So it wouldn't be any different at all...

Again, categorized lists are awful by default?

And the whole PC thing baffles me.
I would understand if this would be before the first patch, but they've fixed the biggest problems with the PC UI, now you can basically click on everything, you can navigate just with a mouse, heck, it seems easier to do so than with a controller.

But the "whiners" are mostly playing on the PC. Where the perk system is rather shoddy and the only thing it succesfully does is look pretty. Which we can all appreciate, sure, but Bethesda could easily have made it accessable AND pretty.


No and the perk tree isn't really a list. It's annoying to navigate, that's what it is.

The inventory is a list, which utilizes too little of the screen's room, which means you have to scroll more than you should. This is something Bethesda should have fixed.
Sure, it's playable, but it doesn't take all that much resources to make move the text up to the freaking top of the screen.

Actually that is almost exactly the problem with it. This interface is designed to be visually appealing, but not altogether useful.

The perks look nice for the first 20minutes, and have appeal visually; however once you realize that you will spent 1000 hours navigating that same interface the trouble becomes apparent.

Oh i agree it LOOKS fantastic.

But a UI is there to show information in an easy and efficient manner, and to allow easy and efficient use of that information. Unfortunately while Skyrims UI does look good, its not really easy and efficient to use due to all the extra movement, scrolling and clicking, and when you see other peoples mockups they made which look so much more efficient yet keep the great look of the UI, you have to ask yourself what where Bethesda doing.

<--- astronomer.

The perk UI screen has to be my favorite UI of all time. Just my 2c.

Well, I sympathize. I'd probably be mad too.

This is why I bought it for the 360 first, and plan to buy it on the PC after GOTY is out. I figured by then, any issues (there's always issue with a game of this magnitude), would be figured out, or there would be mods to improve them.

Well I love it and instead of spending my time measuring the menu screen I actually PLAY the game so....yea

This is pretty much how I feel. They wanted to get away from the spread sheet aspect that the past games were all to well known for and focus on a more visual experience. I agree that the system is a bit clunky, but I like how it looks just needs to function a bit better. In the end though I can deal with it because it doesn't interrupt my game.

Wait, wait. All the people complaining about this are using PC's right? So.. Why don't you guys just download an alternate UI mod? Problem solved.

Well this way Bethesda probably knows how we feel.

Otherwise they release "The Elder Scrolls VI: Summerset Isle" next year and all it has is a blank map and they'll just say "Modders will fix the rest!"...

No no, there's two UI complaints.


The first is a complaint about the UI in general. This is the complaints you see in that article, and applies to Xbox, PS3 and the PC. It's a complaint about how much wasted space the UI has and how many loops you have to jump through just to drink a damn potion.
The second group of complaints is from PC users and how crap our controls are. The X-axis and Y-axis have VERY different sensitivities, the mouse sometimes fails to register and your clicks do absolutely nothing, riding a horse is more complicated than trying to arouse a Catholic nun, etc etc etc.


Basically the UI svcks in general, but the PC has it the worst because you get a crap UI with crap controls.

I still don't understand the whole "it just looks pretty"

If 2d black and gray bars are the sings of them going for looks, then you haven't seen many menus...

Took me a little while to figure out I could click on the perks to navigate directly to them than just try to scroll through them.

It's all good now

disagree with most ui complaints. anybody who puts the least bit of effort into getting used to the ui will be a master of it with hours. it's quicker and more intuitive than any elder scrolls ui to date. THAT SAID, the worst part of the ui is indeed the star chart, if only because it OCCASIONALY doesnt respond the way it should, when i click on a certain spot it sends me off somewhere i hadnt intended - this is usaully rectified with 2 clicks or less. It could be better, but it sure as hell beats the oblivion ui which displays weapons as a tiny symbol about a centimetre squared, and dont even get me started on the morrowind menu.

in short - skyrim ui gets about a 8.5/10 from me. But keep trying bethesda : )

How on earth is Skyrim's UI superior to Morrowind's? Or ANY other UI ever used by any game ever?
I'd really love to know.

