If your talking about on Odyssey i have no idea what they (gal and sys maps) look like (if different from Horizon)? I find them in Horizon not as intuitive or easy to use as they were in Frontier (Elite II) and FFE, but i have sort of got used to their slightly cumbersome nature. But yes focus on all aspects of GUI to restore usability and readability over gamepad usage concerns imho.
Give Us The Horizons Menus Back
- Thread starter Berzerker53
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- ui suggestions
Yes, Odyssey. The maps are the biggest issue for me, that terrible mobile app UI keeps me from using EDO.
Also performance, slight concern for the wellbeing of my ageing PC, I'll stick to EDH as long as it stays viable option doing space & ship stuff.
Ok so they changed the Gal and Sys maps for Odyssey? I did not know that but what i have seen of the Odyssey GUI so far just screams 'console GUI nerf' and more importantly reduces the games ability to communicate to the player.
That really needs to be looked at, as unlike in a game like Skyrim where as a PC player you can mod a proper GUI back in (and in most cases PC gamers do this), we can't do this on our end with ED, it is all in Frontiers hands and their ability to understand an issue when it arises and want to do something about it.
I'd rather they think about it sooner than later and if they are delving deep into Odyssey code currently now is probably the time to address the GUI problems inherited from console development focus.
That really needs to be looked at, as unlike in a game like Skyrim where as a PC player you can mod a proper GUI back in (and in most cases PC gamers do this), we can't do this on our end with ED, it is all in Frontiers hands and their ability to understand an issue when it arises and want to do something about it.
I'd rather they think about it sooner than later and if they are delving deep into Odyssey code currently now is probably the time to address the GUI problems inherited from console development focus.
While there is life, there is hope Zieman 
+1
The new menus have
- a higher clickdistance (irritating), less user friendly.
- confusing icons, it takes time for the mind to interpret the icons before you can click what you need. The layout is not optimal.
Yeah, I get how that's off-putting from what I've seen.
Thing is, there was nothing wrong with the Horizons interface on console so if it was for usability, this change was absolutely not needed. This would appear to be a deliberate design choice for PC in that case.
The 'style' of re-design was for gamepad usage, which no doubt was part of the planned eventual release of Odyssey on console.
Like i mentioned you can look at many other games where this kind of thing takes place when a game is being designed for console (TES games obvious examples where the console versions are stuck with this inferior design). What indicates that is perfectly shown in the OP's comparison pics, where readable informative text lines (more tricky to select via gamepad) are replaced by huge mostly empty boxes (a bit like the 'Metro' GUI interface we got with Windows 8) that are easier to select with a gamepad.
It's classic 'designed for console' GUI priorities, and it is ok in simple games where information is not that important, but in complex games like TES or ED, you really feel it impact the QoL aspects as a user. With all the other difficult stuff Frontier Dev are no doubt working with, i hope they are at least aware of this kind of thing?
Like i mentioned you can look at many other games where this kind of thing takes place when a game is being designed for console (TES games obvious examples where the console versions are stuck with this inferior design). What indicates that is perfectly shown in the OP's comparison pics, where readable informative text lines (more tricky to select via gamepad) are replaced by huge mostly empty boxes (a bit like the 'Metro' GUI interface we got with Windows 8) that are easier to select with a gamepad.
It's classic 'designed for console' GUI priorities, and it is ok in simple games where information is not that important, but in complex games like TES or ED, you really feel it impact the QoL aspects as a user. With all the other difficult stuff Frontier Dev are no doubt working with, i hope they are at least aware of this kind of thing?
Not a big fan of the new menus, although in some places i like them better.
The one place that really needs a good rethink (or reverting) is the outfitting menu. Its an abomination.
The one place that really needs a good rethink (or reverting) is the outfitting menu. Its an abomination.
Don't see that it'll change really. It functions as it was intended to and that's normally the point where FDev leave it and look at something else.
If any of the Odyssey players here feel they have time or the desire, we could post some more comparisons to better illustrate to Frontier what the concerns are? I probably won't be diving into Odyssey soon(tm), as i'm still just in my first month with Horizons (and not interested in FPS gameplay in Elite for now).
Just from the few pics posted so far i think we can all see and understand what the issue might be, and if we are all going to be PC only on Odyssey in the future it might be nice to (hit over the head!) 'suggest' that FDev have a look into this?
