Vanilla BG2 UI is by far the best for me. It just feels so much more.. appropriate and immersive. Having screenfilling pages (even if most if it is just pretty overlay and not info) just felt so much better.
I don't like the windows at all, reminds me of some unimmersive mmo where all you want are stats.
Oh how I long for the days of that big blob of beige surrounding everything. To me the old UI actually contributed to the magic and mystery of my favorite game.. newer ones just feel cold and straight forward, separates me from the game.
I welcomed the changes in UI from vanilla to 1.3. As mentioned before, each update made it better and better. Aside from the aesthetics of 2.0, it's just not functional. Agreed that SoD is totally new, so a UI change is warranted; however, 1, 2, and TOB should not be changed, imo. The more moddable argument is kind of crazy to me, since I'm guessing there are so many mods already that would need to be updated. I code, and I get it -- it would be a pain to revert to 1.3, but for me, the 2.0 UI change is totally unnecessary and cumbersome.
With the caveat that the beta UI isn't completely finished yet, I like it. There are certain parts of the UI like dual classing that needs to be brought up to the same level as the rest, and some of the red highlight bars aren't lined up correctly with the background, but all that can be fixed. I like the layout, though the ordering of the menu options in the character record could be improved.
I suggest adding some important derivative stats to a mouseover box of the core stats. For instance, lore could be included in a mouseover box under intelligence and wisdom, with other applied statistics.
I suggest adding some important derivative stats to a mouseover box of the core stats. For instance, lore could be included in a mouseover box under intelligence and wisdom, with other applied statistics.
I think we have enough mouseovers on the inventory screen already. Mouseover has a very slow speed by default. You can make it show faster by changing the options, but that would affect all mouseovers and thus can become very annoying. It's also possible to press tab to show it, but right now the tooltips are even more out of place than the character's sheet is.
Even though I prefer the old character sheet version, I don't think they will revert back to it, so hopefully beamdog will fix the current one. It needs to be better aligned as Bengoshi pointed out, and it also needs to change a few things like Lore, and multiclassing. Once all that is fixed, in my opinion they should try to give it a more appealing look that is not out of place with the other UI windows.
On tooltips: the scrolls are never coming back, unfortunately. We can either have them or adjustable font sizes, and those are essential for playing on modern resolutions.
But they could look into changing the colors, right? The white text over dark grey indeed looks out of place, but maybe they could try to somehow mimic the scroll colors. Make the background beige and the text dark brown or something.
As I pointed out in another thread, it probably wouldn't take too much effort to create a textured tooltip box. That simple mockup took me ~2 hours, and I'm sure a skilled artist/texturer could make something that looks better in no time. And with the new UI code, I doubt it would be too difficult to get it to display in-game.
As Adul says, 3x3 tiles are a very common method to add more complex style to a flexible container than just plain vector/geometric. in this case we'd need fixed size paper borders for all 4 corners and 4 edges and a paper fill that repeats itself as much as the text requires ... it's a commonplace in webdesign, and it wouldn't be hard at all to implement this in a program, if not in 2.0, i'm sure in 2.1 .
I don't quite understand why after changing the inventory screen so much, there is still so much dead space between the backpack and the ground. Why not do what they did for SoD?
The 1.3 UI by a mile. Hoping we will have the option to restore. The spell book now more difficult to use *and* it feels like a spreadsheet. I liked the . . . errr . . . book look of 1.3. Also, I now need to click and hunt for information that was previous at my finger tips on the character screen.
And this is the way I feel about most of the changes -- as I'll say in other threads. While I like some of added features I keep thinking "they spent their time on this"? The graphics changes make the avatars looks cartoon like, the UI is spreadsheet like and the black border on the maps make the game seem 'tile like'. All of which break immersion.
I know this sounds silly but I think some of you will get it -- it is getting harder to suspend disbelief because the game keeps reminding me it is a game.
Oh and just to balance some: the multiple quick saves are great, the zoom out on map is good -- but the UI and graphics rendering ? No so much.
One of the reasons I had stopped playing BG1 and 2 is, without mods, the UI made the game abhorrent to play. Thus why I even bought the EE. I didn't care about the new content (and unfortunately I don't quite like the characters, though I love Rasaad's voice acting.) I just wanted a fresh take on my favorite games of yesteryear. I still hold hope for an updated P:T and IWD2, but that's neither here nor there.
