@zos: please figure out text search for guild traders

shadowwraith666 · September 2018

A warframe style hide-owned checkbox would be nice when searching for motifs or recipes/blueprints, also the ability to search all the traders in a zone at once, pc has the option to use addons but console does not.

Arthemis · September 2018

jaschacasadiob16_ESO wrote: »

Full text search can be heavy on the database. They should be careful to avoid injection or undesired options, such as the asterisk. I am sure many of you experience quite often a search getting stuck for a minute or so.

1) FTS wouldn't be needed in this case.
2) SQL injection is virtually a non-issue (easly prevented) these days.

Also the text filtering part can be made purely on eso client-side so no changes on server code would be needed. This would be even better because you would be able to search for different items from the same category without sending multiple requests to the server.

Watchdog · September 2018

I would be happy if I could at least sort the listed items by name.

If I want to buy a specific motif page or a specific recipe, I know how it is called already.

JitchDaddy · September 2018

Watchdog wrote: »

I would be happy if I could at least sort the listed items by name.

If I want to buy a specific motif page or a specific recipe, I know how it is called already.

This is another idea I could get behind if a full text search weren't implemented.

ConeOfSilence · September 2018

I am glad I play on P.C with my massive list of mods.

asharokh · September 2018

I still cant figure out why this hasn't already been done. It cannot be that taxing on the servers as every single other mmo that has trading and auction houses has the ability to search and games like wow have thousands of times the number of items up for trade and many times the number of players making requests, so the argument that its too strenuous for the servers is nonsense. not to mention the fact that it would reduce server load on the pc side of things as the addons used to make it searchable just request every single item in a guild trader to build their own searchable databases.

RaddlemanNumber7 · September 2018

At the moment when we run a search on the guild traders the results are ordered numerically using "Price". If this was changed so that the results were ordered alphabetically on the "Name" then things would be very much easier to find.

I think ordering on "Name" would be the simplest way to fix the search issue people are talking about here. But, even that small change brings technical challenges with it.

I understand that ordering alphabetically on a free text value is far more resource hungry than ordering on a numeric value. This resource issue may be why the system is designed as it is. Ordering on "Name" it would likely take significantly longer for the results to appear than they do now, perhaps longer than players' short attention spans will generally tolerate.

What most people are asking for here, using a free text value to search a free text column in a database, is perhaps the most resource hungry type of search. You could be waiting for a very long time for the results to come back.

There might also be significant cost issues involved for ZOS with any of these changes.

zaria · September 2018

jaschacasadiob16_ESO wrote: »

Full text search can be heavy on the database. They should be careful to avoid injection or undesired options, such as the asterisk. I am sure many of you experience quite often a search getting stuck for a minute or so.

A viable option would be being able to save predefined searches , so that you don't have to get through all the options over and over again. Another option, would be to filter out, if needed, recipes and motifs we already know.

Not sure if its even on database. The item list in the database typically only hold values, most point to other tables.
On the other hand if you could find item fast you would not search to much, now you have to jump from page to page to try to find item. I use awesome guild store but it only hide the items who don't match your text.
One way to get around some of this would be to let you search for something like an motif or set the game find the set or motif id based on your text. And its the set and motif pages who is hardest.

Ydrisselle · September 2018

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

At the moment when we run a search on the guild traders the results are ordered numerically using "Price". If this was changed so that the results were ordered alphabetically on the "Name" then things would be very much easier to find.

I think ordering on "Name" would be the simplest way to fix the search issue people are talking about here. But, even that small change brings technical challenges with it.

I understand that ordering alphabetically on a free text value is far more resource hungry than ordering on a numeric value. This resource issue may be why the system is designed as it is. Ordering on "Name" it would likely take significantly longer for the results to appear than they do now, perhaps longer than players' short attention spans will generally tolerate.

What most people are asking for here, using a free text value to search a free text column in a database, is perhaps the most resource hungry type of search. You could be waiting for a very long time for the results to come back.

