Repeating a request buried in a previous message - any chance of posting a F/M/C or a F/M/T character? I am curious how the XP looks, and which pages (if any) start to get busy with detail again?
Thanks @gnaumiec looks like it is reporting the xp total needed for the next lowest level, plus the amount missing for that level, i.e., 32000 + 2334 = 34334.
A note from me: I would move the ability stats table lower, so that "Strength" was written on the level of "Character sheet", not on the level of the character's name. Because now with the slider on the left there's no harmony in it:
hmm, strange observation. Seems the bg2 menu also has those empty 'holes' where buttons like the priest/mage screen UI normally go. Now im extra curious what the menu use to look like before they settled on this design.
@bengoshi one of my suggestions for this page was similar, only moving the PC name into your blank space, to allow room for another row on the scrolling menu.
In hindsight, I think a better choice is to move the PC's name all the way to the top, so the title for the whole screen becomes Character Sheet: Your Name Here
Still need to pay attention to vertical alignment of the text between the menu and the info on the sheet, but I think it makes better use of the space, without the jarring mixed metaphor of control-space vs. information.
A note from me: I would move the ability stats table lower, so that "Strength" was written on the level of "Character sheet", not on the level of the character's name. Because now with the slider on the left there's no harmony in it:
I really love the current (i.e. non beta) BGII UI aesthetically. I feel you guys really nailed that one.
I like the overall direction of this new layout more, but I feel the aesthetics need work. I think I get what you guys are trying to do. You're trying to make it feel more modern, less like a game from the late 90s/early 2000s. But it feels a little too modern to me, in the sense that the UI feels almost "out of character", if that makes sense?
Really hard to explain it.
Texturing the bars and replacing the highlights with a stylized overlay might help.
Adding to what @gnaumiec said, I should note that the main record screen shows a level of only one class of two/three, if a character is multi-classed. For example, in my new game the record of Jaheira shows she's of the "level 7", while she's the level 7 only as a druid, while she's the level 6 as a fighter:
The fact she's actually a fighter 6/druid 7 character should be shown on the main record screen.
Another note: the scale for dual-classed characters who acquired the second class and activated the first class already shouldn't constantly flash - but now it is actively flashing:
Well said @bengoshi. I like the new character sheet UI expect for the fact that it doesn't really work with dual/multiclass characters. You absolutely shouldn't be hiding the most important information ie. characters level in a seperate tab. The class tab should be just completely removed and all that information added to the main character sheet tab.
Having now played a bit with the beta, I really like the idea behind the new record screen but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.
The scroll background just doesn't work here. For some reason, the text floating over it always looks messy to me. Take @bengoshi screenshots here. The way the plain but stylized text is mixed with the progress bars and seemingly random whitespacing, and the way it's all floating in unbound space with no styling or bordering or anything... it just looks messy and low effort. The scroll bar on the list looks similarly poor and out of place. The character portraits are another example of something that just looks like it was dumped wherever it would fit. The red highlights for the menu are truly awful (here and everywhere else); BG style clearly (IMO) dictates that selections should be handled with a stylized border around the current.
The organization of the menus is also pretty baffling. Why are skills all the way at the bottom, below near-useless or rarely referenced things like kit description and background? Why is there an entry for inventory that hold a useless list? The placement of lore and reputation have been discussed at length, but are equally odd. There doesn't appear to have been much effort put into designing or usefully ordering the categories.
All that said, as I mentioned up front, I still really like the idea. A properly organized version of the tabbed interface would be a big functional improvement over the scrollable mess we have today. With a new visual design it could also look just as good or better.
I like where this is headed, but I'm not yet really a fan of where it sits today.
^^ Agree with the above. For me, replacing the colored selector with a stylized border to show tab selection, and then making another pass on both what goes where and the styling for the main panel would go a long way to making the new UI palatable.
The green numbers when having a stat buff is very cool and a fine change to the eye. Love it. 10/10. Red never did make much sense even after all this time, it should have been only for debuffs.
I really dislike the xp bar. For me it somehow shifts the emphasis from "Character" in the character screen to levelling up.
The first thing I see, and it is on every character sheet screen: "Level x, Next level in x". Certainly the character name should be there if anything. It would feel like my party is made up of "Mage 3, Ranger 3, Thief 4" rather than PC, Minsc and Imoen.
There is a lot of charm for me in seeing these rows Class: x Experience: x Next level: x
This seems like information about my character. BG, Fallout. Good old times. The bar instead screams to me "Level up!, Diablo, MMOs". I see the point in having the bar, so many players of Diablo, MMOs, but could you please keep it in a separate tab rather than sticking it in our faces if we open the character tab? It is really out of place in its current position.
I really dislike the xp bar. For me it somehow shifts the emphasis from "Character" in the character screen to levelling up.
Thanks @cdx, that is exactly the sentiment that had been annoying me, but I could not nail what it was. This style emphasize only what you need to progress, whereas the current form with xp totals somehow places the emphasis more on what I have already achieved - and that subtle feel is a part of why I keep coming back to this RPG, a character is, in part, the sum of their achievements, their history, a game cares only about the next challenge.
Adding to what @gnaumiec said, I should note that the main record screen shows a level of only one class of two/three, if a character is multi-classed. For example, in my new game the record of Jaheira shows she's of the "level 7", while she's the level 7 only as a druid, while she's the level 6 as a fighter:
The fact she's actually a fighter 6/druid 7 character should be shown on the main record screen.
Also, it's saying next level in 15,000 when she actually needs 30,000 since the XP is split between the two classes.
