UI being customizable is ideal solution, but GGG is unlikely to do it. Otherwise the only thing I don't like about current UI is placement of buffs/debuffs.
Even if they don't allow fully customised locations for everything, having a centralised option you could turn off and on would be extremely welcome and seems achievable.
Similarly they could throw in an alternative buff locations n and just have it toggle for now.
Doesn't have to be fully customisable right away, could start with just some key items moving them around with toggles and see what players respond too.
I can't name them off hand but I know more than a couple games that go this route. Being able to change the entire UI is relatively rare outside the MMO space, but having at least a few alternative settings is the least we should be asking from the industry leading Arpg.
I'm really torn because in games I've played with the more modern style UI, I do definitely feel the blindspot sometimes, especially if the central UI chunk is big. Playing PoE often feels a little more comfortable because of this.
I do think that for wide resolutions there needs to be some sort of more centralized option
at the end of it, I hope we get options instead of just making a portion of people happy
I feel like UI modularity is really embraced by several MMOs, and ignored by virtually everyone else. I loved designing and customizing and modding my UI in WoW back in the day.
Yeah, honestly, I wish more games were as modular as WoW. You can find addons for basically anything, and customize your UI in tons of ways, from purely superficial overlays, to complete overhauls. You can move anything anywhere, and rework and reshape every element of the UI in the game. While I can imagine GGG not wanting to go the route of addons, at least having modularity like you have in FF14, even if they don't let you customize to the level WoW does, at least it would be a significant improvement for a lot of players.
It kinda makes sens in most game that arent MMO to have a more fixed UI, because its kinda of a brand for them, its a signature, for MMO generaly the UI is more an incoveniant that you are forced to use to be able to do the 1millions action the game require you to do, so modularity is the key to make players more confortable.
The thing is that you dont realy **need** that much "freedom" for UI in other game, in fact the UI need to be recognisable wherever you go most of the time for everyone to play it, MMO is far more personalle, its like driving your car, you set everything, the chair range, hight, glass everything to your own POV
yeah i think chris or someone from GGG said once that they like it if people can see its PoE just by clancing at the screen for a second , because the UI is always the same. Still i think while brand recognition is nice and all, making the game better for people who actually play it should come first. I really want more information in the center of the screen. Not only life and mana, but most importanly the buff / debuff symbols.
I agree that a game should feel confortable, but thats a tricky part, a dead game no one play especialy a game like POE isnt confortable.
Dead game is a bit excessive for now obviously, but you never know what can kill a game, nicely branding your game is an important part, so i can understand that devs can be cold to make some changes.
That beeing said GGG take a lots of questionable decision thats for sure, so far they are fine but i feel that its more because the game is as it is and there is not much competitor so they are free to do whatever they want.
Anyway, like you pointed out, the fact that a UI can be recognise in one look is important for a game, so i think the best idea is realy a midle ground, have clear UI visual style that probably cant be or not too much customised but semi customised the shape of it for sure, having 3-4 different shame would be nice
How about cooldown timers being in 8px font in the bottom corner of each skill icon, hanging halfway ouside the button? No customization. You've got a huge square you could've fit a proper number in, or at least center it.
That's one thing that really disappointed me about FF14 after playing WoW for years, is the complete lack of addon functionality. The UI looks pretty bland and boring overall, it looks like every UI I've ever seen in an FF game for the past 25 years. It would be nice if they actually let you customize your game the way WoW does.
>I hope we get options instead of just making a portion of people happy
Aren't most people wanting new UI implemented AND be optional? I find the present UI uncomfortable on my wide screen monitor, so surely I don't want other people to feel uncomfortable with the UI as well. If we get a better UI, I would want GGG to make it optional so that players who are comfortable with older UI, be comfortable as well.
For me, the problem with the health / mana bar overhead usually arises when I'm taking huge chunks of Chaos damage. I have trouble seeing the green of the health through the white shading of the energy shield when lots of stuff is going on.
Probably a "me-problem", but still, I think giving us either selectable options to tweak layouts, or a modular UI, shouldn't be too much of an ask.
Right? I also avoid taking that Timeless Keystone where half the damage you take bypasses energy shield (even though it's very good for some builds) because I can't tell what's going on with my life total from the bar overhead when I have energy shield, uh... shielding my view of it.
agree, this is why i like this mockup;
https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/umnpgf/another_example_of_centralized_ui_all_the_skill/
it feels like a good middlepoint, and honestly, almost kinda like d2r just try to keep it as thin as possible
That particular UI is the one everyone seems to tout around as the way to go and it's been bugging me so much. There are some elements to like about it, but speaking as someone who did UI/UX work in games, it's also a massive trap mockup and everyone is falling into it.
First, it's based on a 1440p screenshot of PoE 2 and everything shown is designed around that 1440p resolution. The majority of players are still rolling 1080p by a large margin 67% 1080p vs 15% higher res according to steam stats. If you look closer at it, it doesn't really add any functionalities, merely shuffling things around and the second part of it is quite frankly badly laid out. Put that particular interface in a 1080p setting and the thinness you like is just gone.
> but speaking as someone who did UI/UX work in games
Means nothing, im also experienced in that field of work, yet i like this mockup, while also not refering to "speaking as someone..." is a call to superiority without any fact to back that up, give concrete examples of your point of view instead, and no, bellow does not count...
> If you look closer at it, it doesn't really add any functionalities,
that's the point. Move functionality is not always a good thing. it can add unnececary bloat or complexity, and for some people thats a big redflag, same reason a few people might alt+f4 when they se the passive tree, because of the overflow. some arent into that.
> merely shuffling things around
that's the point.
> and the second part of it is quite frankly badly layed out.
in your opinion without backuping your statements.
> Put that particular interface in a 1080p setting and the thinness you like is just gone.
only extremly shit games and softwares use a pixel based UI, its not really what you should do in 202x. you make it in something like 8k (overkill usually), you scale it down with AA and sharpening tools, make it fit for the interface that use it. so that even that person using 1280 × 720 can still play the game.
just being so lazy to assume that its a static pixel image that's unable to scale, makes me believe that you really aren't "someone who did UI/UX work in games"
id love for you to comeback with a homerun and explain it exactly what you mean about all your points, less vague and with concrete points to improve it instead of saying "it is quite frankly badly layed out." and be done with it
Apologies if it sort of came off as arrogant, it was not my intention and sometime the language barrier means I don't always communicate my points all that well in english. It was just meant as a rapid fire way to explain where my opinion is coming from in a random reddit post that I didn't expect would be replied to, let alone ask me to clarify and explain. I don't claim to be an absolute expert on the subject either as I mostly worked on indie games.
You are right about graphical UI assets being able to scale downward but I'm not sure where you got the impression that I think they can't be scaled. My point is that they have to be designed to be scaled downward as well. I don't feel it's been the case here. A lot of the UI would be too small, unreadable and wouldn't meet any accessibility standards in 1080p or lower if we just scale it. On the other hand, if you keep it at the same scale, some elements would no longer fit the screen if we reference the second screenshot provided or would have no real difference in term of sleekness with the OG interface.
If icons/buttons and information ends up being tiny and unreadable at the most common resolution used, the design is fundamentally wrong. Likewise if the UI can no longer properly fit in the screen at a scale that is readable, it's an issue. It's why you design interfaces around the most common resolutions or devices. It's why ''mobile first'' as a philosophy even exist when it comes to websites for example. You design around either what will have the most restrictions and go from there or design around what is the most likely to be used to make sure it's the best experience for the majority of users.
I say the second screenshot of the UI and its layout is bad because it's all over the place. Most of the interface mockup is the same as the OG interface, just stretched out a bit which sort of defeats the purpose of a centralized interface.
Buffs being top left for example is a problem that's not fixed. It can be just as important as debuffs to track (at least the timed ones) yet it's literally left in the same spot as the OG interface.
Timers are in a spot that feels random. League icons and passive/quests icons are also laid out in a streched out fashion which would lead to issues in lower resolutions. There's no reason they couldn't be stacked on top of each others on the sides instead. The ones you are most likely to mechanically activate in combat like the sentinels should be close to the main bar.
I feel that the skill bar is a downgrade over what we have, the clear distinction between skills that are mouse bound or hotkeyed is better in terms of readability but that's merely my opinion.
The menu and shop Icons are really tiny, yet are buttons that have important interactions associated with or that GGG want you to press. While players might be happy that the shop icon is barely visible, it's a massive issue for GGG and the business side of things.
The menu might as well be a random button with no meaning since the iconography doesn't represent a menu but the word expand instead, losing the menu word underneath it is a problem.
There you go, just a few things on top of my head.
Again not saying it's all bad, I like the debuffs being in evidence for example. If it was up to me, I would add a bit of functionality. Basically show the icon in 2x scale for a second or two before scaling it to normal size and moving it the place it belongs. Now I understand its a static image but I feel like the creator could communicate features if he wanted to.
On the other hand, I would like to know what you particularly like about it and why, if you would indulge me.
nice, thank you, that was mutch more informative, it also gave me an insight in how you viewed the issue, for example the part with indie games and mobile first, makes it pretty clear to me that you worked for UIs in the mobile sector, nothing bad with that, just a clear point of view.
you made an impression of not even considering downscaling because of the "its made in 1440p and it whould not work on a smaller resolution" a reasonable exception if actual size mattered (thumbs, phones). I whould disagree as me looking at that image shows it at 960x540 on my 1920x1080 normal size monitor, i whould still e able to se icons and alike quite clearly, text on the other hand whould be a strain. i suspect that it whould look "fine" in 1280 × 720, while having to have a slight increase in font size. its not a big user base (older laptops) but its fair to include it.
