Costume selection screen: Item name sorting

[Techwright]

Apologies if this has been done to death.  I did a search on "sorting" and saw a ton of comments on character selections screen and enhancements, but didn't notice any regarding this.

 

Parts lists on costume features have grown long over the years.  This is a good thing, but alphabetization has gone by the wayside in the process and it gets cumbersome to try to comb the list looking for a specific part.  I realized this anew when looking into DougGraves thread request for people to create using certain items.  I found the talon boots DG suggested (why are variations of these not with male and huge?) but there were 3 listings I found, and one of them was nowhere near the other two.

 

I'd like to suggest the lists be made alphabetical. 

 

 

 

Edited April 26 by Techwright

[Greycat]

I think the main issue is that - for whatever reason, see "spaghetti" - alphabatizing (and then later, adding more stuff) to the list would break current costumes when you go to the tailor.

 

Not sure what all would need to be done on the back end to make this *not* the case. And I wouldn't argue with having them alphabatized (and having a "search" available.)

[Techwright]

7 hours ago, Greycat said:

 (and having a "search" available.)

absolutely

 

So, if I understand what you're saying, the actual position of the name in the display list is tied to the costume part's usage, and not just the name itself?  That's...more than a little crazy.

Edited April 26 by Techwright

[Rudra]

15 minutes ago, Techwright said:

absolutely

 

So, if I understand what you're saying, the actual position of the name in the display list is tied to the costume part's usage, and not just the name itself?  That's...more than a little crazy.

Not usage, when it was added. If I remember correctly, the different costume pieces have a link that tells the game what costume pieces to pull up for the character. Those links are made sequentially. So when you add new costume pieces to the appropriate menu, it needs a new link for the game to read and know what costume piece to pull for your character. Those new links are sequentially after previously existing costume pieces. In order to alphabetize the costume pieces, all those links would have to be re-sequenced. However, when a player loads their character, the game just looks at the links the costume says are needed for the character and pulls the costume pieces for it. Which would drastically alter existing costumes requiring players to go to a tailor and completely rebuild their costumes from scratch with the new links.

 

(Edit: Though I do think a dev previously said they were looking at doing just that.)

Edited April 26 by Rudra

[srmalloy]

11 hours ago, Techwright said:

So, if I understand what you're saying, the actual position of the name in the display list is tied to the costume part's usage, and not just the name itself?  That's...more than a little crazy.

As I understand it, the costume pieces for each option are listed in the order in which they appear in the database for that costume slot. You would need to apply an additional code layer to re-sort the costume piece names but retain the database slot position, or have a flag day where the database is updated to alphabetize the pieces -- and update every single characters' costume data to match, including all saved costume files. And then do this again every time you add new costume pieces to the database.

[temnix]

Couldn't this be circumvented by supplying a simple text file for every costume listing all of the pieces involved in it and the colors used so that the player has a blueprint for rebuilding a costume from scratch? It doesn't take long to rebuild a costume, as long as you quite remember which parts you used and how they were colored and with what patterns. That kind of list could probably be generated automatically - like the list of powers and their colors on importing, where the changes to all powers are contained. If Homecoming can generate this kind of inventory for every existing character and send the lists out over in-game e-mail before setting down to alphabetize things, players could take care of things on their own side. Give them free tailor sessions, obviously. It's an unpleasant part of housekeeping, but the overhaul would be worth it. And as for adding more parts, can't the sequence problem be solved with some clever renumbering? If the parts go by 1, 2 and so on, insert them as 1.1 and so on?

[Rudra]

5 minutes ago, temnix said:

Couldn't this be circumvented by supplying a simple text file for every costume listing all of the pieces involved in it and the colors used so that the player has a blueprint for rebuilding a costume from scratch? It doesn't take long to rebuild a costume, as long as you quite remember which parts you used and how they were colored and with what patterns. That kind of list could probably be generated automatically - like the list of powers and their colors on importing, where the changes to all powers are contained. If Homecoming can generate this kind of inventory for every existing character and send the lists out over in-game e-mail before setting down to alphabetize things, players could take care of things on their own side. Give them free tailor sessions, obviously. It's an unpleasant part of housekeeping, but the overhaul would be worth it. And as for adding more parts, can't the sequence problem be solved with some clever renumbering? If the parts go by 1, 2 and so on, insert them as 1.1 and so on?

And why should players have to go in and rebuild all the costumes for all their characters? Remember that characters can have up to 10 costume each, 11 for VEATs if you know how*, and there are players with a few hundred characters they would be required to do that with.

 

(* Edit: Or did HC fix that by just giving all players all 10 costume slots for free out the gate?)

Edited April 27 by Rudra

[Greycat]

3 hours ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

Yeah no, I think that'd get real tedious for something with about 70 toons *coughs*

 

70?

 

 

... yeah, I've slowed down a bit, but still. Just the login for anniversary badges is a process. (The other servers... maybe up to 3.)

[srmalloy]

11 hours ago, Rudra said:

Or did HC fix that by just giving all players all 10 costume slots for free out the gate?

You get six for breathing, then you can get one for a set of Halloween salvage, then one from the mission the three tailors will give you at levels 20, 30, and 40, to round out your 10.