I just want to put my two cents in with the caveat that I don't have the beta. All I know about the new screens is what I've seen posted here.
As someone who's played the BG games on and off since they first came out, I really like the new character screen layout. I never liked the huge text blob on the character screen. It was and is a pain in the butt to use and I would always avoid using it as much as I could.
That said, I don't like the look of the new screen. It moves too far away from the old aesthetic and not far enough to create a new aesthetic. If you're going for a parchment look, then double-down and GO PARCHMENT! Make the first letter of the character's name an illuminated capitol. Use a more old-timey font. That brass curtain-rod scrollbar looks fine on the old stone/metal screen, but makes no sense on parchment. The worst is that red fade selection indicator. That, along with the stark modern font makes it look like a computer document with a parchment background image. (Don't you hate it when someone sends you an Outlook email with a background texture. Ick.) Make the selection indicator an underline or oval drawn with a fountain pen. I don't know what to replace the scrollbar with, a silk ribbon maybe. Make the edges of the area look like a book or a pile of parchment. Make the edges rough, one of the problems I have with the current look is there are too many straight lines. Old time paper didn't have straight lines, even printed books had rough edged pages.
TL:DR, love the new layout, the cosmetics need work.
Why fix what ain't broke...? I just downloaded the beta patch off steam. I was about to undergo a new adventure, testing out the patch, but I just couldn't do it... The UI and Character sheet is too terrible. I honestly don't like anything about it. It doesn't look good, but more importantly, it's not as functional as the original... If you are going to change something that didn't need changing, please make the old UI accessible through gameplay options. Maybe some people like the new UI, but I hate it. If this is any indication of how SoD is going to pan out, I'll wait until the reviews are out, before I consider purchasing. I'm not trying to be a jerk -- just trying to help. Take out this UI update!
Comments
[spoiler=how it looks now]
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=how it could look]
[/spoiler]
In hindsight, I think a better choice is to move the PC's name all the way to the top, so the title for the whole screen becomes
Character Sheet: Your Name Here
Still need to pay attention to vertical alignment of the text between the menu and the info on the sheet, but I think it makes better use of the space, without the jarring mixed metaphor of control-space vs. information.
I like the overall direction of this new layout more, but I feel the aesthetics need work. I think I get what you guys are trying to do. You're trying to make it feel more modern, less like a game from the late 90s/early 2000s. But it feels a little too modern to me, in the sense that the UI feels almost "out of character", if that makes sense?
Really hard to explain it.
Texturing the bars and replacing the highlights with a stylized overlay might help.
The fact she's actually a fighter 6/druid 7 character should be shown on the main record screen.
The scroll background just doesn't work here. For some reason, the text floating over it always looks messy to me. Take @bengoshi screenshots here. The way the plain but stylized text is mixed with the progress bars and seemingly random whitespacing, and the way it's all floating in unbound space with no styling or bordering or anything... it just looks messy and low effort. The scroll bar on the list looks similarly poor and out of place. The character portraits are another example of something that just looks like it was dumped wherever it would fit. The red highlights for the menu are truly awful (here and everywhere else); BG style clearly (IMO) dictates that selections should be handled with a stylized border around the current.
The organization of the menus is also pretty baffling. Why are skills all the way at the bottom, below near-useless or rarely referenced things like kit description and background? Why is there an entry for inventory that hold a useless list? The placement of lore and reputation have been discussed at length, but are equally odd. There doesn't appear to have been much effort put into designing or usefully ordering the categories.
All that said, as I mentioned up front, I still really like the idea. A properly organized version of the tabbed interface would be a big functional improvement over the scrollable mess we have today. With a new visual design it could also look just as good or better.
I like where this is headed, but I'm not yet really a fan of where it sits today.
That's about it for me I'm afraid.
The first thing I see, and it is on every character sheet screen: "Level x, Next level in x". Certainly the character name should be there if anything. It would feel like my party is made up of "Mage 3, Ranger 3, Thief 4" rather than PC, Minsc and Imoen.
There is a lot of charm for me in seeing these rows
Class: x
Experience: x
Next level: x
This seems like information about my character. BG, Fallout. Good old times. The bar instead screams to me "Level up!, Diablo, MMOs". I see the point in having the bar, so many players of Diablo, MMOs, but could you please keep it in a separate tab rather than sticking it in our faces if we open the character tab? It is really out of place in its current position.
As someone who's played the BG games on and off since they first came out, I really like the new character screen layout. I never liked the huge text blob on the character screen. It was and is a pain in the butt to use and I would always avoid using it as much as I could.
That said, I don't like the look of the new screen. It moves too far away from the old aesthetic and not far enough to create a new aesthetic. If you're going for a parchment look, then double-down and GO PARCHMENT! Make the first letter of the character's name an illuminated capitol. Use a more old-timey font. That brass curtain-rod scrollbar looks fine on the old stone/metal screen, but makes no sense on parchment. The worst is that red fade selection indicator. That, along with the stark modern font makes it look like a computer document with a parchment background image. (Don't you hate it when someone sends you an Outlook email with a background texture. Ick.) Make the selection indicator an underline or oval drawn with a fountain pen. I don't know what to replace the scrollbar with, a silk ribbon maybe. Make the edges of the area look like a book or a pile of parchment. Make the edges rough, one of the problems I have with the current look is there are too many straight lines. Old time paper didn't have straight lines, even printed books had rough edged pages.
TL:DR, love the new layout, the cosmetics need work.