I hate this trend of UIs that use a free floating cursor on console

[Nephtes]

Unpopular opinion: I like the Destiny UI.
It felt very "next gen" to me when it landed on XOne, especially since you could basically interact with it at almost all times even during loading screens. I mean it loads a little slowly, alright, but I still think it's super convenient, clean, and easy to use. 🤷‍♂️

Now all the jargon and other shit in Destiny concerning upgrade materials and mats and whatever the fuck else they have to increase your Light Level or whatever: confusing as fuck. But the UI is pretty great.

 

[LordofPwn]

weird, i could have sworn i've seen accessibility advocates on my timeline mention that the free floating cursor was actually bad for accessibility. I'll need to look more into it.

to me it feels awful when using a controller, especially when the layout could work with d-pad and be faster that way.

 

[julian]

I remember seeing a friend playing Destiny and being so taken aback. I was convinced it was some option he enabled or something. No way was this something somebody intentionally designed and was the default behavior. I would rather have a Michiko Sakurai menu than this nonsense.

 

[Combo]

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.

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You only saw small part of it. The whole is like this:

 

[Crayon]

It would be cool if they used gyro...

 

[darthbob]

Works good in Destiny, hell they have won awards for the UI for Destiny.

Didn't work very well in Avengers from what little I played.

 

[Harris Katz]

First time I saw this was in Destiny on PS4. I couldn't figure out what to do for a few seconds! Trying to shoehorn a PC navigation mechanic into a console game that uses controllers is not intuitive for me.

 

[Z-Brownie]

do you mean like destiny's UI? if done correctly is amazing, but when bad implemented can make your game unplayable. I voted for "i don't care" since there is no option for "sometimes" haha.

 

[boxter432]

how about Goldeneye 64?

 

[HanSoloCup]

Works good in Destiny, hell they have won awards for the UI for Destiny.

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Yeah, I think Bungie did a pretty great job with it. Unfortunately, where is suited Destiny, it doesn't suit every game. And everyone wants to copy what they think is the best, even if it's not the best for them.

 

[Deleted member 11976]

Less work to maintain separate console and PC versions of menu navigation is basically what it comes down to.

 

[flyinj]

If I recall correctly, doesn't Destiny use a hybrid? You can use the dpad to navigate and it has a normal dpad highlight interface or use the cursor to pick things?

 

[Green]

Yeah, I think Bungie did a pretty great job with it. Unfortunately, where is suited Destiny, it doesn't suit every game. And everyone wants to copy what they think is the best, even if it's not the best for them.

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Good UI is also really hard. Not everyone will be able to do what Bungie did with a similar UI. I've watched a few presentations from David Candland, the genius guy previously at Bungie who did most of the UI from Halo CE -> Destiny 1. Crazy stuff.

I personally feel his best work was Halo Reach. But Destiny was always really good, too.

 

[Deleted member 45617]

It's also the combination with 'hold down the button to selecta' that really annoys me. The 2 of them together slows all menu interactions to a crawl.

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Yes yes yes
Any industry ppl reading this (BUNGIE), stop fucking doing it, it should only be for skipping cutscenes

Has it been fixed in the new Smash? Dropping tokens with a cursor is actually quite shit

 

[0ptimusPayne]

Valhalla lets you turn it off. I just keep the shit on at this point, guess Ive gotten used to it lol

 

[djplaeskool]

I Don't Really Mind or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Destiny UI

 

[supernormal]

Is this really a trend? I don't think I've played a single game this year that had a UI like this.

 

[Deleted member 8468]

It's one of the worst popular design decisions in recent memory. If you also offer normal menu usage through a dpad cool, but if you're forcing a mouse-like experience, fuck off.

 

[Zombegoast]

how about Goldeneye 64?

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You barely have to move it to start playing.

Also it doesn't require to hold the button for 3 seconds

 

[Deleted member 49438]

Thankfully I most play on PC so it works out fine, but yes, when interacting with these types of menus on a console it's extremely frustrating. IDK what methodologies were used in the research that one of the devs cited here, but I'm guessing it was severely flawed.

 

[xir]

fatal run on the atari 7800 had it! timestamped

not sure if the 2600 port did it

 

[Deleted member 4262]

Yup, Destiny made this popular and I loathe it.

 

[ChanceOwen]

This thread has gotten me to think of all the games that use it that apparently I don't mind it because I don't think of it. It's only when it's implemented in a way that is slow or imposing where I even think about it. Genshin is fine on the map unless you go too far from your current position and then the game fights with you. Frustrating.

