User interface and quality of life problems! ESO 2.0 is good... let's make it better.

BigM · June 2015

@Attorneyatlawl just fast question have they update Tim? Is it working with latest update? Use to love it but it was out of date for so long.

Attorneyatlawl · June 2015

BigM wrote: »

@Attorneyatlawl just fast question have they update Tim? Is it working with latest update? Use to love it but it was out of date for so long.

I'm only just logging in now for the first time since the 2.0.10 downtime, but it worked properly for me with 2.0.9 just by leaving the "Allow out of date addons" box checked (which I always do, myself at least, since a lot of the good ones show as that).

Attorneyatlawl · June 2015

A few random bits...

I do my banking in Daggerfall City (for nostalgia) and Shornhelm (because its layout is great) most of the time, and I've seen a lot of recurring themes from new player questions that get asked in the zone-wide chats there...

The major category I've seen cropping up lately is the UI, which I've covered a lot of in this thread, but also see questions of "What does 731 critical rating mean?". While that's relatively easy for someone at the level cap to answer if they think of intuiting it by checking their Mage Light skill's value and noticing it's a 10% spell critical chance increase for a 2099 "critical rating" and then figure it's 209 "critical rating" for 1% of actual chance, many don't even on that and it's fairly convoluted. Now, factor in that the "critical rating" needed for 1% of critical chance varies throughout every single level of the game until you are at Veteran Rank 14, and it becomes very mysterious for new players, and fairly ambiguous for older ones to answer anyone that isn't also VR14 already. A lot of other common complaints come from general Quality of Life tediums, one of which I'll give an example of after this list...

Major recurring themes or just mini-rants I've been seeing include:

-"Why not show crit rating as a percentage?" (there are itemization reasons not to, but this sort of thing could be addressed extremely easily by showing the percentage in parentheses after the rating. For example... "627 Spell Critical Rating (3.0%)" when viewed by a VR14 character).
-"How can I see how much I'm hitting mobs for?" (there is no way to do so without addons. Why not at least add a basic combat log tab on the chat box (toggleable) to see what your character has hit, buffed/debuffed, healed, or applied to/from him-or-herself and others? Addons are not provided anything except your own outgoing hits/heals, and the raw damage amount of an incoming attack or heal (no buff/debuff info from others or skill names used on you by monsters or players.)
-"Where do I enable the minimap?" (another one relegated to addons only, despite being an extremely frequently desired and basic UI function)
-"Why did FTC say the mobs were taunted, but they still gibbed my healer?" (this is because even on single targets, it can be iffy due to the API not giving the addons any actual buff or debuff information and them having to guess, often resulting in you pressing the button but the skill not landing and you believe the taunt is there when it isn't. Spread this out to multiple targets and it becomes a nightmare of inaccuracy and unwieldy to avoid overtaunting when refreshing them.)
-"Why are my health and stamina bars blank?" (there's no way to simply use the default resource bars and just have them show the basic numbers on them, although some addon suites have a function to do this along with a large number of other things bundled in. This is an extremely frequent question I've seen lately... often followed by joking comments of how this is probably one of the worst game interfaces they've used.

)
-"How do I message someone's character? It keeps giving me an error!" (nowhere in the game is it readily documented that you need to follow up a slash command such as whispering to someone's character name with a comma before the actual message to tell the game that the name is finished being typed and the message is beginning... so many people type something like... '/whisper Mega Awesome Healer Guy hey, want to do the pledge?' and get an error that "Mega Awesome Healer Guy hey" does not exist. Add in confusion from the mixed use of account and character names depending on what UI window you're in and it is very unclear. There should be options to show both names, or only one of the two names, across the board in the UI for people to choose from.)
-"What item sold in that 'Item Sold' mail I got with gold attached?" (a simple fix: state what guild store the item you sold was from, and include the 'link' of the item like you see in chat to show what actually had sold! The 'link' should be clickable just as in any other location.)

One QoL example that falls into this same type category is having to visit the Mundus stones in-world to change your bonus, even after having already used them. Often when going between solo play, dungeons, trials, or PVP, people realize they left the wrong Mundus stone active and have to go schlep back to the right one, usually taking about 5 minutes extra between zoning back and running.

