Lazy Devs, or Bored Gamers?

Goldie

Is it just me, or do we ALL have to rely on player created add-ons to get the information and HUD that we need during gameplay?

These are the things that are 'bare minimum'

1. Resistances: There is nothing that shows your characters resistances, without using an add on.

2. Resource Bars: Really? I have to use an add-on to see my resources displayed by percentages, or to have detailed bars?

3. Damage Incoming/Outgoing: You would think that this information would be VITAL, but hey, Combat Cloud or FTC (both great add-ons btw) have it covered.

4. Buffs/Debuffs: I know that I am not the only one who thinks I should be able to see when my buffs/debuffs run out! Or which ones are even active!!

All around the UI is meager and bare, using player created add-ons sometimes causes in-game issues such as lag, crashes, and some are even malicious and steal away your gold...

jrgray93

The naysayers for these features will just tell you they don't want them, forget that "optional" is a thing that exists, and generally refuse to see reason.

Sometimes, they raise good points, like how a DPS meter for other players could encourage elitism. But that's not what you're asking for, is it?

This has been discussed to death. For the of us who want a clean, reliable, official means of seeing stats correctly, we can only hope ZOS has taken it under consideration. Until then, mods are all we have. It just doesn't help our case when people who wouldn't be effected by this addition come out to voice their strong opposition to it.

And yes, I fully understand the desire to have a minimal UI and immerse yourself in the game. That's just not the experience I want from an MMO. No matter how hard I try to immerse myself, when xXFaZeClan420kushkingXx runs by every ten seconds, I figure some helpful combat awareness and performance metrics are the least of my worries.

Samadhi

Would like to know why Greymind add on is a requirement for practical use of potions in combat.

Down with the Q-Wheel.

jrgray93

Samadhi wrote: »

Would like to know why Greymind add on is a requirement for practical use of potions in combat.

Down with the Q-Wheel.

With the console UI being different anyway, I don't see why this can't be reworked into a PC-friendly system.

Glierhuin

ESO is designed to be immersive and minimal in regards to UI. It's completely on purpose that not all information is accessible directly - or even at all.

I don't need any of the features you consider essential. You could see from the start that the game is no WOW or GW2. Different approach, different mentality.

Of course there is the "optional" solution... but if I were a UI designer, I would refuse to even optionally implement something that contradicts with the whole system and design approach. You need to keep in mind that every optional feature still has it's designated spot and blocks other features on the same place, that may be essential for future game mechanics. Not only from a pure screen design position, but also for the backend programming. Every optional feature needs to pass a full functionality check, increasing workload for every developer / designer.

Chrithu

Well as far as I am informed by following the development of the game since late 2012ish, the very reduced HUD and minimal displayed information has been a conscious design decision and at least for me was a selling point.

The mantra of the dev team regarding this stuff is: "The players shall play the game and not the HUD". Meaning that rather than focusing on buff icons, health bars and cooldowns on 100 slots worth of skillbars (and that is exactly how you need to play WoW and all it's copycats) the players should actually focus on the world and on the effects displayed there to get the info they need.

And outside of the world of minmaxers that only care about stats and quenching out the last percents possible it worked out quite well in my view. Even if I use the mods that get rid of even the last pieces of HUD for me I have all the info I need available. Each buff has it's own distinct effect displayed on either an enemy or my character, I can see if I get hit and when my HP start to be dangerously low. I get audible feedback when I'm out of stamina or magicka and when my ultimate is ready to fire again.

And for those that need to have buff icons, stats and damage numbers filling up the screen, there is the option of the various well done mods. Which the devs had in mind from very early on to deliver exactly this stuff.

Are the lazy for it? I dunno. Other MMO's with mod support have proven that the devtime invested to do the stuff would be wasted as soon as mods get popular and everyone uses them over the default HUD. In my view they did the smart thing to do: Having huge skillbars, buff icons and damage popups was not how they envisioned the game to be played anyways AND they were planning for modding support all along. So they simply saved resources and used them elsewhere. Can't blame them for that.

Kragorn

jrgray93 wrote: »

Samadhi wrote: »

Would like to know why Greymind add on is a requirement for practical use of potions in combat.

