Update #54: Art Update - Work IS in Progress!

[Lephys]

I still find it odd people think on a 16x9 display ratio that a vertical ui is best.  It isn't.  In fact.... it sucks.  It isn't ergonomic, there is 1.7 times more horizontal space than vertical so no a vertical ui DOES take up more space, it isn't even good to look at as it results in lots of screen scanning and potentially looking farther away from the action.  Even if you put the ui in a corner at least then it is still grouped with everything in one spot and the corner moving left or right will still put your eyes and mouse closer on average to the actual on screen action than having it on the far left or right side of the screen.

I'm confused...

 

There's a bountiful amount of horizontal space, and significantly less vertical space, so it's actually more prudent to shrink the inherently smaller dimension than it is to shrink the blatantly larger one?

 

"Oh, you need some furniture? Well, I've got like 800 couches, but I've only got like 2 armchairs. You'd better take one of my armchairs."

 

Let's just do math.

 

Let's say the screen's 7x5. That's a screen area of 35. If you cut a unit off the vertical size (slice along the length of the screen's top or bottom), you get 7x4. That's an area of 28. Going back, if you instead slice the same-size unit off the width of the screen, you get 6x5. That's an area of 30.

 

I'm not seeing how shrinking the smaller dimension is more beneficial than shrinking the larger one, if you've got to shrink one or the other.

[DeadOfKnight]

I personally prefer floating portraits:

 

 

Uses some of that widescreen real estate and looks nice and clean.

 

 

And you've got more functional area down below for extra buttons, etc.

[Blarghagh]

Wow, the team doesn't have to do anything. You guys practically design the game for them!

 

 

...except every single UI you guys posted has been completely dreadful and I hope they never even see it. This is why community feedback is a terrible idea.

Edited August 11, 2013 by TrueNeutral

[Hassat Hunter]

You forgot to explain why.

It's hard to explain taste; but here's my attempt...

 

* Circled portraits with small circles. No, give my my portrait BG-style, just a rectangle.

* Portraits 'float' and so do icons next to them.

* Seperate twirly stamina bar. Again, I rather have it be a flat line if there needs to be one than shapy and floaty.

* Ugly wasted space top and bottom to finish off floaty half-circle display, waste of room. No need for that if just like BG.

* Wasted space bottomleft.

* Combat log integrated into fixed HUD, taking screenspace, always.

* Actual usable items too small compared to major waste of space fluff graphics.

* Lots of wasted space on "journal", "inventory" etc circle.

 

That's about all I get now looking at it...

[Lephys]

You do realize that space isn't automatically "wasted" simply because it isn't being used for mechanical function, don't you? And that graphics aren't "fluff" just because they aren't actually necessary for a UI to function.

 

The Graphic Design curriculum is often referred to as "Graphic Communication." This is because our brain processes graphics and graphical aspects (colors, shapes, contrast, lines, etc.) involuntarily. You don't have to know anything about art for your brain to process aesthetics. So, even while you're voluntarily deciding you'd rather have all the "unwasted" space you can, and gauges and indicators that are only as complex as functional necessity dictates, that doesn't change the fact that the aesthetic properties and design of that interface alter the extent to which your brain automatically separates/relates the UI to the rest of the screen/gameplay.

 

If you don't like the design, cool. That doesn't make UI design, itself, a frivolous thing.

[J. Trudel]

You do realize that space isn't automatically "wasted" simply because it isn't being used for mechanical function, don't you? And that graphics aren't "fluff" just because they aren't actually necessary for a UI to function.

 

The Graphic Design curriculum is often referred to as "Graphic Communication." This is because our brain processes graphics and graphical aspects (colors, shapes, contrast, lines, etc.) involuntarily. You don't have to know anything about art for your brain to process aesthetics. So, even while you're voluntarily deciding you'd rather have all the "unwasted" space you can, and gauges and indicators that are only as complex as functional necessity dictates, that doesn't change the fact that the aesthetic properties and design of that interface alter the extent to which your brain automatically separates/relates the UI to the rest of the screen/gameplay.

