Majestic_Jazz Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 When I mean the crafting menu, I mean the place where you actually pick which item(s) you want to craft. So for Artifice, it would be the Color Crystals, Hitls, Enhancements etc. For Biochem it would be Adrenals, Medical, Stims, Implants etc. The more and more items I buy to be able to craft, the more congested the thing becomes. I am only like level 200 Biochem and all of the items I have learned are just green items with a few blues. I can only imagine by the time I am level 400 with many blues and many purples, it will be really rough to navigate through. Yes, there is the ability to close certain sections off, but sometimes that does not help. Say there is just 2 medical items I want to craft, 3 implants I want to craft, 3 stims, and 1 Adrenal. How come I cannot just collapse EVERYTHING except for these items and have it stay that way even when I exit out? Mean that when I come back in, those 9 items are still open while everything else is collapsed and if I want more, I just un-collapse the ones I want to craft. The way it is now, if I want to craft 2 medial items, I must scroll through the ENTIRE list of available medial items including ALL the greens and ALL the Blues and ALL the Purples. I mean I hope I do not sound like I am being unreasonable as I hope that others shares my frustrations, but sometimes I just DREAD having to go into that menu to craft items because having to navigate through them all just to craft a few items while having to crawl through all the ones that I do not want to craft. Again, I am only level 200 Biochem with only green items and a few blues but I can only imagine how horrible and clunky the menu would be at level 400 with a bunch of greens/blues/purples. Am I overreacting or do I have a point? Thank You Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalebratha Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 It could definitely use some streamlining. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asbalana Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 You are not over reacting and do have a point. It would be nice to have more flexibility in the pull down menues. On the other hand, I have not found it a big issue to hit "level" and quickly scroll to the general area of the item I want to craft and then pick it out. So this is no biggy for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mightyshagy Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 I can fully agree to the frustration in the crafting menu. I'm a 400 Cybertech and I normally sort based on the level required to use. But the middle sort options will allow to sort on categories, categories that mostly don't relate to my crafting skill. I can sort by ear which is good for earpieces, but I can also sort by legs, feet, chest, hands, etc, all stuff my crafting skill doesn't even have. It would have made sense to have a sort that was based on the crafting skill you chose. So instead of legs, feet, chest, I would see Droid, Ear, Ship, etc. I don't even recall what the first sort box does, but I never touch that as it never had a use for me. It would be awesome if they polished up the menu some more to make it a bit easier to navigate. Just another waiting game for that to happen though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Majestic_Jazz Posted July 23, 2012 Author Share Posted July 23, 2012 I can fully agree to the frustration in the crafting menu. I'm a 400 Cybertech and I normally sort based on the level required to use. But the middle sort options will allow to sort on categories, categories that mostly don't relate to my crafting skill. I can sort by ear which is good for earpieces, but I can also sort by legs, feet, chest, hands, etc, all stuff my crafting skill doesn't even have. It would have made sense to have a sort that was based on the crafting skill you chose. So instead of legs, feet, chest, I would see Droid, Ear, Ship, etc. I don't even recall what the first sort box does, but I never touch that as it never had a use for me. It would be awesome if they polished up the menu some more to make it a bit easier to navigate. Just another waiting game for that to happen though. Thing is, does Bioware even know about this? Maybe we just need to be a bit "louder" on this issue in the same way we were with the GTN menu. If we go silent, Bioware will think it is all good when it isn't. I am not saying that I am going to unsub if this doesn't get resolved, I would just like to know that Bioware does see this as an issue and is in the mode of getting it fixed, even if it isn't 1.4, as long as I know something is being done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psandak Posted July 23, 2012 Share Posted July 23, 2012 Majestic_Jazz I agree with you completely. That being said, you can use the filters at the top to at least limit the "mess". The first menu is quality. If all you ever make is prototype and artifact quality items you can set this menu to Prototype and Artifact accordingly. The second menu is slot, this is really only beneficial to Armormechs, Synthweavers, and cybertechs, but it is something. the 3rd is difficulty/rating/level. Level seems to work the best as it shows you exactly what the level requirement is for a given item. Using the quality and level filters should help you a lot. But what would help the most is another filter - a text filter. Type in part or all of a schematic name and it shows up. Granted this means you have to know what the name of the thing you want to craft is, but most of us do know our "Favorites". A fully customizable list would be HUGE. Provide several default sorts and allow the player to sort the items into any category set he/she sees fit. To you Bioware: take a look at the WoW add-on called the Advanced Trade Skill window. The SWTOR crafting window is already the right orientation you just need to add custom sorting options. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darksidechemist Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 It would also help if it remembered what settings you had, instead of wiping them every time you change locations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
