Give Us The Horizons Menus Back

[Berzerker53]

I've attached two screenshots that I took which I hope will allow others to understand my frustration for the 'updated' UI that we have received in Odyssey. These menus are entirely oversaturated with icons and sub-menus and have become needlessly clunky. I do not like them. At all. What was wrong with the list formats from before?

Particular irritating include but are not limited to:
• The station services menu (goodbye list format)
• The mission board
• The shipyard (goodbye list format)
• The contacts menu (In the station services screen)
• Outfitting
• Advanced maintenance menu (goodbye list format)
• The galaxy map

Where is the option to revert them to their Horizons versions? This DLC has completely overhauled essentially every menu in the game with the exception of the left and right panel menus in the cockpit of your ship. I didn't ask for these overhauls and nor do I want them. Thanks.

 

[Zieman]

The new ones are designed with ipad in mind, not suitable for a computer / console game.

 

[Northpin]

Yea, the modern UI
Which is not better than the older on, just... newer. And i'm not really fond of it either...

@OP - have you tried doing some Robigo runs in Odyssey?
How much do you miss the cabin and seat requirements from the new interface?

 

[norlin]

The old UI is always feels more comfortable - but that's just because we got used to it.

If skip this, the new UI is definitely more clear and consistent.
Though it does have a lof of issues - both old ones and some new.

That does not mean we should demand the UI revert, actually we should demand the further fixes & improvements, maybe even a new complete rework.

 

[varonica]

Yes I have got used to the new menu system. Yes it does have its problems, but so did the old one. Some functions of the old Horizons galaxy map were removed that I really liked, but some additions to the new galaxy map in Odyssey I really wouldn't do without now, given the choice I would still choose the new galaxy map because of its extra functionality!

The other menu's, that's neither here nor there, they just needed getting used to and I find them just as useful and easily used as the old ones.

 

[Zak Gordon]

Oh God! I hate Metro inspired modern era UI design, even Microsoft understood their mistake and (after lots of complaints and a good number of years) they reverted to the cleaner, better understood and organised UI flow of pre Metro era UI.

I'm totally with Berzerker53 on this, the new UI redesign is hideous and does not do what a UI's main purpose is about, impart info as efficiently with as much readability as possible. Yuk. Sorry UI design guys, you got taught 'bad' things in your classes

Edit: and apart from the awful Metro layout, why did they get rid of the 'Human' faces? This is like a step backwards to pre Frontier (Elite II) interfaces in Elite. Where is the personality and the people we are meant to interact with? Are the consoles struggling that badly in power we need to do this kind of thing? Or is this very much a 'work in progress' situation.....?

 

[Northpin]

One of the reasons i'm reluctant to log back in Horizons (or to play on XB)
Everytime i start EDO after a Horizons session i have a Damn, this interface shiver moment

 

[Brrokk]

I've been continuing in Horizons after trying Odyssey. Not so much because of the shape of the UIs, but because they're not "joined up".

For example, in Horizons, if you select a destination after launching from station and then enter supercruise, the destination is still selected. In Odyssey I found that it became unselected; in fact several times I had a random other destination selected instead.

Maybe this has been fixed now? The UI behaviour was full of minor annoyances like that though.

 

[DemiserofD]

There are a LOT of things that are annoying about the Odyssey menus.

• The way you can't see why you can't take Passenger missions sometimes(I think it's when you don't have a medium ship, but it doesn't TELL you that.)
• The way you can only see what quality of cabin a passenger mission takes if you DON'T have the right class. (if you have a luxury class cabin, you literally can't see the requirements of any mission, so if there's one luxury and 3 first-class, and you only have one luxury cabin, you need to cycle through every single one of them, one by one, to make sure you put the right one in the right class.)
• You can now put passenger missions in different-class cabins, but you still can't take said passenger missions unless you have enough cabins of one size.(IE, you can now put 8 passengers in economy and 4 in business, but you can only take the mission if you have 12 economy cabin slots available).
• Why does it now take two different button presses to access the mission board/passengers instead of one? That's just annoying!
• Outfitting is still just a massive mess. If you select a C2 hardpoint it still lists ALL your weapons, so you need to remember which class it is and the list looks like a MESS.
• To make matters worse, it also lists modules that are elsewhere! You think you can equip some module you didn't realize was there, only to click it and find out it's actually 500ly away?
• You can't actually see the stats of modules anymore? You can see the engineering effects but not the stats themselves unless it's actually equipped on your ship? WHY.

