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New Forum?

    • 7 posts
    December 2, 2017 12:51 PM EST

    Shortly said I was a frequent visitor to the old skyrim character builds forum looking for inspiration to endure multiple playthroughs of skyrim.

     

    The old site featured easy navigation through styles of characterbuilds as well as the most popular evidently being the best. This way I'd open my eyes towards more ways of playing the game which I still enjoy to this day.

    However, returning to this forum it feels impossible and completely demotivates me to even be here. This is a fantastic community, but I can't even find the post with all the categories of character builds, and I can't filter out the ones I want to see, making it pretty useless in my own oppinion.

    Don't know if this was suggested before or if it's being tended to, but I feel like it's horrible to navigate around here.

    • 700 posts
    December 2, 2017 2:25 PM EST

    The navigation is almost identical to what it once was. Elder Scrolls > Skyrim Character Building > Skyrim Character Building Archives. Look at Modern Masters 2016 for the best. 

    • 743 posts
    December 4, 2017 11:03 AM EST

    Legion's post is dead on. Just as a remainder, as this issue has been answered fully, I will allow for this thread to remain for another 48 hours before deleting it. That should give you enough time to save this response. If you still have any questions, please comment here before it is deleted or PM me ;)

    • 7 posts
    December 6, 2017 5:17 AM EST

    Thanks for the responses guys, to clarify I'm just the kinda guy that goes to the desired section of builds, I like things organized, filter the posts to the most popular to the top and down towards the bottom so I can gather that much needed inspiration.

     

    Any help would be appreciated if I'm missing something, it just feels hard to navigate around here to find what I'm looking for. I enjoy the exploits and ideas people create, back in the day I used to follow the obsidian sentinel but couldn't even find it on this forum.

     

    I'll try my best to make it work, just felt like it'd be nice for you guys to know, since that's my own oppinion on a forum layout, simple sections for specific things with the best on top, maybe even pinned posts would be nice, ordered according to votes.

    • 7 posts
    December 6, 2017 5:19 AM EST

    And by the way, it could be my internet, but this feels like the only site that takes a long time to load, whenever I click somewhere and open a new tab. I'll deal with it personally on my end, but could perhaps be an issue somewhere. :)

    • 1595 posts
    December 6, 2017 5:29 AM EST

    Hi Vuurbal. There is an alternative that may help: The activity feed has three tabs, "Overview", "Popular Content", and "Overview of Groups." The latter tab looks like this if you click on it:

    Links to groups appear in there, and it'd be no sweat to add more specific links.

    But really there is not much difference to the old as Legion and Rogue have said. Tags work the same, the archives are up to date, and each group has tabs so that you can view all te stickied items on the first tab, see the latest group content on the Group Activity Feed Tab, or click the "view all topics" button and navigate topics by date created:

    • 490 posts
    December 6, 2017 9:32 PM EST

    VuurbalChupa said:

    And by the way, it could be my internet, but this feels like the only site that takes a long time to load, whenever I click somewhere and open a new tab. I'll deal with it personally on my end, but could perhaps be an issue somewhere. :)

    That has been my issue as well. I honestly can't load the character building group page but it isn't my internet. Not sure if that will get fixed or if it is a specific thing with the site configuration.

    The navigation is a bit harder sure but the links do work. Getting from page to page is much slower and I honestly still don't know if all my builds are here lol.

    Try the archives page if it loads and see if that helps lower the amount of pages to go through.

    • 7 posts
    December 8, 2017 1:36 AM EST

    Henson said:

    VuurbalChupa said:

    And by the way, it could be my internet, but this feels like the only site that takes a long time to load, whenever I click somewhere and open a new tab. I'll deal with it personally on my end, but could perhaps be an issue somewhere. :)

    That has been my issue as well. I honestly can't load the character building group page but it isn't my internet. Not sure if that will get fixed or if it is a specific thing with the site configuration.

    The navigation is a bit harder sure but the links do work. Getting from page to page is much slower and I honestly still don't know if all my builds are here lol.

    Try the archives page if it loads and see if that helps lower the amount of pages to go through.

     

    That sounds more like my concerns, again... Searching on a forum ATLEAST like Reddit is super vital, hotkey searching and what not to navigate. It might shadow newer threads, but sites like 9gag has sections for HOT, Trending and fresh posts which works totally find.

