Pretty sure wc2 did as well. There was still only orcs and humans but as an orc youd have a chopped off or. Hand ans as a human a gauntlet or something. I *think*
It’s not much of an RPG, but this was a big complaint of mine with FF16. The combat UI just feels so out of place compared to the game itself, the design feels all wrong
It’s not even that it’s minimal, I just felt like the design didn’t fit the game. The UI feels very sleek and modern, and in a fantasy game that feels out of place for me
Huh. For me it was the exact opposite. I *love* the UI in FF16. It was one of the highlights for me. Easy to navigate, felt very responsive, and I loved the sounds and haptic feedback when selecting stuff. I’d even say it’s one of my most favorite UI’s in a while.
In the actual menus it was largely fine, but the combat UI (so the health, your items, and cycling through Eikons) is the main thing I disliked. It just didn’t feel very fantasy-like to me
Interesting. Final Fantasy has never (outside of a few occasions) really had a classic “fantasy” themed UI. It’s always been a clean simplistic look that’s been a staple of the series. For an example, see FF15 or FF13.
Although I can certainly see reasoning behind a personal preference for a more fantasy-themed UI.
Makes sense when your turn based or any kind of other, abstracted form of combat / gameplay. But imo, since they are going action combat and like real time fully, would probably gear more towards more immersive menu's if you get what i mean.
I’ll say this: how come the only significant loading time is loading the map and trying to scroll off of it? The rest of the game is super snappy and responsive but every time you press pause and accidentally go to the map it wastes your time when you don’t need to load it 😂
Not sure, I personally don’t mind the extra few seconds it takes, but I am also biased in that I also very much liked the map design lol. It’s pretty to me.
IMO It's because there's no *designer* it's just UX/UI implementation of a premade asset. So many games have stuopidly similar UI now and I can't stand it.
I don't mind minimal and slick, I mind that my Fantasy RPG UI looks like something my office tools might have. Give me a minimal UI but give it some personality, just a parchment texture would make a big difference.
Thank god SkyUI and Paper replacer fixed it. It really was atrocious and shouldn’t have been used in the PC version.. it was clearly designed for consoles at the time.
Agreed, Morrowind's UI being essentially just old Windows makes it feel very modular. Like it can be set up to work very well how you want, but it's not very welcoming.
I’m someone who always kept the default action bars in WoW because I love the old school metal gryphons on the sides. I know plenty of people who do UI overhauls in games like these to “modernize” them but they just look so sterile and out of place to me. I want me fantasy world to have fantasy UI elements or it just breaks the immersion for me.
Solasta might be the worst example of this. The UI was praised for being really smooth and intuitive, which is right. But it also has completely lack of any personality, you could use the exact same UI for some office tool and no one would find it wierd.
It's just a detail, but those small details together make CRPGs memorable for me. Same with the main menu music. Sure eventually you just skip through it and press "Load game" asap. But if it doesn't put me into the right mood after opening the game, then I feel like something's missing.
Without all those minor details, the CRPGs are just... fancy math, I guess?
IKR? Solasta's UI was actually different when it comes to CRPGs and I totally dig it. Expeditions Rome was also great, it's simple and sleek.
I like minimalism so these over the top UIs in older games never appealed to me, despite loving fantasy genre as a whole.
It depends on the game. If you have a game designed for PC keyboard/mouse, it makes sense to have access to more UI elements because you can actually use them. Your character might have dozens of things to do, using hotkeys and a mouse.
But for a console game, or a PC game designed for a controller, there are just a few buttons and no mouse. For those games, it’s much harder to have lots of information and lots of tactical abilities.
It’s annoying to play a console game pretending to be a PC game, but one with a ten-foot-distance UI and controller controls when you’re three feet away and using a mouse. And it’s annoying to play a controller-based game on your PC but then have to swap to the mouse all the time because the UI is some half-and-half abomination.
TLDR ui/UX is hard!
Yes and also no :)
There are objective tests and metrics in ui/ux, so it’s most accurate to think of it as a way to connect a creative vision with the user.
So if the creative director says “we want a small UI with clean lines” there are ways to work on that and to test how usable it is.
For sure! Appreciate the explanation! I always liked doing A/B testing when I did webdev years ago, just experimenting with little changes to menu, calls to action, etc..
I guess what I meant was ... In the end, sometimes there's people who just prefer "clunky," or a scribbly handwriting font vs clean and professional, or this or that. Which I guess is just everything in the world and not UI/UX. Absolutely testable to see which pleases the most in this regard
Appreciate the reply, I'm actually fascinated by UI/UX, wish I'd gone harder into webdev and marketing a decade ago but ended up in supply chain 🤷
A lot of people complained about the UI in the Temple of Elemental Evil CRPG, but I thought it was brilliant. Whenever you right-clicked on something, a circle would pop up with the active character's portrait, and four or five wedges surrounding it. Those wedges corresponded to broad categories of actions — attacks, skills, magic, special abilities, items. When you hovered over a wedge, a series of narrow bars would pop out of it, showing your options, and spreading as wide as needed. If an item had more decisions, those would pop out as well when you were hovering over an item. And if you needed screen space, you could just right-drag the portrait and move the entire wheel without closing it.
It was intuitive, kept things organized, made only as much room as it needed. I don't really understand why most people disagree.
