c2221b No.16648679
Otherwise decent and good games with bad UI.
After playing Baldur's Gate i decided to replay Neverwinter Nights, first thing that struck me just how bad UI is in that game. It looks like lowest effort bare bones UI on the level of some MMO from the 90's. Who even thought this was a good idea?
Post your examples.
39581a No.16648697
Dragon Quest 9. I have no idea if it's only the English version but whenever you open a menu the game suddenly chugs to single digit frames.
326bc3 No.16648734
Quantum Rush Champions
The ingame UI is already kinda shit
But the menus are the worst I've seen, they use an hex grid and actually expect diagonal inputs to move around, not only that but half the time your inputs get eaten for no particular reason.
03db4d No.16648769
I mean, you didn't even give explicit examples as to why NWN's UI is bad.
>click and drag for magic
>but no click and drag for feats
>mini buttons under character portrait are unintuitive
>dialog windows have no scrolling and just stretch infinitely
>chat window reports irrelevant info to a player in a singleplayer as shown as your pic
>also shows dialog in chat
I mean, could you actually try to make an OP though?
39581a No.16648771
>>16648734
>menu
>it's an offcenter object on screen titled at an angle
Holy fuck I hate this so much.
a43df9 No.16648822
>>16648734
Looks like they were trying to imitate Wipeout HD's UI, poorly
1e89c5 No.16648985
>Neverwinter Nights
>some MMO from the 90's
Intentional joke?
83c162 No.16649051
>>16648679
Any current year MMO that plasters your goddamn screen with too much UI with an information overload and not having the damn option to customize it.
d40d4a No.16649056
Operation Abyss, new tokyo legacy. So fucking clunky I didn't finish it.
421a6b No.16649078
Any MMO that has customizable UI's inevitably turns into UI gore, especially since such games almost always favor such a playstyle due to autism-inducing "gameplay". I fucking hate it. Even Mabinogi, a game I used to love for its minimal UI, has fallen victim to this overflow of information bashing you in the head at every fucking chance it gets.
Fuck MMO's.
234b33 No.16649360
>>16649078
that's actually pretty tame as far as raider ui's go lol. just a boss mod, some weak auras and damage meters.
7f2569 No.16649387
>>16649078
>mabingo
Nao or Alex?
ca80c2 No.16649424
>>16649360
>>16649078
May as well go back to playing MUDS
234b33 No.16649500
>>16649424
the gore happens mostly because the player kids, battered moms or nonwhites (you know the usual wow playerbase) does not understand how addons work aside from the very fundamental aspects of "it lets you heal easy!" or "you need this for raiding" so multiple shit overlays, like in the first image >>16649360 there's like 7 different buff trackers on screen, all do the same thing but the nigger playing did not remove duplicates. also check out 7 fps.
to get back on topic most infinity engine rpgs had shitty ui, baldur's gate & iwd come to mind
be5bd4 No.16649596
>>16649500
What's the problem with the infinity engines UI, all the buttons are outside of the "game screen" so they do not block anything. The buttons also use images to better convey what they are meant to do, instead of just "Journal", "Character" and so on.
5ca02d No.16649648
>>16649500
That's a 10/10 UI, no clutter, everything is functional but it not retarded floaty scaleform garbage either.
a88e74 No.16649950
All games that have a UI designed to be used with a gamepad. They expect people to sit on a sofa far away from the TV screen so all the texts and buttons must be extra large. Looks awful on PC monitor.
Worst example of this is probably the bethesda games like fallouts and TES games. It's such a shame because if you ask me Morrowind has one of the best UIs I know and it's hard not to compare the newer games to that.
97cd43 No.16649956
>>16649648
>>16649920
Ｇｅｔ ｏｎ ｍｙ ｌｅｖｅｌ， ｆａｇｇｏｔｓ．
97cd43 No.16649965
>>16649957
>not knowing the Zone by heart
>not counting your leftover catridges in your magazines
Scrub.
be5bd4 No.16649967
>>16649920
The UI elements block your view of the game area, whereas the UI in >>16649500 is separate from the game area, giving you a perfect 4:3 view of the game.
