Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity [BETA RELEASED, GO TO THE NEW THREAD]

[J_C]

Shut the fuck up. Best one so far.

EDIT: this one was good.

This must be one of the ugliest HUD I've ever seen.

 

[Grunker]

It is. For all it's good stuff, ToEE has a lot of shit. The floaty website design of the UI is one of the more horrific parts. Solid UIs ftw.

 

[catfood]

Awesome interface bro.

 

[Rivmusique]

That d20 in the bottom right corner. They should use that. Also the ?.

Edit: From ToEE.

 

[Morgoth]

I liek.

 

[Roguey]

I'll just spam my version here as well.

Sawyer wants to minimize mouse travel distance from right-aligned portraits to the action bar, because this is apparently the most uncomfortable direction to move the mouse for a right-handed person, and he wants to keep the dialogue box aligned to the right for readablity. The wide bottom bar eats away at the already narrow widescreen viewport, however. Thus, a left-aligned UI?

The portraits are still too far away from the action bar. Look how far you have to move from the dwarf to the bar.

 

[Zed]

You can't simply look at distance between 2 points in an interface when discussing "user experience" as if it's all static.
The mouse generally rests in the middle of the screen. It constantly moves because it's the primary input for the game. You click all over the screen, constantly, regardless of portrait position.
Activating a skill and clicking a PC portrait (heal or buff, whatevs) is hardly more cumbersome than to use a spell on an enemy in the middle (or any corner) of the screen.
Having portraits - or any UI elements - on the side allows for a more square viewport. A letterbox interface, to me, feels completely weird.

 

[DraQ]

:throws up on keyboard:

Please... please, take it away... I can't... I can't take it...

It's like all the worst parts of old UIs rolled into one horrible abomination.

This looks horrible. Too many single elements cluttered all over the screen, like some shitty MMO, instead of a solid "bar" of UI.

Umm... a little more specific reasons here guys?

Also, have you read the text or are jut going LOLCLUTTER based on knee jerk reaction?

I don't get the MMO criticism as I don't play MMOs and would probably have problem with their interface due to it often being "cooldown bar: the game".
The interface was mostly based off Wizardry 8 GUI (which is good). The changes include clustering all portraits on the left side (then again, it's not like you couldn't have them on the right side, corner elements could also be rearranged for more ergonomy, for example I would move minimap near the portraits, swapping it with ill-defined, as I don't work on PE and don't know what panels and menus it would find use for - I assumed it would be good to examine stuff by hovering mouse over it without having it clutter your text log, "additional info panel") reducing mouse travel, formation manager gone due to not being blob, radar replaced with minimap due to not being blob and minimap being bloody useful - for example you can have workable long range attacks and actions this way, and log moved into corner (I wouldn't rely on combat log for dialogue, BTW, because it was fucking awkward in IE games - little space necessitating clicking every few lines to see the rest).

I don't know what would be in menus #1 and #2, though at least one of them would house formation menu. I'd generally keep something, preferably useful to look at, but not often clicked, on right sidebar because it's good to have sidebars of roughly equal width as it keeps the main viewport centered in front of the user, it's also good to stick bulky shit (combat log, minimap) in the corners because that's where it interferes the least with the center of the screen.
I also don't know what would be in top info bar, though time of the day and current location are obvious candidates.

Finally, most elements would retract unless hovered over with mouse button, locked open or affected by some event.

Most elements also wouldn't get jutting rectangular frames, they would have thin but ornate, somewhat rounded borders presumably resembling BG2 main menu graphics. You don't need to shit over dead interface space with statues nad shit to have stylized menu - stylized interface elements, borders and shapes will do perfectly well on their own.

This means that most of the time you wouldn't see all this clutter, in particular "icon brick" for individual actions would only appear when hovering over portraits - with multiple characters selected they would be replaced by group actions when applicable if hovering over character that's part of the selected group, individual actions otherwise, so you could for example have your bunch of melee party members under control while issuing some support magic command to a caster.
Some individual actions might still appear as long as they would not be overriden by group ones (casting) - they would have to be clearly delineated from group actions, though.

I'll just spam my version here as well.

Sawyer wants to minimize mouse travel distance from right-aligned portraits to the action bar, because this is apparently the most uncomfortable direction to move the mouse for a right-handed person, and he wants to keep the dialogue box aligned to the right for readablity. The wide bottom bar eats away at the already narrow widescreen viewport, however. Thus, a left-aligned UI?

That's not bad - relatively dense and utilitarian.
I'd avoid skewing interface to ne side, though as it's better to have viewpoert centerd on screen. OTOH it *is* good to keep stuff you need to click often in one place as you did.

