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[Maurog]

I can right-click items to see their stats, but I don't see a way to easily compare stats.

A comparison view that opens a second data window, by shift-right-clicking a second thing would be nice. (see image)

Yes, it temporarily covers the map screen completely, but that's a sacrifice we are willing to make.

[Derman]

Sounds reasonable to me. Since you won't be doing anything anyway when you are comparing the items it doesn't matter whether you can see the map or not.

[thrAsher]

I know Kyzrati said on the Cogmind subreddit that a quick way to discern whether an item is better or not is to simply look at it's rating. Higher rating = better. But I agree, I'd love a comparison window, too.

I'd also love it if when hovering the mouse over a stat (like 'coverage', for example), the description window would pop up on it's own and disappear when you move the mouse. As is, you have to click the stat, then hit ESC to close the info pop up. Feels clunky to me. The UI is superb for the most part, but there are some niggles here and there I'd like to see ironed out and improved on.

[Kyzrati]

I can right-click items to see their stats, but I don't see a way to easily compare stats.

A comparison view that opens a second data window, by shift-right-clicking a second thing would be nice. (see image)

Yes, it temporarily covers the map screen completely, but that's a sacrifice we are willing to make.

This is UI request with the most votes, for sure; lots of players wanted this immediately. It will be added one way or another, and as Derman says, even if a second window covers the map it doesn't matter.

I've also thought of another more interactive way to do comparisons: actually overlay the differences onto a single item's window, like you have one item open and shift-right-click another and it immediately shows +/- to the different values. I'd have to mock that one up and see if it would really work.

I'd also love it if when hovering the mouse over a stat (like 'coverage', for example), the description window would pop up on it's own and disappear when you move the mouse. As is, you have to click the stat, then hit ESC to close the info pop up. Feels clunky to me.

That's a great idea, I'll make it automatic (with a very slight delay, of course, in case you're just dragging the cursor across the window).

[thrAsher]

You are awesome, Kyzrati. I find it funny, the only real issues I've had are so very minor, and mostly QOL. The game itself has been great, I haven't encountered any bugs that I'm aware of, it plays fantastic. Ya done good, man.

[biomatter]

Speaking of stats - do weapons have different fire times, and if so can that be put on their stat screen?

[nsg21]

I've also thought of another more interactive way to do comparisons: actually overlay the differences onto a single item's window

Another way to compare items is to remember previous item and have shortcut to quickly alternate info for current and previous item in the same window.

[Kyzrati]

You are awesome, Kyzrati. I find it funny, the only real issues I've had are so very minor, and mostly QOL. The game itself has been great, I haven't encountered any bugs that I'm aware of, it plays fantastic. Ya done good, man.

Thanks, I try my best and hope it's good enough

Speaking of stats - do weapons have different fire times, and if so can that be put on their stat screen?

Only a minority of weapons do, and you'll see this indicated as their "Delay." Click on that stat and see the description. If they have no delay, then it's the standard firing time, but that's dependent on the number of weapons in your volley, so for that you should check the manual to see how time works in combat. This will be very helpful in deciding how many weapons to fire!

[Kyzrati]

I wanted to add to this discussion for reference: Note that right now an effective way to do a basic comparison of all parts that are both attached and in your inventory is to use 'q' mode, which shows data strips for each of them.

[Kyzrati]

So this was a highly requested feature, and something I'll be adding in Alpha 2.

Attached is a mockup of what I'm thinking. It's not a full window; instead, when you consecutively open information for a same-type item, a small window to the left will display color-coded individual values for changes compared to the previous item. Red for values that are worse, green for better, and white/gray for anything that is not objectively better or worse. (Values that didn't change at all are empty lines.)

So you could keep selecting new items and the values will continue to change to the differences between the current and previous item. What do you think?

[biomatter]

Looks good to me! Just to clarify though, is that the second items stat differences being shown as the small outset? So usability will go like this: Right click one item to pull screen up, right click second item to display comparison node?

[Reiver]

I'd love it if you right-clicked the primary item, then simply mouseover the others. That way you can flick between a bunch of items without excessive clicking.