 

If you don't like the design, cool. That doesn't make UI design, itself, a frivolous thing.

 

I do agree with that, UI design has a lot to do with finding balance between aesthetics and function. Functionial and ugly is mood killing, and nice but hard to use is gamebreaking. 

Edited August 12, 2013 by J. Trudel

[Lephys]

Yeah. I mean, obviously the functionality of the UI is more important than the aesthetic design. But the aesthetics are simply less important, rather than not-at-all important.

 

Plus, I find myself with questions (in reading Hassat's post, and others with similar sentiments here) such as "If you're pointing out all the things that take up unnecessary amounts of real-estate, why insist on square/rectangular portraits when a circle/oval actually takes up less space than a rectangle?"

 

Again, subjective taste isn't a bad thing. There's no wrong way to inherently feel about something. But then there's no need to even put things you purely-subjectively dislike in the running for quality ratings.

 

And I'm not saying Hassat just subjectively dislikes stuff and that's it. Just, I'd like to know the reasoning/basis for why those listed things about that layout are inherently bad/fluff/waste.

[Hassat Hunter]

I realise not all space unused is wasted. But for me, on that UI messup, it really is.

why insist on square/rectangular portraits when a circle/oval actually takes up less space than a rectangle?

Because if at the side of the screen you make a circle, that automatically makes it 'floating', something on the sides has to be there to make it a circle, unless you want a half-circle at the side, with half-missing, which would look horrible (I think all can agree on that).

So a rectangle would fit the side of the screen more, since it would 'hug' the screenside, since that's flat. Ie. the way BG1/BG2 and IWD1 did it. A system I definitely find more aestethically pleasing than all the circles and float and whatnot modern RPG's throw about to stay minimalistic. And not immersive at all.

Edited August 12, 2013 by Hassat Hunter

[tajerio]

So a rectangle would fit the side of the screen more, since it would 'hug' the screenside, since that's flat. Ie. the way BG1/BG2 and IWD1 did it. A system I definitely find more aestethically pleasing than all the circles and float and whatnot modern RPG's throw about to stay minimalistic. And not immersive at all.

 

 

I've never found that a UI positively or negatively affected my immersion.  Frankly, unless the function is irritating I hardly notice the aesthetic at all.

[rjshae]

Personally I think the whole mouse travel issue in nonsense in a game with a pause feature and hotkeys, as is the narrative of clicking on the portraits to select characters.

 

No, a single mouse movement doesn't matter. But when you're in combat with six characters, the character panels located on side, and the actions along the bottom... you can end up with a lot of screen traverses per combat round. You move to select a character, move down to switch to bow, move up to select the target, move to select another character, move down to pick a spell, move up to choose the target... It all adds up to lower efficiency and greater tedium.

[Lephys]

Because if at the side of the screen you make a circle, that automatically makes it 'floating', something on the sides has to be there to make it a circle, unless you want a half-circle at the side, with half-missing, which would look horrible (I think all can agree on that).

So a rectangle would fit the side of the screen more, since it would 'hug' the screenside, since that's flat. Ie. the way BG1/BG2 and IWD1 did it. A system I definitely find more aestethically pleasing than all the circles and float and whatnot modern RPG's throw about to stay minimalistic. And not immersive at all.

*Shrug*. Fair enough. I just... unless you butt all the portrait rectangles right up against one another (which actually starts affecting functionality), you're going to have space between them, either filled or non. Granted, maybe the referenced layout can be further optimized. I'm hardly saying that's an impossibility. Just... it seems like, subjectivity aside, your bases for analysis are a bit lacking. It just seems very much like you're suggesting that every pixel not covered by the UI is a huge benefit, and that every pixel covered by the UI, and/or designed with some concern for not running into "this is where the game world aesthetics stop, and the blatantly, clashingly simplistic UI starts" is an abomination and a huge detriment.

