Monthly "Fix your UI Zenimax" post 2

TehMagnus · December 2014

Sprinkles28 wrote: »

DPS Meters and Buff Bars I don't think should be allowed in the game at all, because of the negativity and destructive nature of said elements. I'm not sure how many times I can say the same thing. LOL

And we're not sure how many times we can say those things are optional and the ones with the potential of "negativity and destructive nature" are already available in the game in form of addons and being used by competitive players without any of your apocalyptic visions becoming true.

The only thing it has done up until now is help people improve. I can't even count anymore how many people I've shared my build with as well as the two main addons I use for DPS meter and buff tracking who have told me their DPS used to be [snip] and it helped them improve, or, on the contrary, said they still weren't hitting the target numbers and needed more advise.

In any case @Ouroboros‌, you're right

. Worry not, as long as I'm playing, I'll keep making these posts each month with a status of the advancement on these issues.

Tankqull · December 2014

Sprinkles28 wrote: »

@razzak I didn't change my attitude at all. My original post said just that.

@Ourorboros I agree that the topic isn't constructive at all. Too many people screaming I'm right and you're wrong.

and currently you´re one of the loudest...

Zorrashi · December 2014

magnusnet wrote: »

Sprinkles28 wrote: »

DPS Meters and Buff Bars I don't think should be allowed in the game at all, because of the negativity and destructive nature of said elements. I'm not sure how many times I can say the same thing. LOL

And we're not sure how many times we can say those things are optional and the ones with the potential of "negativity and destructive nature" are already available in the game in form of addons and being used by competitive players without any of your apocalyptic visions becoming true.

The only thing it has done up until now is help people improve. I can't even count anymore how many people I've shared my build with as well as the two main addons I use for DPS meter and buff tracking who have told me their DPS used to be [snip] and it helped them improve, or, on the contrary, said they still weren't hitting the target numbers and needed more advise.

In any case @Ouroboros‌, you're right . Worry not, as long as I'm playing, I'll keep making these posts each month with a status of the advancement on these issues.

@Sprinkles28‌ The DPS meters and the Buff-Bars are both optional and, for the most part, unable to be linked in-game. In this sense, they are UI implementation ideas that are known you and only you should you choose to toggle them on. So long as there is no in-game way to link the DPS numbers, I will be content with its implementation.

The negative and destructive nature of which you speak is at least not as encouraged with that in-game inability to link the numbers. They'll use add-ons, which is a decent enough of a barrier to not let that 'negative and destructive nature' to become increasingly prevalent.

That being said, I may not prefer many of the combat-related UI suggestions described by the OP, but there may be better ways to present your argument.

Caroloces · December 2014

Excellent and very constructive post! I wish every post took this type of rational approach to solving problems.
btw, not quite sure what you meant about the weapon swapping, but I've mapped weapon swap to a side mouse button below my thumb, and it works like a charm!

manyrabidrats · December 2014

i'd also like a loot filter in the vanilla UI.. i'm OK with a small inventory.. dustman is too complicated.. i wrote one over the weekend (InventoryUpkeep in addon section of forums) but its still needs testing and would be nice to have in the standard UI as well.

Attorneyatlawl · December 2014

r.jan_emailb16_ESO wrote: »

Getting tired of the roleplaying/solo play/etc. crew. It's an MMO in the ES universum, so get used to it. If you want no group content, no challenges for groups, no way to optimize characters, no players that are better than you - go back to your precious Skyrim already and leave us alone, thanks.

edit: or deactivate the features you don't want (I'd even use addons that provide the functionalities I want, but sadly the AIP is restricted there), but don't force your playstyle on me. I don't do it either, have fun roleplaying.

ZOS didn't get their playerbase of Skyrim lovers who would stick around, as expected because those people don't know what an mmo is or want one. Now the playerbase is tiny, and arguments people like myself made for fixing the user interface that were ignored in favor of the vocal but ultimately completely clueless and unqualified to even write about the topic "skyrimmmmmmmmmmmmmm online" whiners that fit with a few specific ZOS head hobchos' grand vision (fundamentally flawed for an online massively multiplayer rpg but it was an obsession)..... Have all come full circle and bitten them in the ass, as everyone knew would, but fought to try to help prevent.

