Base DFU feature request - buying items won't automatically equip them

Talk about the mods you'd like to see in Daggerfall Unity. Give mod creators some ideas!
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mikeprichard
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Base DFU feature request - buying items won't automatically equip them

Post by mikeprichard »

Per the title. This would be a deviation from classic behavior, and I'm not sure whether others would find it useful. However, it's a minor annoyance for me (and generally contrary to the behavior of other modern CRPGs, including later TES titles) that whenever I buy a weapon, armor, clothing, or piece of jewelry, it's automatically equipped to my paper doll and displaces any corresponding previously equipped item. I'd prefer any purchased item to simply go to my inventory grid. Although there may be limited circumstances where you'd want to immediately equip the purchased item as-is, I find it's almost always the case that I'd rather first keep the purchased item in my unequipped inventory (e.g. to later enchant, to hold in reserve as an alternate weapon, etc.). Any support for this from the devs? Cheers!
Last edited by mikeprichard on Sat Apr 11, 2020 9:34 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Ralzar
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Re: Base DFU feature request - buying items won't automatically equip them

Post by Ralzar »

Hm, very much agree. The worst part is honestly wjen you DON’T buy the item, then have to re-equip whatever was displaced.

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Magicono43
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Re: Base DFU feature request - buying items won't automatically equip them

Post by Magicono43 »

Perhaps Numidium would have a good grasp on messing around with the inventory stuff, he did make a mod based around the inventory after-all. I would love something like this as well, I hate having to reequip items because I accidentally "tried on" something else while shopping.

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Hazelnut
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Re: Base DFU feature request - buying items won't automatically equip them

Post by Hazelnut »

This is a trivial change, and I could very easily add a UI setting to control this. Before I do that though, I would want agreement from Interkarma as I know he wants to stop adding so many settings to DFU as there's already a lot there. If I get the go ahead it will be 10 mins work to do it.
See my mod code for examples of how to change various aspects of DFU: https://github.com/ajrb/dfunity-mods

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mikeprichard
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Re: Base DFU feature request - buying items won't automatically equip them

Post by mikeprichard »

Good to know this wouldn't be difficult to implement at least. And I suggest (as DFU settings creep is definitely a thing) that this might qualify as another light-touch QOL change that may not even need a setting, unless someone strongly prefers the default auto-equipping of purchased items. Of course, this is all up to Interkarma.

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DigitalMonk
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Re: Base DFU feature request - buying items won't automatically equip them

Post by DigitalMonk »

Ralzar wrote: Sat Apr 11, 2020 9:03 pm Hm, very much agree. The worst part is honestly wjen you DON’T buy the item, then have to re-equip whatever was displaced.
A middle-ground request from someone who really hasn't played that much DF and isn't completely familiar with all the clothing and armors. I kind of like the "trying on" part, so I can see how ensembles look quickly in the store. But yeah, I definitely hate having to manually re-dress and equip myself when I leave.

I can think of two approaches, either of which I'd be happy with, but they're more involved than the simple fix...
  • When entering a store, snapshot my current equipped items. When I leave the store, if that snapshot has something in a slot that is currently empty, put the snapshot item back in it. This should "re-dress" our characters as expected, while keeping any new items that we did purchase/equip.
  • Remove auto-equip, but then add a "Try On" button :lol: Probably way too much effort, but it would make sense intuitively -- trying and buying are different activities in stores...

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BadLuckBurt
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Re: Base DFU feature request - buying items won't automatically equip them

Post by BadLuckBurt »

What about left click and right click doing different things? That would be the least intrusive and wouldnt require a setting either except someone is going to ask for the ability to reverse the actions
DFU on UESP: https://en.uesp.net/w/index.php?title=T ... fall_Unity
DFU Nexus Mods: https://www.nexusmods.com/daggerfallunity
My github repositories with mostly DFU related stuff: https://github.com/BadLuckBurt

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mikeprichard
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Re: Base DFU feature request - buying items won't automatically equip them

Post by mikeprichard »

I think the above ideas aren't bad, but may end up as significant UI changes (i.e. probably mod territory for the "try on" idea, though that would be a cool little mod) or more intrusive/requiring more player education, as noted. Again, not sure if anyone actually strongly prefers the default behavior, but if someone does, just a simple toggle in settings (auto-equip vs. don't auto-equip) would probably have to cover it. I'd still lean towards no setting even being necessary - there are a fair number of relatively minor (i.e. no or trivial gameplay impact) UI functions DFU has simply changed compared to classic without including related settings; some are shown at http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Tes2Mod:Daggerf ... ifferences.

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mikeprichard
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Re: Base DFU feature request - buying items won't automatically equip them

Post by mikeprichard »

Pinging @Interkarma - would you consent to Hazelnut's change per the above? Thanks!

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Interkarma
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Re: Base DFU feature request - buying items won't automatically equip them

Post by Interkarma »

I'm happy for Hazelnut to make this change if everyone prefers it. My two gripes here:

First, this makes clothes and armour shopping harder. Instead of just clicking through available options to see how they look, you'll need to click to transfer the item to inventory, locate it, then click again to equip.

This also means the Select button now operates differently depending on which list the item is in. If it's on the store shelf, it will go to inventory, if it's in inventory, it will be equipped. This feels just as clunky to me as equipping the item immediately.

I think the core problem here is that your equipped items get all messed up by interacting with shops. May I suggest an alternative that's admittedly a bit more time consuming to implement.
  1. Cache player equip table on shop UI open.
  2. Clear button will also restore cached equip table in addition to returning unpurchased items to shelf.
  3. Exit will keep player equip table.
This way the player gets to play around with clothes and armour as much as they want and restore all their previously equipped items with a single click. Then they can just equip whatever they purchased later or within store UI, and simply close the UI to keep current equip table.

The reason I don't think closing UI should also restore cached equip table here is that if player can see an item on their person when they exit, and that item isn't there the next time they look, they might think the shop didn't work. This does leave player in a position to mess up their equipped items at a shop, but that's how it's always been anyway. At least now they have a single click way to fix this before closing.

Again, happy for the initial idea to be implemented if Hazelnut wants to do this. But I think maybe it should be a (non-default) option.

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