U56 Preview 3 Character Bank

[Tolero]

Use this thread for discussing the latest rendition of the Character Bank improvements on Lamannia!

[ahpook]

Use this thread for discussing the latest rendition of the Character Bank improvements on Lamannia!

[*]Character Bank Update

• LAMANNIA NOTE: Remember that Lamannia doesn't always remember your favor or purchase history from the Live servers and is based on what you've done or purchased on Lamannia. A Character Copy may not be fully sufficient to replicate your Live favor or Store state on Lamannia.
• Lamannia Note: Fixed a display issue where the TR cache would not display if the main tab didn't have any items in it even though other tabs still did.
• Lamannia Note: Fixed an issue where it was not possible to remove the very last custom tab.
• Lamannia Note: Character Bank upgrades 1 and 2 have been added back to the Lamannia Store and should now behave correctly. The "unlock" button on the Bank should now correctly appear/disappear when there is more Character Bank space available for your character to purchase in the DDO Store.
• Lamannia Note: Character Bank Upgrade 3 has been added to the DDO Store on Lamannia.

I gather these are the sum of the changes we should expect to see? A couple of bug fixes and the ability to get 20 more character bank slots?

The TR and tab bugs both seem to be fixed. It is possible to buy 20 more slots and they show up seemlessly as extra space even when your bank is open when you buy the extra. The banks is definitely an improvement over what we had.

OTOH,

• 20 more slots for 595 per character seems like too little for too much $. Still a better deal than 10 slots for 995, I guess but ... And 20 more slots still doesn't seem like enough to test out the UI for what it should eventually be able to accommodate.
• The filtering needs more options than gear slots. Potions, scrolls, augments, etc, are not present. You can use search but I am going to guess that there are some items that fall through the cracks when searching by item name. A button for non-equipable items would be a minimal acceptable fix.
• UI needs a way to clear all filters quickly. (one button). Especially to help with the level boxes which don't pre-select the current value and are especially tedious to clear.
• A means to save filter/search sets would be useful so I can move between "queries" to find things. Sure one could organize that stuff with tabs but why do I want to self manage the organization when the computer can do that far more easily? For me the tabs are a waste. I may create one to store something like XP stones but I would prefer to create a query that can find XP stones in the bank. (this could even provide the "clear" option as an "everything" query could be saved that does not specify any filter or search)
• Cannot move things from character bank to shared bank directly. (have to go through inventory)
• I would still like a mechanism to move items from the inventory to the bank or between banks without dragging. A "move to" button.
• I should add that I am glad that there is still no paging on the character bank. It says page 1of 1 but it can handle 120 items without paging. Just remove the paging info until the bank size is large enough to require it and then make sure that having 1000 items in a page is OK so it doesn't need to come back. Unfortunately the shared bank still has pages and limits to 25 per page. the paging is awful when adding or removing items so make it like the character bank and get rid of it.

So the bank is nice upgrade an brings the UI out of the 'oughts and into 20-teens. A bit more work could bring it up to 2022 expectations.

[aoeusnth]

Could you please add filtering, sorting, and tabs to the Crafting Storage in the Shared Account Bank? It's fantastic that they have been added to the character bank and reincarnation cache, but I don't know why the Crafting Storage was the only thing left out. It pretty much needs it the most with it being able to hold thousands of items.

[Sqrlmonger]

Use this thread for discussing the latest rendition of the Character Bank improvements on Lamannia!

I cannot possibly stress to you enough how much of a mistake it would be if the entire paradigm of bank space isn't massively upgraded to a substantially higher capacity.

Continuing to sell 20 slots a go for 595 pts is a continuation of a system that fails to meet player needs. Full Stop.

If this is not the intended road map into the future, please state so explicitly. Otherwise we are forced to conclude the you guys simply do not understand the situation.

Again, the sorting/management features are a positive change but DO NOT address the primary issue.

[ahpook]

Could you please add filtering, sorting, and tabs to the Crafting Storage in the Shared Account Bank? It's fantastic that they have been added to the character bank and reincarnation cache, but I don't know why the Crafting Storage was the only thing left out. It pretty much needs it the most with it being able to hold thousands of items.

The current filtering won't do anything for the crafting storage as it really only adds gear slots and levels in addition to the already availalble search text. Neither of those would help with the crafting. If they could filter the ingredients (applicable level, adventure pack, etc) that would be awesome. The tabs in this situation would certainly help as that would allow the user to self manage the organization of the contents but not as good as a filter that will do that for you. But I agree they should do something. Including standardizing stack size (to 1 billion).

