The menu interface is apparently a mess of hard-coded options that are inconsistent.

Confirming might be Enter or Y...depending. Certainly not the Use Key.

The Use Key moves an item from a container to your inventory. In that interface it uses items in your inventory rather than transering them to the container.

R will move ONE item from your inventory to a container. Press R when looking at container items and it grabs EVERYTHING and places it in your inventory.

There are other problems, especially if you change the default key bindings - to use ESDF for movement I must use AutoHotkey, otherwise I can't favorite items. Switch R for another key? Then dropping items won't work.

Overall the interface outside of combat is horrible. It is inconsistent, not easy for even mods to fix (I've looked), and key config options can break the game unless you undo them.

Mouse for looking will always be superior however moving with a keyboard not always as good. Ideally a joystick for movement and a mouse for looking would provide the optimal comfort and actions per minute as well as accuracy on look. I prefer the 360 controller for any offline PC game that has good support for it. IF its online say like Battlefield 3 the only thing I would consider using a joystick or controller for would be flying. Same with an MMO obv a controller lacks the amount of buttons needed.

What? Joystick superior for movement? Back in the Jedi Knight 2 days, you could totally tell who was using a joystick over a mouse/keyboard combo. Lets just put it bluntly. A keyboard/mouse combo will kick the crap out of just about anything other than a flight sim.

Seriously... What games do that? Joystick and mouse... lol. Wow...


You can. Someone just didn't read the directions... LOLz

Default keymappings are one thing, and the inability to change the "button help" graphics when you remap a key is a (relatively) minor issue. Where the UI fails is mouse/keyboard sensitivity.

I'm not talking about mouselook. I'm talking about having to press the F key 3-4 times to change between first and third person perspective. I'm talking about clicking on one dialog option and the game selecting another. These things are infuriating and can't be written off as something that you just have to get used to like the rest of the UI. I don't mind the UI as a whole - I've gotten used to most of the default keys and I find the UI a marked improvement over the Oblivion default UI (though I'd prefer to see lists handled better through smaller fonts and tighter spacing), but the seemingly random detection of mouse clicks and key presses is a *broken* aspect of the UI that needs to be addressed.

Finally...someone that understands the real issues.

Having the UI tell me which key I custom bound an action to is meaningless. I don't need the UI to remind me about custom keybinds (of my choice) after just 1 hour of play. This is such a minor issue that PC Gamers should be shrugging it off whithout a second though. Instead, I believe that we have now entered the age of Console-PC Gamers...I don't think I really need to explain what that means to most old school PC Gamers.

The problems described above are the real issues. The issues that can't be resolved without the assistance of Bethesda. Outside of that everything else is workable for those that are willing to invest 15 minutes.

Remapping the keys would be nice, except that the feature is poorly implemented. I changed my key-bindings so that I could access the inventory with a quick press of the F key and moved the toggle camera button to Y, but now in the inventory I ALSO need to press Y to favorite things and the game never bothered to update the tool-tip so I'm still being told to press F to favorite when in reality F closes the inventory screen. And let's not forget how many of the key-maps in this game are hardcoded. Re-mapping one key function causes EVERY function using that key to be re-mapped. And the game never bothers to tell you this.

It is infuriating how poorly ported the interface was.

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/EricSchwarz/20111114/8890/User_Interface_anolysis_Skyrim.php

Bad as in the exact same as every pc game ever release since the late 90's? Okay then...

I've been around since the pong days too. Using a controller felt odd until I set the right joystick to inverted. It made way more sense to me from a hand eye coordination perspective.

I do wonder about people saying they have *no* problems with the interface - they just say "I have no problems" and when I've asked they never answer specifically that they don't have the *specific* problems that we're talking about, I think most of them aren't even using the mouse in the menus (sometimes they keyboard doesn't even work properly).

And all Bethesda has said about it is they probably won't be fixing it (per dev comments in UI threads earlier).

Unfortunately, since they don't have anything else to say about it, almost everything here is wheel-spinning and recriminations, because among other reasons, the tech support forums are full of people who have no problems but rather than play the game they'd prefer to have arguments in the forums. So much progress is made that way.