    Nonetheless, didn't you make the Ka Po Tun build? I had that build in mind when I mentioned exploits integrated in gameplay, it's awesome, along with % shout reduction above the vanilla limit as well.

    • 1595 posts
    December 8, 2017 4:45 AM EST

    I'm sorry to hear you're having problems with the CB, Henson and Vuurbal. In the short-term we'll have a look at implementing Legion's suggestion of adding a couple of sub-menus to the Skyrim CB menu to help aid navigation.

    @Hen, dude we really need to find all your builds and have them in a Shared Content tab of your profile. If you'd be willing to send me a list of your builds, I can find them and we'll soon see if any are missing. When we find them, you could just add the url to your profile's status box and all your builds will then be visible and easy to find. Most people come here for the builds, and as one of the founding fathers, it only makes sense for yours to be on your profile :)


    This post was edited by Paws at December 8, 2017 4:46 AM EST
    • 490 posts
    December 8, 2017 12:27 PM EST

    VuurbalChupa said:

    Henson said:

    VuurbalChupa said:

    And by the way, it could be my internet, but this feels like the only site that takes a long time to load, whenever I click somewhere and open a new tab. I'll deal with it personally on my end, but could perhaps be an issue somewhere. :)

    That has been my issue as well. I honestly can't load the character building group page but it isn't my internet. Not sure if that will get fixed or if it is a specific thing with the site configuration.

    The navigation is a bit harder sure but the links do work. Getting from page to page is much slower and I honestly still don't know if all my builds are here lol.

    Try the archives page if it loads and see if that helps lower the amount of pages to go through.

     

    That sounds more like my concerns, again... Searching on a forum ATLEAST like Reddit is super vital, hotkey searching and what not to navigate. It might shadow newer threads, but sites like 9gag has sections for HOT, Trending and fresh posts which works totally find.

    Nonetheless, didn't you make the Ka Po Tun build? I had that build in mind when I mentioned exploits integrated in gameplay, it's awesome, along with % shout reduction above the vanilla limit as well.

    Yeah I made a Ka Po' Tun. Thanks!

    And yeah I think as Phil (Paws) mentioned I just need to not be lazy and find them and link them lol.

    • 7 posts
    December 9, 2017 12:00 PM EST

    Paws said:

    I'm sorry to hear you're having problems with the CB, Henson and Vuurbal. In the short-term we'll have a look at implementing Legion's suggestion of adding a couple of sub-menus to the Skyrim CB menu to help aid navigation.

    @Hen, dude we really need to find all your builds and have them in a Shared Content tab of your profile. If you'd be willing to send me a list of your builds, I can find them and we'll soon see if any are missing. When we find them, you could just add the url to your profile's status box and all your builds will then be visible and easy to find. Most people come here for the builds, and as one of the founding fathers, it only makes sense for yours to be on your profile :)

     

    A potential search system, ordering dates, comments, general popularity will help you instantly find that godlike most topvoted build, evidently a "must-try" build, and for the people interested in seeing what new-comers have to show off, make a fresh section for that.

     

    The main way of navigating on the old site was the search bar and the tags which're gone, that part was huge.

    • 1595 posts
    December 9, 2017 3:18 PM EST

    Vuurbal I am really trying to understand, but confess I'm failing miserably. The search engine on Ning was laughable and simply didn't work. The one we have is at the top left of the screen and is perfectly fine:

    As for tags, again I don't get it. We have them. The only difference really is that they're at the top of a build rather than the bottom, but they work the exact same way. If I click on Character Build Crusader tag, I'll be taken to all builds with that tag.


    This post was edited by Paws at December 9, 2017 4:40 PM EST
    • 1467 posts
    December 9, 2017 7:13 PM EST

    I wanted to try and figure this one out, long time user of the Skyrim Blog, long time user of the Vault and I've got a good grip on both of them. So I think the primary thing that your thinking of is the way you used to be able to go into the groups, view all discussions and sort by multiple categories, including 'most comments', 'most recent' and a few others. Would that be correct? Searching and sorting within the groups themselves used to be slightly easier because of that, and now it tends to be a bit harder of your looking for some hard statistics.