finelinebob Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 It would also help if it remembered what settings you had, instead of wiping them every time you change locations. I got tired of resetting the sort to "By Level" about a month after launch. It makes far more sense than crafting difficulty because I'm guessing 99.9% or better of the people out there choose to craft something based on the level requirement for equipping/using and sorting by level sorts by difficulty anyway. Why can't there be a preference that allows us to set this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GnatB Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 I vaguely seem to remember a dev response to a post by another player complaining that due to the way RE works, you end up with the vast majority of known recipies being "worthless", that what the crafting UI *really* needs is a way to hide/unlearn recipies. The dev response basically said they agree, but it's a very VERY low priority. (and IIRC this was months ago). So at least some of them WERE aware of it, but it wasn't a big concern to them. Basically, rule of thumb. If it isn't a recipe you plan to make/sell, don't learn it. And only take the RE branches you actually want. Don't learn stuff just to be completionist, you'll just be making things (much) harder on yourself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psandak Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 GnatB, I agree with what you are saying and have done exactly that, only problem is that the list is still too big. You almost always end up getting all three of the prototype schematics learned from RE (because a lot of the time it's the last one to pop that is the one want i.e. you want Redoubt and you get Critical and Overkill before Redoubt. Even on my level 30 alt with 265 armormech the list is getting out of hand. Better sorting is the solution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GnatB Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 Oh, I definitely agree. (though I'd argue the option to "permanently" hide schematics would be better than any sorting option) (i.e. can right-click on any schematic and select "Hide" or something to permanently remove it from the list. Possibly add some sort of toggle functionality to turn on/off "Hide" mode that would show every schematic (including hidden ones) with a checkbox that indicates whether it is currently hidden or not so you can unhide any you accidentally hid) I do a LOT of crafting, and I have to admit that quite often I accidentally create the wrong version of something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenzali Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 A bandaid solution is to simply not learn any of the recipes other than the ones you need to level up or plan on making later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
finelinebob Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 The dev response basically said they agree, but it's a very VERY low priority. (and IIRC this was months ago). That's big news ... what is there about crafting in this game that ISN'T a very VERY low priority for them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GnatB Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 A bandaid solution is to simply not learn any of the recipes other than the ones you need to level up or plan on making later. Yep, but as stated, due to the way reverse engineering works, you're going to end up with a LOT of schematics you don't want. With my lucky, trying to get a veracity item ends up with 2 extra blue schematics I have no interest in, and 3 extra purple ones. And creating a generals (or whatever) version of one instead of the veracity one is quite annoying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MorgonKara Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 (edited) I got tired of resetting the sort to "By Level" about a month after launch. It makes far more sense than crafting difficulty because I'm guessing 99.9% or better of the people out there choose to craft something based on the level requirement for equipping/using and sorting by level sorts by difficulty anyway. Why can't there be a preference that allows us to set this? ^ This I would agree with. I've never understood why the list sorts by "Difficulty" by default. It makes much more sense when sorted by "Level" for general use and it's the first thing I always do when crafting -filter the list by "Level". The crafting menu should always display the crafted items' level IMHO. Since "difficulty" and "rating" are subordinate to "level" in most cases and they are color-coded anyways. Edited July 25, 2012 by MorgonKara Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Majestic_Jazz Posted July 25, 2012 Author Share Posted July 25, 2012 Thanks for all the comments! It is nice to see that I am not the only one and that this IS an issue for many others. Hopefully if we can keep this type of discussion up [doesn't always have to be this thread] in regards to the frustrating and cluttered crafting menu, then hopefully Bioware would no longer consider this a "low priority" concern. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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