Sensuki's Suggestions #012: Non-Terrible Main HUD [Mockup]

[Mayama]

 

All that talk about the omg important combat log makes people forget that their shouldnt be a combat log in the first place. Everything should be readable without the combat log.

No.

 

Edit: F*ck no.

 

Care to argument instead of trolling?

[Sensuki]

My entire main post is the argument.

[Stun]

Care to argument instead of trolling?

No.

 

Now go play your Dragon age. You are the reason RPG developers have gone full derp minimalist on us. RPGs should be about reading.

Edited August 27, 2014 by Stun

[Mayama]

My entire main post is the argument.

No it isnt its your oppinion based on nostalgica, you want a solid UI because you connect some positive memory with it. As I said the only reason why games had solid UI's was because it saved render time.

Edited August 27, 2014 by Mayama

[Sensuki]

lol

 

Play on Expert mode with the combat log minimized.

 

Tell me what's happening in combat?

 

Answer: You can't

 

People who disable the tooltips, damage floats and HUDs etc need the log more than anyone.

Edited August 27, 2014 by Sensuki

[Mayama]

lol

Looks like you have no argument beside "its my personal oppinion". I design UI's for years. Its my job, I might know a little bit more about it than you do.

 

 

 

Another annoying thing about the Main HUD of Pillars of Eternity is the amount of dead space on the screen. There are these sizable gaps between the sections of the HUD that could be being used for functionality. Instead they are just empty.

 

Ok I searched in your original post, why you want a solid UI. Thats all I found and seriously thats your argument. Dead space? Its not dead space it shows the game, you know the thing that you actually want to play. At least I thought so. You dont need it for functionality, every needed function is right their in the UI. You have the combat log that you need because the combat itself doesnt really show you everything that happens, you have your party hp/skills and you have your menu for people that dont like to use shortcuts. Never ever clusterf*uck the screen with stuff you dont really need. Making things commplicated for the sake of beeing complicated is the antichrist of UI design, never ever do it. The only logical reason for using a solid background would be UI elements that are hard to read without it but thats not the case. Do you know what happens when add every possible thing on a UI? You get ****ty 80ties VHS remote controls that nobody could use.

Edited August 27, 2014 by Mayama

[Malekith]

 

lol

Looks like you have no argument beside "its my personal oppinion". I design UI's for years. Its my job, I might know a little bit more about it than you do.

 

You design **** UIs for years. Not the same thing. I would honestly prefer the UI to hide half the screen than something like Temple of EE or NWN2 floaty minimalist nonsense

[Sensuki]

Well if you ignore a fair portion of your userbase when designing a UI then you mustn't be very good at your job.

 

The stock PE UI design is actually for people who don't use the combat log and as much work has been put into place so that people can do without it - Combat HUDs, floating numbers and the like. This is the issue with it as it ignores everyone else.

 

However half of the IE crowd here use the combat log, and many people also disable the "accessibility" options that the game provides. You can turn off damage floats, Combat HUDs and all that stuff and pretty much give yourself a vanilla IE experience. There is Expert mode - which automatically disables everything for your whole play through.

 

Combat log on the right side of the screen is bad for everyone that intends to use it. It's fine for those that don't.

Edited August 27, 2014 by Sensuki

[PrimeJunta]

I think the combat log should only exist to give you an insight about what happened when everything went south and your party died. Imo you shouldnt be forced to look at it, even on very hard difficulty, in a "normal" game situation. You dont play scrolling spreadsheet the game.

 

Not the kind of specifics I had in mind. I was thinking more, how specifically would you provide the info that we would like to see in the combat log?

[Stun]

 

lol

Looks like you have no argument beside "its my personal oppinion". I design UI's for years. Its my job, I might know a little bit more about it than you do.

 

WTF are you going on about? He's mass-bitch slapping you without even trying.

 

There are 2 types of RPGs. The pretty cinematic ones you can sit back and watch with a bag of popcorn on your lap, and the Deep, interactive ones that require you to read, control, think analyze, and get your hands dirty with. PoE is that latter. The combat log is Vital in games like PoE where you've got a whole party of characters with scores of abilities each, and where stuff isn't limited to Hit vs. Miss, or Damage vs. less damage.