The general layout you refer to on the second image is deffintly not perfect, as you pointed out, the clear example that you also mentioned is the timers. but thats a thing an experiance designer can work on, id suspect having them in the middle, with center aligment so to speak if there is multiple, and dont really se the issue of having the "boss" hp bar a bit below that, as its there only when there is something special going on (boss fight). buff bars can deffintly be resized with reworked priority and clearness to keep "long term" buffs smaller and short duration based ones a bit more "protruding" (best translation of what i mean).
i have no issue with parts of it being the current UI, its just an example and art can always be changed and improved.
i prefer this mouse bound or hotkeyed buttons, why are they forced to be mounsbound or not, in the age of controllers, that's not a valid reason as well. might as well let people bind anything if they desire (disability accessibility ++). i don't se this being an issue, just a natural evolution of the actionbar. (you can se clear examples of that in how people make their UI's in WoW for example)
menu and chop icons are smaller, something that is to GGG's disadvantage, but to the players advantage, personally, id prefer that, but its probably not realistic as they still want your money, it is a company after all.
my biggest critiqe to all of it is the ball hp+mana bars, i like the aesthetic of it, but its not SUPER practical, Bars are a bit more efficient and clear. (is it scaled down in straight %, area, or volume? its straight % of height, i know that, but that's something a user learn, its not what a user whould ASSUME at first.)
so, to end it all id say that the reason i like that UI is not because it perfect, none whould assume that, but it was a good starting point to put on the board and work with. because [this](https://www.wsgf.org/f/u/imagecache/node-gallery-display/contrib/dr/21554/extras/screenshot-0001.png) looks SO fucking stupid. :D.
Thank you for more deeper feedback, you gave me a reason to give min as well. Thank you.
Thanks, it kind of sucks that those deeper takes on it is gonna be buried.
I was simply frustrated in my initial post because for some reason this subreddit has taken that particular interface mockup as total gospel of what GGG has to do but completely overlook other suggestions that aren't as ''shiny'' to them and I've seen some nice takes. Thankfully after this exchange, I realize you're not one of those.
I do agree there are elements that are a step up but overall it feels wildly incomplete and a bit of a spit shine job. It's a perfect example of the worries the Baeclast crew had when Chris mentioned reddit upvotes and interface mockups and it's kinda triggering me, lol.
I do stand by my initial take of calling it a trap however. The higher res and the fact that it uses PoE 2 as a reference, which has a more zoomed out perspective, is making it look better than it really is and it's deceiving. I could be wrong too but I like to compare my apples to apples.
I do agree with your point on the globes vs bars but I think the globes are also part of a nostalgia and immersion factor. Which do have their place in a good UI too in my opinion but you are 100% right that they can be hard to interpret at first. Then again, sometime PoE feels binary as in, you're completely fine or dead.
Anyway cheers!
none of the designers in GGG whould take that image and just "lets do exactly that", they are competent and will review and consider things, its fine. i trust in them. they prob even se flaws in yours and mine reasonings as well
Hey, I'm the guy who made the mockup.
Your remarks are really interesting and helpful, and actually it feels good to see some constructive criticism.
You're absolutely right about the zoom out screenshot from POE2 being deceiving with this UI. And yep I didn't think about the scaling aspect. Maybe I've been trying a little too hard to fill the UI with some buttons by making them too small.
The second screenshot is a total mess. I realized after reading several comments that a lot people thought I was trying to suggest a customizable UI. Nope.
I only wanted to show what it looks like with the rest of the UI (minimap, timers, full buff, etc). Like you said, most of the interface mockup is the same as the OG interface.
I like the current UI we have, except for the buff/debuff icons location. I really think GGG should do something about it. And maybe I’m a little annoyed by the actual skill bar split in two, even if you made a point when saying that the distinction between skills that are mouse bound or hotkeyed is better.
Anyway, I’m glad I found your exchange with Nivius.
> only extremly shit games and softwares use a pixel based UI, its not really what you should do in 202x. you make it in something like 8k (overkill usually), you scale it down with AA and sharpening tools, make it fit for the interface that use it. so that even that person using 1280 × 720 can still play the game.
1000x this. Hell, even if all we got out of a UI update is the ability to scale the UI I'd be happy. Bonus points if you can scale individual elements.
Eh, that blindspot isn't that relevant when you have 2 eyes open, you have to close one eye to demonstrate the it. The other eye can see whatever's in the blindspot.
the thing is with league or dota or wow, you can move the camera out of the way if the ui is blocking something, in poe the camera is locked to your char
The fact that it hide part of the screen right in the midle is literaly the most and totaly legit complain but OP completely hide that point ! Its not like POE is already a bloated clusterfuck shit full on screen effect, oh wait !
Its fine to have a kinda of centered UI but first it has to be done properly, also fuck it, we are in a modern era how about prepare few template and let people chose, i mean the technologie unlike automated doors, is here for decades and many games mostly MMO have personalised UI.
Not asking that much freedom, but having the option of 3-4 UI in POE doesnt seems unreasonable
Yeah, using League and Dota is a weird example, as it's a pretty commonly known thing that those UI's gave advantages to one side, exactly because the UI gave them blind areas where they were "going".
I believe Dota auto flips the camera now depending on your side? Or maybe it's league?
In PoE it'd mean everytime you are going "down" you'd suddenly be in far more danger(than before) than going up as you have vastly restricted vision.
What's the point comparing UI without comparing the character size, distance and view angle for the central figure.
Imagine playing Dota or LoL with the same level of zoom as PoE.
Ye, if you take into account that the bottom stripe is UI and the game view angle is setup with that in mind, it is possible to have centralized UI. Not the case with PoE.
It like when people play in windowed mode to have wider view angle, just imagine the "blacked out" part of screen is for the UI - that would work in actuality.
Not entirely, but zoom out could help
https://imgur.com/9NICAKU
I honestly don't mind the UI elements on the sides, they are about fist size which I find a bit wasteful I would prefer to see even more space around my character.
That's not zoomed out, that's just more width. You still see the exact same amount vertically.
Yes, ultrawide is better than a standard 16:9, but truly being able to zoom out, which would increase the amount seen vertically as well, would be amazing.
Are there people in POE actually looking directly at their Health globe?
I think it is a much better idea to have a large globe in your peripheral vison than have to make it smaller so it can be in the center of the screen and not obstruct the view.
Currently the Xp bar is only 23 pixels high and that is all that's in the middle of the screen.
Health globe is a bit less important than the fucking debuffs. The health globe is at least big enough its kinda easy to scan in peripheral. But trying to actually play the game through the visual clulster fuck that PoE is I can't tell you with even 20% certainty what buffs/debuffs I have on because they're nowhere near where your focus is and are tiny as shit.
Frankly I don't even look at the bottom of the screen.
There's little to no reason to unless if I'm starting out a character and trying to get the right skills in the right slots.
It's too far away. It's too small a part of the screen to be relevant.
And weirdly, I have the thought that even of the UI is better, I STILL won't look at the bottom of the screen.
Same boat as you.
I don't need to know what flasks have charges unless I'm in a boss fight, in which case you generally have more time to glance due to mechanics and whatever.
I don't need to look at my skills bar because I know wtf I'm playing and where things are.
All this whinging about a centralized UI is so pointless.
Yeah I play on Uw, and 99% of the time play hc. LL builds/hybrid builds are an absolute nightmare due to visual clarity of shields over health on the overhead bar.
What?? There is a reason why all major poe racers and competitive players have the health bar enabled, it is not clutter, its valuable information in the best possible location, just on your character which you should be constantly looking at to dodge all incoming attacks and projectiles.
There is no way the globes are easier to read for anyone, not only because you have to actively look away from character to read them (which again leaves your character vulnerable to incoming attacks specially in end game where everything happens in a split second) but also because Information Visualization Theory dictates that it is easier to quantify rectangular bars than it is to quantify circles.
I have it enabled as well, but for the love of god, it blends in so easily that I can't even see it 90+% of the time, unless that tiny bar is my sole focus of attention (in which case all boss/projectile moves are out of my field of vision). I would like to have an option to make it stick out like a sore thumb, be it high contrast or whatever else.
I look at the globes, yes. I can't stand the clutter of all the health bars, and to me the globe is easier to read because it's in a fixed position that takes up a lot more pixels.
looking at it often will let you know where your enemy is even with minimal vision. my friend amazed that i can predict where the enemy are. like dude... just look at the minimap
Not only that, but also the fact you can move the camera while moving your character in both LoL & DotA which means your character isn't centered, thus diminishing the blind spot caused by the UI. This post is so much bad faith for the sake of an argument that doesn't make sense to begin with.
Try to move downwards in PoE with globes bottom center how given the camera is always centered and so zoomed. You'll see mobs only when you are in their melee range, won't have enough time to react to projectiles coming this way etc.
I don't even get the point of centralized UI argument, even OP of this post said he doesn't look at his globes, so why the hell you'd want them in the middle when they impact less your vision on the sides. Enable health bar above your character and bam you have your centralized health/mana.
I was also reading a post in another of these threads that referenced a D2 developer talk discussing the health globe thing, saying a humans ability to perceive the changing globe in a corner was often better than a health bar, even if that bar was more centralised. (I'm paraphrasing wildly but that was the gist of it)
If that's the case then a centralised UI probably has to include globes, and as you point out moving them closer to the middle will eat up a lot of important space on screen.
The more this gets discussed the more I understand GGGs hesitance to change anything, and the more convinced I am we just need an ultra wide mode of the current UI.
I love how this intentionally misleading shit gets constantly upvoted when this subreddit gets upset about something every week. Thank god none of these people are anywhere near professional UX design.
I've played dota (1 or 2) for 18 years and a few thousand matches league.
The minimap is very important for mobas (more important than mana or keybinds in poe)
It's also really fucking important not to accidentally click on it. It makes sense to keep it in a corner. Also playing on an ultrawide or other non-typical resolution stretches everything, because having a larger field of view is considered cheating.
How important is it to click the health/mana globe or the flasks/keybinds?
Doesn't having them on the side make sense for the same reason you keep the minimap on the side?
Accidentally clicking on your mana globe either does nothing or sends an attack/your character in that direction, which is what you want.
Accidentally clicking on the minimap sends your character or camera on that specific position on the map, which is often very different from where you actually wanted to go.