Just from the few pics posted so far i think we can all see and understand what the issue might be, and if we are all going to be PC only on Odyssey in the future it might be nice to (hit over the head!) 'suggest' that FDev have a look into this?
I like the fact that you don't have to delve into each faction to see which missions are available. You can pick all, some, or just one. So if you're trying to get allied with all factions and need Rep for just two, you can pick those two.
But missing info doesn't help. I agree that if there are missions I can't take, I need to see ALL the reasons why. Maybe I have a selection of cabins, and a smaller ship, stored at the station.
But missing info doesn't help. I agree that if there are missions I can't take, I need to see ALL the reasons why. Maybe I have a selection of cabins, and a smaller ship, stored at the station.
The UI was designed for consoles. Now they've killed them perhaps they'll revert back.
Mind, pigs were not flying over Battersea Power Station this morning so it's doubtful.
Mind, pigs were not flying over Battersea Power Station this morning so it's doubtful.
I generally don't speculate too much about it, but there are more reasons to this such as 'offload backend resources' when lookups happen later, by loading & presenting later (such as with the map info).
It's better to point out whats flawed and how to fix it for a better experience.
- Clickdistance. Bad.
- Obfuscated info (hidden behind multiple clicks). Bad.
- The old interfaces had more text instead of icons. Good. Human mind trying to interpret icons only without text takes longer time to process it (At least mine is).
- The old interfaces acted more of a dashboard - more info was available at the first glance.
The new layout is not optimal, but it looks good.
With tooling we need functionality over "looks and cost saving tricks, to offload the backend".
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Nope.
I really like the Horizons UI on my XB,
I dont like the new EDO UI (which is pretty similar to the Carriers UI we have on XB too). Tiled UI is really bad, especially for mouse users (click distance) but also for Consoles (too big tiles, less space to be used for ferrying useful information to the player, also the way tiles are placed can be confusing for d-pad navigation)
I don't think they should maintain two UIs. I do think there should be one which works properly though.
The last time I tried Odyssey about a month ago, I selected a destination, entered supercruise and then found that the destination was unselected. I can't be bothered with games as clunky as that, so I've only played Horizons since. I guess I'll have another look soon.
Yeap, this still happens from time to time, even tho it was claimed as fixed and i think that for a full Update it was actually fixed.
Then in the one of the next updates, the bug regressed back
Honestly after getting used to the Odyssey UI for the past nine months, I have grown to prefer it. Especially because it lacks that stupid, persistent, irremovable popup menu that appears whenever you hover over anything in the maps in Horizons which annoyed me to no end. It's not without its issues (the occasional bugs and lack of back button support in some screens are also very annoying), but I'd choose it any day over Horizon's UI.
I just miss my rank %s
The hover and the quick menu tied the cursor are some of the things that i miss most
I think at least in part, the Odd UI was revised to address this common complaint about the pre-Odd UI. However ime that pop-up that can obscure part of the galaxy/system display has been replaced by large pop-up panels that obscure great swathes of the display, and instead of requiring small precise controller (mouse in my case) movements to hit each button, require large but still precise movements.
So I agree that the old UI had that issue, but imo the solution in practice is a worse user experience, but for different reasons. The finickity selection process still persists too, but now instead of only having to hover in the right place I often have to click 5-6 times to get the new pop-up to pop up.
My regular gripe in-game (I have only played Odyssey for at least 6 months and have used it a lot) is the ship UI and less regularly the module storage UI. I regularly want to switch ships and have to scroll down a list of them that I cannot sort by ship type, distance, cost to transfer etc as could easily be done in the pre-Odd ship UI. With the stored modules I seemingly have no way to check by location other than to go through every category & check manually.
I have mitigated both issues by storing every ship I regularly use (and all modules) in one location (currently on my carrier). It is frustrating that the new UI lacks these basic management features the old one had - the simple ability to sort a list. The new ship UI is also pretty sluggish, taking over a second to display the (pretty) ship with it's correct cosmetics applied, but the full colour images of the ships in both lists only display a default image for each ship type & not the cosmetics applied. The old line drawing ship UI was fast & responsive, and at least hid the lack of cosmetics behind a 'sci-fi' UI consistent with the ship's HuD.