I chose the beta UI because of usability. It's far more functional in my opinion, from little improvements like being able to quickly get through portraits in the character selection to big things like the dialogue box and quick loot.
My issue with the beta UI, however, is aesthetic. It looks, quite frankly, terrible in some cases. I am not sure if there are expected changes, but things like the lack of buttons for the alignments. The red highlight instead feels very... well, for lack of better term, unprofessional. It feels out of place and takes a bit of the magic of the game away. This being an example, and not the only offense, of course. There are in-game and more character creation areas just like this.
^ I'd argue that us old timers are indeed the target audience for something like this, and any other isometric cRPG these days really. At least that's been my experience when conversing with other gamers of different age brackets and generations.
"Oh recently I've enjoyed Wasteland 2, Pillars, Divinity Original Sin, Dead State, obviously still a fan of the Baldur's Gate games and am looking forward to DragonSpear and Torment: Tides of Numenera this year"
"Never heard of them, but I just got Fallout 4 on my Ps4, best RPG ever!!"
>Resists urge to slap that youth across the head and launch into a tirade about how it isn't even an RPG..
@Stoibs I don't know if it makes you feel better or worse, but I am only 23 and if not for BG I wouldn't even play video games. In other news, Original Sin 2 looks promising!
@Insultion
Glad to see it's a timeless classic then that is indeed still appealing for all ages, and that my sample size of examples isn't entirely representative of the whole.
At the end of the day I'm happy enough that they ultimately decided to compromise with 00zim00's design as of today's most recent hotpatch, and pretty much most of my fears and annoyances have been rectified with feedback taken onboard.
Comments
It just feels so much more.. appropriate and immersive.
Having screenfilling pages (even if most if it is just pretty overlay and not info) just felt so much better.
I don't like the windows at all, reminds me of some unimmersive mmo where all you want are stats.
Oh how I long for the days of that big blob of beige surrounding everything.
To me the old UI actually contributed to the magic and mystery of my favorite game.. newer ones just feel cold and straight forward, separates me from the game.
I suggest adding some important derivative stats to a mouseover box of the core stats. For instance, lore could be included in a mouseover box under intelligence and wisdom, with other applied statistics.
Even though I prefer the old character sheet version, I don't think they will revert back to it, so hopefully beamdog will fix the current one. It needs to be better aligned as Bengoshi pointed out, and it also needs to change a few things like Lore, and multiclassing. Once all that is fixed, in my opinion they should try to give it a more appealing look that is not out of place with the other UI windows.
But they could look into changing the colors, right? The white text over dark grey indeed looks out of place, but maybe they could try to somehow mimic the scroll colors. Make the background beige and the text dark brown or something.
it's a commonplace in webdesign, and it wouldn't be hard at all to implement this in a program, if not in 2.0, i'm sure in 2.1
And this is the way I feel about most of the changes -- as I'll say in other threads. While I like some of added features I keep thinking "they spent their time on this"? The graphics changes make the avatars looks cartoon like, the UI is spreadsheet like and the black border on the maps make the game seem 'tile like'. All of which break immersion.
I know this sounds silly but I think some of you will get it -- it is getting harder to suspend disbelief because the game keeps reminding me it is a game.
Oh and just to balance some: the multiple quick saves are great, the zoom out on map is good -- but the UI and graphics rendering ? No so much.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/728393/#Comment_728393
The BG feel is back but with a lot of added functionality. The best of the two worlds!
I chose the beta UI because of usability. It's far more functional in my opinion, from little improvements like being able to quickly get through portraits in the character selection to big things like the dialogue box and quick loot.
My issue with the beta UI, however, is aesthetic. It looks, quite frankly, terrible in some cases. I am not sure if there are expected changes, but things like the lack of buttons for the alignments. The red highlight instead feels very... well, for lack of better term, unprofessional. It feels out of place and takes a bit of the magic of the game away. This being an example, and not the only offense, of course. There are in-game and more character creation areas just like this.
@Stoibs I don't know if it makes you feel better or worse, but I am only 23 and if not for BG I wouldn't even play video games. In other news, Original Sin 2 looks promising!
Glad to see it's a timeless classic then that is indeed still appealing for all ages, and that my sample size of examples isn't entirely representative of the whole.
At the end of the day I'm happy enough that they ultimately decided to compromise with 00zim00's design as of today's most recent hotpatch, and pretty much most of my fears and annoyances have been rectified with feedback taken onboard.