I hope the CK helps people, but from the dev comments it looks like the worst problems are harder to fix than that (the modders are working with the flash script they used for the interface, but that doesn't cover everything that causes issues. I think it will finally require a "total interface conversion."

Personally I find the interface problems (inconsistency of confirmations, inconsistency in menu item selection, wrong item selection, etc) to be extremely annoying and a constant interruption to gameplay. They could be "fixed" (partly) by switching to a controller, except that I'm not satisfied with the way controllers turn and aim. That's just as bad or worse, for me, as the interface problems for mouse+keyboard.

Should have waited, checked the forums. Pre-ordered, foolishly.

- Linear lists for inventory.
Accessing a linear list is O(n), accessing a grid would be O(sqrt(n))
- Text only for inventory, no icons.
'a picture paints 1000 words'. Since the dawn of civilization people have understood that the human brain processes pictures much faster than words.
- No search.
Computers are built to automate processes; why am I having to search my inventory manually?!
- No logical ordering.
sort of alphabetical, but not entirely.
- No stable ordering.
ordering will randomly change as items are added/removed from inventory.
- No visual cue of item type.
potions/poisons, gems/soul stones/craftables, bows/swords/axes, helms/torso armour/boots, etc etc - they're just jumbled together.
- No visual cue of stolen items.
only shown in each item's description.
- No separation of equipped items.
gear mixed in with the rest of the inventory, no visual representation of player character wearing equipped items
- Inconsistent key<->action binding & labelling.
take/take all/use/drop/drop all
- Hideous waste of screen real-estate.
inventory screen
- Scrolling when unnecessary.
inventory screen
- Frequent actions buried within deeply nested menus.
active enchantment effects, known spells, known shouts
- Inconsistent or confusing navigation.
skill perk trees
- hidden critical features
hotkeying, rotating 3d view of objects in inventory

....and that's just the major design faults!

Add to that all the minor faults I've not listed, and the plethora of bugs relating to the mouse & keyboard focus logic.

Looking at their past efforts, I'm not surprised - pretty much every Bethesda game (after Daggerfall) has had chronically poor menu systems.
Beth please hire a UI programmer to design a good modern interface, rather than the barely adequate interfaces we've been stuck with for the past 10 years.

I wouldn't be surprised if in the future we see Skyrim's interface feature in many University HCI courses on precisely what not to do!

Oddly Arena & Daggerfall had passable interfaces; I guess having so little screen space teaches you to be efficient - less is more.

Not saying its something people do but you can argue up and down that moving with wasd is better than a stick but we could just load up a game see how has better movement(the joystick/gamepad or the keyboard) and who has better aim to target(the mouse or the gamepad). The point I was making was if you feel like a jerky camera is your issue a mouse and keyboard would be better.....if you don't like the way movement works on a keyboard then the controller is much better.
I use a gamepad(nostromo which has a joystick on it [censored] albeit but the idea is there) or my zboard and my mouse in my other hand...based on what kind of game I am playing. Some I just use my 360 controller because APM doesn't matter if you are offline...not the kind of APM difference I am referring to at least. Played tons of games and have had the need to rebind keys for all of them due to not using a normal keyboard for any of them. Not having good rebind support is a sign of a port(which this is) or just a terrible game. Like someone else posted the point of PC gaming is to be able to customize more than a console. Mods being required for some of the more strange aspects is fine but to say you should need a mod to hotkey or rebind keys is one more step towards making the whole game yourself...what are you paying for? I find these days most people are far too accepting of laziness on the part of companies(any kind really) and are quick to defend them...Where does this type of mind control come from? And might I have one of these fool pills that everyone seems to be taking.
Cause>Effect if you can't figure out what that means in this context well jokes on you hopefully I will be long dead or too old to game anymore in the next ten years. Not looking forward to the pile of garbage that you guys will give GOTY in 2021..