 

[ClutchAnderson]

Straight garbanzo beans 🙅🏿‍♂️

 

[MP!]

I find something like Warframe does it right
Both are activated at the same time so you can use the floaty dumb circle if you want but also 100% of the time can just use the dpad to snappily highlight the menu options

 

[Trigonometrize]

Research shows it is a far better, more intuitive, more easy to understand, and more easily compatible with more accessibility accessories UX than whatever games generally tend to have. :) It may not feel very console-like, but that's for the better.

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"more intuitive, more easy to understand"

For who? How to navigate a menu with a d-pad is pretty easy to understand for those who have been playing games on console for longer than 10 minutes.

"and more easily compatible with more accessibility accessories UX than whatever games generally tend to have."

Cool, but this doesn't in the slightest justify a wholesale change for majority of people that don't use those accessories.

"It may not feel very console-like, but that's for the better."

Maybe I have high expectations for wanting console-like control schemes on console. Really makes you think.

 

[hikarutilmitt]

It took a while to get used to it when I started playing Destiny 1, but eventually it was fine. Some UIs, if you design them with a lot of complicated items, are more cumbersome to use a traditional control scheme without resorting to submenus inside of submenus, which is not great UI either. There's a decent medium to be struck for sure, but some games are bad at UI regardless of their control scheme.

Everyone just wants to go Web 2.0 with things, but, honestly, they need to just do better instead of doing trend.

A bigger offender, to me, is making me use the analog to do menus. It's one of the only things about Genshin Impact that drives me up the wall, because there's no reason for it other than they were developing it for PC first and the PS4 was an afterthought on the control scheme (and many other things, if I'm being brutally honest). It's a game that would actually benefit from using a cursor UI than a traditional menu, IMO.

 

[wellslogan]

I absolutely cannot stand games that use a cursor, it's ridiculously cumbersome to use with a controller for me

 

[Cokomon]

Honestly don't mind it at all.

 

[TheYanger]

Well let's take a look at the character screen in Destiny for a moment and try to understand what it would feel like to navigate it with a d-pad, in terms of it being more or less intuitive for the average player. Jumping from the left to the right row would require different amount of inputs because stats are blocking the pathway for the top three gear icons, not to mention a fixed default position that might deviate from the players intentions (cursor always starts in the middle highlighting nothing). Switching classes would possibly mean that you have to press up or down because the icons are not placed in a horizontal line, yet their overall placement is to the direct left of the class icon. Highlighting things such as the glimmer/shards/light or the screen tabs means that you have no idea where the cursor will start out when you move into those rows because they are not in line with the overall interface. These are just minor things that anyone would eventually learn to handle with a d-pad but in terms of being intuitive (and possibly more practical) it's highly questionable if d-pad would be the preferred option with the interface that is currently on display.

And yes, they could of course re-design the entire interface to cater to d-pad usage, but then it would possibly compromise a lot of its aestethic qualities and I think we all can agree that Destiny looks incredible in this regard. It has after all won awards (outside of the gaming scene even) for its interface, both in terms of visual style and intuitiveness. If its only crime for using a cursor is being a bit slower then I think we can all learn to live with that.

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You seriously just argued that 'stats would get in the way' as though it's not sufficient to move the stats to the outside of the gear icons, or to simply have la button to press to see what they do in an overlay or something, like every game already did.
Destiny is literally one of the EASIEST to visualize games using the dpad or analog stick to move around in, it always felt like the cursor was completely tacked on. Nothing would change meaningfully other than not having this slow moving fucking circle.

 

[Roshin]

It's a bit awkward, but I can't really get worked up about it.

 

[Deleted member 61869]

I like them. If they use the damn motion sensor in the PS5/PS4/PS3.

 

[oneils]

I think the cursor makes sense in Destiny where you have the ability to store multiple versions of the same item on one screen. Having to use the dpad to scroll through my rifle slots and then pick one and to do the same for each slot would be awful. Plus I find that sometimes I can't even tell which item is highlighted when using the dpad for this in games.

I think the inventory would have to be completely redesigned so that maybe there is a whole page for each slot so that you could scroll through using the bumbers or l1/r1. Then the dpad may make more sense.

edit: like I much prefer the destiny way, on consoles, to the diablo 3 way on consoles. one thing i'd like to see is maybe allowing us to change sensitivity of the cursor.

