Official Console 1.3 Update Feedback Thread

[Delete This Account]

The characters and things are way to small on my TV so I have to zoom.

It's not like PC where you're 6 inches from your screen, it's way too small otherwise.

Too small for what? You don't need to see any details on the character while you play. The aiming cursor and weapons you're using should be easy enough to see even fully zoomed out.

I don't think playing zoomed in was a choice that anyone on the team expected people to make. I think the intended use for zooming in was to see the neat details of something before going back to fully zoomed out for gameplay. If people are not using it that way then the Devs need to know what it is that can't be seen fully zoomed out from a few feet away so they can increase the visibility of it.

 

[BioFringe]

Are you seriously trying to blame the players for a flaw in the UI design? Are you seriously trying to tell us that the devs added an option but didn't expect people to use it as they saw fit?

This is a sandbox game that not everyone is going to play the way that you do and call it a stretch but not everyone has your great eyesight either. Instead of deflecting blame, how about reporting bugs that you find and letting the devs deal with the rest.

BTW, the UI is too small and I play zoomed ALL the way in most of the time. So blah!

 

[Delete This Account]

Are you seriously trying to blame the players for a flaw in the UI design? Are you seriously trying to tell us that the devs added an option but didn't expect people to use it as they saw fit?

This is a sandbox game that not everyone is going to play the way that you do and call it a stretch but not everyone has your great eyesight either. Instead of deflecting blame, how about reporting bugs that you find and letting the devs deal with the rest.

BTW, the UI is too small and I play zoomed ALL the way in most of the time. So blah!

No, I'm not saying that at all. The UI needs a LOT of work. However it sounds like a lot of people got used to playing zoomed in on the old version, where the UI was more than large enough. That was the question I wanted an answer to, why people played zoomed in before 1.3. There's no reason to do it beyond maybe detailed building projects. It's an objective disadvantage at all other times.

I'm all for reporting bugs, except this is working as intended. The problem is people aren't doing what the developers intended.

So i just fired up my PS4 on 1.3 to be sure, since I've never used the zoom feature before. Zooming in 1.3 does 2 things that I can see. It reduces the opacity of the UI, making it slightly see through instead of solid. It also zooms in on the player. However the size of the UI elements doesn't change. Zooming in isn't making the UI bigger on my screen, just limiting what I can see around my character. I've included some screen shots so people can see what I'm seeing on my screen. If anyone else can test this I'd like to know.

 

[BioFringe]

I'm all for reporting bugs, except this is working as intended. The problem is people aren't doing what the developers intended.

This is the only part of your post that I'm interested in as I'm not concerned with whether you approve of my play style or not. I highly doubt that I'll be able to convince you to see things my way on this one and vice-versa. So I'll just agree to disagree.

@Loki: Can we please get a confirmation that this is the Official word coming from the devs please? That the Zoom In feature was never intended to be used at our own discretion and that it is working as intended?

 

[Delete This Account]

This is the only part of your post that I'm interested in as I'm not concerned with whether you approve of my play style or not. I highly doubt that I'll be able to convince you to see things my way on this one and vice-versa. So I'll just agree to disagree.

@Loki: Can we please get a confirmation that this is the Official word coming from the devs please? That the Zoom In feature was never intended to be used at our own discretion and that it is working as intended?

If I sound like I'm attacking your playstyle I want to apologize. I'm not trying to convince you that you're wrong. It's your choice, and from the other posts on here you're not in a minority.

What I was trying to get at is I don't understand the reasons people are playing zoomed in. I think knowing why people are playing zoomed in would be valuable feedback for the devs to determine what they can fix to make that play style a better experience.

 

[Loki]

This is the only part of your post that I'm interested in as I'm not concerned with whether you approve of my play style or not. I highly doubt that I'll be able to convince you to see things my way on this one and vice-versa. So I'll just agree to disagree.

@Loki: Can we please get a confirmation that this is the Official word coming from the devs please? That the Zoom In feature was never intended to be used at our own discretion and that it is working as intended?

I think the word "expected" is more accurate than intended, which implies "this is how you must play".

That said, the whole opacity and other visual issues - that seem especially exacerbated on zoom-in - are not intended, and those have certainly been teed up for review and adjustment. What that will precisely be, still TBD. Hopefully whatever the team decides will at least move the ball forward to a better place for everyone, even if it won't scratch your itch for "the old way" (which, again, isn't coming back - just to be candid).

 

[BioFringe]

@Proto: All good. It sounded like you didn't approve of our play style and expected us to justify it for you, of which nothing would have satisfied. Either way, an option is an option and it's there for a reason. This particular one I believe came about through community feedback and it doesn't have any disclaimer (read: Tool Tip) that states how it is expected to be used. I would assume that anything default though is how the devs intended the game to be played but if they offer an option there should be optimization for it regardless. For the sake of fairness here are the main reasons that I play zoomed in most of the time:

1. I'm a builder so 75% of my playtime is spent building. Zoom In all the way is the best for this as threats really aren't an issue most of the time.