035c5f No.16650013
>>16649956
>playing S.T.A.L.K.E.R. with crosshairs enabled
>bragging about it
I may suck a mean cock when it comes to playing games, but damn nigger, get a grip.
81f1d9 No.16650073
>>16649360
I don't play MMO's so I can't tell if these are parody or not.
e85c1c No.16650142
Skyrim.
I actually quit after an hour of playing it because the UI was impossible to manage.
Also, in my opinion, NWN1 had a workable interface.
>>16649500
>most infinity engine rpgs had shitty ui, baldur's gate & iwd come to mind
But it's actually good?
It's not perfect, but it gets the job done and doesn't get in your way.
>>16650073
Unless you are completely insane, you will not be playing like that.
It can get messy and cluttered and if you are too lazy to fix it you might end up with only half of your screen visible (like me), but there comes a point where you just get sick of it and purge everything superficial.
234b33 No.16650990
>>16649596
>>16650142
<But it's actually good?
let me list, in no particular order, some of the problems I have with infinity engine ui's. note that I have played multiple every game that was released on that engine, with the exception being siege of dragonpoz:
>icons are too big
>you can't tell what some of the buttons do (the eyelid is for resting, but thieving skills/find traps / hide in shadows are all terrible
>there is a button to initiate dialogue when there is no need for it, you can simply click on an npc to interact with it.
>the guard button is also fucking useless
>can't enter the loading screen without leaving your game
>a separate button for priest and mage spells, just have a spellcaster book that's divided in arcane and divine
>the dialogue box clutters everything in the same place. when you have a party of 6 fighting enemies with some kind of inmunity its incredibly difficult to place what is going on because the box gets flooded with skill checks, damage inputs and outputs, combat dialogue, movement dialogue, spell interrupts, critical strikes, item usages, morale checks an so on, the only thing it lets you do is embiggen it which takes up even more of the already diminished game space.
>some things are hidden waaaay too hard, if you want to set up AI for one of your dudes, you must go to their character screen (first selecting the character because otherwise it chooses party leader) then click the customize button, then click the script button, choose which one you like, close the panels always pressing done instead of cancel because it overrides all other done actions. and make sure the little lamp button is toggled on or else it wont fucking work
to name another game with bad ui, nu-fallout is pretty shit, 3 and NV were bad but 4 somehow made it worse. the pip-boy was already a shit idea but holy hell
39581a No.16650999
>>16650990
I like how they tried to be immersive but just kept the "here's what the buttons do you retard" prompt because fuck you.
d5c9b7 No.16651151
>>16650990
>Icons are not too big. Hunting tiny icons is way more frustrating.
>Separate bottun for mage and priest spells because you can mutli-class, so you can have both on a single character and and access faster since the bottun is in the main UI.
>Faggot things setting character AI/scrips from a character screen is unintuitive
You stupid cunt. Try using your brain before you embarass yourself again.
39581a No.16651161
>>16651151
So was the atrocious spelling on purpose here or what?
2406e0 No.16651211
>>16648769
>chat window reports irrelevant info to a player in a singleplayer as shown as your pic
you can right click on the top of the chat log to disable server messages; the grey text is all serve messages
992d0d No.16651220
>>16649500
Infinity engine UI has gotten mixed responses for a good reason - it's not bad, but it's not good. It doesn't impede the game, but it doesn't assist, either. It looks nice, but there is a lot of wasted space.
It's a UI that was clearly designed to look attractive in the resolutions that were common back in the day, and it does that pretty well. It does have to be an attractive UI, because you'll be looking at it for a hundred hours. It certainly deserves credit for that, since it's hard to make a UI that is memorably appealing to look at.
I suppose the wasted space contributes to the UI looking nice, but it's always worth noting that there are 9 buttons that are infrequently pressed that take up the same amount of screen real estate as the 6 character portraits. You could easily shrink those buttons down to 60% of their size, cut some of the space between them, and double-stack them. That'd create space for a frame that could be used for frequently accessed spells, or a detailed analysis of who you currently have selected, or a dozen other things.
d793eb No.16651259
234b33 No.16651283
>>16651151
>Icons are not too big. Hunting tiny icons is way more frustrating.
