Some Suggestions about Menu Bars

[PsychoBlonde]

Baldur's Gate had a pretty good interface. Not great, but pretty good. However, I'd like to submit a few suggestions for possible improvements/new directions.

 

1. Let us pick what menu bar goes where, and also resize 'em if possible. There are a lot of new monitor sizes and shapes and the layout that works well on one type of screen is not the layout that works well on other types of screens.

 

2. Let us have a single hotbar where we can put abilities from ALL of our party members, so instead of always having to select that companion, figure out where the ability we want is on their bar, then click that ability, we can just, boom, click the ability right on the, um, the consolidation hotbar. Heck, you could make extra slots on the Consolidation Hotbar be, like, a reward of some kind.

 

3. Try to minimize required clicks as much as possible. It is much, much, MUCH faster to rapidly cycle through and/or choose abilities with the keyboard than clicking icons on the screen with the mouse. With Baldur's Gate, for instance, in order to cast a spell that wasn't in one of your "quickspell" slots (and you got VERY few of these if you were a multi-classed caster, maybe even ZERO), you had to click on the cast spell icon to bring up the menu, then click on the spell, then click where you wanted to target it. Pause-and-play is great but that doesn't mean I want to have to pause *every time* I want to cast a spell or use an ability just because it takes me 15 seconds to do all the clicking.

 

4. Formation moving--instead of having each companion path to the endpoint of their move and take whatever wonkus route to get there the pathing algorithm decides, have them try to *stay in formation* with whatever character is the "main character" of that formation, and all move together. What's the point of having these formations if by the time your party gets halfway across the screen they're completely out of order again? Designing the actual areas with this in mind would be really, really stellar, as well. Everybody remember those horrible narrow-corridor dungeons in Baldur's Gate? Remember having to move your companions one. at. a. time. to navigate the halls? Wouldin't it be AWESOME if you DIDNT HAVE TO DO THAT?!?! YES.

[Audiocide]

Yes, yes, yes, and yes.

 

And I think it's pretty much established, but I'd like to add: proper PC interface with small fonts, wide open windows of clickable icons, and drag-and-drop. Also support for scroll wheel in everything that's scrollable. None of those idiotic, rotating wheel, joystick interfaces, please.

Edited September 17, 2012 by Audiocide

[PsychoBlonde]

Well, I don't think we have to worry TOO much about the interface being designed for a game controller instead of keyboard/and/mouse since they aren't releasing it (Thank goodness) for the Xbox or Playstation or Wii.

 

It's not that I'm opposed to those platforms, I just think that trying to shoehorn every conceivable type of game into every conceivable type of platform is really limiting and/or schizophrenia-producing.

[Gurkog]

I just hope they don't try to add an awesome button.

[Audiocide]

I just hope they don't try to add an awesome button.

 

Is it that one from Mass Effect 2 & 3 that does everything? I think that would be awesome!

[PsychoBlonde]

I'd rather have distinct buttons for (most) of the actions . . . if there are two context points very close together you usually wind up doing what you didn't want to do.

[HarTstaRx]

1. Awesome idea.

 

2. I really don't want to have a lot of slots for abilities. I prefer a layout where I have to choose which ones are the ones that fits the current situation. Having extra space on the layout reduces the choices we can make.

 

3. It would be great if they develop a system focused on small task or small encounters (few enemies or weak enemies) where you can make fast decisions based on a custom menu that fits the situation. For example:

 

We are going to open a door but we see there is a trap. You pause the game with the mouse focusing the door with the trap and a menu pops up with choices to disable the trap, destroy the door at a safe distance or unlock the door. You take a decision and the games resumes with the best guy that fits the task taking actions.

 

 

 

With fast, custom and 'fits the situation' I was having in mind the hot menu from Maya 3D. Was great!

 

4. A stronger IA for paths, routes and formations would be nice yes.