That was a really low blow considering the key binding issues I had with ori on the pc, if he followed those ideals there wouldn't be a need for the best played with controller screens either on pc.
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I hate this trend of UIs that use a free floating cursor on console
- Thread starter flyinj
- Start date
That was a really low blow considering the key binding issues I had with ori on the pc, if he followed those ideals there wouldn't be a need for the best played with controller screens either on pc.
Yeah, I'm not a fan. It's tolerable, but I prefer to use standard d-pad navigation, which thankfully many games still support.
As far as "accessibility" goes, Assassin's Creed games make it obvious that's not the case. The reason they don't support the touchpad or gyro is because the Xbox controller doesn't have those things. If they really cared about making the menus "accessible", they would add that functionality even if only half their user base could use it, and they would allow the option for more traditional d-pad navigation. True accessibility is all about options, not trying to make a "one size fits all" solution.
As far as "accessibility" goes, Assassin's Creed games make it obvious that's not the case. The reason they don't support the touchpad or gyro is because the Xbox controller doesn't have those things. If they really cared about making the menus "accessible", they would add that functionality even if only half their user base could use it, and they would allow the option for more traditional d-pad navigation. True accessibility is all about options, not trying to make a "one size fits all" solution.
I hated it in Smash and every game that's decided to copy it. I'll never understand why anyone would approve this kind of inaccurate selection method.
Disclaimer: I'm a big destiny nut. But this is another example of a thing that destiny started and did really well but everyone who copied it did it really badly. If you have the time and interested in UI I urge you to check out the GDC talk over this. They really did their research and fine tuned it to perfection. It's not something that you can just slot it into any type of game and call it a day.
Why do have to be so toxic every time you have some criticism about a game from another developer ?
What is even weirder to me is games like Destiny 1 that didn't even have a PC version but still did that shit anyway.
I like them. Especially when implemented really well like in Destiny. With so much to choose from and constantly swapping and using items from within the menu, it would get too much to have to click thru everything. With the analog cursor, you can make a direct path to what you want to access.
What? I might agree that research often has flawed methodology or flawed interpretations of their results, but this post feels like its attempting to dismiss User Research and data-driven development outright, which is flat out wrong.
Data may not be the end all be all of decision making, but its absolutely crucial to have when making design decisions and having worked with countless developers on data acquisition, my biggest observation is that sometimes people mistakingly rely on acquiring user data with no proper research or marketing methodology or do not dig enough into the data reliability of their external partner doing their data gathering.
I'd never attempt to dismiss user or market research as a whole outright though, as its super fucking valuable.
yeh but several people in this thread said that it's lazy and objectively bad so there
I can't roll my eyes hard enough at people calling it lazy, especially those of you who are actual devs. You should know better, fankly. I'd invite you do head on over to somewhere like Bungie and sit down with the folks who presumably spent hundreds of hours tuning, tweaking and getting the UI just right and tell them they're lazy. I'm sure it'd be a huge hit.
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Yes, I really don't like this to...
It's funny how years and years of game production, internet with all kinds of debates and impressions and we still see so many childish mistakes being made in regards to menus, interface, lack of options and many things in games...
I remember that until recently games started without subtitles and many times you had to watch all the first video to enable them...
there's just so many mistakes that in many games I asked myself even if some developers are used to play games...
It's funny how years and years of game production, internet with all kinds of debates and impressions and we still see so many childish mistakes being made in regards to menus, interface, lack of options and many things in games...
I remember that until recently games started without subtitles and many times you had to watch all the first video to enable them...
there's just so many mistakes that in many games I asked myself even if some developers are used to play games...
For me it feels like shit, even in Destiny. Maybe there's a breakdown of people that prefer to use the analog vs d-pad in menus, and I fall on the d-pad side, but it always feels like a mouse interface retrofitted for console.
Then again I'm more of a cli person on a computer if I have multiple efficient tasks to perform, most people live on the gui side and a floating cursor is more natural for them then remembering the number of d-pad presses even when the cursor is being controlled by a wobbly, slow joystick rather than a precise mouse.