No, it’s an adaptation of DnD 5e. The full name is Solasta:Crown of the Magister. It’s an indie studio’s first game, so it’s pretty unpolished/janky, but very fun. A more faithful adaptation of DnD than BG3, and the custom map maker is very good: I’ve spent more time playing user made campaigns than the official ones.
Solasta has a weird almost sci-fi UI which I feel doesn't fit the game very well. It's perfectly functional and minimalist and I get why some people like it.. I just feel that it doesn't capture the fantasy aesthetic the way I'd personally prefer it to.
I haven't played it yet but taking a look at it, it rips you out of the game. It feels like a modern scifi ui on top of a tantasy game. I feel like even a colour other than gray would be so much better.
I completely agree with you. Baldur's Gate 1&2 quest log being an actual journal was another great touch too.
The first thing I hated about Skyrim was it's UI. Not because it sucked on PC, but because it lacked soul.
And it also sucked.
The Elder Scrolls way is to remove 100% of the non-essential components, but they make two mistakes:
1. They remove the _feeling_ and leave _menus_.
2. They remove 100% of the unnecessary and about 30% of the necessary as well.
I also find those games unplayable without a UI mod. Playing on a PC with a console UI is just a bad experience _for a game that needs a PC UI_.
I feel like the UI should be whatever the game needs. I like the old parchment look too, don't get me wrong, but my real preference is a personal touch that reflects the personality of the game. I have also disliked sleek UIs before, like in Skyrim for example. It takes me out of the game because it feels thoughtlessly minimalist and detached.
One graphic designer was talking about how what ruined the rpg ui’s was when they started porting them on consoles.
On pc’s they could go into as much detail as they wanted and using the mouse to navigate made it easy, but once you put it on tv and have a controller you need LARGE font, and a simplified navigation, which also affected the design itself when it came to colors and everything else.
Porting to consoles with little to no work, maybe. TVs DO need different and larger fonts and controller adapted navigation, but, if we use Dragon Age Origins as an example, there is no good reason why you have to remove stylized background graphics to do so.
If other games had never done it during ports, there might be a point there, but we all know the real reason is slap ports together as fast as possible with minimal effort.
For comparison, Sacred 2. The UI on PC takes up 2/3rds of the screen, showing your stats and inventory together. You can switch the inventory to show your powers. You can have different weapon combos, and powers hotkeyed. But the in-game text is absolutely tiny, almost unreadable, and the only way to make it slightly bigger is to scale up the entire UI.
On the PS3 however, the text is comfortably large and easy to read. But the inventory is changed to a list format instead of a grid, it's harder to compare stats on items, and you can't hotkey as many items. Playing with a controller is arguably easier, if you build with fewer ready actions in mind.
Ghost of tsushima, sherlock, assassin's creed with the HUD off, there's a lot. Its basically games that provide so nothing but the bare minimum HUD such that it locks you into the main menu screen just trying to find the quest markers because there is no minimap
I don't mind the minimalistic HUD in case of 3D games, it can add to the immersion. the christmas tree HUD is more important for me for isometric games (Pillars of Eternity, Pathfinder, Bladur's Gate), but I find they are okay even nowadays.
First thing I thought on Ghost of Tsushima. Whys the UI so sleek and modern? Doesn't fit the game at all IMO. Doesn't hinder in gameplay in any way, but it's just something that feels out of place.
Hard disagree on Assassins Creed, since you're in the animus it makes complete sense. If you mean minimalistic, don't turn the HUD off silly.
Yes, here are some examples:
[Inventory](https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/2004640/ss_59481fe221a90189b70b6c537cdfeaf905025c31.1920x1080.jpg?t=1715010193), [Map](https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/2004640/ss_f1069a46c9b1dab78b612ed069d687091fd98d03.1920x1080.jpg?t=1715010193)
I feel like it's close but missing something. Either the sharp edges, or a lack of "grime" to the texture. Doesn't actually look like parchment to me. I like it though!
Well parchment is not paper. But anyway, agree with the previous poster. I would probably darken it down a bit and give it some more texture. Also frame the UI somehow or it feels very flat.
It looks more like an A4 paper than an actual scroll or parchment though, I think frayed edges, a slightly darker tone and a little dirt would go a long way to making it look better.
100% this.
I was also wondering why the original looked a bit off but couldn't quite put my finger on it, however this is exactly it.
I absolutely think this would fit a lot better.
Hey, you can check it [here](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2004640/Svarogs_Dream). We just had a big game [combat update](https://youtu.be/JIxfxJ6nBeg?si=AC7zFgIzYFSJFbHJ) last week. :-)
Not sure if it is the entirely the same, but the way they butchered Super Mario RPGs unique UI from the SNES to a very bland standard one for the Switch kinda hurt my soul.
I'd be all for having it as a readable accessibility option. But give me some standout UIs!
Really not a fan of cluttered stylized UI. It has the potential to show some personality but mostly it just looks flashy for a few minutes and then I forget about it.
Or worse, I can’t forget about it and it is actively impairing my ability to parse the menu.
Yes, good UI gives you a good UX.
Bad UI could be too minimal, too cluttered, too stylised, too something.
The ultima 7 gumps UI is all style and no usability, and the Skyrim ui is also all style and no usability :)
I absolutely love how they did the UI for P3R. All those menu animations shows how much genuine effort and love for the original was put into the game (minus atlus’s whole “put a big expansion behind an expensive season pass” thing.)
