Feedback The new toolbar is terrible

ah... Then it was what I was thinking... In-game stuff, rather than character selection stuff. From a perspective of a new player, or at least ones that don't seek out too much info; All it would be is one step at a time, and they choose what they want to be based on looks. They would only find that kind of thing out once they got into game. The character selection screen far as I remember has not ever showed racial things that you would evidently see once in-game. Yeah I wouldn't mind seeing the armor thing in-game, which was only an idea through out beta. It didn't ever get implemented on the stable branch to work like that. Racial weapons on the other hand... I would rather at least being able to still get them via treasure hunting the specific races structures and communities.

I can somewhat understand why they did a streamlined thing for it. Since it is not really equipment focused. Far as I know. It is just part of the game. Well at least there are mods for these sort of things...

 

So here's a thing that isn't down to personal preference or ease of use, for a change, and which I haven't seen mentioned in this or any other thread regarding the matter (might be an oversight on my part):

I'm pretty sure the dedicated left/right hand slots (whichever you didn't scroll through, so right hand by default) stayed activated in the old hotbar, when you used the scrollwheel or number keys to switch to another slot. That definitely isn't the case with the current hotbar, however.

To illustrate with an example:
Let's say you had a pistol on L, a flashlight on R and a bandage on 6 in the old hotbar. You'd flick the mousewheel once to exchange your pistol for a bandage. Meanwhile your flashlight would stay activated during the entire process.
With the current hotbar you'd have pistol & flashlight on 1 and bandage & flashlight on 2. You'd again flick the mousewheel once, this time exchanging the entire setup. Technically your flashlight in slot 1 is deactivated and then reactivated again in slot 2. And it has to be, because strictly speaking it is not your flashlight, but two separate shortcuts to the same item. So presumably this isn't a bug, this is by design. However, since that process is really fast, you most likely won't see much difference in practice, probably none whatsoever.

To see why this is actually a really big problem and the current hotbar a bafflingly terrible design decision, imagine (or try it out in game, if you have to, it's rather enlightening) above example with a grappling hook instead of a flashlight.

Please fix your game, Chucklefish.

 

@lolplatypus Not sure what you are getting at...

Although the fact that the old is inventory & the new one is links has been mentioned before.
The old one being 1-handed slots due to it being inventory, while the new one is 2-handed slots all across.
The old one had no clear way of visual to show something is 2-handed, while the new one does.

It is not that the L/R was active, it is just the old hot bar had hands separated into left & right. So something that fills the left hand will take the place of the L slot when scrolled over that item. R being the right hand would only not be used when an item in another slot is 2-handed; hence using both hands. That can be confusing to a new player, and they tend to overlook the L/R slot entirely, if not just use it for empty hands. The new bar forms pairs of L/R making it more visually to dual wield. Them being links on the new bar means you won't have to have multiple of a weapon in the toolbar.

The scrolling works more fluidly in the new one, as it goes directly left/right to the next slot. The old one skips the L/R slot and then goes back to it eventually, as well does not scroll through the tools; if I remember correctly. At least in the earliest versions it did that. If it changed after that to include the tools in the rotation, it basically added to the mayhem of scrolling; which means you could not get to the other half of the toolbar directly via scrolling from 5 to 6 slot. You would have to go through the rotation of tools or something else. Maybe it was left to right, it just didn't appear that way on the tool bar, as it would cycle through the middle like a list before going to slot 6.

I am not going to mention the advanced system that some have used with shift and assigning L/R nor the fact you can swap hands via a button.

Each hotbar has their pros & cons. The old one may have a lot of good points, but also had the readability part verses function a little mixed; making it not as simple to know at a glance what you are going to end up with, especially with scrolling. The new one is more readable at a glance to know what you will have when scrolling. The combinations aside, which the old one wins on that, the new one has defined dual weild combos that do not use space.

There were only 12 slots on the old bar. The new bar has 24 1-handed slots in 12 pairs, as each have pair has their own L/R. Which one is better is subjective to the person.