Many titles have addressed similar systems with problems like that in QoL by allowing you to store bonuses from already-discovered "Mundus stones" in a dropdown on your character sheet, like a title, and letting you simply select which one to have active when out of combat and at full health.

@ZOS_AlanG, @Mursa, @ZOS_GinaBruno, @ZOS_JessicaFolsom, any chance we could get a little insight into when, how, and if, some of these things will be addressed? Some can be alleviated though not always entirely, of course, through addons on the PC (although that does have many large drawbacks of its own including the first quest someone gets out of Coldharbour being "Go... google and find out what the best UI addon site is to activate your minimap! Hurry!"), but additionally console players on the PS4 and Xbox One can't do this by design either (for many sensible reasons). Thank you

!

Smiteye · June 2015

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

A few random bits...

I do my banking in Daggerfall City (for nostalgia) and Shornhelm (because its layout is great) most of the time, and I've seen a lot of recurring themes from new player questions that get asked in the zone-wide chats there...

The major category I've seen cropping up lately is the UI, which I've covered a lot of in this thread, but also see questions of "What does 731 critical rating mean?". While that's relatively easy for someone at the level cap to answer if they think of intuiting it by checking their Mage Light skill's value and noticing it's a 10% spell critical chance increase for a 2099 "critical rating" and then figure it's 209 "critical rating" for 1% of actual chance, many don't even on that and it's fairly convoluted. Now, factor in that the "critical rating" needed for 1% of critical chance varies throughout every single level of the game until you are at Veteran Rank 14, and it becomes very mysterious for new players, and fairly ambiguous for older ones to answer anyone that isn't also VR14 already. A lot of other common complaints come from general Quality of Life tediums, one of which I'll give an example of after this list...

Major recurring themes or just mini-rants I've been seeing include:

-"Why not show crit rating as a percentage?" (there are itemization reasons not to, but this sort of thing could be addressed extremely easily by showing the percentage in parentheses after the rating. For example... "627 Spell Critical Rating (3.0%)" when viewed by a VR14 character).
-"How can I see how much I'm hitting mobs for?" (there is no way to do so without addons. Why not at least add a basic combat log tab on the chat box (toggleable) to see what your character has hit, buffed/debuffed, healed, or applied to/from him-or-herself and others? Addons are not provided anything except your own outgoing hits/heals, and the raw damage amount of an incoming attack or heal (no buff/debuff info from others or skill names used on you by monsters or players.)
-"Where do I enable the minimap?" (another one relegated to addons only, despite being an extremely frequently desired and basic UI function)
-"Why did FTC say the mobs were taunted, but they still gibbed my healer?" (this is because even on single targets, it can be iffy due to the API not giving the addons any actual buff or debuff information and them having to guess, often resulting in you pressing the button but the skill not landing and you believe the taunt is there when it isn't. Spread this out to multiple targets and it becomes a nightmare of inaccuracy and unwieldy to avoid overtaunting when refreshing them.)
-"Why are my health and stamina bars blank?" (there's no way to simply use the default resource bars and just have them show the basic numbers on them, although some addon suites have a function to do this along with a large number of other things bundled in. This is an extremely frequent question I've seen lately... often followed by joking comments of how this is probably one of the worst game interfaces they've used. )
-"How do I message someone's character? It keeps giving me an error!" (nowhere in the game is it readily documented that you need to follow up a slash command such as whispering to someone's character name with a comma before the actual message to tell the game that the name is finished being typed and the message is beginning... so many people type something like... '/whisper Mega Awesome Healer Guy hey, want to do the pledge?' and get an error that "Mega Awesome Healer Guy hey" does not exist. Add in confusion from the mixed use of account and character names depending on what UI window you're in and it is very unclear. There should be options to show both names, or only one of the two names, across the board in the UI for people to choose from.)
-"What item sold in that 'Item Sold' mail I got with gold attached?" (a simple fix: state what guild store the item you sold was from, and include the 'link' of the item like you see in chat to show what actually had sold! The 'link' should be clickable just as in any other location.)

