Thoughts on the interface in the Android version
ZuTheSkunk
Member Posts: 19
So I got myself PST EE for Android. For the most part I'm glad with what I got; the game is working fine, the Polish translation AND dubbing is included and working correctly (minus some minor mistakes here and there), and the updated interface looks pretty good.
However, I also noticed a number of issues regarding the interface alone, ones that I hope are going to be addressed in the near future. Note that I'm playing on Acer Iconia Tab 8 Quad FullHD 2GB/16GB Android 4.4.2.
- Letter "T" being written as "+" in all sorts of menus, including the main menu.
- I have to question the design choice of some of the buttons on the bottom right being placed there; like the "stop action" button. Shouldn't this button be placed where the "current action" screen is? And perhaps it would be a good idea to replace the icon with something that is a bit clearer, like a red hand.
- In the same vein, why is the "take all" button one of those small buttons on the bottom right? Shouldn't it be one of the bigger "tablet" buttons on the right side of the screen? Or maybe visible when the player is in a loot menu?
- The "current action" screen only shows anything when you pick something from one of the interaction buttons on the bottom left; my initial interpretation was that it would show ANY action currently being undertaken by the characters, and was confused why it doesn't.
- Why is there no option to stretch the interface in some way? The main HUD has obvious unused space on the left and right, making it seem like it could be stretched up a little, and the dialogue menu has a LOT of unused space on the left and right. And would it be too much to ask for some quick option to change the size of the text while in dialogue? Especially considering that you are outright disallowed from accessing any menus while in dialogue.
- The health bars are rather difficult to touch due to being so small and right on the edge of the screen.
- You have no option to see what a button does by holding your finger on it; you are forced to use the "?" button for this, which is not very intuitive. In fact, some of the icons on the right side of the screen (the "tablet options") are so unclear that personally, I would appreciate an option where an explanation what each button does is displayed at all times.
- I'm a little baffled by some of the design choices on which buttons should be one of the bigger tablet ones, and which should be one of the tiny bottom-right ones. The ability to select the whole team definitely SHOULDN'T be one of those tiny, hard to hit buttons, just like the magnifying glass icon (which forces the game to display all interactable objects). On the flip side, I don't see much of a point for the "battle log" and "dialogue log" buttons being this big.
- What exactly is the purpose of the AI button (from the ones on the right) if as far as I am aware, there is no option to apply any specific AI to characters?
- And speaking of the AI button, it appears that in the Polish translation, the explanation for "Toggle AI" and "Center the screen on the character" (visible with the "?" button) is switched around.
- Perhaps it would be a good idea to make sure that if the player clicks on two objects with the "?" interaction that are right next to each other, the flavor text will not overlap with each other?
- Some of the things seem inexplicably difficult to click on, like NPCs or the "Continue" button in dialogue.
- Why does the button for accessing Options have a floppy disk icon?
- I think the buttons in the Options should have some icons added to them, to make it more visually clear which button is for what without having to look at their names every time.
- Another thing I just realized is that there's no point for the wizard and the priest spell books to use separate buttons to access. Considering that there is no option in the game for any playable character to be a wizard AND a priest simultaneously, you could very well just use a single button and have it open either the wizard spell book or the priest spell book depending on which character is selected. It would be recommended especially because the priest spell book icon and the journal icon look so similar to each other.
This is all from not even leaving the initial floor of Mortuary. Also, I am going to be very disappointed if it turns out that the cinematics at the very end of the game (which are the only ones with voices) are left with English dubbing in the Polish version. (This is a problem with IWD EE as well.)
Nonetheless, I'm glad that I can play PST on a tablet and I'm still quite happy with what I got. The news of PST coming to tablets prompted me to get myself a tablet in the first place.
However, I also noticed a number of issues regarding the interface alone, ones that I hope are going to be addressed in the near future. Note that I'm playing on Acer Iconia Tab 8 Quad FullHD 2GB/16GB Android 4.4.2.
