How would you improve The Long Dark's UI?


Ghurcb

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The cooking drives me batty. It's so unnecessarily cumbersome. It will be interesting to see if the 'overhaul' extends to the UI and process or just to recipes. Let's hope its both, and hopefully to make it more intuitive and less fiddly.

But more than this its the ridiculous way you can only pick up and drop single items. So you end up with a pile of 100 sticks and have to pick them all up one by one. Or 'raw' OMB, reishi. Stones. Cloth. Metal. Cattails.

It's always annoyed me but playing with the Item Piles mod has shown me just how poor this particular design of controls/UI is. This is definitely an area I'm hoping has been addressed.

Edited by Sgt Socks
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On 11/6/2022 at 4:00 PM, javijungle said:

I absolutely support ideas like this. And let's not even talk about leaving and picking up stones on the ground.

I think it's a consistency thing. Like, when you pick up an item you get to see it up close, read the description, check its condition, etc. So it would be weird if in this rule there was an exception specifically for stones. Personally, I just double-click when I pick them up.

On 11/7/2022 at 3:22 PM, Kranium said:

That should be scroll-able, too.

Of course, there wouldn't be much use in this UI element otherwise.

On 11/7/2022 at 7:29 PM, Sgt Socks said:

The cooking drives me batty. It's so unnecessarily cumbersome. It will be interesting to see if the 'overhaul' extends to the UI and process or just to recipes. Let's hope its both, and hopefully to make it more intuitive and less fiddly.

Yeah... And with the new cooking system, we'll probably have to interact with those menus more, so they should definitely be looked at.

 

BTW, what do you all think about this idea? There weren't any responses to it (which is totally fine), but I'd like to hear if you think it could be changed or improved in any way. 

On 5/8/2022 at 6:25 PM, Ghurcb said:

I've been thinking about this suggestion for I while now. It has the most upvotes here, and personally, I think cooking menu really needs updating.

Anyway, I've had nothing to do, so I decided to spend a couple hours coming up with a better version of the cooking menu that we have now. Here's what I made.

 

When you click on a stove, instead of the usual, "cook" and "water" options, you get "cook" and "pots".

image.thumb.png.db8f6cadfa0c5f7940f657f3778d8334.png

 

If you click on "pots", you can choose any pot/can from your inventory.

image.thumb.png.096c554e3a1f39fdec8b30e9facc704c.png

 

If you click "cook", you'll be sent to this menu. Here you can choose one of the four categories. Meat, canned food, drinks, and water. 

Of course, the same limitations apply here. You can't cook meat in a can, or melt snow/boil water on an empty stove.

image.thumb.jpeg.b4a4a90b682715d051546c810c688002.jpeg

image.thumb.jpeg.43055f0e406b14386b1c8929a7f0d682.jpeg

Edited by Ghurcb
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Something I just thought of - a visibility indicator. Because half the time I can see just fine, yet it says my character can't see.

The other half I can't see a thing, but apparently character can see just fine!

Makes no sense to me, so some sort of indicator would be nice.

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4 hours ago, Ansible said:

Something I just thought of - a visibility indicator. Because half the time I can see just fine, yet it says my character can't see.

The other half I can't see a thing, but apparently character can see just fine!

Makes no sense to me, so some sort of indicator would be nice.

35 minutes ago, xanna said:

I would for sure find this useful, but I'm not sure if it's a bit more immersion-breaking than the other indicators (which is not a dealbreaker, just a thought)

Personally, I'm not in favor of adding new UI elements on top of existing ones. I think this problem could be better solved by closer tying your character's ability to see and the amount of light in the environment. The light level indoors is only linked to the time of day (and maybe weather?), so it's fairly predictable. The different boundaries could be set for different houses (maybe even different rooms), making it about the same level of dark when you can't read/sew/etc anymore. Of course, there would still be a gray area of "it's dark, but is it dark enough?", but at least it would make more sense.

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On 11/12/2022 at 9:04 AM, Ghurcb said:

Personally, I'm not in favor of adding new UI elements on top of existing ones. I think this problem could be better solved by closer tying your character's ability to see and the amount of light in the environment. The light level indoors is only linked to the time of day (and maybe weather?), so it's fairly predictable. The different boundaries could be set for different houses (maybe even different rooms), making it about the same level of dark when you can't read/sew/etc anymore. Of course, there would still be a gray area of "it's dark, but is it dark enough?", but at least it would make more sense.