I said icons were way too big, not that they should've been tiny
>Separate bottun for mage and priest spells because you can mutli-class
you can also just be a single class mage or priest and the other spellbook button will take up space that the character will never ever use. its even worse for characters that do not have spellcasting at all, like fighters or rogues. the spellbook is only used to pick which spells you memorize before resting, something you do out of combat you can cheese it with wonderous recall too but the game pauses when you go in the spellbook anyway
>Faggot things setting character AI/scrips from a character screen is unintuitive
your point? managing a party of 6, most of which do things other than wacking the enemy with a sword, gets pretty complicated. there's no need to add menu hunting on top of that if I want Garrick to do bard song and not auto attack with his crossbow when an enemy is in sight
>>16651220
It does look very pretty. I kind of like what baldur's gate does with the astronomical clock thingy in the bottom left. it shows you the day/night and hour if you mouseover but it also lets you easily check if the game is paused, because the gears stop dead. it is both pretty to look at, inmersive and practical
cc5e5c No.16651295
>>16651283
>your point? managing a party of 6, most of which do things other than wacking the enemy with a sword, gets pretty complicated.
if youre a single-digit iq monkey, yes
e85c1c No.16651374
>>16650990
>he uses the party AI in infinity engine games
>>16651283
>managing a party of 6, most of which do things other than wacking the enemy with a sword, gets pretty complicated
And this is why you get a pause button.
Honestly, the UI isn't all that great, but now you're just nitpicking.
At least NWN2 got it right.
39581a No.16651380
>>16651374
>At least NWN2 got it right.
This isn't the lol thread.
e85c1c No.16651404
>>16651380
>quickcast menu
>can set behaviours and give commands with ease
>drag and drop for feats and spells
>auto sort inventory button, etc
It's good.
The camera is fucking awful and the multiple character selection rarely works at all, but those are different problems.
234b33 No.16651427
>>16651404
>get quara in your party
>set her to spellcast overkill
>she runs to a group of bandits
>gets fucked by a bunch of attacks of opportunity
>casts fireblast, killing herself and most of your team in the process
quality ai
e85c1c No.16651433
>>16651427
AI =/= UI
And like I said, using the AI is not a smart idea in the first place.
You can turn it off for a reason. Which is a good option the UI lets you do.
3e11c1 No.16651766
>>16651686
I agree and it makes it even worse that they removed that feature in the other games. Guess it wasn't casual enough.
c02e11 No.16651807
>>16650999
>>16650990
>the pip-boy was already a shit idea but holy hell
I don't know why some developers think adding some dipshit completely mandatory animation each time I try to browse an essential game menu is a good idea. I can abstract my character fiddling around with some buttons, putting them there is enough, I don't need to have some 20 completely unnecessary seconds added to every menu interaction because every submenu has its own animation that needs to play before I can use it.
285855 No.16652459
>>16649950
Morrowind's menu system was the best. With one click you have your spells, stats, inventory and map wherever you want them. Every elderscrolls since has that shitty consolized menu with lengthy animations and sub menus that takes for ever to get to. The worst part is that the way they're programmed you can't mod them to be like morrowind's system.
3eed5e No.16653137
>>16652459
Is there a fucking keyring mod or something for morrowind? All those keys trigger my autism.
64f7c7 No.16653150
>>16649920
>using a high resolution mod on a 2D isometric game
Why do people do this? The game is designed around you having a certain viewing radius, increasing that feels like cheating.
b0e394 No.16653166
>>16652459
You didn't even mention the ability to resize all the windows individually and 'pin them' so they remain open after you press the menu button again.
622b49 No.16653172
>>16653137
Yeah, actually, there is.
8d42b5 No.16653181
System Shock 1 will always be a good example of this
4c05cf No.16653642
>>16653181
horrid, i really hate ufo's too
110005 No.16653706
>>16653166
You can pin menu windows? How?
b67fd5 No.16653819
>>16653181
how is it a bad ui? what because you have a relatively small viewport? It at least fits with the theme.
e23462 No.16653883
>>16650142
Skyrim is the worst UI I've ever seen in a videogame.
d430b9 No.16653919
06c4f9 No.16654597
>>16648679
Aesthetically it was kinda bad, but functionally it was excellent and extremely responsive. You didn't even need to use hotkeys for spells at all if you wanted to use the ring menus and knew where all the options were positioned. Way better than NWN2's which was slow as fuck in comparison and buried in linear menus.