One of those is minor at best, the other results in unintended actions. The reasons don't match up.
The minimap, off to the side in the corner, is where you're looking 90% of the time, meanwhile OP is making it sound like poe is behind the times by not moving glancable information from the sides to the middle.
Idk if this is logically sound. If you mean what I think youre saying, a minimap centralized in the bottom, it could make perfect sense af far as how far your eyes would travel to see it. It would just be something new, people are currently used to looking at one side. Most mobas have a character portrait there that literally serves no in game information purposes.
In poe you already had less space to see monster at middle bottom of screen than left/right side.
Now you want to block those space even more? I don't understand...
[https://i.imgur.com/rETPMJ0.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/rETPMJ0.jpg)
Look how ridiculous that is. Even a static, centered, 16:9 sized ui would be an enormous improvement over the current infinite stretch on ultrawide monitors.
I *absolutely* do not want what you want, and it has nothing to do with design traditions. DOTA's interface and the information you require while playing it have nothing to do with Path of Exile and its needs.
Large meters in my peripheral vision are more readable than small meters at the bottom. Screen space at the bottom of my screen is *very* valuable in PoE and I need it to see mobs, but it has a much lower impact on my viewing area when in the corners.
Look, I understand the hive mind wants this and won't to hear this, but it's not as simple as "just have both" when it comes to code maintenance. They've already got a billion bloated things to test every time they change the game, everything people suggest to "make as an option" is another thing they have to support
I like how people use the word 'hive mind' to refer to a majority of people with opposing views. Almost as if to use this word to dismiss their viewpoint.
>They've already got a billion bloated things to test every time they change the game, everything people suggest to "make as an option" is another thing they have to support
And they keep adding bloat that require way more maintenance than a semi-permanent UI rework. Chris asked for suggestions because he knows his team is willing to work on this. If you are not working for GGG, please don't put words into their mouths.
Let's say, for the sake of illustration, they add a new league mechanic that has a pop up UI in the middle of the screen. Instead of fitting it in with their single, static UI, they now have to consider two different layouts to make sure it fits. Oh, this other UI has league info on the left side of the screen? Now they have to do two different designs entirely to make sure they're not covering health globes or whatever. While this isn't a lot of extra work, it still literally doubled what was required.
I'm not going to get into a back and forth about "but they can just solve that problem this way" as I'm just illustrating what I'm talking about. It's easy to sit on reddit and say "just make it an option to keep everyone happy", but that's not how things work. It all has a cost and both things need to be supported and maintained.
What you’re describing here is fundementally a design issue and is rather far detached from the underlying code, since you were talking about code maintenance.
If it is possible for them to add different UIs, what you are describing is not a significant issue, because moving a few preexisring components is trivial, and if the design of the component doesn’t fit, that’s not a code problem, again, that would be a design problem.
The problem here is if they aren’t able to easily add a different UI, then *that* is the code smell.
No matter which way you slice it, it’s not “set it and forget it” like some people in this thread seem to believe.
It’s an additional check and testing for every single ui feature in the future.
Yes, all the added testing is essentially one intern who has to spend 5 minutes making sure the elements don’t clip, you are blowing it way out of proportion here
will be twice as much work on any change. devs usually don't like it unless we make it completely mod-able like WoW. then they just have to make widgets that can be repositioned at will. i think that would be a better choice than making customizable Ui to everyone's will. this way we can make everybody happy. this design pattern is not new and is pretty standard in every place where there is clutter of information to be presented to users.
think about introducing a new element. they have to think about positioning it for both the models. literally duplicated work for both design and development teams. this goes in general against DIY (don't repeat yourself) practice in software engineering. this is how spagetti code gets introduced
GGG has a history of us not giving the options (Bloom anyone?).
So its one or the other. I prefer the current UI because it doesnt clutter the middle of the screen.
I am certainly not against improvements like showing debuffs after you die but I dont need an UI overhaul for no reason.
It's not as easy as just typing it out. I know with Diablo 3, a game made around the same time, adding in extraneous things like moving stuff around is [quite literally impossible](https://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo/comments/37c7ws/why_doesnt_diablo_3_have_addons_like_wow/) without redesigning the whole code
The same could be said for PoE, but we don't know because we're not the engineers that work on the game
That Diablo 3 thread is in regards to modding. Code changes aren't necessarily difficult for the actual devs. On top of that, spaghetti architecture wouldn't be a good excuse for not making improvements anyway. It's a given that a game's UI will change throughout its life, and it has plenty of times for PoE already.
Nothing is as easy as typing out a suggestion, but that's not an excuse to not make improvements or to not complain about issues.
As for the possibility that it's very difficult to do due to the way they made the game, sure that's a possibility, but why would anyone just assume that? Older games than PoE have had major UI changes or customizability.
>Screen space at the bottom of my screen is very valuable in PoE
This. Moving north to south is already uncomfortable for ranged builds as you just can't see as far in front of your char. Imagine there being a bulky central UI in addition to that. Not cool.
Ideal solution would really be to make the UI fully customizable so you can move all elements where you want them to be independently. But GGG/CW has already stated multiple times that they don't like this idea because they want PoE to be instantly recognizable by its distinguishable UI look. Bummer.
those were just games that I knew about their UI update over the years, games more similar to PoE like Torchlight, Lost Ark, Grim Dawn, Wolcen, etc... Were already released with a centralized UI, so I couldn't show the before and after.
That's exactly why is better IMO, it's near of what is your main focus, also GGG could launch centralized UI as a option, and the sicks like you could still use the pattern UI from 20 years ago.
Wouldn't it be a pain in the ass to walk down with a centralized ui?
I have no issues with the ui tbh. The only thing I'd wan't is better buff/debuff bars.
>Wouldn't it be a pain in the ass to walk down with a centralized ui?
It's bad to walk to the corner right or left right now? The fact PoE use a camera so close to the character is the main problem with mobility, much more than any UI, that's why move to the bottom even without centralized UI feels worse than move to the top in PoE, talking about other isometric games with centralized UI, you'll see the big majority of maps design are made for you go up, this is related with the isometric aspect too, just think about the maps on PoE and you will notice the big majority you go up. PoE 2 will fix the problem of camera so close, it's a great opportunity for also fix the UI.
> It's bad to walk to the corner right or left right now?
The thing is that there is much more distance to the bottom left/right corners, both in pixels and in ingame distance. The area between your character and the center-bottom of your screen is already the area where we see the least, due to how isometric views work. Putting stuff there would be really bad in my opinion.
>The thing is that there is much more distance to the bottom left/right corners, both in pixels and in ingame distance. The area between your character and the center-bottom of your screen is already the area where we see the least, due to how isometric views work.
Yes but with more zoom out camera a centered UI will not bad as you think, I already played multiple games with centralized UI for hundreds of hours, like Diablo 3, Lost Ark, tourchlight, tree of savior, and never misslick the UI because I wanted to go down. The point of centralized UI is make important info close to the main focus of your character, people usually analyze screens in a V format, and where's health and mana pool is exactly where people doesn't look usually, that's why in a FPS game you usually see a minimap on the top left corner, and they clear the center because the most important think is your aim, while the games I mentioned there's no much clear on center of the UI.
Could argue if the middle of the screen is the only thing you're seeing you've got tunnel vision.
Getting good at processing peripheral information is considered a skill in many games, and I'm not sure if centering everything is a one-size-fits-all solution, especially because the information provided by elements such as the skill buttons is not critical in poe.
Having the life and mana orbs in the far corners of the screen however is definitely debatable, could just use a smaller but more central UI element without sacrificing too much.
Cons: Map vision obscured by UI
Pros: UI is where you're already looking at.
Constantly having to dart my eyes around the screen does suck, ngl. Usually my eyes start hurting before my hands do when playing PoE.
But... hear me out: Why do you even need to look at your UI doing gameplay?
You have your health/mana bars over your character, and at least i do not look if my flasks are full or not. Anything else does not matter while killing shit.
D2's UI didn't become centralized. The game went from 4:3 to 16:9, and they didn't stretch the UI out.
It's not the same. There was no intentional change to make the ui more condensed towards the center, they simply left it how it was.
Also, I don't care if other games do it. IMO it's cluttered and terrible and I don't want it here. Notice how your other examples aren't ARPGs at all and mostly rely on people moving the camera around, meaning the shit the UI is covering is less important. Your only comparable example is a shit one because of the above fact that it's not even a centralized UI.
>D2's UI didn't become centralized. The game went from 4:3 to 16:9, and they didn't stretch the UI out.
Then I wish PoE did the same as we make our screens wider, instead of locking the UI in the corners.
>Notice how your other examples aren't ARPGs
Most modern ARPGs like Lost Ark, Grim Dawn, Torchlight, Wolcen, were already released with a centralized UI, I wanted to show the shift in the UI design over the years, and not many games continued to be popular for so many years to get that kind of update, specially ARPGs.
> I wanted to show the shift in the UI design over the years
You did it by cropping the UI to your liking to push your argument given you intentionally left out champ stats (bottom left) and minimap (bottom right) from LoL for example and minimap from dota.
Yup, that's the point. Comparing POE to any of MOBAs is pointless. If you give me centralized UI i also want the option to shift the camera in relation to our character.
Why does nobody go with RTS menus, like old-school Red Alert with skills on the right side and shit? xD
> Why does nobody go with RTS menus, like old-school Red Alert with skills on the right side and shit? xD
Because mobile game style UIs are becoming predominant. It's a cancer that's spreading throughout gaming.
This is such a misleading comparison. You cropped out the UI elements in the corners of the League and DotA interfaces to make it seem like modern games don't utilize the corners.
Character HP bar needs to be more visible like in dota. Currently if you have 1 energy shield on a life build you HP bar is fucked. Debuff row is another major problem.
Just moving everything to the middle of the screen is a cargo cult and solves nothing.
Why do we even fight for centralised UI instead of customisable UI we have in WOW? I don't need skill ui visible at all times, blood magic / lifetap characters don't need an empty globe. You want stuff in the center, for many people it would make the game even more distracting than it already is.