And this is just the beginning. Why did they make the UI WORSE? Odyssey should have been dedicated to making the game better! Fix old annoying things! Stuff like this:

^This is my left-hand panel, targeting a planet that does not have a ring, yet inexplicably lists the resource level(despite that being a system-wide status), and yet does NOT list the fact it has 5 biologicals on it!

If I want to see the SYSTEM is pristine, I look at a planet with no rings. If I want to see if the PLANET has biologicals, I have to load the entire SYSTEM map and scroll all the way over and check each and every planet to see which one has it!? WHY.

OR this!

See where it says "Adaptive Zoom Failed", instead of, I don't know, LISTING THE BIOLOGICALS!? I KNOW I didn't zoom right, thank you very much, you don't need to let it linger for 15 bloody seconds while I'm staring at the next planet! If I succeed at zooming, the 'adaptive zoom failed' display should disappear IMMEDIATELY!

THESE are the sorts of things that need to be fixed! Not inexplicably making everything take twice as many button presses to access and hiding all the important information from us for no reason!

I'll be composing a full thread on this sometime soon. I'd appreciate your guys support and help in finding more UI annoyances like this so we can bring them to Fdev's attention.

 

[varonica]

I've been continuing in Horizons after trying Odyssey. Not so much because of thre shape of the UIs, but because they're not "joined up".

For example, in Horizons, if you select a destination after launching from station and then enter supercruise, the destination is still selected. In Odyssey I found that it became unselected; in fact several times I had a random other destination selected instead.

Maybe this has been fixed now? The UI behaviour was full of minor annoyances like that though.

I've never seen that, I will test it for you next time I am on.

 

[Zak]

What is also revealing in the screenshots is the FPS counter on the top right corner...

 

[Ski'Thor]

I've never seen that, I will test it for you next time I am on.

Can confirm... had this "happening" several times.
Mostly after using auto start, the ship's computer locks the station and after start precedure is completed (or canceld by yourself) you have to deselect your current target (the station) and reselect the destination. Not always but several times.

 

[Riverside]

In general the Odd UI is a downgrade in usability over the old one, the galaxy map in particular (where no changes were needed for any extra functionality) and the system map (where the extra functionality could have been added without any significant changes to the UI overall).

I think it's fair to say that the Odd UI is a factor that dissuades some from switching from Horizons without adding any extra sales (the old one wasn't perfect but it was generally fine).

There are some benefits that have come out of the new UI (probably, I assume), take that positive feedback & apply that to the Horizons UI moving forward imo.

 

[varonica]

There are some benefits that have come out of the new UI (probably, I assume), take that positive feedback & apply that to the Horizons UI moving forward imo.

There were always a few things missing from the old galaxy map, they could have added them to the old one I suppose, but maybe they had a UI designer sitting twiddling his thumbs got him to redo the thing entirely, putting the missing stuff in, of course he took out some of the useful stuff from the old map as well which is a pity.

 

[Zieman]

but maybe they had a UI designer sitting twiddling his thumbs got him to redo the thing entirely,

They should of made them play the game for a few weeks 8 hours a day first, before letting them loose.
I'm not opposed to change per se, but change for the sake of change seldom results in good outcome, as we see with this E: D UI disaster.

 

[Northpin]

Maybe this has been fixed now? The UI behaviour was full of minor annoyances like that though.

Still not fixed...
3 weeks ago i was trying to land at someone elses Carrier... I somehow missed the fact that after entering supercruise, the game switched target... prior to supercruise i had my Carrier targeted, after entering it switched to someone elses carrier

 

[Northpin]

There are a LOT of things that are annoying about the Odyssey menus.

