game basically unplayable without quality on default client

[sMartins]

- no warning about the presence of other players nearby, making it very dangerous to leave the base.

Just curious, and what you think if that was not available for anyone?

[iamahh]

maybe keep the default as is, but add extra options from popular clients
- free camera, zoom range and speed (gives more time to escape from enemies)
- show item ql number
- area farming would help dealing with the more organic looks of default
- belt and hands interface, so don't need to Ctrl+E
- Alt+Z and Alt+X for switching with hands slots
- remember windows positions
- minimap resize and drag, remember options for claim/village/realm
- more options for transfer

there's other stuff like toggle grid, radius for aggro-columns-beeskep, but I understand it's not so simple

[Myrgard]

The features they provide would be too many to list, I suggest you use one of them for an extended periode of time - at least a month - and then go back to the default client. Then you will understand I am sure

I'd compare it to the the standard of living in houses.

Imagine a town house from the 19th century. Then it slowly improves over time, you get electricity, running water, toilets in the home itself, automated washing machines, refrigerator, air conditioning... all the way to modern times. And then someone comes and tells you to go back to what you had at the start and ask in surprise why you aren't happy.

The vanilla client has been stagnant for years (with some ideas like the camera that had been a pour choice from day 1) while the custom clients were seeing steady development . If you come new to the game and just use the vanilla client you'll be fine I suppose, if handicapped. But once you see what it can be like going back and being happy is no longer an option.

[sMartins]

Just for the records, I was playing on customs at the start, Latikai on Salem and Ender/Amber on H&H ... thx to you people that enjoy to spoil the game for new players suggesting customs ... then switched to default and never came back, way much better ... I leave to you the retarded min/max efficiency of ours days, the fun thing is also that who use customs think to be smarter than who don't, and that is ilarious to me.
P.S.
Default = an adventure to discover how deep the rabbit hole is
Customs = cold excel sheet

[Tanchist]

I leave to you the retarded min/max efficiency of ours days, the fun thing is also that who use customs think to be smarter than who don't, and that is ilarious to me.

Man, at the same price you get a new bicycle or a second-hand Harley. You choose the bicycle. People don't think they are smarter, they just don't think you are quite sane, that is all.

[sMartins]

I leave to you the retarded min/max efficiency of ours days, the fun thing is also that who use customs think to be smarter than who don't, and that is ilarious to me.

Man, at the same price you get a new bicycle or a second-hand Harley. You choose the bicycle. People don't think they are smarter, they just don't think you are quite sane, that is all.

You are those who employ a game like it is real life ...and I am the one is not sane? ok

[blank]

not sure if its an option i can turn on? but i really didnt like not being able to see my health bar, stamina, and energy levels in the default client.. but maybe i was doing something wrong?

[Granger]

In all honesty if there was nothing but the vanilla client available I'd probably just quit the game.

Harsh.

No, honest.

The official client is, in regards to usability and when compared to custom ones, lacking (to word it very kindly).
Might look nice but in many places works like UI in 16bit games did: great at that time but we don't have the 90s anymore.

While most of the stuff doesn't look that bad at first glance, it is when you have to use it repeatedly over time.

The most insulting is to have a game that centers around quality and numbers - and then hide these behind mouseover delays (for the tooltips that show these) that can't be disabled.

Controls are non-deterministic, to often the keyboard doesn't do what I want because some window has some widget focussed that absorbs my input on a way I don't intend. There is no one key that resets the input mode to a defined state from where I can reach the function I intend, at times ESC works, at times I have to press it multiple times (but then it closes the windows I wanted to operate from) at times it does nothing.

Qualifiers for operations seem unstructured, arbitrary and incoherent: ctrl-click an item in a container to drop it, same with an item on cursor in the world to NOT drop it. More of this here and there.

Chatting... A multiplayer game with multiple chats and no deterministic (and context agnostic, so it works regardless of the rest of the state of the client) way to activate/select the chat over wants, dark blue text on black, 6 point fonts (at least they look like that on my display)... Looks like you don't want people to communicate.

The most absurd is that you use the biggest key for the most irrelevant function: space to hide the surrounding UI... If it would toggle display of full UI (on/off boolean) it might have a certain use (as one could use it to navigate to behind a window) but as it only hides the surroundings (that seldom get in the way) it's useless. Might have been great on 800*600 displays but these have been obsoleted 10 years ago, even a cheap mobile renders full HD these days.

I have to admit that I kind of don't get what the big deal is, so feel free to point out whatever systems or features are the deal breakers for you.

List of stuff to port from Amber that would be absolute minimum for me to see official as an option (at all): Hand slots with hotkeys, mass move/drop items (with and without sorting), readable fonts, deterministic hotkeys for movement speed, always quality display and massively reduced hover time for tooltip, instant flower menu, camera toggle (but only because the quest pointers are broken in cam bad, else it would be the only one I use), build/craft search menu, radius display, magic confirmation (the menu system sucks, so unintended functions are called to easy), ...
Probably I forgot half or more.

Bottom line: the official client lacks, massively, as over time more and more functions have been bolted onto it, and I think it should get a complete overhaul - preferably the whole approach on how the user interacts with it should be redesigned from scratch. Preferably by first discussing all aspects extensively with the user base instead of coming up with 'something great' that you expect us to live with.

Hint: it's completely irrelevant if you like the way the interface works or not, if your users hate it they won't give you money. And most likely you won't get away with a one-size-fits-all but will need a client that can be customized by the individual user to the control scheme that suits best. And no, you can't expect a normal gamer to adapt and compile a custom version from git.

Please don't get me wrong: I really like the game - I just hate the official client. Nothing personal, it just is outdated and needs an update from the ground up.

[sMartins]

not sure if its an option i can turn on? but i really didnt like not being able to see my health bar, stamina, and energy levels in the default client.. but maybe i was doing something wrong?

Press "space".

[Vassteel]

Granger nailed it. for me the biggest deal is UI scaling. when the chat is 6pt text on a 4k screen its so tiny like crazy i can hide a sentence under a sewing needle small.

maybe as an alternative do some sort of game item thing for those who developed the best third party client. i know theres more than just amber/ender floating around