There might also be significant cost issues involved for ZOS with any of these changes.

Yet we can use addons on PC which can give us text searches and sorting by the items' names, without heavy consequences on the servers (if it tasked the servers too much, ZOS would have already blocked the functionality to be available)...

HigH_HawK85 · September 2018

Agreed! This is a big issue on PS4 and XBOX!

@ZOS needs to look at this

JitchDaddy · September 2018

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

At the moment when we run a search on the guild traders the results are ordered numerically using "Price". If this was changed so that the results were ordered alphabetically on the "Name" then things would be very much easier to find.

I think ordering on "Name" would be the simplest way to fix the search issue people are talking about here. But, even that small change brings technical challenges with it.

I understand that ordering alphabetically on a free text value is far more resource hungry than ordering on a numeric value. This resource issue may be why the system is designed as it is. Ordering on "Name" it would likely take significantly longer for the results to appear than they do now, perhaps longer than players' short attention spans will generally tolerate.

What most people are asking for here, using a free text value to search a free text column in a database, is perhaps the most resource hungry type of search. You could be waiting for a very long time for the results to come back.

There might also be significant cost issues involved for ZOS with any of these changes.

No..
This is incorrect.

Strider__Roshin · September 2018

This should've taken priority over the QoL changes coming with Mirkmire.

Mr_Walker · September 2018

Please, yes!

RaddlemanNumber7 · September 2018

Ydrisselle wrote: »

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

At the moment when we run a search on the guild traders the results are ordered numerically using "Price". If this was changed so that the results were ordered alphabetically on the "Name" then things would be very much easier to find.

I think ordering on "Name" would be the simplest way to fix the search issue people are talking about here. But, even that small change brings technical challenges with it.

I understand that ordering alphabetically on a free text value is far more resource hungry than ordering on a numeric value. This resource issue may be why the system is designed as it is. Ordering on "Name" it would likely take significantly longer for the results to appear than they do now, perhaps longer than players' short attention spans will generally tolerate.

What most people are asking for here, using a free text value to search a free text column in a database, is perhaps the most resource hungry type of search. You could be waiting for a very long time for the results to come back.

There might also be significant cost issues involved for ZOS with any of these changes.

Yet we can use addons on PC which can give us text searches and sorting by the items' names, without heavy consequences on the servers (if it tasked the servers too much, ZOS would have already blocked the functionality to be available)...

Yes, that is easy to do on a PC. When you opened a guild store it could download the data set for the entire store onto your PC, then the searching and sorting could be performed client side and not put any load on the network or servers at all.

But the fact is that the guild store is not implemented like that. When you run a search on a guild store it's clear that the resulting data set is initially held server side, maybe on some middleware, and only 100 rows from the data set are sent to the game client at a time (that's why there are "pages" of 100 items you need to click through). There must be some reason why ZOS chose to chunk the data like that, some limiting factor. Maybe it's just to save on internet bandwidth. Maybe it's because some players try to run the game run with 999+ ping. Maybe that is all that consoles can handle. Do you have any technical knowledge of how consoles handle this kind of operation, because I don't.

The people who developed the guild store functionality did a very good job. I can't remember it going wrong. It doesn't lose data. It looks rock solid. If I was ZOS I would have to think long and hard before I decided to start making any changes to a system like that.

Just saying.

RaddlemanNumber7 · September 2018

JitchDaddy wrote: »

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

At the moment when we run a search on the guild traders the results are ordered numerically using "Price". If this was changed so that the results were ordered alphabetically on the "Name" then things would be very much easier to find.

I think ordering on "Name" would be the simplest way to fix the search issue people are talking about here. But, even that small change brings technical challenges with it.

I understand that ordering alphabetically on a free text value is far more resource hungry than ordering on a numeric value. This resource issue may be why the system is designed as it is. Ordering on "Name" it would likely take significantly longer for the results to appear than they do now, perhaps longer than players' short attention spans will generally tolerate.