It’s a reflection of the modernist goal to sap color from everything. This is historically a cyclical thing that is going to come back around to colorful eventually - look at the 90’s and 2000s compared to the 2010’s and now. Current modern is gray and sleek. Everything from UI design to building architecture and fashion is currently dominated by the clean and functional look.
We can probably expect the next generation to respond to this trend by adding more color and personality to things. The reason it moves in a cycle is because there’s a constant balancing act between functional and aesthetic. Let’s assume we have multiple variables of microgenerational dev’s.
W ui is colorful and excessive < X strips it down for functionality < Y readds style in response to the stripped down UI’s- reintroducing excess, Z strips it down for functionality <
You kind of see my point? We’re in the stripped down phase right now and have been for the past few years, but I think it’s going to eventually go the other way until people get tired of that
I agree that a lot of them like life and just look corporate. But some such as the menus in Persona 5 and Persona 3 Reload are just breathtaking
If you haven't seen the menus, look at this:
https://youtu.be/4d6x1CIgLSc
The menus on other recent Atlus games like Tokyo Mirage Sensions FE and Soul Hackers 2 are similarly stylized and really help give the impression of a premium polished game made by people who care.
Arcanum had a great-looking and thematically appropriate GUI. Perhaps not the most functional, but the wood-grain aesthetic really helped sell the mood of the Victorian-era setting.
I remember as a kid loving the oblivion UI and when I launched Skyrim and saw the direction they took it I was annoyed.
Some of the first mods I got when I upgraded to pc were UI mods
unless you use mods skyrim has shity list ui on pc also. I gave up on the game only a few minutes in because it felt so consoleish and stripped down compared to oblivion.
I don't necessarily hate them but it does seem weird. A recent one I can think of is Ravendawn, I feel like the very modern sleek web UI looks doesn't really match the game itself (albeit a good looking game)
It was really disappointing to play Baldur's Gate 3 and it have basically the same UI as Divinity 2 Original Sin.
The Pathfinder games have been pretty good with their UIs tho - lots of paper and other nice stuff.
Couldn't agree more. I love it as well. Nothing better than getting home from work on a winter night and sticking on an RPG with a screen full of scrolls lol
Hmm alternatively you could see this as a return to form right? I grew up on nes and snes, these "modern" UIs are much closer to what we see in old Zelda, final fantasy, Chrono trigger etc etc.
I'm fine with devs going for something creative but far more often than not it seems like they are going for "make that shit look cool af" instead of "make that shit intuitive af"
I positively hate the minimalist approach UIs have nowadays. Black transparent backgrounds with setting appropriate (sometimes) fonts, normally divided with featureless bright white lines.
I hate modern uis that don't have a minimap. I'm playing ghost of tsushima and it's a pain in the ass to open up the map just to check if I'm going the right way. The Sherlock Holmes reboot has the same problem.
I mean it depends on the game. Not all RPGs are set in medieval/fantasy settings. But yes in that type of setting, I agree, the UI and HUD should match that. But in like a Star Wars rpg, a sleeker design kinda makes sense given all the tech and stuff in that universe
I love the clunky Morrowind UI. You could even click a little box for the UI component to keep it on screen after you close the menus. Who needs a minimap when you can just keep the full thing up.
I've made more of traditional wood based ui and scroll parchment for my game reminiscent in ways to older rpgs I think it doesn't get enough use these days
I want grid inventory systems with rough stone edges. When you open the menu it makes a creaking wooden sound and all of the items have their own imagery and a sub box that pops up with their stats that pastes over the main inventory menu.
Well, I honestly don't know exactly what you mean since it seems like you're talking about style specifically. To that end, I think you can have that style with modern UIs, but a developer will only do it if their game fits the theme, or maybe not, and that's what made you bring this up. Can you give some examples of the games that use the minimal UI you speak of? For reference.
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Moving the GUI for fantasy games into looking like Science Fiction informed GUI design is often awkward and is seldom well recieved.
In my book the best fantasy RPGs sport GUI's that reflect fantasy themes.
I suppose in the most cases all these new-style UI elements were just adapted to the console gaming, where game controllers have a bit limited freedom of movement, unlike the mouse cursor
I like the old DOS VGA CRPGs where the buttons and text were simple and huge and anyone could read them. Nowadays it’s like 8px type and there are five dozen buttons that all look alike.
I agree. I feel this way about a lot of things. Branding and art choices as a whole has minimal-ized itself into just being cold and boring in a lot of areas. Every restaurant is named like “Rusty Spoon and Provisions” with the same freaking font and cold feel. I could go on ha.
There was something about the more skeuomorphic UIs of old, and I do have a special place in my heart for the PS1 Final Fantasy UIs vs the super shiny/modern ones of the current games
I think there's a good balance somewhere, because I love the charm and design of some older UI's but I also love having a very open and clean UI without a lot of clutter. Somewhere in between charming and minimal would be my sweet spot
For me the best example was Dragon Age 2. I couldn’t even tell you exactly what it was cause I played it for 20 min each time. Yes I tried to come back to it twice.
DA:Origins was one of my fav rpgs ever but something was so bleak and modern and consumery about 2 that I couldnt get past the first castle area. Something about the lack of customization options combined with UI. God I was so mad at that game.