[Kyzrati]

Looks good to me! Just to clarify though, is that the second items stat differences being shown as the small outset? So usability will go like this: Right click one item to pull screen up, right click second item to display comparison node?

Correct. The first window you open has no comparison visible, and the second item you click on will show what has changed. For example if the first item had a rating of 1 and the second is 3, it will show a "+2" out to the left (in green).

Comparison of items of different types could be done as well, though they would only compare basic shared stats.

I'd love it if you right-clicked the primary item, then simply mouseover the others. That way you can flick between a bunch of items without excessive clicking.

Reiver always has to take it one step further . That does sound like a pretty nifty extended feature there, though it doesn't work as intuitively. The changes shown are from the previous item to the current one, and hovering over another item would not make it the current one, but have to assume it's now showing the changes from the hovered item. There area a couple solutions to that, but as I see it they all involve changing the most intuitive way to understand this feature.

[Kyzrati]

Hm, while it would be more work, maybe eventually there could be a different format for showing a comparison between items over which you're just hovering but haven't clicked yet. That would solve everything (except the problem of trying and failing to release this game on time!!!).

[biomatter]

Wait a second - I'm doing a double-take here, I just woke up so maybe I'm a little loopy but that info box is weird all of a sudden.

First, I think I would prefer if the stats were listed in the outset, as opposed to simply showing the difference. Maybe I'm just being exceptionally dumb, but I would prefer not to have to do (even simple) math to figure out what the second item's stats are. Ex:, your second item has a rating of 9, so why not just show a 9 highlighted in green? Just use the highlighting to indicate more or less. I dunno. How does everyone else feel about this? It just seems that in practice I'll end up mentally crunching the numbers every time anyways. Alternatively, we could always go the "let's please everyone route" and include BOTH sets of numbers, like "9 (+1)" to indicate what the difference is. vOv

Second, what even is that second item, haha? How does it have -2% crit chance? -1 Projectiles? Matter is -2, and for some reason that's better? Curiously, it also only has a range of 12. I don't remember many late-game items that only have a range of 12... It's really dumb, but this funny little screenshot has really made me want to fire the game back up. Alas, Terraria 1.3 beckons! I'm also totally blanking on what the durability stat even is.

Finally, I just realized what a pain developing that feature must be. So simple from our point of view, and yet so complex behind the scenes! How will it handle comparing guns to scanners? Treads to armor? And then there are all those utilities that don't really have visible stats, like sensor arrays. Range is not a listed stat on those. And dodge items (Maneuvering Thrusters, Reactor Control Systems), where the interesting stats are baked into the description. Daaaaaaaaang. Still though, this will be a FANTASTIC feature and I absolutely love that you are working on it Kyzrati! Good luck!

[Kyzrati]

First, I think I would prefer if the stats were listed in the outset, as opposed to simply showing the difference. Maybe I'm just being exceptionally dumb, but I would prefer not to have to do (even simple) math to figure out what the second item's stats are. Ex:, your second item has a rating of 9, so why not just show a 9 highlighted in green? Just use the highlighting to indicate more or less. I dunno. How does everyone else feel about this? It just seems that in practice I'll end up mentally crunching the numbers every time anyways. Alternatively, we could always go the "let's please everyone route" and include BOTH sets of numbers, like "9 (+1)" to indicate what the difference is. vOv

You have to draw the line somewhere... the aesthetics are also a consideration. I'm not 100% pleased with the current approach, but other ideas will look worse. The positioning here is good, to the left of the stat name. I could perhaps modify the values to have the original numbers further out to the left for reference.

Also, you keep calling it "second item," but remember, the numbers refer to the first item you were just looking at previously.

Second, what even is that second item, haha? How does it have -2% crit chance? -1 Projectiles? Matter is -2, and for some reason that's better? Curiously, it also only has a range of 12. I don't remember many late-game items that only have a range of 12... It's really dumb, but this funny little screenshot has really made me want to fire the game back up.

Dear biomatter:

Attached is a mockup of what I'm thinking.

