this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2023
98 points (94.5% liked)

Games

32349 readers
1243 users here now

Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.

Weekly Threads:

What Are You Playing?

The Weekly Discussion Topic

Rules:

  1. Submissions have to be related to games

  2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil

  3. No excessive self-promotion

  4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts

  5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW

  6. No linking to piracy

More information about the community rules can be found here.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

It just feels lazy to me, like the developer couldn't be bothered adjusting the UI for consoles so they copied the PC interface and bound the mouse cursor to a stick. Some games do both at the same time, having menues navigable both with buttons and a cursor, but usually that makes all menus unreliable and unprecise as hell.

top 29 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] xeekei@lemm.ee 73 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Wait? Console players feel like devs just copy the PC interface? Us PC players always feel like they copy the console interface and just slap a cursor on it. Buttons are huge, excessive amount of tabs, very few things visible at any time, etc. Oh and those "wheels" ugh.

[–] Anaphylactic_Gock@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Both things happen. It depends on what the game was originally designed for.

[–] shinjiikarus@mylem.eu 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don’t think Hogwarts Legacy was designed for PC primarily and it’s full of cursor control on console.

[–] xeekei@lemm.ee 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

But it also limits me to 4 spells at any given time even on PC, instead of giving me a bigger hotbar. So I guess devs just make middle-of-the-road interfaces that don't please anyone these days.

[–] joyjoy@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The only game I can think of is Minecraft.

[–] brsrklf@compuverse.uk 5 points 1 year ago

No Man's Sky's UI is almost entirely through cursors, drag and drop etc.

Even choosing between a couple dialog options used to require moving a pointer over buttons but they finally fixed that at some point. Now with a controller you can just select the answers right away.

[–] kautau@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

spiderman-pointing-at-himself.jpg

[–] domstoppable@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

By "wheels", do you mean pie menus? What don't you like about them?

[–] xeekei@lemm.ee 8 points 1 year ago

They are often very blatantly designed for a controller and a far-away screen. Take up the whole screen a lot of the time despite very few possible selections. Often they don't even include a cursor and you just drag a highlight from the centre of the wheel.

I mean, they work, but no one can say that they're designed for M+KB imo.

[–] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 23 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Same reason they make menus that can only be navigated with arrow keys in PC games (looking at you Skyrim & Dragon's Dogma)

[–] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 year ago

I've been using skyui so long I forgot the menu was awful.

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Why is Skyrim on that list? It's menus are navigable with full normal mouse support. It's the scaling and layout that's irritating.

[–] Bassman1805@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

They're technically mouse-navigable, but they're awful at it. The currently-click-selected option is not always obvious.

SkyUI is one of my must-have mods for that reason.

[–] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 year ago

They're navigable with full mouse, but that just means that certain mouse buttons were bound to the controller buttons. The UI is still horrible compared to one which is actually designed for a mouse

[–] poolpo@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

As a former developer in the game industry, I would say it’s just cost saving. Actual devs know it’s not optimal, but that’s the requirements from the guys paying them.

[–] XaeroDegreaz@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The first game I ever saw it used in was Destiny. After that, since it didn't seem that people complained, other companies followerd suit.

Also, funnily enough, the first Destiny game was a console-only release.

[–] brawleryukon@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

since it didn’t seem that people complained

Nevermind didn't complain - that UI won actual awards. And despite OP's disdain for the concept (which, admittedly isn't always implemented very well in other titles), Destiny's implementation of it was really good. (It still is, but it was, too.)

[–] LouNeko@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

GUIs are a science of their own. Think The Last of Us, how unintrusive, but at the same time intuitive is the UI in this game? Somebody spend months designing that and fine tuning it to the gameplay. A simple selection cross mapped to the D-Pad. Crafting accessible by shoulder buttons or quickcrafting directly from cross selection. Thats the majority of your gameplay needs met.

Now think Zelda: Breath of the Wild, how dogshit is the UI? Pressing the Switches tiny + and - buttons a million times, scrolling through pages of clutter to get where you want, quests being on a completely separate menu than the map, etc. I could literally go on for hours on how bad that UI is, but thats not the point I'm trying to make.

The point is, that both examples are topshelf game devs. Being an experienced dev doesn't protect you from bad decisions. Prioritizing, investing effort and understanding the connection between gameplay and UI is what makes it good. And some devs just skip that part and make due with something on of their designer came up with on a lazy Tuesday.

Also, not everything is always arranged in a neat grid, and one thing more infuriating than a cursor on console, is the selection never jumping to where you want it to.

[–] PapstJL4U@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I think the primarily reason is that uniform UI is cost and time saving.

The virtual cursor is easily replaceable by a mouse and at th same time allows you to design a cursor driven UI for console.

It's not the best for either, but usable for the timw invested.

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You just said it: it's laziness.

[–] IWantToFuckSpez@kbin.social 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Lol laziness, typical Gamer™ response. Like the devs just sit back, relax and twiddle their fingers all day in the office. No it’s management who doesn’t give a fuck and don’t allot time and money to the devs to create a better UI. Because they rather have that money paid out as a bonus for themselves.

[–] Silviecat44@aussie.zone 3 points 1 year ago

Dead by Daylight on console is a good example of how terrible it can be. Either too slow so it feels sluggish or too fast so it doesn’t land on a button. Juts laziness

[–] 13igTyme@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

I'd rather have a curser to navigate a menu or character page than use arrows that arbitrarily go somewhere in the next column when clicking left or right.

[–] NeoAgostosTheos@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

First time I saw this it baffled me. Hundred devs and not one person thought it was a dog shit system. As this kept happening in other games I realized they just don’t give a fuck.

[–] PapstJL4U@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Bungie even got a award for this type of GUI in Destiny

load more comments
view more: next ›