The horse stamina bar is still ugly and mislocated...scalability won't change that, sadly.
But good to know that you can scale down the rest.
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The horse stamina bar is still ugly and mislocated...scalability won't change that, sadly.
But good to know that you can scale down the rest.
How about this for horse stamina?
I never thought I'd be citing Rockstar on what to do right, but this is a good HUD.
You have multiple layers of information stashed in one corner of the screen. They want you to experience the game, not the HUD. HUDs that have information floating all over the place are either poorly designed or MMOs. So, I'm glad we can in theory turn this stuff off. It's of no use to me when it's a distraction.
I really really wish more games would use the fading Huds that some newer games use.
Where things on screen that aren't being used simply fade out until you need them.
IE - Health bars/stamina, when you're not in combat or not exertiing yourself, they could easily disappear until you enter combat or such.
When you're waking thorugh towns, talking ot people, buying things, do you need to know your HP? Nope.
Where things on screen that aren't being used simply fade out until you need them.
IE - Health bars/stamina, when you're not in combat or not exertiing yourself, they could easily disappear until you enter combat or such.
When you're waking thorugh towns, talking ot people, buying things, do you need to know your HP? Nope.
I never thought I'd be citing Rockstar on what to do right, but this is a good HUD.
You have multiple layers of information stashed in one corner of the screen. They want you to experience the game, not the HUD. HUDs that have information floating all over the place are either poorly designed or MMOs. So, I'm glad we can in theory turn this stuff off. It's of no use to me when it's a distraction.
The elaborate hud is a staple of all RPGs, not just MMOs. These games have a lot of systems at play and it is presented to players at a glance without forcing them to invoke menus... that is not poor design. Pure action games like RDR dont need lots of hud elements because the game itself is very simple.
In gmaes like The Witcher, Skyrim, Dragon Age, etc what do you REALLY need on screen that can't be contextual ?
I can't think of anything that makes their huds "need" to have more then RDR's type of hud or can't be hidden until you do need them.
That's exactly what TW3 is doing...
The combat HUD in the upper left corner is only shown in combat IIRC.
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In the TW3 most things are hidden until you need them. Buffs/debuffs, combat log, combat wheel, enemy name plates, horse stamina and fear.. all of this stuff is already contextual and only appears when engaged. The persistent elements on screen are the health bar, stamina, minimap, usable items, current quest, time of day, and the controls. The first 3 are also persistent in RDR's UI, so I'll assume I don't need to justify those. For whats left:
- The items are there because its extremely nice to know which, of the many, items you have equipped in those quick slots and in what quantity. This isnt something you only want appearing in combat because these items are not strictly for in combat use. Witcher is also a game about being prepared and being able to see at a glance what I have before approaching any encounter is useful. RDR has consumables too, in order to use them you must pause the game to invoke a menu and fumble through the inventory to use an item. They saved screen space but actually accessing and using that stuff is far more cumbersome in comparison.
- Time of day seems like it should also be pretty self explanatory. Time of Day has some effect on quests, monsters, and npcs. So if I'm out exploring and I stumble on a ruin inhabited by Werewolves... if would be nice to know if I'm an hour from midnight when they all become super powered.
- Current quest. In the Witcher you may have a dozen(d) different quests in your journal at once, you accept a quest and then get around to doing it pretty much whenever you feel like it. In RDR you can only be on a single quest at a time and there is rarely any reason to deviate when you are in a "quest state" since failure means having to replay the mission over.
- Controls. These are obviously training wheels. Luckily, just like real training wheels, you can easily remove them as soon as you want. Presumably, the same is true about any of these UI elements. If you dont agree that seeing the items is useful, then you can play to your preference. The modular nature of TW3's ui is another huge advantage I'm happy to have.
I know some of it is contextual, I just think thing slike health/stamina should be that way too.
IE - When you're out of combat, why do you need to know your health? Obviously you're not in danger or engaged in anything that would hurt you, you enter combat bam, health/stamina bar pops up on screen.
Current items- hopefully can be turned on/off, same with the minimap/current quest.
