Stop UI Actions From Interrupting Gameplay Actions!

Haltus_Kain

For example - let's say you spot an Iron Ore node that you'd like to gather, and send your toon over to start swinging its pickaxe. You want to use the few seconds it will take to perform the gather to check your map, or say something to your guild.

...but the instant you press 'M' to open the map, or 'ENTER' to open the chat input box, the action of gathering is abandoned, and your toon just stands there next to the node like an idiot, waiting for you to tell him AGAIN to mine it.

'Dis be drivin' me crazy, mon!
*clears throat* Sorry, used to play Troll... old habits...

Anywho, is there a mod/addon that will put an end to this counterintuitive, counterproductive, frustrating behavior? If no, would such a mod be possible, given the API limitations? If yes, any of you up for a challenge? ^_^

...if 'no'... Zenimax, would you mind fixing this?


Thanks mons!

- Hal

Yshaar

This is really an issue. Forget about the quest bugs and everything else. First "please fix it post" I can support now.

Auric_ESO

Haltus_Kain wrote: »

'Dis be drivin' me crazy, mon!
*clears throat* Sorry, used to play Troll... old habits...

Thanks mons!

- Hal

Hmm, you are a very unusual troll. Most dont come from Jamaica.

I sure wish I could still be a lurikeen and light up your troll butt. That was one of my favorite pastimes..

Haltus_Kain

Its a TROLL accent. I swear ja makin' me crazy.

thakaptin

Auric_ESO wrote: »

Haltus_Kain wrote: »

'Dis be drivin' me crazy, mon!
*clears throat* Sorry, used to play Troll... old habits...

Thanks mons!

- Hal

Hmm, you are a very unusual troll. Most dont come from Jamaica.

I'm guessing you've never played WoW then.

Yshaar

This should be moved to feedback, and you should give them /feedback about it.

Haltus_Kain

There's a feedback forum? ...I don't see one.

And for sure! /feedback used, and I'd encourage everyone to do likewise.

Haltus_Kain

Oh, forgot to mention earlier - the reverse is also a problem, with game actions interrupting the UI. For example, if your inventory is open, and you press W to move forward, the inventory auto-closes.

Really annoying.

kirnmalidus

I think this is intended, not a bug. They want mining resources to take time, so you are exchanging something you value in game (time) for something of value (resources).

bearcalypse

I don't think that can be changed. This is how a console game UI operates - just look at DCUO.. same issues.

Kemono

bearcalypse wrote: »

I don't think that can be changed. This is how a console game UI operates - just look at DCUO.. same issues.

- I am not against consoles. Really.

But we should draw a line for "consolitis" -this is a PC version and it should be optimized for PC, not for every platform at once.

Thing OP mentioned is REALLY annoying, but ican live with it (you very fast realise that you need exactly 2 chop on wood and then it is colected -even when animation is still playing)


But same thing is with when starting some emotes -and then trying to type in chat or even alt-tab from game.
You instantly stop. You should stop -when you MOVE or change emote type

And YES -i want to dance in town fountain when im browsing internet (while still playing TESO), i dont want to just stand there doing nothing

Mrtimtim

Kemono wrote: »

bearcalypse wrote: »

I don't think that can be changed. This is how a console game UI operates - just look at DCUO.. same issues.

- I am not against consoles. Really.

But we should draw a line for "consolitis" -this is a PC version and it should be optimized for PC, not for every platform at once.

Thing OP mentioned is REALLY annoying, but ican live with it (you very fast realise that you need exactly 2 chop on wood and then it is colected -even when animation is still playing)


But same thing is with when starting some emotes -and then trying to type in chat or even alt-tab from game.
You instantly stop. You should stop -when you MOVE or change emote type

And YES -i want to dance in town fountain when im browsing internet (while still playing TESO), i dont want to just stand there doing nothing

To continue doing an emote just put something in the chat box but don't send it (I just do a slash) then you can alt tab out and you will be doing what ever action you were doing.

claudekennilol

kirnmalidus wrote: »

I think this is intended, not a bug. They want mining resources to take time, so you are exchanging something you value in game (time) for something of value (resources).

You can't be serious. There's absolutely no reason I shouldn't be able to type a message in chat and mine at the same time.

And as mentioned above all this is pretty moot and shouldn't be in the addons forum.

reggielee

Yes, I agree with the OP... to make the tedium of gathering even a hair less allow us to multi task whilst gathering. Its an animation event, not fighting or anything important.

derpmonster

kirnmalidus wrote: »

I think this is intended, not a bug. They want mining resources to take time, so you are exchanging something you value in game (time) for something of value (resources).

Of course it's intended, but that doesn't mean it's not terrible.