Then again I'm more of a cli person on a computer if I have multiple efficient tasks to perform, most people live on the gui side and a floating cursor is more natural for them then remembering the number of d-pad presses even when the cursor is being controlled by a wobbly, slow joystick rather than a precise mouse.
I 100% agree with this. I've experienced the same during the development of websites and web applications. People use random data they find online and think they are improving UX and accessibility, while this is not always the case. I'm sure this happens in game development as well. Maybe even more often, since accessibility is still a really low priority for lot's of game developers (But what do I know, it's still pretty bad on web too).
It's literally the worst game design trend to come into play in the past 5 years. tied with "Tap and hold to activate" (And they go hand in hand).
It takes WAY too much effort to implement, WAY too much time to test it working correctly, and it feels like dragging a slug through a pile of salt.
I don't care if you poured your heart and soul getting it the way you like it... nobody else likes this, It's never faster than me tapping left 4 times, and pressing a single button, instead I have to hold left and drag the cursor there that way at an honestly embarrassing pace and then hold the button for a second to actually toggle what needs to be done there, because of the inaccuracy of moving a joystick as a mouse you can't trust immediate inputs.
And for people who say it's lazy, I understand why they'd feel that way. You develop a cross platform title, on PC it's gonna use a Mouse and not a controller so it'll have that same UI style, well just map the XY movement of a mouse to the right joystick and call it a day(And some games do this). But a Mouse moving around a screen is WAY faster and more precise than using a joystick, and the reason it's slow is because the joystick isn't precise enough.
I cannot state, how much I hate this design, and I have refunded games because of it.
It takes WAY too much effort to implement, WAY too much time to test it working correctly, and it feels like dragging a slug through a pile of salt.
I don't care if you poured your heart and soul getting it the way you like it... nobody else likes this, It's never faster than me tapping left 4 times, and pressing a single button, instead I have to hold left and drag the cursor there that way at an honestly embarrassing pace and then hold the button for a second to actually toggle what needs to be done there, because of the inaccuracy of moving a joystick as a mouse you can't trust immediate inputs.
And for people who say it's lazy, I understand why they'd feel that way. You develop a cross platform title, on PC it's gonna use a Mouse and not a controller so it'll have that same UI style, well just map the XY movement of a mouse to the right joystick and call it a day(And some games do this). But a Mouse moving around a screen is WAY faster and more precise than using a joystick, and the reason it's slow is because the joystick isn't precise enough.
I cannot state, how much I hate this design, and I have refunded games because of it.
Even in games where it's optional like Miles Morales it's terrible. I use the stick to navigate the UI and the cursor there was annoying and sluggish and terrible for a controller. Don't kno what kind of research that suggest this is "better" tbh, must be the same that's telling them to turn every game into Destiny and Fortnite.
I've only experienced this in Destiny and No Man's Sky. On consoles navigating the menus feels like utter shit. Makes me want to stop playing the game. Hell, I don't even like it in No Man's Sky on PC when I'm using a mouse. Just give traditional menu controls please or at least give us the option to switch between the two styles.
Edit: Forgot this style is in modern Assassin's Creed titles as well. Absolutely awful no matter the game. Accessibility my ass.
Edit: Forgot this style is in modern Assassin's Creed titles as well. Absolutely awful no matter the game. Accessibility my ass.
I saw it in ports of PC games. It seems some studios don't want to make a different interface so the middle ground is that PC gamers are a priority. It's really not easy to adapt a game UI designed for a mouse to also work well with a controller if it wasn't designed from the start that way. There has to be compromises somewhere.
But I also see it in first parties too. Super Smash have a very weird interface that require a cursor because buttons are all over the place, diagonals, long buttons in one axis... but it looks cool.
Gran Turismo always had a bad UI, regardless of the mouse pointer decision, but that made it even worse. Many sim racing fans have a FFB wheel with only a dpad on it, making the mouse pointer even worse than it already was with a controller.
Some interfaces are designed in a way that makes the d-pad progression between the buttons seriously ambiguous. Like going left goes to A, right goes diagonally to B, but left again goes to C... WTF! This could be a UI designer mistake, or some management issues where the interfaces are made by graphics artists, not UI designers, and chosen based on form over function by management. Then it's the UI programmer's job to make it work (and they have no other choice than a pointer to solve the problem). I hate that as much as I hate the mouse pointer cop out decision.
