they had to reinvent the wheel. There are many examples out there to learn form. Or learn from our old UI. It was not great, but it was still better than the new one in many aspects. Actually it should be enough to take a look at MS Explorer or Mozilla Thunderbird to get hints. Or take a step back and just look at your monitor and ask yourself whether a screen resolution that has more horizontal than vertical pixels should affect the UI desgin.|
Originally Posted by UberGuy
Unfortunately, I think they then committed a sin game devs everywhere are guilty of (and some other software devs too). I think they designed a new interface without a good understanding of what their users were actually doing with the old one.
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It's almost worse to see that there are good ideas in the new UI. They're just so poorly implemented that I disabled all I could (not much) and wish I could disable the rest. It's painfully obvious that we have the tech to build a really nice UI. I just wish we had someone who could and would do it.
For the love of [deity of choice] please make it smaller and less clunky. I'm running at 1200x720 and the damn thing is still too big to fit nicely onto the screen (and I run at the smallest window size possible)
I'm amazing this design was given a green light, it's horrific.
Is anyone else having issues with not even being able to place an item
for sale?
I'd drag and nothing.
It'd even give me the box to choose the amount, after hitting okay... nothing.
My 1st thought was I was full, til I realized I hadn't even placed the ones that I thought had been stored....
Maestro Mavius - Infinity
Capt. Biohazrd - PCSAR
Talsor Tech - Talsorian Guard
Keep Calm & Chive On!
make sure the box for an amount has a number in it. If it's blank it won't dorp anything on the market.
The final line of a post by Sweet_Sarah on Liberty
"Together we entered a city of strangers, we made it a city of friends, and we leave it a City of Heroes."
No, this was a glitch of some sort. Just curious if it was on my end.
I would set the slider to 4 and then hit ok.
The Heavy Water would appear in the tab for a split second, while still being shown in my salvage box.
Then it would vanish from the market UI...
Once I was able to store an item I was unable to post it for any amount half the time.
I'd set 1000 and click post.
Nothing.
click click click.
Nothing.
Click click click
Ah, forget it....
Maestro Mavius - Infinity
Capt. Biohazrd - PCSAR
Talsor Tech - Talsorian Guard
Keep Calm & Chive On!
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It's not just you and it can happen at any time on any type of interaction with the market.
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Originally Posted by MaestroMavius
No, this was a glitch of some sort. Just curious if it was on my end.
I would set the slider to 4 and then hit ok. The Heavy Water would appear in the tab for a split second, while still being shown in my salvage box. Then it would vanish from the market UI... Once I was able to store an item I was unable to post it for any amount half the time. I'd set 1000 and click post. Nothing. click click click. Nothing. Click click click Ah, forget it.... |
total kick to the gut
This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.
Skimming this thread, I haven't seen any mention of a Market interface issue that's bugging me:
Regardless of the number of market slots a toon has, I seem unable to use the last one. Right now I've got a toon that has 17 of 18 slots full, but if I try to drag one more thing from inventory to the salvage window, I'm told " Your Auction Inventory is full. This item could not be added."
Is it just me, or is this happening to everyone else?
And yes, this whole new and improved Market "improvement" thing needs more improvement. 
"But it wasn't anything some purples and oranges and lots of screaming in fear couldn't handle." -- Werner
30 level 50's: 12 scrappers, 7 other random melee types, 11 blaster/blapper/support squishies, two accounts, and a TON of altitis since 4/28/04
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Are any of your slots selling an item with multiples?
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Originally Posted by Eldorado
Skimming this thread, I haven't seen any mention of a Market interface issue that's bugging me:
Regardless of the number of market slots a toon has, I seem unable to use the last one. Right now I've got a toon that has 17 of 18 slots full, but if I try to drag one more thing from inventory to the salvage window, I'm told " Your Auction Inventory is full. This item could not be added." Is it just me, or is this happening to everyone else? And yes, this whole new and improved Market "improvement" thing needs more improvement. |
total kick to the gut
This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.
I tried to consolidate the feedback, but I've only made it through post 160 out of 243 so far. I figured I'd note what seems to be the high value stuff based upon repeated feedback an/or "big-wins". Any Dev would re-shuffle the list based upon level-of-effort and other priorities anyway.
The list is not in order, but the high value stuff is up top. I hope that I have accurately represented the things that I'm not completely sure about without having the market U/I open in front of me.