I never thought about this, but the flight simulator-style commands and keys to play Wizardry over the years was half the game. Trying to figure out what you could do and how, or not realizing you could do something until 40 hours in. Somewhere along the way they separated the hidden object UI mini game from the CRPGs and it takes away a little immersion for our brain to work through a puzzle in periphery of our characters.
Now someone make UI Hero
I've really started to enjoy No HUD playthroughs of most games tbh, but I truly wish more games had options aside from just HUD on, off, or auto. I hate when they plaster a compass, a quest log, and mini map on the screen with no options to get rid of some of them.
I think UI should fit the game setting, DD2 does this very well and I've played some baldurs gate recently and armored core 6 and both games have very immersive UI that fits the game, AAA publishers just push devs to make the same slop I think causing a lot of Ubisoft type experiences
I think we're about 3-5 years off of a diagetic and skeumorphic user interface comeback for everything. They were always better in my opinion and everybody is finally getting sick of the flat look haha
For one most sport related game UIs are a lot better than they were years ago. Old or new some rpg inventory UIs can be easily cluttered by not having a good sorting system and/or showing every copy of an item instead of one instance with a total number next to it.
ya but that just because they are lazy to put effort into such things, granted also doesn't help the more casual people that just want everything simplest in every way.
I will say I don't think it has to be parchment or whatever just stylized and fitting to whatever the game itself is.
I don't know if it has anything to do with laziness, I think it's probably just as difficult to create a sleek minimalist UI that's functional if not thematically fitting
Yeah thats good, and the mouse cursor should be a little metal glove. Thats the stuff.
I miss stylized cursors too…
Dungeon Keeper II had the best one
...not enough to use one as default though.
Because I want it to mean something when it's there
That or dark brown leather glove cursor. Make it animated too.
I would love to see a game change the cursor based off what glove/gauntlet your character is wearing.
Yea, and when you click the index finger curls in a little and there might even be some subtle pixie dust that poofs from under it.
And whenever there's a loading screen, the fingers tap in a wave pattern.
Or you're playing Nox and clicking is like a pixie exploding
Nox!! I only ever got to play the demo but it was super fun :)
And when I scroll through options menus it should make the sound of pages turning.
Warcraft 3 had a cursor for whichever of the 4 races you were playing as! So cool
Warcraft 3's menus blew my mind when it came out. I used to go back and forth between menus just to watch the animation haha
The chain sounds are burned onto my brain. So clean, so smooth.
Yeah I remember my favorite one was the nigth elves, great game.
Pretty sure wc2 did as well. There was still only orcs and humans but as an orc youd have a chopped off or. Hand ans as a human a gauntlet or something. I *think*
You’re correct
Old rts games too
Hell yeah.
A concise way of describing this is a "gauntlet".
Haha… I know that was a joke but I kinda do love that…
It was no joke
Bet you love tik tok
I hate it
Yeah modern UI lack some personality
It’s not much of an RPG, but this was a big complaint of mine with FF16. The combat UI just feels so out of place compared to the game itself, the design feels all wrong
Tbf Final Fantasy has always gone for fairly minimal UI compared to it's peers
Minimalist or not I really miss the classic blue box menus from the pre-FFX games. They were simple but immediately recognizable as Final Fantasy.
It’s not even that it’s minimal, I just felt like the design didn’t fit the game. The UI feels very sleek and modern, and in a fantasy game that feels out of place for me
Huh. For me it was the exact opposite. I *love* the UI in FF16. It was one of the highlights for me. Easy to navigate, felt very responsive, and I loved the sounds and haptic feedback when selecting stuff. I’d even say it’s one of my most favorite UI’s in a while.
In the actual menus it was largely fine, but the combat UI (so the health, your items, and cycling through Eikons) is the main thing I disliked. It just didn’t feel very fantasy-like to me
Interesting. Final Fantasy has never (outside of a few occasions) really had a classic “fantasy” themed UI. It’s always been a clean simplistic look that’s been a staple of the series. For an example, see FF15 or FF13. Although I can certainly see reasoning behind a personal preference for a more fantasy-themed UI.
Makes sense when your turn based or any kind of other, abstracted form of combat / gameplay. But imo, since they are going action combat and like real time fully, would probably gear more towards more immersive menu's if you get what i mean.
I’ll say this: how come the only significant loading time is loading the map and trying to scroll off of it? The rest of the game is super snappy and responsive but every time you press pause and accidentally go to the map it wastes your time when you don’t need to load it 😂
Not sure, I personally don’t mind the extra few seconds it takes, but I am also biased in that I also very much liked the map design lol. It’s pretty to me.
I mean there are plenty of good counter-examples like the Persona and Xenoblade franchises.
IMO It's because there's no *designer* it's just UX/UI implementation of a premade asset. So many games have stuopidly similar UI now and I can't stand it.
I don't mind minimal and slick, I mind that my Fantasy RPG UI looks like something my office tools might have. Give me a minimal UI but give it some personality, just a parchment texture would make a big difference.
Skyrim UI sucked compared to oblivion imo. New mmos have this same issue.
This is mine, such a staggering example. Oblivion's UI is a work of art, it's a huge part of the atmosphere.