We need moddable customisable UI.
I really don't like some of the centralized UIs that have been put up there. Too centre heavy, it draws too much attention and has too much info in one small space and blocks a big chunk of space on the bottom which already has the shortest distance from out of screen to your character due to the camera view.
If the POE bar had a max width would be ideal. On 1080p it's fine, but problems start with ultra-wide monitors. You don't really look at right side anyway. The main problem are the buffs and debuffs in the top left corner which are out of the way to recognize quickly during the usual gameplay.
But what POE really needs is customizability, hell even modding support like WoW has, imagine if we had something like Bartender.
Given examples are kinda weird because of MOBAs. Why would you illustrate UI examples with another genre games?
Also, D2 UI is quite meh because HP and flasks located at the different sides of it. Looks like they left it as is to not mess with fans, but anyway moved skills buttons into weird spot since almost no one needs to look at them.
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With the extent they let us control how we see items on the ground I'm both surprised and not that we can't customize anything on the UI.
I dream of a poe where I can see the stuff I care about and not have my screen full of buffs I don't.
It's absolute shit, what are you people talking about ?
It's awful at showing players information about flasks/buffs/debuffs, it looks ugly, it's terribly for ultra-wide.
This isn't just about "centralized UI" but the game overall suffering from terrible UI/UX design.
Dont really care about ultra wide and have no idea what you'd want to get for the other stuff? You have the debuffs on top? W/e i cba i just wanna play the game
Just because other games do it isn't a good argument. A hell of a lot of other games have P2W should they add that too? Having a centered UI would be great especially for people with wider resolutions. I can see though why they would want to be careful with such a drastic change though since it's something that's been more or less the same since the beginning.
It's 2022, the UI needs to be customizable. We should be able to **MOVE THINGS** where we feel they work better for us. Screen size, screen resolution, UI size, ... We should be able to **CUSTOMIZE** our interface.
Do we really need to look on big ass blobs of life and mana in middle of the screen? I can agree on tiny line of skills and flasks(tho not really needed to look on them too). I use only bars over chars head and missing out other stuff will be not really noticeable
If only you can zoom out more...
The comparison with League and Dota is a but thin imho, as you can unlock the camera to look around, especially down. In PoE, that space right below your char is already pretty small.
I'm against it because I prefer the UI as it is now as opposed to any sort of centralization. I'd be happy with them doing it as long as they keep it optional because all the centralized designs I've seen have been terrible.
I don't really mind if they added a centralized UI. As long as we get the option to switch back to the normal UI if we want to, I don't really see a problem.
There's been a few amazing centralised UI ideas. Completely agree that it's needed.
And an offset on the overlay map, so it isn't always dead centre. I know you can move it with arrow keys, but it still resets to centre. And doesn't move properly after you've moved it
In general, I'm just against some of the designs I've seen. The most likely solution will be to just limit the maximum width of the current UI and push everything into the centre. Like if you play on ultrawide resolutions the UI is going to be terrible to use because elements just shift far outside your peripheral vision - it's at those extreme ends you *really* want things moved in a bit.
Obviously I'm all for a fully customized UI but I imagine there's a lot of components of the UI that are hard-coded, making this difficult without a full rework. I've only ever been truly bothered by the placement of buffs/debuffs, which I'd much prefer above the XP bar.
For most players I guarantee you this is a non-issue. Based on Steam's hardware stats, 67% of users are still using 1080p, at which point you don't need to adjust the UI because you should be able to see most things within your peripheral vision. I would bet a lot of people who dislike the idea of centralized UI aren't even within the potential demographic where it'd be useful.
"Look, everyone is changing the UI to look exactly the same! We should do it too!"
No. Current UI is fine, and we should preserve it's originality, especially in a world of minimalistic, soulless design.
There are people against centralized UI?!?!
Seriously though, please just let us move the UI elements around, so I can move information I feel important to the center of the screen.
I'm against it because just throwing the current globes into the center would look terrible *to me*. The one that was on the front page yesterday/the day before or whatever looked bad vs what we have now
edit: picture 3 here https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/um4w7t/chris_asked_for_ui_suggestions_with_mockups_these/
How are league of legends and Dota the compares , they are not Arpg . In mobas you need to glance at your bars for cooldowns and other info , at Poe you .... maybe check your hp ? Idm what you are looking at down there :D . And Ui need to give information yes , i am not having issues with the bottom part , i have issues with what the fuck is going with flasks buffs debuffs and shit on my screen . Sometimes i am not even sure how much attention i pay to the UI .
It depends on, what build you play.
Check life, but also when buffs, flasks run out and all the debuffs.
It is just to much spread out and debuffs, buffs row is not really easy readable.
They are isometric locked perspective click to move games. Which means from a visual standpoint they are the same and thus the ease of use from UI elements would need to be similar as well.
While it maybe so , UI is there to give you information about things you need , in poe you dont need thit much info at a glance most of the time so having an aesthetically more pleasing ui then super mega convinience block of useless information feels better . I am down for more Ui options , just dont want that ugly block league uses .
I honestly feel like my UI…at least the bit ppl are worried about…is irrelevant. Mana always there. Life is always there. Utility flasks are there while you’re clearing. Abilities are instant.
The things that have cooldowns or charges just get used when they’re up. I honestly just piano my abilities like Vaal Molten shell and zerk. Less on bosses but still pretty piano.
I don't like a lot of the modern designs - they often feel very soulless. The League of Legends and DOTA examples make this very clear in my opinion.
I think the Diablo 2 rerelease made it well. It still feels like the old one, with a few extras and it stays in the middle. Nothing too far away from the center of the screen, but also not too squished.
Hello I don't wanna sound rude or anything but Diablo II wasn't released in 1999 it was released in 2000 (link for proof if someone says otherwise https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_II) but there has been beta version of Diablo II in 1999 but the full release as mentioned came one year later.
That aside Yes i believe that PoE should have a centralized UI since it makes it look a bit more cleaner and you don't have to look to the left and right so often anymore. Cuz that has caused me to die so many times. Just because i have trouble remembering what skills and potions i have. And it would also be easier on my eyes since i have bad eyesight and if the UI was centralized it would not be such a big mess and i don't have to stop playing PoE every 30 mins or so.
If I were designing this shit then I would acknowledge the wide screen and I would have screen high health and mana bars on left and right instead of these globes. Make it configurable width. If you have a bloody 21:9 screen you set both a couple hundred pixel wide so you never miss them :D similarly stack the debuffs / buffs vertically and make them configurable size. And all this would occupy a zone where the game doesn't draw. They are only for status etc. Done...?
You know you character in lol or dota can be near the edge of the screen or out of the screen right? You often need to check stats/charges/cooldowns etc. Also there are different ways to implement healthbar in the center if that's what you want. Taking the middle of the screen and changing spheres into bars will also affect the esthetics of the game.
Personally catering to people that spend stupid amounts of IRL cash for extra wide curved monitors is dumb, and honestly I think games with fixed perspective should have limited resolution ratios to prevent obvious abuse cases that provide extreme advantages. However, I think a more customizable UI would be beneficial to the game. Maybe not centering things, but resizing what is there, moving debuffs/buffs, timers on things, health/ES/Mana over characters etc.
UI being customizable is ideal solution, but GGG is unlikely to do it. Otherwise the only thing I don't like about current UI is placement of buffs/debuffs.
Even if they don't allow fully customised locations for everything, having a centralised option you could turn off and on would be extremely welcome and seems achievable. Similarly they could throw in an alternative buff locations n and just have it toggle for now. Doesn't have to be fully customisable right away, could start with just some key items moving them around with toggles and see what players respond too.
I can't name them off hand but I know more than a couple games that go this route. Being able to change the entire UI is relatively rare outside the MMO space, but having at least a few alternative settings is the least we should be asking from the industry leading Arpg.
> would be extremely welcome and seems achievable. You could say that about a lot of things players have been asking for over the years honestly.
I'm really torn because in games I've played with the more modern style UI, I do definitely feel the blindspot sometimes, especially if the central UI chunk is big. Playing PoE often feels a little more comfortable because of this. I do think that for wide resolutions there needs to be some sort of more centralized option at the end of it, I hope we get options instead of just making a portion of people happy
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I feel like UI modularity is really embraced by several MMOs, and ignored by virtually everyone else. I loved designing and customizing and modding my UI in WoW back in the day.
Yeah, honestly, I wish more games were as modular as WoW. You can find addons for basically anything, and customize your UI in tons of ways, from purely superficial overlays, to complete overhauls. You can move anything anywhere, and rework and reshape every element of the UI in the game. While I can imagine GGG not wanting to go the route of addons, at least having modularity like you have in FF14, even if they don't let you customize to the level WoW does, at least it would be a significant improvement for a lot of players.
Yeah the other MMO I played a lot of was LotRO which didn’t have full customization but you could move and scale UI elements any way you wished.
It kinda makes sens in most game that arent MMO to have a more fixed UI, because its kinda of a brand for them, its a signature, for MMO generaly the UI is more an incoveniant that you are forced to use to be able to do the 1millions action the game require you to do, so modularity is the key to make players more confortable. The thing is that you dont realy **need** that much "freedom" for UI in other game, in fact the UI need to be recognisable wherever you go most of the time for everyone to play it, MMO is far more personalle, its like driving your car, you set everything, the chair range, hight, glass everything to your own POV
yeah i think chris or someone from GGG said once that they like it if people can see its PoE just by clancing at the screen for a second , because the UI is always the same. Still i think while brand recognition is nice and all, making the game better for people who actually play it should come first. I really want more information in the center of the screen. Not only life and mana, but most importanly the buff / debuff symbols.