One QoL example that falls into this same type category is having to visit the Mundus stones in-world to change your bonus, even after having already used them. Often when going between solo play, dungeons, trials, or PVP, people realize they left the wrong Mundus stone active and have to go schlep back to the right one, usually taking about 5 minutes extra between zoning back and running.

Many titles have addressed similar systems with problems like that in QoL by allowing you to store bonuses from already-discovered "Mundus stones" in a dropdown on your character sheet, like a title, and letting you simply select which one to have active when out of combat and at full health.

@ZOS_AlanG, @Mursa, @ZOS_GinaBruno, @ZOS_JessicaFolsom, any chance we could get a little insight into when, how, and if, some of these things will be addressed? Some can be alleviated though not always entirely, of course, through addons on the PC (although that does have many large drawbacks of its own including the first quest someone gets out of Coldharbour being "Go... google and find out what the best UI addon site is to activate your minimap! Hurry!"), but additionally console players on the PS4 and Xbox One can't do this by design either (for many sensible reasons). Thank you !

One heck of a good thread update, Attorney.

Attorneyatlawl · June 2015

Thanks @Smiteye

.

Attorneyatlawl · June 2015

I just was made aware of a reddit link to this thread, and while I posted a reply there, I want to also copy it in here as a hopefully easy summary of why these issues are so often brought up, below:

________________________

Thanks for the kind comments

. To clarify, while I was used to the functions built into the game during beta, I also was used to them from every computer RPG I have played, single-player or MMO, dating back to my first one which was EverQuest 1 when it was new and onwards through the present. As a small amount of background, I am a very competitive player gameplay-wise that is laid back socially, and while storylines and questing often aren't quite my main forte', I do enjoy them from time to time if a given game has a compelling setup. In ESO's case, I actually went through the storylines and all of the side quests a couple of times during closed beta testing, and then only did the main ones upon launch on my first character, darting through every character after as I'd already enjoyed them a few times.

There are pros and cons, as well as simply "differences" that are a matter of opinion, to playstyles in an online game. That is why, regardless of how strongly I feel X, Y, or Z should be the case, I absolutely would not back the idea of, as a hypothetical example, globally increasing the game's difficulty factor by 15 times to make it challenging with no option to tone it back down for people who wouldn't want it to be as tough as that kind of scaling would make it.

I can absolutely understand the desire of many to keep a fairly minimalistic user interface, and in fact actually prefer that myself. Believe it or not, I have only typically used between zero (i.e. none) to four or five addons in every other MMORPG I have ever played in the course of around 15 years now. The problem that I and some others run into with ESO, however, is that the default interface simply doesn't provide the level of usability or some of the simpler features that are essentially industry standards, and addons often have had well known stability issues between game bugs, general software development bugs that are par for the course despite the best efforts of addon developers, and API bugs & lack of thorough documentation.

I don't feel that the default UI in ESO is "minimalist" but just lacks a lot of usability (mail reply button, multiple quest tracking, a round compass to show at a glance your absolute direction rather than a precise relative one on only a portion of the compass) and basics(as /u/boredinbc (FORUM EDIT: a poster from Reddit) mentioned, simple things like being able to enable numbers on your resource/health bars to see what you're being hit for, even, and many people like having a mini map in conjunction with the compass system (some hotkey it to show up, some have it auto-hide unless you're not in combat, others don't use it at all... and that should, in my opinion, be a choice someone actively makes, not one made for them by the game).

I'd also like to add that even with addons, you cannot get proper (in other words, not guessed by the addons off of when you pressed your skill buttons) buff or debuff tracking, nor can you see what hit you in combat log addons due to Zenimax's restrictions on the API (for non-coder types, this is basically the "whitelist" that the game will accept for things you can tell the game to do with your addons as you develop them).

When you factor in that consoles by design and external factors such as Microsoft and Sony restrictions can't use addons in the first place, the options that have been omitted can't be even partially worked around. They're just gone, whether you personally like them or not.

Thanks for the comments all.

Smiteye · June 2015

Going to go out on a limb here and guess youre not getting much response because theres little else to be said Attorney. Youre just right on this one.