What most people are asking for here, using a free text value to search a free text column in a database, is perhaps the most resource hungry type of search. You could be waiting for a very long time for the results to come back.

There might also be significant cost issues involved for ZOS with any of these changes.

No..
This is incorrect.

Any particular reasons for saying that?

vrodnenok · September 2018

guild traders interface is a nightmare. at first i couldnt believe there is no text search filter.

McCloskey10_5_13 · September 2018

Honestly just let us sort alphabetically so we have some idea of where to scroll to, and so all of the items with similar names are in one place and I'd be thrilled. I've been searching for a Bloodforge helm motif for probably 10-12 in game hours. The only benefit is I think I know the price range of every stupid motif on the PS4 NA server.

HigH_HawK85 · September 2018

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

At the moment when we run a search on the guild traders the results are ordered numerically using "Price". If this was changed so that the results were ordered alphabetically on the "Name" then things would be very much easier to find.

I think ordering on "Name" would be the simplest way to fix the search issue people are talking about here. But, even that small change brings technical challenges with it.

I understand that ordering alphabetically on a free text value is far more resource hungry than ordering on a numeric value. This resource issue may be why the system is designed as it is. Ordering on "Name" it would likely take significantly longer for the results to appear than they do now, perhaps longer than players' short attention spans will generally tolerate.

What most people are asking for here, using a free text value to search a free text column in a database, is perhaps the most resource hungry type of search. You could be waiting for a very long time for the results to come back.

There might also be significant cost issues involved for ZOS with any of these changes.

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

JitchDaddy wrote: »

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

At the moment when we run a search on the guild traders the results are ordered numerically using "Price". If this was changed so that the results were ordered alphabetically on the "Name" then things would be very much easier to find.

I think ordering on "Name" would be the simplest way to fix the search issue people are talking about here. But, even that small change brings technical challenges with it.

I understand that ordering alphabetically on a free text value is far more resource hungry than ordering on a numeric value. This resource issue may be why the system is designed as it is. Ordering on "Name" it would likely take significantly longer for the results to appear than they do now, perhaps longer than players' short attention spans will generally tolerate.

What most people are asking for here, using a free text value to search a free text column in a database, is perhaps the most resource hungry type of search. You could be waiting for a very long time for the results to come back.

There might also be significant cost issues involved for ZOS with any of these changes.

No..
This is incorrect.

Any particular reasons for saying that?

I do but first of all, I have a question! How did you combine your information, to get to this result?

Quick and simple, for a database software it doesn't matter whether you search numeric or alphanumeric values. Currently the statements run in the background are pretty basic and static, which restricts players in using the full spectrum of the guild trader function. It is a fairly simple way for everyone, to chose from pre-defined values and get your results but the database can do way more than that.

If I would work for ZOS and were to be given the task to re-analyse the guild trader function, I would start at the database. I would check whether there are indexes being setup on the database. If there are indexes, I would analyse/improve these first. Secondly I would take a look at the pre-defined statements and improve these, as well as add new ones to allow free text search in the game.

Indexes on a database are the key to a speedy search / statement execution (depending on the statement not being the culprit). The index collects data from several tables and packs it in some sort of cache. This way, statements can be tweaked to only look for certain data in certain columns without fetching all the data from a table.

Now I would add a free text search option to the game and do some stress testing, to make sure everything goes smooth at any time. Would I catch all possible flaws? No probably not but as a player, I would probably know quite a few, since I am encountering them myself while playing.

Yes, the results rely on a few factors where as latency is also one of them but even if you should have a latency of 999+ as you put it, the return of the result would only take a few seconds. If the servers are setup for performance, it wouldn't even matter, if one million people set off a request at the same time, every single one of them would get a result within milliseconds or max. a few seconds.

RaddlemanNumber7 · September 2018

HigH_HawK85 wrote: »

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

At the moment when we run a search on the guild traders the results are ordered numerically using "Price". If this was changed so that the results were ordered alphabetically on the "Name" then things would be very much easier to find.