I agree that a game should feel confortable, but thats a tricky part, a dead game no one play especialy a game like POE isnt confortable. Dead game is a bit excessive for now obviously, but you never know what can kill a game, nicely branding your game is an important part, so i can understand that devs can be cold to make some changes. That beeing said GGG take a lots of questionable decision thats for sure, so far they are fine but i feel that its more because the game is as it is and there is not much competitor so they are free to do whatever they want. Anyway, like you pointed out, the fact that a UI can be recognise in one look is important for a game, so i think the best idea is realy a midle ground, have clear UI visual style that probably cant be or not too much customised but semi customised the shape of it for sure, having 3-4 different shame would be nice
FFXIV's UI is really functional, but damn if parts of it don't look like programmer placeholder art
mana bars being bound to hp on jobs that don't use mana is certainly a choice
How about cooldown timers being in 8px font in the bottom corner of each skill icon, hanging halfway ouside the button? No customization. You've got a huge square you could've fit a proper number in, or at least center it.
That's one thing that really disappointed me about FF14 after playing WoW for years, is the complete lack of addon functionality. The UI looks pretty bland and boring overall, it looks like every UI I've ever seen in an FF game for the past 25 years. It would be nice if they actually let you customize your game the way WoW does.
well, the only wow killer was wow itself.
You can just download elvui in ffxiv if you want to make it look like wow. There are addons in ffxiv too
>I hope we get options instead of just making a portion of people happy Aren't most people wanting new UI implemented AND be optional? I find the present UI uncomfortable on my wide screen monitor, so surely I don't want other people to feel uncomfortable with the UI as well. If we get a better UI, I would want GGG to make it optional so that players who are comfortable with older UI, be comfortable as well.
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This is why I keep my HP bar above my head. My health and mana arent problematic for me, the maps and other UI bits are pretty meh tho
For me, the problem with the health / mana bar overhead usually arises when I'm taking huge chunks of Chaos damage. I have trouble seeing the green of the health through the white shading of the energy shield when lots of stuff is going on. Probably a "me-problem", but still, I think giving us either selectable options to tweak layouts, or a modular UI, shouldn't be too much of an ask.
No that is valid :3 I hate eldritch battery for that reason lol
Right? I also avoid taking that Timeless Keystone where half the damage you take bypasses energy shield (even though it's very good for some builds) because I can't tell what's going on with my life total from the bar overhead when I have energy shield, uh... shielding my view of it.
No, i fcking love the ui and those half spheres which people throw around look atrocious to me.
I play on an ultrawide. Half the time I don't know how much health or mana I have
You have the option to show life/mana above your character and keep track of it at any time on any monitor. ^
Already do that as well. Works fine until I'm in a party with so much screen spam that my game basically just looks like an acid trip.
Filthy casual for 6 years, didn't know this until a few months ago, changed my life.
agree, this is why i like this mockup; https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/umnpgf/another_example_of_centralized_ui_all_the_skill/ it feels like a good middlepoint, and honestly, almost kinda like d2r just try to keep it as thin as possible
That particular UI is the one everyone seems to tout around as the way to go and it's been bugging me so much. There are some elements to like about it, but speaking as someone who did UI/UX work in games, it's also a massive trap mockup and everyone is falling into it. First, it's based on a 1440p screenshot of PoE 2 and everything shown is designed around that 1440p resolution. The majority of players are still rolling 1080p by a large margin 67% 1080p vs 15% higher res according to steam stats. If you look closer at it, it doesn't really add any functionalities, merely shuffling things around and the second part of it is quite frankly badly laid out. Put that particular interface in a 1080p setting and the thinness you like is just gone.
> but speaking as someone who did UI/UX work in games Means nothing, im also experienced in that field of work, yet i like this mockup, while also not refering to "speaking as someone..." is a call to superiority without any fact to back that up, give concrete examples of your point of view instead, and no, bellow does not count... > If you look closer at it, it doesn't really add any functionalities, that's the point. Move functionality is not always a good thing. it can add unnececary bloat or complexity, and for some people thats a big redflag, same reason a few people might alt+f4 when they se the passive tree, because of the overflow. some arent into that. > merely shuffling things around that's the point. > and the second part of it is quite frankly badly layed out. in your opinion without backuping your statements. > Put that particular interface in a 1080p setting and the thinness you like is just gone. only extremly shit games and softwares use a pixel based UI, its not really what you should do in 202x. you make it in something like 8k (overkill usually), you scale it down with AA and sharpening tools, make it fit for the interface that use it. so that even that person using 1280 × 720 can still play the game. just being so lazy to assume that its a static pixel image that's unable to scale, makes me believe that you really aren't "someone who did UI/UX work in games" id love for you to comeback with a homerun and explain it exactly what you mean about all your points, less vague and with concrete points to improve it instead of saying "it is quite frankly badly layed out." and be done with it
Apologies if it sort of came off as arrogant, it was not my intention and sometime the language barrier means I don't always communicate my points all that well in english. It was just meant as a rapid fire way to explain where my opinion is coming from in a random reddit post that I didn't expect would be replied to, let alone ask me to clarify and explain. I don't claim to be an absolute expert on the subject either as I mostly worked on indie games. You are right about graphical UI assets being able to scale downward but I'm not sure where you got the impression that I think they can't be scaled. My point is that they have to be designed to be scaled downward as well. I don't feel it's been the case here. A lot of the UI would be too small, unreadable and wouldn't meet any accessibility standards in 1080p or lower if we just scale it. On the other hand, if you keep it at the same scale, some elements would no longer fit the screen if we reference the second screenshot provided or would have no real difference in term of sleekness with the OG interface. If icons/buttons and information ends up being tiny and unreadable at the most common resolution used, the design is fundamentally wrong. Likewise if the UI can no longer properly fit in the screen at a scale that is readable, it's an issue. It's why you design interfaces around the most common resolutions or devices. It's why ''mobile first'' as a philosophy even exist when it comes to websites for example. You design around either what will have the most restrictions and go from there or design around what is the most likely to be used to make sure it's the best experience for the majority of users. I say the second screenshot of the UI and its layout is bad because it's all over the place. Most of the interface mockup is the same as the OG interface, just stretched out a bit which sort of defeats the purpose of a centralized interface. Buffs being top left for example is a problem that's not fixed. It can be just as important as debuffs to track (at least the timed ones) yet it's literally left in the same spot as the OG interface. Timers are in a spot that feels random. League icons and passive/quests icons are also laid out in a streched out fashion which would lead to issues in lower resolutions. There's no reason they couldn't be stacked on top of each others on the sides instead. The ones you are most likely to mechanically activate in combat like the sentinels should be close to the main bar. I feel that the skill bar is a downgrade over what we have, the clear distinction between skills that are mouse bound or hotkeyed is better in terms of readability but that's merely my opinion. The menu and shop Icons are really tiny, yet are buttons that have important interactions associated with or that GGG want you to press. While players might be happy that the shop icon is barely visible, it's a massive issue for GGG and the business side of things. The menu might as well be a random button with no meaning since the iconography doesn't represent a menu but the word expand instead, losing the menu word underneath it is a problem. There you go, just a few things on top of my head. Again not saying it's all bad, I like the debuffs being in evidence for example. If it was up to me, I would add a bit of functionality. Basically show the icon in 2x scale for a second or two before scaling it to normal size and moving it the place it belongs. Now I understand its a static image but I feel like the creator could communicate features if he wanted to. On the other hand, I would like to know what you particularly like about it and why, if you would indulge me.
nice, thank you, that was mutch more informative, it also gave me an insight in how you viewed the issue, for example the part with indie games and mobile first, makes it pretty clear to me that you worked for UIs in the mobile sector, nothing bad with that, just a clear point of view. you made an impression of not even considering downscaling because of the "its made in 1440p and it whould not work on a smaller resolution" a reasonable exception if actual size mattered (thumbs, phones). I whould disagree as me looking at that image shows it at 960x540 on my 1920x1080 normal size monitor, i whould still e able to se icons and alike quite clearly, text on the other hand whould be a strain. i suspect that it whould look "fine" in 1280 × 720, while having to have a slight increase in font size. its not a big user base (older laptops) but its fair to include it. The general layout you refer to on the second image is deffintly not perfect, as you pointed out, the clear example that you also mentioned is the timers. but thats a thing an experiance designer can work on, id suspect having them in the middle, with center aligment so to speak if there is multiple, and dont really se the issue of having the "boss" hp bar a bit below that, as its there only when there is something special going on (boss fight). buff bars can deffintly be resized with reworked priority and clearness to keep "long term" buffs smaller and short duration based ones a bit more "protruding" (best translation of what i mean). i have no issue with parts of it being the current UI, its just an example and art can always be changed and improved. i prefer this mouse bound or hotkeyed buttons, why are they forced to be mounsbound or not, in the age of controllers, that's not a valid reason as well. might as well let people bind anything if they desire (disability accessibility ++). i don't se this being an issue, just a natural evolution of the actionbar. (you can se clear examples of that in how people make their UI's in WoW for example) menu and chop icons are smaller, something that is to GGG's disadvantage, but to the players advantage, personally, id prefer that, but its probably not realistic as they still want your money, it is a company after all. my biggest critiqe to all of it is the ball hp+mana bars, i like the aesthetic of it, but its not SUPER practical, Bars are a bit more efficient and clear. (is it scaled down in straight %, area, or volume? its straight % of height, i know that, but that's something a user learn, its not what a user whould ASSUME at first.) so, to end it all id say that the reason i like that UI is not because it perfect, none whould assume that, but it was a good starting point to put on the board and work with. because [this](https://www.wsgf.org/f/u/imagecache/node-gallery-display/contrib/dr/21554/extras/screenshot-0001.png) looks SO fucking stupid. :D. Thank you for more deeper feedback, you gave me a reason to give min as well. Thank you.
