My idea to improve activating/picking up items!

segment 3 to noodlezoo's game improvements see number 1 and 2 in the series here:

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2137417
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2137417


Okay so this post is really hard to articulate for me and it's honestly a mess so it may require reading it more than once, but i promise its a really great idea if you can fully understand me.

Currently the game has only one "cursor". Picking up items/Activating (shrines, clasped hands, levers etc) around monsters is extremely frustrating and doesn't work. sometimes even if you try really hard

https://clips.twitch.tv/HorribleHotKimchiPicoMause

heres me dying to a divine shrine because i couldn't highlight it even though i was pointing right thumbstick and pressing A (my character doesn't sustain RF and has to kill to sustain using the occultist ascendancy)

Okay so currently no one uses A for using skills. you put throwaway skills on it like righteous fire, or just one and done kind of skills, or leave it empty.

I don't mean making the A button no longer work with skills, You would not be able to use this skills while an item is highlighted. But that's currently how it already works.

Currently the only use for the right thumbstick is for cycling through items on the ground, name locking or switching targets with right thumbstick or even left thumbstick will never exist. anyway you will still be able to namelock and you will still be able to do whatever but you have to shift highlighting monsters from the right stick to PURELY activating items

My solution would be to add a second cursor of sorts, where no matter what, if you are in pickup range something on your cursor is highlighted.

I'm not a software engineer or whatever but maybe you super technical people can understand this and it will make sense to you.

codewise you have a "cursor" currently the cursor needs to highlight items to pick them up, I wan't that scrapped altogether. (just for item activation still have the normal cursor for monsters or whatever) Implementing a second "scan" just for activating/picking up items that ONLY works with the A button. there should ALWAYS be an item highlighted. Once that item is in your pickup range, your new "cursor" won't move to a new item until either you escape pickup range of that item, or use the thumbstick to select a new item or pick up a new item.

the overall fluidity of the game would improve massively if this was added, it would make this game SO MUCH BETTER i swear

okay, like my other posts this is a solution that could be indirectly solved by simply adding something else (in this case it's custom loot filters) but I DO NOT believe that will be enough.
shrines, clasped hands, and of course, there will still be items on the ground

all custom filters would do is make this happen less, and most people aren't going to use them, so this would only be partially indirectly solved by people use insanely strict filters. I play on 4 (very strict) and i have the item pickup problem all the item (even though i'm constantly holding down right thumbstick to pick up item quickly to force the game to target items although that doesn't even work right).

counter arguements:

but noodle, if I'm always highlighting items I'm always picking something up then!

my response to this is, when have you ever been in combat where you needed to press the a button so you moved your thumbstick away from an item to target a monster to use your skill? never. I don't think this is a problem, I think that means you have something you shouldn't have bound to A. perhaps the new scan feature should be toggleable in the options in case you are playing a very niche build or something that completely ceases to function if you are highlighting an item? i personally dont see how it could be bad because like i said when items are highlighted A already doesn't work anyways.

I think the simplest solution that could be implemented immediately is to give us full keybinding abilities.

For breaches, just have all the items dropped from them hidden until the breach ends (this way it only shows hands). And we get a nice lootsplosion at the end :).

I also never have anything bound to A. This is the only way to grab things reliably.

I have been eagerly awaiting news for our custom loot filters that should alleviate some of our issues. But we have not heard anything on this for a few months...

P.S. - I always see you getting first to zones for this race, congrats!

"

noodlezoo wrote:

...counter arguements:
...

Same "noodlezoo" who's name keeps popping up as "First Player to?" If so, grats!

On to "counter arguments:"

I've been trying out a Wild Strike build. (No luck on a BLS for me, though, and prices are stoopid...)

So, when I'm in combat, I can't see a darn thing - Screen assploads. And, because we need "target assist" on console, otherwise the XBox doesn't know wtf we're doing, auto-lock is a "thing." Last night I spent the entire time in any Breach trying to click the darn Fists and such. Heck, I couldn't even see the breach bosses or whether or not my cheap totem or golem was still up... AND, because of target assist, placing totems in a trashpack is problematic, too. (Played a totem build in Bestiary. Wasn't too bad, but could get pretty dumb.)

We don't need any fancy solutions that involve us "doing something." We have three thumbs, a character that has no sense of direction, no way to actually select a target with any reliability and the only way we can easily orient ourselves in a scrum is to push a stick "that way" and hope for the best. We need "computer" to do what it was invented to do - Make things easier for humans.

Solution:Whenever the player is facing a static, "activate", target and is less than one character space (Within the standard 3-footstep movement minimum, preferably half that), then the "A" button will only function as an "Activate" button and will select the closest "Activate" target and activate it when pressed. All other buttons and commands will remain the same - Only the "A" button behavior will change.

There - Fix't.

That's really the only way. It won't present too difficult an issue as long as people keep their main attack buttons off of the A button. This is "Standard" for games like this. For instance, you just don't put your main attack on the A button in Diablo 3 if you don't want to deal with the headache of accidentally clicking-open things while trying to attack. And, why? Because Blizzard "got it right" and has already solved this problem, "more or less." It's still an issue, there, but it's nowhere near as broken as it is with PoE.

On remapping, for those concerned - That won't solve any problems. That's just "individual preference" and will not get any new mechanics introduced that we truly need, like the Solution I've suggested. We need the game to "do computer" and "do fix human, make easier." Remapping doesn't address any of these issues - It will not create a new button or a new command.

And with an eye towards keeping the "A" button free, I propose, again, that we be able to turn auras off and on from the skills menu without ever having to bind a button.