Just one more good mmo that could have become great, slaughtered in the name of The Vision(tm) and now withering away. In particular I cared for the one due to the potential to be a newer version of a game like daoc (dark age of camelot), but it's a done deal now. They're hoping to bank on a console release but I doubt it will really help ultimately as the core and fundamental issues that inherently conflict with itself remain and they seem completely unwilling to admit they screwed up and fix them. A console mmo is a huge gamble in the first place, but a handful have managed it with a robust UI and knowing their target audience. ESO still suffers, to this day, from leadership trying to make a circle be a square simultaneously. It inherently isn't possible and you mess it up irreparably as a result. As everyone who has played a while knows I was a huge backer of this game in the community as well as having spent enormous amounts of time beta testing, bug reporting, feedbacking , and more.

It's truly a shame to see the mismanagement bring down what underneath the relatively fixable problems is a very creative, potentially fun, and obviously lovingly crafted game by most of the devs. They just never were allowed to fix it. I stuck around a lot longer than I would have because of the fact that games with rvr gameplay are extremely rare, and in the vain hope that eso would be a hit in spite of itself and eventually get the fixes and polish work like a functional and modern user interface it sorely has always needed.

First impressions of a product are critical, and when a player logged in at launch to find bugs, an unbearably bad basic interface, and lack of many other normal features, it was hard for them to think the rest of the game would be any better. ESO quickly gained a bad reputation as a result and it never really has recovered, just held onto some stalwarts including myself who saw past that bad first impression. Having played and watched many MMOs since the genre's inception it is pretty easy to see the trajectory from here, though honestly it was pretty much a certainty at the end of closed beta and I will think most people knew darn well it was probably wishful thinking it would change.

Attorneyatlawl · December 2014

lestaudenmaierub17_ESO wrote: »

Sprinkles28 wrote: »

It seems to me that most of these arguments are based off the fact people can't keep track of what they are doing in-game without the game reading it off to them. Kinda sad actually. It's like you all need your hand held at every step. But no matter. I hope that ZOS doesn't listen to the few vocal people on here. But if they do, I'll continue to play anyway. Though I feel a lot of these additions you claim are necessary, will just leads ESO to a negative and destructive community.

I do believe the OP stated in post #1 of this thread that the things you are arguing about would be optional.

You want to argue against these things being in the game, how they will somehow "ruin" the community, yada yada. Yet they are available as add-on's from third parties. So the "competitive" players are already using them and I don't notice the community degrading into a WoW cesspool just yet!

The simple fact of the matter is the OP is the only person who is continually bringing a consolidated, well-thought out, descriptive list of all the different UI "topics of interest" that exist. This post doesn't just represent your thoughts, but is a compilation of many different ideas that are posted in the one hundred threads throughout the forums. You are not going to like some things, and Joe Blow isn't going to like others. No need to get all bent out of shape. Wait until something actually gets implemented!

One other thing. Please, please, please get to end game, run pledges, DSA, trials, etc. before you comment on visual vs contextual notifications. Its like someone who buys a truck and proclaims to the world that it doesn't need four-wheel drive, knobby tires before they've ever actually taken it down a muddy road.

Afterall:

Sprinkles28 wrote: »

I hope that ZOS doesn't listen to the few vocal people on here.

Well said, though in the interest of accuracy, this sort of post and list has been repeated to ZOS on the forums, reddit, and other channels continuously since the beginning of 2013. While I commend and applaud the op here, it's not actually new ground or requests that haven't been brought up almost continuously already.

Caroloces · December 2014

ZOS didn't get their playerbase of Skyrim lovers who would stick around, as expected because those people don't know what an mmo is or want one.

