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Games these days provide waaaay too much on-screen information
- Thread starter TinTuba47
- Start date
I've always dug being able to turn off HUD options ever since I learned about the blind skull in Halo 2. It made me revisit many games and try them with reduced huds(or no hud). I remember the first game that truly impressed me was assassin's Creed 1 and 2. Without the HUD the game was still playable and I found myself not trying to look at the map anymore to find stuff to do and instead looked and admired that environment much more. I don't think something like this is absolutely needed in every game but sometimes not having HUD details in your face goes a long way in making a player like more engaged. It's why I will always support extensive HUD options
Yoooo I didn't even think about checking to see if there was hud options. I give that a whirl. Part of the fun of the game is the immersion for me.while Death Stranding by default has a fairly minimal HUD:
playing without a HUD feels really cool:
as long as you know how to move through the world, the animations and noises are all you need to manage Sam as he's carrying a metric fuck ton of packages on his back
I'm less concerned with HUDs than with the environments reading properly. Think about how in Half-Life 2 bright green and blue on the ground were reserved for health packs and batteries so the player would notice them quickly or how bright blue and amber on walls indicated medical and armor stations. Then in Bioshock a couple of years later there was so much dim light and environmental debris that everything you could interact with had to have an effect where they would shine every few seconds so they player could tell them apart from everything else. Monster Hunter World has a similar issue with needing to use the scoutflies to highlight things you can pick up.
Oh yeah. Dead Space has the best HUD of all time.Here's one of the best UI in my opinion:
The suit = health meter is brilliant really.
MMOs tend to have so much clutter it's awful.
Bethesda games (Skyrim, Fallout) are also pretty bad.
Just because you change the in game hud doesn't mean you can't look at your in game map menu though, for the majority of games like this, it shouldn't be a problem.
Xenoblade 2 is interesting because, yes, it can look like this during combat
but none of it is extraneous. I wouldn't say it is distracting from the game itself because, most of the time during combat, your main focus is on the HUD.
Outside of combat, it is one of the better examples of HUD.
Xenoblade 2 is interesting because, yes, it can look like this during combat
but none of it is extraneous. I wouldn't say it is distracting from the game itself because, most of the time during combat, your main focus is on the HUD.
Outside of combat, it is one of the better examples of HUD.
It's necessary because they made it so. Could've been handled differently. I don't think the second screenshot is much better with the game always displaying th button mapping for ZL and ZR. It's such a waste of screen space.
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Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is bad but 1 is even worse. They already had limited space and you had all this junk on the battle screen. Almost on MMO levels of cluttered.
My main issue is with objective markers. Just design the world so I can find my way without needing them. It totally kills the immersion when you just follow directions.
However, some games become frustrating without them. Playing Witcher 3 now and although I had them off, I turned them back on as the locations of some quests are very convoluted to the point of being random.
However, some games become frustrating without them. Playing Witcher 3 now and although I had them off, I turned them back on as the locations of some quests are very convoluted to the point of being random.
There the worse ,Ubisoft the main culprit and numbers flying out of people as there shot the worst offender.
OP isn't wrong but games are so detailed these days I understand why designers try and make sure people don't miss stuff.....being able to turn things off without it impacting your experience is always the best option.
There's games that are great about this; Astral Chain lets you turn everything on and off in pieces, and the Conduit let you move info wherever you wanted in addition to removing things entirely. Too bad the latter was pretty boring as a game.
It really was a much better experience. And whenever I got lost, I could always trigger the Witcher sense to get a rough direction for my objective instead of a marker on a minimap.
I'd love for more games to display HUD parts contextually: I don't really need a lifebar when I'm not fighting, or a visibility indicator if I'm not trying to hide.
I really wish more games used the phone-as-a-second-screen feature some games randomly got this and last generation. It would add a lot of the benefit that the Wii U GamePad added with something I already own.
Imagine having health, a mini map, or whatever extra information on your phone to free up the screen...
Imagine having health, a mini map, or whatever extra information on your phone to free up the screen...
Yeah; I don't think another game has come close to this UI. It's so freaking good.
I agree. Devs can make the UI as clunky and unobtrusive as they like, provided they also give the option to customise it.
Yeah, that was a really great feature.
That doesn't sound so bad? Admittedly I haven't played the game, but HZD also has a compass in the top middle of the screen and that doesn't ever get in the way.
The 3DS version made this a bit better moving most of the gauges to the bottom screenXenoblade Chronicles 2 is bad but 1 is even worse. They already had limited space and you had all this junk on the battle screen. Almost on MMO levels of cluttered.
No I actually LIKE compasses there, but in XBC2, the compass is done as absolute positioning where the middle of the compass is 0 degrees and the far left and right edges are 180 degrees(i.e. directly behind you). It is not relative to your viewport. So you end up in cases where an objective is three quarters of the way to the right on the compass but in actual fact is directly right to where you are located.
This type of compass would be a lot more intuitive as a minimap or in circular form.
There's no one size fits all for games, unfortunately. Some genres, or even just games within genres, I prefer a minimalist HUD. If I'm playing an MMO, I basically want as much info as possible up on my screen at once without being obstructive.
The solution is to have highly customizeable and scaleable HUDs. Every single HUD element should be able to be dragged and moved, resized, or toggled on and off. Character health bars and names should be able to be toggled, recoloured, and have optional text (eg. a "92%" beside the healthbar).