Down with the Q-Wheel.

With the console UI being different anyway, I don't see why this can't be reworked into a PC-friendly system.

When I first fired up ESO last January I found myself right at home in in Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim UI territory .. sooooo depressing after playing games like Rift and even FFXIV when everything was movable/hidable/whatever to suit and I actually had battle stats available I NEED (instead of some nondescript animation that could men pretty much anything).

And it's a farce that ZOS tell you to use add-ons to make up for their lack of development then force you to stop using them when thy [ZOS] break them [addons] pretty much every update since launch.

And God help you if that mod you found indispensable in the absence of anything in the game itself is broken and the author is one of the many who's left the game and the addon is now orphaned: and no, I'm not about to take it over, I want to play the game not pretend I'm a developer, I do that for a living!

Sprinkles28

@glierhuin At one point I would have agreed with you. That point when was I was leveling. As soon as you hit end game, knowing your DPS, buffs, etc are not optional they are necessary. For example, ZOS has implemented DPS checks in a vast majority of their fights in veteran dungeons, yet you have no way to tell what you DPS is without an addon. This doesn't even make sense. No other MMO would ever consider this.

Goldie

Glierhuin wrote: »

ESO is designed to be immersive and minimal in regards to UI. It's completely on purpose that not all information is accessible directly - or even at all.

I don't need any of the features you consider essential. You could see from the start that the game is no WOW or GW2. Different approach, different mentality.

Of course there is the "optional" solution... but if I were a UI designer, I would refuse to even optionally implement something that contradicts with the whole system and design approach. You need to keep in mind that every optional feature still has it's designated spot and blocks other features on the same place, that may be essential for future game mechanics. Not only from a pure screen design position, but also for the backend programming. Every optional feature needs to pass a full functionality check, increasing workload for every developer / designer.

Increasing workload? What have they done exactly to this point that is even synonymous with "workload"? They change things that aren't broken, they fail to acknowledge the things that are, and NOTHING is fixed, even after thousands of bug reports. From alchemy nodes to functionality issues nothing is done, and then they attempt to change things that aren't broken and break them in the process! ie. sound effects, animations, and so on.

Was there anything wrong with my music or sound effects prior to the last update? No. Is there now a HUGE problem? Yes.

Did Sweetrolls need to be removed, and the name changed to 'grandmams chicken stew' in update 6? No.

Goldie

Sprinkles28 wrote: »

@glierhuin At one point I would have agreed with you. That point when was I was leveling. As soon as you hit end game, knowing your DPS, buffs, etc are not optional they are necessary. For example, ZOS has implemented DPS checks in a vast majority of their fights in veteran dungeons, yet you have no way to tell what you DPS is without an addon. This doesn't even make sense. No other MMO would ever consider this.

And this is the tip of the Iceberg!

jrgray93

You see, I'm one of those people you might call a min/maxer. My very nature is to be meticulous and concise in my planning and implementation. This is why my hobby outside of gaming is PC work, and I tweak every last aspect of my rig to perfection. It's something I take great joy in, and those aspects of my personality transfer into what I enjoy in games.

The problem is, when anyone hears about min/maxing, they immediately think of elitists and snobby, insufferable players. I actually avoid the PVE end-game in ESO because I don't care for people who can't let others play how they want, and the DPS checks don't cater to having fun in your own way while being effective enough.

The point is, the game should provide options that cater to all types of crowds, allowing them to experience the game in the way they desire. For those of us who love numerical feedback, why should we be denied that? For those of you who want an immersive experience, why should you be denied that to appease us? Everyone can have what they want.

Rosveen

Chrithu wrote: »

and when my ultimate is ready to fire again.

Death Stroke: damage increases as player's ultimate charge increases

This skill was changed, but before that happened, please explain to me how vanilla UI allowed you to consistently use the full damage potential of this skill.

Glierhuin

Goldie wrote: »

Glierhuin wrote: »

ESO is designed to be immersive and minimal in regards to UI. It's completely on purpose that not all information is accessible directly - or even at all.

I don't need any of the features you consider essential. You could see from the start that the game is no WOW or GW2. Different approach, different mentality.

