UI Changes made for the sake of making changes
Severon
Member Posts: 214
The new UI really bugs me.. I'm sure there's some underlying things that work better, but the look and feel irks me.
To me, it feels as though why change what wasn't broken.
Little things such as the World Map, what was wrong with the old map? It feels clunky having to either double click on an area or having to then click Travel. It no longer highlights when you hover an area. Why was this removed?
I can no longer have the little scroll pop up to tell me how long it'll take for me to travel to a new area (except the ones forced onto your screen to say time to major destinations). Again, why was this changed?
The massive black fog of war on the edges of the map that you can now half scroll into is so irksome. It really breaks immersion that the map just ends with a vast block of black. Again, please help me understand the reasoning for this change?
The journal changes, while I can see it's an improvement for some, I cant see it. It was nicely laid out before and it had a nice journal look and feel of it.
The same applies to the priest and mage spell screens. It might as well take one step further and be a spreadsheet.
There's also alot of buttons removed in favour for this massive red block replacing it with, also removing the (to the diehard) that button sound which for some us like it.
Things I do like -
I like that you've added a health bar (turned it off for my own personal preference), as I can see that to some people it's useful. But you did the right thing, by adding an option to turn it off.
I like the sprite outline and highlighting (again I turned it off), for much the same reason.
You genuinely did a good job on the UI for EE for both 1 and 2 (pre patch 2). Especially the little extra info for the THAC0 and the damage. That I do like, you made it look like it should of been in the original BG. However while I don't agree with the Blue stone (would have preferred the more original BG stone texture) or the BG2 texture, it was overall given a little cosmetic makeup without changing and detracting from the original UI.
I also like the dragon, dark scales texture for SoD, I just wish that you'd use the 1.3 UI and had that look.
I understand from what I've read is that UI is mainly optimised for tablets and phone users. Well, if that's the case, then give those users this UI. Give us PC users the option to choose which UI to use.
I believe that steam users get the choice to revert back to 1.3 which is nice, however I brought the game on Beamdog. Also, does this mean that SoD would have that 1.3 look.
I personally like to think of Baldur's Gate as one very long game, like the old mod, BG Trilogy, where the game looks and feels the same across all 3 games. Including things like having the same portraits avaliable from all 3, the same soundsets etc.
I hope this will at least provide some feedback to your UI Development team.
To me, it feels as though why change what wasn't broken.
Little things such as the World Map, what was wrong with the old map? It feels clunky having to either double click on an area or having to then click Travel. It no longer highlights when you hover an area. Why was this removed?
I can no longer have the little scroll pop up to tell me how long it'll take for me to travel to a new area (except the ones forced onto your screen to say time to major destinations). Again, why was this changed?
The massive black fog of war on the edges of the map that you can now half scroll into is so irksome. It really breaks immersion that the map just ends with a vast block of black. Again, please help me understand the reasoning for this change?
The journal changes, while I can see it's an improvement for some, I cant see it. It was nicely laid out before and it had a nice journal look and feel of it.
The same applies to the priest and mage spell screens. It might as well take one step further and be a spreadsheet.
There's also alot of buttons removed in favour for this massive red block replacing it with, also removing the (to the diehard) that button sound which for some us like it.
Things I do like -
I like that you've added a health bar (turned it off for my own personal preference), as I can see that to some people it's useful. But you did the right thing, by adding an option to turn it off.
I like the sprite outline and highlighting (again I turned it off), for much the same reason.
You genuinely did a good job on the UI for EE for both 1 and 2 (pre patch 2). Especially the little extra info for the THAC0 and the damage. That I do like, you made it look like it should of been in the original BG. However while I don't agree with the Blue stone (would have preferred the more original BG stone texture) or the BG2 texture, it was overall given a little cosmetic makeup without changing and detracting from the original UI.
I also like the dragon, dark scales texture for SoD, I just wish that you'd use the 1.3 UI and had that look.
I understand from what I've read is that UI is mainly optimised for tablets and phone users. Well, if that's the case, then give those users this UI. Give us PC users the option to choose which UI to use.
I believe that steam users get the choice to revert back to 1.3 which is nice, however I brought the game on Beamdog. Also, does this mean that SoD would have that 1.3 look.
I personally like to think of Baldur's Gate as one very long game, like the old mod, BG Trilogy, where the game looks and feels the same across all 3 games. Including things like having the same portraits avaliable from all 3, the same soundsets etc.
I hope this will at least provide some feedback to your UI Development team.
6
Comments
I agree with the world map. The travel button seems redundant and I tend to forget I have to click it.
I rarely ever use the journal, but the pop ups are not too intrusive and even a nice quick summary of what was just told to you as you click through the conversation.
I agree with the edges being black. I dont think it breaks immersion for me but it messes with my bearings while exploring a map. I do think those need to be trimmed down.
I love the new sprite highlighting. Allows for less miss clicks.
i didn't think I would like the health bars. I have them turned off for my BG2 and SoD games, but kept them on for BG. They come in handy for mobs and replaces the tabbing when determining who to attack next. I am use to them in other games and am not finding them out of place here surprisingly.
