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Modern UIs are so cluttered, they make the game world auxiliary?

Miles708

Member
Is the main objection to HUDs hand holding or that it clutters the display?

Cluttering display and breaking immersion.
Minimaps are the worst offenders, especially in jrpg (which usually have simple corridors anyway). I hate with a passion all minimaps of all kinds.
 
I on the other hand, think we've made progress, many UIs were just horseshit in previous generations, especially with the lower resolution used in games.
 

lyan

Member
Is the main objection to HUDs hand holding or that it clutters the display?
It impacts how designers convey information (or the lack of) to the player through the actual game world.

Though in modern open world games there are too many tasks that are essentially require you to search for a spoon inside a city so I don't think there is much that can be done without fundamental changes.
 

Fbh

Member
Definitely agree.

It's not just the UI though. It's not an issue that can be fixed by just adding some toggles to turn off different UI elements.

It's the world and game design. In so many games the actual open world is little more than a pretty but static background to go from one linear activity to the next.
You hardly even have to look at the world itself, the game will always tell you exactly where to go and traversal is so automated you basically just need to push the analog stick towards the waypoint and maybe hold down some button and the game will get you there.

That's what made Breath of the Wild so good to me. Yeah it could have more rewarding things to find and yeah shrines get repetitive and yeah the enemy variety is lacking. But at least it was a game that made me actually look at its world, that had fun ways to interact with it, that often made me stop, look and think about how to reach certain places instead of taking me everywhere on auto pilot, that had me reach high places to actually look at the world and spot interesting locations instead of just putting 40 icons on my map to tell exactly where to go and exactly what I'd find there.

Hopefully it's something we start seeing more this gen.
 
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GHG

Gold Member
I always want to turn as much of that shit off as possible.

It's a great shame games are no longer designed in a way that complements the hud being turned off.

It's actually ironic that despite having richer and better realised worlds (where it would be easier to provide written or voiced directions to the player) games have become more reliant on HUD's than ever in order to be playable.

It's so fucking boring just following the marker. Even worse are games designed around fast travel, I avoid fast travel like the plague.

How are you ever going to get immersed and become familiar with the game world if you are just blindly following quest markers and fast travelling everywhere? What a waste.
 

ZehDon

Member
*laughs in System Shock*
SHOCK001.GIF


Anyway, in-game UIs peaked with Dead Space. In-universe minimal HUD that conveyed every piece of information the player needs.
deadspace-ui.jpg
 

MrJTeera

Member
I think that depends, because while many games will offer the option to turn off informations, if these games were designed with these informations in mind, the games won't be as playable without them, and could become unnecessarily tedious. Like if you turn off informations but the world itself doesn't give you any clues on where to go with clever level design etc, it won't work well.
Move 10 steps
Check the map
Move another 10 steps
Check the map again

Rinse and repeat
 

Kadve

Member
Its a toss. To vague UI means the game just becomes annoying too play, while too much UI also becomes annoying.

Dissidia NT is a good example of the later.
dissidia-final-fantasy-nt-closed-beta-test_20170829200516.jpg
 

Garibaldi

Member
Utter bollocks. Modern titles at least have the option to remove most of the UI. His example of using Horizon just proves he spent about 5 minutes actually looking into this before throwing his opinion into the void. You can switch off or make the entire ui of horizon dynamic. Horizon was the worst example he could have picked. On PC ultrawide with 90% of the UI turned off and the compass set to dynamic, the game world is about as immersive as you could ask for.
 

cormack12

Gold Member
Well, to be fair. She is wearing a high-tech earpiece that (somehow) shows her augmented reality on her status and surrounding information.

I am one who likes a lot of information on my HUD, but I appreciate that the developers allows you to customize the HUD to your taste.

I think you're focusing too much on defending the game he used as an example. Contextually you have to activate the earpiece and that's when you get the augmented reality pink and purple reality digitisations/robot paths etc. Dynamic also isn't 'off' but usually just contextual whether you're in a battle or not. You could probably substitute Batman or something else in its place, maybe AC Valhalla as well.

