The Witcher 3 HUD and UI

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The exploration or challenge argument is inappropriate in this case to me about the herbs, it was just as easy, as dumbed down, and as hand holding to hold a key or spam Z to find stuff, and part of game design 101, is to learn where there is no challenge or shouldn't be, and try to make that activity as simple and straightforward as possible in order to make sure its not a bothersome or unnecessary time waste, just like it was in TW1 and TW2, albeit less because they weren't open worlds, but in TW3 it would be a nightmare.

However the criticism on the minimap is more valid imo, and they probably put the things there so the whole world wouldn't be glowing because it shows you all herbs or items.

I'm lazy to think of a good solution now but the first that comes to my mind is a simple switch button/key that enables subtle highlights of close to medium range surrounding items, so you dont have to hold anything, the minimap isn't a mess, and the gameworld isn't constantly and automatically filled with markers or red herrings., and of course it should have absolutely no limitation like a cooldown time.

There are surely better ways to solve this though.


@Scholdarr in the context of the witcher franchise, a series of games that dont care about making exploration/finding of herbs and resources challenging, this is a good solution.

Now I would of course love that gathering herbs and such was part of the "game", but in the witcher games it never was, and if thats how they want to do the game, much better to do it TW3 style, rather than TW1 or 2 style, it maximizes whats important and the real deal about the whole thing, removing useless time waste.
 
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@Scholdarr in the context of the witcher franchise, a series of games that dont care about making exploration/finding of herbs and resources challenging, this is a good solution.

Now I would of course love that gathering herbs and such was part of the "game", but in the witcher games it never was, and if thats how they want to do the game, much better to do it TW3 style, rather than TW1 or 2 style, it maximizes whats important and the real deal about the whole thing, removing useless time waste.
I very strongly disagree. If gathering herbs is pointless - cut it. Either you make something immersive that is fun in itself or you shouldn't do it at all. Maximizing strengths doesn't and shouldn't mean that you simplify weaknesses or make them even more pointless. A GOOD solution would be to just make herbs avaialbe for purchase at alchemists in a town. So either you collect them yourself or you just buy the stuff.

Showing stuff like herbs on the minimap is game design for casuals and idiots like most of Ubisoft's open world game design. It's basically the anti-thesis of exploration, no matter how important herbs are for the game as a whole. Copying that makes me really, really sad...


And by the way, the HUD elements are bigger (30-40%) and more intrusive than in W2 in general. Clear downgrade and "adjumstment" for consoles imho...
 
Yeaaaaa, if I wouldn't be called an idiot over a game in a forum where I come to for some fun, that'd be appreciated, thanks.
 
Yeaaaaa, if I wouldn't be called an idiot over a game in a forum where I come to for some fun, that'd be appreciated, thanks.

I can't recall having you or anyone else here called an idiot. I would never do something like that...

I've said that it is imho a design made for idiots which is something completely else.
 
Sticking to forum rules guarantees noone's gonna feel offended:

General principles of Internet conduct for on–line communities:

• All users are required to:
- state their opinions in a civilized manner,

So, no further name calling, either personal or in general, please.
 
And by the way, the HUD elements are bigger (30-40%) and more intrusive than in W2 in general. Clear downgrade and "adjumstment" for consoles imho...

that is for the press demo

also im 100% sure that the whole HUD can be resized with 1 line in the config file anyway...
 
I'm wondering about something for a long time now - what are the considerations of a company in allowing (or not) a vast amount of customization to their players? What are the downsides of letting players toy around with HUD settings? I originally thought about this in regard to Witcher senses highlighting ledges, and letting or not letting players to tone it down.
 
I very strongly disagree. If gathering herbs is pointless - cut it. Either you make something immersive that is fun in itself or you shouldn't do it at all. Maximizing strengths doesn't and shouldn't mean that you simplify weaknesses or make them even more pointless. A GOOD solution would be to just make herbs avaialbe for purchase at alchemists in a town. So either you collect them yourself or you just buy the stuff.

Showing stuff like herbs on the minimap is game design for casuals and idiots like most of Ubisoft's open world game design. It's basically the anti-thesis of exploration, no matter how important herbs are for the game as a whole. Copying that makes me really, really sad...


And by the way, the HUD elements are bigger (30-40%) and more intrusive than in W2 in general. Clear downgrade and "adjumstment" for consoles imho...

If you can buy herbs at a store, you wouldnt need to go around the scenery looking at the world and facing animals, possible monsters, and so on. Game design also, isnt that simple, if you eliminate the small "not part of the fun" actions of a game you have not game at all, everything in life is a chain of actions and events that become entertaining because of the result, only goals of extreme long term complexity are built of other complex long term goals that actually produce fun, and if you add fun to every single part (not actually possible, but imagine it), that is challenge, the game is effectively a monster mess of mechanics forming experiences that arent even related in terms of what type of funs they offer, hence games are about something, and not about everything.