The interface needs to be designed specifically with a controller in mind, to be best with a controller.
If they don't isolate the target market correctly in the research, it can lead to this kind of mismatch. You can find research reaching an opposite conclusions if the sampling is the wrong one for your market, despite being scientifically correct by being as broad as possible.
The Wiimote was designed based on research that people are confused if it's not shaped rectangular like a remote control.
The horrible A/V remove on PS5 is probably based on research showing people are confused with too many buttons. (great for youtube, horrible for blurays)
XB1 launch focusing on TV and kinect, because research shows people use youtube much more than they play games on console, and people are intimidated by a controller with buttons, we need to get rid of the controller.
WiiU... research shows people prefer touch screens, but we still want to make a home console... what should we do!
Can you imagine if the main OS interface was using a pointer everywhere?
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Destiny's UI is actually super simple to set for non cursor UI, you start on Class Spec, Press right and it takes you to helmet, press down you go to Weapon 1. On any item press A to enter the UI and navigate into your gear for there, press A to swap. B to reverse menu.
Yeah, the whole "use an analog mouse pointer on a menu that does nothing different than a dpad menu, and hold two seconds to confirm" is such a weird trend. If the menus required you to hover over different areas I could see it, but for lists it's beyond pointless.
I generally hate them too, but it's usually from shipping one game for all platforms so PC mouse UI just gets moved over to the sticks + cursor. It's lazy, but if there's good work arounds I'm fine with it.
I think Apex Legends does it 'best of the worst,' where you have the cursor but most other common actions are also mapped to a button.
(sorry originally wrote titanfall, meant apex)
Apex Legends does it, but they do a good job of mapping common UI components to a button.
In thiis example, in the middle of the screen above "Legends" you can see an aiming reticule which is your cursor. Apex does it pretty good where L1/R1 goes through the top menu, triangle or Y is "Ready" down at the bottom. But if you want to get to some items on the UI like inviting members to your squad (the large plusses in the diamonds in the middle) you have to scroll over to it. There might be shortcuts to do it but they're not obvious or memorable enough.
I play on Xbox and so you can B + A + Y through most of the menus very quickly and intuitively, but some of the more advanced things basically require you to use a controller like a mouse which is lame
I think Apex Legends does it 'best of the worst,' where you have the cursor but most other common actions are also mapped to a button.
(sorry originally wrote titanfall, meant apex)
Apex Legends does it, but they do a good job of mapping common UI components to a button.
In thiis example, in the middle of the screen above "Legends" you can see an aiming reticule which is your cursor. Apex does it pretty good where L1/R1 goes through the top menu, triangle or Y is "Ready" down at the bottom. But if you want to get to some items on the UI like inviting members to your squad (the large plusses in the diamonds in the middle) you have to scroll over to it. There might be shortcuts to do it but they're not obvious or memorable enough.
I play on Xbox and so you can B + A + Y through most of the menus very quickly and intuitively, but some of the more advanced things basically require you to use a controller like a mouse which is lame
It works in the context of an in-game action that would be traditionally associated with button mashing, but menus or basic stuff like chests/looting should be chucked.
The first time I experienced it was with Destiny 1 and I didn't like it back then. Playing through Fuser right now and I fucking hate it. There's no reason that that's the only way I can navigate through these simple menus with that sluggish horrible cursor. It's a terrible trend and it needs to stop.
It's pretty dumb, because it's less usable than simply d-padding through the buttons/clickable objects.
If it's done for accessibility then it's all good. But when it's done for "normies", then non-normies have been sacrificed.
free floating cursors have always bothered me since I first saw them in Guilty Gear XX on the character select screen. At least that's the first time I remember seeing them anyway. Not quite the entire menu like Destiny but it's always seemed counter-intuitive and a waste of time versus a conventional menu in non-PC games.
That's really cool, didn't know that. Would be cool though if games could implement a toggle for those that prefer one way over the other though.
OP
OP
Oh my god that looks like a nightmare to play. Free floating cursor with just a D-pad.
I really hope Ubisoft doesn't see that video and get inspired.