I think ordering on "Name" would be the simplest way to fix the search issue people are talking about here. But, even that small change brings technical challenges with it.

I understand that ordering alphabetically on a free text value is far more resource hungry than ordering on a numeric value. This resource issue may be why the system is designed as it is. Ordering on "Name" it would likely take significantly longer for the results to appear than they do now, perhaps longer than players' short attention spans will generally tolerate.

What most people are asking for here, using a free text value to search a free text column in a database, is perhaps the most resource hungry type of search. You could be waiting for a very long time for the results to come back.

There might also be significant cost issues involved for ZOS with any of these changes.

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

JitchDaddy wrote: »

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

At the moment when we run a search on the guild traders the results are ordered numerically using "Price". If this was changed so that the results were ordered alphabetically on the "Name" then things would be very much easier to find.

I think ordering on "Name" would be the simplest way to fix the search issue people are talking about here. But, even that small change brings technical challenges with it.

I understand that ordering alphabetically on a free text value is far more resource hungry than ordering on a numeric value. This resource issue may be why the system is designed as it is. Ordering on "Name" it would likely take significantly longer for the results to appear than they do now, perhaps longer than players' short attention spans will generally tolerate.

What most people are asking for here, using a free text value to search a free text column in a database, is perhaps the most resource hungry type of search. You could be waiting for a very long time for the results to come back.

There might also be significant cost issues involved for ZOS with any of these changes.

No..
This is incorrect.

Any particular reasons for saying that?

I do but first of all, I have a question! How did you combine your information, to get to this result?

Quick and simple, for a database software it doesn't matter whether you search numeric or alphanumeric values. Currently the statements run in the background are pretty basic and static, which restricts players in using the full spectrum of the guild trader function. It is a fairly simple way for everyone, to chose from pre-defined values and get your results but the database can do way more than that.

If I would work for ZOS and were to be given the task to re-analyse the guild trader function, I would start at the database. I would check whether there are indexes being setup on the database. If there are indexes, I would analyse/improve these first. Secondly I would take a look at the pre-defined statements and improve these, as well as add new ones to allow free text search in the game.

Indexes on a database are the key to a speedy search / statement execution (depending on the statement not being the culprit). The index collects data from several tables and packs it in some sort of cache. This way, statements can be tweaked to only look for certain data in certain columns without fetching all the data from a table.

Now I would add a free text search option to the game and do some stress testing, to make sure everything goes smooth at any time. Would I catch all possible flaws? No probably not but as a player, I would probably know quite a few, since I am encountering them myself while playing.

Yes, the results rely on a few factors where as latency is also one of them but even if you should have a latency of 999+ as you put it, the return of the result would only take a few seconds. If the servers are setup for performance, it wouldn't even matter, if one million people set off a request at the same time, every single one of them would get a result within milliseconds or max. a few seconds.

Let's stay away from the whole "mine's bigger than yours" thing.

I asked @JitchDaddy for reasons because I am willing to be corrected. Maybe he knows something I don't. I am willing to learn.

So, I'm not saying free text search is asking for the moon. I'm suggesting that in the case of this particular system there may be reasons why its asking for the moon. I don't know for sure.

In truth, I'm probably just trying my hardest to invoke Sod's Law. I say all this stuff about it being a big ask and then, lo and behold, it all turns up in update 20

We'll see.

TeamSeinfeld · September 2018

It’s not just motifs that are a pain. Collecting various furnishing plans can suck the life out of you. At least put the phrase ‘already in your library’ or whatever at the top so you can scroll quickly. I spend way too much time at guild traders versus playing the actual game.

JitchDaddy · September 2018

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

HigH_HawK85 wrote: »

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

At the moment when we run a search on the guild traders the results are ordered numerically using "Price". If this was changed so that the results were ordered alphabetically on the "Name" then things would be very much easier to find.

I think ordering on "Name" would be the simplest way to fix the search issue people are talking about here. But, even that small change brings technical challenges with it.