Oh and GG Mr. Jedi Knights .....to be clear a joystick is a stick that you move an xbox 360 controller has two of them. They are better for movement hands down...the only reason they aren't on gaming keyboards is the lack of a good angle and a brace so that it can be used. I used to run circles around people in PVP with higher APM playing a rogue on yes a 360 controller(thanks blizz for having a character that needs so few abilities to win) up to gladiator rank. Same for raiding strange how 24 people using a keyboard to move cant manage to avoid any of the area damage stuff....most would just auto run or keyboard turn on this amazing keyboard...sure the argument could be made that one should not keyboard turn....and they shouldn't but that is a post that I am sure you will find on every MMO board. Even those moron devs still make keyboard turn a default bind(just shows they play the games they make less and with less skill than its actual big fans). The Moral of the Story: I (and others who game as much as I do for as long as I have) POV is more insightful than a bunch of derps that leave the same bug in what 3 or 4 games now is it. But defend them and maybe you will just get a giant turd in a box as TESVI

I'm not sure what your reply had to do with the portion of my post that you chose to quote, but I never said I had "no problems" with the UI. In the first 3-4 weeks after Skyrim came out, the fact that the button help didn't change was a significant issue. Here are just some reasons:

• people change key assignments to their preference
  
• the manual doesn't list which commands are derived from other commands
  
• changing your draw/sheathe weapon key changes the store/give key (this is only an example)
  
• the interface tells you the original, default key for all commands, leaving you with unusable commands in some instances

This problem isn't fixed. I've only bypassed it by using (and getting used to) the default commands. This worked for me, but I hardly consider it a solution - for anyone.

Only one developer has ever commented on the decisions behind these issues and that's http://www.gamesas.com/user/341528-socrates200x/. He/she hasn't made any declarations on whether this issues will or will not be addressed. You can check the user's page or http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1275750-modding-the-gui/. The fate of the UI as it is changed/modified by Bethesda is currently unknown. If you want to call it something else, you're doing so without any information. Putting faith in the community to provide a UI overhaul is a completely different matter. Personally, the overall design of the default UI isn't that bad - it's the implementation that's horrible and it has very little to do with being a console port (design = console port; implementation = developer laziness). If it were implemented with a bit more common sense/sanity, I would be very happy.

SkyUI is shaping up to be a fine UI replacement, but it's not something I need. In many ways it breaks the fluid design of the default UI, requiring as many as 10 keypresses to get back to spells/skills/map where you previously only needed 2. I'll re-evaluate it when it's more complete, but I'll be more interested to see if Bethesda fixes their UI for us (and by fix, I mean sensitivity, list positioning and spacing).

I am perfectly fine with it, never had to move my hands away from wasd/mouse. Much better controls in Skyrim than in FO3 for example with all the quick binds for map, quests etc.

I'm not sure what your reply had to do with the portion of my post that you chose to quote, but I never said I had "no problems" with the UI. In the first 3-4 weeks after Skyrim came out, the fact that the button help didn't change was a significant issue. Here are just some reasons:

• people change key assignments to their preference
  
• the manual doesn't list which commands are derived from other commands
  
• changing your draw/sheathe weapon key changes the store/give key (this is only an example)
  
• the interface tells you the original, default key for all commands, leaving you with unusable commands in some instances

This problem isn't fixed. I've only bypassed it by using (and getting used to) the default commands. This worked for me, but I hardly consider it a solution - for anyone.

^This is why I chose to use a gamepad because I don't use the stock WASD keyboard for any game at all and the context of buttons in menus is just lost. To be clear I agree with you sir its terrible options. ALL GAMES SHOULD ALLOW FOR COMPLETE KEY REBINDING FOR PC BOTTOM LINE!!!!!!!!!111111argh!!1!!!!

Sorry I was not clear, not everything in the response was about what you said (I thought that was obvious, obviously it was not). I was continuing on from your point.


The search feature on the forum is helpless, but one of the earlier comments by the dev in question was about what was and was not being addressed in patches, this was also mentioned associated with the release patch (1.10), that was by a different person, I think it was the ST rep associated with the board.

The dev has also mentioned a few things they "didn't have time to get done properly," which seems to have become a recurring theme.