• The way you can't see why you can't take Passenger missions sometimes(I think it's when you don't have a medium ship, but it doesn't TELL you that.)
• The way you can only see what quality of cabin a passenger mission takes if you DON'T have the right class. (if you have a luxury class cabin, you literally can't see the requirements of any mission, so if there's one luxury and 3 first-class, and you only have one luxury cabin, you need to cycle through every single one of them, one by one, to make sure you put the right one in the right class.)
• You can now put passenger missions in different-class cabins, but you still can't take said passenger missions unless you have enough cabins of one size.(IE, you can now put 8 passengers in economy and 4 in business, but you can only take the mission if you have 12 economy cabin slots available).
• Why does it now take two different button presses to access the mission board/passengers instead of one? That's just annoying!
• Outfitting is still just a massive mess. If you select a C2 hardpoint it still lists ALL your weapons, so you need to remember which class it is and the list looks like a MESS.
• To make matters worse, it also lists modules that are elsewhere! You think you can equip some module you didn't realize was there, only to click it and find out it's actually 500ly away?
• You can't actually see the stats of modules anymore? You can see the engineering effects but not the stats themselves unless it's actually equipped on your ship? WHY.

And this is just the beginning. Why did they make the UI WORSE? Odyssey should have been dedicated to making the game better! Fix old annoying things! Stuff like this:

^This is my left-hand panel, targeting a planet that does not have a ring, yet inexplicably lists the resource level(despite that being a system-wide status), and yet does NOT list the fact it has 5 biologicals on it!

If I want to see the SYSTEM is pristine, I look at a planet with no rings. If I want to see if the PLANET has biologicals, I have to load the entire SYSTEM map and scroll all the way over and check each and every planet to see which one has it!? WHY.

OR this!

See where it says "Adaptive Zoom Failed", instead of, I don't know, LISTING THE BIOLOGICALS!? I KNOW I didn't zoom right, thank you very much, you don't need to let it linger for 15 bloody seconds while I'm staring at the next planet! If I succeed at zooming, the 'adaptive zoom failed' display should disappear IMMEDIATELY!

THESE are the sorts of things that need to be fixed! Not inexplicably making everything take twice as many button presses to access and hiding all the important information from us for no reason!

I'll be composing a full thread on this sometime soon. I'd appreciate your guys support and help in finding more UI annoyances like this so we can bring them to Fdev's attention.

The passenger mission UI really bugs me too.
How come in Horizons we could clearly see from the main passenger mission screen what cabin type was needed and how many seats, but this 2 bits of information are completely missing from EDO passenger mission screen?

The cargo depot for delivery missions is also lacking... to put it gently

 

[Red Anders]

There were always a few things missing from the old galaxy map, they could have added them to the old one I suppose, but maybe they had a UI designer sitting twiddling his thumbs got him to redo the thing entirely, putting the missing stuff in, of course he took out some of the useful stuff from the old map as well which is a pity.

The new galmap is objectively less efficient and requires more clicks to perform virtually every task, not to mention the degree to which information is separated into different screens. Nobody will ever convince me that it represents an upgrade on the old one.

 

[Zak Gordon]

Now we had the news that ED (via Odyssey) will be PC only going forward i'd like to bump this suggestion to maybe add can we maybe have a UI choice (classic vs new) so PC players do not need to feel the cumbersome design constraints of consoles shaping the games GUI design (This has a grand history in gaming, for example TES Oblivion and Skyrim vs Morrowind etc)?

GUI design is about disseminating information well, not playing "work-around's" due to a persons desire to use just a gamepad for a complex game.

Elite Dangerous Horizons disseminates information well (most of the time)
Elite Dangerous Odyssey disseminates information badly, but allows you to access it clumsily via a gamepad.

Berzerker53's OP screenshot comparison perfectly illustrates the issue.

This is important 'front of house' stuff, and if you are now focusing on PC keep in mind not everyone likes to play on PC as if they were using a console, especially in a complex game.

 

[Zieman]

not everyone likes to play on PC as if they were using a console.

Or, as is the case with Galmap & Sysmap, as if they were using mobile phone.