Thoughts on the new 2.0 UI? (No spoilers please)

Xerxes1811

Hey all,

Apologies if this has already been covered, I went back about two or three pages of the forum and most of it was....well you know...different topics. I found a couple 2.0 discussion threads but they started getting "spoilerish." In short, I decided to play through SOD to experience it for myself.

I've downloaded the game off Steam and imported my BGEE savegame. At this point, I've only watched the opening cut-scene and walked around the first room a bit. I've decided to hold off playing till the updates come out as it sounds like there are some technical issues that need to be ironed out. I WILL say this though, the new 2.0 UI was kind of jarring to me, "boy, it's going to take me a while to get used to this" was the first thought running through my head. I loved the 1.3 UI, so my question is for people who are currently playing, or have completed SOD, what are your thoughts on the new interface? Better? Worse? Somewhere in between? Did you grow to like it? I am playing as a Stalker and the ability to switch between ranged and dual-wield sounds great (in theory).

illathid

I love the new interface myself. I really like the buttons on the character record. There's some good things about the spell books, but I feel like they're arranged oddly. Inventory is basically the same, but with some cool new features that make inventory Tetris easier. I turned off the Sprite outlines myself, but I really like the health bars. I'm also a fan of the black border on maps as it lets me always keep the party in the center of the camera. So yeah, I like it a lot.

Rawgrim

Can't stand it.

jsaving

For new players who don't care much about technical details, the new interface is a step up from the previous one. At character creation, for example, you can easily see which class combinations are available to you instead of potentially missing them because you didn't see or understand what the "multi-class" button would do. On the inventory screen, you can now see exactly how a particular item will impact AC and other combat-relevant stats instead of having to equip the item and then check to see whether anything changed. On the character screen, you can more easily see relevant information like XP totals and weapon proficiencies without having to scroll through a wall of text to get there, or you choose to have other information like your bio displayed instead.

For experienced players, it's a mixed bag because buttons aren't where they used to be (and, in a few cases, have been flipped from what they used to be). Also, while I'd heard the new interface would finally bring back the old pre-EE functionality of creating/deleting/replacing "quickbar" buttons at the bottom of the screen (important for characters like cleric/thieves whose key skills are now relegated to submenus), this doesn't appear to have happened. I also didn't immediately see how to erase spells from a wizard book (important if you hit your cap and find a useful new spell), though perhaps I just missed how to do that in the new interface. These aren't huge issues, but they are issues.

illathid

@jsaving
Right click on the spell icon in the spell book and it will let you delete it.

ElGuapo

I don't like it at all. In large part because of nostalgia, and I think that's a legitimate reason in this case. I can understand having a new interface for SoD since it's a new game, or at least new DLC, created years after the originals. However I can't understand changing the UI in the older games. I would suppose it's for consistency? Why not have the option to choose between the new and old interface for the older games though? 2.0 changes the entire look and feel of the old games. I EXPECTED SoD to look and feel different by its very nature. I did not expect or want the old games to look and feel different, certainly not to this extent. I dislike it very much.

illathid

ElGuapo said:

I don't like it at all. In large part because of nostalgia, and I think that's a legitimate reason in this case. I can understand having a new interface for SoD since it's a new game, or at least new DLC, created years after the originals. However I can't understand changing the UI in the older games. I would suppose it's for consistency? Why not have the option to choose between the new and old interface for the older games though? 2.0 changes the entire look and feel of the old games. I EXPECTED SoD to look and feel different by its very nature. I did not expect or want the old games to look and feel different, certainly not to this extent. I dislike it very much.

Part of the reason for the change was that they completely rewrote the UI code making more moddable. People have already made auto-rollers (with animated rolls!) that work inside the character creation UI.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Milo

I like the SoD UI. Pecca's mod in the UI forum is very good as well (though I personally can't use it because playing without the scaled interface murders my eyes after awhile).

Making the UI easier to mod is a good move as well.

The problem I've had is it would have been easier if we had the 1.3 UI as a base and could mod from there, because the beta UI (and the one that is currently in BG2EE) is really quite bad IMO. Modding that out is not an option, it's a necessity.