I do agree the new bar does need improvement in certain areas, but scrolling... is I am guessing more visually left to right. Can't really say the new one is bad design, as it functions as it should. The reason it is more setup time is due to the the slot count doubling. Of course if one only used 2-handed things then it would be about the same if you have the hotbar unlocked. Which by the way is a feature I like, since it stops items from pickup going directly to hotbar slot if locked.

That is about roughly what I would say on the matter and yeah is my own perspective, as I personally like both bars for what they are; minus the one thing I would love to have that I mentioned. If I misunderstood what you are getting at, by all means elaborate what you mean or getting at. I did my best clarify a few things...

 

The new bar is bad design with permanent dual slots (most items you would put into those slots are two-handed), the half/half split (cuts you off from half your available quick-use items, visually), the inability to manipulate slot contents on the fly, the MM modes node in the middle of the row, and the lack of a customizable default slot pair.

My hotbar version would have solved all of those problems.

 

Hm yeah, what I was getting at is this:

Let's say you have the following setup on the old hotbar: pistol on L, grappling hook on R, bandages on 6, flashlight on 7. Just as an example, you could put anything one-handed on L, 6 and 7. Now you grapple onto the ceiling and just hang there. You could then scroll through your items while hanging in place. Since all of your items are one-handed, only your left hand slot would be updated, cycling between the pistol, bandages and flashlight. The right hand slot wouldn't be touched, as long as you don't select a two-handed item, so it doesn't update and you're hanging from the ceiling during the entire process.

If you tried that with the current hotbar, you'd put pistol on 1, bandages on 2, flashlight on 3, and an instance of the grappling hook in every one of the corresponding off-hand slots. You'd again grapple onto the ceiling, but this time, once you start scrolling through your setups, you'd actually not only cycle through your left hand slots, but also through your right hand slots, which contain different shortcuts to your right hand item. Contrary to the old hotbar, this time both your hands update, meaning your grappling hook detaches from the ceiling.

So assume you want to lower yourself into a deep cave with your grappling hook and a one-handed weapon to clear out anything that might come flying at you. Halfway down there's a fossil and now you want to switch your weapon for a brush. With the old bar, this wouldn't have been a problem. Now, however, you're getting a quick trip to the cave floor. In essence the UI needlessly (and rather fatally in this scenario) gets in the way of basic item functionality and that's just bad.

On a sidenote, I actually preferred scrolling through items with the old bar and would probably call that one the more fluid one. Reason being that x would switch back to your default L/R, thus acting as an "anchor point" between 5 and 6, the other being r for the manipulator right after 0. Kept wheelflicks to a minimum without the entire tool suite of the matter manipulator getting in the way all the time. But that's really preference and as much as I dislike the new bar in that context, it's not objectively bad design.

 

@lolplatypus ah.. The decoupling issue. Never had problems with it, since I only have maybe now 1 slot with grapple in it in the first place. I don't rely on the grapple. So I have not ever ran into that type of thing. Still I wouldn't call it bad design due to that; it is just different, or maybe even an oversight or limitation of the new one. Like I said pros & cons.

I never used x for anything, even in the old hotbar. wasn't aware that it existed till this new one came about. Heck I keep forgetting that you can swap hands in the old one, and only because I didn't really ever use it. The advanced features with shift or something I didn't use either.

x key is plain bad placement. Probably why I added TAB to the controls for switching hot bars. I just adapted to the new one and utilizing the fact it switches hot bars. I keep in mind that I can do a quick switch to what ever slot is selected, and account what I put there to reflect that. The first 3 slots are primarily cordinated to have a healing item on the alternate slot. Except the first one which is still a weapon. There other 3 are miscellaneous things I use, and grapple is one of them; which I haven't used yet. I don't use ropes all that often... and that is the slot I replaced with the grapple once I got it made recently. I have mostly combat on the last 3 slots, but the alts are where misc comes in; except one I use for dirt/block. So the alt set actually has 6 1-handed use items.