Yeah, either way. I just want things to be consistent. Because when I CAN survey when it looks like this outside:

image.thumb.png.f7aedaaf22b92ddf911947cfa328d40e.png

image.thumb.png.f2282e4a4633140b5df3383bcc432eb2.png

 

 

And I CAN'T survey when it looks like THIS outside, and I can literally see a mile in front of my face clearly:

image.thumb.png.ff0c0a3f5b04b827d3483acc34f174c4.png

 

 

Something ain't right!

 

 

 

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I would like to see the ability to use the mouse wheel to scroll through items in the "space bar" radial menu - Like being able to select a low condition torch using the scroll wheel and hovering over the item without having to go into the menu. Or a setting that would use the lowest condition item first in the radial menu.

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I only use the day by day to make notes. Mainly when I kill the moose or a certain bear so I can check the respawn times.  I would like the old look journal though it looks great and fits the style of the game well.

Edited by Leeanda
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  • 10 months later...

I am 100% with you on how the old paper UI was gorgeous. Absolutely beautiful. 

Look at these:

Summary_sample.jpg.02cd7acc2fddaa0861bf67658de764cc.jpg

Screenshot_13.thumb.png.f37126f27146421ee8b81eb34d8dc017.pngLogBook_sample.jpg.bdd64bf0a3d1239ba564761b15d26531.jpgSummary_sample.jpg.02cd7acc2fddaa0861bf67658de764cc.jpgmaxresdefault.thumb.jpg.ceb214e6d0fdc9e45beb42b0179fc819.jpgClimbers_journal_page_-_map.thumb.jpg.ef08f7171fa9a70d8056d975a585b3e9.jpgTheLongDark_MissionJournal_WIP.jpg.abeb3b43c5e08c6d28f1fde398c139ab.thumb.jpg.a184287acee90b600543ec9fd55f94b6.jpg

314178187_preview_20160619182206_1.jpg

The current UI is not only ugly but also cumbersome. I think switching from the paper UI was the worst thing hinterland ever made. 

 

Edited by Mentatt76
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On 11/6/2022 at 9:15 AM, Ghurcb said:

This problem could be solved by this menu popping up when you pick something up from a big pile of similar items.

image.thumb.png.45804945149ba0cb68f27ee3abad370b.png

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I'm not sure if it can be coded into the game though... Hopefully, it can.

There was a mod allowing you to place things in bundles and pick them up again with one click. I am not sure if its available though, But hey! if a modder can do it why do hinterland devs still ignore this? 

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On 12/30/2021 at 12:14 AM, ChillPlayer said:

I came to this thread exactly to post this wish. I have a nice fire going on and I select "cook" on the cooking slot, why on earth do I have first to scroll past 20 of teas before I can select the meat I just harvested, don't you know that there are wolfs around me? So when harvesting beside a fire I usually drop all meat immediately to the ground and then right-click-move them onto the cooking slot. But this really feels cumbersome and unintuitive, I can't remember when I wanted to heat up an already cooked tea the last time, 99% of the time when I click on the cooking slot I want to barbecue some meat and not heat up some tea.

Oh my! I found all the questions and frustrations on this topic all in the same place. yes yes yes, by all means, yes!

I don't want to scroll gazillion items to reach the real food to be cooked!  

+1 to the suggestion: remember the last cooked item and pin them up at the top of the list.

another one: why we cannot use our mouse wheel to scroll all these items? (we can use the wheel on the top-down menu to what to cook though)

Remember the last tool used for the action. If I use my hands to tear down curtains, why do the first thing I see is the hunting knife every time I do it?  Think about the click terror for 4 curtains to be torn one after the other. 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Honestly, all of these are great suggestions, the only one I disagree with is the fire UI problems.  I think that it's fine.  I also don't mind that writing doesn't pause, but I wouldn't complain either.

  Although, we all feel the annoyance of having to deal with the cooking menu, cycling through the weapons without being able to prioritize them, dealing with half a dozen torches at low percent because high condition is automatically selected, and using the wrong meds to treat injuries.  "I used the darn painkillers on my sprained ankle, why didn't it work?!" "because you used it on the sprain itself, not the pain from the sprain.  Duh." 😐 😂

The best solution for the weapon cycling problems i've heard (forgot from who, derp) is where if you tap 2 it does what it does.  If you hold  2 then it brings up the radial menu for weapons.  Same with light sources and 1.

  Mainly I just feel jipped that I started playing after the old journal was changed up.  I really don't mind the idea of having a book ui style, and I think it would actually make it more immersive.  Although, if it paused while using a book-like ui I think that would reverse the immersion.

  I want that journal back, even if it's just for the actual writing in the journal part.

 

Edited by Third Try
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