User Interface Discussion - E3 2016 | Forums

[Eiddard]

There has been a lot of discussion about the interface after the past year, I think it is a good time to make a new one with what we saw on E3.

So I will start with my opinion.

In 2015 E3 we could see huge UI elements, we as a comunity soon called the devs out about it, it seems like it did almost nothing, even though we didn't see any multiplayer gameplay to do a good comparison.

One thing new is the white outline of the enemy you are focusin on, I think the white circle was enough, outlining the whole character is too much and it is useless, the camera is already focused on him and we have already a white circle, it is pretty easy to find the enemy, no need for more.

The HP bars are too big, the ones from last E3 were more "subtle", and I found while watching the gameplays that the player hp bar was often on the middle of my vision, it is just really annoying, maybe it would be better to put your character hp on bottom-center or top-left corner of the screen.

There is still the huge thing in your character with the R stick and the 3 stances when you are in the art of battle mode, and I really don't understand that, I mean, you have to focus on your enemy, having that huge thing drawing attention from your enemy makes no sense to me, I think it would be enough to have the same that the enemies has, just a white shape of the current position, it would still give the information of your stance without drawing attention from your enemy, you would only need to add a new mark for when you are in middle stance for some classes such as the oni that can be in a "non-stance/middle stance" position.

I will say that the UI in the Campaign mode was ok, it was subtle enough except for the hp bars and the art of battle stance indicator for your character, the radar in the right bottom was there but didn't draw much attention, same for the feats or the current objective of the mision.

I have checked one thing comparing it to the 2015 E3, when the enemies attack you in duel mode there is no longer the "arrow" thing warning you about their attack, instead the stance mark in their bodies turns red, which I think it is an improvement over the arrow thing.

[Kerniac69]

I totally agree with you Eidard.

[FLYINGvDUTCHMAN]

Same here, I had some other suggestions myself, but I already posted a thread in the suggestions section :P

[V4nClief]

Eidard I'm right there with you on this one my friend. Good news is they still have time to make some tweaks before launch.

[FredEx919]

Thanks Eidard,

I'll be sending all of this over to the team and reading through everything in the suggestions and feedback threads as well. We want to hear everyone's thoughts.

[FLYINGvDUTCHMAN]

After watching the Warden mission just now I also noticed that in 2 v 1 situations the enemy will not attack you while you fight his friend, you can turn your back on them and have no worries. Even if this is because of difficulty settings, I think they should still gang up, only have overall damage to the player reduced when the difficulty settings are lower to compensate. There needs to be a feeling of having to watch both enemies, and position yourself so that you can fend both off.

[AvarusTyrannus]

It does seem like this game in particular could stand to have customizable UI options to suit every palate. Just the option to click on or off various aspects would be a boon, scaling them doubly so.

After watching the Warden mission just now I also noticed that in 2 v 1 situations the enemy will not attack you while you fight his friend, you can turn your back on them and have no worries. Even if this is because of difficulty settings, I think they should still gang up, only have overall damage to the player reduced when the difficulty settings are lower to compensate. There needs to be a feeling of having to watch both enemies, and position yourself so that you can fend both off.

That might be an aspect of the various difficulty modes. I can confirm that in the harder modes the various bot attackers do not hold off when you aren't locked onto them. There was however an extra UI element that flashed the direction and attack was coming from if it was made by an enemy other than the one you were locked on. This made it easier to throw your gaurd in that direction for a block without having to leave your current locked target.

[FLYINGvDUTCHMAN]

I'm glad that the harder modes are more realistic, but I still think that their game would do better across casual gamers if they simply decreased damage done to the player, and had multiple opponents attacking.

[Altair_Snake]

I'm glad that the harder modes are more realistic, but I still think that their game would do better across casual gamers if they simply decreased damage done to the player, and had multiple opponents attacking.

The thing is: the damage isn't everything. All attacks normally stun you and interrupt your own. Casuals could easily feel overwhelmed and even blame "unresponsive controls" if they got ganked, even if it didn't do much damage. But I'd meet you halfway. I think even the easier difficulties should have slightly more aggressive enemies. I mean, they could flank you at least once in a while without actually comboing you and stuff.

I would even addthat they should perhaps have had a higher difficulty level for the stage demo, considering that the guy who played it clearly knew his business.

That might be an aspect of the various difficulty modes. I can confirm that in the harder modes the various bot attackers do not hold off when you aren't locked onto them. There was however an extra UI element that flashed the direction and attack was coming from if it was made by an enemy other than the one you were locked on. This made it easier to throw your gaurd in that direction for a block without having to leave your current locked target.

These are great news. Thank you. So, are difficulty options trully confirmed? Did you get to play the campaign demo at E3?

[AvarusTyrannus]

I played both campaign demos. The Knight one was much easier. I'm not sure if that is a natural progression of the games campaign (knights vikings samurai), a difficulty choice you can make, or a combination of both.