There's no reason why you shouldn't be able to type out a chat message while gathering.

There's so many little things like this wrong with this game that makes it only an okay game (for now) instead of an amazing game. Overall a lot of bizarre odd design decisions.

Haltus_Kain

derpmonster wrote: »

Of course it's intended, but that doesn't mean it's not terrible.

There's no reason why you shouldn't be able to type out a chat message while gathering.

There's so many little things like this wrong with this game that makes it only an okay game (for now) instead of an amazing game. Overall a lot of bizarre odd design decisions.

Agreed.

It's not like I'm gonna rage-quit over this, but it seems like every 2 mins of gameplay I'm droppin' a sigh and thinking "...why the hell..." at a questionable design decision.

I'm guessing someone over at Zmax said "you know what, let's make it so that players can't interact with the game world and operate anything on the UI at the same time!!"

...which is stupid. It's little, and by no means 'game breaking' ...but it's stupid.

There are a lot of other stupid little problems too, and the combined effect of all those kinks is really dragging the game down. It's still a good game, but that's all it is - good. Average. C.

Elder Scrolls did not become one of the most popular names in gaming by being average. Not saying it needs to be perfect - no game ever will be - but these quality-of-play speed bumps really need to go.

Januk

I think it's mostly due to the animations your character plays for others when you have your inventory or map open (Your char goes looking through a bag or stands there holding a map) gathering something at the same time sounds like it would cause animation conflicts.

But in terms of just chatting while gathering yeah... I don't get that one.

Haltus_Kain

Januk wrote: »

I think it's mostly due to the animations your character plays for others when you have your inventory or map open (Your char goes looking through a bag or stands there holding a map) gathering something at the same time sounds like it would cause animation conflicts.

But in terms of just chatting while gathering yeah... I don't get that one.

That is likely... If it's an animation conflict, would that make it a bug?

Haltus_Kain

reggielee wrote: »

Yes, I agree with the OP... to make the tedium of gathering even a hair less allow us to multi task whilst gathering. Its an animation event, not fighting or anything important.

+1

It's not just gathering btw. Interacting with pretty much anything in the game world (that isn't instant, like barrels and such) will be interrupted by things like talking to other players. I mean, c'mon, this is an MMO. The social aspect of an MMO is by far the most important aspect of the game - players should NEVER be punished or hindered for interacting with other players.

Singular

Haltus_Kain wrote: »

reggielee wrote: »

Yes, I agree with the OP... to make the tedium of gathering even a hair less allow us to multi task whilst gathering. Its an animation event, not fighting or anything important.

+1

It's not just gathering btw. Interacting with pretty much anything in the game world (that isn't instant, like barrels and such) will be interrupted by things like talking to other players. I mean, c'mon, this is an MMO. The social aspect of an MMO is by far the most important aspect of the game - players should NEVER be punished or hindered for interacting with other players.

No. You will mine iron and you will - will - enjoy staring at the mining animation over and over and over again. And again. And again.

You will like this!!!

And you will not think of writing your guildies or providing advice on /zone.

zdkazz

Haltus_Kain wrote: »

Oh, forgot to mention earlier - the reverse is also a problem, with game actions interrupting the UI. For example, if your inventory is open, and you press W to move forward, the inventory auto-closes.

Really annoying.

while moving you can open your inventory, and it stays open you just have to keep moving, you can also steer your char by right clicking and dragging while moving and browsing inventory, this is really useful in cyrodill as you can move and also eat that delicious food in your pack or move as you are looking at a map, it takes some getting used to but this is more realistic as how are you supposed to look at a map while you swing a pick axe with two hands?

Haltus_Kain

zdkazz wrote: »

while moving you can open your inventory, and it stays open you just have to keep moving, you can also steer your char by right clicking and dragging while moving and browsing inventory, this is really useful in cyrodill as you can move and also eat that delicious food in your pack or move as you are looking at a map, it takes some getting used to but this is more realistic as how are you supposed to look at a map while you swing a pick axe with two hands?

Yea, I've noticed that work-around as well. The problem is if you stop moving, your character pulls a 180 to face the camera, and if you start moving again, the UI window closes.

And NO! Don't try to lean on realism to excuse this awful design decision! A User Interface isn't realistic. Period. Unless our toons are all equipped with Google Glass or something, in which case, it's hands free, so they should STILL be able to pick flowers and send a voicemail at the same time.

It's an awkward, counterintuitive, annoying mechanic that needs to go, and there's nothing realistic about it.

Rev Rielle

Yes, I tend to agree.
I think in part this raises the bigger issue of the multitude of forced emotes (and forced cancelling of emotes) in the game. There are various examples, though just a couple are;

• Players casting healing spells on your character and forcing them into a combat stance, or cancelling whatever emote they're doing.
• Opening various menus cancelling and overriding the current emote you character is doing.
• As the OP said, not being able to do anything - even talk in chat! - whilst mining or interacting with some other in-game object.