2. Challenge. I feel that when I go exploring it's more challenging to play zoomed in all the way. So what you consider a benefit of not zooming in I consider a detriment.

3. Eyesight. I'm not as young as I used to be. After 4 decades of gaming the eyes become tired much sooner than I'd prefer. Zooming in prolongs my play sessions.

Those are just my top 3. I thing they are legit but YMMV. Peace.

@Loki: Awesome! Thank you for the confirmation and explanation on the issue as to how the devs see it. I can assure you that I don't want the old way back as I'd much prefer the new way only better. Knowing that the devs agree, I'm good. How they go about that is all up to them. I'm sure they've heard all the suggestions that I could possibly make so I'll leave them to it. Peace.

 

[Epicwargamer]

Wiring
I set up a temple with spiky ball traps and other traps to help me fight bosses. Usually this involves a cover over a lava lake that ground based enemies jump into but cannot jump out of. For aerial enemies and the floating bosses, I line the overhead 'cover' with spiky ball traps and run a wire to a 1 second timer. In the old version, no problems. In the current version, the wire seems to run out of juice so far from the switch. What is up?

 

[RedDeadStu]

Personally I love the fact that 1.3 is now in consoles there is only one problemore for me and that is the new crafting system as it's going to be a lot harder for us console users to make gear as we don't have a mouse to quickly scroll through the crafting

 

[monkeyArms]

What I was trying to get at is I don't understand the reasons people are playing zoomed in.

Have you ever heard of this phenomenon? Just curious....

I have a 54" TV that I play from ~7 feet away. Fully zoomed out, everything on screen is waaaay too small from that distance for my viewing comfort. Sure, you have more viewable real-estate, but if you're struggling to see anything on screen it does more harm than good.

I play ~25% zoomed in most of the time, sometimes more when I'm building. The only time I play fully zoomed out is when I'm fighting a boss, because the bosses are large and you don't really need to see any other in-game objects during these stages.

I think knowing why people are playing zoomed in would be valuable feedback for the devs to determine what they can fix to make that play style a better experience.

I don't understand how any game developer could NOT understand that people will use the features they have provided, nor do I understand how the issues caused by zooming were missed by play testers (or not deemed as important to fix if they were found).

 

[Satsuki Hime]

My vision is not terribly good. So I always have to zoom in all the way; full out zoom is literally unplayable to me.

And the UI needs to be tossed completely in favor of the old console one, or at least let us toggle them. Trying to jump back into old characters, the inventory and such were an incomprehensible, garbled mess.

My group stopped playing waaayyy back when 1.3 was a new concept, waiting for it to come to Xbox. The day it did, we tried to play. 30 minutes of swearing later, it is dropped again until the UI functions.

 

[Delete This Account]

I don't understand how any game developer could NOT understand that people will use the features they have provided, nor do I understand how the issues caused by zooming were missed by play testers (or not deemed as important to fix if they were found).

I think @Loki answered that earlier. Basically the devs never expected people would want to play with any amount of zoom. They thought people would just use it sometimes, like for building, but the rest of the time they expected people to play fully zoomed out. So they missed these issues because they never expected it to be an issue.

 

[Satsuki Hime]

What that will precisely be, still TBD. Hopefully whatever the team decides will at least move the ball forward to a better place for everyone, even if it won't scratch your itch for "the old way" (which, again, isn't coming back - just to be candid).

If it’s not coming back, at least I hope it’s as clear to read and understand as the old one, or we won’t be coming back either. Already had to tell six friends we made since the old days to hold off purchasing until the rest of us give the thumbs up.

 

[monkeyArms]

I think @Loki answered that earlier. Basically the devs never expected people would want to play with any amount of zoom. They thought people would just use it sometimes, like for building, but the rest of the time they expected people to play fully zoomed out. So they missed these issues because they never expected it to be an issue.

If that is actually the case (which you very much seem to want it to be), then several people on the dev team(s) have a bit more to learn about console player habits/testing from my perspective...but we all learn from mistakes.

The volume of complaints involving UI transparency and screen resolution problems show that these are valid issues that affect a significant portion of the Terraria console community, and _should_ have been considered.

I’m not upset about the update being released in the state it’s in (it’s actually quite great for a complete rewrite), and I’m happy that console players got some love.

I’m just hoping the concerns of us who (apparently) “DONT PLAY TERRARIA THE CORRECT WAY” will be addressed sooner than later.

 

[Delete This Account]

If that is actually the case (which you very much seem to want it to be), then several people on the dev team(s) have a bit more to learn about console player habits/testing from my perspective...but we all learn from mistakes.

The volume of complaints involving UI transparency and screen resolution problems show that these are valid issues that affect a significant portion of the Terraria console community, and _should_ have been considered.

I’m not upset about the update being released in the state it’s in (it’s actually quite great for a complete rewrite), and I’m happy that console players got some love.