The difference in batman and valhalla though is there a lot of verticality, whereas Horizon is generally just a flat long plane (with exceptions like the ruins and cauldrons. And don't forget this is without detective vision/earpiece/odin sight/survival instincts etc. Which is really just another HUD overlay

Assassins-Creed-Valhalla-Screenshot-2020.11.07-14.58.45.93.png

ACV-LV-Review-16-1200x675.jpg


If you comapre it to say Red Dead Redemption 2, then they generally are part of the scenery but still discernible without the need for a hud element/pointer. They still do appear in detective mode but they are a more subtle gold and you see the pollen emanating.

cc8794dbe150a66d8b8b772760be726c.jpg


However, even RDR2 has problems without the HUD when it relies on controller pulsing when you turn it off at a system level. I don't think he is saying the HUD is bad or good, I think he is just making a point of what is actually essential there and can it be shown in game rather than overlay and clutter up all the effort in the artwork.

I agree with you, that I like customisation in my HUD but I find most games lacking in options, or the presets like minimal, normal, all are too broad. But when you come from PC and mods it sticks out more on consoles I guess. Or there will be overlaps, where you can disable ledge markers but it also disabled something else. Or you disable hints and on a few missions some critical information no longer appears. I really hope we see some improvements on this going forward for consoles personally.
 

Sybrix

Member
I think every game should have fully customizable HUD options.

Battlefront 2's HUD is horrible, however it has a decent amount of HUD options so you can tweak to fit your style
 

Kimahri

Banned
That's not much, and it's nothing new either. HUDs took up far more space in the pre HD days.

There is a fairly recent game that had hud that came up only when entering battles and such, but I can't remember what it was.
 

deriks

4-Time GIF/Meme God
I don't really like Horizon, but let's be fair: you can disable stuff. It's not the worst thing ever. But I see your point, and after Breath of the Wild, every open world game became kinda lame
 

nkarafo

Member
Entirely disagree. Modern games show more of the game world than ever. Old games would have giant segments of the screen entirely blocked off. This was at a time when every pixel counted. Think Super Mario Bros. 3 or DOOM.
I prefer having a portion of the screen separately for this stuff, instead of random shit plastered on top of the graphics.
 

Aenima

Member
HZD UI is pefectly fine, is not minimalistic but is also not intrusive. Its well placed.

The problem with modern game design in open world is the follow the on screen marker to reach ur destination instead of using the game world landmaks to tell the player where to go.

Ghost of Tsushima had an elegant solution by making the wind always moving in the direction of ur next objective so there was zero UI elements while exploring.
 

MrJTeera

Member
I think every game should have fully customizable HUD options.

Battlefront 2's HUD is horrible, however it has a decent amount of HUD options so you can tweak to fit your style
UI artists who spent their time making their ideal HUD be like:
images
 

niilokin

Member
I remeber hating the shit out of neverwinter nights ui after coming from baldurs gate and icewind dale that had absolutely gorgeus uis.
 

thief183

Member
We all praise the game that make the UI hiddable, but the problem still remain.

If I can hide the quest icons but noone gives me instruction or indication on how the actual quest is the only option I have is wandering around hoping to find something.

The Gothic serires was amazing for this, no icons just a journal.

Another example is ammo, if I don't have anithing showing me how many ammo I have there should be a way to check it like in Tarkov.

The simple Hide UI is a bs if it is not supported by gameplay.


EDIT: the old school UI where so cluttered also to keep performance in acceptable levels and to manage to get the text readable at so low resolution.
 
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thief183

Member
HZD UI is pefectly fine, is not minimalistic but is also not intrusive. Its well placed.

The problem with modern game design in open world is the follow the on screen marker to reach ur destination instead of using the game world landmaks to tell the player where to go.

Ghost of Tsushima had an elegant solution by making the wind always moving in the direction of ur next objective so there was zero UI elements while exploring.

Ghost of Tsushima has an elegant solution to a problem that shouldn't exist if players were willing to read ort listen to instruction given by the npc (if they do :p)
 

Arun1910

Member
Depends what Game it is.

If it's something like Cyberpunk, or maybe even Doom, I like that the HUD can be excused as something your character would see.

On the other hand, Ghost of Tsushima and Spider-Man got open world traversal right when it came to the HUD.

In GoT and Spider-Man the HUD only popped up in combat (In Spider-Man I also turned the Mini-Map off as you could Pulse to see icons) and this method really cleaned up the overall presentation imo.



 
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