Emphasis in original (I did consider making that word all glowy). I can make up whatever numbers I want! I was just throwing values out there in REXPaint and you're trying to reconcile them with some item? You coghead

By the way, all shotguns are having their ranges reduced to 10~12 next release, so there will be some weapons which meet that particular requirement

However, you also read the values wrong due to that "second item" thinking--the range on the comparing weapon would have been 16 (16-2=14).

Finally, I just realized what a pain developing that feature must be. So simple from our point of view, and yet so complex behind the scenes! How will it handle comparing guns to scanners? Treads to armor? And then there are all those utilities that don't really have visible stats, like sensor arrays. Range is not a listed stat on those. And dodge items (Maneuvering Thrusters, Reactor Control Systems), where the interesting stats are baked into the description. Daaaaaaaaang. Still though, this will be a FANTASTIC feature and I absolutely love that you are working on it Kyzrati! Good luck!

You know, I was just this afternoon wondering if anyone would realize that. It's just a freaking box with numbers, and it requires a ton of work.

I've already implemented the box, its animations, a framework for the comparison calculations, and about half of the actual comparisons. So I'm more than half-way done with this feature. Ideally I want to finish tonight, but I may need a little more time tomorrow to fully test it and look for any inadequacies.

How does everyone else feel about this?

[Kyzrati]

As a quick investigation of the simplest alternatives, I converted the mockup to use original values (attached). The problem with this is the coloring becomes extremely confusing, to the point that we'd have to do away with it altogether. A value-specific coloring scheme only makes sense when the respective colors and therefore their meaning apply directly to the values in question. A +/- modifier can be colored to show whether it is a good or bad modifier, but what do we color the original values?

Coloring the new item's values in the regular window is what most games would do, so let's try that, and leave the original values uncolored (attached). As shown this looks pretty bad, and the different colored numbers in the main window make that view a bit more difficult to parse compared to the original all-green version. (The original idea with the main window was to let the right side with the bars etc. do all the good/bad coloring.)

I'd prefer the original colored modifier version myself, but I'm still curious what everyone else thinks about this.

[biomatter]

I was just sitting there giving my fingers a break and my mind wandered back here, and I realized that those were probably meaningless numbers pulled off the top of your head. I raced back, hoping I could edit my post in time, but alas-

You were right, I was confused about which item's stats were being displayed in the outset thingy. In response to your most recent post: I see the issue you are dealing with re: coloring. For example, the green highlights should indicate a better stat, but it's for the current viewing item, so when the comparison numbers are lower it turns green, which is not counter-intuitive but is certainly confusing. Yeesh... I don't know how to handle that.

[Kyzrati]

lol, yeah, I figured you'd come around. I'm often a little out of it for a while when I wake up, too =p

After looking over all the possibilities a few times, the original one still looks the best, so that will go in and we'll see what everyone thinks. Tweaking it would be fairly easy; it's the initial implementation that takes forever. Still working on it...

[CormacMccarthy91]

A lot of ideas here are about mouse movement and clicking/ hovering. I personally Never touch the mouse whal playing. So I was wondering what you had in mind for keyboard only folks?

[Kyzrati]

I think there are probably two related issue here:

The first that came to mind was just Reiver talking about the possibility of hovering to get comparison data rather than actually opening a window, something I'm not doing yet. The comparison system for items attached and in inventory is usable equally by mouse and keyboard users, as it's shown when you open a second/third/etc. item window (either via mouse or kb).

Comparing items on the ground is something that hasn't been discussed, but will not be possible in keyboard mode, at least not in a chain like is (partially) possible with the mouse. This is fine because technically the mouse isn't even a perfect way to compare multiple ground items since the window even covers part of the map and items when open (more so in the original 4:3 aspect ratio for which Cogmind is designed, though it happens that many are using wide screens and therefore more easily noticed they couldn't even open info for additional items on the ground).

To compare between a ground and parts/inventory item via keyboard, you'd have to select the ground item first.

We could theoretically get around this restriction, as well as the ground vs. ground item comparisons in kb mode, by allowing even newly opened windows to compare against whatever was last in the window even if that window isn't currently open (as long as the original item still exists).