I happen to be one of "those people" who is a Skyrim lover (actually a lover of ES going back to Morrowind). I do know what an MMO is, and I do want one. It's called ESO, and I've been thoroughly enjoying it since early release. Many of "those people" in my guild are also avid ES fans, and have a great devotion to this game.

ashlee17 · January 2015

TehMagnus wrote: »

Welcome back to our monthly "Fix your UI Zenimax!" post! This one promises to be a really nice one since the Road Ahead came out yesterday and Zenimax spoke about consoles and specifically the UI of the consoles.

I'll begin by quoting the road ahead:

It’s also important to note that the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions of ESO are not just ports of the PC/Mac game. We have completely replaced the PC user interface with a console-specific UI designed from the ground-up with a controller and a living room play experience in mind.

This is extremely good news since it means that the PC UI is in fact a totally separate branch of development from the console and means that Zenimax no longer has an excuse for the horrible UI choices in the PC version like the Q wheel. This also means that the PC interface which was obviously designed with consoles in mind, wasn't even good enough for consoles themselves. At last, we now know what the UI team has been doing instead of fixing the problems in PC version: Designing and developing console version.

During this month, I've gathered feedback from many players regarding the UI so as usual I'll be posting here what came out the most as well as the regular things that have been broken/missing since launch.

-= Guild management & stores =-

There's a whole list of UI additions that should be made to Guilds & stores to make them functional. Among those:

Raid Notifications:
This is especially important for trading guilds. Players should have the option on a guild per guild basis to choose to receive or not the raid notifications. This option can be introduced in the form of a check box and will allow people to filter those messages as they want.

Guild Mailing: Give the ability to Guild Masters to mass email the members of the guild. This can be done by an addon but there have been reports of people getting wrongfully baned or disconnected because of the large amount of mails getting sent at once to their guild members.

Guild Store Search: Guild store could use some additional filters as well as a search box. Now that the UI is different from console, there really is no reason not to add this. A good example of what could be implemented is the functionalities provided by the "Awesome Guildstore" addon. This addon's search box is sadly limited to filtering the current page instead of filtering the whole list of results from all the pages. This addition would make Guildstore search less tedious and ease the people who continuously ask for an Auction House claiming the current system is a major waste of time.

Sales Recap and name of sold object in mails: Include what has been sold and in which guildstore in the sent mails and introduce some sort of "self" sales recap such as the "Shopkeeper"(discontinued) addon provides.

-= General UI/Quality of life =-

A good Ui is a UI you can mod easily and quickly at will these are some additions that would really make the UI enter the 21st century:

"Total freedom to move UI elements:" With a "lock" "unlock" feature, players would be able to reposition the Health, Magicka and Stamina bars where ever they want. This also goes for skill bars (move them on the screen and toggle between vertical & horizontal) but also raid window (reposition it, change the size of the health bars, allow for horizontal positioning so it takes a smaller chunk of the screen).

Lock Items: Who hasn't mistakenly deconstructed or sold that piece of gear they where saving for that special occasion (research, switching gears, alts). A simple lock at the bottom of the icons would allow us to keep our gear safe in our bank or our inventory.

Saved Gear Sets: To put everybody to the same level as people using Alpha Tools, we should be able to save a set number of Gear+skillbars that can be loaded with one binded key. I know this has been said to be on the works, have high expectations about it.

Total Immersion: Key toggle to enable/disable all the UI elements at will to really be immersed in the game. This can be moded even farther by introducing the ability to choose what disappears and what stays on the screen when the key is pressed.

"Show me numbers!": Ability to toggle on or off he numbers/percentages of health stamina & Mgicka bars (don't think this is possible in stock UI, haven't used it in months) for your character and also for your group mates (only for the HP part, I'm not suggesting their stamina & magicka numbers to be shown).

Nametags: I heard it's in the works. Go for it. Make it togglable and small. It would also be welcome to be able to "flag" a specific guild (which could also be implemented as a checkbox in the guilds interface).