I understand that ordering alphabetically on a free text value is far more resource hungry than ordering on a numeric value. This resource issue may be why the system is designed as it is. Ordering on "Name" it would likely take significantly longer for the results to appear than they do now, perhaps longer than players' short attention spans will generally tolerate.

What most people are asking for here, using a free text value to search a free text column in a database, is perhaps the most resource hungry type of search. You could be waiting for a very long time for the results to come back.

There might also be significant cost issues involved for ZOS with any of these changes.

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

JitchDaddy wrote: »

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

At the moment when we run a search on the guild traders the results are ordered numerically using "Price". If this was changed so that the results were ordered alphabetically on the "Name" then things would be very much easier to find.

I think ordering on "Name" would be the simplest way to fix the search issue people are talking about here. But, even that small change brings technical challenges with it.

I understand that ordering alphabetically on a free text value is far more resource hungry than ordering on a numeric value. This resource issue may be why the system is designed as it is. Ordering on "Name" it would likely take significantly longer for the results to appear than they do now, perhaps longer than players' short attention spans will generally tolerate.

What most people are asking for here, using a free text value to search a free text column in a database, is perhaps the most resource hungry type of search. You could be waiting for a very long time for the results to come back.

There might also be significant cost issues involved for ZOS with any of these changes.

No..
This is incorrect.

Any particular reasons for saying that?

I do but first of all, I have a question! How did you combine your information, to get to this result?

Quick and simple, for a database software it doesn't matter whether you search numeric or alphanumeric values. Currently the statements run in the background are pretty basic and static, which restricts players in using the full spectrum of the guild trader function. It is a fairly simple way for everyone, to chose from pre-defined values and get your results but the database can do way more than that.

If I would work for ZOS and were to be given the task to re-analyse the guild trader function, I would start at the database. I would check whether there are indexes being setup on the database. If there are indexes, I would analyse/improve these first. Secondly I would take a look at the pre-defined statements and improve these, as well as add new ones to allow free text search in the game.

Indexes on a database are the key to a speedy search / statement execution (depending on the statement not being the culprit). The index collects data from several tables and packs it in some sort of cache. This way, statements can be tweaked to only look for certain data in certain columns without fetching all the data from a table.

Now I would add a free text search option to the game and do some stress testing, to make sure everything goes smooth at any time. Would I catch all possible flaws? No probably not but as a player, I would probably know quite a few, since I am encountering them myself while playing.

Yes, the results rely on a few factors where as latency is also one of them but even if you should have a latency of 999+ as you put it, the return of the result would only take a few seconds. If the servers are setup for performance, it wouldn't even matter, if one million people set off a request at the same time, every single one of them would get a result within milliseconds or max. a few seconds.

Let's stay away from the whole "mine's bigger than yours" thing.

I asked @JitchDaddy for reasons because I am willing to be corrected. Maybe he knows something I don't. I am willing to learn.

So, I'm not saying free text search is asking for the moon. I'm suggesting that in the case of this particular system there may be reasons why its asking for the moon. I don't know for sure.

In truth, I'm probably just trying my hardest to invoke Sod's Law. I say all this stuff about it being a big ask and then, lo and behold, it all turns up in update 20

We'll see.

My reasoning is about what was already said. With a reworked database, a text search option would take a few seconds to return a result. Examples of this can be found in many other MMOs. WoWs auction house wouldn't be possible if your reasoning were correct, for example.

HigH_HawK85 · September 2018

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

Let's stay away from the whole "mine's bigger than yours" thing.

I asked @JitchDaddy for reasons because I am willing to be corrected. Maybe he knows something I don't. I am willing to learn.

So, I'm not saying free text search is asking for the moon. I'm suggesting that in the case of this particular system there may be reasons why its asking for the moon. I don't know for sure.

In truth, I'm probably just trying my hardest to invoke Sod's Law. I say all this stuff about it being a big ask and then, lo and behold, it all turns up in update 20

We'll see.