 

There wasn't any "These might need to be rearranged, or put closer together, or maybe this design takes up a bit too much space." In fact, you had to be specifically asked just to say more than "that's complete crap." And, even then, all you came up with was a list of things that were apparently crap.

 

And why is it so bad that something "float"? The ovals can be connected along the edge. What, it's inherently bad that, instead of being blind to all things along the vertical edge of all the ovals, you can actually see the spaces not immediately covered by the portrait ovals?

 

I just don't get what WOULD work, in your eyes, shy of a minimalistic, robot-designed UI. "No unnecessary graphics or pixel-waste. Objective, complete."

 

Next we'll start deciding that the sounds and music in the game don't need to sound nice at all, as long as we know what's going on. All weapons will have the same hit-sound, and all characters will be voiced by Text-To-Speech programs.

[Lephys]

I've never found that a UI positively or negatively affected my immersion.  Frankly, unless the function is irritating I hardly notice the aesthetic at all.

That means the aesthetic is doing its job, by transitioning so well between fantasy world and computer-screen buttons that your conscious mind isn't really prompted to even think about that transition at all.

[Istmal]

 

Personally I think the whole mouse travel issue in nonsense in a game with a pause feature and hotkeys, as is the narrative of clicking on the portraits to select characters.

 

No, a single mouse movement doesn't matter. But when you're in combat with six characters, the character panels located on side, and the actions along the bottom... you can end up with a lot of screen traverses per combat round. You move to select a character, move down to switch to bow, move up to select the target, move to select another character, move down to pick a spell, move up to choose the target... It all adds up to lower efficiency and greater tedium.

 

 

hmm... to be honest, when I played BG1&2, I've never done it that way. Even now, when I play BG EE, I choose a character by clicking on it on the 'game screen', not by clicking on the portrait. Or simply by presing key-shortcut: 1,2,3...

To me those portraits are for:

1. how much damege was dealt to my party member.

2. party member status: blessing, speed, labirynth..

3. switching betewwn characters in 'inventory mode'.

4. maybe something more, but I can't figure it out now...

You don't have only one way to select one party member or another, and those portraits are not only for one thing.

 

Seriously, I want them to by 'visable', not mini-hidden-icon-in-the-corner-of-the-screen, just because 'it mists the battlefield'. One can move his camera to see what is there, it's made for this.

[tajerio]

 

I've never found that a UI positively or negatively affected my immersion.  Frankly, unless the function is irritating I hardly notice the aesthetic at all.

That means the aesthetic is doing its job, by transitioning so well between fantasy world and computer-screen buttons that your conscious mind isn't really prompted to even think about that transition at all.

 

 

Possible, I suppose.  Generally speaking I don't care what the UI looks like as long as it does its job, so it could be ugly as sin like the BG/IWD UI or cartoonishly colorful like the DA2 UI, but since they both perform their function adequately I had to go back and look at them to register what they looked like.

 

Then again, I'm also more or less incapable of immersion and glad of it, so a lot of this discussion flies right over my head.

[curryinahurry]

 

Personally I think the whole mouse travel issue in nonsense in a game with a pause feature and hotkeys, as is the narrative of clicking on the portraits to select characters.

 

No, a single mouse movement doesn't matter. But when you're in combat with six characters, the character panels located on side, and the actions along the bottom... you can end up with a lot of screen traverses per combat round. You move to select a character, move down to switch to bow, move up to select the target, move to select another character, move down to pick a spell, move up to choose the target... It all adds up to lower efficiency and greater tedium.

 

 

I never really clicked on portraits in games where I could directly click on the character on the screen unless it was to check inventory or go to the character sheet to get information/ check status effects.  So, for my personal usage, clicking on portraits then clicking on actions makes no real sense.  I do realize that is personal and doesn't apply across every user.  truth be told, the only games I ever click on portraits are in the more recent 3d games where one has to manipulate the camera at times to get a clear view of the character in the midst of melee.  We won't have that problem in PE.