Cherryblossom · June 2015

Two months not any word from ZOS, standard we are burying our heads and ignoring this....

Attorneyatlawl · June 2015

Cherryblossom wrote: »

Two months not any word from ZOS, standard we are burying our heads and ignoring this....

It's unfortunately been close to two years, at this point, though this particular thread is only a couple of months old. I still hold out hope some day they'll look into it, but there's rarely been a mention of the user interface or game options at all since launch.

skwake · June 2015

I agree with everything you have said in this post. After putting in a days play on the PS4 we are stuck without addons so we are screwed but It just seems stupid that there are no nameplates, having to run up to every NPC to find the correct vendor is bollocks,
there is no info on how much health/magika/stam I have, I can't see what I am hitting enemies for and more importantly for me I have no idea what my healing spells are doing for other players.

Gone is the enjoyment of levelling up and hitting a new PB heal or crit on someone.

I have always hated the Elder scrolls line map, you just sit there spinning 360 till you find the direction you were supposed to be heading, minimap plz but I am not holding my breath.

Psychobunni · June 2015

ZOS left UI console friendly so console users could have it look like Skyrim.....NOW they(console users) are posting multi threads asking for the UI that PC users have begged for since launch.

On one hand I hope ZOS finally gets their head of out solo play mode and gives us a functional UI.....but man I'd be soooo pissed if console got it and we were still stuck with skeever dung because "addons".

Lykurgis · June 2015

skwake wrote: »

I have always hated the Elder scrolls line map, you just sit there spinning 360 till you find the direction you were supposed to be heading, minimap plz but I am not holding my breath.

People have been asking for a mini-map for a while, sadly, I don't think they listen or care anymore.

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/132060/who-thinks-zos-should-return-beta-minimap-with-an-option-to-turn-it-off

Remember folks, they have one built in already but it was removed because "immersion"

Attorneyatlawl · June 2015

Psychobunni wrote: »

ZOS left UI console friendly so console users could have it look like Skyrim.....NOW they(console users) are posting multi threads asking for the UI that PC users have begged for since launch.

On one hand I hope ZOS finally gets their head of out solo play mode and gives us a functional UI.....but man I'd be soooo pissed if console got it and we were still stuck with skeever dung because "addons".

http://www.reddit.com/r/xboxone/comments/39gv5r/the_elder_scroll_online_tamriel_unlimited_team/cs384dr

At long last, @ZOS_ChrisStrasz gave an answer to this thread in response to someone's brief question on Reddit, but this information was not subsequently linked here or unfortunately communicated during these past months that it was ever under consideration. Can we get a bit more detail on the planned improvements from yourself or @ZOS_MattFiror ? I understand these last few months have probably been a hectic time while preparing the pc relaunch and console launches, but it would go a long way towards helping the community if you could. There have been a lot of people feeling lately that the PC and Mac versions and game have been being overlooked in favor of the console ports, and it is disconcerting to see such major news only be answered subsequently in a console launch thread on reddit, after being a very important topic since before the PC version launched as early as around 18+ months ago

.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

Psychobunni · June 2015

@Attorneyatlawl I wanted to give you an "insightful" for the reddit answer, "agree" for answer @ console launch to year and half old questions, and "awesome" for linking it....I settled for agree

It would be great if they could give a more detailed response, they can even give the "subject to change" caveat...but please give us some more info @ZOS_ChrisStrasz

Smiteye · June 2015

Psychobunni wrote: »

@Attorneyatlawl I wanted to give you an "insightful" for the reddit answer, "agree" for answer @ console launch to year and half old questions, and "awesome" for linking it....I settled for agree

It would be great if they could give a more detailed response, they can even give the "subject to change" caveat...but please give us some more info @ZOS_ChrisStrasz

THIS! I had the same dilemma and want more detail on these please @ZOS_ChrisStrasz . Attorney's made these threads for a year and a half or more and the timing/place it was finally addressed is shocking.

