So I've given it some time to see if I could get used to it and I think I've used the new post system enough to really form a fair opinion. I even have a few suggestions.
I dislike the way posts are ordered in threads now. I don't hate it; nor do I love it, it has potential. Being able to hop in a thread and seeing the most recent replies first is nice when I'm monitoring a thread constantly; I instantly see the new posts without having to scroll down. But in that lies the problem; instead of quoting, people reply to one another, which bumps the main post, but hides the reply.
Once a thread begins to receive a lot of comments it gets confusing trying to find that new post when its hidden from view and in a mix of many other posts filled with replies and it gets even harder to find it when those replies are all mixed up as well. Its infuriating and responding to someone is extremely difficult when you can't find their post.
The old forums handled this fine. Instead of constantly updating post orders one post came after the other in chronological order. Clicking the "Last Page" button in a thread essentially did what the new forums do now by default at the top of a thread. The old way worked fine, you knew exactly where you were in a conversation; it was simple and easy to follow. So please bring back thread pages and chronological post order, (oldest post to newest).
"But the quote pyramids were terrible!" You say.
Well my solution to that is keep the expandable reply system. If someone responds to someone else don't make a confusing quote bubble; instead have their post appear in line with the rest of the posts in a thread and include a button above it that will expand the conversation. So while their post appears in chronological order with the rest of the thread you can quickly see the conversation two or more users are having together, and it keeps the thread pyramid free.
Honestly I'm having a hard time finding order in the way posts are moved around now. In theory it's a great idea and even works amazingly well in smaller threads. But once threads get larger, it gets harder to tell what's going on, even with the notification system telling you when someone posts.
(About the notification system: when I click the (!) icon I would really like the little number next to it to go away then; not after I click the new notification.)
Those are just my thoughts in the new posting system. Like a said before, the new system has potential, but the way things are shuffled around so frequently in the more active threads just makes it extremely hard to keep track of what's going on.
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I agree. This late out definitely has potentially, and in all honesty I think it's a good idea. It does make it hard to keep track on where things are though with replies in active threads as you've said. The basis of it all is good, it just needs some refining.