 

I honestly feel that the efficiency argument being made by some of the developers is quite simply a rationalization for a graphical preference.  Which is ok..but then they should aknowledge that other players may have preferences and try to accommodate them within reason.  I personally would prefer vertical character portraits, as would many others if the posts on this thread are any indication of overall player sentiment.  I hope they accommodate this.  I have no real opinion on the whole minimalism debate other than most of the examples shown aren't truly minimal or particularly more efficient at saving space over the UI originally posted by the devs

Edited August 13, 2013 by curryinahurry

[rjshae]

 

 

Personally I think the whole mouse travel issue in nonsense in a game with a pause feature and hotkeys, as is the narrative of clicking on the portraits to select characters.

 

No, a single mouse movement doesn't matter. But when you're in combat with six characters, the character panels located on side, and the actions along the bottom... you can end up with a lot of screen traverses per combat round. You move to select a character, move down to switch to bow, move up to select the target, move to select another character, move down to pick a spell, move up to choose the target... It all adds up to lower efficiency and greater tedium.

 

 

I never really clicked on portraits in games where I could directly click on the character on the screen unless it was to check inventory or go to the character sheet to get information/ check status effects.  So, for my personal usage, clicking on portraits then clicking on actions makes no real sense.  I do realize that is personal and doesn't apply across every user.  truth be told, the only games I ever click on portraits are in the more recent 3d games where one has to manipulate the camera at times to get a clear view of the character in the midst of melee.  We won't have that problem in PE.

 

When characters became all cluttered together as they often did in the IE battles, along with spell effects flying about, I usually just resorted to clicking on the portraits. Shrug. Different styles.

[curryinahurry]

^  Actually that brings up a good point about whether spell effects (and items as well) will have a toggle or a transparency slider.  I wonder if they could create a pointer radius of transparency with regards to effects so that scrolling over characters would clear our the spell/item effects on them?  Food for thought

[Sensuki]

Wow, the team doesn't have to do anything. You guys practically design the game for them!

 

 

...except every single UI you guys posted has been completely dreadful and I hope they never even see it. This is why community feedback is a terrible idea.

Both of mine were better than the stock UI thankyou very much.

[Chrononaut]

All UI's with floaty crap must burn in fire

[Hassat Hunter]

I've never found that a UI positively or negatively affected my immersion.  Frankly, unless the function is irritating I hardly notice the aesthetic at all.

Lucky you.

Sadly for me ugly HUDs do bother me. Like futuristic UI's in a fantasy game. It just... puts you off. And functionality too. Like how in DA:O you have this huge screen, and all the tabs take a minor portion of the middle screen, with huge buttons making you scroll even more. DA2 made that even worse. Witcher II's UI was horrible too. And so seem most modern games.

So it's not just esthetical (prob. typo'd that) but actually has a gameplay effect too.

No, a single mouse movement doesn't matter. But when you're in combat with six characters, the character panels located on side, and the actions along the bottom... you can end up with a lot of screen traverses per combat round. You move to select a character, move down to switch to bow, move up to select the target, move to select another character, move down to pick a spell, move up to choose the target... It all adds up to lower efficiency and greater tedium.

As Istmal already pointed out, how often would you need the character screens to click on? They did their function. IMO if they were upper left, too much in your face. Upper right allows you to just glimpse at it, while paying attention to the main screen. So you get all the vital information, none of the distraction.

Also, how often did you use the buttons on the bottom. The quickbar is just there to see what's in your quickbar, you probably will use hotkeys to use said items rather than click them. Same for characters, hotkeys, select them. You wouldn't constantly need to click them.

The UI mostly clicked on in the BG's I think are the inventory and spells tab. The rest are more incidential. And I doubt anyone would visit their questlogs or character screens in the middle of combat.