- Letter "T" being written as "+" in all sorts of menus, including the main menu.
- I have to question the design choice of some of the buttons on the bottom right being placed there; like the "stop action" button. Shouldn't this button be placed where the "current action" screen is? And perhaps it would be a good idea to replace the icon with something that is a bit clearer, like a red hand.
- In the same vein, why is the "take all" button one of those small buttons on the bottom right? Shouldn't it be one of the bigger "tablet" buttons on the right side of the screen? Or maybe visible when the player is in a loot menu?
- The "current action" screen only shows anything when you pick something from one of the interaction buttons on the bottom left; my initial interpretation was that it would show ANY action currently being undertaken by the characters, and was confused why it doesn't.
- Why is there no option to stretch the interface in some way? The main HUD has obvious unused space on the left and right, making it seem like it could be stretched up a little, and the dialogue menu has a LOT of unused space on the left and right. And would it be too much to ask for some quick option to change the size of the text while in dialogue? Especially considering that you are outright disallowed from accessing any menus while in dialogue.
- The health bars are rather difficult to touch due to being so small and right on the edge of the screen.
- You have no option to see what a button does by holding your finger on it; you are forced to use the "?" button for this, which is not very intuitive. In fact, some of the icons on the right side of the screen (the "tablet options") are so unclear that personally, I would appreciate an option where an explanation what each button does is displayed at all times.
- I'm a little baffled by some of the design choices on which buttons should be one of the bigger tablet ones, and which should be one of the tiny bottom-right ones. The ability to select the whole team definitely SHOULDN'T be one of those tiny, hard to hit buttons, just like the magnifying glass icon (which forces the game to display all interactable objects). On the flip side, I don't see much of a point for the "battle log" and "dialogue log" buttons being this big.
- What exactly is the purpose of the AI button (from the ones on the right) if as far as I am aware, there is no option to apply any specific AI to characters?
- And speaking of the AI button, it appears that in the Polish translation, the explanation for "Toggle AI" and "Center the screen on the character" (visible with the "?" button) is switched around.
- Perhaps it would be a good idea to make sure that if the player clicks on two objects with the "?" interaction that are right next to each other, the flavor text will not overlap with each other?
- Some of the things seem inexplicably difficult to click on, like NPCs or the "Continue" button in dialogue.
- Why does the button for accessing Options have a floppy disk icon?
- I think the buttons in the Options should have some icons added to them, to make it more visually clear which button is for what without having to look at their names every time.
- Another thing I just realized is that there's no point for the wizard and the priest spell books to use separate buttons to access. Considering that there is no option in the game for any playable character to be a wizard AND a priest simultaneously, you could very well just use a single button and have it open either the wizard spell book or the priest spell book depending on which character is selected. It would be recommended especially because the priest spell book icon and the journal icon look so similar to each other.
This is all from not even leaving the initial floor of Mortuary. Also, I am going to be very disappointed if it turns out that the cinematics at the very end of the game (which are the only ones with voices) are left with English dubbing in the Polish version. (This is a problem with IWD EE as well.)
Nonetheless, I'm glad that I can play PST on a tablet and I'm still quite happy with what I got. The news of PST coming to tablets prompted me to get myself a tablet in the first place.
Post edited by ZuTheSkunk on
3
Comments
However, the tap-and-and drag panning is disabled when you have the map auto-centered on TNO. On the right-side tablet menu, there should be an icon with four purple arrows pointing toward a purple dot.
When it is enabled (slight orange highlight), the map is locked to TNO's position and you cannot pan around. That happened to me for a while... actually, I'm fairly embarrassed how long it took me to figure out what was happening...
> Letter "T" being written as "+" in all sorts of menus
It is just the font used in the game. It is called Exocet. It was pretty famous for being the "Diablo Font" but it was also used throughout the original PST.
>I have to question the design choice of some of the buttons on the bottom right being placed there
Tablet and PC versions share a nearly-identical "bottom bar". The left and right tablet menus help fill in for PC actions that would normally happen through keyboard buttons or right clicks.