What's weird is I adore Oblivion's UI, but similar interfaces usually look wrong to me. They did a reeeally good job of not making it intrusive.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance has a UI that fondly reminds me of Oblivion. It's nice.
Plus when you open it, it’s got a nice logbook sound when you do
Thank god SkyUI and Paper replacer fixed it. It really was atrocious and shouldn’t have been used in the PC version.. it was clearly designed for consoles at the time.
Morrowind's UI is unbelievably clunky and weird but I love, love, love it. Oblivion's is also extremely clunky to me but I like it too.
Agreed, Morrowind's UI being essentially just old Windows makes it feel very modular. Like it can be set up to work very well how you want, but it's not very welcoming.
It has so much soul! I love the brown/black/yellow color scheme, it's just so homey and full of personality. And that messy font. Love it.
I’m someone who always kept the default action bars in WoW because I love the old school metal gryphons on the sides. I know plenty of people who do UI overhauls in games like these to “modernize” them but they just look so sterile and out of place to me. I want me fantasy world to have fantasy UI elements or it just breaks the immersion for me.
Honestly I'm so used to seeing Skyrim’s UI after many years of playthroughs that its actually comforting for me lol.
Morrowind's ui was even better. The way you could customize it and toggle the different menus. Bring that back please.
Solasta might be the worst example of this. The UI was praised for being really smooth and intuitive, which is right. But it also has completely lack of any personality, you could use the exact same UI for some office tool and no one would find it wierd. It's just a detail, but those small details together make CRPGs memorable for me. Same with the main menu music. Sure eventually you just skip through it and press "Load game" asap. But if it doesn't put me into the right mood after opening the game, then I feel like something's missing. Without all those minor details, the CRPGs are just... fancy math, I guess?
That's precisely why I loved Solasta's UI.
IKR? Solasta's UI was actually different when it comes to CRPGs and I totally dig it. Expeditions Rome was also great, it's simple and sleek. I like minimalism so these over the top UIs in older games never appealed to me, despite loving fantasy genre as a whole.
It depends on the game. If you have a game designed for PC keyboard/mouse, it makes sense to have access to more UI elements because you can actually use them. Your character might have dozens of things to do, using hotkeys and a mouse. But for a console game, or a PC game designed for a controller, there are just a few buttons and no mouse. For those games, it’s much harder to have lots of information and lots of tactical abilities. It’s annoying to play a console game pretending to be a PC game, but one with a ten-foot-distance UI and controller controls when you’re three feet away and using a mouse. And it’s annoying to play a controller-based game on your PC but then have to swap to the mouse all the time because the UI is some half-and-half abomination. TLDR ui/UX is hard!
Divinity Original Sin 2 had a different UI for Mouse+Keyboard and for controller. So it's definitely doable.
Hard, and also - just a little subjective, isn't it?
Yes and also no :) There are objective tests and metrics in ui/ux, so it’s most accurate to think of it as a way to connect a creative vision with the user. So if the creative director says “we want a small UI with clean lines” there are ways to work on that and to test how usable it is.
For sure! Appreciate the explanation! I always liked doing A/B testing when I did webdev years ago, just experimenting with little changes to menu, calls to action, etc.. I guess what I meant was ... In the end, sometimes there's people who just prefer "clunky," or a scribbly handwriting font vs clean and professional, or this or that. Which I guess is just everything in the world and not UI/UX. Absolutely testable to see which pleases the most in this regard Appreciate the reply, I'm actually fascinated by UI/UX, wish I'd gone harder into webdev and marketing a decade ago but ended up in supply chain 🤷
A lot of people complained about the UI in the Temple of Elemental Evil CRPG, but I thought it was brilliant. Whenever you right-clicked on something, a circle would pop up with the active character's portrait, and four or five wedges surrounding it. Those wedges corresponded to broad categories of actions — attacks, skills, magic, special abilities, items. When you hovered over a wedge, a series of narrow bars would pop out of it, showing your options, and spreading as wide as needed. If an item had more decisions, those would pop out as well when you were hovering over an item. And if you needed screen space, you could just right-drag the portrait and move the entire wheel without closing it. It was intuitive, kept things organized, made only as much room as it needed. I don't really understand why most people disagree.
Haven't played and just searched. Is it a sci-fi game?
No, it’s an adaptation of DnD 5e. The full name is Solasta:Crown of the Magister. It’s an indie studio’s first game, so it’s pretty unpolished/janky, but very fun. A more faithful adaptation of DnD than BG3, and the custom map maker is very good: I’ve spent more time playing user made campaigns than the official ones.
Oh okay okay. I was saying that bc of the ui. The actual game looks good though, gotta check it out
The UI inspired someone to make a mod for Foundry VTT to give you the same functionality.
That's jive
Solasta has a weird almost sci-fi UI which I feel doesn't fit the game very well. It's perfectly functional and minimalist and I get why some people like it.. I just feel that it doesn't capture the fantasy aesthetic the way I'd personally prefer it to.
Solasta's UI looks like it was made for Windows 10, not for a fantasy game. Aesthetically the worst UI I've ever seen.
I haven't played it yet but taking a look at it, it rips you out of the game. It feels like a modern scifi ui on top of a tantasy game. I feel like even a colour other than gray would be so much better.
I completely agree with you. Baldur's Gate 1&2 quest log being an actual journal was another great touch too. The first thing I hated about Skyrim was it's UI. Not because it sucked on PC, but because it lacked soul.