With hotkeys and things you should easily be able to learn what items are bound to waht keys, if you want to eat bread or sucha simple button press (with no on-screen graphic) should be needed.
Just have a simple quickbar where you slot in what items you want which are hotkeyed, then once you're used to them it should no longer require you to "see" them on scren to know what button = what item.
The thing about a Health bar, it doesn't regenerate, so if you have low health and you don't know it. And you attack someone/someone attacks you, it's quick death
Its nice to know because this game does not have passive health regeneration, this is especially true on Hard/Dark mode where you can only replenish your health by using consumables. Having some idea of how healthy Geralt is at any given moment is a good thing.
The problem with binding individual items to keys is that there are many varieties of each. There isnt just one potion, one food item, one bomb type, ect. The "Quickbar" thing you mentioned above is exactly how I believe that item listing works. The items displayed there are bound to a key so that you can instantly use them. And just like health its nice to have an at a glance view of your supplies before entering a fight.
They've said that every element can be toggle on/off, so if you prefer to go in blind or have to jump in and out of menus to see that info, you can do that too.
Why would you not know it? I mean when you "lost" the health in the first place it'd be on screen, the only way you wouldn't know it is if you somehow "Forgot."
I think it works well as it is now from what we've seen.
When you enter combat and finish it without getting hit, the health bar disappears which is great. If you get wounded it remains so you can see what health you have left. I think it's a pretty good design choice even though i wouldn't object having it always disappear when out of combat
Since the UI is pretty minimal anyway, i don't think that having the health bar visible makes it look worse or anything. I really believe we're nitpicking here
I don't think it looks terrible, I'm just a fan of minimal UI's, rather focus on the game and having as little as absolutely needed on screen, so I like to be able to turn things off/make them contextual so the screen is clear and clean as much as possible.
It'd be nice if things were more represented through in-game effects/graphics.
For instance, a few games in the past have tied health to your character model, so you didn't even need to directly look at your health bar (even they still showed one).
I always thought it was neat to do that and it allowed people to be able to simply look at their character to tell if they were hurt and they could easily know they needed to find health/take a health potion.
Two examples of this are the classic action-adventure game, Severance, where as you took damage your character visibly became "Wounded" with icuts/gashes over his body. Another example of this is the old Resident Evil games. Your character would start to grab their arm/shoulder if they were hurt a little, and then eventually they limped/walked different when they were really hurt, and you knew you needed health badly without having to look at an hp bar.
Though I know that's way too latea to happen in the Witcher now.
It'd be nice if things were more represented through in-game effects/graphics.
For instance, a few games in the past have tied health to your character model, so you didn't even need to directly look at your health bar (even they still showed one).
I always thought it was neat to do that and it allowed people to be able to simply look at their character to tell if they were hurt and they could easily know they needed to find health/take a health potion.
Two examples of this are the classic action-adventure game, Severance, where as you took damage your character visibly became "Wounded" with icuts/gashes over his body. Another example of this is the old Resident Evil games. Your character would start to grab their arm/shoulder if they were hurt a little, and then eventually they limped/walked different when they were really hurt, and you knew you needed health badly without having to look at an hp bar.
Though I know that's way too latea to happen in the Witcher now.
First order of business is to disable all HuD elements. I absolutely hate games with atrocious, intrusive HuDs that can't be disabled and force you to stare at fluctuating, multicolored block-lines rather than take in the beautiful scenery of a fully realized fantasy world. The quicker HuD's die a dirty death, the better gaming will be.
How consolified is the PC UI?
The platform for which I will purchase this game depends heavily on how well they tailor the UI for PC. I've played so may multi-platform games only to be fucked over by the copy-pasted console UI. Is this game meant to be played on a gamepad, or did the designers actually go the extra mile and design it for PC with proper key-binds, list navigation and unembiggened UI?
The platform for which I will purchase this game depends heavily on how well they tailor the UI for PC. I've played so may multi-platform games only to be fucked over by the copy-pasted console UI. Is this game meant to be played on a gamepad, or did the designers actually go the extra mile and design it for PC with proper key-binds, list navigation and unembiggened UI?
Yes, it was confirmed some time ago and you can see it in the original 30 minute video.