How do you pick up a forge when it says you need to empty it first?

[Vaeliorin]

40 minutes ago, Old Crow said:

It's still weird and inconsistent design. See my generator bank example. You can pick up a generator bank and it dumps the gas and engines into your inventory. Same with a campfire -  it throws the cooking implements into your backpack. Why couldn't the forge do that? If your pack is full, the extras are dumped on the floor, just like if you turn in a quest and have no room for the rewards. It's then up to the player to pick it up before it despawns, which is a fairly generous amount of time.

The problem with this (at least for some resources) is that 1 resource doesn't equal 1 item.  1 clay soil turns into 5 clay in the forge, for instance.  I don't think sand is 1 to 1 either.

 

You could make everything 1 to 1, but I don't think most people would appreciate needing 5 times as much clay soil.

[Krougal]

54 minutes ago, Vaeliorin said:

The problem with this (at least for some resources) is that 1 resource doesn't equal 1 item.  1 clay soil turns into 5 clay in the forge, for instance.  I don't think sand is 1 to 1 either.

 

You could make everything 1 to 1, but I don't think most people would appreciate needing 5 times as much clay soil.

You're not getting it. It's consistent in the ratio of what comes back out. It's the inconsistent UI behavior we are talking about.

 

[BFT2020]

2 hours ago, Krougal said:

You're not getting it. It's consistent in the ratio of what comes back out. It's the inconsistent UI behavior we are talking about.

 

Do any of the workstations allow you to pick them up if they got items in them?  If not, then that means they are consistent as a generator is not a workstation 

[Krougal]

52 minutes ago, BFT2020 said:

Do any of the workstations allow you to pick them up if they got items in them?  If not, then that means they are consistent as a generator is not a workstation 

Ok, good point and I stand corrected, although the resources return still has nothing to do with it one way or the other.

 

Still, some things we can pickup with items in them and they return the items (generator, battery bank, etc) some keep the items (vehicles) and some will not let us pick them up (workstations). 

 

Then of course there are the storage crates that you can no longer pickup at all, LCB or no LCB.

 

So regardless it can use some work.

[Old Crow]

6 hours ago, BFT2020 said:

 

I just tried the campfire and it doesn't allow me to pick it up with a cooking pot in it, it gives the same message as the forge.

 

Interesting, last time I did, it shunted the pot, the grill and the beaker into my backpack. This was in A21 prior to the latest "Stable" version.

[PoloPoPo]

6 hours ago, Krougal said:

You're not getting it. It's consistent in the ratio of what comes back out. It's the inconsistent UI behavior we are talking about.

 

Vaeliorin is right though. Forge behaves completely different than any other workstation as material ratio is not 1:1 anymore. You could even argue that once iron is smelted it is not "iron" anymore but rather "smelted iron" which doesn't exist as an item in the game. So why should all the smelted iron magically get converted back in no time to regular iron when picking up the forge?

 

As for the forge, it makes perfect sense that you have to craft materials back from their smelted state to regular state if you want them back. And this takes some time. Either that or you'd lose all materials when picking up a forge but getting everything back that has already been smelted, for no reason, doesn't make any sense.

 

Generator and gas comparison is unfit.

[Krougal]

5 hours ago, PoloPoPo said:

Vaeliorin is right though. Forge behaves completely different than any other workstation as material ratio is not 1:1 anymore. You could even argue that once iron is smelted it is not "iron" anymore but rather "smelted iron" which doesn't exist as an item in the game. So why should all the smelted iron magically get converted back in no time to regular iron when picking up the forge?

 

As for the forge, it makes perfect sense that you have to craft materials back from their smelted state to regular state if you want them back. And this takes some time. Either that or you'd lose all materials when picking up a forge but getting everything back that has already been smelted, for no reason, doesn't make any sense.

 

Generator and gas comparison is unfit.

Ok, I guess I wasn't getting it. I was thinking about converting it back, which is what we are forced to do, but using fuel.

It would work to just let one pickup the forge as is and maintain its contents.

Before someone protests, either way it is unrealistic so that shouldn't be a concern.