 

[flyinj]

fatal run on the atari 7800 had it! timestamped

not sure if the 2600 port did it

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Whoa, what is this game? It looks like Autoduel but with a Pole Position engine. It looks like it even has locational damage and armor values on different parts of the car?

And what the hell is up with that cutscene where you are looking out your window driving by people and some of them explode and turn into a gravestone?

 

[flyinj]

I like them. If they use the damn motion sensor in the PS5/PS4/PS3.

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Has been there any game that uses a cursor based UI that also has gyro control of the cursor on the Playstation?

 

[Smemma]

This is a trend that I just can't stand. So much slower to use. Annoyed that Valhalla has an option to remove it, but it breaks down in certain menus (such as when choosing contracts) so I had to go back to shit mouse emulation

 

[xir]

Whoa, what is this game? It looks like Autoduel but with a Pole Position engine. It looks like it even has locational damage and armor values on different parts of the car?

And what the hell is up with that cutscene where you are looking out your window driving by people and some of them explode and turn into a gravestone?

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think it's based on death race 2000. the 2600 version doesnt have the mouse cursor but was the biggest cart ever on atari 2600 (32k)

 

[c0Zm1c]

Floating cursor menus, holding buttons along with inventory management are the roughest part of No Man's Sky.

Game would be so much better if they fixed those three things.

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Hard disagree. Technical issues are still its roughest part. My save on PS4 has glitches in it from years ago. I can't even warp to my base in that version because it spits me out in the middle of space outside of my ship where I just fall to my death, at the centre of the galaxy no less.

The cursor works well on PC when using a mouse. Alternatives would be nice (more options is always a good thing) but I would not want to see it removed. Inventory management as a whole has slowly improved quite a bit over the years. The increased stack sizes (a major improvement by itself) and shortcuts for transferring items between different inventories got it to the point where I don't really have any issues with it anymore. Hotkeys on PC is a nice addition too.

 

[thomasmahler]

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.

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Huh? I'm a big proponent of user research, I just didn't like that the other dev was dismissing people's negative sentiments towards this UI stuff by basically saying 'Well, you're all wrong, research has proven that this is clearly better'. This thread shows pretty clearly that his data is very flawed.

 

[flyinj]

I want to print out this poll and stick it on the wall in the office of every studio's UI department.

 

[antitrop]

It reminds me of the CD-i. Anything in modern video games that reminds me of the CD-i is probably a poor choice.

 

[Playboi Carti]

I don't mind it unless the cursor is really slow.

 

[CatAssTrophy]

I find something like Warframe does it right
Both are activated at the same time so you can use the floaty dumb circle if you want but also 100% of the time can just use the dpad to snappily highlight the menu options

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This is the correct answer.

No Man's Sky is a pain to use because of it using both the floating cursor and hold-to-confirm on everything.

 

[napk1ns]

I'm okay with them, but they need to have a sensitivity slider. It's absence is perplexing.

 

[Deleted member 46804]

Research shows it is a far better, more intuitive, more easy to understand, and more easily compatible with more accessibility accessories UX than whatever games generally tend to have. :) It may not feel very console-like, but that's for the better.

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Do you have research on having both? Like navigating with the pad for direct control and using the left stick to control a cursor for those that prefer that?

 

[Hrothgar]

Revenge of the PC really, after the dark years of consolified UI design on PC, now console UI are getting mousified.

 

[MrBanballow]

Ideally, developers would offer both options. Personally, I prefer navigating with the DPad over the cursor about 95% of the time.

 

[mogwai00]

I hate it.
Fuck Destiny and the others.

 

[pksu]

It's somewhat impossible to say whether cursor UIs are better or worse in general since there are too many variables anyway. It's just reductive. Many games simply don't need complex menus and modal gamepad UI works just fine. User interfaces also need to make trade-offs between how easy they are to learn initially and how efficient they might be in use. Old-school UNIX editors such as vim are hard to use initially but it's really magical to see someone editing with vim at full speed.

In games developers often make different decisions regarding efficiency and it gets really annoying if the user interface is optimized for the first time/discoverability in a game you end up playing for hundreds of hours.

 

[Milk]

This thread is just hilarious lmao. "Objectively bad design". "Lazy". Like sheesh.

If anyone could find a way to make a game like Destiny use a 'standard' UI that simply uses scrolling through options with the stick/d-pad, I'd love to hear about it. But you literally can't. You have 72 inventory slots for your guns and armor alone. Ya'll really wanna navigate that by having to manually scroll through every square rather than float a cursor over them? Pfffft.