NWN2 Interface Feedback and Requests

[roshan]

Ive just started playing NWN2 and the interface is quite clunky and difficult to wield. I am starting this thread so that suggestions for improving the interface can be given to Obsidian. This thread is not for bitching and whining about the interface(unless accompanied by something constructive and useful) or for discussing anything else. The following are improvements that I suggest:

 

1. On a laptop, the game is completely unplayable in isometric perspective. I am talking about the locked on the character camera, not the free roaming one. This is because the WSAD keys are mapped to movement and the direction keys are mapped to the camera controls. For right handed people using laptops, it is impossible to use the arrow keys. Thus, the camera needs to be moved using the mouse. But it is impossible to move the camera with the mouse(which requires the cursor to be at the edge of the screen) and also click around to move your character. I havent been able to find any options for changing the keyboard commands in the game options menu.

 

2. Character movement uzing the mouse is quite unresponsive. There is a noticeable delay when I click on something and when the character actually starts moving. This is very annoying and is a real immersion killer.

 

3. In the inventory, clicking on an inventory item does absolutely nothing, which really makes no sense as it is not utilizing the capability of the mouse. In order to move items around, they must be dragged. This is really quite difficult and time consuming. Why cant we just click on the items and then click on where we want to move them like in Diablo 2 or the IE games? Clicking to move items has been a standard interface feature in all major titles for years now. How in the world did Obsidian suddenly decide that the items need to be dragged around when the other method has been tried, tested and approved by pretty much the entire planets PC RPG gaming population?

 

4. PLEASE design an option where players can disable zooming in during dialogues and can talk in whatever view they have chosen. This is natural in KOTOR because it is the default game view. However zooming in and then back out again is quite irritating in isometric perspective. Furthermore the faces of the characters are blank and emotionless and the animations are quite horrid so I really dont understand what the hell the idea behind forced zoomed in dialogue was.

[Volourn]

2. Rarely notice this; but ti does happen from time to time.

 

3. Right click the item for various options like examine, drop, and equip. At stores, do the same to sell. I do wish, however, they would an an option to transfer items that way to other character instead of being forced to drag it.

 

4. I agree. The 'cinematic' dialogue annoys me in this game for some reason. It doesn't in the KOTOR series. Weird; but an option to disable it and keep it 100% NWN style would be cool.

 

 

 

My thoughts:

 

1. The ability to put ANYTHING in the quickbar including spotaneous spells, feats (all), skills, duel weapon combinations, weapon + shield combinations, and everything else.

 

2. The ability to put a box around the entire party and move them instead of them simply following. Would be useful when I want to move to the same place and not have to pause and control each character individually. Useful when starting a battle.

 

3. An option to make sure the camera view stays exactly where I want it - no 'random' movemnents. It's annoying when I find a 'perfect' view for me only for it to be ruined moments later when the camera decides to play God.

 

4. An option to boot annoying whiney gits from the party.

 

5. The ability to right click on a quick bar slot to add or remove something that way.

 

6. Quick spell bar ability to shrink or grow in size.

 

7. An easier way to tell what combat modes are active or not. If there is, I'm missing it.

 

 

Overall, the interface is pretty good.

[Oerwinde]

I'm not really annoyed at most of those, I do wish their was an option to invert the mouse for camera control though. And I guess the needing to drag inventory items was annoying at first, but I think I can get used to it. I played for like 2 or 3 hours last night and just couldn't get used to the camera though.

[Volourn]

You can, I believe. Options screen are your friend.

[Calax]

when are they going to move the boards back here?

[roshan]

3. An option to make sure the camera view stays exactly where I want it - no 'random' movemnents. It's annoying when I find a 'perfect' view for me only for it to be ruined moments later when the camera decides to play God.

 

I agree, I have been having this problem as well. When the camera is behind a house or an object it suddenly zooms in. I think there should be an option to disable this "feature". I would rather have the houses and trees block my view and adjust the camera myself so that I can adjust it to a position that I want to view the game from.

 

Hopefully this isnt due to technical limitations and Obsidian can solve this problem.

 

Actually this auto moving thing and the inability to map camera movement to WSAD are the only problems I have with the camera. I dont really have a problem with the camera controls, the camera is fine as long as it is locked on the character.

 

But I tried the free roaming camera and it was a mess. Im going to check out the other camera modes later to see what they are like.

 

2. The ability to put a box around the entire party and move them instead of them simply following. Would be useful when I want to move to the same place and not have to pause and control each character individually. Useful when starting a battle.

 

This would be great. Its probably too big a change to implement though.

 

And I guess the needing to drag inventory items was annoying at first, but I think I can get used to it. I played for like 2 or 3 hours last night and just couldn't get used to the camera though.

 

I assume that I will also get used to dragging in the inventory eventually. But I dont think that we should have to, interfaces should be designed to be convenient for players. Clicking to pick up and then clicking again to drop requires much less energy from the players than holding the mouse button down, which will eventually stress and tire the finger. And I think that this shouldnt be too difficult to implement.