Yes, this has been offered as the reason for many of the unbelievable decisions. The button help doesn't change because they were concerned about loading graphics for all possible keys into VRAM and decided that it was okay to have button help that would most likely be wrong. Either they didn't have time to do it properly or they chose what they believed to be the lesser evil. No exploration of alternatives, no realization that available choices were not remotely acceptable, and no understanding of how derived commands would make the game unplayable after only a couple of keys get remapped.

I agree 100% and have said the same thing on countless boards over the years (almost verbatim).

However...we're PC Gamers. We should already know that this won't be the case and should have already figured out a way to deal with it ourselves. We could sit here all day and name a ton of different things that the devs should have done but that doesn't get me into playing the game any faster. Instead, I took the situation into my own hands and resolved the issues within an hour so that I could play the last 250 hours without concern.

More PC Gamers should be thankful for what PC games offer us...the ability to alter things the way we want regardless of what the devs did. Thanksfully Bethesda creates games that allow for such diverse modification.

Meh I play and prefer to play this game on a controller which is of course being a port better supported (especially in the menus) than the mouse. If this was a shooter or an MMO or anything online however it would be going back to the store....wait I pre ordered digitally....I hate the future

The worst offenses are these:


1 - Not making a key remap ability for PC

2 - Making the alt key sprint. This is a brain fart on programming side. Im holding Alt to sprint away from an opponent. I NEED to get my inventory so I can change spell change equipment etc. As Im holding alt and W I press tab. Guess what happens then. It was worse before patches because it would cause an instant game crash. Now it just alt tabs out LOL. I hope someone fixes this with the creation kit because its driving me nuts.

I bought a XBOX 360 controller just for playing Skyrim... its SOOOO much better

1. Already available with the installation files.
2. Not a problem once you start using the file from #1

@BioFringe

2. The point is this: the devs should have realized that they were making it extremely easy for the player to press the Alt+Tab key combo accidentally with the default keybindings. That's not good. They should have known better.

Unfortunately this is irony.
We've been told that Skyrim would be a siplified,streamlined game,yet the steps we need to make just to find and select an item are multiplied.
The menus are not working with keyboard and mouse,they are completely broken and the game is only playable with a xbox360 controller.Bethesda should add the controller on the minimum requirements,because it is.
I tried using keyboard and mouse and after a huge battle with the main menu I managed to watch the intro and get to the character creation screen.I got stucked there and couldn't change anything else except my race.
I pressed the right arrow to move to the next option which was "face" and the cursor wouldn't move.I tried clicking with my mouse,and it wouldn't select.I even tried pressing [d] which moves right in-game,but still the cursor wouldn't move in the character creation menu.
Then I said "Oh Hell!" and I plugged in my xbox360 controller.

Absolutely! Without a doubt. Can't argue against that in the least. All I'm saying is that regardless we have the ability to resolve a lot of the issues for ourselves. Does it svck? Yes. But certainly no more than not doing something about it and thereby not enjoying the game. I seriously hope that they fix every issue ever raised about Skyrim (won't happen of course) but in the meantime I'll fix that which I can and move on to playing the game. I haven't run into a single Control/UI issue that was game breaking for me, yet. That's not to say that they don't exist for others but the Alt+Tab issue isn't one of them.

Bethesda are professional trolls......harlequins......carnies......swindlers

I for one am baffled why they didn't just map Sprint to Shift by default. I've tried, and it is much too difficult to try and press Tab while holding L-Shift without first letting go of Shift (you could let go of W but then you're not moving anymore, defeating the purpose of sprinting, so a player won't do that). It's hard enough where in the heat of combat that is exactly what you are going to do (because L-Shift and Tab are normally pressed with the same finger, ring finger to be exact).

That rules out accidentally bringing up the Steam Community window (I've been playing for 200 hours with L-Shift as my sprint button and never once had to deal with an accidental Steam Community pop-up), and gets rid of the problem caused by having Sprint mapped to Alt (which is normally pressed with the thumb, meaning it is easy to press both at the same time as they use different fingers).