Submitted 1 year ago by ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world to games@lemmy.world
It just feels lazy to me, like the developer couldn’t be bothered adjusting the UI for consoles so they copied the PC interface and bound the mouse cursor to a stick. Some games do both at the same time, having menues navigable both with buttons and a cursor, but usually that makes all menus unreliable and unprecise as hell.
Same reason they make menus that can only be navigated with arrow keys in PC games (looking at you Skyrim & Dragon’s Dogma)
I’ve been using skyui so long I forgot the menu was awful.
Why is Skyrim on that list? It’s menus are navigable with full normal mouse support.
They’re technically mouse-navigable, but they’re awful at it. The currently-click-selected option is not always obvious.
SkyUI is one of my must-have mods for that reason.
They’re navigable with full mouse, but that just means that certain mouse buttons were bound to the controller buttons. The UI is still horrible compared to one which is actually designed for a mouse
As a former developer in the game industry, I would say it just cost saving. Actual devs know it’s not optimal, but that the requirements from the guys paying them.
I think another aspect to this is that a lot of games aren’t “one and done” release it and move on any more. Big titles can get supported, changed and added to for years, and if you’re doing multiple UIs for each mode of input that means more work each time.
Plus if you allow players to swap what they use in the middle of a game, going from mouse+keys to/from joypad (on PC, but can also be done on console) then you’ve got to handle that in the UI, mirroring the same state in both of them as you switch without error/jank, and that’s a lot easier the more they have in common. If someone nudges the mouse and the UI refreshes back to the base menu, resets all they did or they lose their place, people will moan too.
GUIs are a science of their own. Think The Last of Us, how unintrusive, but at the same time intuitive is the UI in this game? Somebody spend months designing that and fine tuning it to the gameplay. A simple election cross males to the D-Pad. Crafting accessible by shoulder buttons or quickcrafting directly from cross selection. Thats the majority of your gameplay needs met. Now think Zelda: Breath of the Wild, how dogshit is the UI? Pressing the Switches tiny + and - buttons a million times, scrolling through pages of clutter to get where you want, quests being on a completely separate menu than the map, etc. I could literally go on for hours on how bad that UI is, but thats not the point I’m trying to make. The point is, that both examples are topshelf game devs. Being an experienced dev doesn’t protect you from bad decisions. Prioritizing, investing effort and understanding the connection between gameplay and UI is what makes it good. And some devs just skip that part and make due with something on of their designer came up with on a lazy Tuesday.
Also, not everything is always arranged in a neat grid, and one thing more infuriating than a cursor on console, is the selection never jumping to where you want it to.
You just said it: it’s laziness.
Lol laziness, typical Gamer™ response. Like the devs just sit back, relax and twiddle their fingers all day in the office. No it’s management who doesn’t give a fuck and don’t allot time and money to the devs to create a better UI.
Dead by Daylight on console is a good example of how terrible it can be. Either too slow so it feels sluggish or too fast so it doesn’t land on a button. Juts laziness
I’d rather have a curser to navigate a menu or character page than use arrows that arbitrarily go somewhere in the next column when clicking left or right.
I think the primarily reason is that uniform AI is cost and time saving.
The virtual cursor is easily replaceable by a mouse and at th same time allows you to design a cursor driven UI for console.
It’s not the best for either, but usable for the timw invested.
a lot of people defending lazy devs in here…
xeekei@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Wait? Console players feel like devs just copy the PC interface? Us PC players always feel like they copy the console interface and just slap a cursor on it. Buttons are huge, excessive amount of tabs, very few things visible at any time, etc. Oh and those “wheels” ugh.
Anaphylactic_Gock@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Both things happen. It depends on what the game was originally designed for.
shinjiikarus@mylem.eu 1 year ago
I don’t think Hogwarts Legacy was designed for PC primarily and it’s full of cursor control on console.
joyjoy@lemmy.world 1 year ago
The only game I can think of is Minecraft.
kautau@lemmy.world 1 year ago
spiderman-pointing-at-himself.jpg
domstoppable@programming.dev 1 year ago
By “wheels”, do you mean pie menus? What don’t you like about them?