Anyone else adore the UI?

[bben46]

I think some of the UI fanboys are thinking the movement (WASD) is the UI. It is a very small part of the UI. And WASD is not among the many complains about the UI.

 

If you look, the DEFAULT device for a PC is a xbox controller I think that is what they used to test for the PC. :facepalm: and not the mouse/keyboard that most PC users have. Your mouse does work much better if you disable the xbox controller in the pre game menu first.

 

Other gripes

All of the scrollable menus in the UI start halfway down the page, and you must scroll down to see more than about 6 items on the list (partly because of the oversize console font used)

 

If you click just a little off of the sweet spot, but still with the pointer on the item in a menu, either it doesn't do anything, or selects something unexpected - I see this in item menus buy/sell menus and speech menus. I just went through this with the book menu, no matter what book I selected, it always opened the top one in the list - no matter where I clicked or how I did it. Finally had to close the book menu, )tab, reopen the menus, tab, point at items, left click, scroll down to get books high enough to see, mouse to books, click, move mouse to book menu, move to proper book, space to open. - finally get to see that this is a book I read in Oblivion. :rolleyes: Intuitive? Maybe with a xbox controller. Simple? NO, cumbersome? Yes.

 

In Oblivion to read a book from inventory, tab, scroll down to the book (might be a long list) , left click on book.

Oblivion Tab, scroll, click (3 things )

Skyrim: Tab, click, scroll, click, scroll, point, space (7 things)

What they were tying to do in Skyrim was make the list you scroll through shorter. What they accomplished was to make it cumbersome.

 

In Oblivion, you do the same 3 things for any inventory item. In Skyrin, it may vary from menu to menu what you do and which button you use. (inconsistent)

 

And, even though I have used it for my example, Oblivion was not the best UI.

 

Yes, the favorites is a nice feature, but poorly done. I should be able to assign an object to the favorites by pressing a key while clicking on it from the normal items list. Then I should not be able to remove an item from the favorites (sell or drop) without a prompt - How about make favorites a different color in the normal list? Or make it so you cannot drop or sell without removing from favorites first?

 

That's enough of my own gripes - lots more where those came from, and I didn't even touch on the level up/perks menu. :wallbash:

 

We will soon (I hope) have several user made UIs to choose from. And those who do prefer the vanilla UI can still use it. That's one of the great things about mods - YOU choose what you want in your game.

[Shantih]

I love the game and I use an Xbox controller but I do think that the UI can be improved.

 

It may not be as bulky as Fallout 3 however it doesn't make the most of the screen, menus are not displayed all over the screen (think about Oblivion or Morrowind). Also I hate the Futura font, it's a total deal breaker in a medieval fantasy game. I wouldn't mind if Skyrim was a Science Fiction title but this font is clearly a strange choice. The only good thing about it is that it's rather easy to read but that's pretty much it. Good thing there are some font mods out already.

 

Besides wouldn't it be better to have tabs for the inventory or magic? Switching between things is a hassle even with favourites.

 

Truth is, the UI is definitely not intuitive and anyone who disagrees with me please be honest, weren't you a bit bewildered when you first opened the barter menu? How can it make sense to have the buying/selling inventories on top of one another while the right hand side of the screen is mostly empty (what's the point in displaying a large model of the item in the larger part of the screen, a window would have been enough).

 

Switching between inventories worked in Fallout 3 and switching between buying and selling worked pretty well in Oblivion so why do we have to deal with all the scrolling in Skyrim?

[Balakirev]

Couple of articles I've found on the UI:

 

First this, then this. Note that the author (who is not me, whom I've never met, and do not know) actually likes Skyrim a lot. He specifically hates the UI, and explains in detail why.

[raatorotta]

At first UI was really weird and hard to use, but when i got use to it, i kind of like it. It's way more faster than oblivion UI.

[soot00]

Most of the peeps who hate it are probably using a 2 button standard mouse and basic keyboard. With my N52 TE gamepad I get 10 extra hotkey buttons just for my thumb. UI is great with the proper hardware setup.

 

Only change in the UI that's needed is a buff timer bar to show on the main window, only thing I would change.

 

 

So we should dish out extra dollars on extra hardware to make a half assed port better? That's not the solution.