> The "current action" screen only shows anything when you pick something from one of the interaction buttons on the bottom left...
The "current action" window is better described as "action pending a target". It helps fill in for the fact that without a cursor, it is sometimes very difficult to tell if the action you just initiated is waiting for you pick a target. Without it, silly things might happen like inadvertently attacking party members when you were just trying to switch between them....
> I'm a little baffled by some of the design choices on which buttons should be one of the bigger tablet ones, and which should be one of the tiny bottom-right ones...
Same as above. Tablets and PC have a similar bottom UI bar that resembles what was found in the original.
> What exactly is the purpose of the AI button (from the ones on the right) if as far as I am aware, there is no option to apply any specific AI to characters?
AI is simplistic and is either on or off. AI off means that the character will just stand around taking damage instead of engaging hostile enemies.
> Perhaps it would be a good idea to make sure that if the player clicks on two objects with the "?" interaction that are right next to each other, the flavor text will not overlap with each other?
It's not the best answer, but it was pretty much always that way. The text is anchored on a screen coordinate and doesn't really know to deconflict with text that may be nearby.
> Why does the button for accessing Options have a floppy disk icon?
Just Because. :P
> I think the buttons in the Options should have some icons added to them, to make it more visually clear which button is for what without having to look at their names every time.
I somewhat agree. I still find myself clicking through multiple option windows to find the setting I'm looking for. Though, it goes back to another "it was always that way" legacy answer. The options menu is virtually unchanged from the original PST.
On a side note, it seems that the text size is handled differently on tablets than it is on PCs; on PC I can make the text be very small, but here, even when the text size slider is set to minimum, the text still remains relatively big, meaning that I have to deal with pressing the "Show More" button way too often.
You can manually edit the Baldur.lua file. Current tablet font scaling ranges from 137-190%. With a High DPI tablet screen, the dialogue text can easily be read down to about 80%. You just need to modify the following Baldur.lua line to enjoy the all those extra lines of text!
SetPrivateProfileString('Fonts','Zoom','100')It is hard to get at that file on iOS, but it is a little easier to casually navigate around the user-side of an Android filesystem.Inside there is where your save games and baldur.lua should reside. I wish I had a better answer, but I'm more of an iOS guy.
There are many things you post on which are "objective", such as your questions on why buttons remained as they did or why things were or weren't added to the interface. There's a generic answer which I will give, but in general I get a bit paranoid when addressing objective questions. I didn't design the game and thus don't have a first hand perspective why something moved where it did or why a specific feature wasn't included. So if I do not respond to something specific in your post, it's not because I'm ignoring the discussion, it's because I don't want to look like I'm speaking for someone else.
The "Generic" answer to many of your questions is: One of the foremost design strategies for the EE was to (as closely as possible, where possible) maintain the look and feel of the original game. There were some DEFINITIVE "This has to change" pieces, such as the popup menu, and some quality of life additions (who plays the original and DOESN'T itch to scroll out, even just a little bit) but by and large, the design strategy was to maintain what could be maintained of the original game to keep intact it's "feel".
"- Letter "T" being written as "+" in all sorts of menus, including the main menu."
Very much correct here. I'm actually having a hard time finding anyplace in the original game where a T in that font is used AT ALL. The only place I can find a "T" in any way, actually, is in "Torment" and those are full caps letters. If there's some place in the original interface you can point out where a "lower case" T is in use but is NOT a "+" that I can validate against the EE I'll file a bug on it.
"- I'm a little baffled by some of the design choices on which buttons should be one of the bigger tablet ones, and which should be one of the tiny bottom-right ones. The ability to select the whole team definitely SHOULDN'T be one of those tiny, hard to hit buttons, just like the magnifying glass icon (which forces the game to display all interactable objects). On the flip side, I don't see much of a point for the "battle log" and "dialogue log" buttons being this big."
