For me, the important things at a glance are (in order):

Weapon Type
Element
Light Level
Name

Item rarity is another important detail that's also immediately communicated by the visuals :)

I think if you are saying that catalyst progress is THE most important thing about a weapon, then we wildly disagree.

I'd say the most important things at a glance are (in order):

1. Weapon Name
2. Light and Element
3. Perks / Mods selections
4. Weapon Stats / Masterworks

Where does weapon type fall into these categories? Or does your list method solve that problem another way?

My ranks would be:

1. Weapon Type & Element
2. Power Level & Name
3. Perks & Mods
4. Stats & Masterworks

Look at how close we are!

I think if you are saying that catalyst progress is THE most important thing about a weapon, then we wildly disagree.

I'd say the most important things at a glance are (in order):

1. Weapon Name
2. Light and Element
3. Perks / Mods selections
4. Weapon Stats / Masterworks

I don't need to know perks and mods at a glance, ever.

I need to know weapon stats when I'm comparing two weapons, or (occasionally) when I'm choosing between two Masterworked versions of the same weapon (for example, I have a Better Devils with a Reload boost, and one with a Magazine boost; I use them for different things).

When I'm actively working on a Catalyst, knowing my progress is important - any other time, it's irrelevant. So... an hour (maybe 2) out of the life of a weapon. ('Actively working' means farming to finish it. My Crucible catalysts are not 'actively worked' - I simply use the weapon, and eventually the MW pops.)

For me, the important things at a glance are (in order):

Weapon Type
Element
Light Level
Name

What a weapon is called is FAR less important to me than what kind of weapon it is (Scout, Pulse, HC, etc).

Bungie's system works perfectly for me; I can see the first two things on my list without doing ANYTHING other than opening my character, I can get 3 with a trigger pull (for an entire category), and 4 by mousing over the icon.

If they found a way to unobtrusively show the catalyst value for that hour out of the gun's life, I'd call their system ideal.

I’ll agree that the Pursuits section is a really disappointing replacement for the Quests screen they introduced in The Taken King. Especially if we can assume that thing might be quite full in Forsaken.

Didn't they explicitly state that the way quests are displayed and tracked is getting a giant overhaul in Forsaken?

I think so. Which makes sense by the fact that they have slowly been adding quest-ish stuff back into the game.

I think if you are saying that catalyst progress is THE most important thing about a weapon, then we wildly disagree.

I'd say the most important things at a glance are (in order):

1. Weapon Name
2. Light and Element
3. Perks / Mods selections
4. Weapon Stats / Masterworks

Huh, there are very few times where I've needed to know the name of a gun and those few times have come to 2 categories.

1. An Exotic
In which case I know exactly what it looks like by icon so I don't worry about it.

2. A legendary
This is the only real time it might help to have a name, but even so I know what type and class it is, so the chances there are more than at most 2 of those in my vault/inventory is very rare.

I’ll agree that the Pursuits section is a really disappointing replacement for the Quests screen they introduced in The Taken King. Especially if we can assume that thing might be quite full in Forsaken.

Didn't they explicitly state that the way quests are displayed and tracked is getting a giant overhaul in Forsaken?

I think if you are saying that catalyst progress is THE most important thing about a weapon, then we wildly disagree.

I'd say the most important things at a glance are (in order):

1. Weapon Name
2. Light and Element
3. Perks / Mods selections
4. Weapon Stats / Masterworks

Maybe I am just weird or something because I like relevant info at a glance.

Nope - you just disagree with me (and with Bungie, apparently) about what information is the most relevant. (I'm not sure how a scrolling text list of items would help at all in your Masterwork example. However, I, too, wish that they'd come up with a more clever way to quickly show Catalyst progress.)

I think if you are saying that catalyst progress is THE most important thing about a weapon, then we wildly disagree.

Just gonna say, Rebranding for Creative Cloud wasn’t because people couldn’t find their Photoshop icon.

I remember lots of people forgot what was what. I could not tell you what is what without mousing over. Which quill is Photoshop again? Oh shit, that's illustrator…

I guess I'd need you to explain what 'showing unnecessary information in fancy ways' means to you.

If you think about computers, there is a reason that icons have a name under them. The name of the file you are looking for is the most important thing. It's literally why Photoshop's icon went form this:

To this:

PS. PhotoShop. It clears up any ambiguity. Especially in the Dock where the name is not displayed until you go over it. It's for clarity.

For me, with an inventory management system, the icon is a 'bonus'. What the item is is the most important. So for me, many screens in Destiny are filled with icons that say very little. If you want to know how far along you are on a quest or a catalyst, you have to put the cursor over the item (an some quests look the same!), whereas that could be displayed instead of or in addition to the icon.

Maybe I am just weird or something because I like relevant info at a glance.

You never once said consumables. You said “inventory.” Are weapons not a part of the player’s inventory, in the general sense of the word?

That’s always been your problem—you spew vague arguments and then pretend like it’s our fault we can’t keep up with your non-specific arguments.

He said it here:

"I am talking about consumables and things like that, as well as things like engrams. You still pick up engrams even when your inventory is full… they just go to the postmaster which is an extra step. Again, because there is only so much room on screen and everything must fit."

And then claimed I didn't read his words.

What he's doing is making a broad claim and then going further and further out on a limb in specificity until we get to nonsense considerations like "find X weapon in Y amount of time in the Vault", a completely meaningless use case that he believes props up whatever claim he was making about form over function.

All to try to legitimize the claim that Bungie's UI is all about "spectacle".

That’s always been your problem—you spew vague arguments and then pretend like it’s our fault we can’t keep up with your non-specific arguments.

There is no rhyme or reason to the sorting systems that helps you find a particular gun.

What? Yeah, there is. By default, it sorts by weapon/armor slot. Did you really not know that!? lololololol

Find Baligant in less than 2 seconds:

Time's up.

I found two possibilities within 5 seconds and would have known for certain if I could have hovered over it. If you really wanted it to be quicker you'd resort the icons. (I'm curious on how you have your vault sorted. Acquisition order?)

But it would be already be found in an alphabetized list by gun type.

Only because it would be near the top of the 192 item long list. And that required you know the name of the weapon. There are numerous weapons whose names I don't know, but I can find by icon just fine. When you have hundreds of weapons in a game, the designer needs to identify the hierarchy of information, and Bungie chose weapon type, rarity, and element above name. A decision I think works well.

There is no rhyme or reason to the sorting systems that helps you find a particular gun.

What? Yeah, there is. By default, it sorts by weapon/armor slot. Did you really not know that!? lololololol

Find Baligant in less than 2 seconds:

Time's up.

But it would be already be found in an alphabetized list by gun type.

I found it in about 1, actually. But I'm going to actually agree with you that the Vault interface isn't as good as it could be. (I don't use it at all, so I hadn't even remembered that it wasn't as good as the on-character use of exactly the same interface.)

Yeah - Bungie's rather elegant, minimalist interface doesn't scale very well. I'll actually agree with you on that. If you were ONLY talking about the Vault this whole time, I'll step out of the conversation, after reprimanding you that you probably shouldn't say "the interface is bad" if you're talking about ONE SPECIFIC IMPLEMENTATION of that interface, while ignoring the (far more common) uses of the same functionality, unless you're super-clear at the start that you're ONLY talking about that one specific implementation. (Which you weren't.)