ElGuapo

illathid said:

ElGuapo said:

I don't like it at all. In large part because of nostalgia, and I think that's a legitimate reason in this case. I can understand having a new interface for SoD since it's a new game, or at least new DLC, created years after the originals. However I can't understand changing the UI in the older games. I would suppose it's for consistency? Why not have the option to choose between the new and old interface for the older games though? 2.0 changes the entire look and feel of the old games. I EXPECTED SoD to look and feel different by its very nature. I did not expect or want the old games to look and feel different, certainly not to this extent. I dislike it very much.

Part of the reason for the change was that they completely rewrote the UI code making more moddable. People have already made auto-rollers (with animated rolls!) that work inside the character creation UI.

I've never modded Baldurs Gate, or felt the need to. Just played the originals when they game out, and the enhanced editions which I enjoyed. It felt like the same game.

If modding is something I'm going to need to do to enjoy the EE now, I'll probably decide they aren't for me anymore and just go back to playing the original non enhanced editions. I rolled back to 1.3 on Steam but I'm not sure how long that's going to be a viable option.

Ammar

@ElGuapo

Interesting. I think using the BG 2 engine for BG 1 changed the feel of the game much more than the UI ever could.

Rawgrim

If it isn't broken, don't fix it.

ElGuapo

Ammar said:

@ElGuapo

Interesting. I think using the BG 2 engine for BG 1 changed the feel of the game much more than the UI ever could.

Maybe I didn't notice it as much because it had been quite awhile since I last played BG1 before coming back and running through the EE a couple times in anticipation of SoD.

I enjoyed the enhanced edition with 1.3. The switch to 2.0 was jarring to me and I didn't like it at all. I had decided to let it sit for a bit and see what if anything changed. Then all the "controversies" came up and kind of distracted from it all.

I think the option to play with the prior UI would be a good thing. At this point it doesn't seem like everyone can do that.

Doubledimas

Just played through BG:EE and BG:SoD with v2.0 interface. Fine by me. But perhaps I'm not such a demanding player.

Xerxes1811

Doubledimas said:

Just played through BG:EE and BG:SoD with v2.0 interface. Fine by me. But perhaps I'm not such a demanding player.

Holy cow, that's about 80 hours or so in a week and a half. Takes me about two months to get through a BGEE run, but my game time is limited unfortunately. I'm hoping that they make an option to revert back to the 1.3 UI in the next update, but that may be impossible at this point. There's things I like in both, but the 1.3 UI looks cleaner to me I guess.

dancingcrab

I really like it. Of course, I own the original and if I'm feeling nostalgic, I'll boot that up, but in terms of pure functionality, I like what Beamdog have done. There are niggles, and the journal still seems a tad glitchy, but overall I feel like it is more polished and modern than v1.3 and before.

Although it seems unpopular on the forums, I LOVE the character outlining. Partly because it makes zooming out on a big screen more functional, and partly because I just like the aesthetic - reminds me of Arcanum It looks really ugly when zoomed in close, however.

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The user and all related content has been deleted.

mf2112

I was meh about the character sheets since they lacked all BG flavor, but Pecca's widescreen mod is seriously fantastic. The fact that basically everything in the UI is moddable is sweet sweet icing. I know there are some issues to work through on it, but it isn't like BeamDog is throwing it out there with no help whatsoever.

Just like 1.3EE made everyone forget how bad the original character sheets were, I believe there will be a multitude of UI mod packages to choose from with all different styles and you will never look back.

rapsam2003

Rawgrim said:

If it isn't broken, don't fix it.

It may not have been "broken", but it wasn't great either. It was very awkward. 15 years ago, it was fine. But there's no reason to keep the UI exactly the same, 15 years later...for nostalgia's sake.

illathid

ElGuapo said:

illathid said:

ElGuapo said:

I don't like it at all. In large part because of nostalgia, and I think that's a legitimate reason in this case. I can understand having a new interface for SoD since it's a new game, or at least new DLC, created years after the originals. However I can't understand changing the UI in the older games. I would suppose it's for consistency? Why not have the option to choose between the new and old interface for the older games though? 2.0 changes the entire look and feel of the old games. I EXPECTED SoD to look and feel different by its very nature. I did not expect or want the old games to look and feel different, certainly not to this extent. I dislike it very much.