*Shrug*. Fair enough. I just... unless you butt all the portrait rectangles right up against one another (which actually starts affecting functionality), you're going to have space between them, either filled or non.

http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/3096/faibgeenew4r.jpg

Tell me how this is affecting functionality? They are right dab next to each other. Where in BG1, also 2. Also IWD1. It worked fine, it still does so. Why reinvent the wheel? Especially if the alternative doesn't function or look nearly as good. Change for the sake of change is never good.

It just seems very much like you're suggesting that every pixel not covered by the UI is a huge benefit, and that every pixel covered by the UI, and/or designed with some concern for not running into "this is where the game world aesthetics stop, and the blatantly, clashingly simplistic UI starts" is an abomination and a huge detriment.

Not quite what I want. I just want a functional UI, simplistic, but not floating minimalistic or all the other crap modern games love. There should be no fear to have some fluff to the UI to make it look good and fit in with the game. But that's no reason to overdo it. And some design decisions (like adding the combat log inside a fixed HUD) are just, IMO, really really bad.

In fact, you had to be specifically asked just to say more than "that's complete crap." And, even then, all you came up with was a list of things that were apparently crap.

Eh. The poster said 'I like this UI for PE', without explenation too. I just disagreed, stating I hated it. I never intended to extrepolate on that, but you all kept asking 'why you hate it', so I stated the reasons why. Why I only listed that since that's what the question was, not an overall impression what I thought, and things I would like in and keep and such. So, I just answered the question. If you're not satisfied with the answer, ask a different question .

 

Case in point; The 'I hate that' was just conversation, and afterwards I stated how I thought a good UI should function and look like. And I still stand by those opinions.

And why is it so bad that something "float"? The ovals can be connected along the edge. What, it's inherently bad that, instead of being blind to all things along the vertical edge of all the ovals, you can actually see the spaces not immediately covered by the portrait ovals?

Well, here ends the 'functionality' reasons and we just enter my preference. Why I don't like float? Since I don't like it. I much prefer the game area and UI to be seperate, and not that you suddenly have bits and pieces of HUD floating around, or you see the screen behind your character portraits. It's just distracting from the point a HUD should present; clarity. It can't do that to me floating.

But yes, this is mostly something preferencial.

I just don't get what WOULD work, in your eyes, shy of a minimalistic, robot-designed UI. "No unnecessary graphics or pixel-waste. Objective, complete."

Huh... I like BG's HUD just fine. We could with modern day big screens probably clip of the right bar. The bottom bar too, although I wouldn't mind keeping it around.

It looks good, it's functional, no floating moving distracting things. It's cleanly cut around the playarea. I love it.

But apparently a lot of people hate it, hence it gets overhauled. Why? Beats me.

 

Personally I just want to prevent them to tweak the HUD like Obsidian/Black Isle did in IWD2. BG1/2, IWD1's HUD was perfectly fine, and in IWD2 it's absolutely crap. Considering several of the same people are working here, I just want them to not make the same mistakes they did that, filling up like half the screen with a completely unfunctional space-wasting distraction that that was. Maybe that's also why I strongly oppose a horizontal only HUD. I played IWD2, and seen how absolutely bad that would work in an IE-type game.

That's pretty much why I care here. I don't want them to make a IWD-2 hud. I don't want them to make a DA:O HUD. They can burn in hell if they remake the DA2 HUD. I just want an updated BG2 HUD. Sure, it can be improved upon. But to me, improvement isn't making the character portraits harder to spot since they're a half-cirlce, inside a circle floating around the screen. Improvement isn't incorperating the combat log making the HUD even bigger. Improvement isn't posting the characters top right "in-your-face"...

[Lephys]

@Hassat:

 

I appreciate your elaboration. Quite muchly. And I apologize for being difficult. I realize I was kind of wording things crappily, out of minor frustration, and I didn't mean to be so difficult. I mean a lot of stuff I say quite literally, which is just odd, 'cause most people don't say and mean things so literally.