Of course there is the "optional" solution... but if I were a UI designer, I would refuse to even optionally implement something that contradicts with the whole system and design approach. You need to keep in mind that every optional feature still has it's designated spot and blocks other features on the same place, that may be essential for future game mechanics. Not only from a pure screen design position, but also for the backend programming. Every optional feature needs to pass a full functionality check, increasing workload for every developer / designer.

Increasing workload? What have they done exactly to this point that is even synonymous with "workload"? They change things that aren't broken, they fail to acknowledge the things that are, and NOTHING is fixed, even after thousands of bug reports. From alchemy nodes to functionality issues nothing is done, and then they attempt to change things that aren't broken and break them in the process! ie. sound effects, animations, and so on.

Was there anything wrong with my music or sound effects prior to the last update? No. Is there now a HUGE problem? Yes.

Did Sweetrolls need to be removed, and the name changed to 'grandmams chicken stew' in update 6? No.

Every UI programmer was most likely working on the console version for the past months. And there is tons of stuff to do that is not directly seen in the game. Underlying tech needs to be developed, new developer features need to be implemented. All that to even enable them to create what we as players may want.

Please keep in mind that this game is not even a year old. Other games may have had some things from the start, but as it stands ESO has made the most significant progression since launch. One might say this progression was badly needed, but we should still appreciate it.

Indeed I am still levelling and have not reached end level content. I may reconsider my personal use of addons once I get there, but that doesn't necessarily change my opinion on the topic itself.

GaldorP

Being able to see buffs' durations is even more important now in update 1.6. than it was before because the old skill effects all had a visual graphic that gave you an idea (at least in solo gameplay) when your buffs run out.

In update 1.6 however, when I use an Earthen Heart skill, for example, and all nearby allies gain the minor Weapon Damage buff for 20 secons, I see no graphical effect at all anymore and I need to guess when the 20 seconds are over.

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO

All around the UI is meager and bare

Nonononono, it is "minimalist" and "clean".

Seriously, yes, I think the developers lean much too heavily on user-created add-ons to give players a good UI experience. The basic UI gives way too little information for many people's taste. Optional hints on combat events, optional information about buffs and debuffs, and some optional hard numbers for the bars would have been a simple matter for them to add, but they have stubbornly refused to do it. Less is not always more, and certainly not for everyone.

This has been discussed to death, but the landscape is changing. The number of active add-on authors is in rapid decline, and the console players are not going to have access to user created add-ons, so it would be wise of ZOS to look at what the most popular add-ons do, and replicate at least some of their functionality as optional toggles in their own UI. That might be what they are doing, but I wouldn't count on it.

Solariken

I agree with OP on all points, but the most necessary is BUFF TRACKING. How can they justify a system with short-duration buffs, bleeds, and other DoTs without a way to manage them. Seriously, it's stupid that you have to waste resources on keeping them in the rotation every few seconds just be be sure the buff is up or that the DoT actually landed. Terrible.

Samadhi

Glierhuin wrote: »

ESO is designed to be immersive and minimal in regards to UI. It's completely on purpose that not all information is accessible directly - or even at all.
...

It is also completely ridiculous that such basic features are missing from a game that ZOS constantly has players be the ones to identify and report bugs.

There are bugs that I have reported with Class skills not functioning correctly, or even at all, where the only method of adequately identifying the issue came from additional UI information. Add ons should not be necessary for routing out skill glitches, but in ESO they are anyway.

Of course, ZOS has been criticized for intentionally hiding information from players in regards to more than just UI decisions, but that is a different matter entirely.

jrgray93

Damage readout mods have helped me identify a handful of bugs, and they've also allowed me to decipher the meanings of poorly worded skills, although the tooltips are much better in 1.6. Still, the bug checking is a solid point.

Varicite

But it's so much easier to hide bugs, broken mechanics, and things that just flat out do not work at all when you don't have any idea what's going on.

It's certainly not like ZOS seems to have much of a clue about those things. Players are the ones who have been pointing these things out to them for over a year now.

And those discoveries have come largely (if not completely) due to addons and their awesome authors trying to shed light on what actually works in ESO.

