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Which RPGs do you think have exceptional GUIs?

For discussing role-playing video games, you know, the ones with combat.
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Which RPGs do you think have exceptional GUIs?

Post by rusty_shackleford »

Either the entire UI, or just a part you want to highlight.

Temple of Elemental Evil has possibly one of the best GUIs overall.
The layered radial menu:
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The combat log:
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Which was itself closely intertwined with the ingame 'manual'. All the blue text in that image is a link you can click on.

Genuinely a **** shame NWN became popular instead of ToEE.
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Post by The_Mask »

I think my favourite of all time is Revenant. I think it had a total of 6 buttons on the side, and the character paper doll. So simple. So elegant.

But I love simple and elegant.

For complicated and elegant, I'd have to give it a bit more thought...
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rusty_shackleford wrote: ↑ October 28th, 2024, 07:36
Mediocre or bad games can still have parts that are good.
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Post by rusty_shackleford »

from IRC:
<aweigh0101> list-based UIs >
I agree strongly, and so do many people who play RPGs. There's a reason the most downloaded video game mod in existence is this:
Image

Add unique icons and it's pretty much the perfect UI.
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Post by Lich »

The closer it looks to the Excel spreadsheet, the better it is.
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Post by maidenhaver »

Its absolutely ToEE's.
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Post by Acrux »

There are a lot of games I enjoyed that I stopped playing just because the interface was atrocious.


TOEE's radial menu and hyperlink system are undoubtedly the best all around.

The new Bard's Tale Trilogy's UI does a good job of modernizing with QoL while keeping the feel of the original games.

Morrowind's character/inventory windows are fantastic. Everything you need to see on a single functional screen.
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Post by KnightoftheWind »

Arx Fatalis. It's endlessly customizeable and the immersion you get from placing items into your inventory is something I've never seen any other game do.
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Post by Atlantico »

RPGs that have exceptional UI is a question I have to interpret as "RPGs that have an exceedingly appropriate UI".

Dungeon Master has exceptional UI for the game it is. Simple elegance.
Diablo II also is has an exceptional UI for the game it is.
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Post by J1M »

rusty_shackleford wrote: ↑ May 6th, 2023, 02:42
Either the entire UI, or just a part you want to highlight.

Temple of Elemental Evil has possibly one of the best GUIs overall.
The layered radial menu:
Image

The combat log:
Image

Which was itself closely intertwined with the ingame 'manual'. All the blue text in that image is a link you can click on.

Genuinely a **** shame NWN became popular instead of ToEE.
ToEE is a great game, but ironically when I saw the thread title I intended to post the radial menu as an example of why radial menus are exceptionally bad.

The ToEE one was implemented well, but it still has text at weird angles, no clear keyboard shortcuts, and irregular mouse targets.
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Post by Acrux »

Surprisingly, there's a lot of UX research that suggests radial menus are exceptionally effective at helping people select targets more quickly and accurately for mouse targets, and that they are good for building muscle memory of where things are located. They also tend to be better for performance than lists if there are 2-3 levels of submenus. The main drawback against them has been infrequent use makes them seem intimidating and unfamiliar at first.

Your points about the keyboard shortcuts is important - too many games lately don't allow keyboard reconfiguration.
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Post by rusty_shackleford »

behead those who dislike radial menus
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Post by Emphyrio »

rusty_shackleford wrote: ↑ May 6th, 2023, 02:42
Temple of Elemental Evil has possibly one of the best GUIs overall.
The layered radial menu:
Image
this is **** bruv. a bunch of text you have to read at an angle. no thanks.
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Post by Maggot »

SS2 which definitely had some inspiration on Arx Fatalis.
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Post by Klerik »

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Post by rusty_shackleford »

Icon-based inventories are trash.
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Post by Klerik »

It's funny that you have to mod a bethesda game to get a good inventory.