Attorneyatlawl · June 2015

Psychobunni wrote: »

@Attorneyatlawl I wanted to give you an "insightful" for the reddit answer, "agree" for answer @ console launch to year and half old questions, and "awesome" for linking it....I settled for agree

It would be great if they could give a more detailed response, they can even give the "subject to change" caveat...but please give us some more info @ZOS_ChrisStrasz

Smiteye wrote: »

show previous quotes

Psychobunni wrote: »

@Attorneyatlawl I wanted to give you an "insightful" for the reddit answer, "agree" for answer @ console launch to year and half old questions, and "awesome" for linking it....I settled for agree

It would be great if they could give a more detailed response, they can even give the "subject to change" caveat...but please give us some more info @ZOS_ChrisStrasz

THIS! I had the same dilemma and want more detail on these please @ZOS_ChrisStrasz . Attorney's made these threads for a year and a half or more and the timing/place it was finally addressed is shocking.

Thanks for the support, both of you. I hope we hear something soon... it's disappointing after all this time, though I am glad to hear they have finally broken the silence and recognized these long standing problems with the game's UI.

Tankqull · June 2015

Psychobunni wrote: »

@Attorneyatlawl I wanted to give you an "insightful" for the reddit answer, "agree" for answer @ console launch to year and half old questions, and "awesome" for linking it....I settled for agree

It would be great if they could give a more detailed response, they can even give the "subject to change" caveat...but please give us some more info @ZOS_ChrisStrasz

well it will be as uninspired as their speech bubble solution but i do not care much about its implementation as long as it is done across all plattforms.

ps: picked insightfull

Attorneyatlawl · June 2015

Tankqull wrote: »

show previous quotes

Psychobunni wrote: »

@Attorneyatlawl I wanted to give you an "insightful" for the reddit answer, "agree" for answer @ console launch to year and half old questions, and "awesome" for linking it....I settled for agree

It would be great if they could give a more detailed response, they can even give the "subject to change" caveat...but please give us some more info @ZOS_ChrisStrasz

well it will be as uninspired as their speech bubble solution but i do not care much about its implementation as long as it is done across all plattforms.

ps: picked insightfull

Thanks

and yeah, we'll be able to mod it on the PC with the base there.

Atropos · June 2015

Big things may be happening: http://www.esoui.com/forums/showthread.php?p=21631

Tankqull · June 2015

Atropos wrote: »

Big things may be happening: http://www.esoui.com/forums/showthread.php?p=21631

jeehaw... worthwhiile informations are comming back to ESO...

Attorneyatlawl · June 2015

Atropos wrote: »

Big things may be happening: http://www.esoui.com/forums/showthread.php?p=21631

Tankqull wrote: »

show previous quotes

Atropos wrote: »

Big things may be happening: http://www.esoui.com/forums/showthread.php?p=21631

jeehaw... worthwhiile informations are comming back to ESO...

I saw... hopefully this is the first of a few other things I'd like to see back as options such as guildtags/nameplates, and default resource bar label options, built in. You do and have done great work @Atropos. I just feel that basics should be built in options, and addons should extend functionality, customize it, and do other good stuff(tm) like yours do. The first quest a new player out of Coldharbour's Wailing Prison has shouldn't be finding the newest addon downloads

.

MissBizz · June 2015

I really hope to see some of these idea's getting attention. As a PC player (and avid user of add-ons) who has also been playing the PS4 version, these features are really needed in the base game across all platforms. Combat information is a HUGE source of learning - along with buff/debuff trackers. Without these things, it is really hard to become better. Not just for those looking to squeeze out that extra 1% DPS, but also for those who maybe are not amazing at the get-go and need the help to be able to complete the more difficult content that comes later on in the game.

And hey, a minimap would help a LOT.

Zachy_B · June 2015

Bump. And we need a minimap. Now.

k9mouse · June 2015

Zachy_B wrote: »

Bump. And we need a minimap. Now.

No, we don't!!! I do not more UI clutter! I am so glad that ESO has min UI and I hope it stays that.

wraith808 · June 2015

k9mouse wrote: »

show previous quotes

Zachy_B wrote: »

Bump. And we need a minimap. Now.

No, we don't!!! I do not more UI clutter! I am so glad that ESO has min UI and I hope it stays that.