Part of the reason for the change was that they completely rewrote the UI code making more moddable. People have already made auto-rollers (with animated rolls!) that work inside the character creation UI.

I've never modded Baldurs Gate, or felt the need to. Just played the originals when they game out, and the enhanced editions which I enjoyed. It felt like the same game.

If modding is something I'm going to need to do to enjoy the EE now, I'll probably decide they aren't for me anymore and just go back to playing the original non enhanced editions. I rolled back to 1.3 on Steam but I'm not sure how long that's going to be a viable option.

Well that's your loss then.

NightRevan

So far I'm enjoying the new UI and it's new features quite allot, I sometimes still work with the new spell menus and end removing learned spells but otherwise I like the changes. I like the comparison feature for loot, leaving dark those who can't use it and highlighting those who can, equipping two handed and either dual-weapons or shield/buckler abd switching between is really good as is the mass loot toogle. I really liked that as well, the AI and customizing options are good (b-scripts mod is still largely superior but then it was only on the EE's I could get those working without significant and constant lag), as are the other customization options. The only thing I'm not sych a fan of ia it is a bit dark in SoD for my tastes.

Out of the originals (as well as TUTU and Trilogy for BG1), EE 1.3 and 2.0 I overall like 2.0 .ore I believe.

Wraith_Sarevok

YouTube 2.0

Why do you constantly feel the need to make things different. I don't like things that are different.

Lore

I love the new interface as well and the new sprites. A big improvement over the older ones, great new features.

One thing i DO NOT like is the dark highlighting , but we can switch that off so its no biggie

JuliusBorisov

I switched off Highlighting and Sprite outlines, switched off Maximum HP on level up, and the game started to feel natural to me.

ElGuapo

I'll give it another go at some point. Sounds like it's a work in progress and pretty customizable. I'm not enthusiastic enough about it to muddle around with it right now but it seems like there's a decent chance I'll be able to make it into something I'll like. We shall see.

MonkeyLungs

I really really like it. The new UI is one of the best enhancements to the game I feel.

Autequi

I like the new UI, with a few quibbles about the graphics (that red highlighting... bleh).
-The Character screen could be laid out better. Either they'll address it in a patch or some brilliant modder will fix it.
-The grayscale-on-pause is unexpectedly useful; I don't really like the grayness (would prefer a sepia or a desaturation) but it makes it sooo much easier to pick out NPCs! But you can turn grayscale off.
-I quickly got used to the sprite outlining and black map borders.
-Journal interface is kind of nice because you can have it onscreen while playing.

Xerxes1811 said:

I am playing as a Stalker and the ability to switch between ranged and dual-wield sounds great (in theory).

It's not great. It's AWESOME. No more constant trudging into the character screen to equip/unequip your off-hand. It takes one click. One click. And every time I make that click, a bell chimes melodiously in the distance, lightening the burdened hearts of the downtrodden. A fairy wings into the aether, leaving a sparkling trail of rainbows. The cell-phone talker clogging up the line in front of you pays for your macchiato.
New players will not understand me because they've never experienced the pain that we have. But YOU KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT.

rapsam2003

@Autequi, you forgot the part where all rangers in the entire Forgotten Realms get together for a few brief moments to dance across the screen in joyous celebration of the fact that it is NOW FUN to have a ranger with dual wield and a strength bow.

mysterymeep

I love it. Highlights are the new character screen, the updated spell screens, grayscale on pause/outlined sprites that make it so much easier for me to see, the fact that things like biography are easy to read now, and the fact that I can easily adjust font size??

Basically all of it. The spell screen takes some getting used to, but it's easier to read things in general without having to go screens deep, and I love the new journal and the popups from it.

TheArtisan

It's a big difference but only took me a couple hours of playing before I stopped caring. *shrug*