 

Maybe YOU don't care about what's going on under the hood, But Me, I'm a total nerd. I don't just want to know whether my paralyse spell succeeded, I want to know what the enemy rolled to fail. I want to know what bonuses or penalties came into play, so that I can work in the future to increase my success with all my skills. etc. Not wanting a combat log means you don't really care about stuff like that. That's called being a casual by definition. So again. Go play your Dragon Age.

Edited August 27, 2014 by Stun

[Sensuki]

Be nice if you could see the die rolls in the log too such as Graze (32) or whatever, YMMV.

[Karkarov]

Karkarov doesn't use the combat log. If you play on Expert mode you have to use it and after doing that and playing the game with the UI, combat log on the far right is just awful.

Right.... we will just pretend all those screen shots I posted in those threads where I pointed out the crystal spiders and deep wounds aren't there.  You know the ones where I have the combat log fully pulled out... while playing in expert mode?

 

 

Be nice if you could see the die rolls in the log too such as Graze (32) or whatever, YMMV.

For such a master of the combat log I would have thought you knew by now that you can.  You just go left click on the specific line you want gritty details about and it pops out showing you all of the math associated with that one action.

Edited August 27, 2014 by Karkarov

[hernedpea]

I really like Sensuki's UI mockup. MUCH better than original.

[Mayama]

Its amazing how people go apesh*t when I say that the combatlog is only a band aid solution to hide the real problem. That you cant really tell what is going on on the screen. "IE experience" is not an argument, its like saying "i like cars bevor 1900 because none-pneumatic wheels give me the real car experience".

Edited August 27, 2014 by Mayama

[Sensuki]

Right.... we will just pretend all those screen shots I posted in those threads where I pointed out the crystal spiders and deep wounds aren't there.  You know the ones where I have the combat log fully pulled out... while playing in expert mode?

In the old threads you said your preference was for the combat log and such to be minimized most of the time, and you'd only open it when you needed to. I intend to play the game more akin to how I played the IE games. Turn off the combat HUDs and damage floats and read the combat in the log on the fly.

 

For such a master of the combat log I would have thought you knew by now that you can.  You just go left click on the specific line you want gritty details about and it pops out showing you all of the math associated with that one action.

I already know that, I've made bug reports on damage value maths incorrectly displaying in the log, too. What I am talking about is seeing the actual raw dice roll in the line without having to mouse over, like in the IE games. If you play on Expert mode I think the detailed combat log values are supposed to be obscured. Would be nice to see the raw dice roll still.

 

Its amazing how people go apesh*t when I say that the combatlog is only a band aid solution to hide the real problem. That you cant really tell what is going on on the screen. "IE experience" is not an argument, its like saying "i like cars bevor 1900 because none-pneumatic wheels give me the real car experience".

Turn off damage floats and collapse the log, and tell me how much damage your character did. Or what type of hit they scored.

Edited August 27, 2014 by Sensuki

[Karkarov]

Ok I searched in your original post, why you want a solid UI. Thats all I found and seriously thats your argument. Dead space? Its not dead space it shows the game, you know the thing that you actually want to play. At least I thought so. You dont need it for functionality, every needed function is right their in the UI. You have the combat log that you need because the combat itself doesnt really show you everything that happens, you have your party hp/skills and you have your menu for people that dont like to use shortcuts. Never ever clusterf*uck the screen with stuff you dont really need. Making things commplicated for the sake of beeing complicated is the antichrist of UI design, never ever do it. The only logical reason for using a solid background would be UI elements that are hard to read without it but thats not the case. Do you know what happens when add every possible thing on a UI? You get ****ty 80ties VHS remote controls that nobody could use.

Oh you have no idea Mayama how far down this rabbit hole we have been on this forum time and time again.  Let's just sum up and say this.  Sensuki wants BG2 UI.  No really, that's what he wants.  Yes anyone with common sense who knows anything about design knows that UI sucks.  Fortunately Obsidian is staffed by people who actually studied design.  This is literally the third time he has made this post, he is just pissed he isn't getting his way.

 

All this UI actually needs is three things.

 

1: For the solid ui function to work for those who want it.  It doesn't work in the beta right now.

2: Toggle button to hide combat log for those who don't want it, but hit button again it pops back up.  Also the option to hide main menu control brick, it doesn't need a button though.