 

Anywho, for what it's worth, I respect your opinion, and your evaluations. I think I was just thrown by your terminology. As I said, it sorta seemed like you were finding no value in even the idea behind any of the referenced UI mockup, or any of its elements, like it was just 100% wrong, rather than even 60 or 70. Since I was pretty sure you weren't being paradoxical (i.e. "No, aesthetics are fine, and all pixels aren't wasted space, but everything in this mockup that isn't necessary is wasted space and pointless aesthetics!"), I was very curious as to the specifics of your evaluation. So, again, thank you for that.

 

Personally, I feel like the BG UI was forcing me to look through a little window. Like nothing really had any breathing room. I'm not adamant about completely separate floaty panes (a la MMOs), but I'm open to a well-done not-necessarily-just-a-solid-rectangular-frame UI. And those butted-together portraits are still fine, but, they're also larger than they "need" to be, etc. Which, so are the oval ones in that mockup, I suppose. But, I still very much like the general idea behind that mockup, even if some things could be tweaked. It's by no means perfect. I am a pretty big fan of slightly more organic edges on the UI. They make the transition from game to UI a lot less... window-y.

 

To me, it's a little like a forest. Even though a forest is a forest, and a plain is a plain, and they may technically border each other, they feel a lot more like they fit together in a world if you gradually transition from forest to plain, and vice versa. If you're entering the forest, you start to see some trees, then you see more, and the tall grass of the plain starts to vanish (because of blocked sunlight, etc.), and you start to see forest floor. If it was just a straight tree line everywhere, in a rectangle around the meadow, it'd be pretty jarring. It would call attention to the actual dividing line, rather than the transition itself.

 

*shrug*, I know a lot of that is subjective, too. But some if it isn't. Just some of it. Also, I agree with you about the DA interfaces (although I played it on console, instead of PC, so it was probably even worse). Although, I DO support well-done radial menus (there's some kind of name for that, and I can't remember it, and it's bugging me... rose bloom or something? Rose... Rose petal menu?). Not that it was put to the best use in DA, but the foundation was there. Such things are especially evident with console controls. When games give you 4 friggin' quick-slots (D-pad cardinal directions), when they COULD give you 4 different radial menus of 8 slots a piece (hold a d-pad direction to open a quickslot radial, then use a stick to select). But, the usefulness of that translates quite well into mouse/keyboard controls, too. A button can open a radial around the mouse cursor, wherever it is on the screen, and the mouse has the exact same amount of distance to move to get to a very large number of icons/buttons before they become too small/distant for the benefit to remain great.

[Hassat Hunter]

Isn't the first, and wont be the last time the way I word things make people misinterpret things. Guess one of the things part of being a non-native english speaker, and not being much of a writer in general even in my own language...

 

I do agree. And with modern monitors and screen sizes there's no use for 3 bars. 2 (or 1) fits better. Not sure about the transition thing. Considering there are plenty of alternative locations (dungeons, outdoors, demon planes(?), whatnot) how to make a proper transition. That would require the UI to gradually merge with the gameworld. While that would be cool, I am not sure wheter that's even technically possible with Unity, and if it is, what the implementation would take.

 

One thing great about the BG's UI is that the hitpoints where displayed on the character. Yes, their portraits where big, but it allowed a good quick overview of health and effects. The mock-up instead has... red and blue bars. Not exactly an improvement I say. Harder to see, and looks worse. Though it's questionable if half red (HP-damage) and one half blue (stamina) wouldn't look similarly ridicilous. Not quite sure myself how to 'fix' that.

 

A pop-up menu could work for spells or abilities, instead of having to hover to the HUD all the time. Like, say, left click regular attack, right click opens the menu. However with radial menus other problems can arise. They can be hard to navigate with the mouse. Currently playing Saints Row III and it's radial menu is just aweful. Works fine on console, not at all on PC. I can't see a profit of making things like the inventory intentionally taking a small portion of the screen, making you required to scroll more for overview. There were alot of things in DA:O I felt could be better combined into one, full-screen tab instead. Also having an unpersonal list rather than a nice doll in BG1 is a miss. It's not needed at all, but it's such a nice thing to have. If we keep thinking BG-style I would probably think OE can savely merge a few screens that were seperate there in 1 (like character screen and inventory. Of course, that's all presuming they kept it like that. All guessing here.

