LE PC User Interface

[GileadMaerlyn]

"Get used to", thanks, but I prefer to have something efficient and intuitive than getting used to something that sucks, and this interface sucks for PC.

 

One thing I miss that isn't mentioned, the ability to sort items, by price, weight, damage,... In oblivion, when I was overloaded, I just did a little sorting and chosing what item to drop was easy. In Skyrim, it's sorted only alphabetically, which is usefull to find something if you know it's name, ut if you're looking for something for it's attributes, say a heavy object with a bad weight/gold ratio, you have to circle through all your inventory, and, you can only see one item at a time, how can you compare items, with this? It's just awful.

 

By the way, the video I saw of Skyrim showed that you could look at an object in your inventory and rotate around it. It's useless but pretty cool, and I weren't able to do so. Does anyone know how to do it?

[LadyAubrie]

By the way, the video I saw of Skyrim showed that you could look at an object in your inventory and rotate around it. It's useless but pretty cool, and I weren't able to do so. Does anyone know how to do it?

 

You *may* try holding "F" and dragging it around, but I can't guarantee that. That's what you have to do if you want to rotate the camera around your character, so it might be worth a shot...

 

And I'm echoing almost everyone here: PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEEEEASE someone make a better UI! Oblivion was amazing and Fallout 3/NV were incredible! Did Bethesda forget how to make a UI? Whoever does this, can you add an option to change mouse sensitivity/camera rotation speed, too? It's so...bulky!

Edited November 11, 2011 by LadyAubrie

[MarcusDubious]

I really hate it too, it's not quite bad enough for me to give up on the game but it's close. It took me a good hour to “get used to” navigating my way around and it's still a total pain in the arse.

 

The obvious annoyances like only seeing the attributes of one object at a time, unresponsive mouse, menu keys you cant remap like 'L' for minimap.

Not to mention the downright broken things like you can remap the key to open favourites but it doesn't remap the key to close it again. How retarded is that?

I guess Bethesda just got lazy and thought we would either put up with it or the modders will do their work for them like they did when they made the Oblivion UI usable. I guess PC gamers aren’t thought of highly enough for them to do a competent job.

[Moogiefluff]

It doesn't help that it seems so temperamental. Some menus let you click, others force you to press Enter. Some menus let you mousewheel (most of the time... it gets stuck a lot), others won't respond unless you WASD around it like you're playing in DOSBox.

 

Character creation was by far the most annoying sequence I've ever struggled through in a game, and I nearly quit before I'd even started playing. Dare to turn your character's head to get a better view, and the menus will completely stop responding, forcing you to switch to a different category and back to 'unlock' the bugged controls. Every single goddamn time. Did they do any playtesting whatsoever?

 

What I'd like to see in a UI mod, if possible, is a restructuring of the character info windows so that all relevant information is in the same place. There's no way to get a general 'overview' of your character, unless you count the Skills (constellation) menu. But then if you want to see how your stats are being affected by powers/magic you have to exit and enter the Magic menu instead. At least in Oblivion this wasn't such a big deal, because all those buttons were right next to eachother and accessible by a quick click. Here, it takes multiple keypresses and a bunch of scrolling just to view the correct menu.

 

Sigh. Modders shouldn't have to fix things like this. If they're not going to bother properly finishing a PC version, why sell one at all?

[Abelius1]

Indeed.

 

UI is really console-sque and lacks a lot of already implemented functionality of previous games. Rotating objects is nice, but if you rip off things so basic as showing a brief description, sorting, or actually controlling the UI with the mouse... :confused:

 

It seems the modding community will need to "patch" the game thoroughly this time, not only to improve it, but to restore things we took for granted.

[JonP382]

Going to throw my voice into those unhappy with the UI. It's one of the worst I've ever seen, maybe THE worst. If someone else won't do it, I think I might just learn how to do it myself.

[LilBudyWizer]

Move that friggin panel at the bottom of the inventory to the top. It might be just perfect at 1920x1200, but at 1920x1080 it's overlapping my inventory list. I can't even select some categories at times.

[MafiaInferno]

I too cannot stand the UI, so much so that i will avoid skyrim until someone creates a decent mod for it. I fear that if i keep playing vanilla it will destroy the game for me.

[jburrowes]

The UI does, indeed, suck.

 

As others have said, it's clunky/tedious to use; doesn't allow sorting by weight or value; only shows the stats for one item at a time; etc.

 

Add to that the fact that its coloring and font and overall style is more suited to a futuristic setting and you can't help but say "What were they thinking?!?!"

 

Clearly the consoles are where the money is. I just hope they sell enough PC copies to keep them releasing a PC version too - until some upstart comes along and betters them.

 

It seems Bethesda is getting complacent. Why shouldn't they? There's really no other game developer that comes close to matching the free roaming openness of The Elder Scrolls series. (Right? Or dare I dream that there is?)

 

WASD - and E in place of reaching for Enter - does work well for most things. The Items, Magic, Map, and Stats keys (I, P, M, and /) I've mapped to keys F1 through F4 so that's better. I have to tap to exit each one before opening the next but that's not too tedious with the keys all next to each other.

 

A lot of people want the ability to hot key duel wield. I don't see this as a big issue though. Normally I have a spell ready in my left hand and a dagger or short sword in my right. If I want a second, identical blade I just tap the hot key for it again. (Though if one wants a different blade in each hand this won't work).

 

Same thing, of course, for spells. Double tap the spell's key to duel wield it.

 

Going a bit off topic...

 

I doubt many people will use long swords or shields in Skyrim. I've always played a short blade wielding archer but now that casting is way cool I've created a High Elf and will go heavy on the arcane arts - carrying a bow for silent kills. Heheh.

[Tair]

The UI blows. It's clunky with a mouse and downright irritating with the keyboard. What's worse is that there are no menu-to-menu swaps; e.g., to swap from Weapons to Spells, you need to entirely exit Weapons and then hit Spells. Trying to get off a Fast Heal as a sword and board warrior is nearly impossible when it actually counts—when you need it FAST. You're better off just keeping your heal equipped, which devalues shields in any situation where you'd need emergency healing.

 

Still worse is the lack of the num row keybindings that existed in Oblivion. It makes maintaining short-duration buffs ridiculous, since the Favorites menu absolutely sucks compared to standard 1 through X key binds.

 

It's a neat game, but I just simply can't imagine why basic keybinds weren't included.

 

What's interesting is that if you attempt to bind something to 1 through 0 on your num row, the game will tell you that the key has been reserved.

Edited November 13, 2011 by Tair