    Because, yeah, that's something that was really great and would be great to have back. But if not...then, I've got no idea where you're coming from. As Phil mentioned, the search system (with the search bar) is far beyond what we had back on Ning. The fact that you can narrow it down by type (member, photo, topic, forum, etc.) is something we just didn't have before, and the fact that it works beats Ning's. Well there was a month where it worked and that was a glorious thing, but afterward it broke even more :( That thing really was trash except for that month or so. Tags have been around for most of the year now, to be fair when we first started up here they didn't transfer but now we've got either all or most set up. There's probably the occasional build that doesn't have tags, but they're very limited and mostly because the original author didn't add them in.

    There are, however, a few things you can do to get around that first bit. Almost all of the best builds are in the Hall of Fame. Not absolutely all of them, but a significant chunk of them. And I was trying to find the place where this is officially linked, but couldn't for the life of me. I know it was, so I'll share it anyway, but back when we first moved we had a Google Sheet with all of the likes posted in it. CB Like Archives, it's not entirely perfect, but it's colour coded for an easier job of finding them, and then you could come over here and  just type Character Build: [Name Here] and you should be able to find it relatively easily. 

    • 7 posts
    December 10, 2017 1:50 AM EST

    Seeing as I might be confusing all of you, I guess simply put; I mod skyrim heavily for a beautiful and immersive game, therefore as on the nexus, I can search or google for a specific mod, small or big and I can search on the front page for the top 1 most endorsed mods and eventually get my desired game style.

    That's what I'd like to see here, I'd like simple searching if I'd like to play a ranger type character as I am now, and I had to google for a build which I found called the reach ranger if I'm not mistaken, and again for inspiration and guidelines.

    My idea was simple, a search mechanic would only help me filter out the style of gameplay I'm craving, regardless of the sections. And last but not least, again as you mentioned, a simple filtering system to see the top statistics for a build filtering by comments and views.

     

    TL;DR

    Sections? Fresh for new builds, trending for-... Well trending builds, and Popular for the top voted builds. I suppose the ranking system kinda works that one out, but as I'm seeing it, sections like that gives other users the chance to view popular builds, and to see what new comers are crafting.

    Most comments, views, likes top to bottom or bottom to top filtering.

    Search? Seeing as it was broken on Ning, I'm guessing there's potential for a keyword search engine, or tag search engine.

     

    Forgive me for confusing everyone, but I remember simply searching for the BEST builds to the top, ALWAYS being the obsidian sentinel and that's what I spent my time doing for a while, looking at these character builds and either following them flawlessly, or simply getting inspiration.

    • 700 posts
    December 10, 2017 2:46 AM EST

    Forgive me for confusing everyone, but I remember simply searching for the BEST builds to the top

    This has never been a function on this site. Your information is simply factually incorrect. There has never been a search function here as robust as those on Reddit and Nexus. We're a humble, but passionate site. We don't have the traffic that Nexus and Reddit have; we don't get the donations through premium memberships to find site upgrades like they do! 

    You can tell when a criticism is in the interest of bettering the community, versus when it's in the interest, of, what? What do you actually want done? You just want the admins to "make" a better search system? Do you have any idea what you're asking for, or are you simply making demands? Someone with the good of the site at their heart would have come forward with something more than what amounts to a petty complaint. If we were the "fantastic community" that you claimed we were, I don't believe that the change in navigation would result in a "complete demotivation" to "even be here." What did you do, just navigate through every section and subsection every day? That's not being part of the community. And if your interest was in the community, the change in navigation wouldn't have mattered. The community is still here. You would have coped if it really meant that much to you. 

    p.s.

    In the future, your "tldrs" should be shorter than your main body - not equally as long.


    This post was edited by Legion at December 10, 2017 3:12 AM EST
    • 1467 posts
    December 10, 2017 3:45 AM EST

    Uhh, man this is awkward.

    This has never been a function on this site. Your information is simply factually incorrect. There has never been a search function here as robust as those on Reddit and Nexus. We're a humble, but passionate site. We don't have the traffic that Nexus and Reddit have; we don't get the donations through premium memberships to find site upgrades like they do! 

    You can tell when a criticism is in the interest of bettering the community, versus when it's in the interest, of, what? What do you actually want done? You just want the admins to "make" a better search system? Do you have any idea what you're asking for, or are you simply making demands? Someone with the good of the site at their heart would have come forward with something more than what amounts to a petty complaint. If we were the "fantastic community" that you claimed we were, I don't believe that the change in navigation would result in a "complete demotivation" to "even be here." What did you do, just navigate through every section and subsection every day? That's not being part of the community. And if your interest was in the community, the change in navigation wouldn't have mattered. The community is still here. You would have coped if it really meant that much to you. 