 

A serious PC gamer does not play with a basic 2 button mouse and 5 dollar keyboard. I mean if you gonna spend 200++ bucks on a video card to max the Skyrim graphics out you selling yourself short by going with cheap input devices

Edited November 23, 2011 by soot00

[dorkSIDES]

Most of the peeps who hate it are probably using a 2 button standard mouse and basic keyboard. With my N52 TE gamepad I get 10 extra hotkey buttons just for my thumb. UI is great with the proper hardware setup.

 

Only change in the UI that's needed is a buff timer bar to show on the main window, only thing I would change.

 

 

So we should dish out extra dollars on extra hardware to make a half assed port better? That's not the solution.

 

A serious PC gamer does not play with a basic 2 button mouse and 5 dollar keyboard. I mean if you gonna spend 200++ bucks on a video card to max the Skyrim graphics out you selling yourself short by going with cheap input devices

 

I am using a Logitech board that cost me 85EUR(prob over 100 dollars) and a ROCCAT KOVA mouse-never let me down on other(more technically achieved) games/interfaces.

 

The interface has all the listed issues, even on top input hardware, because it was designed for use on a gamepad/360/ps3 controller. Gamer reviews and pro critics have commented on the UI for these reasons.

 

It has got some serious problems and it is not a question of a 5 dollar mouse over a Naga you will still see the same problems being reported by the majority of players when it comes to cheap ports.

 

Also if you are a player on PC you just have to flip the box to see no kind of serious rig is needed for this game.

Edited November 23, 2011 by dorkSIDES

[ginnyfizz]

Rather like me, dorkSIDES. Mr soot00 doesn't seem to want to acknowledge that those of us with higher end peripherals are still having issues.

 

Now, bben46's excellent explanation of what is cumbersome about the UI illustrates exactly why this UI is painful, quite literally, for me. Rheumatoid arthritis is not very kind to the hands and I have had to consider giving up on Skyrim until that god of the UI's known as Darn gets a Skyrim UI out. (Good to know it's in the works.) The UI fanboys would not like that UI so much if their fingers felt like they'd been hit with a hammer - before they even started to wrestle with that UI.

 

I can confirm, that as bben46 mentions, that disabling the XBox 360 controller options makes the mouse react better. At least, my Sidewinder X8 does.

[BarefootWarrior]

ummm..nope! I disabled the 360 controller (as mentioned) and that at least helped. I have learned to 'think ahead' and compensate for the lag in the mouse, sometimes it works, others...well... :rolleyes:

[yellowjack]

Rather like me, dorkSIDES. Mr soot00 doesn't seem to want to acknowledge that those of us with higher end peripherals are still having issues.

 

Now, bben46's excellent explanation of what is cumbersome about the UI illustrates exactly why this UI is painful, quite literally, for me. Rheumatoid arthritis is not very kind to the hands and I have had to consider giving up on Skyrim until that god of the UI's known as Darn gets a Skyrim UI out. (Good to know it's in the works.) The UI fanboys would not like that UI so much if their fingers felt like they'd been hit with a hammer - before they even started to wrestle with that UI.

 

I can confirm, that as bben46 mentions, that disabling the XBox 360 controller options makes the mouse react better. At least, my Sidewinder X8 does.

 

I hear what you are saying, I made the social error of being born left handed. Now I would like to read the views of any of the UI advocates when they try to remap the key assignments to suit a left handed player (mouse in left hand), particularly the tab key which is hard coded at the moment.

[dorkSIDES]

Rather like me, dorkSIDES. Mr soot00 doesn't seem to want to acknowledge that those of us with higher end peripherals are still having issues.

 

Now, bben46's excellent explanation of what is cumbersome about the UI illustrates exactly why this UI is painful, quite literally, for me. Rheumatoid arthritis is not very kind to the hands and I have had to consider giving up on Skyrim until that god of the UI's known as Darn gets a Skyrim UI out. (Good to know it's in the works.) The UI fanboys would not like that UI so much if their fingers felt like they'd been hit with a hammer - before they even started to wrestle with that UI.

 

I can confirm, that as bben46 mentions, that disabling the XBox 360 controller options makes the mouse react better. At least, my Sidewinder X8 does.

 

I can understand, even with the greatest, smoothest controls in the world K&M can cause stress and pain in the joints so magnifying that with lazy controls on the UI in this game and what should be long sessions are cut short from uncomfortable fighting with a poor UI. Needs to be fixed really quickly.