5da34e No.16654738
How has DF not been mentioned? Unless I missed. This game has one of the most notorious UIs of all time. Controls to navigate up or down or select aspects of a menu change depending on which menu you're in. A good example is the custom stockpile settings menu. There are broad categories of items, subcategories then sometimes further refined categories within the subcategory. This is all to define what the custom stockpile will hold. Each layer of categories has different key binds to pick items to include or exclude from the stockpile. They are all different and they even use different words for doing the same thing. The first layer let's you enable or disable, you then go into the enabled category to forbid or allow or something like that, furthermore you can then select with the enter key more specific items. Why not use the enter key and select for all levels of the menu? Some menus let search with the s key, some let you filter with the f key. Both functions do the same thing. Some menus don't let you do any searching or filtering. The unit screen has no filter or sort option which means it becomes essentially unusable at higher populations without dwarf therapist.
856e55 No.16654792
>>16654738
In DF's defense: the fact that it's a one man job means that fixing the UI for each release would slow down the rate of releases by a fair amount.
64f7c7 No.16654800
>>16654792
True, he's too busy making tranny dwarves.
06c4f9 No.16654826
>>16654792
It's less about that and more about the fact that I don't understand how he can continue to test his own game without getting pissed off at his UI. Really it's the dwarf/job management that weighs it down, and Dwarf Therapist being a literal spreadsheet as an improvement says a lot.
ac81cf No.16654977
>>16654826
you get used to it.
be5bd4 No.16655000
>>16654826
Maybe he was smart and created lots of unit tests right from the start, and each time he adds a new update, he creates the necessary tests and runs the entire suite, if everything passes, then he can release it, otherwise he goes back and fixes it.
5da34e No.16655005
>>16654792
I really don't understand how is menu navigation philosophy can differ so much. The z menu (I don't remember what it's called) has a main page with other pages behind it detailing certain things. The military menu is literal autism when it could've just been setup in a similar way to the z menu. I don't care about the designation or building menu but anything that's more administratively complex than a dig order will involve a menu that has entirely unique setup than any other complex menu. Some consistency would be nice. I'm not trying to rant its just very sloppy game design. Honestly, this anon >>16654800 has the right of it. It seems like he'll implement the most autistic complex thing and then just not care about the actual game portion of DF. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing in all cases as I think many people seem to like DF for how esoteric the gameplay seems for lack of a better word. At least initially.
That and no other game models air friction around a 10 ft. Flaming dung beetle made of Flux stone as it levitates and eye lasers your whole base.
14ca0b No.16655527
>>16650142
Who says you can't fuck 2D?
fd8c3f No.16655544
>>16655527
God apparently, since he didn't make them real
267a39 No.16655561
>>16655005
>It seems like he'll implement the most autistic complex thing and then just not care about the actual game portion of DF
That's exactly what is going on. The enjoyable game that still existed a few years back was a complete accident in the sea of pointless world generation autism.
f5147f No.16655595
Vampire the Masquerade Redemption.
05e2ae No.16655619
>>16654792
Its not like they are coming out fast anyway
05e2ae No.16655623
>>16654826
>I don't understand how he can continue to test his own game without getting pissed off at his UI
The answer to this is that he doesn't test his own game
There have been many releases where basic shit is completely broken or causes CTDs that stay that way for months.
28cafd No.16655912
>>16653819
The fact that weapons, grenades and patches are in a separate part of your inventory from every other item, that you have no indication of what can and can't be used in the other items besides trying them yourself.
The entire way that the logs and emails are stored and accessed too, making it far more convoluted than it had to be.
It's easier to understand when you compare with the second game which probably spoiled a lot of players. I'm willing to bet most of the criticism the first gets is from those that liked the second game and decided to check it's "prequel" while most of the praise comes from those that played it in the correct order.
You compare the simple to use and manipulate inventory of the second game to the multiple different screens in the first and it's a clear improvement.