Of the 6 buttons in the lower right corner, the top three came directly from the PST interface and were maintained in scale with the original interface objects.
The left most vertical bar came directly from the "football", and believe me those where they are is a HUGE improvement in smaller screens without a mouse.
The right side buttons are a bit of a mix. The bottom three of those came directly from the PST interface but were moved to the vertical bar instead of remaining smaller buttons down below as they were on the original PST interface. I can't speak for why those specific buttons were chosen to move up.
The other 4 (top 4) on the right vertical bar are "quality of life" buttons. No "Q" for quicksave necessitated something on the interface to trigger a quicksave in an easy way. The run button is one that was ALWAYS handled through keyboard in the original game and I think deserves it's place on that bar. The Drag/select is required to replace the fact you don't have a mouse on a Tablet and the Combat log button was never in the interface in the first place (new functionality to PSTEE coming from the other IE EE Games) so needed a home.
"- What exactly is the purpose of the AI button (from the ones on the right) if as far as I am aware, there is no option to apply any specific AI to characters?"
This was there in PST. The "AI" button triggers some minor "smarts" on your characters when turned on. For instance, FFG will heal a character at low health automatically with this button turned on, NPC characters will automatically respond to being attacked instead of standing there waiting for orders, etc. It's no where CLOSE to the AI Scripts that something like BG1 or BG2 has, but it does handle some very basic AI for your party members.
"- Some of the things seem inexplicably difficult to click on, like NPCs or the "Continue" button in dialogue."
The continue button i'm not familiar with issues on, you'll have to go into more detail on this one.
As to NPC's this is still "original engine functionality"...your best bet is to click on the feet of the character (the circle if you have those turned on in the interface), not it's head or body...this should help you more accurately "select" the character you're looking for.
"- Why does the button for accessing Options have a floppy disk icon?"
"- I think the buttons in the Options should have some icons added to them, to make it more visually clear which button is for what without having to look at their names every time."
Same as in PST
"This is all from not even leaving the initial floor of Mortuary. Also, I am going to be very disappointed if it turns out that the cinematics at the very end of the game (which are the only ones with voices) are left with English dubbing in the Polish version. (This is a problem with IWD EE as well.)"
I can assure you the voice over for TTO at the end of the game is in polish. I can't vouch for the translation but I can vouch for the fact that the TTO VO in the scene you mention is in polish.
"- In the first room of the game, in the mortuary, I'm already super disappointed that you can't move the background at all, only move the character"
As was already mentioned, if you cannot move the background you have "center on character" turned on. 6th button down (one up from the bottom) on the right hand vertical button bar.
"- Still no way to orient the party formation to face an arbitrary direction!!!!!!
Goddammit. This may not even be that useful in PS:T, but if this engine is going to be the basis for the 3.0 patches to BGEE, BG2EE, and IWDEE, it makes me think we're not likely to ever see Beamdog give this ability to tablet players ever. Which is a damn travesty."
Couple things here. First, even PST didn't have this functionality. Unlike with BG and it's IE Clones, PST never had the ability to right click and re-orient the party...right click was the popup menu...so PST has NEVER had the ability to reorient.
However, PSTEE Does. Just like the other IE games, PSTEE has the ability to right click/reorient the party by click/Dragging...at least it got added as a feature in the PC version of the game.
Secondly, I assure you PSTEE is NOT the basis for the next patch versions of the BG games.
I'm NOT suggesting you'll see reorient functionality (I swore that functionality was already there, but I can't make it work on BG2), but I can tell you that lack of it in PSTEE doesn't mean you won't see it in BG.
Also, the original Polish version did avoid this problem despite using words where a lowercase T would appear, case in point:
http://puu.sh/vhD8U/dd224cc63c.png
http://puu.sh/vhD9h/7bcb7e72c6.png
But what's even weirder is that in PST EE, the same word appears twice in Exocet and one time it's written with the +, but other time it's written correctly:
http://puu.sh/vhDcV/4caca94c31.png
http://puu.sh/vhDey/4aa88ed92c.png
And if nothing else, using + as letter T is just visually confusing and aesthetically unpleasing, and I would strongly recommend to just use the uppercase one. That is great to hear, thank you.