    Legion...we did actually used to have a function that allowed you to find the 'best' (subjectively) builds on the site by going into the group, all topics and then sorting based on most replies, or oldest, latest, etc. There was a much more robust sorting system on Ning that allowed you to sort through tags, discussions and forum posts to a much higher degree than what we can do here. Chupa has made a lot of valid points here, to be honest, these are definitely some things that would make it easier to move around the site, and that's never bad, I'd love to be able to sort by the latest discussions, especially since tags update straight to the main page. Would save me hours of time checking through content. 

     

     

    Chupa, I'll drop by with a comment going into more depth on some of the stuff Legion has mentioned, and based off your previous comment. Thanks for the clarification, made it a lot easier to respond :)

    • 1467 posts
    December 10, 2017 3:53 AM EST

    Ah, yeah that makes a bit more sense. I'll focus on what you've got in the tl;dr section because that's a bit better to break up.

    1 - Honestly, I think that the ranking system more or less works for it, and there's only a limited ability for something to work like that. All of the builds that were posted back on Ning lost their like counter, and there just aren't many builds since then that have gotten more than 20 likes (which is why we reworked the Rank System). Basically, most of the older builds, that would normally be the Most Popular aren't going to show up because they simply don't have the same number of likes. At the moment, using the Ranking System allows for a fairly decent system that allows you to search old, new, good and bad builds relatively easily. 

    2 - Can't say anything against this, had it on Ning and it would be good if there was a way to solve it, but I'll mention why it probably won't be easy below.

    3 - Well. I don't think that it can be used as a tag search engine, keyword most certainly, but...hmm let me chat with Phil and I'll see what can be done about editing the search engine. Not sure what can be changed there, because if we could at least get it to narrow down to individual groups that'd be good, even better if we can add a tag search option. If it is possible I think it'd be relatively easy, but have no idea.

     

    So, I'm not an Admin, so I don't know all of the details but I've talked to them about similar stuff (implementing new things into the site) and generally the way it works, and what can make it hard is a combination of things. First, they don't have full control over the site and can't just implement anything that could ever be wanted, it requires buying plugins from Social Engine (the equivelent of Ning) and from what I know, most of their stuff is fairly generic, not coded for each individual site. So Social Engine has to have the exact system that we want, and then Edana (the Site Owner) would have to either buy it herself, or fundraise for it which can be a little bit hard because we've got a relatively small population (when compared to things like Nexus). With something like the Nexus, I assume they've got a bit more control over everything, and can kind of just implement whatever they want, or maybe even hire coders to come in and do it for them. 

    On top of that, you never know how well a plugin will work really, or how it might mesh with some of the stuff that the Admins have already implemented, so there's generally a buggy period that needs to be worked on. Then it would require a fair amount of time to get everything set up to the Vault's specifics, and a host of other stuff I probably have no idea about. Basically, there's a huge amount of time that has to go into it, and that cuts into time dealing with the day to day stuff, and working on othere big projects like speeding up CB, Chat Systems and a whole bunch of other stuff. Oh, there's also the chance that we'd need to change our current systems to fit in with whatever is bought, and I helped tag the builds after the move and know that it can take a long time even with them saved. If we needed to rewrite everything for every single piece of work on the site, it would take months.

    Anyway, the reason I mentioned most of that. Is because I assume there's only so much that could be implemented here without modules, and even with them, it's not entirely possible that they'd be great, easy to use or what we need (or even exist at all). I do think that a lot of what you mentioned would be good to have, but it might be impossible, extremely difficult to implement, unwieldy or a host of other things. And at the end of the day, I think that the Archives essentially does everything you've listed. Not the most efficient answer perhaps but it might be the best we can do.

