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Decline Modern game with absolutely worst UI

Joined
Dec 17, 2013
Messages
5,110
Here are my 2 recent candidates:

Pro Evolution Soccer 2020 - Holy flying fuck! Not only does it have to log into their damn server every time, even if you just want to play offline, but the UI consists of like 20 screens that you cycle through with up and down arrows, each one having all sorts of mind numbing options, when they could've just hidden all of them behind 2-3 main menu options (say Single Player, Multiplayer, Other, etc), like you know, normal games. Then, first time I installed it, it bombarded me with like 20 messages from the server, advertising some pointless crap.

Assassin's Creed Origins/Odyssey - Similar to above, you have to install Ubisoft's Uplay, as if Steam's crap wasn't enough, then it has to log into an online server when you launch the game AND when you are trying to exit it, and then it has all these pointless options, like Ubisoft store or buttons for expansions packs you can purchase. It also puts some crap on Steam overlay, which you have to hit Alt + F2 to shut down. It's mindboggling.
 

Catacombs

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 10, 2017
Messages
5,928
Dwarf Fortress. It's quite terrible when first learning. But, after a while you get used to it. I do like the keyboard-driven gameplay. Though, I wish re-binding keys was a little more intuitive.
 
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Rahdulan

Omnibus
Patron
Joined
Oct 26, 2012
Messages
5,105
Mass Effect Andromeda. Way too many nested submenus and gamepad concessions with zero effort put into M&K scheme for the PC port.

5yCVSkh.jpg
 

curds

Magister
Joined
Nov 24, 2019
Messages
1,098
267296-the-elder-scrolls-iv-oblivion-windows-screenshot-inventory.jpg

I actually love the aesthetic of Oblivion's UI, but the functionality is awful.

VZVqz.jpg

Skyrim carries on the tradition of bad design, adding ugly aesthetics.
 

cosmicray

Savant
Joined
Jan 20, 2019
Messages
436
Dying Light on PC. Was it designed so I would use it only in Safe Zones?
 

DalekFlay

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 5, 2010
Messages
14,118
Location
New Vegas
Skyrim becomes tolerable when you realize using WASD and E/F is better than the mouse, but it's still fucking terrible.
 

Tancred

Learned
Joined
Jul 10, 2016
Messages
105
Dragon's Dogma. Aesthetically there was nothing wrong with it, but it had two different inventory screens, one to equip shit and the other to look at the stats? That's what I remember anyway. It was pretty shit to use.

Also, the two rebooted Hitman games main menu UI is hilariously bad. You have to scroll offscreen to find the Options menu which is where the quit button is hidden and everything else is a complete jumble.
 

J1M

Arcane
Joined
May 14, 2008
Messages
14,616
Coincidentally, the rise of awful user interfaces like these is directly correlated with the rise of Interface Designer as a dedicated role at game studios.
 

Carrion

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jun 30, 2011
Messages
3,648
Location
Lost in Necropolis
Skyrim becomes tolerable when you realize using WASD and E/F is better than the mouse, but it's still fucking terrible.
It's a common problem with all these console interfaces. Trying to navigate them with just the mouse is hopeless, but using just the keyboard is slow and tedious as fuck too, so you end up mixing them in a really unintuitive way. Usually they also require the use of hotkeys that probably make perfect sense on a gamepad but just seem random on keyboard and mouse, like using the reload button to repair stuff or X to drop items or whatever. A proper mouse-driven interface is heaven compared to that shit.
 

deuxhero

Arcane
Joined
Jul 30, 2007
Messages
11,328
Location
Flowery Land
How modern does one have to be a "modern game"?

Fable 3 should be noted for having the menu be its own gamespace, with accompanying loading times.
 
Joined
Dec 17, 2013
Messages
5,110
I think most of you probably don't play many modern games, perhaps wisely sticking to classics, because the examples you give above are just bad regular UI. They are nothing compared to the shit some modern games have, which is way beyond just bad UI. Skyrim's simplified UI is a work of art compared to some of this new shit with main menu pages for in-game stores, online-offline crap, DLCs, etc.
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
Dwarf Fortress. It's quite terrible when first learning. But, after a while you get used to it. I do like the keyboard-driven gameplay. Though, I wish re-binding keys was a little more intuitive.
I'm not sure I'd characterize Dwarf Fortress as modern, it seems more like a retro or atavistic game.
 

Catacombs

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 10, 2017
Messages
5,928
Dwarf Fortress. It's quite terrible when first learning. But, after a while you get used to it. I do like the keyboard-driven gameplay. Though, I wish re-binding keys was a little more intuitive.
I'm not sure I'd characterize Dwarf Fortress as modern, it seems more like a retro or atavistic game.

Despite coming out in the early 2000s, it's still in active development. That's seems pretty modern to me.
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,235
Very recent UI's I've not been fond of:

Resident Evil 7/Resident Evil 2 Remake
The Outer Worlds

Skyrim becomes tolerable when you realize using WASD and E/F is better than the mouse, but it's still fucking terrible.

It's functionally terrible, and aesthetically fucking bland as shit. That picture above speaks a thousand words: personification of the bland soulless piece of shit Skyrim is.

Sad. Morrowind's UI was pretty decent.
 

felipepepe

Codex's Heretic
Patron
Joined
Feb 2, 2007
Messages
17,274
Location
Terra da Garoa
Fallout 4, by a mile. It takes that shitty Skyrim UI and crams it on a monochromatic screen that uses less than 25% of the screen.

tG56ZJm.png


Plus it has the worst dialog wheel ever, made for people who can't read more than three words in a row.
 

jebsmoker

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Nov 17, 2019
Messages
2,578
Insert Title Here Strap Yourselves In I helped put crap in Monomyth
this game is technically cancelled (though you can download a prototype of it somewhere if you know where look) but Magna Mundi has the worse UI i've ever seen for a macro-scale grand strategy game

MMtG.jpg


lDBmiF3.png
 

DalekFlay

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 5, 2010
Messages
14,118
Location
New Vegas
It's a common problem with all these console interfaces. Trying to navigate them with just the mouse is hopeless, but using just the keyboard is slow and tedious as fuck too, so you end up mixing them in a really unintuitive way. Usually they also require the use of hotkeys that probably make perfect sense on a gamepad but just seem random on keyboard and mouse, like using the reload button to repair stuff or X to drop items or whatever. A proper mouse-driven interface is heaven compared to that shit.

Yeah. I don't even think it's a slight on the PC platform, since PC accounts for like a third of sales these days. It's just easier to design around one scheme and then quickly port it to another. At least mouse aim isn't as fucked as it was during the 360 generation anymore.
 

Beastro

Arcane
Joined
May 11, 2015
Messages
7,952
267296-the-elder-scrolls-iv-oblivion-windows-screenshot-inventory.jpg

I actually love the aesthetic of Oblivion's UI, but the functionality is awful.

The only good thing about that UI is that the potion icon always reminds me of a jester with a big grin more than an actual potion.
 
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Self-Ejected

unfairlight

Self-Ejected
Joined
Aug 20, 2017
Messages
4,092
How come? I always thought it worked just fine. It has decent filters and I can deal with it pretty fast using keyboard and mouse. It's only really the size of each item in it that I dislike. I think the drag and drop nonsense of Morrowind's UI is considerably worse.
 

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