Regarding your statement on how your team didn't want to do anything that would deviate from the original, I absolutely respect that, but nonetheless there are some things that I think wouldn't hurt to at least have as an optional change. If nothing else, the button for instantly selecting the entire team shouldn't be one of those tiny, difficult to press buttons on the bottom-right, considering how often you'd want to use it. The option to select everyone a'la mouse is neat, but nowhere near as fast.
The only issue I encountered this far on my iPad and which I would describe as slightly annoying is the small size of the dialogue window. Combined with a rather large font, which I seem to be unable to reduce in size in this particular window, the amount of displayed text and reply options is rather limited.
Is there a way to increase the size of the dialogue window on iPad?
I really like some of the new enhancements, like the left hand 'shortcuts' for dialogue options and the radial menu dials which have been replaced by accessible keys.
It took a little bit of digging the other night to find an instance, but here is one example of where the original avoids the Exocet '+' by using all caps.
Using the original 1.1 PST:
1. Select "New Life"
2. Select "Cancel" then "Yes"
3. A window very briefly pops up saying "UNLOADING DATA"
While iPad is my primary system of play for the IE games, I'm no expert on hacking file changes into the IE games. There's probably several people on the forums here, however, who've done this for the other IE Games such as BG and BG2.
Lets do be clear for a couple moments, functionality was not REMOVED in any way if it was never there in the first place...there's every probability that the functionality was never MAPPED to something to make it available. The functionality is in the game, I guarantee it, there may just be no way to get AT that functionality. It may sound like a nit-pick on my part, but when conversing with the community I prefer to make sure everyone's very clear that Beamdog does not intentionally LIMIT a UI's functionality, we don't remove functionality for a given device.
Is there a specific unused multi-touch gesture that you feel would "make sense" from a UI perspective for this particular functionality? (an answer of "I have no idea, I'm no dev" is a perfectly fine answer...I'm not trying to "call you out" on knowledge. If you do know of one that makes sense in this case I'd be happy to add it to a recommendation / bug report.)
All that said, if no one is sure whether or not there is absolutely a bug report filed for this, I'll be happy to go ahead and get a bug report filed for it to make sure at least it's in front of the developers. Do me the additional favor of spelling this one out for me. So lets say I have a stack of 20 arrows in my inventory. How would I reproduce the problem you're describing above with those arrows assuming I had some kind of container I could play with?
Under what conditions does this occur? I know we've had issues in the past with stack management on tablet interfaces (this was one of the big items I was tracking back when I was voluntarily leading the bug reporting on the iPad forum years ago) but I'd thought most of those were fixed or mitigated in some way.
Worst case scenario I can find the bug in the backlog and make sure it's still on a radar somewhere.
Difficult... but not impossible. Thankfully, PST:EE has iOS File Sharing enabled.., but all the user data is contained in separate directory. A third-party tool such as iExplorer can browse the rest of PST:EE's user-side data. Aside from being the only way to get at baldur.lua, it is by far the easiest way to move game saves around.
Anyhow, here is my post from earlier regarding editing font scaling in baldur.lua.
I filed a report on it, and it should be in redmine as internal #29940.
BUG: Party Orientation Interface Not in game or Hidden
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/193864/#Comment_193864
moving moving multiple items from a container to your inventory
It's easy to reproduce.
Put 80 arrows in a bag of holding.
Try to take them back to your inventory.
is this in PST:EE? Or is this just a general comment about the state of iPad/IE? Maybe i'm mind blanking after the week I've had but are there inventory based containers for PST? (I feel like an idiot for not knowing this right out).
@Pibaro: I can take a look at what's up there as well.
Honestly I've given up hope for that and don't feel like filing more reports into a system that is presented as the catch all for bug reports while being ignored completely after a while.