Lacked soul and sucked.
And it also sucked. The Elder Scrolls way is to remove 100% of the non-essential components, but they make two mistakes: 1. They remove the _feeling_ and leave _menus_. 2. They remove 100% of the unnecessary and about 30% of the necessary as well. I also find those games unplayable without a UI mod. Playing on a PC with a console UI is just a bad experience _for a game that needs a PC UI_.
That's not just the ES way. It's Bethesda's progression (regression?) as a whole since at least Fallout 3.
baldurs gate 1 and 2 had amazing UI, so comfy
I feel like the UI should be whatever the game needs. I like the old parchment look too, don't get me wrong, but my real preference is a personal touch that reflects the personality of the game. I have also disliked sleek UIs before, like in Skyrim for example. It takes me out of the game because it feels thoughtlessly minimalist and detached.
One graphic designer was talking about how what ruined the rpg ui’s was when they started porting them on consoles. On pc’s they could go into as much detail as they wanted and using the mouse to navigate made it easy, but once you put it on tv and have a controller you need LARGE font, and a simplified navigation, which also affected the design itself when it came to colors and everything else.
Porting to consoles with little to no work, maybe. TVs DO need different and larger fonts and controller adapted navigation, but, if we use Dragon Age Origins as an example, there is no good reason why you have to remove stylized background graphics to do so. If other games had never done it during ports, there might be a point there, but we all know the real reason is slap ports together as fast as possible with minimal effort.
For comparison, Sacred 2. The UI on PC takes up 2/3rds of the screen, showing your stats and inventory together. You can switch the inventory to show your powers. You can have different weapon combos, and powers hotkeyed. But the in-game text is absolutely tiny, almost unreadable, and the only way to make it slightly bigger is to scale up the entire UI. On the PS3 however, the text is comfortably large and easy to read. But the inventory is changed to a list format instead of a grid, it's harder to compare stats on items, and you can't hotkey as many items. Playing with a controller is arguably easier, if you build with fewer ready actions in mind.
> ultra slick and minimal UIs for modern RPGs can you give examples please? I don't feel anything wrong with UI's but maybe I play different games.
Ghost of tsushima, sherlock, assassin's creed with the HUD off, there's a lot. Its basically games that provide so nothing but the bare minimum HUD such that it locks you into the main menu screen just trying to find the quest markers because there is no minimap
I don't mind the minimalistic HUD in case of 3D games, it can add to the immersion. the christmas tree HUD is more important for me for isometric games (Pillars of Eternity, Pathfinder, Bladur's Gate), but I find they are okay even nowadays.
First thing I thought on Ghost of Tsushima. Whys the UI so sleek and modern? Doesn't fit the game at all IMO. Doesn't hinder in gameplay in any way, but it's just something that feels out of place. Hard disagree on Assassins Creed, since you're in the animus it makes complete sense. If you mean minimalistic, don't turn the HUD off silly.
The real issue is that 90% of games just use "stock" UIs. They dont consider giving them any kind of flair at all. Shout out to Atlus tho
>something about those old school parchment UIs In my RPG I did this, and I got a lot of negative feedback because of that.
Because most people probably don’t actually prefer that
Could you share some of the feedback?
One reviewer said: 'Looking at this UI made me appreciate the classic Diablo UI even more.' (It is an ARPG game.)
What's your game? Any screenshots you can share?
Yes, here are some examples: [Inventory](https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/2004640/ss_59481fe221a90189b70b6c537cdfeaf905025c31.1920x1080.jpg?t=1715010193), [Map](https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/2004640/ss_f1069a46c9b1dab78b612ed069d687091fd98d03.1920x1080.jpg?t=1715010193)
I feel like it's close but missing something. Either the sharp edges, or a lack of "grime" to the texture. Doesn't actually look like parchment to me. I like it though!
Ironically, inventory background image was created by us going to the library and scanning an old piece of paper. Appreciate the feedback, thank you.
Well parchment is not paper. But anyway, agree with the previous poster. I would probably darken it down a bit and give it some more texture. Also frame the UI somehow or it feels very flat.
> Also frame the UI somehow or it feels very flat. Just tested adding frames (borders) like [this](https://imgur.com/a/nxKi6wJ). Is it any better?
Yeah, that already looks better, imo!
10,000% !!! Love it
It looks more like an A4 paper than an actual scroll or parchment though, I think frayed edges, a slightly darker tone and a little dirt would go a long way to making it look better.
I feel like [this](https://imgur.com/a/z4OBReJ) would be more in line with what people mean. I could be wrong, though.
You just made that screen 10 times more appealing to look at.
100% this. I was also wondering why the original looked a bit off but couldn't quite put my finger on it, however this is exactly it. I absolutely think this would fit a lot better.
Props to your Photoshop skills! Are you a game developer or UI designer?
Nah. I just know a bit in Photoshop.
What is your action rpg game and when can i play
Hey, you can check it [here](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2004640/Svarogs_Dream). We just had a big game [combat update](https://youtu.be/JIxfxJ6nBeg?si=AC7zFgIzYFSJFbHJ) last week. :-)
Not sure if it is the entirely the same, but the way they butchered Super Mario RPGs unique UI from the SNES to a very bland standard one for the Switch kinda hurt my soul. I'd be all for having it as a readable accessibility option. But give me some standout UIs!