[MasterKernel]

We already had it last time you've tried to turn the bank into this nonsense of the items list...

Don't try it again. Please ! It's totally impossible to use.
The only way to find something there is by typing the name of an item. But there are tons of the items in the game, nobody can possible remember all of the names ! (Honestly, I can't remember even the single one of them...)
There are no filters like "by adventure pack" or "by heroic/epic/legendary", everything just a big mess ! While in the old system you can just put those into different tabs and always knew where did you store the particular item.
With the frequency that you need to change the character's clothes, it becomes completely unplayable.

[Sqrlmonger]

We already had it last time you've tried to turn the bank into this nonsense of the items list...

Don't try it again. Please ! It's totally impossible to use.
The only way to find something there is by typing the name of an item. But there are tons of the items in the game, nobody can possible remember all of the names ! (Honestly, I can't remember even the single one of them...)
There are no filters like "by adventure pack" or "by heroic/epic/legendary", everything just a big mess ! While in the old system you can just put those into different tabs and always knew where did you store the particular item.
With the frequency that you need to change the character's clothes, it becomes completely unplayable.

Couple of things.

First, there is a level filter that allows you filter to select out your TR gear.
Second, I believe there is also a sort order that displays things in the order they were added (or the reverse of that order).
Third, I agree filtering by pack would actually be a nice add, but I'm not sure how easy it would be for them to do that (depends on if that information can be associated with the items without too much dev time and without too much computational complexity at run-time).
Fourth, you can still put the items in different tabs in the new system. Only now you get more tabs and you won't have unused blank space in a tab you don't need it in.

[Valerianus]

I cannot possibly stress to you enough how much of a mistake it would be if the entire paradigm of bank space isn't massively upgraded to a substantially higher capacity.

Continuing to sell 20 slots a go for 595 pts is a continuation of a system that fails to meet player needs. Full Stop.

If this is not the intended road map into the future, please state so explicitly. Otherwise we are forced to conclude the you guys simply do not understand the situation.

Again, the sorting/management features are a positive change but DO NOT address the primary issue.

very well put +1


i also think that improvements are very very very welcome and much much much needed, and this is huge and positive, so go with em.

but, to put it in other terms, in my opinion, we need to delete at least some of our mules and never to create again one.

i think it is not out of line to say that for a not-irrelevant number of players, 20 more char bank spaces, it means they will just let us to store on-character another gearset or two when the level cap increases again for the one and only class we play over and over with the only character we play over and over, and this happens also because storage issues.

so please, let us know if there are future plans. please state it clearly when these very welcome improvements go live. i think ssg will do a great service to itself and to the whole community if ssg will just say that more is coming, not just character bank, but something in line with a real storage pass. i know that you are not used to announce something until it is almost done, and it is correct and can't argue with that, but in this special case, given how long we players have waited for a storage pass, please, please, give us some hint, even if it's vague, and maybe, and eventually....

[ahpook]

We already had it last time you've tried to turn the bank into this nonsense of the items list...

Don't try it again. Please ! It's totally impossible to use.
The only way to find something there is by typing the name of an item. But there are tons of the items in the game, nobody can possible remember all of the names ! (Honestly, I can't remember even the single one of them...)
There are no filters like "by adventure pack" or "by heroic/epic/legendary", everything just a big mess ! While in the old system you can just put those into different tabs and always knew where did you store the particular item.
With the frequency that you need to change the character's clothes, it becomes completely unplayable.

You can create tabs and recreate your experience of organizing by tab if you desire. It has the benefit of showing the item name instead of just an image so you can scan a list much quicker than trying to parse out an item by identifying an icon and hovering over it. You may be able to remember where every item is across 5 tabs in a character bank across 14 Alts but you would be far outside the norm with that skill. This new system is not perfect but it is far far better than the system that we have now. Have you actually tried it?

[LittleLexi]

We didn't have enough space 10 years ago. Several expansions and hundreds of items later– 20 more purchasable bank slots is not going to cut it. In fact– it is utterly insulting.

I think the devs are completely out of touch with the player's needs when it comes to space and storage. Or there are ulterior motives for why they can't just do what is right, and grant us more character/bank/shared bank space, so that we can log in and actually play the game, and not: Inventory Management Online.

[Boeregard-Sarlona]

Thank you for hearing us about needing new space. I think it makes the bank overhaul more exciting at launch. I will echo what many others are saying though. This does not "fix" inventory management issues. This, at best, frees up one of the 15+ mules that we all keep to store our stuff. What we need is a singular bank that can hold all of our stuff all of the lives. I still think that the issue here is Bound to Character vs. Bound to Account. I get it that you want us to run raids on multiple characters, but surely there is a way that we can house all of the hundreds if not thousands of items in the shared bank like we do the crafting storage.