    Not saying that it's impossible. Been talking to Phil and there might be some stuff that can be done with the search engine we currently have. But there are a lot of restrictions based on time, manpower and possibly even money that make it a lot harder than I think any of us like. If it were up to me, we'd just press a button and change everything you know XD

     

    Man, that was hard to write, kept rethinking how I was wording things, then had to edit it after Legion's comment. Anyway, I think you've got some really good points, good ideas and that second clarification (hopefully) helped me out. Hope that I helped mate, really tried to make sure I covered everything but if there's anything else I can reply again :D

    • 700 posts
    December 10, 2017 4:53 AM EST

    we did actually used to have a function that allowed you to find the 'best' (subjectively) builds on the site by going into the group, all topics and then sorting based on most replies, or oldest, latest, etc. 

    That's not what he said, and not what he's asking for. If I misunderstood, then I apologize -- I was wrong. But I have no apologies for my second point. I simply don't understand the point Vuurbal is trying to make. Everyone has done more than is reasonably expected and it's not enough. How long did you spend writing out that response, DB? All to explain that we can't possibly match the functionality of Reddit and the Nexus? I'm all for helping folks. But I find it very disrespectful to who we are as a site to attribute a complete demotivation to visit the community to a navigation change, and then demand a better system. As if he's holding us ransom! I think it disrespects the hosts, and it disrepects the admins, and what they do for the site. I helped him, you helped him, Rogue helped him, Henson helped him, Paws helped him; you can only say the same thing so many times before you finally have to explain in detail the complexities of running a website that lives and dies by its members, and that point, you've bent over backwards too far. Under more respectful terms, I'd have had no issue here. I'd have been on my merry way. But you know I won't keep quiet about these things. String me up if I'm out of line. 

    • 1467 posts
    December 10, 2017 6:26 AM EST

    I don't see that happening here Legion, maybe we're just interpreting it differently but I thought of this as more of a recommendation thread, with examples being pointed to of sites that have better systems. I don't see any post that disrespectful or demanding a change in the system, Chupa had even asked for help further up in the thread, and then explained his thoughts a little more when I came in late and more or less invited the longer response (and then followed it up with my own, would be fine if there's more). If Chupa was here saying "Give me this or I'll troll the site" or "Do this or this site is trash" then that'd be something different, but he's here with some pretty valid points, and has us talking about potential fixes to things that would make the site a lot easier for people just reading. Just didn't even really see anything that was unfairly negative to be honest, I think criticizing some of the stuff is reasonable, especially if your looking at it from the outside without the information you or I have Legion

    Might just take it as both of us translating it differently yeah Legion? Doubt Chupa meant any offense here, and for me, well it's made me rather happy. Using it as an opportunity to give myself a bit of a side project by drafting together a theoretical idea for what the search engine could turn into, and an idea for a weekly series of discussions over in CB (Top 10 most liked builds of all time) to give that extra boost to the whole point. 

    • 7 posts
    December 18, 2017 10:21 AM EST

    Mega-Dragonborn-of-Doom (1921) said:

    I don't see that happening here Legion, maybe we're just interpreting it differently but I thought of this as more of a recommendation thread, with examples being pointed to of sites that have better systems. I don't see any post that disrespectful or demanding a change in the system, Chupa had even asked for help further up in the thread, and then explained his thoughts a little more when I came in late and more or less invited the longer response (and then followed it up with my own, would be fine if there's more). If Chupa was here saying "Give me this or I'll troll the site" or "Do this or this site is trash" then that'd be something different, but he's here with some pretty valid points, and has us talking about potential fixes to things that would make the site a lot easier for people just reading. Just didn't even really see anything that was unfairly negative to be honest, I think criticizing some of the stuff is reasonable, especially if your looking at it from the outside without the information you or I have Legion

    Might just take it as both of us translating it differently yeah Legion? Doubt Chupa meant any offense here, and for me, well it's made me rather happy. Using it as an opportunity to give myself a bit of a side project by drafting together a theoretical idea for what the search engine could turn into, and an idea for a weekly series of discussions over in CB (Top 10 most liked builds of all time) to give that extra boost to the whole point. 

     

    Had some trouble responding with a comment because of a bug that wouldn't allow me to write. I had no idea that I'd find a response like Legions here on this site. I'm a more quiet visitor, but I'm still here, and I'm just here to speak my mind of the current development of the site as I find it different from the last, and I was genuinely here to figure out how to use the site properly, and to use it-... I have to go through google, which is fine because if I have something in mind, google would find me the best result in terms of popularity and the closest to my search word "Ranger" or "Archer". Works wonders.

    Again, I just wished for buttery smooth navigation or the likes of it.