Jaxsun

Chrithu wrote: »

Well as far as I am informed by following the development of the game since late 2012ish, the very reduced HUD and minimal displayed information has been a conscious design decision and at least for me was a selling point.

The mantra of the dev team regarding this stuff is: "The players shall play the game and not the HUD". Meaning that rather than focusing on buff icons, health bars and cooldowns on 100 slots worth of skillbars (and that is exactly how you need to play WoW and all it's copycats) the players should actually focus on the world and on the effects displayed there to get the info they need.

And outside of the world of minmaxers that only care about stats and quenching out the last percents possible it worked out quite well in my view. Even if I use the mods that get rid of even the last pieces of HUD for me I have all the info I need available. Each buff has it's own distinct effect displayed on either an enemy or my character, I can see if I get hit and when my HP start to be dangerously low. I get audible feedback when I'm out of stamina or magicka and when my ultimate is ready to fire again.

And for those that need to have buff icons, stats and damage numbers filling up the screen, there is the option of the various well done mods. Which the devs had in mind from very early on to deliver exactly this stuff.

Are the lazy for it? I dunno. Other MMO's with mod support have proven that the devtime invested to do the stuff would be wasted as soon as mods get popular and everyone uses them over the default HUD. In my view they did the smart thing to do: Having huge skillbars, buff icons and damage popups was not how they envisioned the game to be played anyways AND they were planning for modding support all along. So they simply saved resources and used them elsewhere. Can't blame them for that.

There is still no reason for not being allowed to move the UI components around to my desired location.

Rook_Master

People arguing for a minimalist UI live in this bizarro world where they can't toggle this stuff off if they want immersion.

They also claim that it will become mandatory if it was official. Well, guess what, it's already mandatory, but it's some unreliable user made addon that is mandatory, which is the worst possible solution. Here is a short list of addons I consider to already be mandatory:

1. Advanced Filters
2. Research Assistant
3. Wykyyd's Suite
4. Combat Cloud/FTC
5. Inventory Grid View
6. ggFrames/FTC
7. MiniMap
8. LootDrop
9. Skyshards/Lorebooks

And I would consider this list to be "minimalist". In reality I have about 20-30 addons I use, most of which I could not do without.

It really boggles my mind to hear people say they are playing without any addons. How do you know what is happening in this game? These addons offer basic information that should simply be available in the default UI.

Varicite

Honestly, I'd add Combat Log Statistics (CLS) to that list of mandatory addons, at least if you want to have any clue what's actually going on w/ your character.

But that may just be me, since I use combat logs extensively when testing.

Arki

jrgray93 wrote: »

[...]

And yes, I fully understand the desire to have a minimal UI and immerse yourself in the game. That's just not the experience I want from an MMO. No matter how hard I try to immerse myself, when xXFaZeClan420kushkingXx runs by every ten seconds, I figure some helpful combat awareness and performance metrics are the least of my worries.

I don't see any nameplates, I even mistake players for npc and vice versa sometimes - which allways puts a smile on my face

To OP: What would you rather have them spending the most development time on? Fixing bugs and adding content or creating stuff that someone allready made an addon for?

To me that's a no brainer.

Varicite

myrbostadb16_ESO3 wrote: »

jrgray93 wrote: »

[...]

And yes, I fully understand the desire to have a minimal UI and immerse yourself in the game. That's just not the experience I want from an MMO. No matter how hard I try to immerse myself, when xXFaZeClan420kushkingXx runs by every ten seconds, I figure some helpful combat awareness and performance metrics are the least of my worries.

I don't see any nameplates, I even mistake players for npc and vice versa sometimes - which allways puts a smile on my face

To OP: What would you rather have them spending the most development time on? Fixing bugs and adding content or creating stuff that someone allready made an addon for?

To me that's a no brainer.

What happens when the addon author gets bored w/ the game after it becomes free (or some other reason, personal or whatever) and stops supporting their addon?

We have lost a lot of great additions to the game this way already.

I'd rather they have at least one person working on putting these "mandatory" staples of MMO games in w/ an optional toggle so that we don't just completely lose their functionality arbitrarily.