Nah, but seriously, too much stuff everywhere on the screen. Looks like some ridiculous mmo thing.

Most of the stuff would not be present on the screen most of the time. Read the text.

What's the fucking point of minimap anyway?

Knowing broader situational context, and coordinating long range movement and abilities?
Why bother with independently moving characters if you're going to keep them all in one place anyway?

Of course, but selection can happen in the world as well.

Selection in the world requires knowing where excatly the character is and clicking on them.

1. May be problematic if the character is in the middle of some gigantic clusterfuck, 2. may be a problem if characters are spread apart and you have some of them offscreen, for example when trying to do some tactical manoeuvring or scouting.

Portraits are very important because they tie the interface to characters in gameworld.

 

[Roguey]

Activating a skill and clicking a PC portrait (heal or buff, whatevs) is hardly more cumbersome than to use a spell on an enemy in the middle (or any corner) of the screen.

I disagree. Having non-automated trap searching would have been slightly less annoying if I didn't have to either memorize hotkeys or click on a portrait and drag the mouse all the way down to the bar to click the find traps button.

 

[DraQ]

In any case, I've replied for you: http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer/q/463736096556078991

Josh: You're talking about save-or-die SPELLS which always hit and can only be resisted, not dodged or otherwise avoided. What about melee enemies with an instakill special attack? You can avoid that just by keeping your distance. Is that a good design?

Could you also point out that instakill spells typically take time to cast, are interruptible and may require LoS, so there ARE counters besides successful save or immunity?

 

[Grunker]

In any case, I've replied for you: http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer/q/463736096556078991

Josh: You're talking about save-or-die SPELLS which always hit and can only be resisted, not dodged or otherwise avoided. What about melee enemies with an instakill special attack? You can avoid that just by keeping your distance. Is that a good design?

Could you also point out that instakill spells typically take time to cast, are interruptible and may require LoS, so there ARE counters besides successful save or immunity?

In theory, yes. In practice, Josh is right that Stoneskin + Mirror Image means no. If you get interrupted casting a spell in Baldur's Gate, you fucked up.

 

[Infinitron]

We don't know if PE will have Stoneskin or Mirror Image.

DraQ's point is legitimate, but the thing is that rushing a mage who's about to instakill you in order to interrupt his spellis very similar to "diving behind a corner" to avoid the spell like he suggested earlier. You're running to the caster instead of away from him. Both require a kind of dynamic control that may not be appropriate for this type of game.

 

[tuluse]

We don't know if PE will have Stoneskin or Mirror Image.

DraQ's point is legitimate, but the thing is that rushing a mage who's about to instakill you in order to interrupt his spellis very similar to "diving behind a corner" to avoid the spell like he suggested earlier. You're running to the caster instead of away from him. Both require a kind of dynamic control that may not be appropriate for this type of game.

DraQ's point is legitimate in some kind of theoretical game, not in how IE games actually worked.

 

[Grunker]

We don't know if PE will have Stoneskin or Mirror Image.

DraQ's point is legitimate

Oh I completely agree - Josh is making a generalized argument on the basis of a concrete examples with lots of other annotations. I was only implying that he probably spoke about it in the context of Baldur's Gate, in which he would be right.

 

[Maiandros]

whoever it was that said he's tired/sick of UIs, i am with you 100%
-give me the option to split/undock modules
-give me the option to make them retractable
-give me the option to resize them

Purists for the sake of Codex brofist harvesting Purism can keep it as it is in that there pic and find themselves satisfied in their awesomeness. The above won't affect them, they may only opt out of using them. They would however help others enjoy the UI too. And not at their expense. At all!

A shocking compromise isn't it..who would have thought..

 

[Tigranes]

DraQ I'm fine with the Wiz8-style cursor-hover menu, I suggested exactly that somewhere as well. I just think it's way too cluttered and bits floating all over the place when an isometric 2.5D game doesn't really need to fragment the UI into tiny little ugly (invariantly uglier) chunks to free up a tiny bit extra screen space. In these kinds of games the UI isn't something to hide and pretend it's not there, like in Morrowind, the UI is somehing you look at all the time and therefore you want it to function well but also look good and solid.

 

[Zed]

whoever it was that said he's tired/sick of UIs, i am with you 100%
-give me the option to split/undock modules
-give me the option to make them retractable
-give me the option to resize them

Purists for the sake of Codex brofist harvesting Purism can keep it as it is in that there pic and find themselves satisfied in their awesomeness. The above won't affect them, they may only opt out of using them. They would however help others enjoy the UI too. And not at their expense. At all!