It is optimized for tables because it is very difficult to mod those. PC users have the option and the tools available to change the UI to there liking.
A lot of people also are missing that you can put a spell into a spell slot by clicking on the spell icon, and you don't need to use the "memorize" button. (It doesn't work to just click in the text box, it has to be on the icon.)
I turned off everything I could but game still looks uglier than original... It's like somebody used Crayola to "improve" an oil painting!
Was thinking of reinstalling the original game, but what's this about steam users reverting to a previous version? Is there a way to just go back to original cosmetics but keeping the handy stuff?
Looks better than this (BG2 vanilla)
More functional? Possibly (and still a matter of debate). But Baldur's Gate isn't just about functionality, it is also about its amazing artwork. And while you can say the vanilla version of Baldur's Gate 1 may have been improved in terms of artwork (sort of), Baldur's Gate 2: Enhanced Edition has been destroying the original artwork just for the sake of change. It feels like Beamdog is making changes to show that they know how to make those changes and later on call it 'their game' rather than calling it an 'Enhanced Edition'.
The vanilla version of BG2 had a tremendous focus on the artwork, you can see that just from the edges with the roots and gems. With EE they removed those to have what? Empty spaces with the game window behind. Almost like the inventory page (in the case of the images above) is a mere 'pop-up' window. And for what? A bit more information a lot more blank and black space (still trying to figure out why in the world they left huge rectangule at the left of the "ground items").
Then you have the new buttons. Comparing those dark, bland buttons to the vanillla ones and you see how much it was lost. And in this case, without possible justification, except being 'change made for the sake of change'. It doesn't look better, it looks far worse.
Aside from the buttons, you have the overall 'clean' look and color and the attempt to remake some of the artwork used in the vanilla, rather than actually use the far-better original artwork. This extends even to the text font.
And the spell books? The old ones were beautiful but poorly functional, no doubt.
But the new ones? Almost like a clear-cut pdf sheet pasted over the game window like a pop-up. It is a good idea to have the spells present their description, yes, but having them like this is just sloppy artwork
The worst of all is without a doubt the journal and the map. The journal no longer feels like a book, rather it feels like you are reading a bunch of notes taken from a notice board. And without the possibility of separating 'finished quests' from those still active. And I can tell you right now that when you are reading something, you don't want any other visual distractions so having the journal pop-up and still have more than half the screen occupied by the scenary of wherever the party is, is horrible and distracting.
Worse of all, it has features removed. You when you wanted to read journal notes of what was happening (not just quests)? Like the ones in the following image
With the new journal they appear once as a pop-up and after that they are lost and you can't read them again.
Also, for some reason, you can't change from your any other page (like inventory) to your journal. Hopefully that is merely a bug but one that wasn't corrected from the 2.0 to the 2.1 version.
Then we have the map. A map where an area is no longer highlighted when we place the cursor over it. And the new map feature, the one that highlights the area, I wonder just who would look at that and say "yes, this is better than it was before".
The new map also features black edges that completely break game imersion. I get the idea of 'not having an item or character stuck outside the game window', which it did happen very occasionally and wasn't really a big issue (especially when items on the ground can be picked up from afar with the bar that shows those items). While I get the idea of correcting, the solution adopted is horrible.
Some new options are just silly, like sprite outline making chracters feel like a bad cut from Borderlands, completely removed from BG's graphics and scenarios. Want to have it? Fine, but don't activate it by default please.
Also, I'd like to point out that, at least for me, cinematics have no subtitles. I don't know if it happens to everyone but I simply can't find a way to activate them, no matter how many "show subtitles" buttons I activate.
Last, but not least, we have the conversation window. Where before you could scroll to read previous text, now you have to press a button that opens a small bar of that window, adjust that bar and scroll in there. While I do understand the desire to keep the current dialog and not lose it, it is extremely restrictive.
And the fact that this conversation window, as well as shortcut buttons, are also pop-up windows pasted over game window is also negative in my point of view. Hell, you can see scenario behind the text. Seriously...
The only real improvements in the BG2:EE GUI are the Record Sheet that is far more organized, the functionalities of the inventory sheet where we can see more detailed information and even the new changes applied by an item, the button that allows you to see what items are on the ground, as well as the possibility to highlight object that you can interact with
But having improvements at the expense of overall visual quality of the game, is just a terrible option.
So in the end, the game is losing its Baldur's Gate feeling and I'm inclined to simply ignore Enhanced Edition (for both games) until Beamdog gives us the option to go back to the old visuals (or until some modder does what Beamdog should do regarding visual effects). Which is a shame since I do like the contents of EE, such as the new characters and quests. But content is irrelevent when the 'feeling' is disappearing.
As it stands right now, I don't feel like I'm playing Baldur's Gate, more like I'm merely going through a pre-made D&D adventure bought at the local gaming store, with the windows being little more than a pdf. Or worse, that I'm not playing a medieval-fantasy game but rather one that is getting more and more 'futuristic' and technical.
Is an option to revert to old GUI (even if that removes zoom, for example and forces specific resolutions just like the vanilla version did) so difficult to implement? Given that modders can change the GUI, and intention of making GUI modding even easier, I find that hard to believe.