You compare the way logs are stored in clear categories on their own section that doesn't interfere with the main functions of your menu in the section (as well as a key to read the latest unread log) with the first, and it's also a clear improvement.
I've tried both and I much prefer the second, although I do which that Stamina, Stress and the hacking minigames were present there too. The first two would be a better way to handle psychic abilities than "psi-points", while the hacking minigames where more interesting than the RNG grid that modifying\hacking\repairing was in the second.
28cafd No.16655919
>>16651427
You could turn on Concentration so she didn't provoke AoO everytime she casts.
You could also not make her run ahead of the party since she doesn't have any reason to ever cast spells in melee range (and even then, you could use your familiar for that).
There were sections of the AI Programming for this specific thing too if I recall correctly.
And even then, you could just press Pause and issue specific commands for specific situations. The AI settings are for automatic basic bitch stuff like buffs and healing, not for positioning.
>>16651686
I wish they gave that kind of stuff to the main character as well. Casting buffs on self or party members all the time isn't fun, putting it on a timer so it happens automatically when available and targets the closest un-buffed party member is much better.
Same shit for looting, it should be a basic feature that, after all the danger has been handled or on your command, your companions should automatically loot the area for anything valuable and report on it as well as anything else interesting that they find. Manually clicking containers is boring.
fd4837 No.16655942
Deus Ex 2 and the PS2 port of the first game have some terrible, terrible UIs.
fd4837 No.16655946
>>16655942
I forgot to mention that this DS2 looks like this for most of the game.
Still terrible.
39581a No.16655948
>>16651807
FF13 probably takes the cake on this considering the combat is actually supposed to be fast paced but you constantly get interrupted with having to wait for half a second long menu animations whenever you try to do anything. It's why people say the game plays itself because if you actually try to do things manually you get fucked over hard.
6c8d6e No.16656254
>>16655912
agreed on the logs. Though I just accept the clunkiness for what it is because I know it's an old game. Plus the gui being bad adds to the slower pace of the game, unlike other fps of the time which were just run in room and kill everything without thinking. You kinda have to think ahead if you don't wanna die while fiddling about with the menu. And no I haven't played ss2. Good post anon, I wasn't expecting anything.
64f7c7 No.16656331
>>16655912
>while the hacking minigames where more interesting than the RNG grid that modifying\hacking\repairing was in the second.
You have to consider that SS1 is primarily an adventure/FPS/puzzle game while SS2 is primarily an RPG. The hacking in SS1 is based on player skill, while the hacking in SS2 is based on character skill.
e11b74 No.16659809
>>16654826
>I don't understand how he can continue to test his own game without getting pissed off at his UI
It's PRECISELY because it's his own UI that he doesn't get pissed at it. He uses it all the time, so he doesn't realize how fucked up it is since he's used to it.
Imagine someone who owns a car that is really old and totally fucked up, and he's owned it for ten years. It has all sorts of bizarre malfunctions. You have to jiggle the key in a certain way to unlock the door; there's two different deadman-switches that have to be activated to start the ignition; the steering wheel is off by about fifteen degrees to the right; it's a manual transmission and third gear and reverse are switched somehow; you always have to roll up the left-side rear window in order for the radio to work, but it's the right-side rear window for stations which are prime numbers; you have to wiggle the control knob five times to get the windshield wipers to function, but if you do it six times it'll also start the defrosters.
Now, this guy is going to be able to perform all this nonsense perfectly fine as if the car is an extension of his own body. But if you try it, even after this is explained, you'll foul things up and you might even crash. Nobody would argue that the way the car works is reasonable, but he WON'T EVEN NOTICE.
fc1372 No.16660205
Fact: the whole "glorious PC gaming master race" meme started as a riff at The Witcher's abstruse interface.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0dXtOVi2yo
06c4f9 No.16660315
>>16659809
>It's PRECISELY because it's his own UI that he doesn't get pissed at it. He uses it all the time, so he doesn't realize how fucked up it is since he's used to it.