And the list goes on, but that you get the idea. The two big ones are issues that are interrupted by talking in chat, which should never happen in an MMOs, and other players having direct control over your characters actions. I think both of those are pretty fundamental.

Perhaps a little tweaking would be in order.

barigood54_ESO

From a developer's point of view, this would be a nightmare to determine what you really meant to do. It would introduce actions that you would then not want to see...slippery slope, not going to happen...and I am not a game developer, just a software engineer. When you enter an action while another one is active, it cannot know whether you really meant it or not...so it determines that you did mean it. And then what if you stack 3 or 4 actions? you will need to be patient and let the action complete, or don't overlay your action requests.

generaltavaseb17_ESO

kirnmalidus wrote: »

I think this is intended, not a bug. They want mining resources to take time, so you are exchanging something you value in game (time) for something of value (resources).

If you'll bind and use autorun button it doesn't close an inventory but simple run buttons does.

Lanatireb17_ESO

I also dislike it. I cant even count the times anymore when i was doing bank stuff, clicked on ANYTHING, or even dared to alt-tab out of the game....poof

Efaicia

OMG. I am so happy I'm not the only one who is so annoyed by this seemingly small thing.

Turial

bearcalypse wrote: »

I don't think that can be changed. This is how a console game UI operates - just look at DCUO.. same issues.

Actually GW2 has this system where you mine, run, revive, etc. with map, inventory and other windows up in your face. It can be done.

FrauPerchta

Very annoying.

Haltus_Kain

barigood54_ESO wrote: »

From a developer's point of view, this would be a nightmare to determine what you really meant to do. It would introduce actions that you would then not want to see...slippery slope, not going to happen...and I am not a game developer, just a software engineer. When you enter an action while another one is active, it cannot know whether you really meant it or not...so it determines that you did mean it. And then what if you stack 3 or 4 actions? you will need to be patient and let the action complete, or don't overlay your action requests.

You're using the term "action" interchangeably with "animation" which I think is a mistake.

They need not change anything animation-wise.

What I'm saying is that the UI should function whether or not the animations tied to it are interrupted; and in-game actions not associated with the UI (interacting with objects and such) should not be interrupted even if the animations for them aren't being played.

So, if pressing 'Enter' to talk to the guild interrupts the mining animation? Fine - that doesn't bother me... so long as it doesn't interrupt the actual mining. In other words, if I initiate the mining action, and don't interrupt it with another gameplay action (such as moving or attacking) then I should get my Iron Ore so long as I stay put for the required two or three seconds that mining takes. If, immediately after I start mining, I open my inventory, and my toon stops swinging the pickaxe in favor of whipping out a bag to dig through; the action of mining should continue, even if the animation for it does not.

And yes, it looks funny when that happens. I've seen it in several MMO's - WoW, GW2, and Rift specifically - animations get clipped all the time, but the action continues. It makes for much more fluid gameplay, even if every now and then you get the "ooh, that looked kinda weird" moment.

In contrast, SWTOR treated its animations similarly to ESO, in that if the animation is interrupted, the action is too, and it just KILLS the quality of gameplay because it happens CONSTANTLY. The worst offender were the mounting mechanics... you'd hit the button to use your mount; wait a couple seconds for the cast bar; and when the cast bar is complete, you'd hit 'W' to move forward on you're newly called mount, right? WRONG! See, hitting W as soon as the cast bar finished would initiate the animation of running before the game realized you were on a mount... then that fraction of a second later when the game caught up with the user input, the mount would appear for a split second, and then POOF! dissappear because the animation of running overrode the action of being mounted.

So you'd see people all the time call their mount; move forward on it about two feet, at which point it would disappear and they'd be back on their feet; stop for a second as they ponder '*** just happened?!'; call the mount AGAIN, move forward two feet AGAIN; *poof*; back on their feet AGAIN... it was like watching someone learn to drive a stick-shift, as they alternate between letting off the clutch too fast, causing them to accelerate harshly; then slamming on the brakes because they weren't expecting to move that fast; then repeat that again and again.

Eventually you'd learn to just add an extra second or so to the mounting process so that the game for sure knew that when you press W, it meant "move the mount forward" and not "run! ...but wait, I'm on a mount now... guess I'll hop off of it so I can run!"

...which makes for shoddy gameplay.

Now, thankfully ESO's mounting system isn't afflicted by that ridiculous problem, but, as this thread has pointed out, other things are. And they're slowly bleeding this game one drop at a time.

Treadpool

Endorsed for justice!