Updated 3/19/2014 - Auto-Stack Option (a glowing effect applied to stackable items when stacked)

With Alt orbs I notice the new orb, since I'm expecting it (usually get one each time approx).

However, with alchemy orbs, I almost never notice it. I just notice sometimes that my alc shards are in a weird place, and realise what must have happened.

I agree that visual feedback is good. A shining or "+1" animation, or any extra graphical indication at all (other than just creating the orb) would make this even better. This would also work with auto-combining orb stacks. Even discernible audio feedback would be good.

Currently, the visual feedback given is both annoying (as described above) and not very feedback-y.

This is something that's always annoyed me about collecting shards and scraps.

I can appreciate that, especially for a new player, it's important to give feedback that 'those shards you've been carefully collecting have become some other item', but I'm not sure that having those shards coalesce into a new orb in-place is necessarily the best way to provide that feed back (even if it is the easiest to implement).

For experienced players who know how the shards→orbs system works, keeping your stash tidy so you can find stuff is more important than being informed that you've gone from 17 orbs to 18 (or 71 orbs to 72, or whatever your collection is).

Here's a crazy, blue-sky proposal: when you add a stack of X shards to a stack of Y shards, and (X+Y) is greater than the number you need to make a complete orb, then leave the left-over shards in the square where they were dumped, then animate a completed orb floating across the stash from the square with the shards, to the first incomplete stack of orbs of that type. The clever bit: The animation should be timed so that it takes (1.0 - 0.1*(number of shardable orbs in the stash)) seconds. If this is your first shard→orb conversion, you'll get a full second-long animation. Once you've gotten ten orbs in your stash, from drops, trading, or collecting shards, you're presumably experienced enough to know whats going on and the animation time drops to zero, allowing you to get on with your life.

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Thristian wrote:

Here's a crazy, blue-sky proposal: when you add a stack of X shards to a stack of Y shards, and (X+Y) is greater than the number you need to make a complete orb, then leave the left-over shards in the square where they were dumped, then animate a completed orb floating across the stash from the square with the shards, to the first incomplete stack of orbs of that type. The clever bit: The animation should be timed so that it takes (1.0 - 0.1*(number of shardable orbs in the stash)) seconds. If this is your first shard→orb conversion, you'll get a full second-long animation. Once you've gotten ten orbs in your stash, from drops, trading, or collecting shards, you're presumably experienced enough to know whats going on and the animation time drops to zero, allowing you to get on with your life.

If there was an optional animation that played when a new orb is made, and that orb is auto combined with an existing stack, that is something I could definitely get behind. But the mechanics for this obviously don't exist and this sort of thing isn't high priority, and I doubt it ever would be high enough on the to-do list to actually be completed.

I can see it just changing the background colour for a second, for both if you ctrl-click to move orbs to an existing stack, and when shards get combined to an orb. the backround already takes different colours (normal (blue-ish), can't equip (red-ish) and mouse-hover (green-ish)), so there is no big new mechanic to introduce, to make it shine with a bright (white- or yellow-ish) background.

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Mark_GGG wrote:

See, that's cool, and I'd have no problem loosing the current feedback (which I like) if replaced by something like this. But the amount of time and effort that would be required to do that correctly make it unlikely to happen for quite a while, I suspect.

Sure, that's why I called it a "crazy, blue-sky proposal". I know threads like are at risk of being bogged down in wrestling between "I dislike the status-quo and want something different" and "I'm not averse to the status-quo but I don't want needless change". Having a concrete proposal to criticize, even if it's outlandish and unlikely, is better than letting people criticize each other. I wanted to come up with something that would give feedback to new people and not hold up experienced people, that's all.

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_Eddi_ wrote:

I can see it just changing the background colour for a second, for both if you ctrl-click to move orbs to an existing stack, and when shards get combined to an orb.

I, uh... wow. I want this to happen every time I control-click something into my stash, whether it's shards or orbs or anything; just set the background colour to yellow and fade to black over half a second or so. I've learned enough about PoE's inventory-filling algorithm to make a pretty good guess where things are going to land, but sometimes I guess wrong and having that subtle feedback in my peripheral vision would be great. If it would highlight the square with the shards *and* the square with completed orbs, that would be just perfect. :)

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Mark_GGG wrote:

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Thristian wrote:

Here's a crazy, blue-sky proposal: when you add a stack of X shards to a stack of Y shards, and (X+Y) is greater than the number you need to make a complete orb, then leave the left-over shards in the square where they were dumped, then animate a completed orb floating across the stash from the square with the shards, to the first incomplete stack of orbs of that type. The clever bit: The animation should be timed so that it takes (1.0 - 0.1*(number of shardable orbs in the stash)) seconds. If this is your first shard→orb conversion, you'll get a full second-long animation. Once you've gotten ten orbs in your stash, from drops, trading, or collecting shards, you're presumably experienced enough to know whats going on and the animation time drops to zero, allowing you to get on with your life.

See, that's cool, and I'd have no problem loosing the current feedback (which I like) if replaced by something like this. But the amount of time and effort that would be required to do that correctly make it unlikely to happen for quite a while, I suspect.

You could just add a highlight/border/flashy thing to the stack your orb goes too. You could only ever create 1 orb at a time when stacking, so if you just made a highlighted border around the orb stack, that'd be plenty to let people know they just created a orb. Could last until moused over, or just disappear after a few seconds......

EDIT: Just realized others recommended this also, my bad, so instead.....I'll up-vote the idea :P
- And agree it'd be neat if any stacking had this effect as Thristian suggested.

bump

I know this is old, but I'm still annoyed by manual stacking of Alteration Orbs every time I sell some magic gear.

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Mark_GGG wrote:

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Thristian wrote:

Here's a crazy, blue-sky proposal: when you add a stack of X shards to a stack of Y shards, and (X+Y) is greater than the number you need to make a complete orb, then leave the left-over shards in the square where they were dumped, then animate a completed orb floating across the stash from the square with the shards, to the first incomplete stack of orbs of that type. The clever bit: The animation should be timed so that it takes (1.0 - 0.1*(number of shardable orbs in the stash)) seconds. If this is your first shard→orb conversion, you'll get a full second-long animation. Once you've gotten ten orbs in your stash, from drops, trading, or collecting shards, you're presumably experienced enough to know whats going on and the animation time drops to zero, allowing you to get on with your life.

See, that's cool, and I'd have no problem loosing the current feedback (which I like) if replaced by something like this. But the amount of time and effort that would be required to do that correctly make it unlikely to happen for quite a while, I suspect.

It needn't be so complicated. As others suggested, just have the newly-augmented stack glow for a second, indicating you've added to it. Now you get to feel good about creating a new orb without also being punished by having to drag-drop it onto its stack. Surely this is a feasible (and worthwhile) solution.

what say you