Just what it says on the tin. The current interface makes me feel like I'm playing drunk with my hands tied behind my back. Even the nascent mods don't help much - though, I'm sure, DarN and company will eventually do their magic and fix everything.

But why leave this to the modders? While I'm sure they can pull it off, with time, sweat and tears and sans source code, it should be a relative snap for gamesas. Interface design isn't really esoterica in this day and age, and unlike us peons, gamesas developers have their own codebase at their disposal.

I think at this point I'd pay for a PC-optimized interface if it was a DLC...

Ui is superb.

I don't think it's a dealbreaker. What's wrong with a UI where everything can be done quickly with just the left hand buttons?

The UI may need some work for PC but it's certainly not a 'deal breaker'. It's really not that hard to get used to.

UI especially for conversation is clunky as hell. I've had selections switch on me on click multiple times.
Key usage is inconsistent at some places. The whole thing stinks of console controller design.

This whole UI being "consolized" really kinda svcks on consoles too. I don;t quite get how they call it a UI for consoles when it's a tdious PITA to even use on a console. The favorites list is a complete joke. Imagine playing a pure mage, a mage who has a variety of spells to help him out in combat. But he's constantly having to pause combat, go into his "favorites" to select a new spell. here's a perfect scenario explaining the whole tediousness, and remember as you read this, on the console there isn'y 8 hotkeys like there is on the PC to use.

1. Cast Oakskin, then engage the enemy by sniping with my bow.
2. Flames as default attack
3. First guy dies, I want to quickly cast Raise Dead to make an ally
4. At the back I realise there is a caster who is going to be a big problem, switch in a Ward and focus on him
5. Ouch! I took a pounding at range, switching in Heal to recover
6. I'm out of Magicka after that, enter menu for a potion or two
7. Oakskin ran out, recast it or they will one-shot me
8. Enemy Mage is dead now, Raise Dead another Zombie
9. Three enemies flanked me, cast Mass Confusion to give me a breather
10....etc

Just imagine how non-immersive this combat would be, having to pause and jump in and out of the favorites menu for all this. The UI is a joke, and the biggest jojke of all is calling it a console UI, when it sux even more on the console.

To clarify, I don't mean the left hand/right hand thing. That's just fine. Cool, in fact.

I mean the inconsistent button assignment, hardcoded buttons that break if you reassign them (favorites bar, why hath thou forsaken me), and other assorted hangups for which an F would be given in UI Design 101. Maybe it flies on the conosles, but not on a PC.

EDIT: Guess it doesn't fly on consoles, either.

Yeah its one of the worst deigned UI's...ever for a RPG.

I don't mind it to be honest, I like it from a visual standpoint. I just need another row of hotkeys!

Because it can be done even faster if it worked with a mouse.

Fortunately, Bethesda releases a creation kit with their games and serious UI modders are already discussing fixes in the Mods section of the forums.

It is mildly [censored] on console as well.

Eh I don't find it clunky for conversations... just use the keyboard. W,S to move between options, E to select and tab to quit.

This is why god created 'Hot Keys 1-8'... it negates the entire need to go into menus during battle, even as a spell caster.

UI is awesome once you master it.
You just have not mastered it.

Mildly? Quite an understatement.

On opposite day. It's one of the most clunky PC interfaces in recent memory. What's worse is that the hotkeys constantly unbind themselves any time you use a spell, because the spell is always first equipped in the left hand. This ruins sword and shield or dual-wielding bindings and you end up having to manually requipped those items every single time.

Yep. The UI is garbage regardless of the platform. There are major minor league errors on every single aspect of the UI. The lists, the visual displays, the routing, the hud....

It was designed with a couple ideas in mind, but never polished or studied for practical use.

Did you read the post? Consoles don't have 8 hotkeys. The point of my posting was that the UI on the console , which allegedly this ui was designed for, sux even worse on the consoles. There are not hotkeys.

UI in general is fine; I'm playing on PC with very few issues.

My main complain is the game occasionally unbinds my hotkeys for no reason. Only takes a few seconds to fix but it's annoying in a heated battle when hot keys randomly decide to stop working.

Except, I have a mouse, which lets me pick selections and scroll through them much faster.

And it goes on the fritz if you happen to have your mouse on the dialogue selections, and you're using the W and S keys. Your selection falls out of sync and you end up choosing a dialogue option you didn't want to use. Worse when it happens in menus.

i wholeheartedly agree . . . this games was just not meant to be controlled with a mouse. or at least the UI wasn't designed that way.

navigating the entire menu system with the wasd keys are giving me hand cramps lol

The UI is a bit clunky and annoying in parts.

But not nearly enough to be called "worst" or "dealbreaker".


But hyperbole is how discussion goes these days, whether it's in politic, religion, sports, or anything else. :tongue:

The only problem is that Hotkeys doesnt work for most of the time. As soon as you move to enchanted weapons you will notice that your weapon looses hotkey after every hit. What's more is that when you use dual wield you can't assign to equip the weapon into selected hand. As long as your weapons are unechanted and you only use bow + weapons its ok, but when you try to cast a spell there is no way to get back to dual wielding weapons anymore.

I have to say that I have no idea how in such a great game essential element of it - the GUI did pass the Quality Control. It destroys the atmosphere and causer frustration.

I'll not even mention that games released in 1990's as text based titles had better UI's that showed you more and in easier way.

Large parts of the UI "smells like a brain-storming session":

"We could show the skills as giant nordic letters, and wander around them!"
"No-one knows nordic, maybe we could have an animated swooshy thing?"
"I've got a better idea - we could use constellations!"
"And then we could swooshily animate them!"
"And you could wander around them!"
"You're a genius dude!"
"Shame the UI guy is on holiday - I'm sure he'd love this idea. Never mind - I'll send instructions to the flash guru, he can do it over the weekend and send it direct to MS for 360 QA"

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Impressively, the game is still very good, despite having perhaps the worst UI of any AAA game that I can remember.