No, I get that. That's why I'm actually not that bothered by all the obtuse building hotkeys, because I know a lot of them. The thing that really gums my intestines up is the dwarf interface for seeing who's doing what. It's literally just a one dimensional menu which becomes a never ending scroll of Urists once you get a good sized fortress going, and the game becomes virtually unmanageable around the 150-200 dwarf mark unless you have Dwarf Therapist. His UI design is fundamentally flawed and it's extremely easy to see how flawed it is if you've used Microsoft Excel. That sort of UI design is exactly why Skyrim's UI is shit – your inventory is a never-ending scroll of items instead of a 2D grid of item icons like in Morrowind. Oblivion's interface wasn't that great either, but at least it showed more information than just a fucking name in the menu screen so you didn't have to highlight an item just to see any information about it.
As a programmer myself (and I have made a couple of games as amateur projects) I'd never be able to live with myself for making an interface like that where any reasonable player would want to see a good summary of all their dwarves and their current jobs at once.
06c4f9 No.16660324
>>16654977
I got used to it, I've put hundreds of hours in DF, but it is objectively inefficient. Like I said an infinite menu is a fucking terrible way to have to organize your dwarves. Playing the game for longer only makes the flaws more apparent, not less.
fc1372 No.16660325
>>16659809
>developer doesn't even realize his interface is an abomination
That sounds familiar…
06c4f9 No.16664812
>>16660325
RetroArch does have way too many fucking menus, but once you remember where they are using it is quite convenient on the whole. Just like all good *nix autism software, it has a learning curve.
939453 No.16664933
>>16653137
>games allows you to drop every item
>means you don't stuck with broken quest imtes and junk
>not collecting keys in your house
Confirmed autism pretty much?
Also pic related is what the living fuck? WHAT THE FUCK WERE THEY THINKING? All of this nigger tier jewish shit for rotating the motherfucking claws? A feature which barely used? They thought this is good for puzzles? In a game where they forget to add the puzzles? TODD YOU NIGGER NIGGER NIGGER NIGGER MANLET NIGGER! Choke on Hines dick you faggot!
39581a No.16664985
>>16660205
The fact that anyone found that game to be overly complex even back then is just all the proof you need to know people absolutely are getting dumber.
e0ca33 No.16666619
>>16664985
>>16660205
People find the first Witcher complex or obtrusive? I literally just started playing it and nothing about it is hard to understand at all.
31e9b0 No.16666719
>>16649078
I actually used to use that UI and found it to be the least cancerous one of all
1e89c5 No.16666771
>>16666619
I have no idea what they're talking about.
0fd398 No.16666816
>>16664933
>people are still mad about having to rotate a claw to solve a puzzle when you get a note telling you to rotate the claw to solve a puzzle
39581a No.16667211
>>16666771
>>16666619
Only (((game reviewers))) and bottom of the barrel gamefaqs morons ever did, but back in 07 they controlled the narrative which allowed it to be forgotten until 2 came out and suddenly all the competition couldn't defended even as a joke.
942ce8 No.16667230
>>16649078
>>16649360
MMOs and ASSFAGGOTS are the worst. It's all mathfags who only care about optimizing their gameplay, and don't give a fuck about artstyle, fun, or anything. Anyone who likes this shit should just step away from the keyboard and go find a rubix cube. No wonder these games attract South Korean autists
39581a No.16667287
>>16667230
Even they don't seem to care about those games anymore because any theorycrafting I've seen recently involves flat out wrong math and just being complete dipshits while some obvious developer plant comes in and tells everyone "okay you fucking monkeys this is the meta. now play it or get banned".
939453 No.16667319
>>16666816
>implying rotate shit is a puzzle
Are you Bioshock 3 retarded?
f50d4e No.16667358
>>16667319
wtf was that puzzle in the beginning?
how the fuck was Bioshock 2 better designed that this trash?
what the fuck was Ken Levine thinking?
39581a No.16667457
>>16667358
>what the fuck was Ken Levine thinking?
He wasn't.
0fd398 No.16668153
>>16667319
>>16667358
>>16667457
Its like they wanted to have some kind of fun and immersive slow-paced adventure game opening where you gotta explore the lighthouse and find clues but decided the walking cutscene that followed directly after was too trying to FPS-monkeys' patience enough as it is.
b47803 No.16668169
>>16667358
It's a smart game for smart gamers
64f7c7 No.16668170
>>16667319
What could it mean?