miércoles, 26 de octubre de 2022

Customizable Loot Filters, how they could work, and why implement them

PREMISE: Why Customizable Loot Filters?

Warframe already has levels of indicators for resources of differing rarity and importance. The goal behind the Customizable Loot Filter is to make these resource indicators consistent at a UI level, and to offer the player the ability to choose which resources they would like to emphasize -- and equally as important, which resources they would like to de-emphasize.

Simply put, signs do not work when there are too many of them.

As players progress through the game, they frequently encounter new types of resources that are added throughout various updates. Having increased visibility on these can be good for a player who doesn't have many of them, but Warframe's UI does not currently have a way of handling the fact that players may eventually outgrow the need for these resources.

Specific example: The resource pop-ups for Railjack resources were cool back when they were first introduced and players needed many of them to build the Railjack. These same indicators are less welcome when a player is actually in Railjack missions. Every single Railjack resource pops up, and many of us have them by the tens of thousands.

One more point to keep in mind: Every idea here is a suggestion; even if some points are disagreeable, they can probably be left out or tweaked while maintaining the quality-of-life and utility of a customizable loot filter.

CUSTOMIZABLE LOOT FILTER: What is it?

QUICK UGLY MOCKUP

Accessed under Options -> Interface -> Customize Loot Filter
It's a list consisting of one item per line.
Each item has a text field and one of three levels of rarity that you can select: Common, Rare, or Marked.
In the text field, the player enters resources that can normally be [linked] and auto-completed like in in-game chat.
This resource will then become filtered according to a rarity that the player chooses. The effects of rarity filters are as follows:
COMMON resources are largely the same as they are now. When you pick them up, they appear at the bottom of the screen.
RARE resources are the ones that pop up up in the lower left with their enlarged visual.
MARKED resources are treated like when a player marks an item. Their exact location shows up as a waypoint and also appears on the map. You get the lower left pop-up from them too.

ADDITIONAL DETAILS: Suggestions on how this could work under the hood

Although I mention rarity a lot, it is not inherently an issue of rarity, just demand. Another way to phrase this would be indicator levels or resource priority, the categories of which would be low, high, and marked.
If there is a concern about balance or value of loot radars regarding MARKED resources, perhaps they only become pinged on map when they first enter your loot radar range, kind of like the Genestamps in Break Narmer missions (players, take note that our loot radar is much larger than Kahl's, and our legs more robust).
There could be other levels of rarity too, or even a "hide" option that would make the item not even appear on loot radars.
An "exempt" or special type of rarity would probably have to exist for items that are normally pickups like Void Plumes and Syndicate Tokens, or items that are not quite treated like normal resources like Cetus Wisps or Scintillant. Being exempt would prevent a player from adding them to the list.

As much as I would want them to be just as easily marked via the loot filter, I do understand that there is a deliberate game design decision to make them the way they are, and I'm not here to challenge that today.
This list act as overrides for the default values of resource rarity (which could ideally become standardized into the above categories). If a player is happy with the default way a resource is marked, such as Riven Slivers or Steel Essence, they don't need to add an entry.
The reason for text entry is two-fold: first, so you don't have to stare at a list of every single resource in the game. Second, it works as a built-in knowledge filter. A player doesn't need to care about the rarity of resources they don't even know exist.
If limited to items that can be [linked], this could be saved in a really tiny amount of information in terms of data storage. I'm assuming each resource has its own ID in an index, and the rarity would probably be its own byte, even accounting for the possibility of other types of rarity. You wouldn't have to save any strings.
You could also call this idea "Player Resource Priority" or "Custom Resource Rarity" or something to that effect.

This is an idea I've had in mind for a long time but didn't want to be the one to flesh out because I don't have the design chops to present it in an interesting way. If you end up liking this idea and want to do a better job of that, by all means, take up the torch.

submitted by /u/Worldbrand
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/Warframe/comments/ye8k6j/customizable_loot_filters_how_they_could_work_and/