If to you this kind of herb gathering is pointless then you might have missed its actual point, it has one, if not more, so the whole feature being cut does not produce the same result, depending on possible replacements obviously.

"Showing stuff like herbs on the minimap is game design for casuals and idiots" incorrect, its a game design tool, and as all tools, it can be used well or wrong, according to context and implementation.

The antithesis of exploration in this subject to me, is revealing to the players in an absolutely explicit way where is the thing they need to find, and its exact location, that happened in TW1 and TW2, only in those games, it had an extra, you needed to hold buttons, or spam them, or wait for cooldowns, imo that didnt add anything positive to the experience that was intended by the developers. In TW3 that would have even more issues because of the big open world, but its not that important since with some tweaking it can be solved and taken back to its regular level of uselessness.

Adding the herbs in the minimap automatically and permanently, at least in a short medium range, eliminates some of the bothersome aspects of the game mechanics that were already against exploration in basic concept, thats why I said "I would of course love that gathering herbs and such was part of the "game", I'm choosing the lesser evil if we can simplify the argument a bit, inside the bad things I didnt even want in TW1 and 2, TW3 improves on them, not by adding positives but at least by removing some negatives, its not what I want, but from what it seems we were going to get, according to TW franchise, its probably the best implementation so far.

The HUD size is horrendous to me, but considering what happened with TW2 and other games, I strongly believe its not just not final, but not even the only HUD design. It will either change for release, be a mode for big TVs that can be deactivated in favor of a normal sized HUD, or allow its scale to be customized. If thats the actual HUD for release and for PC no matter the resolution, I'd be extremely surprised more than I've ever been regarding any video game ever, so yes, that means Im barely even accepting that HUD as a real possibility of reaching release day as a permanent aspect, its just too unlikely and illogical.
 
I'm wondering about something for a long time now - what are the considerations of a company in allowing (or not) a vast amount of customization to their players? What are the downsides of letting players toy around with HUD settings? I originally thought about this in regard to Witcher senses highlighting ledges, and letting or not letting players to tone it down.

because most casual gamers want a simple "easy-medium-hard" option... not to wonder around the menus and tick boxes all the time and see what fits...
 
I'm wondering about something for a long time now - what are the considerations of a company in allowing (or not) a vast amount of customization to their players? What are the downsides of letting players toy around with HUD settings? I originally thought about this in regard to Witcher senses highlighting ledges, and letting or not letting players to tone it down.

Well, you must consider all the options when designing the game if you want customization. For example, you could let players turn off waypoints and quest navigation, but you need to make sure that players can enjoy and progress through the game without these. Its really tricky thing, and it is something that must be taken into consideration from the beginning of development.
 
Adding the herbs in the minimap automatically and permanently, at least in a short medium range, eliminates some of the bothersome aspects of the game mechanics that were already against exploration in basic concept, thats why I said "I would of course love that gathering herbs and such was part of the "game", I'm choosing the lesser evil if we can simplify the argument a bit, inside the bad things I didnt even want in TW1 and 2, TW3 improves on them
I don't agree that it is an improvement, sorry. And of course I don't only compare W3 with its predecessors but also with other games, especially RPGs, out there. I remember CDPR saying that they took inspiration from the Gothic series. Guess what? These game didn't even have a minimap, not even speaking about icons for herbs on it. That was how "classic" RPGs of that kind were made. I'm pretty sad that CDPR didn't take inspiration from that game but from some imho stupid modern designed games like Far Cry. Of course that's my opinion, but to me in a game like that it's all about immersion. Icons for such stuff on the minimap easily destroy immersion just for simplicity and "comfort". The point is: I'm not seeking for comfort in such a game. I'm seeking for immersion. I don't want stuff like herbs to be highlighted by pressing a button (curse DAO for that addictive button pressing crap...) and I don't want them to be shown on a minimap. I want to find them myselves, with my own eyes. I want complexity, depth, challenge and not simplicity, comfort and guidance everywhere. I want to think and find out stuff in games on my own without rubbing everything into my fact at every possible occasion. I know of course that this is against the "current trend" in gaming that tries to make everything even simpler and easier but that's my opinion and that's how I see a good RPG and a fulfilling open world game. Those modern style games are imo made for "casuals" which means for people who don't want to invest a lot of time, dedication or cleverness into a game. All they want are nice visuals and fast rewards without much effort. I really hope that CDPR is catering to those people only to a limited extend although everything I've seen so far is only increasing my fears that they've already given up on classic, challenging, immersive game (and open world) design... :/

Well, you must consider all the options when designing the game if you want customization. For example, you could let players turn off waypoints and quest navigation, but you need to make sure that players can enjoy and progress through the game without these. Its really tricky thing, and it is something that must be taken into consideration from the beginning of development.
This. The problem is that if you already have an intrusive and extensive quest marker and navigation system the motivation to design quests and logbook entries and stuff like that in a way that encourages you to just turn off the system is much lower, especially from a business/financial point of view. Why investing a lot of time and effort into a feature only few ("hardcore") people will use? It's easy to argue at this point that it's a pointless or "to be cut" feature in general...

