The interface has been bad ever since oblivion. Oddly enough it is getting worse in every new game, I've kinda accepted that they don't want (there is no excuse) to make it even decent, so the first thing I'm looking when I get a Bethesda game is an interface mod (thanks for making the game so moddable).

I'd agree on the companion trade issue - accessing their inventory could use a shortcut to save the frustration.

Well said and as an older PC gamer, I completely agree with you. I also noticed this trend of "casualising" games for the benefit of the biggest pie slice.

Besides what you said, I also see the change of guidance or leadership as one of the biggest reasons for such trends. Years ago, games felt like they were made by developers with all other parts of company as their support. Now, it looks like they are made by financial dept of gaming company and devs are there only for support. It looks like devs themselves have almost no input on how games are developed.

The funny thing is, all of those stockholders or finance gurus that are pushing for such a concept, want their company to make another Wow. But they fail to realize not even Blizzard can make another Wow. Or they do realize that and are pushing for "Make money in the first 6 months, so we look good on spreadsheets at the end of the year".

The lack of guidance and spine is what is wrong with devs these days. Or it could be we are dealing with devs that just don't care, as they were also sold on the idea that successful launch is the only thing that will bring them bonuses.

They basically became new drug dealers with millions of potential naive customers that gladly pay for anything that comes out of their laboratories. And they also behave in the same arrogant manner. It's a sad world we are living in, and considering younger generations and their "It's a new game and that's the only thing that interests me!", it's going to become even more so.

Agree with this 100%. The same issue with Aid, is the issue with Misc, how hard is it to find a particular key, or holotape at any given time, specially late game?! :/

the truncating of object names to ... makes the game look very cheap as if they spent a couple months making it. Never liked that in the game because everyone who plays it thinks its like a bargain bin game because they couldnt even figure out how to make the name show up in the inventory screens.

No, they don't. They were always a PC company and only started putting games on console with the Xbox and Morrowind. Oblivion was a launch title for Xbox 360 and was not planned for Ps3 (and didn't come to it for almost a year, as I recall). I believe that Todd has mentioned in interviews that they estimate that their current customer base is roughly 50/50 PC/console. Keep in mind that many people who buy a BGS game on console wind up buying the PC version later to enjoy mods (and because the cost of the needed PC hardware drops after a couple of years while the modding scene matures for each game).

Usually the GUI is one of the last things developed. That is usually the reason offered for GUI issues, whether from BGS or any other developer.

Finally, a voice of reason.

There seemed to be a trend against UI costumization on PC (by developers) starting many years ago which is another reason why I got out of gaming on a PC. That and cost. I seem to remember cursing Valve over some things that could not be changed as well as a few others. Gaming on a PC started to become frustrating for that and many other reasons.

It makes me wonder (since I know nothing about programming) if it didn't have something to do with the new engines that were popping up. There was a quite a boost in graphics/performance a while back and that's when I seemed to notice things starting to change. Cost of video cards started going up drastically, RAM, etc. etc..

I think eventually consoles will be the dominate platform and I'm sure there is some bean counter in an office somewhere tracking that trend and guiding developers on where to concentrate their resources for the future.

With Windows 10, PC's are already on their way out in my opinion. They're not really PC's (Personal Computers) anymore with everybody and their brother invading your system.

Only two words: fixed hotkeys. Good luck playing if you are left handed or a esdf player.

Also a developer here, and I'd disagree. If you know you are developing multi-platform software; you don't develop for the most limited platform, you add flexibility to your design where it is needed.

They knew from the start that it would be on PC and consoles, with a little foresight it is fairly easy to design in such a way that would accommodate easy integration of different UI's. If it were designed with this in mind from the start there would be very little work to make the few modifications that would be necessary. If it took a single developer longer than a week to optimize UI for another system I would be very surprised (two weeks if you count full testing). I can pretty much guarantee they spent more development time getting the rain to interact the way it does with different surfaces than it would have taken to develop a proper pc interface.

I also miss the autosort of equiped items in top of the inventory. You have to search for equipped items all over the (messy) apparel inventory. Sometimes I even forget to put my chestpiece when I change from "charisma suit" to "combat gear".

