WIP: An Update on DCUO's New UI

Hey All!

We've been quiet on the New UI for a while. At SOE Live we announced it was in the works and stated that you'd all have a chance to see the work in progress and chime in. Well, we're about to share the first look at it this week, and I wanted to layout some background so you have context for what you're about to see.

First of all let me say that this.... making a UI is A LOT of work. The game has a huge UI as it stands and redesigning, retooling and reimplementing takes time. We're a ways away from getting it all done, but thank you for you patience and hope you look forward to it as much as we do.

The first thing you're going to see is a video showing the layout and flow changes to PDA. It's not final, but you can see the direction it's going in. As we've been working on it, we've been thinking about questions that will come up right away. So I wanted to take a minute (or several) and see if I can address them before 20 threads start on the same topic. In no particular order...

• Question: Why go through this effort and replace the UI rather than fix the existing issues?
• Answer: Easier said than done. We have years of experience working with the existing UI. Implementation is not easy as everything is it's own unique snowflake. We feel that starting fresh with lessons learned will make implementation moving forward much easier (which is a benefit to you and us). Also, it's not as performant or lightweight (memory-wise) as we want it to be. But most of all, it's clunky. It doesn't have a clear flow, common layout and can be frustrating to navigate with.

• Question: Will it have the same look?
• Answer: No, it won't. While there may be commonality with the current HUD, the PDA will look much different (as you'll soon see). There are a number of reasons for this which include:
  • The current PDA blocks a lot of world from being viewable which dramatically reduces situational awareness while using it.
  • The shapes and curves in the current PDA waste a lot of space. This means that information must either be crowded together, not included or put off screen (where you need to scroll to it).
  • The old menu layouts are not consistent which makes players memorize them, hunt for what they're looking for or tear their hair out in frustration (these are not mutually exclusive btw).
  • The art style of the old PDA added to the memory it took up at runtime.

• Question: Can we swap back and forth between the old and new UI?
• Answer: Sadly, no. We're completely replacing the backend which the old UI ran on. Due to the nature of the change, moving on to the new code base will not make both supportable.

• Question: Why not bring it out in pieces so we can take advantage of the improvements along the way?
• Answer: The nature of the backend code work makes supporting the old UI a herculean effort. Due to that, we feel utilizing our efforts to move forward with the UI will drastically reduce the overall time to get it out.

• Question: Any differences between PC & Playstation?
• Answer: All the core functionality will be consistent. However, we will be incorporating mouse friendly interactions and navigation.

• Question: Will it be customizable? What about the blue from the old UI?
• Answer: There is some customization that we're implementing in regards to color. You'll be able see what we have so far with upcoming video.

• Question: Will it perform better or worse?
• Answer: It'll perform better in both framerate and memory consumption.

I know you'll have a lot of comments and questions after seeing the initial glimpse. We'll be updating you with designs and screens as we move forward. So if you didn't get all your questions answered right away, just give us some time.

That said, the new UI will not have every issue fixed or new feature added that we'd all like to have in there. We're definitely going to make an effort, but some things may be postponed until after it's live. Moving to the new interface will allow us to make changes and improvements much more cleanly and quickly. Due to this, we will make tradeoffs on what is done now and what we'll delay for expediency.

Finally, I want to reiterate again - this is very much a work in progress. There are months of work still to get done, but I'm positive, with your input, we'll get something that is a dramatic improvement from the existing interface.

Cheers

Pez Fedora

Could we maybe get an option to see hp and power numbers instead of bars for group members/ourselves? I'd just like the option to go between bars and numbers.

I would also like to be able to see the buffs and debuffs on my party members.

What, no teaser pics?! Where's a desk to flip?

I'm a PC user, but I use the mouse for navigating menus and controller for everything else. Will I still be able to do this?

What does UI stand for anyways?

User Interface

That's what DCUO needed ,a new shiny and fresh UI

How soon before we see the "WIP video"? Also, how soon can we expect to see more WIP threads on the subject?

Sounds good!

The video will go up this week.

I'm still waiting on you to add this feature that Pokemon has had in its games for years to the Soda & R&D vendors, please do add this feature.



And I hope that this new UI has it to where each kind of item has their own category tab (Collections, Consumables, Trinkets, Armor) with a x99 item stack count is stack-able, this x12 soda stack thing has gotten so old.

Here are the questions I have for now :

Will the menus be customizable in terms of position/size? Like if you want minimap on the bottom of the screen or stretch hp bar to make it more accurate.

Also do you create new UI with possibble future additions in game systems in mind, such as new filters for broker or upgrade of name system(character name@accaunt name) for example?

Will there be ability for custom sorting in the On duty menu / teleporter list / bases list as well as hiding / unhiding somehing form the list and auto selecting something if there is only one option(like auto selecting lair for lair battles if you only got one) or just auto select some lair that we couldn set?

Not sure if this is about ui but do you plan to add separate coloring tab for lair emblems? What about ability to chose individual colors for each style slot on the characters?

Will you add style name to the unattuned items so we could know if it collected or not without rolling on it first? Do you plan to add something lke this for lair items as well? It could show how many of this items do you already have.

Do you plan to add 3d preview for styles and base items right from the loot window?

Again not sure about it being ui related but do you plan to add ability to unhide(combine) your waist style while using trench coats and hands style while using hand blasters/brawling weapons?

Are you gonna get rid of "form raid" function and just set it to auto trigger when you invete 5-th person in your group?

Do you plan to add option to watch all unlocked cinematics from the character select screen(as well as adding Fractured Future there)?

Do you plan to add 60fps option for PC?(as far as I know PS4 version got in in the options) There is a VSync(I know you can disable it) but it caps game at 30fps for some reason.

Awesome! Can't wait to see it!

For the playstation will this hopefully fix the issue of the disappearing UI/HUD?

As of the moment only way to fix it is to relog. It sucks when it happens in combat while doing a raid or alert because now you cannot see you loadout bar and when to clip the WM crit.

I've asked for it many times and just want to get it out there again, please allow us to see HP numbers in the bars, like many other MMOs out there. Please and thank you.

Looking forward to seeing what progress the team has made.

I spent a significant chunk of my career as a UI designer, so I can readily empathize and understand.. Having said that, expect some feedback

I'd also like the option to turn off the low health "grey affect" and just have the red tint on the sides, sometimes the grey makes it's difficult to see things and there are times in pvp where I'll survive at low health for some time.

The ability to click on a name from the chat interface to invite, ignore, friend, send a tell or almost any chat command would be amazing but I don't know how a PS player might be able to use such a feature.

It would be nice if when the PDA is up the right joystick acted like a mouse, so you can drag items, etc.

Would it be possible to get a UI Keyboard for controller users on PC ?

Very exciting news. Also, it's always enlightening to hear the technical reasons as to why certain changes are made to the game, so kudos again for going into the specifics. It's sounds like writing new code for the UI was a huge task.

Well, keyboard support is fully functional in the PS4, why not just allow for actual mouse input with a PS4. As well as using the right thumb stick.