PST EE Interface : Right-Click menu missing

Berov

First post.
Great work guys!

Planescape Torment is certainly one of my top favorite games.
I was quite surprised to find that you actually managed to tackle it and bring it back a little polished and modernized. As all the other enhanced editions this one does not disappoint!

I wanted to ask you about the missing right-click menu from the original game. Has it been completely removed from the EE or I'm missing something?

You had probably put a lot of consideration into working on the game, so I guess you have a good reason to scrap it and replace it with a menu at the lower part of the screen, but I would argue that it was a quite useful.

My reasons are these.
While playing Torment before I primarily relied on the mouse controls.
Right-click not only made the menu appear it was also pausing the game without the need to press the space key on the keyboard. This was kind of handy in a literal way.

The menu was also popping right next to my cursor so I didn't have to move around that much.
Currently, right mouse click does exactly the same action as the left one, which is a bit awkward.

I suspect that all this might be related to some functionality decisions taken for the mobile version of the game. I wanted to be sure if it is missing for good and if so if it would be possible to eventually put it back in in the game in a future update. It would be nice to have the option to turn it on and off.

Anyway.
This is not a complaint.
Great work, I expect you bring us the IWD2 game soon.

Regards.

Queegon

I think it's been done away with and can only suggest to map the attack, cast, use, talk to hotkeys. I did instinctively try to right-click for it, hehe.

But for new blood it's better this way, we are old farts and can learn new tricks.

JuliusBorisov

https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/861192/#Comment_861192

taclane

It sounded like Avellone wasn't particularly impressed with the way the radial menu turned out in the original. It was clunky, obscured big chunks of your tiny 640x480 screen, needed to get moved around, and saved a little mouse travel but not any clicks (actually, more clicks were required).

It was a novel attempt at the time (I was fond of it too), but the new :EE UI is pretty streamlined and is easy to access whatever you're looking for. The radial menu also wouldn't have worked on tablet. I can't say that I miss it for anything other than nostalgia reasons.

ElysianEchoes

There's a setting to play the game in classic mode. Does that bring back the radial?

Kamigoroshi

ElysianEchoes said:

There's a setting to play the game in classic mode. Does that bring back the radial?

Sadly not. It mainly turns off sprite outlines and similar new graphical enhancements. But it won't bring back the beloved radial menu. ;_;

argent77

The game is very modding-friendly. Maybe some UI wizard can introduce this feature as a mod.

Kamigoroshi

argent77 said:

The game is very modding-friendly. Maybe some UI wizard can introduce this feature as a mod.

WANTED: Dead or Alive

Whoever returns the radial menu to PST:EE will be given an 10m³ gelatinous cube.

Sponsored by Juiblex. The winner is required to retrieve the price at the 222nd layer of the Abyss.

BillyYank

If you switch to Tablet UI, you get the functionality of the radial menu (and more) in two collapsable side-bars.

JumboWheat01

So Tablet UI will give me more of the BGEE UI? I should do that, I like that UI style.

Dev6

BillyYank said:

If you switch to Tablet UI, you get the functionality of the radial menu (and more) in two collapsable side-bars.

JumboWheat01 said:

So Tablet UI will give me more of the BGEE UI? I should do that, I like that UI style.

I was having a bit of trouble adjusting to PST UI having just recently finished an IWD run. The tablet UI makes it quite a bit easier.

Lilura

My write-up on the PS:T UI might be of interest to some here. It criticizes the portable pop-up and a few other aspects that were fixed by Beamdog's EE.

SpaceOrc

Maybe the radial menu requires more clicks, but you didn't have to move the mouse across the entire screen.

Why are radial menus now being used in shooters for quick communication? (Battlefield, Overwatch etc.) Yeah, they are just quicker/more pleasant to use than even a couple of keypresses. It was the quickest way to get to the dialog action, quite useful in a game where you really want to talk to your companions.

Berov said:

it was also pausing the game without the need to press the space key on the keyboard.

^ THIS ^

Radical idea: how about giving people a setting in the game menu to bring it back?

taclane

SpaceOrc said:

Radical idea: how about giving people a setting in the game menu to bring it back?

While the PST:EE UI looks pretty similar, it is a ground-up rebuild of the old PST UI on top of their :EE engine.

If the radial menu never got reconstructed, I don't think there is anywhere to "bring it back" from right now.

Maybe someone will release a mod, or a feature request ticket could be filed. However, the odds of it getting an official release are probably a bit low since Chris Avellone came out against the radial, finding it to be one of the things in the original PST that he wasn't terribly fond of.

Gallenger

Radial menus are used in games like overwatch because people using controllers cant push more than 2-4 buttons at a time so they strip you of a thumbstick for a few seconds to get you to the input you want. If PC exclusive shooters still existed they'd still just use the tap menu 1-1,1-2,1-3,1-q , because on PC if you aren't pressing hotkeys to accomplish actions you're slower than somebody who is.

I honestly hated the radial menu because it was rather difficult to tell what all your options were and you had to keep clicking back and forth just to figure out what it was that you were able to do. The only thing it did better, imo, is force attacking took one less click.

The fact that you can customize a lot of the hot-keys for this game in the options menu pretty much sealed the deal - the UI is just for looks, and I press the keys to do the things lol.

Lilura

The NWN radial menu was a good example of how to do one. ToEE, too.

But I hope for Beamdog's next game they look at the NWN2 UI. Despite its flaws there are some great ideas in there, such as context sensitive dropdowns and quickcasting menu. There are also some good ideas in ToEE and Ruins of Myth Drannor that I highlight in my series of posts, above-linked.

ed. - Yay, my 100th comment!

SpaceOrc

taclane said:

Chris Avellone came out against the radial

He also complained about walking speed and in the livestream he set autorun on and said it is an obvious thing to do. Lot's of people seem to disagree, so do I.