3: Ability to stretch the combat log horizontally and not just vertically.

 

That's it.  If you REALLY want to push it, maybe make the ui "dockable" so long as everything is tied to the bottom bar.  So if you want you can move action buttons to the middle, combat log left, whatever.  I don't consider this a big enough deal though to go through unless it would be very easy to do.

Edited August 27, 2014 by Karkarov

[Sensuki]

That's it.  If you REALLY want to push it, maybe make the ui "dockable" so long as everything is tied to the bottom bar.  So if you want you can move action buttons to the middle, combat log left, whatever.  I don't consider this a big enough deal though to go through unless it would be very easy to do.

I've already suggested this in the thread because for people that read the combat log on the fly, the right side of the screen is the absolute worst position for it. The OP is quite literally the UI elements re arranged to support that, which wouldn't change much for anyone else.

 

Log and Menu are still collapsible, but portraits now centered (which is probably better even).

Edited August 27, 2014 by Sensuki

[Trodat]

^

Obsidian have people who studied design and still we have the combat log on the right side, hmm.

 

I still think functionality > "design"

[Karkarov]

 

That's it.  If you REALLY want to push it, maybe make the ui "dockable" so long as everything is tied to the bottom bar.  So if you want you can move action buttons to the middle, combat log left, whatever.  I don't consider this a big enough deal though to go through unless it would be very easy to do.

I've already suggested this in the thread because for people that read the combat log on the fly, the right side of the screen is the absolute worst position for it.

 

Well we simply don't concur.  It is on the right with Divinity Original Sin and I don't see anyone trying to say it sucks because of it.  I can read the combat log just fine either way and looking left or looking right makes no difference to me.  Personally other than the fact that I can't outright hide the center bit right now and the combat log only expands in one direction I see nothing wrong with the current ui.

[Mayama]

^

Obsidian have people who studied design and still we have the combat log on the right side, hmm.

 

I still think functionality > "design"

Its crazy hard to add visual and audio feedback for every single thing in this game because it has the complexity of a turn based game. How to solve it? I dont know thats the dev's job because its actually really hard and cost a lot of time and money.

 

Every spell would need a specific cast animation for example. Thats like how many spells?

Edited August 27, 2014 by Mayama

[PrimeJunta]

Its crazy hard to add visual and audio feedback for every single thing in this game because it has the complexity of a turn based game. How to solve it? I dont know thats the dev's job because its actually really hard and cost a lot of time and money.

 

Nice cop-out.

 

"Combat log is bad because 1999 and the info should be availabel otherwise."

"How?"

"Damned if I know, it's their job to figure out."

[Sensuki]

With damage floats and combat HUDs turned off you need to pay pretty close attention to the combat log. It's difficult in it's current state because of how fast it moves due to the amount of stuff that is written to the log (such as the Fighter passive stamina heals).

 

Reading on the fly is annoying because you constantly have to flick your eyes up and left, down and right so you don't miss any action. It's not so bad when paused, but I don't tend to pause the combat heaps. Then there's my focal points argument which I made in the OP.

 

Left and Center are far more natural positions for it. In the center you can see the lines in your peripheral vision, so it only takes a focus adjustment rather than a focus shift, and the left of the screen is a far more natural focal point for the eyes (due to reasons stated in the OP).

 

On larger monitors (such as 1440p+) it's even more of an issue.

Edited August 27, 2014 by Sensuki

[Mayama]

@ Sensuki and Karkarov 

 

That thing between you two, it has something to do with the eye scar right?

[Mayama]

 

Its crazy hard to add visual and audio feedback for every single thing in this game because it has the complexity of a turn based game. How to solve it? I dont know thats the dev's job because its actually really hard and cost a lot of time and money.

 

Nice cop-out.

 

"Combat log is bad because 1999 and the info should be availabel otherwise."

"How?"

"Damned if I know, it's their job to figure out."

 

 

Saying that its a band aid solution, what it is and knowing how to solve it are two different things. You can only improve things if you are willing to accept that they are not optimal.

[Sensuki]

Or you could simply go with - if it aint broke don't fix it and use a combat log just like most isometric games of this type do. You know, the sensible thing to do.