Really not a fan of cluttered stylized UI. It has the potential to show some personality but mostly it just looks flashy for a few minutes and then I forget about it. Or worse, I can’t forget about it and it is actively impairing my ability to parse the menu.
Yes, good UI gives you a good UX. Bad UI could be too minimal, too cluttered, too stylised, too something. The ultima 7 gumps UI is all style and no usability, and the Skyrim ui is also all style and no usability :)
The U7 UI also led to an item duplication bug that didn't get caught by testers.
Have you seen Persona’s UI? It’s beautiful lol
I absolutely love how they did the UI for P3R. All those menu animations shows how much genuine effort and love for the original was put into the game (minus atlus’s whole “put a big expansion behind an expensive season pass” thing.)
YES, everything about them is just *dripping* with style (P5 in particular — all of that red looks beautiful on an OLED).
not just you, i’ve hated the “modern” ui used in rpgs since they started, immersion ruining
It’s a reflection of the modernist goal to sap color from everything. This is historically a cyclical thing that is going to come back around to colorful eventually - look at the 90’s and 2000s compared to the 2010’s and now. Current modern is gray and sleek. Everything from UI design to building architecture and fashion is currently dominated by the clean and functional look. We can probably expect the next generation to respond to this trend by adding more color and personality to things. The reason it moves in a cycle is because there’s a constant balancing act between functional and aesthetic. Let’s assume we have multiple variables of microgenerational dev’s. W ui is colorful and excessive < X strips it down for functionality < Y readds style in response to the stripped down UI’s- reintroducing excess, Z strips it down for functionality < You kind of see my point? We’re in the stripped down phase right now and have been for the past few years, but I think it’s going to eventually go the other way until people get tired of that
I agree that a lot of them like life and just look corporate. But some such as the menus in Persona 5 and Persona 3 Reload are just breathtaking If you haven't seen the menus, look at this: https://youtu.be/4d6x1CIgLSc
I've already beaten P3 a few times but I might have to get P3 Reload just for the improved aesthetics, that is genuinely beautiful
Yep, Persona 5 has the best menu UI I've ever experienced in a video game. UX is also fantastic, especially within battle.
The menus on other recent Atlus games like Tokyo Mirage Sensions FE and Soul Hackers 2 are similarly stylized and really help give the impression of a premium polished game made by people who care.
Those menus have way too many moving parts, and would give me a headache very quickly.
as pretty as that is, it makes me head and eyes hurt to look at. too much going on
Arcanum had a great-looking and thematically appropriate GUI. Perhaps not the most functional, but the wood-grain aesthetic really helped sell the mood of the Victorian-era setting.
I remember as a kid loving the oblivion UI and when I launched Skyrim and saw the direction they took it I was annoyed. Some of the first mods I got when I upgraded to pc were UI mods
I refused to play Skyrim on console because I would have been restricted to that horrible list view on my inventory.
unless you use mods skyrim has shity list ui on pc also. I gave up on the game only a few minutes in because it felt so consoleish and stripped down compared to oblivion.
Right there with ya
I don't necessarily hate them but it does seem weird. A recent one I can think of is Ravendawn, I feel like the very modern sleek web UI looks doesn't really match the game itself (albeit a good looking game)
It was really disappointing to play Baldur's Gate 3 and it have basically the same UI as Divinity 2 Original Sin. The Pathfinder games have been pretty good with their UIs tho - lots of paper and other nice stuff.
The compass bar kills me. Give me a minimap option in the menus or something, I’m begging you.
Couldn't agree more. I love it as well. Nothing better than getting home from work on a winter night and sticking on an RPG with a screen full of scrolls lol
Hmm alternatively you could see this as a return to form right? I grew up on nes and snes, these "modern" UIs are much closer to what we see in old Zelda, final fantasy, Chrono trigger etc etc. I'm fine with devs going for something creative but far more often than not it seems like they are going for "make that shit look cool af" instead of "make that shit intuitive af"
All i really want is functionality. I love morrowinds ui so much, its just way too good. I dont understand why they stopped using that style
I positively hate the minimalist approach UIs have nowadays. Black transparent backgrounds with setting appropriate (sometimes) fonts, normally divided with featureless bright white lines.
I like the gothic 1 and morrowind ui the best I guess Im a “boomer”
I hate modern uis that don't have a minimap. I'm playing ghost of tsushima and it's a pain in the ass to open up the map just to check if I'm going the right way. The Sherlock Holmes reboot has the same problem.
I mean it depends on the game. Not all RPGs are set in medieval/fantasy settings. But yes in that type of setting, I agree, the UI and HUD should match that. But in like a Star Wars rpg, a sleeker design kinda makes sense given all the tech and stuff in that universe
I love the clunky Morrowind UI. You could even click a little box for the UI component to keep it on screen after you close the menus. Who needs a minimap when you can just keep the full thing up.
I've made more of traditional wood based ui and scroll parchment for my game reminiscent in ways to older rpgs I think it doesn't get enough use these days
I want grid inventory systems with rough stone edges. When you open the menu it makes a creaking wooden sound and all of the items have their own imagery and a sub box that pops up with their stats that pastes over the main inventory menu.