Edited November 3, 2006 by roshan

[roshan]

A few more things:

 

1. NWN2 is incompatible with mouse pointer trails(at least on my system). When I had pointer trails enabled, the cursor would not show up in the game, only the trails!

 

2. When you save a game over the same slot, you need to type the name in again. This is quite inconvenient as players may just want to save with the old name or might be too lazy to type the name again. The old name of the save file should appear automatically in the box for saving games.

 

3. NWN2 needs a button for highlighting all the interactive objects on the map. I was pressing alt and tab and was honestly surprised when neither of them highlighted the chests and other objects. I think that this is pretty much a standard feature in all "A" games that have isometric perspectives. (please correct me if this feature is already in and I just dont know what button to press)

[Deraldin]

3. NWN2 needs a button for highlighting all the interactive objects on the map. I was pressing alt and tab and was honestly surprised when neither of them highlighted the chests and other objects. I think that this is pretty much a standard feature in all "A" games that have isometric perspectives. (please correct me if this feature is already in and I just dont know what button to press)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Try holding down "Z"

[roshan]

3. NWN2 needs a button for highlighting all the interactive objects on the map. I was pressing alt and tab and was honestly surprised when neither of them highlighted the chests and other objects. I think that this is pretty much a standard feature in all "A" games that have isometric perspectives. (please correct me if this feature is already in and I just dont know what button to press)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Try holding down "Z"

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Thanks, will do.

[Junai]

Is there a way to make the camera rotate faster? I've set it to max rotation-speed, and I still think it's slow. Also, using the arrow-keys to zoom in and out is very slow. I'm sure this could be fixed rather easily.

 

J.

[Draikin]

- I cant assign my mouse buttons 3-4-5 to game control functions, I use the free camera and i'd like to be able to use the backward/forward buttons to rotate the camera.

 

- Make everything bigger please, I'm playing at 1280x960 on a 19" display and everything is too small.

[Diamond]

1. On a laptop, the game is completely unplayable in isometric perspective. I am talking about the locked on the character camera, not the free roaming one. This is because the WSAD keys are mapped to movement and the direction keys are mapped to the camera controls. For right handed people using laptops, it is impossible to use the arrow keys. Thus, the camera needs to be moved using the mouse. But it is impossible to move the camera with the mouse(which requires the cursor to be at the edge of the screen) and also click around to move your character. I havent been able to find any options for changing the keyboard commands in the game options menu.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If this works as in NWN1, try holding mouse wheel and rotate the camera.

[Pidesco]

3. NWN2 needs a button for highlighting all the interactive objects on the map. I was pressing alt and tab and was honestly surprised when neither of them highlighted the chests and other objects. I think that this is pretty much a standard feature in all "A" games that have isometric perspectives. (please correct me if this feature is already in and I just dont know what button to press)

 

Try holding down "Z"

 

Thanks, will do.

 

You should thank me.

 

And I don't even have the game yet.

[roshan]

BTW, I think that the fast running during combat should be disabled. Just leave running at the normal speed. Right now it feels too frantic and reminds me of Lionheart. Its also too easy, not difficult or tactical enough.

 

Compared to what I have experienced so far, Diablo 2 features tactical combat.

Edited November 4, 2006 by roshan

[Volourn]

Combat is nothing like LH. Combat is pretty much like NWN1. The problem with the combat is that it's relatively easy for the most part. There's still aq lot of tattics to use.

Edited November 4, 2006 by Volourn

[roshan]

Combat is nothing like LH. Combat is pretty much like NWN1. The problem with the combat is that it's relatively easy for the most part. There's still aq lot of tattics to use.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

If it was easy then why would you need tactics?

[Big Bottom]

My 2 pence.

 

1. I really wish the Power Attack and Flurry of Blows toggles would stay on until I tell them to. Right now they seem to reset after every fight which is a royal pain in the arse.

 

2. The zoom in/out needs to be sped up. It's painfully slow at the moment...is there a setting for this I'm missing?

 

3. A select-all button for party control would be very nice for mopping up the last bad guys in a fight.

 

I'm sure I had a couple of other suggestions but I can't remember them right now. Other than that I think this game gets a lot better the deeper into it you get.

[Volourn]

Roshan, because the tatics are available. They're just not needed often.

 

 

BB: It seesm random. Sometimes the combat modes stay on or come back on in the next fight. Sometimes, you have to reclick them.

[Junai]

Some observations around combat and movement:

 

NWN2 is a very good game, no doubt about it, but if I'm allowed to criticize just a tad, I'd like to say a few things. I simply think combat and movement in general is more cumbersome and slow than it was in NWN1 (*ducks to avoid eggs and tomatoes*). In NWN1 it flowed pretty good. A few things that makes it feel more sluggish and hard to play:

 

 

*) You click on an enemy, a friendly npc, or an item on the ground, and the pc often runs past it, stops 5 yards *behind* the clicked object. Then he/she either turns around to loot/communicate, or you have to click on the npc/foe/item yet another time to make the pc react. A bit clumpsy imho.

