The Witcher 3 HUD and UI

[WFMS2]

I must have watched the latest event video like a hundred times. I'm all on board, CDPR. Oiled and ready to go.

But...

I couldn't help, but notice the very intrusive UI present in the video. Does the health bar really have to be so large? Do I really need to be told by oversized pop in letters how much exp I gained every time I kill a monster, when all that is already written in the log down below?

There is just too much information on the screen. Which is why I want to ask if there will be AN OPTION to turn some [or all] of that off. It reminds me heavily of the Far Cry 3 interface - fortunately they later patched in the option to turn off some of the HUD elements.
Then there is the horse stamina bar. Crude letters. Big. Bright. Unnecessary.

Yea. A lot of unnecessary stuff. Hopefully it'll be toggle-able for a lot of that.
But my biggest issue is the font change. I don't know why they changed it from the E3 and later versions.
It's now way too squished together, and this would be one of the things that wouldn't be given an option of switching out to a different font in any game that I know of.
The font here looked a lot better imo.

Hopefully it's just done for visibility on consoles since it's likely at a lower render resolution than PC would be.

 

[kiadaw]

A quick comparison. :look:

I had Witcher 2 on 360, play on my 40", IMO, some of the words are too small. I often have to move in front oto the TV to read some texts. Not everyone has a big TV, & the game (Witcher 2) was design obviously for PC. But I do agree that in Witcher 3, its too big. The best I think is allow people to pick the size of the HUD.


Anyway, experience point earned, stamina of horse are all unnecessary in my view. At least make them optional.

 

[arkhenon]

@WFMS

Actually, now that I'm comparing those two screens with each other, it seems like the font is the same, but just stretched in the new footage. That most probably refers to the lower render resolutions in my opinion (Or a different aspect ratio? I don't know.).

Although for the UI, most games change their UI considerably until launch. So I don't think you can expect a final version now. I honestly think they will not give a cluttered, inefficient UI on release

 

[Geralt_of_bsas]

They will most likely change that for release, or allow you to change it.

And if not, we have mods, so on PC I not worrying about it one bit. In consoles if you use a small TV or sit very close to the screen I guess you'll have to hope they work it out for you.

The info about UI has been very irregular though, some times some elements are there, other times not, they change sizes and shapes according to builds and so on.

 

[Phinnway]

A quick comparison. :look:

TW3's UI is noticeably larger and more intrusive than TW2. It's clearly designed for gaming on a console where the TV screen is 4-5 feet away. I hope there are options to tweak UI's size a little bit.

Notice how there is no health bar during some parts of the gameplay, auto-hide HUD when out of combat?

I'm pretty sure TW2 had an option called "minimalized HUD" which removed most of the HUD features, including health. TW3 probably has the same thing.

But my biggest issue is the font change. I don't know why they changed it from the E3 and later versions.
It's now way too squished together, and this would be one of the things that wouldn't be given an option of switching out to a different font in any game that I know of.

I imagine something as simple as that will be easy to change with mods. Hold on to hope that they release modding tools alongside the game.

 

[B_l_a_d_y]

 

[ImPeakingIt]

Now that is an immersive hud.

 

[C0bR]

That's PS4 version for CRT monitors

 

[Yasakani]

I much prefer no HUD at all.

There should be a hotkey to toggle the HUD, like how it is automatically hidden during a cutscene.

 

[AndreasZ94]

Just have an option to adjust the size of the hud, toggle on/off different things and everybody should be happy.

 

[SpotEnemyBoat]

God that UI is pretty intrusive, especially when compared to TW2 UI. Hopefully as soon as modders get the SDK tool kit, they make a wee bit more compact UI for PC.

My sides are in orbit.

 

[Garrison72]

Lol.

We haz information for you.

 

[moonknightgog]

I'm pretty sure TW2 had an option called "minimalized HUD" which removed most of the HUD features, including health. TW3 probably has the same thing.

Nope. With H you can hide the HUD, but not minimalized it.
But there is a mod, called Dynamic HUD, that works exactly like Witcher 3 HUD.

 

[onionshavelayers]

Maybe it proves this is the xbone version?

 

[KingHochmeister]

Spoiler

 

[Paul_cz]

I hope the HUD will be customizable. I would love if some transparencies were possible too, for us with plasma TVs.

 

[ReptilePZ]

UI looks fine to me, it's pretty much the same as that in TW2. The large RECEIVED sign can be explained by the fact that most people missed the tiny thing that popped up in TW2, and didn't realise what reward they had received from completing a quest, or when they were given a quest item. Probably would be a good idea to keep that for quests only, though, and move the random XP from mobs notification to the combat log only.

Incluidng an option for the user to scale the UI as they wish would be appreciated, too, and should solve most of the issues people seem to be having.

 

[GHOSTMD]

Well... yes UI looks good, but you guys know what certain TW1 parts should be there aren t you?

*smirk*

 

[Garrison72]

UI looks fine to me, it's pretty much the same as that in TW2. The large RECEIVED sign can be explained by the fact that most people missed the tiny thing that popped up in TW2, and didn't realise what reward they had received from completing a quest, or when they were given a quest item. Probably would be a good idea to keep that for quests only, though, and move the random XP from mobs notification to the combat log only.

Incluidng an option for the user to scale the UI as they wish would be appreciated, too, and should solve most of the issues people seem to be having.

Received:
Experience points: 37

or

XP + 37

So much of the UI doesn't even make sense, which leads me to believe this is all place holder. All the same, I'm hoping REDkit is ready at launch in case I'm wrong. As for those wanting customizable UI, don't get your hopes up. That was a rarity even in old RPGs. At most we'll be able to disable the whole thing for screen shots.

 

[thislsmadness]

Received:
Experience points: 37

or

XP + 37

So much of the UI doesn't even make sense, which leads me to believe this is all place holder. All the same, I'm hoping REDkit is ready at launch in case I'm wrong. As for those wanting customizable UI, don't get your hopes up. That was a rarity even in old RPGs. At most we'll be able to disable the whole thing for screen shots.

I believe they mentioned during E3 that Redkit would come a little later because they'll have to take time to create a user friendly version with documentation, ect. As long as the default UI has a scaling option I would be ok with it.