A shocking compromise isn't it..who would have thought..

I don't care if people want to ruin their UI. As long as there's an original UI that designers intended for players to use.

 

[Rake]

whoever it was that said he's tired/sick of UIs, i am with you 100%
-give me the option to split/undock modules
-give me the option to make them retractable
-give me the option to resize them

Purists for the sake of Codex brofist harvesting Purism can keep it as it is in that there pic and find themselves satisfied in their awesomeness. The above won't affect them, they may only opt out of using them. They would however help others enjoy the UI too. And not at their expense. At all!

A shocking compromise isn't it..who would have thought..

I don't care if people want to ruin their UI. As long as there's an original UI that designers intended for players to use.

 

[Kirtai]

Umm... a little more specific reasons here guys?

I see one major flaw right away, shared with the one from Obsidian; the buttons at the bottom (and maybe the others too?) are not touching the edge. This changes them from infinitely tall to tiny. It's vastly easier and quicker to hit something at the edge of the screen than it is to hit something one pixel away. Fitts' Law in action.

Anything that's going to be clicked on a lot should be stuck to the edge of the screen. This is one point where I disagree with Josh, the distance you move the mouse is vastly less important than the fact that you can't miss the edges or corners of the screen with a single movement.

 

[Mangoose]

ITT nobody can think outside of the tiny box of IE games

Dungeon Siege has a good interface for real time party control IMO

Perhaps see if there could be any influence drawn from RTSes:

 

[Syl]

Right-click functionality can be nice, but this game is also being made for Macs. Even though a lot of Apple mice now have some form of right-click functionality, it's still a foreign interface method for a lot of Mac users and I would rather not rely on it.

Shitty Flash game UI confirmed. At least it will be easy to port to tablets.

 

[Kirtai]

Shitty Flash game UI confirmed. At least it will be easy to port to tablets.

Gah, now that I look at it, a tablet UI is exactly what it appears to be. That sort of button layout looks more intended for finger touches than mouse movements.

 

[Sensuki]

Don't worry it will be revised.

 

[DraQ]

DraQ I'm fine with the Wiz8-style cursor-hover menu, I suggested exactly that somewhere as well. I just think it's way too cluttered and bits floating all over the place when an isometric 2.5D game doesn't really need to fragment the UI into tiny little ugly (invariantly uglier) chunks to free up a tiny bit extra screen space. In these kinds of games the UI isn't something to hide and pretend it's not there, like in Morrowind, the UI is somehing you look at all the time and therefore you want it to function well but also look good and solid.

I disagree with multi-piece UI necessarily looking worse. Of course, my mockup does, because it's composed of ugly rectangular pieces cut out of original mockup, but you can apply a lot of stylization to both frames and elements themselves.

In any case, narrow aspect viewports aren't good for games with any sort of overhead view, because they limit visibility in one direction, but not the other. In FPP game it wouldn't be much of a hindrance, because there is typically more stuff happening in horizontal plane, but here we're looking essentially down, even if at angle.

PE should definitely try to put stuff into vertical bars, preferably clustering stuff often visited by cursor on one side of the screen and stuff just looked at mosst of the time or used less frequently on the other side.

We don't know if PE will have Stoneskin or Mirror Image.

DraQ's point is legitimate, but the thing is that rushing a mage who's about to instakill you in order to interrupt his spellis very similar to "diving behind a corner" to avoid the spell like he suggested earlier. You're running to the caster instead of away from him. Both require a kind of dynamic control that may not be appropriate for this type of game.

DraQ's point is legitimate in some kind of theoretical game, not in how IE games actually worked.

You do realize that PE just heppens to be this theoretical game at this point and that it cedrtainly won't work in the exact same manner as IE games worked, right?
At the very least particulars of spells, classes and such will be different than in a D&D adaptation and I'm guessing that ludicrously overpowered/universal stuff won't get aped.

 

[tuluse]

You do realize that PE just heppens to be this theoretical game at this point and that it cedrtainly won't work in the exact same manner as IE games worked, right?
At the very least particulars of spells, classes and such will be different than in a D&D adaptation and I'm guessing that ludicrously overpowered/universal stuff won't get aped.

I'm pretty sure Saywer was talking about how save or die works in IE games.

I don't think those kind of spells would fit what we know about PE anyways. For one the stamina/health dichotomy means it would be weird to totally bypass that system. For two the descriptions of how classes work it seems like he wants general gameplay to be characters throwing abilities at each other for a good minute or 2 for each fight. Again bypassing all that would be weird.