 

I'm not opposed to such things, so you might collapse the HUD even and properly play it with hotkeys and such (although keeping an eye on your HP will become difficult). I don't think there was a good way to cast spells in the BG's with the HUD down, and it could overall help with smoothing spellcasting into the game. It just really depends on how they implent such a list or menu.

[rjshae]

Bah. Everybody has their preferred UI style, and yours will never match mine. We've beaten this dead horse into a bloody pulp.

 

Edited August 14, 2013 by rjshae

[Lephys]

Bah. Everybody has their preferred UI style, and yours will never match mine. We've beaten this dead horse into a bloody pulp.

 

As if beating a dead horse is pointless... it TOTALLY tenderizes the meat!

 

@Hassat:

 

The whole "transition" aspect is a tricky one. It's one of those things that I know exists, but I couldn't really say, with words, exactly what manner of transition it is. It isn't so much a literal transition between what's rendered on the game area and what's rendered on the UI (like blending purple between blue and red... although, having said that, a sort of glass-like or semi-reflective effect might actually be kind of interesting. The idea interests me, in an experimental sort of way...). It's more about how your brain, without your conscious effort, fits the two together. How it naturally goes "yes, this frame with buttons makes sense while I switch back and forth between focusing on these things that are going on in a forest/plane/area of simulated 3D space with characters moving about and whatnot, and a purely 2D (functionally) UI frame/pane.

 

Anywho, I'm really not trying to initiate an elaborate discussion as to the exact nature and detail of that transition. I only meant to point out its existence, and the fact that it does have some importance, especially when it comes to all the people that will be using the game.

 

Also, I do like the larger portraits, and how they were used to display hitpoints. I think the "fullness" of a portrait "container" (or sort of the inverse of that, with it "filling up with blood tint" signifying the missing hitpoints) is a lot more intuitive than a tiny bar.

 

And yes, the radial popup menus can be rather crap. I think the main thing with them is to not use them for navigation. That's when they start clashing with mouse-cursor controls. You open a radial (like in DA), and select a category of things, then it loads another radial, etc. They function better as individual hotbar-type displays. That's why I used the example (which is all it is) of a hotkey for something like "Quickspells/abilities" that would open a radial of just a specific set of spells/abilities, all of which bloom around the mouse cursor. It's sort of "bring the hotbar to the cursor," instead of "okay now move the cursor away from wherever you're currently using it to the place on the screen where the spells and abilities sit." It's not a huge problem to not have that. It can just be REALLY nice (especially when you think about how many times, in an entire playthrough, you're going to need to select one of a character's abilities... even if that's 1 second of saved time and effort in each instance, that's about 1,000 instances of convenience) when done properly.

 

The option to fully collapse the HUD I think is a prudent one, too. I personally enjoy the HUD/UI, but if someone wants to play almost entirely with hotkeys, with quite literally minimal non-game-space content being displayed, I say go for it, assuming it isn't some horribly troublesome option to implement. What we don't need is for the UI to defaultly try to serve both parties: Oh look, it's a nice full UI, but also each individual thing is collapsible/resizable, too! Like in an MMO!". I think that works fine for an MMO, but it is kind of its own enemy as far as the users of a CRPG go. The modular nature of it displeases the people who want a full-frame UI, and the full-frame UI resemblence displeases the people who have no interest in that and would rather just display what they wish to. At that point, you might as well just have options for the type of UI you want, set those, and be done with it for the rest of the game. Less work, better results.

 

So, yeah, I actually agree with you on quite a bit, heh. (Psst... don't tell the Internet Police!)

[vonbleak]

I love it