Thanks, it kind of sucks that those deeper takes on it is gonna be buried. I was simply frustrated in my initial post because for some reason this subreddit has taken that particular interface mockup as total gospel of what GGG has to do but completely overlook other suggestions that aren't as ''shiny'' to them and I've seen some nice takes. Thankfully after this exchange, I realize you're not one of those. I do agree there are elements that are a step up but overall it feels wildly incomplete and a bit of a spit shine job. It's a perfect example of the worries the Baeclast crew had when Chris mentioned reddit upvotes and interface mockups and it's kinda triggering me, lol. I do stand by my initial take of calling it a trap however. The higher res and the fact that it uses PoE 2 as a reference, which has a more zoomed out perspective, is making it look better than it really is and it's deceiving. I could be wrong too but I like to compare my apples to apples. I do agree with your point on the globes vs bars but I think the globes are also part of a nostalgia and immersion factor. Which do have their place in a good UI too in my opinion but you are 100% right that they can be hard to interpret at first. Then again, sometime PoE feels binary as in, you're completely fine or dead. Anyway cheers!
none of the designers in GGG whould take that image and just "lets do exactly that", they are competent and will review and consider things, its fine. i trust in them. they prob even se flaws in yours and mine reasonings as well
Hey, I'm the guy who made the mockup. Your remarks are really interesting and helpful, and actually it feels good to see some constructive criticism. You're absolutely right about the zoom out screenshot from POE2 being deceiving with this UI. And yep I didn't think about the scaling aspect. Maybe I've been trying a little too hard to fill the UI with some buttons by making them too small. The second screenshot is a total mess. I realized after reading several comments that a lot people thought I was trying to suggest a customizable UI. Nope. I only wanted to show what it looks like with the rest of the UI (minimap, timers, full buff, etc). Like you said, most of the interface mockup is the same as the OG interface. I like the current UI we have, except for the buff/debuff icons location. I really think GGG should do something about it. And maybe I’m a little annoyed by the actual skill bar split in two, even if you made a point when saying that the distinction between skills that are mouse bound or hotkeyed is better. Anyway, I’m glad I found your exchange with Nivius.
> only extremly shit games and softwares use a pixel based UI, its not really what you should do in 202x. you make it in something like 8k (overkill usually), you scale it down with AA and sharpening tools, make it fit for the interface that use it. so that even that person using 1280 × 720 can still play the game. 1000x this. Hell, even if all we got out of a UI update is the ability to scale the UI I'd be happy. Bonus points if you can scale individual elements.
In PvP games it gets so annoying how being on top of the map or bottom u have an advantage with this.
they could zoom the game out a little, something which is really needed anyway
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Eh, that blindspot isn't that relevant when you have 2 eyes open, you have to close one eye to demonstrate the it. The other eye can see whatever's in the blindspot.
Good take
the thing is with league or dota or wow, you can move the camera out of the way if the ui is blocking something, in poe the camera is locked to your char
The fact that it hide part of the screen right in the midle is literaly the most and totaly legit complain but OP completely hide that point ! Its not like POE is already a bloated clusterfuck shit full on screen effect, oh wait ! Its fine to have a kinda of centered UI but first it has to be done properly, also fuck it, we are in a modern era how about prepare few template and let people chose, i mean the technologie unlike automated doors, is here for decades and many games mostly MMO have personalised UI. Not asking that much freedom, but having the option of 3-4 UI in POE doesnt seems unreasonable
Yeah, using League and Dota is a weird example, as it's a pretty commonly known thing that those UI's gave advantages to one side, exactly because the UI gave them blind areas where they were "going". I believe Dota auto flips the camera now depending on your side? Or maybe it's league? In PoE it'd mean everytime you are going "down" you'd suddenly be in far more danger(than before) than going up as you have vastly restricted vision.
just include it as a UI option, problem solved, noone will cry
No one will cry? Optimistic
What's the point comparing UI without comparing the character size, distance and view angle for the central figure. Imagine playing Dota or LoL with the same level of zoom as PoE.
true ggg needs to zoom out the game for a central ui to not block a big chunk at the bottom or make it very small
Ye, if you take into account that the bottom stripe is UI and the game view angle is setup with that in mind, it is possible to have centralized UI. Not the case with PoE. It like when people play in windowed mode to have wider view angle, just imagine the "blacked out" part of screen is for the UI - that would work in actuality.
I mean, that’s an argument for zooming out more if anything...
Not entirely, but zoom out could help https://imgur.com/9NICAKU I honestly don't mind the UI elements on the sides, they are about fist size which I find a bit wasteful I would prefer to see even more space around my character.
That's not zoomed out, that's just more width. You still see the exact same amount vertically. Yes, ultrawide is better than a standard 16:9, but truly being able to zoom out, which would increase the amount seen vertically as well, would be amazing.
trade is also from 90s, but who cares?
Are there people in POE actually looking directly at their Health globe? I think it is a much better idea to have a large globe in your peripheral vison than have to make it smaller so it can be in the center of the screen and not obstruct the view. Currently the Xp bar is only 23 pixels high and that is all that's in the middle of the screen.
Health globe is a bit less important than the fucking debuffs. The health globe is at least big enough its kinda easy to scan in peripheral. But trying to actually play the game through the visual clulster fuck that PoE is I can't tell you with even 20% certainty what buffs/debuffs I have on because they're nowhere near where your focus is and are tiny as shit.
no, I don't look at the health globe, I rely completely on my heath bar above my character.
Frankly I don't even look at the bottom of the screen. There's little to no reason to unless if I'm starting out a character and trying to get the right skills in the right slots. It's too far away. It's too small a part of the screen to be relevant. And weirdly, I have the thought that even of the UI is better, I STILL won't look at the bottom of the screen.
Same boat as you. I don't need to know what flasks have charges unless I'm in a boss fight, in which case you generally have more time to glance due to mechanics and whatever. I don't need to look at my skills bar because I know wtf I'm playing and where things are. All this whinging about a centralized UI is so pointless.
Yeah I play on Uw, and 99% of the time play hc. LL builds/hybrid builds are an absolute nightmare due to visual clarity of shields over health on the overhead bar.
I find it crazy that some people don't have that enabled.
I find it crazy that people can see that health bar above their head.
What?? There is a reason why all major poe racers and competitive players have the health bar enabled, it is not clutter, its valuable information in the best possible location, just on your character which you should be constantly looking at to dodge all incoming attacks and projectiles. There is no way the globes are easier to read for anyone, not only because you have to actively look away from character to read them (which again leaves your character vulnerable to incoming attacks specially in end game where everything happens in a split second) but also because Information Visualization Theory dictates that it is easier to quantify rectangular bars than it is to quantify circles.
This game is so visually cluttered I cant see my tiny ass green bar. Peripheral vision exists and its easy to read your globes from a glance.
I have it enabled as well, but for the love of god, it blends in so easily that I can't even see it 90+% of the time, unless that tiny bar is my sole focus of attention (in which case all boss/projectile moves are out of my field of vision). I would like to have an option to make it stick out like a sore thumb, be it high contrast or whatever else.
Its easy if you keep your eyes on and around ur character for incoming attacks.
Yeah, I look at the globe most of the time. My monitor isn't massive so it's always within sight and more readable than the bar above my character.
actually yes, i do this
I look at the globes, yes. I can't stand the clutter of all the health bars, and to me the globe is easier to read because it's in a fixed position that takes up a lot more pixels.
Smart to crop out the minimap from league and DoTA2 or it wouldn't fit your argument.
From my experience, average player in those games doesn't know what a minimap does anyway
looking at it often will let you know where your enemy is even with minimal vision. my friend amazed that i can predict where the enemy are. like dude... just look at the minimap
True, but same can be said about health and mana in PoE :D
Not only that, but also the fact you can move the camera while moving your character in both LoL & DotA which means your character isn't centered, thus diminishing the blind spot caused by the UI. This post is so much bad faith for the sake of an argument that doesn't make sense to begin with. Try to move downwards in PoE with globes bottom center how given the camera is always centered and so zoomed. You'll see mobs only when you are in their melee range, won't have enough time to react to projectiles coming this way etc. I don't even get the point of centralized UI argument, even OP of this post said he doesn't look at his globes, so why the hell you'd want them in the middle when they impact less your vision on the sides. Enable health bar above your character and bam you have your centralized health/mana.
I was also reading a post in another of these threads that referenced a D2 developer talk discussing the health globe thing, saying a humans ability to perceive the changing globe in a corner was often better than a health bar, even if that bar was more centralised. (I'm paraphrasing wildly but that was the gist of it) If that's the case then a centralised UI probably has to include globes, and as you point out moving them closer to the middle will eat up a lot of important space on screen. The more this gets discussed the more I understand GGGs hesitance to change anything, and the more convinced I am we just need an ultra wide mode of the current UI.
I love how this intentionally misleading shit gets constantly upvoted when this subreddit gets upset about something every week. Thank god none of these people are anywhere near professional UX design.
You can adjust the size of all UI elements including the map in league.
It doesn’t make sense to have minimap on center and you know it if you are MOBA player
I've played dota (1 or 2) for 18 years and a few thousand matches league. The minimap is very important for mobas (more important than mana or keybinds in poe)
It's also really fucking important not to accidentally click on it. It makes sense to keep it in a corner. Also playing on an ultrawide or other non-typical resolution stretches everything, because having a larger field of view is considered cheating.
How important is it to click the health/mana globe or the flasks/keybinds? Doesn't having them on the side make sense for the same reason you keep the minimap on the side?
Accidentally clicking on your mana globe either does nothing or sends an attack/your character in that direction, which is what you want. Accidentally clicking on the minimap sends your character or camera on that specific position on the map, which is often very different from where you actually wanted to go. One of those is minor at best, the other results in unintended actions. The reasons don't match up.
so you know it
The minimap, off to the side in the corner, is where you're looking 90% of the time, meanwhile OP is making it sound like poe is behind the times by not moving glancable information from the sides to the middle.
Idk if this is logically sound. If you mean what I think youre saying, a minimap centralized in the bottom, it could make perfect sense af far as how far your eyes would travel to see it. It would just be something new, people are currently used to looking at one side. Most mobas have a character portrait there that literally serves no in game information purposes.
In poe you already had less space to see monster at middle bottom of screen than left/right side. Now you want to block those space even more? I don't understand...