 

Y'all who are disagreeing are correct, the rest of us knee-jerked and jumped on a bandwagon, but it is still a major inconvenience if you need to move and there should be a better way.

[Syphon583]

On 9/1/2023 at 7:21 PM, Riamus said:

There isn't anything wrong with pointing out what you feel is a bad design.

True, but there is a difference between stating your opinion that B would work better than A, as opposed to just stating that A "is really dumb game design".

 

The difference is tact and professionalism. We don't need to insult someone else's work if it does not meet our personal standards of quality. Additionally, truly useful feedback would be providing ideas with how it might work better. Not a requirement, but it definitely helps.

 

Note that I'm not stating you are personally insulting the devs, but I see posts in this thread and all over this forum that serve only as an insult to TFP and provide nothing in the way of valuable feedback.

[Riamus]

As someone who has programmed apps for business use, I consider someone telling me their opinions to be useful, even if it's saying that they feel it's a bad design.  Even with my work with Pille and Teragon, I'll tell him when I think something isn't a good idea or design.  There isn't anything wrong with that.  That, by itself, is not insulting or bad feedback.  It becomes bad feedback when it goes beyond that to start saying things like the developers don't know what they are doing or something more directly insulting than that.  Most people don't have the knowledge or experience in game design or programming in general to give you a good alternative unless they've seen something better elsewhere, so a post that just says they think it's a bad design is how they are able to give their opinion.  A negative opinion isn't an attack or insulting.

 

Yes, there are posts floating around that are insulting.  But saying it's a "dumb design" really isn't, imo.  The insulting posts I saw were the ones mocking people for not being designers and still giving feedback.  If you look at those and compare them to the "dumb design" post, you should see a very significant difference.  One is being polite (you can quibble about whether "dumb feedback" is polite but I consider it a valid opinion even if I don't agree with it here) and the others are being trollish and disrespectful and direct attacks on others.

 

The idea today that everyone has to say only nice things to people all the time and where people take offense at things that are very obviously not intended to be offensive is "dumb". 

 

And it's nice of you to say you weren't saying I was insulting the devs, considering I didn't write anything about them.  Lol.

[Syphon583]

30 minutes ago, Riamus said:

The idea today that everyone has to say only nice things

I wasn't implying you always have to say nice things. No where did I say that. I was simply saying don't insult people. Many people have thick skin and being told their work is dumb just rolls off their back. Great! That doesn't mean it should be our go-to response when we don't agree with something.

[BFT2020]

There is a difference between feedback or critical feedback and being an arse.

 

Some people tend to be an arse and then complained about not being able to give feedback.

[Krougal]

2 hours ago, Syphon583 said:

True, but there is a difference between stating your opinion that B would work better than A, as opposed to just stating that A "is really dumb game design".

 

The difference is tact and professionalism. We don't need to insult someone else's work if it does not meet our personal standards of quality. Additionally, truly useful feedback would be providing ideas with how it might work better. Not a requirement, but it definitely helps.

 

Note that I'm not stating you are personally insulting the devs, but I see posts in this thread and all over this forum that serve only as an insult to TFP and provide nothing in the way of valuable feedback.

Tact and professionalism??? These are consumers. Customers. They aren't under any obligation for either.

 

While there is a threshold where a customer can become troublesome enough to be cut loose it generally isn't done lightly, none of you would last 5 minutes in most of the places I have worked in the last 35 years if you expect all the customers to blow smoke and sunshine up your arse, especially when they are unhappy.

 

Getting useful feedback isn't about them making it easy for you, it is almost an artform of reading between the lines, and translating their frequent ignorance of how things work or even proper terminology to use.

Edited September 5, 2023 by Krougal (see edit history)

[Vaeliorin]

15 hours ago, Krougal said:

You're not getting it. It's consistent in the ratio of what comes back out. It's the inconsistent UI behavior we are talking about.

 

No, I get that.  I'm just saying, if you've got say 24 clay in the forge, when you pick it up, what do you get back?  4 clay soil and the other 4 clay just goes poof?  That's not a good solution either (I mean, 1 clay soil going poof, I don't really care, but there are almost certainly people who would.)