I’m just hoping the concerns of us who (apparently) “DONT PLAY TERRARIA THE CORRECT WAY” will be addressed sooner than later.

Please don't take my posts the wrong way. I don't feel playing zoomed is the wrong way. Until engaging in this discussion I couldn't come up with any positives to playing zoomed in. My guess was simply that the devs had come to a similar conclusion.

My purpose was to start discussion about this in hopes of generating feedback the devs can understand and use. Understanding why people are doing something is the first step in addressing their needs. I'm sorry if I offended anyone or made them feel attacked.

You're absolutely right in that this is a learning experience. Obviously console players have a different set of priorities from the PC side. The feedback on the UI alone proves that. I'm pretty confident from the dev responses here that these issues will indeed get addressed though. It might take some time though since I think this is an issue that blindsided them.

 

[Loki]

The question was about the word “intended” - to me that means anything outside of said method is out of bounds for the game (exploit, etc). As I made clear before, that term doesn’t fit this at all.

“Expected” means “how do you think most folks will play”? We have several avid console gamers on the team (one of our QA leads specifically came from the console side of the community as a matter of fact) - heck even I have a penchant for both PC and console gaming (owning nearly every console from 2600 to today). My eyes aren’t the best either (getting older sucks) but I have no struggles at 5-10’ on my TV....at full zoom. More on that shortly.

That said, clearly zoom was included because - as with most games and especially Terraria - people like to play games different ways (which is part of why we pushed for things like fully customizable controls with this update). So, to each his own there - what works for me may not work for you and vice versa.

All that said, there is CLEARLY a bug or bugs at play when you zoom in. Had it myself today when I laid my controller down and accidentally hit one trigger button (all the fun increases in transparency). I will say that this is 100% known and being discussed by the team in regards to getting it fixed up.

The old UI is not coming back. Supporting two fully functional UIs is not feasible either. So - it falls to how can we make what we have better... at least to a level where those finding it untenable no longer feel that way... that is the current discussion and I expect it will bear fruit. What fruit and when, all TBD still. Hopefully whatever the team decides will hit the mark.

As to how it was missed? Can’t say really - not sure if it’s one of the handful of things that magically appeared in the move between devkits and retail boxes (which is a whole other internal topic of discussion) - or what. All that matters at this point is that what occurs when zooming really doesn’t work... and is far from “intended” or “expected”.

Once we know what tweaks are coming along the lines of feedback (in addition to the ongoing bug fixes), we will let everyone know.

Stay tuned - and I hope that makes things a bit more clear.

 

[Satsuki Hime]

Guess we will just have to wait and see. Specifically, the icons are just too small for me. I opened the menu and I could not really tell what things were. Combine that with the transparency and the text and it just made the whole thing a jangled mess.

 

[JadedMeiji]

I abhor the entirety of the new UI.

The opinions I have stated previously echoed and have been echoed repeatedly.

I get that the ability to toggle two seperate ui's is not feasible. And it is painfully obvious we can't go back to the better times of superior functionality in control (for us on console)

My biggest concern here isn't that I can not adapt in order to play the game but how long before it is at least playable? I haven't seen any patches to fix even the smaller bugs, and no details as to a time frame of when to expect a patch?

Fine, the UI sucks and is going to take significantly longer than other things... but when is it going to be safe to visit other people's world's? Visiting from the main screen may or may not save you from losing all your world's from being over written by the other persons save. That's not a fix and not something either myself nor my significant other wish to risk after both of us have over 150 hours into the game each.

The going invisible in water, or ultimately ending up permanently invisible even after shutting down the game and restarting... (hours later fixed it but even hard reset on console didn't fix it when attempted right after incident).

Is anything being done regarding the screen fit? I have an older tv... no I am not upgrading for one game that worked previously, and is the only game that has an issue. Yes I have attempted every option given to me on my TV settings, it resets after 30 minutes even making sure that I do not zoom in.

For the time being at least I have been killing time prepping a new large world for hardmode with hellevators etc... but I won't build on new projects outside of this nor will I attempt the new events until it's at least announced when to expect some of these things will be fixed.

Over all I was so very very excited for this update as was my bf but now he won't play it at all for fear of losing everything and my short bursts just leave me sad because I had such joy in crafting and building and all the excitement for 800 new things to discover and use.. and I can't play long enough to do any of that for frustrations of all the UI and coupled with fear of losing everything.

P.s.
Why the heck can't we save without exiting?? I truly do not understand why this isn't an option at the very least when playing single player.

 

[Slime BC]

The old UI is not coming back. Supporting two fully functional UIs is not feasible either.

Getting one fully functional UI would be a good start.

 

[ED209]

For those of you just joining this thread, I made a post offering some suggestions on how to adapt the UI to make it easier to use without ripping the code apart, I'd love to hear thoughts from all of you (improvements etc.). You can view the post here:

https://forums.terraria.org/index.p...te-feedback-thread.64220/page-36#post-1535784