Also, most of the time you cannot read all the name and prefix of your weapons if they are heavily modded

So many abbreviations around here. Half the time I don't even know what the conversations are about. LOL

What's an esdf, Explosive Suicidal Demented Feral or something like that?

Stop QQ u can remake key binds now just go download the beta patch.

And for the UI is fine, ppl really should stop been so close mind about UI

Inventory is fine is easy to find stuff on it, UI like SkirimUI mod are just UI that never evolve from old game where u have a freaking wall of text. And seriously that mod is more annoying that useful.

A player who uses ESDF as the default movement keys instead of WASD. (i.e, they shift the move keys one to the right, so that they can have more accessible hotkeys to assign. Needless to say, they'd be a lot more annoyed by non-customizable keybindings than someone who's used to default WASD.)

I agree with your first point, but the last line is honestly not true ... or shouldn't be; I work in software development and have done for decades, and there is absolutely not one application, game, or otherwise in which the UX/GUI is tacked on last. UX/GUI is - or should be - designed FIRST, but I suspect that Bethesda has a standard GUI they have been dragging across multiple titles, they give less thought to the GUI upfront, there's no UX/GUI review, less requirements gathering at the beginning, and possible way more of a scrum mentality, in which UX/GUI are being developed in tandem with programming.

The fact that they have managed to release four previous titles, all using the same GUI, all with the same GUI challenges, demonstrates to me that it's an area they have no development life cycle for. GUI SHOULD NOT be one of the last things developed ... but with Bethesda I suspect it's never developed; it's dragged and plugged in across the entire programming cycle and no one really gives it any thought. Which is heinous.

Except for the power armor. Apparently someone thought about the power armor GUI and probably did a mock up prior to programming.

U realize that as a companies they will die if they just stay on PC market alone right???????

Im glad they move to console market too, and i give a [censored] if they are a born PC companies, bc they are evolving.

Is more most of the things u find on each of Bethesda game show that they dont fear change something and check if it work.

U guys need to stop complain so much the UI have 0 issues, well actually i find only 1, same button for grenade and Strong melee attack. Everything else is easy to perform.

they have improve the UI over every game, i been playing since morrowind and the UI change in each game evolving it to make it more simple to use, and that is something good. The main ppl complain about the Ui is the same ppl that love the stupid mod for Skyrim UI, that make a simple quick UI, become a wall of text that over complicate things.

I agree for the most part. I expected more from Bethesda. Simple basic concepts, that are the norm for most rpgs, are missing and it's a pain. My biggest complaint being prioritizing items. There's nothing to show that an item is new, there's no way to sort items as junk, there's no way to make junk not junk (I'd like to use my antifreeze bottles to craft syringe ammo not automatically scrapped as acid), and the way weapons are named is a joke (missile launcher should be in the "M"s not scoped quad barrel recoil compensat....).

I take it you are not lefthanded, and thus don't mind hardcoded keybindings......

You're proving my point from earlier. You don't care about detail and complexity, just accessibility. It needs to be "easy" at the expense of everything else.

You'll find that this isn't representative of the majority (nor minority) of players. It's a pretty decent split. While your view may be fine for you, and I don't look at you negatively for it, it's not fine for everyone else.

I'll take the wall of text if it has everything I need/want in terms of function and features, compared to having a "simple" and 'easy to use' interface that lacks the options that would improve my experience.

Ultimately what this means is that developers have the power to appease both sides, but they don't for some reason. All it would take is a few extra tick options in the menu for you to select "easy short menu", "full featured interface" followed by giving us to choice to include/exclude parts of the interface we don't want. Adding check options for the features that you want is not an issue. Implementing those features is also not THAT much of an issue, depending on the complexity (of course).

The problem is you'll get people who "cbf reading" "wall of text cringe" etc, that ruin it for the rest of us, because they want it done for them, they can't be bothered spending a bit of time learning, reading or taking an interest.

While I don't expect you to enjoy reading a wall of text, I would expect the same respect in reverse from you in so far as to not advocate for a childs menu, just because you prefer that.

Why can't we have both?! We can. We should. It's up to the developers to make it happen.