 

Basically, I don't know that there's a good solution other than the way it's currently done (or the way it was previously where if you pick up a forge, everything goes poof, but I know people hated when that happened because they didn't realize that would occur.  I did that.  Once.)

[Jugginator]

I hear yall, I put in a request to see if we can handle this a bit better. Maybe a confirmation dialog that states you'll lose everything if you pick it up.

[BFT2020]

13 minutes ago, Jugginator said:

I hear yall, I put in a request to see if we can handle this a bit better. Maybe a confirmation dialog that states you'll lose everything if you pick it up.

 

I can see it now, someone rapidly clicks and loses everything, then floods the forum with complaints about bad design  😉

[Riamus]

I really don't mind it as it is now.  What we have now is already better than before when you can lose everything without warning.  Of course, that usually only happens one time per person.  I think that as long as you can turn smelted stuff back into the original resources, it is fine to require you to do so.  Having a choice to just lose it all in order to not do that is okay but not really necessary.  There just needs to be a way to convert all of it back without leaving a couple things left over.  As long as you can do that, it is okay.

 

As far as leaving the smelted stuff in them, I get that they don't want to do that but it really doesn't seem like a big deal either.

[tmo97]

Add item: Smelted Clay

Replace the magically contained non-itemous 'smelted clay' value with this actual item, give the forge a separate inv for these items, make them stackable into the thousands.

If you pick up the forge, then it drops the 'Smelted Clay' in its stacked format. It can't be used for crafting, but you could put it into a forge.

Ofcourse, that would bring up the pitchfork mob about just using the forge to make things more stackable, and I bet someone could find yet another tiny issue with it, even though that issue would be smaller than not being able to pick up a forge. 

 

Currently, what I've been doing is just preparing to never move a forge, and if I do want to move a forge, then I prepare for the full hour of 'crafting clay'. If I get a number that can't be crafted, then I add until I can.

 

How it currently is, is not streamlined. It will never be perfect, but it can always be improved, and it's definitely okay to just dislike something, and it's okay to express frustration, and it's okay to make fun of the design, and it's okay to suggest what you think is a better idea. There will always be people who want something that is statistically worse in every way. There will always be people who don't want something that is statistically better in every way. There will always be complaints about everything. There will always be praise for everything. There will always be white knights and 'armchair game designers'. 

[Syphon583]

12 hours ago, Krougal said:

Tact and professionalism??? These are consumers. Customers. They aren't under any obligation for either.

 

Once again you're implying things that I never once suggested. All I stated was that it is possible to provide feedback without insulting people. No, there is no obligation to do so as a consumer, but it's also not difficult. You're making it sound like it's literally impossible to do so.

 

Let's just agree we have different views on how to provide meaningful feedback and call it good. This is becoming a distraction from the main discussion at this point. 🙄

[Riamus]

5 hours ago, tmo97 said:

Currently, what I've been doing is just preparing to never move a forge

Yeah, I usually don't bother with it.  If I have a lot in there, I'll just craft whatever with it.  And then I'll just build a new forge since they aren't that difficult to make by the time you'd be considering moving.

[Krougal]

9 hours ago, Syphon583 said:

Once again you're implying things that I never once suggested. All I stated was that it is possible to provide feedback without insulting people. No, there is no obligation to do so as a consumer, but it's also not difficult. You're making it sound like it's literally impossible to do so.

 

Let's just agree we have different views on how to provide meaningful feedback and call it good. This is becoming a distraction from the main discussion at this point. 🙄

Ok, once again? That implies we had a previous discussion, I don't remember there being one.

I'm not implying anything, I re-iterated what you said.

You're the one who has made 3+ posts about how people should and shouldn't talk, and it's a laugh that we should all be subjected to your opinion repeatedly but when one of us presents dissent then you want to wave your hand and say "let's agree to disagree" but sure if you think it's a distraction and are ready to stop talking about it, then I'm all too happy to drop it😛

 

[BFT2020]

Sad, I thought at least one person would be a smart arse and answer with their legs, not their back  😉