It's been a single person making them in their spare time in most cases. It's not as though ZOS needs to allocate their entire dev team to making these.

jrgray93

myrbostadb16_ESO3 wrote: »

jrgray93 wrote: »

[...]

And yes, I fully understand the desire to have a minimal UI and immerse yourself in the game. That's just not the experience I want from an MMO. No matter how hard I try to immerse myself, when xXFaZeClan420kushkingXx runs by every ten seconds, I figure some helpful combat awareness and performance metrics are the least of my worries.

I don't see any nameplates, I even mistake players for npc and vice versa sometimes - which allways puts a smile on my face

To OP: What would you rather have them spending the most development time on? Fixing bugs and adding content or creating stuff that someone allready made an addon for?

To me that's a no brainer.

Well, I typically identify players in a hurry by outward appearance, as well as target frames. It's just that xXFaZeClan420kushkingXx has a habit of exhibiting odd behavior and violent outbursts in zone chat.

Anyway, I have an objection about the development time point. ZOS may not be as large as they were for launch, but they still have a team of developers, who can work on multiple projects at once. There is no reason to assume that this implementation would require them to approach updates in a linear fashion, taking time away from other important features.

NukeAllTheThings

Glierhuin wrote: »

ESO is designed to be immersive and minimal in regards to UI. It's completely on purpose that not all information is accessible directly - or even at all.

I don't need any of the features you consider essential. You could see from the start that the game is no WOW or GW2. Different approach, different mentality.

Of course there is the "optional" solution... but if I were a UI designer, I would refuse to even optionally implement something that contradicts with the whole system and design approach. You need to keep in mind that every optional feature still has it's designated spot and blocks other features on the same place, that may be essential for future game mechanics. Not only from a pure screen design position, but also for the backend programming. Every optional feature needs to pass a full functionality check, increasing workload for every developer / designer.

This exact same BS was spouted for months in defense of not having chat bubbles. Now that we have the option to toggle it on I would guess that most that disliked the idea or weren't interested have forgot there is or never knew it was available. If you don't use it, it has zero effect on you.

And it seems that most people banging the drum against more UI options focus on a "cluttered screen" completely ignoring the horrendous design of bank/player inventory, guild banks, guild store and the wretched Q wheel. A poorly designed UI is a poorly designed UI regardless if you want to pass it off as "minimalist"

Tamanous

Rook_Master wrote: »

1. Advanced Filters
2. Research Assistant
3. Wykyyd's Suite ... Many elements are player preference only.
4. Combat Cloud/FTC ... my pref but some numbers on screen are meaningless and just there because you think they are required.
5. Inventory Grid View ... I bet any money I can mange my inventory without this just as fast as you. Largely this is because you got used to it from other games. Needs new tabs is all for new categories added.
6. ggFrames/FTC
7. MiniMap ... 100% pure player laziness. Learn the maps. Classic games didn't need this because players actually learned how to use a compass and gain their bearings by learning the terrain.
8. LootDrop ... convenience but not needed.
9. Skyshards/Lorebooks ... 100% player laziness.

I agree with information being required for more end game and group content. Inventory management could use improvements but otherwise read my comments above.

My largest concern is buff/debuff management which can be resolved through addons so not concerned. Damage meters are for the weak. Once you learn you rotations and know the damage ranges of your attacks a damage meters do nothing. I very often turned mine off in old school Wow raids (when they used to be hard) despite the raid leaders whining about it. Did it affect my damage output? Not once bit because I knew my rotations and what my gear could do. I'd rate highest for my class often without a single damage number flying over thing's heads. I didn't often need big boss mods either after I learned fights. Add-ons facilitate laziness in players.

There were times I would raid and pvp with my UI turned off just to prove a point.

Glierhuin

Varicite wrote: »

myrbostadb16_ESO3 wrote: »

jrgray93 wrote: »

[...]

And yes, I fully understand the desire to have a minimal UI and immerse yourself in the game. That's just not the experience I want from an MMO. No matter how hard I try to immerse myself, when xXFaZeClan420kushkingXx runs by every ten seconds, I figure some helpful combat awareness and performance metrics are the least of my worries.