Outside the box idea: All items in the game be flagged as bound to account but put a requirement tag on them (such as docents requiring warforged). For instance:

Melkizadek and Reikenn both are characters on the same account. Mel runs Project Nemesis and scores the Staggershockers. They are bound to account, but they are "only usable by Melkzadek". Reikenn runs PN and gets the same gloves. They can go in the same shared bank as Mel's gloves, but they are tagged with "only usable by Reikenn". Mel cannot equip Reikenn's gloves and Reikenn cannot equip Mel's gloves, but they both, because they are bound to account, able to be placed in the shared bank.

I don't know if this is even possible and I realize that there might be issues with character name changes. But if something like this were possible, we are only presented with one shared bank that is sortable and permanently organizable on an account. This gets rid of the need for character bank and TR cache. All items that are on a character when it TR's just gets dumped into the shared bank. Not only does this eliminate the need for mules, but it is just much "cleaner" for new players.

[NightHiker]

It looks like at least the TR cache (possibly all bank inventory type lists) are still building up a ghost transaction queue if one spam clicks the items on it.

It seems the more time I spam click, the more time the system will remain unresponsive afterwards. For example, if I keep clicking the items on my TR cache as fast as I can for 30 seconds, once I stop all inventory slots will remain unresponsive for another 15 to 20 seconds.

Before the update, if I clicked too quick while transfering items from the TR cache to my inventory the transfer would generate an error and not go thru, but the queue was cleared and the bank was responsive again in a couple of seconds. That it seems to keep several ghost transfers still queued and stays unresponsive for tens of seconds while nothing happens is something that should be looked upon in my opinion. That means there's something that may be unsustainable in the code that, while not likely be an issue on an individual basis (rarely someone will reproduce such spam clicking behavior), may indicate an underlying cause for performance problems once the system goes live and many hundreds of people are using it at the same time.

Editing for clarification: this is very easy to reproduce. Just click the first item on your TR cache, as you'd do when emptying it, but spamming it as fast as you can. You'll see each transfer will take increasingly more time to go thru until about at 30 seconds of this the next transfer will be taking 15 seconds or so. If you stop clicking then the system will remain unresponsive for extra 15-20 seconds until all of what seems to be the ghost queue is emptied (as you'll see many clicking/mouse down animations in a row showing up in the list while nothing happens) and you can finally use it again.

Cheers,
NH

[grrowler]

I only had a chance to briefly check the updated bank out on lammania.

for some reason, I imagined that the plan was to adopt the banking system from LOTRO which has tabs to organize the bank but still had a grid-like organization.

I am going to miss the grid style of the current ddo character bank. I can live with the pagination style of the shared bank; the organization tabs help.

but ... can we rename the tabs to customize?

[Sqrlmonger]

I only had a chance to briefly check the updated bank out on lammania.

for some reason, I imagined that the plan was to adopt the banking system from LOTRO which has tabs to organize the bank but still had a grid-like organization.

I am going to miss the grid style of the current ddo character bank. I can live with the pagination style of the shared bank; the organization tabs help.

but ... can we rename the tabs to customize?

This feature is already implemented thankfully. Though it is not intuitive at the moment.

There is a little arrow you need to click which will allow you to edit the tab name. I would edit a screenshot to point it out but I'm not in a good place to do so now and I think you could probably work it out anyway looking more closely with this added info.

[Matuse]

As I have been saying since January of 2006:

Base bank should be 40 slots.
Each House K boost should be 40 slots.
Purchasable upgrades should be 60 slots.

The bank was completely inadequate 16 years ago. Still is.

[QuantumFX]

Now that we have a new system, can we get rid of the artificial wait time for pulling items out of the TR cache? Or, at least reduce the timer?

[Wizard1406]

I agree with the other posts, not big enough upgrades.

595 for 20 slots is too expensive. A new char costs 625 for 80 base slots and you don't want to encourage even more bank alts. The constant log on/off must cause unnecessary server strain.

[Lamassut]

Thanks for the improvements, but there are two changes that should be made:

1) We need a filter for potions and other misc that currently don't fall into any category, not shared or personal bank.
2) One thing I need to know is how much total space I have occupied, to know how much free space I have. If I create tabs, knowing this is not so easy, since there doesn't seem to be a total count, it just says how many I have in each tab (correct me if I haven't seen it right).