And also no, they aren't trash. They take into account space as well as item weight. It doesn't matter if a cardboard box is only 2 lbs if it takes up an area the size of your fat ***.
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Post by rusty_shackleford »

Klerik wrote: ↑ May 7th, 2023, 01:36
And also no, they aren't trash. They take into account space as well as item weight. It doesn't matter if a cardboard box is only 2 lbs if it takes up an area the size of your fat ***.
It just models volume, nothing is stopping list-based inventories from doing this.

Tetris is even more cancer than icon-based.
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Post by Klerik »

Oh now we're talking about doesn't=exist-ium in a thread about RPGS that actually ******* exist aren't we.


Now call me a crackhead and that I need to go kill myself and be medicated because you're a ******* *****.
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Post by rusty_shackleford »

Klerik wrote: ↑ May 7th, 2023, 01:38
Oh now we're talking about doesn't=exist-ium in a thread about RPGS that actually ******* exist aren't we
Because people don't actually want that level of autism.
At least it would actually approximate real life though, tetris-based is a minigame plastered on top of a real game.
Klerik wrote: ↑ May 7th, 2023, 01:38
Now call me a crackhead and that I need to go kill myself and be medicated because you're a ******* *****.
wat
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Post by Klerik »

Now we're talking about what people want when you have no ******* idea what people ******* want. Might as well put big black dicks and more inclusivity, and some bud light, because that's what people want.
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Post by rusty_shackleford »

Klerik wrote: ↑ May 7th, 2023, 01:40
Now we're talking about what people want when you have no ******* idea what people ******* want. Might as well put big black dicks and more inclusivity, and some bud light, because that's what people want.
I know people don't want accurately modeled volume because it was tried and universally reviled.
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Post by Klerik »

Wow that looks cool. I haven't played that. Looks like something communist neckbeard feminist weirdos that have it too good in their sanfrancisco highrise smoking crack and writing **** articles all day long for a 200,000 salary might ***** about because they want to make something that people react to.
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Post by rusty_shackleford »

Klerik wrote: ↑ May 7th, 2023, 01:45
Wow that looks cool. I haven't played that.
It's Ultima 7.
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Post by Klerik »

I've skipped all the Ultima games because they didn't look quite like my cup of tea to be honest, and I am too young to have grown up in the 286-386 days of rpgs.
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Post by Acrux »

rusty_shackleford wrote: ↑ May 7th, 2023, 01:33
Icon-based inventories are trash.
rusty_shackleford wrote: ↑ May 7th, 2023, 01:38
Tetris is even more cancer than icon-based.
How dare you!

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Post by rusty_shackleford »

Acrux wrote: ↑ May 7th, 2023, 01:52
rusty_shackleford wrote: ↑ May 7th, 2023, 01:33
Icon-based inventories are trash.
How dare you!

Image
I stand by my claim. At best you might be able to tell what kind of item it is at a glance, and nothing more. You have to mouse over each individual element to figure out what the items are.
There's a reason warehouses don't use a big collection of icons to manage their inventory.
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Post by Acrux »

True enough. I think, at least in Siege of Avalon's case, that's an intended part of the game: sometimes an item that has better stats looks identical to the dozens of other swords you've come across.

I don't think SoA has a great interface, by the way. I love the game (it's probably in my top 5 rpgs despite the terrible combat), and I have a soft spot for the inventory and paperdoll, but the UI is pretty obtuse.
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Post by J1M »

Acrux wrote: ↑ May 6th, 2023, 15:12
Surprisingly, there's a lot of UX research that suggests radial menus are exceptionally effective at helping people select targets more quickly and accurately for mouse targets, and that they are good for building muscle memory of where things are located. They also tend to be better for performance than lists if there are 2-3 levels of submenus. The main drawback against them has been infrequent use makes them seem intimidating and unfamiliar at first.

Your points about the keyboard shortcuts is important - too many games lately don't allow keyboard reconfiguration.
I believe you saw studies with that as the abstract, but I think if you dig into the details you would find that the radial menus in the study both do not have slices of text at weird angles as mouse targets and the total number of options on that radial menu is not comparable to ToEE.