While I like the looks of it, the navigation is the toughest battle in the game...

Unscripted UIs FTL, and the difficulty setting doesn't even help...

No drag and drop, no double click and no every information stuck together in one, single screen.

Also no uncategorised lists, no undescript icons, no chaotic journal.

But it has scaleable windows and mostly useable by mouse so it must be better

Skyrim is a *huge* AAA title... We're just... Shocked to see such a poor interface in such a big budget game. It's not that it's unusable, it's that the other games we play don't have such massive problems, and some of them aren't even triple A titles... Unable to see all your skills on a single screen, having to scroll for *no reasons at all* in the item categories (sure it's a small problem... but it also means fixing it would have taken them 5 minutes...). The amount of actions you have to do to just get/check a perk is ridiculous. Would it have been hard to make so that the equipped items are at the top of the list? The favorite system is such a mess I m still unsure you can bind weapon/spells to hands? Like is there even a way to have a specific dagger always in the right hand? That would seem like such an obvious thing to add, and if it's there I shouldn't have had troubles finding it after 40 hours, sure had no such problems in other games...



I think you don't get what a good UI is... In a good UI you don't NEED to put efforts, you don't NEED to put hours. It doesn't take me efforts or hours to get into Diablo 3's interface... It's instant within FIVE MINUTES... It also doesn't take me hours or efforts to get used to the UI of an even more complexe game like Civilisation V...


Not to mention that yes I am now used to this interface it's still clunky demanding loads of extra unnecessary actions to perform even a task as simple as adding a perk.

I'm on PC and the UI is great for me.

I do not get how picky people can be.

I'd like to see the people who liked the UI write up some nice, detailed arguments in its favor. Detractors, like Eric Schwartz and http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/5679/skyriminterface.jpg have argued their cases quite beautifully, it's only fair that the defenders do the same.

Someone mentioned that keyboard shortcuts are extremely efficient for typing/programming.... where both hands are on the keyboard 99% of the time! When you are running around Skyrim with 1 hand on your mouse 99% of the time it is less efficient to rely entirely on keyboard shortcuts. It is all about having to move your hand to a different device, reorient your position and control scheme, then using the UI as opposed to a UI working with the device already in use.

I don't even have Skyrim yet, partly because I knew from Oblivion through New Vegas that the game was going to have poor UI design. It is great for a UI to be a visual delight, but it needs to function efficiently for the control scheme used by the players. I doubt there are many people who hate using the mouse when they play first person perspective games.

Why is this concept so hard to grasp? Many players want a UI that uses input devices efficiently.

Its not any easier on consoles
So no its not a console UI
Its just a bad UI....
I cant get the perk i want cuz its wedged so awkwardly between the tree list
And no amount of thumbsticks will make it easier

Well the UI interface is pretty buggy overall. We can all agree on that? Where sometimes selected dialogue isn't selected correctly or when you choose dialogue it kicks you out altogether.

My only grip (and my personal quick fix for the perks menu) would be to zoom out and have the whole constellation on each individual tree visible. No more dealing with random clicks to get to a perk off screen and getting slammed into another tree. Or clicking on the next perk and it skips that one and moves up to the next one.

I think zooming out the perk trees would be a start. But that won't fix the glitchy speech dialogues. It just needs to be patched. Hopefully it's on their list of things to do.

The perks idea and screen reminded me alot of the Jason and the Argonauts game and THAT is not a good thing at all...

I'm on PS3. My PC will run it but it is a laptop so it gets to about 170*F on my GPU... which is no bueno.

The only two complaints I have with the UI is:

1. The generic white lines with faded grey backgrounds that are only punctuated by small nordic tribal designs. It's simplistic and functional but I like more... immersion?

2. Navigating to certain specific perks is somewhat difficult, namely the ones which improve damage, etc. at level 30 in said skill, mainly due to the awkward angle that they are positioned at.

EDIT - The perks screen does not suffer problem 1 however, as looking into the night sky and choosing your feat among the stars feels fine for immersion purposes.