Minimap: There used to be a minimap in the game during early alpha stages (I think even beta?). I heard the code is still there but not activated, many players enjoy having that information on the screen and a togglable minimap would be welcomed by many.
-= Combat system =-

Weapon Swap: I'd rather have a functional swapping system so I don't really like this idea, but some people suggested that you allow us to bind two different keys for each weapon so swapping becomes easier. (Instead of spamming the rotation key and switching twice in a row, you can spam one key without fear). If weapon swap continues to be tedious, unresponsive and isn't fixed, this could be a nice workaround that some players would definitively welcome.

Potion selection: People have stated over and over again how tedious potion selection is in the game. Being forced to press & hold a key during combat and then move the mouse towards the selected potion is a waste of time that can get you killed. A quick fix to it's shortcomings is to assign a number to each of the slots and allow people to bind keys to those slots (such as 67890). Once again, since the dev branch is not common to the consoles's, this shouldn't be an issue. This would allow people who like the current system to keep using it and people who want a more functional UI to have it. Ideally, people should be able to choose if they want "instant potion consumption" when hitting the binded key or if they want only the selection to be done that way and still hit the Q button to consume the last selected potion.

Buff/Debuff/DoT Tracking: Either release the API elements that will allow addons to know for sure if a DoT or a buff landed or introduce some kind of tracking for taunts, Buffs and DoTs.

DPS meter: Because it's easy. Because it helps people improve. Because it can bo toggled on or off at will. No need for an "in game" functionality to "post" the DPS, that way people won't be forced to use it since they are the only ones who can see the information.

Self Recount: Bind a key, press it at the end of the fight, see how much damage was dealt to each enemy and how much damage each skill did. In no way this should be a Party recount to see the performance of other people but self performance: Yes!

Retrocompatiblity:

When changes are done to the API, please include retro-compatibility for functions that are changed but not deprecated so that 90% of the addons aren't broken because you decided to change the name of a function.

-= LFG System =-

It is my understanding that some of the stuff in this post was implemented (to a certain extent) to the LFG tool. Most of the recommendations in that post still apply though and would make the LFG tool a good tool.

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/123968/introducing-grouping-2-0

Conclusion
Months after release, there is still a LOT of work to be done and multiple bugs to be fixed. The UI is one of the main reasons this games has had such a bad reputation in most MMO sites and also the reason many MMORPG players end up leaving the game. Fixing it would increase the ratings of the game and answer to the pleas of both long time MMO players as well as people who just want an immersed solo game.

Addons are not the solution. They are unreliable, they are broken by every new update, they (aparently) cause endless loading screens, memory problems, game problems, and we shouldn't need addons for BASIC functionalities, we shouldn't endure all of the above to get things that should be included in the game. As you can see, I didn't include combat clouds nor combat logs in the list since I believe only a fraction of the players use them and it should stay in the addon world, at least at the moment.

If you have any additions I forgot, feel free to post them, I'll update the post.

It would be awesome if ZOS in their "continuous efforts" to better communicate with us would eventually answer to one of these posts to explain where they stand on all these issues.

Love this post! Yes please to all. Great work TehMagnus!

folklore · January 2015

Lovely post and I enjoyed what you covered. I look forward to these from here on out!

TehMagnus · January 2015

Way to necro a thread

.

For those who asked me and asked for this month's post, I haven't made my Monthly "Fix your UI" Zenimax post since this one because no major patch has hit the game since last one and ZOS said they would pass this information into the game developers so I'm waiting to see what 1.6 holds for us before making a new thread if there is need for it

No need IMO to keep banging on the door once the message has gone through.

burningcrow · January 2015

Yes please to all of it. I'm surprised a lot of it wasn't put in from the start but there is time to add.

OrangeTheCat · January 2015

I love this monthly thread. Keep at it until ZOS relents. Of course by the time ZOS does anything I probably won't be playing their game anymore, but for the benefit of new players, please don't make them suffer as we had to.