I didn't want to start a "mine's bigger than yours" thing at all, I do apologise if that was the case

Your post just looked technical, so I thought you were trying to explain the current situation.

Nothing wrong with learning, we all did and still do on a daily basis. I was just trying to point out how a database structure works and what would be possible, if only someone at ZOS was willing to analyse and improve it. It certainly should be feasible to realise this, it's just a question of how they want to approach it.

asharokh · September 2018

Daus wrote: »

This should've taken priority over the QoL changes coming with Mirkmire.

Whole heartedly agree with this, the fraction of a second saved by moving the character I'm playing to the top of the list during login versus the hours saved by implementing something that should have been in the game on day one. It is still mindboggling to me that this thread keeps getting pushed down by things like what is your favorite outfit or can I change the background during load screens. This would be the largest QoL upgrade the game has ever had.

radiostar · September 2018

We asked a couple times for this, at least. I figure in about 2 more years, we'll get something similar to a text search and/or alpha column sort. But just not quite how we expect

FreshlyB8ked · September 2018

@ZOS_GinaBruno

Any chance we could get you or a dev to chime in here on why this hasn't been added to the game yet?
It's been requested for years and the need is clearly there. It seems like something that should have been there from the beginning.

Jayman1000 · September 2018

Lynx7386 wrote: »

Scrolling through those damn pages for hours on end gives me a migraine, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who has this issue.

Your guild trader system has sucked from the get go, but not even having a simple text search makes trying to find specific items a convoluted mess and am exercise in futility.

Awesome Guild Store addon can alleviate some of the pain by offering text search and auto starting search on new page if nothing was found on current. It still sucks because you have to wait for it to search through all the pages (game inherently forbids searching anything but one page at a time), but it sure as hell beats the vanilla system by far. If you're on console Im so sorry, cause then it just sucks, the end.

boombazookajd · September 2018

can't tell you how many times i've wound up with a migraine trying to find a certain item.

Frankly, if I don't know EXACTLY where to find it, I don't even look for it. Honestly, the miserable experience that is trying to find something in a guild trader keeps me from spending money in game.

@ZOS_GinaBruno please, please fix this for all platforms

MasterSpatula · September 2018

Twenty0zTsunami wrote: »

And frankly we shouldn't have to resort to addons for such a simple thing as an intuitive, fluid interface.

100% correct.

But also 100% correct is that 90% of the addons I use provide what anyone who has any business being in game design would consider baseline functionality.

Jayman1000 · September 2018

jaschacasadiob16_ESO wrote: »

Full text search can be heavy on the database. They should be careful to avoid injection or undesired options, such as the asterisk. I am sure many of you experience quite often a search getting stuck for a minute or so.

A viable option would be being able to save predefined searches , so that you don't have to get through all the options over and over again. Another option, would be to filter out, if needed, recipes and motifs we already know.

It shouldn't be difficult to simply create an index of item categories. That index would then be updated at the same time the item was posted. The game has to handle registering the item post anyway, so might as well add to an simple index. Creating a very simple category and text index database is not that hard. And it isn't something that eats up performance. In fact if done correctly it could save tons and tons of useless searching for pages in the store that doesn't contain the item you want, but instead jump straight to the page that does have it.

However it may be difficult if you already have a system in place that does not easily allow for alterations, optimizing or refactioring. We may never know if that is the case since we have no idea how the guld trader store systems is code behind the scenes, but it could be the reason nothing happens on this front from ZOS.

Queenmab · September 2018

I agree wholeheartedly. As a console player, I wish I could do addons that even partially remediate the problem. But yes ideally ZOS should make this basic UI update.

And to second, third, fourth, etc. the request: IF there is a legit reason they can’t make any of the many good suggested changes in this thread (filter for unknown recipes/motifs, arrange alphabetically, straight up keyword search) I think the community deserves to know why. Otherwise we just assume the player base is being ignored in favor of other changes.