At least I know now what you are referring to. Yeah that is a drawback or con.

I use the number keys more often, so probably why also I didn't run into that. I don't scroll often with the new one. The old one it was a balance between scrolling and number key use. I only scroll when the thing I want is near the slot that is selected; and that is for both old and new. I used the tool keys when getting back to the L/R slots I think. Or something like that.

Either way, at least for me, both old and new are about as easy to use as each other once you get the hang of what the bar is all about. I mean I have played too many games that have vastly different setups throughout the years.

Fluidity is I guess then about the same with scroll. I am not quite remembering much, but I do know what I did use of the features old & new. Both were pretty simple to get the handle of at least the basics of the hot bars; which is what I mainly used. I maybe used one intermediate type function which is what I describe that I miss from the old one, and didn't use the advanced features at all.

So on end note, for me it is not bad design; just a different design. After all, what works for some may not work for others.

@Sean Mirrsen I am not too particular about the look of that hot bar. It definitely is a step down from the old one, but still have some of the old one's features with a merge of the new ones. The thing that it drops is the switching hot bar thing which in a way is its' own innovation, just like the L/R slot of the old one. Or is it intuitive the word I was looking for. Each bar has their own intuitive features, it just takes a perspective to figure out what is in each hot bar. And for me just looking at that design makes me miss the function that I miss from the old one, or well the similar function anyway; which I am beginning to think it defaulted to L/R on the second press of tool button. So visually that doesn't show that kind of thing, and doesn't really appeal to me.

I am one to miss the L/R slot directly, as that was innovative for that bar. I say that due to how it functions and how readily apparent is was to at least an older gamer like myself. The advanced features on the other hand was the other innovative part, but saw less use due to not everyone figuring it out at a glance. I only knew about it due to its' mention soooo long ago. Being able to set the left and right hand on the fly as they call it. Didn't ever catch on with me, as I found it easier to use the L/R slot rather than extra key strokes to do setup on the fly.


I have habit to setup my hot bar once, getting the general thought into what I want to use and what slots for what. Then when it comes to replacing items I know which slot to replace. Usually only having one slot open for trial & error or fooling around type of item. But that is myself and my own perspective and how I go about the tool bar use, at least a bit of light on the latter part.

 

Or people have moved on and are looking for a different game to satisfy the itch that they were looking at Starbound for. The mix of the hotbar changes, coupled with a number of other ones over time has caused me to move on for now. I do plan on checking back every so often as Starbound is still one of the more promising ones to manage to pull it off, but right now I just don't find Starbound to be in a state to be enjoyable enough to keep playing it while waiting for it to get to a point to satisfy the exploration/adventure Sandbox experience I am looking for.

 

The problem with moving on and occasionally checking back, as you and me and a lot of other people have been doing, is that the issue drops off the radar. Nobody brings it up anymore - and the devs push it further back in priority, in favor of things they actually want to work on. Bringing back the old will not bring any new cash in, as it were.

 

still i felt scammed

 

By far the most abused term on this forum.

 

Don't you think these statements could be related?
I mean, I didn't even run into the issue at first, myself. Until I decided to play without tech. Once you're confronted with the issue on a very regular basis, it's difficult to let it slide in any shape or form. Even ignoring that, I think we can agree that this particular scenario presents a case in which the old bar is just objectively superior, regardless of any form of preference. More than that, I think we have to go as far as to say that the new hotbar actually broke gameplay functionality. Of course, not every user is equally affected by this, but I'd argue that's a different matter that doesn't even come in to the equasion here. At the end of the day you still have a broken mechanic.

The frustrating thing is that it's a rather pointless sacrifice with no gain. The situation would still be less than ideal, if the new hotbar actually added anything to make up for it, but that's not even the case. There's no functionality that wasn't present in the old bar. I've been watching quite a few Twitch streams on release and considering the frequency, with which people failed to realize that they had a second hotbar, I can't even say with a straight face that it's more intuitive. If anything, it highlights a failure to communicate how the game works as the actual problem (that the old bar certainly had, there's no denying that) and the new bar didn't really change a lot about that.