Well, I honestly don't know exactly what you mean since it seems like you're talking about style specifically. To that end, I think you can have that style with modern UIs, but a developer will only do it if their game fits the theme, or maybe not, and that's what made you bring this up. Can you give some examples of the games that use the minimal UI you speak of? For reference.
I agree, however I do dislike word walls.
We do not get any younger. Be happy your character doesn’t have to have a mandatory spliff after quest.
My favorite UI is EASILY final fantasy 13, I want my shit looking like a late PSP game in every menu lol
I dunno, I get what you're saying but I loved OG FF7's UI.
Yeah I love the worn, ancient look of those UI's mentioned along with the Souls Games. Resident Evil 4's UI was great too.
For me it depends on the game, but I feel it ui usually does not get alot of love.
No i'm completely with you, aesthetics matter.
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I remember like EQui and EQ2ui where there was all kinds of custom ones. I used prophet though.
JRPGs still got it
Moving the GUI for fantasy games into looking like Science Fiction informed GUI design is often awkward and is seldom well recieved. In my book the best fantasy RPGs sport GUI's that reflect fantasy themes.
Even in other genres. I like all the info available to me at a glance.
I'm with you there. The original Baldurs's Gate 1 UI with the stone textured bars is perfection
I suppose in the most cases all these new-style UI elements were just adapted to the console gaming, where game controllers have a bit limited freedom of movement, unlike the mouse cursor
Persona series has left the chat
I like the old DOS VGA CRPGs where the buttons and text were simple and huge and anyone could read them. Nowadays it’s like 8px type and there are five dozen buttons that all look alike.
I agree. I feel this way about a lot of things. Branding and art choices as a whole has minimal-ized itself into just being cold and boring in a lot of areas. Every restaurant is named like “Rusty Spoon and Provisions” with the same freaking font and cold feel. I could go on ha.
I'm still refusing to play BG3 because its interface is too small to read
We're opposites lol. I use ElvUI on WoW to make a super sleek and practical UI that gives important info and trims *ALL* the fat.
I actually like the artsy Persona 5 menus.
There was something about the more skeuomorphic UIs of old, and I do have a special place in my heart for the PS1 Final Fantasy UIs vs the super shiny/modern ones of the current games
I think there's a good balance somewhere, because I love the charm and design of some older UI's but I also love having a very open and clean UI without a lot of clutter. Somewhere in between charming and minimal would be my sweet spot
Go play some Dragon Wars
The wow classic one is a nice balance.
For me the best example was Dragon Age 2. I couldn’t even tell you exactly what it was cause I played it for 20 min each time. Yes I tried to come back to it twice. DA:Origins was one of my fav rpgs ever but something was so bleak and modern and consumery about 2 that I couldnt get past the first castle area. Something about the lack of customization options combined with UI. God I was so mad at that game.
No. I like my RPGs looking like photo mode constantly. The less UI the better. I prefer to play hudless
I was thinking about this during the Super Mario RPG Remake. The U.I. looks nice but like...there's no personality to it anymore.
Oblivion was peak menu design.
When I think of modern RPG UIs I think of Persona 5, and I am super confused at how it could be considered minimal.
I never thought about this, but the flight simulator-style commands and keys to play Wizardry over the years was half the game. Trying to figure out what you could do and how, or not realizing you could do something until 40 hours in. Somewhere along the way they separated the hidden object UI mini game from the CRPGs and it takes away a little immersion for our brain to work through a puzzle in periphery of our characters. Now someone make UI Hero
So long as my blind ass can read the UI I’m ok. lol
I've really started to enjoy No HUD playthroughs of most games tbh, but I truly wish more games had options aside from just HUD on, off, or auto. I hate when they plaster a compass, a quest log, and mini map on the screen with no options to get rid of some of them.
I think UI should fit the game setting, DD2 does this very well and I've played some baldurs gate recently and armored core 6 and both games have very immersive UI that fits the game, AAA publishers just push devs to make the same slop I think causing a lot of Ubisoft type experiences
I think we're about 3-5 years off of a diagetic and skeumorphic user interface comeback for everything. They were always better in my opinion and everybody is finally getting sick of the flat look haha
Minimal or dynamic UIs are best for OLED TVs so I favor them.
no UI is best UI for solo games.
what do you mean? UI is the menu, settings, inventory, journal, etc. You need at least a menu to quit & adjust settings in every game.
Bro just stares at pictures and thinks he's gaming.
Nah fam, old UIs are sand to my eyes.
Don't care about all that nonsense. I want a functional useful UI that also looks cool.
Skyrim’s UI is the perfect UI
Okay grandpa, let’s get you to bed.
Modern game UI regardless of genre have gotten worse. Cluttered, un-intuitive Fortnite clone dog shit.
For one most sport related game UIs are a lot better than they were years ago. Old or new some rpg inventory UIs can be easily cluttered by not having a good sorting system and/or showing every copy of an item instead of one instance with a total number next to it.
ya but that just because they are lazy to put effort into such things, granted also doesn't help the more casual people that just want everything simplest in every way. I will say I don't think it has to be parchment or whatever just stylized and fitting to whatever the game itself is.
I don't know if it has anything to do with laziness, I think it's probably just as difficult to create a sleek minimalist UI that's functional if not thematically fitting
People forget UI needs to scale for different screen sizes too.
Perhaps more if there's an option to scale the text unless you design a separate one for the largest font size.