Basically this:
And this:
The solution is to have highly customizeable and scaleable HUDs. Every single HUD element should be able to be dragged and moved, resized, or toggled on and off. Character health bars and names should be able to be toggled, recoloured, and have optional text (eg. a "92%" beside the healthbar).
Basically this:
And this:
There's no one size fits all for games, unfortunately. Some genres, or even just games within genres, I prefer a minimalist HUD. If I'm playing an MMO, I basically want as much info as possible up on my screen at once without being obstructive.
The solution is to have highly customizeable and scaleable HUDs. Every single HUD element should be able to be dragged and moved, resized, or toggled on and off. Character health bars and names should be able to be toggled, recoloured, and have optional text (eg. a "92%" beside the healthbar).
Basically this:
And this:
I totally agree. Being able to turn on and off things that you find relevant and put them where you find convenient is a very useful feature. I also like the context based UI because you aren't going to care about your current setup when exploring vs combat so the UI can fade away when you are not fighting.
As a super ultrawide display owner, there are so many games that do UI scaling badly. Sometimes they go on the opposite sides of the screen which makes seeing your health vs ammo etc like looking at a tennis match but at least it helps for immersion when you mostly look at the center of the screen. Some games just don't scale UI beyond 16:9 so that works out alright but the ideal would be to put them somewhere between these two extremes.
I feel like switching the HUD off after seeing this, because I've played for long enough (40+ hours) that I'm comfortable with the controls, and I recognise the outlines of all the important structures.while Death Stranding by default has a fairly minimal HUD:
playing without a HUD feels really cool:
as long as you know how to move through the world, the animations and noises are all you need to manage Sam as he's carrying a metric fuck ton of packages on his back
About the only thing I think I'd still need, though, is the cargo tag pings from the scanner. Sometimes, when I'm relaying two trucks' full of materials for road-building, it's handy to have an on-screen indicator of what each one contains and where I left them. It's also handy for keeping track of MULEs so you can tie them up unnoticed. Can you still have those displayed but without any of the on-screen stamina gubbins and control prompts?
I don't remember, but there are about 4 or 5 different switches in the HUD menu that let you control multiple aspects of what you want displayed, so there's a chance.
Spikes my blood pressure every time.I agree. Also checkout my new Bloodborne mod.
OP
OP
FOLLOW
Dead Space FTWHere's one of the best UI in my opinion:
The suit = health meter is brilliant really.
MMOs tend to have so much clutter it's awful.
Bethesda games (Skyrim, Fallout) are also pretty bad.
I tried starting Homefront Revolution last weekend and had to stop after two hours. I wish I'd recorded it, but when you go to the red zone for the first time in the open world, the information overload was absolutely ridiculous. Constant things popping up on my screen, often simultaneously: tutorial messages, mission messages, radio conversations, you name it.
I've been playing games for nearly 40 years and it was utterly confusing and overwhelming. I had no fucking idea what the hell I was supposed to be doing, or what half the messages were on about. And I missed a ton of them simply because sometimes there were four or even five types of notification on screen at once.
I've been playing games for nearly 40 years and it was utterly confusing and overwhelming. I had no fucking idea what the hell I was supposed to be doing, or what half the messages were on about. And I missed a ton of them simply because sometimes there were four or even five types of notification on screen at once.
get rid of the objective/inventory reminders and refine that map and I'd play the hell out of thisI agree. Also checkout my new Bloodborne mod.
The HUD of DS is ok, the menus though, where you spend a lot of time in, are unnecessarily cluttered, obtuse and overdesigned.while Death Stranding by default has a fairly minimal HUD:
playing without a HUD feels really cool:
as long as you know how to move through the world, the animations and noises are all you need to manage Sam as he's carrying a metric fuck ton of packages on his back
I kind of agree, but I also remember when games looked like this:
Whereas I feel like this is a lot more immersive.
I like that most games don't have to constantly display a score on screen anymore.
Whereas I feel like this is a lot more immersive.
I like that most games don't have to constantly display a score on screen anymore.
OP
OP
Depends on the game. If the game has 20 different functions for 7 keys, because they're all contextual, then yeah, don't mind those prompts being on-screen so that I know what the he'll I'm doing *cough* Shadow of War *cough*
If it's an FPS, then all I need are health bar and bullet count. If I have a question about an objective, it should be possible to figure out by checking the map screen.
If it's an FPS, then all I need are health bar and bullet count. If I have a question about an objective, it should be possible to figure out by checking the map screen.
This is exactly one of the reasons Sea of Thieves is so great. You want to look at the map? You gotta go to the physical map on your ship and look at it.
Here's one of the best UI in my opinion:
The suit = health meter is brilliant really.
MMOs tend to have so much clutter it's awful.
Bethesda games (Skyrim, Fallout) are also pretty bad.
Unless you're on PC. God that interface blew on PC.
Here's one of the best UI in my opinion:
The suit = health meter is brilliant really.
MMOs tend to have so much clutter it's awful.
Bethesda games (Skyrim, Fallout) are also pretty bad.
Agreed. Whoever designed Dead Space UI deserves admittance into Heaven. Wasn't it one of the people that worked on the Metroid Prime series? It may have just been inspired. I can't remember.