I don't see any nameplates, I even mistake players for npc and vice versa sometimes - which allways puts a smile on my face

To OP: What would you rather have them spending the most development time on? Fixing bugs and adding content or creating stuff that someone allready made an addon for?

To me that's a no brainer.

It's been a single person making them in their spare time in most cases. It's not as though ZOS needs to allocate their entire dev team to making these.

We have no idea how much work this would require and shouldn't speculate on that. Maybe they only have two UI-Programmers? Maybe they haven't finished the console UI yet? In that case doing "just a small change" to the UI by adding some of the features we may want to have, could cost several weeks of development progress.

And guess what, noone will be happy if console launch gets delayed again. Or Update 6. Or Tamriel Unlimited. Or the bug with the Spider's Nest in Stormhaven. We can't even comprehend how much work there is to do and how easy or difficult any given task is. That doesn't mean we can't ask for new features and give feedback. We should just be more constructive about it.

"The game is unplayable without my combat calculator 3000 and you need to implement this IMMEDIATELY" - is not the way to go in my opinion.

Varicite

Glierhuin wrote: »

And guess what, noone will be happy if console launch gets delayed again. Or Update 6. Or Tamriel Unlimited. Or the bug with the Spider's Nest in Stormhaven. We can't even comprehend how much work there is to do and how easy or difficult any given task is. That doesn't mean we can't ask for new features and give feedback. We should just be more constructive about it.

"The game is unplayable without my combat calculator 3000 and you need to implement this IMMEDIATELY" - is not the way to go in my opinion.

I'd be perfectly happy if all of those were delayed instead of pushing out yet another buggy, broken patch / game.

But that's going to happen either way, as that has never actually not happened in the past year.

Man, I know I'm getting old, but I still remember when people released finished products. It's been a year running and this game still isn't where it should have been at launch.

Just because the game isn't unplayable doesn't mean it's even remotely good enough for live. Hundreds of thousands of players have already told ZOS this w/ their wallets.

Potenza

One improvement I would like to see is with the character sheet.

I would like to see an image of my character in the middle of the armor slots along with my stats panel and back pack - so I can change armors and weapons all in one screen and see the effects they have on my stats while I do it. Also would like to be able to save armor & weapon setups so I can easily change them over from pvp to pve sets without having to idividually move each piece of armor and weapon - its just tedious.

Rook_Master

Tamanous wrote: »

Rook_Master wrote: »

1. Advanced Filters
2. Research Assistant
3. Wykyyd's Suite ... Many elements are player preference only.
4. Combat Cloud/FTC ... my pref but some numbers on screen are meaningless and just there because you think they are required.
5. Inventory Grid View ... I bet any money I can mange my inventory without this just as fast as you. Largely this is because you got used to it from other games. Needs new tabs is all for new categories added.
6. ggFrames/FTC
7. MiniMap ... 100% pure player laziness. Learn the maps. Classic games didn't need this because players actually learned how to use a compass and gain their bearings by learning the terrain.
8. LootDrop ... convenience but not needed.
9. Skyshards/Lorebooks ... 100% player laziness.

I agree with information being required for more end game and group content. Inventory management could use improvements but otherwise read my comments above.

My largest concern is buff/debuff management which can be resolved through addons so not concerned. Damage meters are for the weak. Once you learn you rotations and know the damage ranges of your attacks a damage meters do nothing. I very often turned mine off in old school Wow raids (when they used to be hard) despite the raid leaders whining about it. Did it affect my damage output? Not once bit because I knew my rotations and what my gear could do. I'd rate highest for my class often without a single damage number flying over thing's heads. I didn't often need big boss mods either after I learned fights. Add-ons facilitate laziness in players.

There were times I would raid and pvp with my UI turned off just to prove a point.

What's absolutely ludicrous is it's impossible to do some of the testing on the PTS that they want without these addons.

Want to test out ultimate gain? Take a guess at how fast your ult bar is filling.

Want to test out crit chance? Take a guess at when you crit.

Want to test out all the new buff durations? Take a guess at how long they last.


When the game launched, there were a number of inconsistencies between skill tooltips and how the skill actually performed. There is absolutely no way to tell if that's the case using the default UI.