I've bought the game almost two years ago, I think. Somewhere during a Koala stage, when we didn't have the outpost and still ran through sectors. And I've actually enjoyed every stable release leading up to 1.0. I feel I have to say this in an attempt not to come off as bashing the devs for the fun of it, but rather trying to have a sober perspective on this despite really wanting to like the game.

Considering how the game was in Early Access for years, getting constant feedback from people who paid money for it and actually really wanted it to live up to its potential, and considering the changes/decisions that have been pushed through despite luke-warm reception or untested right before 1.0, be it the hotbar, the lackluster story, the watered down tech system, the removal of racial diversity, the constantly criticized progression with nothing but volcanic worlds at the top, and the list goes on and on, do you still think bringing up issues makes any difference?

 

I don't see how not bringing it up would make a difference, either. For better or worse, I care, if no longer for the game itself then for the universe it is set in. I can't make a new game by myself, I can't bring back the features that I loved that the game had lost, but I don't want to just leave it to see it languish in mediocrity, either. So I do what I can, even if it means being nothing more than a negligible thorn in the thick backside of the developers, to try and bring issues forward, just for the infinitesimal chance that either they, or someone who wants the game to be more than a jumbo-sized shallow sandbox, will decide to do something about them.

 

I think you guys need to have some perspective. When you think about all the studios that drop their Early Access games mid-way, or release one paltry update per year with no goal in sight, or charge people for cash shop/DLC even before the game releases...Chucklefish are one of the good guys. It's important to keep highlighting these issues and certainly I'm against some of these gameplay changes as well, but chill out with the passive aggressive shit about them caring more about cash than about fixing the game. It just makes you lose credibility in the eyes of the rest of us.

 

Yes I do agree with that feature of the old being the better of the two. I still don't see the new bar as broken though, or bad design. I been thinking and might have stumbled across that lack of that, i just shrugged it off. Since I don't use rope or grapple, it is obvious I would not see it there. What you do with the grapple is what I do with the shield; at least where slots are concerned. To me it was minor, because the little bit of time it takes for the shield to come back up. This means I have to time my shield usage, and probably why I shrug it off so easily. The shield is based on timing anyhow, at least for the perfect block like thing. That didn't really bother me.

In the way I play I wouldn't ever use the grapple in combat, at least not that directly. I look at it as a mobility tool for exploration. Which is the primary function of rope and grapple. Being able to combat from it was part of the old bar for sure; at least those that are able to play that way. I am not really fond of the mechanic, and probably why I use multi-jump over using rope for most places; and other things like platforms & blocks. I slowly go through exploration cautiously.

The new hotbar seems like it was just rewritten with certain things from the old in mind. Which means there are a few things from the old.
--Dual wield being the obvious one. Making sets where wanting, although limited by the slot count, which the old was limited by slot count as well but in a different way.
--The fact it still has the same amount of slots, even though it is split into a switch set bar.
--It has tools still in the same general area plus 1, that being the scanner.
--You can scroll through the bar from left to right.
--It has an actual button for empty hands. Reason I mention this is due to some people using the L/R slot for that very purpose.
--It is still at the top of the screen centered.
--It still has the same general colors used. For the most part kept the aesthetic roughly the same.
--The bar is still split on either side of the tools, although they are paired slots it still counts since they are separate just like how the L/R split the 5 slots to either side.
--You can still use number keys & shortcut keys to access each of the visible slots & Tools. with a shortcut to switch the current visible; which was not in the old granted as the whole bar was visible.