1. The most recent transaction(s) in-progress or most recent items bought or sold should be auto-magically placed at the top of the appropriate tab (to include the ALL tab also) and not the bottom like the current design. (High)
2. The TAB key should advance the cursor from "bid price" to "quantity" (High)
3. The ESC should clear the field in which the cursor is active (High)
4. Please bring back the "transaction state" colors. Specifically, on the ALL tab, shade each item/row in the following manner: Bright Green for BOUGHT, Medium Green for BIDDING, Bright Blue for SOLD and Medium Blue for SELLING. Grey for STORED is wai. Color each tab name accordingly, as well. [See Smurphy's posted graphic upthread] (High)
5. Move the "Other" category back to the top of the recipes listing as opposed to alphabetizing it within the entire recipes listing as it is now. (High)
6. Implement a "classic" market U/I option if at all possible. (High)
7. Let us opt-out of persistent bids or remove persistent bids all together. (High)
8. Selecting a category in the left hand tree should narrow down search results accordingly. (High)
9. Implement the ability to search with each of the left-pane categories. (High).
10. Upon clicking a left-pane category, the search bar/field should be cleared and cursor placement should default at the left justify position therein. (High)
11. Implement persistent market U/I dimensions (High)
12. Implement "INF marks" at which we would receive transaction fee warning notifications. E.g., >=100K, >=500K, >=1M and >=5M. A discrete slide bar (like the one already used in the main U/I for changing font size) could be used for this.
13. When placing bids, there is no obvious/intuitive feedback that your bid has been placed. Alternative: Have the item flash Medium Green (to imply "Bidding" like in #4 above) two or three times before it auto-magically "slides over" to the actual BIDDING tab.
14. Let the user opt-out of receiving the "salvage warning" notification for common recipes. That is, the user would still receive the warning for all other recipes unless the user opts-out of the warning completely.
15. Implement the ability to minimize/contract an item in inventory after you have maximized/expanded that item.
16. Implement the ability to search for "For Sale OR Bidding" at the same time without using the FIND button workaround. Note: This could be a bug.
17. Add "up and down" arrows for the "quantity box"
18. The user should be able to color customize her/his market U/I just like the user can do currently with the "main" U/I.
19. Implement the classic U/I "string search" functionality
20. Give Temp recipes their own tab with the left-pane expansion
Repeat Offenders
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Yes, was having that issue last night. I may be assuming too much, but I was thinking it was due to the server being too busy. Almost like on the old interface when you'd get the "market is too busy" message except now it gives you no feedback and actually tricks you by having things seem to work, but not really working. I had to hit the post bid button to buy or drag things to sell again and again, and again, and 5 more times, before it'd "take". Sometimes the "shadow" item would show up in my market slot for quite a while before it'd disappear.|
Originally Posted by MaestroMavius
No, this was a glitch of some sort. Just curious if it was on my end.
I would set the slider to 4 and then hit ok. The Heavy Water would appear in the tab for a split second, while still being shown in my salvage box. Then it would vanish from the market UI... Once I was able to store an item I was unable to post it for any amount half the time. I'd set 1000 and click post. Nothing. click click click. Nothing. Click click click Ah, forget it.... |
And put me in the "hate the new market UI" camp. It is just slower to use even when it is working right. It generally seems to take more clicks and scrolling to do the same things as the old one. Big part of that is the vertical instead of horizontal layout I think, especially combined with not being to "minimize" description windows on items, which takes up a lot of the limited vertical viewing space you have.
It doesn't help that newest items go on the bottom of the list, which you then have to scroll down to see again before you can post them for sale. Amazing lack of ease of use.
My biggest two wishes: 1) Put "new" items you add to your slots at the top or give us the option for that, 2) Let us minimize item description windows.
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Pohsyb went on record saying most of the performance improvements for the new market UI came from adding the autocomplete option. However, due to my search habits I've disabled that (as it wouldn't allow me to search for text in the middle of words, such as "al es" for "Spiritual Essence"). This means I'm right back at square one, except I have an interface that's slightly more powerful, a good deal buggier, and infinitely more frustrating. The UI change is probably the biggest factor in my severely lessened playtime the last few weeks (the other one being the odd lag, which seems to have been semi-fixed).
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Originally Posted by UberGuy
As a developer myself, I kind of doubt that. The new market interface looks an awful lot like the stuff we got with the AE. My guess is that the performance problems were an excuse to make changes at all, and they decided to use new, better interface components to revamp the design while they were at it.
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@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
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Indeed. The UI is bad enough to put people off using it to sell stuff. People can only play for so long before needing to sell stuff. If it actually reaches the point where you've got people avoiding play so they don't have to put up with the market UI when selling their rewards; surely that says there is a problem worth looking at?
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Originally Posted by macskull
The UI change is probably the biggest factor in my severely lessened playtime the last few weeks (the other one being the odd lag, which seems to have been semi-fixed).
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