I say it again: well done quest design doesn't need extensive quest markers or navigation...
 
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I'm wondering about something for a long time now - what are the considerations of a company in allowing (or not) a vast amount of customization to their players? What are the downsides of letting players toy around with HUD settings? I originally thought about this in regard to Witcher senses highlighting ledges, and letting or not letting players to tone it down.

It's time and resources they can't afford I suspect, otherwise we'd see a lot more customization in games. This is why I keep harping on the toolkit. Bethesda would be nowhere if they didn't support mods from the beginning. It literally makes your game accessible to everyone. Here's a company that makes some of the most retarded, dumbed down design choices and yet they are by far the most popular RPG dev in the industry. CDPR need to simplify things in order to appeal to a larger audience because both Witcher games were rather byzantine in their design. Witcher senses, the minimap littered with objectives, telling me how many steps I need to take to my next goal, these are elements that don't appeal to me personally, but they won't ruin the game.
 
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This. The problem is that if you already have an intrusive and extensive quest marker and navigation system the motivation to design quests and logbook entries and stuff like that in a way that encourages you to just turn off the system is much lower, especially from a business/financial point of view. Why investing a lot of time and effort into a feature only few ("hardcore") people will use? It's easy to argue at this point that it's a pointless or "to be cut" feature in general...

I say it again: well done quest design doesn't need extensive quest markers or navigation...

But its not that easy. You need to take so many things into consideration, size of the world for example. With world as big as Witcher 3, its really easy to get lost, even with good quest description. TES: Morrowind had very little hand holding in terms of quest navigation, but that was possible because the world wasnt really big, but even in that game it was rather easy to get lost while looking for quest objective, and that leads to frustration.
 
I almost had to puke when I saw that...:sick:

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I thought W3 would be a game NOT made for idiots and casuals. Seems I was wrong... :rant:

An open world game that doesn't even respect and honour actual exploration and the intelligence of the gamer is just pointless. Those intrusive quests markers and all the stuff shown on the minimap are BAD "modern" design by its finest, sorry... :thumbdown:


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Oh, and is this fuc.... Far Cry? CDPR, please don't copy BAD DESIGN from other games. Herbs on the minimap?! Really? I can't really articulate how stupid that is...

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It might be a dead give-away as to where herbs are on the mini-map, but I would much rather see them like that then how they were found in TW2. I myself can not fucking understand, nor can I stand the sight of herbs that look out of place, all glowing and shit like nothing else in the game.
It fucking sucks and looks really stupid, I wish game devs world wide would just stop over doing it with that shit! e.g Dragon's Dogma, as much as I loved that fun game, it pissed me off that devs thought it would be cool to have the same dead logs glowing all over the world for me to loot. They are glowing for fucks sake' it looks out of place in the world, it's stupid! lol... I don't know what else to say about that, game devs do it for walls that we can break too. I remember when when we found secret walls or doors in games, it was not all glowing or looking a little different from the rest of the wall. It was way more fun and awesome to find stuff like that, I try not to use the word hate very much, but god damn it fuck you God of War for starting the bullshit QTE's, I liked God of War a lot when it first came out but I was upset back then too, because someone thought it was cool to show huge button icons to prompt me to mash my gamepad. It was not cool and to all the other games that highlight items/herbs/loot/walls of interest, you really need to stop doing that shit. I have wanted this shit to stop ever since GOW and any other game over the years that still do it, e.g Diablo 3, I can't fucking stand that all the enimes and doors in that game either glow red or blue! If that stupid eye-sore-art-killer shit needs to be in your fucking game just because you paid someone to make it, then for the love of my dream since my youth, let me turn that silly, stupid, ugly, cheesey ass bullshit off!
Fuck you Diablo 3 and where is my jump button :)
 
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But its not that easy. You need to take so many things into consideration, size of the world for example. With world as big as Witcher 3, its really easy to get lost, even with good quest description. TES: Morrowind had very little hand holding in terms of quest navigation, but that was possible because the world wasnt really big, but even in that game it was rather easy to get lost while looking for quest objective, and that leads to frustration.
The size of the world isn't really important for that imo. A bigger world has just more landmarks. With a well done overall map and logbook that shouldn't be an issue overall IF you want to use your brain properly in a game. It's like reading a card. You will always find a city on a good map, no matter how big it is. It probably just needs a little bit longer but that's also dependent on the description. With a good description it shouldn't need much longer to find a certain spot on a big map than it takes to find it on a smaller map.
 
Witcher 2's hud was almost completely customizable, so it stands to reason that witcher 3 will be the same.
Bullshit lol... Not on Xbox360, I had zero options when it came to the hud elements. I will be really upset if they do that again, it's not fair that pc players can turn hud elements on/off and us console players are stuck with a hud that only some old half blind fart in a nursing home could appreciate!
 
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