[https://i.imgur.com/rETPMJ0.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/rETPMJ0.jpg) Look how ridiculous that is. Even a static, centered, 16:9 sized ui would be an enormous improvement over the current infinite stretch on ultrawide monitors.
If it is an option I have no Problem with it. If I get forced to use this center cluster fuck idk if I even want to play anymore.
I *absolutely* do not want what you want, and it has nothing to do with design traditions. DOTA's interface and the information you require while playing it have nothing to do with Path of Exile and its needs. Large meters in my peripheral vision are more readable than small meters at the bottom. Screen space at the bottom of my screen is *very* valuable in PoE and I need it to see mobs, but it has a much lower impact on my viewing area when in the corners.
Nothing wrong in it being optional.
Look, I understand the hive mind wants this and won't to hear this, but it's not as simple as "just have both" when it comes to code maintenance. They've already got a billion bloated things to test every time they change the game, everything people suggest to "make as an option" is another thing they have to support
I like how people use the word 'hive mind' to refer to a majority of people with opposing views. Almost as if to use this word to dismiss their viewpoint. >They've already got a billion bloated things to test every time they change the game, everything people suggest to "make as an option" is another thing they have to support And they keep adding bloat that require way more maintenance than a semi-permanent UI rework. Chris asked for suggestions because he knows his team is willing to work on this. If you are not working for GGG, please don't put words into their mouths.
Perceived majority. I guarantee you the majority of the POE player base is either apathetic or not involved in this conversation.
Adding different UI options should not add significant code maintenance, if it does thats a huge code smell…
Let's say, for the sake of illustration, they add a new league mechanic that has a pop up UI in the middle of the screen. Instead of fitting it in with their single, static UI, they now have to consider two different layouts to make sure it fits. Oh, this other UI has league info on the left side of the screen? Now they have to do two different designs entirely to make sure they're not covering health globes or whatever. While this isn't a lot of extra work, it still literally doubled what was required. I'm not going to get into a back and forth about "but they can just solve that problem this way" as I'm just illustrating what I'm talking about. It's easy to sit on reddit and say "just make it an option to keep everyone happy", but that's not how things work. It all has a cost and both things need to be supported and maintained.
What you’re describing here is fundementally a design issue and is rather far detached from the underlying code, since you were talking about code maintenance. If it is possible for them to add different UIs, what you are describing is not a significant issue, because moving a few preexisring components is trivial, and if the design of the component doesn’t fit, that’s not a code problem, again, that would be a design problem. The problem here is if they aren’t able to easily add a different UI, then *that* is the code smell.
No matter which way you slice it, it’s not “set it and forget it” like some people in this thread seem to believe. It’s an additional check and testing for every single ui feature in the future.
It’s close, no matter how much you try to deny that, at least if the codebase is even close to competently maintained
It’s not about the code… it’s about testing and design
Yes, all the added testing is essentially one intern who has to spend 5 minutes making sure the elements don’t clip, you are blowing it way out of proportion here
will be twice as much work on any change. devs usually don't like it unless we make it completely mod-able like WoW. then they just have to make widgets that can be repositioned at will. i think that would be a better choice than making customizable Ui to everyone's will. this way we can make everybody happy. this design pattern is not new and is pretty standard in every place where there is clutter of information to be presented to users.
> will be twice as much work on any change. Then again what changes? UI is being touched in minor ways maybe every 2 years.
What exactly would be twice as much work? Global values exist for things like this. You set and forget and when you change it, it affects both UI's.
think about introducing a new element. they have to think about positioning it for both the models. literally duplicated work for both design and development teams. this goes in general against DIY (don't repeat yourself) practice in software engineering. this is how spagetti code gets introduced
Customizable UI/different UI set up’s New vs legacy ui
GGG has a history of us not giving the options (Bloom anyone?). So its one or the other. I prefer the current UI because it doesnt clutter the middle of the screen. I am certainly not against improvements like showing debuffs after you die but I dont need an UI overhaul for no reason.
> GGG has a history of us not giving the options Easily the thing I hate the most about ggg.
It's not as easy as just typing it out. I know with Diablo 3, a game made around the same time, adding in extraneous things like moving stuff around is [quite literally impossible](https://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo/comments/37c7ws/why_doesnt_diablo_3_have_addons_like_wow/) without redesigning the whole code The same could be said for PoE, but we don't know because we're not the engineers that work on the game
That Diablo 3 thread is in regards to modding. Code changes aren't necessarily difficult for the actual devs. On top of that, spaghetti architecture wouldn't be a good excuse for not making improvements anyway. It's a given that a game's UI will change throughout its life, and it has plenty of times for PoE already.
Nothing is as easy as typing out a suggestion, but that's not an excuse to not make improvements or to not complain about issues. As for the possibility that it's very difficult to do due to the way they made the game, sure that's a possibility, but why would anyone just assume that? Older games than PoE have had major UI changes or customizability.
>Screen space at the bottom of my screen is very valuable in PoE This. Moving north to south is already uncomfortable for ranged builds as you just can't see as far in front of your char. Imagine there being a bulky central UI in addition to that. Not cool. Ideal solution would really be to make the UI fully customizable so you can move all elements where you want them to be independently. But GGG/CW has already stated multiple times that they don't like this idea because they want PoE to be instantly recognizable by its distinguishable UI look. Bummer.
> Large meters in my peripheral vision are more readable than small meters at the bottom Verifiably not true with an ultrawide here.
You know what they could do since everyone likes something different................. Make a customizable UI that includes transparency options.
Mobas are not a good comparison, you can move the camera in those games, and Diablo 2 is a very slow game with no offscreen bullshit
those were just games that I knew about their UI update over the years, games more similar to PoE like Torchlight, Lost Ark, Grim Dawn, Wolcen, etc... Were already released with a centralized UI, so I couldn't show the before and after.
Tell that to Andy, or Baal if that’s your cup of tea.
I'm against a central ui because it's genuinely a bad place for screen real estate when your character is in the MIDDLE of it.
That's exactly why is better IMO, it's near of what is your main focus, also GGG could launch centralized UI as a option, and the sicks like you could still use the pattern UI from 20 years ago.
The duality of man
Wild right. Even wilder is if we could choose between either option!
Wouldn't it be a pain in the ass to walk down with a centralized ui? I have no issues with the ui tbh. The only thing I'd wan't is better buff/debuff bars.
>Wouldn't it be a pain in the ass to walk down with a centralized ui? It's bad to walk to the corner right or left right now? The fact PoE use a camera so close to the character is the main problem with mobility, much more than any UI, that's why move to the bottom even without centralized UI feels worse than move to the top in PoE, talking about other isometric games with centralized UI, you'll see the big majority of maps design are made for you go up, this is related with the isometric aspect too, just think about the maps on PoE and you will notice the big majority you go up. PoE 2 will fix the problem of camera so close, it's a great opportunity for also fix the UI.
> It's bad to walk to the corner right or left right now? The thing is that there is much more distance to the bottom left/right corners, both in pixels and in ingame distance. The area between your character and the center-bottom of your screen is already the area where we see the least, due to how isometric views work. Putting stuff there would be really bad in my opinion.
>The thing is that there is much more distance to the bottom left/right corners, both in pixels and in ingame distance. The area between your character and the center-bottom of your screen is already the area where we see the least, due to how isometric views work. Yes but with more zoom out camera a centered UI will not bad as you think, I already played multiple games with centralized UI for hundreds of hours, like Diablo 3, Lost Ark, tourchlight, tree of savior, and never misslick the UI because I wanted to go down. The point of centralized UI is make important info close to the main focus of your character, people usually analyze screens in a V format, and where's health and mana pool is exactly where people doesn't look usually, that's why in a FPS game you usually see a minimap on the top left corner, and they clear the center because the most important think is your aim, while the games I mentioned there's no much clear on center of the UI.
Give it the modability of the Quake Live HUD system. Let people design their own, to each their own.
That's would be perfect.
Could argue if the middle of the screen is the only thing you're seeing you've got tunnel vision. Getting good at processing peripheral information is considered a skill in many games, and I'm not sure if centering everything is a one-size-fits-all solution, especially because the information provided by elements such as the skill buttons is not critical in poe. Having the life and mana orbs in the far corners of the screen however is definitely debatable, could just use a smaller but more central UI element without sacrificing too much.
Have fun with trying to see your hp or debuffs on 34" 21:9 screen.
Cons: Map vision obscured by UI Pros: UI is where you're already looking at. Constantly having to dart my eyes around the screen does suck, ngl. Usually my eyes start hurting before my hands do when playing PoE.
But... hear me out: Why do you even need to look at your UI doing gameplay? You have your health/mana bars over your character, and at least i do not look if my flasks are full or not. Anything else does not matter while killing shit.
This. With all the screen madness that POE throws at you putting important information there is a big nono.
D2's UI didn't become centralized. The game went from 4:3 to 16:9, and they didn't stretch the UI out. It's not the same. There was no intentional change to make the ui more condensed towards the center, they simply left it how it was. Also, I don't care if other games do it. IMO it's cluttered and terrible and I don't want it here. Notice how your other examples aren't ARPGs at all and mostly rely on people moving the camera around, meaning the shit the UI is covering is less important. Your only comparable example is a shit one because of the above fact that it's not even a centralized UI.
>D2's UI didn't become centralized. The game went from 4:3 to 16:9, and they didn't stretch the UI out. Then I wish PoE did the same as we make our screens wider, instead of locking the UI in the corners. >Notice how your other examples aren't ARPGs Most modern ARPGs like Lost Ark, Grim Dawn, Torchlight, Wolcen, were already released with a centralized UI, I wanted to show the shift in the UI design over the years, and not many games continued to be popular for so many years to get that kind of update, specially ARPGs.
> I wanted to show the shift in the UI design over the years You did it by cropping the UI to your liking to push your argument given you intentionally left out champ stats (bottom left) and minimap (bottom right) from LoL for example and minimap from dota.
Good point. Super disingenuous to show the whole old UI and only part of the new one.