I don't like the comparison aesthetics enough to go quite that far yet... It would also require a change to indicate what the previous item was, since you might forget. Either way, if you're not consecutively opening windows it's unlikely your purpose is to compare something, so in many cases that extra bit kinda gets in the way rather than helps :/

[Sylverone]

As a quick investigation of the simplest alternatives, I converted the mockup to use original values (attached). The problem with this is the coloring becomes extremely confusing, to the point that we'd have to do away with it altogether. A value-specific coloring scheme only makes sense when the respective colors and therefore their meaning apply directly to the values in question. A +/- modifier can be colored to show whether it is a good or bad modifier, but what do we color the original values?

Coloring the new item's values in the regular window is what most games would do, so let's try that, and leave the original values uncolored (attached). As shown this looks pretty bad, and the different colored numbers in the main window make that view a bit more difficult to parse compared to the original all-green version. (The original idea with the main window was to let the right side with the bars etc. do all the good/bad coloring.)

I'd prefer the original colored modifier version myself, but I'm still curious what everyone else thinks about this.

Actually, I'm okay with that first image with one change: switch the red and green. Others, feel free to chime in if you think differently, but to me it makes more sense if the colors describe the values being colored. The previous item's range of 16 is better? Then color it green to say it's better. That said, I see that this is tricky when it comes to how a complete newbie might interpret these values.

Will there be a bit of header text saying "previous item" or "[something more flavorful]" for the little window?

And what is the visual transition going to be? My first imagining of what this feature might look like is that the former item collapses down to the left and becomes the comparison sidebar, although I realize that might be too slow for the quick comparisons we are aiming for.

Anyway, put my vote towards showing the actual stats, although of course I can try on for size whatever you decide to try first.

[Kyzrati]

Actually, I'm okay with that first image with one change: switch the red and green. Others, feel free to chime in if you think differently, but to me it makes more sense if the colors describe the values being colored. The previous item's range of 16 is better? Then color it green to say it's better. That said, I see that this is tricky when it comes to how a complete newbie might interpret these values.

True that first image would work better by coloring based on whether the previous item's stats, though that has two drawbacks: The focus should ideally be on the currently shown item, plus seeing a bunch of red when the current item is actually better goes against that principle.

Will there be a bit of header text saying "previous item" or "[something more flavorful]" for the little window?

And what is the visual transition going to be? My first imagining of what this feature might look like is that the former item collapses down to the left and becomes the comparison sidebar, although I realize that might be too slow for the quick comparisons we are aiming for.

As I currently see it, no extra info--just what's shown there. You can watch it in action here.

[Sylverone]

I see, looks nice. Either way it won't take long to adapt I'm sure.

[Reiver]

For what it's worth, my anticipated use case (Mouse-driven, I grant) was: Right-click to bring up an items stats. Mouseover provides the comparison sidebar for whatever the mouse is hovering over, allowing you to compare multiple items against the current one (be it equipped, on the ground, whatever) quickly. If you then found an item of interest, you'd right-click that and get the detail view there, thus letting you mouseover more stuff as you went... essentially keeping a 'most interesting item to date' item on screen, and hunting for better.

A complication: The item you're examining probably wants some way of being highlighted, so once you've decided that nope, the first thing you clicked is best, you can find which one it was.

For keyboard, you'd presumably need to 'lock' the window pane and then select second items individually to compare, and then escape out again. This is much less intuitive, but... hm.

Button -> Examine.
Escape -> Closes the Examine window.
This is the current use case, as I understand it. (If I've missed something, I've been wasting keypresses...)

New:
Button -> Examine.
Next 'item selection' button -> Compare.
Escape -> Examine.
You can then go to a Next 'item selection' button as you see fit, or escape out as normal. So the normal use case (which I repeat, I've potentially misunderstood - reading the manual is on the to-do list because I am a very naughty person ) remains the same, but you can do more stuff while there, too.

I don't know, it's just a passing thought. The mouse use-case seems pretty solid, though.

biomatter - how insane would this drive you?