That is about what I can think of off hand that came from the old bar, as there are a few things that were changed, like the linking part. It functions as it was probably written. Whether they are able to get that functionality of keeping hold of specific item or not is questionable. It seems they mainly just got it to working; which it does. I do know how they could go about it, which involves recognizing what is linked on both bars. After all even in inventory it only shows you what is currently linked on the visible bar only. Once they have that then it would be a complex bit to note if hand has changed. In other words if the same item is linked then it will not change.

The reason it worked by default in the old bar is because L/R was default hands. In the old one it would do the same sort of thing when you have two grapples along the hot bar. That is why I say that L/R is the intuitive part of the old one, but in a way also limiting. There are no quick sets, even if dual wielding is easy to do; a newcomer usually wouldn't even know it exists beyond accidentally running across it. Which so happens to be the common cause when not looking for info on the matter. I mean who actually now adays looks up info for controls and hotbars... I know a few do, like myself... But far as I know, not many when they first get to a game. I miss those instruction manuals back in the day...

The new bar does not have a default slot. Which in a way is a big change, but at least the dual wielding is made more apparent and even easier to notice and read. Like I keep saying, I actually like both bars equally; since each have their pros & cons. The bars function as they are written. I am sure there are ways to go about making it recognize same links being used, but the fact is that it would be more coding than what it was on the old one; since there is technically no default slot for the new one. That is the major difference, beyond the linking part... The advanced features are non-existant, but I did not ever use those to begin with; even if they were nice for those that did.

We definitely agree on a few things which is nice, but we also don't agree on a few others. That is ok. Love hearing other perspectives, as it is nice to see a reflection of thoughts.

 

You know, that's actually a decent point, you're quite right. If nothing else, there's Workshop integration, so that's nice.

Most certainly. Also for the record, I can appreciate people preferring the general feel of the new implementation. I might disagree, but if you rule out the flaw I pointed out, it seems more preference than anything else.

Yep, feeling old now ...

 

Oh yeah... Flaws in general are just simply cons of design choices; which I guess might be considered limitations with how it was written. I can only guess how it was written using what I see visually and the apparent mechanics that drive it. So I am one to not disregard or discard another perspective, as it is what learning things is all about; a collective understanding. In a manner of speaking...

And yeah I hear you on the old part... Quite a few things have changed over the decades...

 

This is part of why I have moved on for the time being. Bringing up something or not has not seemed to make a big difference either way. Sure bringing things up helps puts problems on the radar of the devs, but they are going to do whatever they want irregardless of the feedback they get. Some will really consider what is being said and try and make adjustments that make sense, other times it gets dismissed for the strangest of reasons. So while I don't want to see a potentially good game languish in mediocrity, I also don't plan to end up beating a dead horse. As really the only thing left to do on most of the issues I have with the game is just give the devs space to do whatever they are doing, and see if they move the game in a direction that will keep it enjoyable to me. As the issues have been brought up already, and at this point thanks to the responses seen on some of them I have put them in the dead horse category until I see them in an actual patch.

It's not that I don't care about the game, its more of realizing that my time is better spent elsewhere while the devs work on or ignore the issues brought forth.

The flip side to this though, is if you don't keep your existing players happy they won't try and get more people to play the game either. As unless you are already a Triple A publisher with a good reputation/franchise, word of mouth is the main way new players are attracted, as one can't really rent a game to test them out anymore. Which was a great way to find out if one liked or disliked a game enough to shell out the full buying price back in the day.

I remember reading so many instruction books on the trip home from renting a new game, some of them were small, and other games had essentially a book instead of a tiny pamphlet. And thanks to the near extinction of instruction books, a good solid, and thorough tutorial is more mandatory than ever.

 

sometimes, is better to drop it out and never finish it, than delivering a lame product that is no longer fun and has NOTHING of what made it unique... in other words they are not the "good guys" they are the "ugly guys"

 

I play using a controller and binding my keys to xpadder - honestly the new hotbar makes things SO much easier. I know I'm not the majority here as most use key and mouse but this new change has actually improved my experience of the game. Before it was too fiddly to alter what was in your hands.

 

I gotta agree with you my dude, it has its issues.