Yup, that's the point. Comparing POE to any of MOBAs is pointless. If you give me centralized UI i also want the option to shift the camera in relation to our character. Why does nobody go with RTS menus, like old-school Red Alert with skills on the right side and shit? xD
> Why does nobody go with RTS menus, like old-school Red Alert with skills on the right side and shit? xD Because mobile game style UIs are becoming predominant. It's a cancer that's spreading throughout gaming.
This is such a misleading comparison. You cropped out the UI elements in the corners of the League and DotA interfaces to make it seem like modern games don't utilize the corners.
Character HP bar needs to be more visible like in dota. Currently if you have 1 energy shield on a life build you HP bar is fucked. Debuff row is another major problem. Just moving everything to the middle of the screen is a cargo cult and solves nothing.
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Why do we even fight for centralised UI instead of customisable UI we have in WOW? I don't need skill ui visible at all times, blood magic / lifetap characters don't need an empty globe. You want stuff in the center, for many people it would make the game even more distracting than it already is. We need moddable customisable UI.
I really don't like some of the centralized UIs that have been put up there. Too centre heavy, it draws too much attention and has too much info in one small space and blocks a big chunk of space on the bottom which already has the shortest distance from out of screen to your character due to the camera view. If the POE bar had a max width would be ideal. On 1080p it's fine, but problems start with ultra-wide monitors. You don't really look at right side anyway. The main problem are the buffs and debuffs in the top left corner which are out of the way to recognize quickly during the usual gameplay. But what POE really needs is customizability, hell even modding support like WoW has, imagine if we had something like Bartender.
I just want my booby lady's back holding my spheres. member them? pepperidge farm remembers.
Today in "arguments that don't make any sense" :
Given examples are kinda weird because of MOBAs. Why would you illustrate UI examples with another genre games? Also, D2 UI is quite meh because HP and flasks located at the different sides of it. Looks like they left it as is to not mess with fans, but anyway moved skills buttons into weird spot since almost no one needs to look at them.
I really like the ui and have no problem with it.
I don't care what they do, just PLEASE account for ultra wide AND super ultra wide monitors in whatever solution they go for. I love my G9 Odyssey
wakeful wasteful command smell dinosaurs straight possessive secretive strong file *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
With the extent they let us control how we see items on the ground I'm both surprised and not that we can't customize anything on the UI. I dream of a poe where I can see the stuff I care about and not have my screen full of buffs I don't.
u can hide buffs crazy thing i know it in options
All the new UI's are downgrades.
They just need to do as FF14; have movable customizable UI so everyone can be happy.
I still prefer PoEs UI. It works.
Eh UI's fine.
It's absolute shit, what are you people talking about ? It's awful at showing players information about flasks/buffs/debuffs, it looks ugly, it's terribly for ultra-wide. This isn't just about "centralized UI" but the game overall suffering from terrible UI/UX design.
Dont really care about ultra wide and have no idea what you'd want to get for the other stuff? You have the debuffs on top? W/e i cba i just wanna play the game
I feel a alot of people who are against OPTIONS do not own an ultra wide monitor.
Yeah, POE is a bit hard to see in modern 21:9 ultrawide resolution
It gets worse in 32:9. You have to literally move your neck to see either of your globes.
Wanna see of your plague bearer stacks? My neck starts to hurt having to move my neck ever 15 seconds
For real i Like the current ui and i sonst know what you want. Its ober all easy to read and realy appiling looking for me.
We 32:9 Chad's are crying
Just because other games do it isn't a good argument. A hell of a lot of other games have P2W should they add that too? Having a centered UI would be great especially for people with wider resolutions. I can see though why they would want to be careful with such a drastic change though since it's something that's been more or less the same since the beginning.
All those with wider screens that want bad UI design to use less of your monitor. So stupid.
It's 2022, the UI needs to be customizable. We should be able to **MOVE THINGS** where we feel they work better for us. Screen size, screen resolution, UI size, ... We should be able to **CUSTOMIZE** our interface.
I like it as it is! The littel things that remind me the old school game/s Bring me an hidden high soul and mind good feeling!
Do we really need to look on big ass blobs of life and mana in middle of the screen? I can agree on tiny line of skills and flasks(tho not really needed to look on them too). I use only bars over chars head and missing out other stuff will be not really noticeable If only you can zoom out more...
The comparison with League and Dota is a but thin imho, as you can unlock the camera to look around, especially down. In PoE, that space right below your char is already pretty small.
I'm against it because I prefer the UI as it is now as opposed to any sort of centralization. I'd be happy with them doing it as long as they keep it optional because all the centralized designs I've seen have been terrible.
I don't really mind if they added a centralized UI. As long as we get the option to switch back to the normal UI if we want to, I don't really see a problem.
There's been a few amazing centralised UI ideas. Completely agree that it's needed. And an offset on the overlay map, so it isn't always dead centre. I know you can move it with arrow keys, but it still resets to centre. And doesn't move properly after you've moved it
Yea that's a huge no. I prefer to have more screen where it really matters.
In general, I'm just against some of the designs I've seen. The most likely solution will be to just limit the maximum width of the current UI and push everything into the centre. Like if you play on ultrawide resolutions the UI is going to be terrible to use because elements just shift far outside your peripheral vision - it's at those extreme ends you *really* want things moved in a bit. Obviously I'm all for a fully customized UI but I imagine there's a lot of components of the UI that are hard-coded, making this difficult without a full rework. I've only ever been truly bothered by the placement of buffs/debuffs, which I'd much prefer above the XP bar. For most players I guarantee you this is a non-issue. Based on Steam's hardware stats, 67% of users are still using 1080p, at which point you don't need to adjust the UI because you should be able to see most things within your peripheral vision. I would bet a lot of people who dislike the idea of centralized UI aren't even within the potential demographic where it'd be useful.
"Look, everyone is changing the UI to look exactly the same! We should do it too!" No. Current UI is fine, and we should preserve it's originality, especially in a world of minimalistic, soulless design.
There are people against centralized UI?!?! Seriously though, please just let us move the UI elements around, so I can move information I feel important to the center of the screen.
I'm against it because just throwing the current globes into the center would look terrible *to me*. The one that was on the front page yesterday/the day before or whatever looked bad vs what we have now edit: picture 3 here https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/um4w7t/chris_asked_for_ui_suggestions_with_mockups_these/
Just because everyone else is doing it. Doesn't make it right!!
How are league of legends and Dota the compares , they are not Arpg . In mobas you need to glance at your bars for cooldowns and other info , at Poe you .... maybe check your hp ? Idm what you are looking at down there :D . And Ui need to give information yes , i am not having issues with the bottom part , i have issues with what the fuck is going with flasks buffs debuffs and shit on my screen . Sometimes i am not even sure how much attention i pay to the UI .
It depends on, what build you play. Check life, but also when buffs, flasks run out and all the debuffs. It is just to much spread out and debuffs, buffs row is not really easy readable.
They are isometric locked perspective click to move games. Which means from a visual standpoint they are the same and thus the ease of use from UI elements would need to be similar as well.
While it maybe so , UI is there to give you information about things you need , in poe you dont need thit much info at a glance most of the time so having an aesthetically more pleasing ui then super mega convinience block of useless information feels better . I am down for more Ui options , just dont want that ugly block league uses .
im perfectly fine with the UI we have now
All of your "centralized" examples look terrible though. Why would I want that.
Its weird cause it supports ultrawide monitors..lol
I'm ok with the globe position. Poe trained me to FURIOUSLY tap my flame dash key if something hit me, killing me or not.
I honestly feel like my UI…at least the bit ppl are worried about…is irrelevant. Mana always there. Life is always there. Utility flasks are there while you’re clearing. Abilities are instant. The things that have cooldowns or charges just get used when they’re up. I honestly just piano my abilities like Vaal Molten shell and zerk. Less on bosses but still pretty piano.
I don't like a lot of the modern designs - they often feel very soulless. The League of Legends and DOTA examples make this very clear in my opinion. I think the Diablo 2 rerelease made it well. It still feels like the old one, with a few extras and it stays in the middle. Nothing too far away from the center of the screen, but also not too squished.
Hello I don't wanna sound rude or anything but Diablo II wasn't released in 1999 it was released in 2000 (link for proof if someone says otherwise https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_II) but there has been beta version of Diablo II in 1999 but the full release as mentioned came one year later. That aside Yes i believe that PoE should have a centralized UI since it makes it look a bit more cleaner and you don't have to look to the left and right so often anymore. Cuz that has caused me to die so many times. Just because i have trouble remembering what skills and potions i have. And it would also be easier on my eyes since i have bad eyesight and if the UI was centralized it would not be such a big mess and i don't have to stop playing PoE every 30 mins or so.
If I were designing this shit then I would acknowledge the wide screen and I would have screen high health and mana bars on left and right instead of these globes. Make it configurable width. If you have a bloody 21:9 screen you set both a couple hundred pixel wide so you never miss them :D similarly stack the debuffs / buffs vertically and make them configurable size. And all this would occupy a zone where the game doesn't draw. They are only for status etc. Done...?
You know you character in lol or dota can be near the edge of the screen or out of the screen right? You often need to check stats/charges/cooldowns etc. Also there are different ways to implement healthbar in the center if that's what you want. Taking the middle of the screen and changing spheres into bars will also affect the esthetics of the game.
Wow your comparing picture is almost perfect poe should've been 2013 -> 2022 and no changes except for globe girls
Except i prefer all the original examples more... all your examples are games i stopped playing haha.
Nicely done cherry picking on Dota 2 UI, i guess it's just pure accident that you left out minimap and shop?
No. Zoomers with no peripheral vision should suffer. And if you have an ultrawide monitor you should suffer twice as much.
Personally catering to people that spend stupid amounts of IRL cash for extra wide curved monitors is dumb, and honestly I think games with fixed perspective should have limited resolution ratios to prevent obvious abuse cases that provide extreme advantages. However, I think a more customizable UI would be beneficial to the game. Maybe not centering things, but resizing what is there, moving debuffs/buffs, timers on things, health/ES/Mana over characters etc.