We need filters in the crafting storage, urgently. It's a huge black hole where it's hard to find many things, that's why there are ingredients that I don't dare put there. We need filters by type of crafting (eg, cannith crafting, augments, greensteel, sharn, slavers, etc), and within these types some need secondary filters (for the type of augments, for example). The maximum stacking also needs to be standardized. In most cases it's too low, let alone the ones that don't even stack.

And after I don't know how many fixes, there are augments that still show wrong values in the crafting bank (resistance augments, for example). Why is it so difficult to show their true values?

Devs, you realize that continuing with the same storage paradigm is not going to satisfy what we really need, right? If you are going to give us tiny increases in space for the current exorbitant price, you are going to continue to generate the same discontent as now. There is a chronic need for space that you are not going to satisfy like this. We need a paradigm shift when it comes to storage. Seriously consider the "sticker book". It can be considered as a named item crafting system, once the "recipe" has been discovered by finding the named in the quests. And consider doing a deep review of the btc objects that exist in this game. There are many that should be bta, starting with artifacts.

I am aware that it is not possible to implement all the changes in a single update, but be more transparent, share your future plans with the players. Lack of transparency only leads to frustration for your customers.

[Abilbo]

Use this thread for discussing the latest rendition of the Character Bank improvements on Lamannia!

A question about the TR cache and the bank system. In the past, when you did a Full TR, Iconic, Racial or THOW, everything in your inventory and personal bank went into the TR cache. Now when you do one of those TR's everything that is in your bank, stays in your bank. Is this WAI? IMHO this isn't good. Lets say your a full completionist, and you spent some time farming end game BTC raid gear, and for the most part, your alloted 285 inventory items are all BTC items. This means when you do a TR, your bank stays full of end game BTC items, that you can't use, and now occupy your bank space.

Currently, and maybe its just me that does it, as I am leveling back up to cap, I use my bank space to hold all the items that I use on that character, even items that are BTA, and then when I am ready to do a TR, I can empty the BTA items to my shared bank, empty my TR, and move forward. I do it this way, because it helps keep the shared bank, which is storage for ALL my characters some one uncluttered.

I will also post my comments of displeasure on the new banking system not addressing the complete lack of storage that this game lacks. The game needs more storage, its that simple. Your failure to address that in any meaningful way, is just baffling, because everyone that i know that plays this game would spend $$$$ to get more storage. This new bank system is like putting a band-aid on an arterial bleed, and then wondering why the patient died. If this is a prequel to the major bank upgrade that is coming, and this had to be done first, to facilitate that change, then you should say so.

[ahpook]

Thanks for the improvements, but there are two changes that should be made:

...
2) One thing I need to know is how much total space I have occupied, to know how much free space I have. If I create tabs, knowing this is not so easy, since there doesn't seem to be a total count, it just says how many I have in each tab (correct me if I haven't seen it right).

I had not played with tabs much but this comment made me go back to look. Yes capacity reporting is awful in the new system. You need to change it to something along the lines "X of Y (Z in tab)" where X is total number in bank, Y is total capactity and Z is how many items are in the current tab. Likely you can make it more aesthically pleasing than that but the important part is say "Z of Y" like you do now is completely misleading and should be considered a bug. Another bug is when I deleted a tab the contents of that tab went in to my main but the Z of Y did not update Z. In this case it stayed at 117 of 120 when it should have been 120 of 120.

..
And after I don't know how many fixes, there are augments that still show wrong values in the crafting bank (resistance augments, for example). Why is it so difficult to show their true values?

I think it is because they use a ledger like system where they record the item details rather than look at the actual item in the bank. It can get out of date and report wrong. Mabar items are notorious for this (apples go into bank and get listed and rotten apples but come back out as regular apples).

Devs, you realize that continuing with the same storage paradigm is not going to satisfy what we really need, right? If you are going to give us tiny increases in space for the current exorbitant price, you are going to continue to generate the same discontent as now. There is a chronic need for space that you are not going to satisfy like this. We need a paradigm shift when it comes to storage. Seriously consider the "sticker book". It can be considered as a named item crafting system, once the "recipe" has been discovered by finding the named in the quests. And consider doing a deep review of the btc objects that exist in this game. There are many that should be bta, starting with artifacts.

I don't care much for this idea. It seems too much like their awful ledger system and I don't trust them to get it right. Additionally mythic and reaper bonuses make this far harder to manage. I just want them to store my items and show me an organized list of what is there. They are getting close, they just need some tweaks, bug fixes and a reasonably costed capacity increase. It is 2022 this is not actually that hard any more.