 

*) For better flow, you'd need to be able to zoom out more, and grab the whole party in a "box" by dragging your mouse across the party to "select all". Here you have to click on each and every character. Sometimes they stay behind, whether you choose "puppet-mode" on/off doesn't seem to matter at all. At least not for me. I don't know if this is an AI thing I have to change, but I've tried with the puppet mode on and off, and the chars are just left behind either way.

 

*) Slow camera-rotation, even when set to max. You can hold the mouse-wheel button down and move the mouse around, but then you move the cam up/down/side-to-side in an overly fast and rather confusing manner. I hope they can add faster side-to-side cam movement using the arrow keys.

 

*) Animations are simply not as good as in NWN1 imho. Graphics are way better, but animation suffers. It looks as if it's turn-based. The characters march with high knee-lifts (just looks a bit silly), then they stop abruptly in front of (or rather, 5 yards behind) the enemy. Then they turn around quickly. Also, there is a lot of funny stuff going on in mass-combat. Some weird moves and turns you didn't have in NWN1. Graphics doesn't count for anything if the games feels slow and sluggish (imo). I've spoken to a few other persons who play other, faster games, like WoW, and they feel the same way.

 

I'm going to continue playing, but I'm not hooked. Not so far. I love the close-up dialogue modes, graphics, music and storyline. I just think the interface, inventory-graphics, cam and animations are a bit below par. I can't explain exactly what it is, but you'll notice it if you load a NWN1 game and play it for 3 minutes, then re-load NWN2 and play for 3 min. You'll probably feel the same way, that NWN2 is a bit staccato in comparison. Btw it's not my computer, I tried it on a high-end computer as well.

 

A solution for me would be: more zoom-out, a select-all-drag-box option like in the Infinity-games, and a quicker-camera regarding side-to-side movement.

 

 

Just my 5c.

 

J.

[roshan]

My 2 pence.

 

1.  I really wish the Power Attack and Flurry of Blows toggles would stay on until I tell them to.  Right now they seem to reset after every fight which is a royal pain in the arse.

 

2.  The zoom in/out needs to be sped up.  It's painfully slow at the moment...is there a setting for this I'm missing?

 

3.  A select-all button for party control would be very nice for mopping up the last bad guys in a fight.

 

I'm sure I had a couple of other suggestions but I can't remember them right now.  Other than that I think this game gets a lot better the deeper into it you get.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I just started using power attack and I have the same problem.... I think its switches off whenever you click on a non hostile character.

 

So far Ive gotten used to a lot of stuff I complained about earlier, the exception to this is the really fast combat(almost as bad as Lionheart) and also having to type the name again everytime I save. I wonder how this brilliant idea of making characters run at light speed during combat came about!

 

Another suggestion: There is a menu showing all the different screens that can be toggled by clicking on the icon at the bottom left of the screen. It would be very convenient for players if there was a way to toggle this menu so that it shows all the time. Of course the text would take up too much of the screen, so only the icons should show. Also as far as I can tell right clicking on a companions portrait does nothing. It would be nice to have a menu pop up that would enable us to choose to open up the characters spellbook, inventory and character screen after right clicking on their portraits.

[Oerwinde]

I dunno if anyone else has encountered this bug, but with the free camera mode, sometimes when I'm rotating the camera the whole screen goes black. To fix it I have to go into a different camera mode and move my character to a new location, because once it goes black, you can't do anything in free camera mode.

[Ellester]

3.  A select-all button for party control would be very nice for mopping up the last bad guys in a fight.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'll second that

 

Also, when you save and you doubleclick on a previous save, get rid of the second pop-up making you put in a new name for a previous save. Why must you put in a nme when ther already is one? A pet peeve so far.

[Deraldin]

I would personally like for the store inventories to be cleaned up a little bit. I'd like them to be able to stack everything in the store inventories so you don't have to scroll past 20 acid flasks or 20 alchemists fire or even those 12 mundane short swords I sold to the merchant.

[Spider]

1.  I really wish the Power Attack and Flurry of Blows toggles would stay on until I tell them to.  Right now they seem to reset after every fight which is a royal pain in the arse.

 

Agreed. Worst one is defensive casting though, I have a hell of a time to even get characters in that mode (and it includes pausing every other second and clicking it until the activated message appears) and then they leave it way too easily. In theory it makes sense to remove it as soon as there are no enemies next to the character (which is what I think it does) but if more are inbound it makes it a pain in the behind to get it back on again. All modes should be on until turned off.

 

2.  The zoom in/out needs to be sped up.  It's painfully slow at the moment...is there a setting for this I'm missing?

 

There is a setting for this and with it at max, the zoom is happens at good speeds.

[roshan]

Is there a way to put notes on the map in NWN2? If not then I think that this feature should be included in in a possible future expansion pack.

 

I was also wondering whether we could have more detailed information in the character sheet, kind of like what Icewind Dale 2 had.

 

Another nice interface feature would be a button that would quickly toggle follow the leader mode on and off for all characters(in addition to a selection rectangle). Right now, I can choose character A and broadcast stand your ground to characters B and C. But when I select character B, character A starts running to B! It can be quite tiresome sorting this out.