I think the idea is that you'd be able to turn off the extra items if you don't want it. So you can keep your minimal not tell us anything UI, and others can choose to have more information. It wouldn't affect you.

duncanmacleod08 · June 2015

what i really want to see happen with the xbox ui is
#1 ability to see mana and stamnia bars of other members so tank knows when its ok to pull more mobs in instances
#2 buff/debuff bar
#3 Mini Map
#4 real text chat feature for those who don't have mics or to shy to use one and for combat logs of course
#5 actually number amount of remaining health mana and stamnia ex health bar 5000/15535 same with mana and stamnia numbers.

#6 the ability to turn off and on the display of certain ui features so those who prefer a minimalistic ui can still have it and those of us who want to make game videos without ui clutter can make a clean crisp video with no ui on.

Attorneyatlawl · June 2015

k9mouse wrote: »

show previous quotes

Zachy_B wrote: »

Bump. And we need a minimap. Now.

No, we don't!!! I do not more UI clutter! I am so glad that ESO has min UI and I hope it stays that.

Solution: don't toggle it on, and don't ask that everyone else be forced to have it off.

Attorneyatlawl · June 2015

MissBizz wrote: »

I really hope to see some of these idea's getting attention. As a PC player (and avid user of add-ons) who has also been playing the PS4 version, these features are really needed in the base game across all platforms. Combat information is a HUGE source of learning - along with buff/debuff trackers. Without these things, it is really hard to become better. Not just for those looking to squeeze out that extra 1% DPS, but also for those who maybe are not amazing at the get-go and need the help to be able to complete the more difficult content that comes later on in the game.

And hey, a minimap would help a LOT.

This is an oft-overlooked point, actually. Game info is useful for much more than finding that last tenth of a percent of damage. It is also useful for finding the first 95%

. Difficulty by mechanics obfuscation isn't a great choice in my opinion. Even a damage meter is useful for more than comparisons īn raids, too... for a lot of us it's a fun social thing during random stuff like pledge runs or pvp. "Jeez, I just dished out 1.2 mil damage on that blob" or tossing up your parse after bosses for more lighthearted play is commonplace. For people without easy access to ask the top 20 players what X does or how they should Y, having transparency in game info gives them a fighting chance to learn it for themselves

.

Smiteye · July 2015

duncanmacleod08 wrote: »

what i really want to see happen with the xbox ui is
#1 ability to see mana and stamnia bars of other members so tank knows when its ok to pull more mobs in instances
#2 buff/debuff bar
#3 Mini Map
#4 real text chat feature for those who don't have mics or to shy to use one and for combat logs of course
#5 actually number amount of remaining health mana and stamnia ex health bar 5000/15535 same with mana and stamnia numbers.

#6 the ability to turn off and on the display of certain ui features so those who prefer a minimalistic ui can still have it and those of us who want to make game videos without ui clutter can make a clean crisp video with no ui on.

Merry Monday! Yes, but pc too please .

Smiteye · July 2015

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

show previous quotes

MissBizz wrote: »

I really hope to see some of these idea's getting attention. As a PC player (and avid user of add-ons) who has also been playing the PS4 version, these features are really needed in the base game across all platforms. Combat information is a HUGE source of learning - along with buff/debuff trackers. Without these things, it is really hard to become better. Not just for those looking to squeeze out that extra 1% DPS, but also for those who maybe are not amazing at the get-go and need the help to be able to complete the more difficult content that comes later on in the game.

And hey, a minimap would help a LOT.

This is an oft-overlooked point, actually. Game info is useful for much more than finding that last tenth of a percent of damage. It is also useful for finding the first 95% . Difficulty by mechanics obfuscation isn't a great choice in my opinion. Even a damage meter is useful for more than comparisons īn raids, too... for a lot of us it's a fun social thing during random stuff like pledge runs or pvp. "Jeez, I just dished out 1.2 mil damage on that blob" or tossing up your parse after bosses for more lighthearted play is commonplace. For people without easy access to ask the top 20 players what X does or how they should Y, having transparency in game info gives them a fighting chance to learn it for themselves .

Sure as hell can't argue that! 99.999999999999999999999999999999999999999% of the lern2play-gitgud problems would be gone if everyone knew how the game worked at all!