Rant: Game interface design

[--Pete]

Hi,

OK, here's a topic we're all experts on :)

I just cranked up StarCraft and after about two minutes quit in disgust. Why? The piss poor interface, that's why. Specifically, to assign a unit to a number, you use Ctr+number, but to assign a location to F2-4 you use Shift+F#. Similarly, with a unit selected, you right click to give it a task or location. But if you click on "land", "scatter", "rally point", etc. then you have to LEFT click again.

Diablo and D2 have similar nonsense, but then again so do many other games.

Why????

Does anyone out there use a Palm? Ever notice how uniform, simple, consistent and easy the interface is. Yet I'm sure that my Palm has a lot more functions than most games (OK, Falcon 4.0 probably has it beat).

Why don't the game people actually hire someone that has a clue about interface to design it? Why is this aspect given so little attention when the opening cut scene (which everyone looks at once and then skips) is given such loving detail?

So, anyone else have any interfaces they particularly love or hate?

--Pete

[Obi2Kenobi]

Well, there is the join button being so close to the quit button in D2.

[Count Duckula]

Most of the id games (Doom, Heretic, Wolfenstein, etc.) have the same basic interface. Ctrl shoots. Spacebar opens doors. Arrows move. Numbers 1-7 are different weapons. I love the simplicity. I've changed commands in other games to match this.

Switching back and forth between D1 and D2 is a pain. D1 gets me used to a "block" walking pattern and as a result, I can't click on anything in D2 without running over it several times. Hard to be a barb tank protecting the sorceresses and necromancers when you can't target your enemies!

Speaking of targeting, the worse system is Starsiege, hands down. The mouse is the best targeter. The joystick is the best spotter. If you have teammates or need to do anything to your Herc, you must use the keyboard. Juggling three different input devices under enemy fire is a pain in the posterior.

[Nystul]

Strangely enough, the Wolfenstein-style interface has one of my biggest pet peeves. Diablo has it even to a greater extent. It's a pet peeve I never had until I started playing Quake with some guys who really knew what they were doing. Left pinky on shift, check. Left thumb on space bar, check. Now how am I going to reach the other keys I need? It turns into a game of Twister for fingers!

For this reason, my main interface demand is that a game should have customizeable controls (as in Quake or D2). I understand that intuitively, new players can learn controls more easily when they are assigned to prominent keys like the space bar. But in the long run, the most convenient keybindings usually surround the left hand on home row.

Game interfaces seem to have changed quite a bit in the Mac/Win era. Take a game like Angband, with dozens of commands and no mouse control. It took me *weeks* to learn that interface, compared to Diablo which I was able to play on day 1 without reading the manual. But after learning that Angband interface (including some high-end options like macros and inscriptions) I could not imagine a more optimal system for that game (well, maybe a few tweaks). Obviously though, a commercial game with that kind of interface (at least now that people are used to mouse pointers) would be dead on arrival.

[channel1]

To be fair, I find the Blizzard games to be better than most as far as the user interface is concerned.

But, it certainly is true that the interface could be improved.

I'm sure that a big problem is a lack of understanding of the way that people use machines. I'm not aware of any serious studies that have been done, that would have resulted in a usable analysis of the best way to develop a user interface.

Of course, there is the study of "Ergonomics", but that seems to be primarily concerned with reducing the discomfort and potential damage caused by excessive use of a device (i.e. keyboard, mouse, monitor).

Most of what we use today has been developed not through experimentation, data collection and analysis, but rather through the intuition of the designers. Unfortunately, what is intuitive for one person can be Greek to someone else. My personal example of this is Apple 'puters. I've worked on them since 1976, and have never been able to work on them intuitively. Even (especially) with the Macintosh, I need to deliberately think about what I want to do, and how I'm going to do it. There just seems to be something about the way the folks who design those machines work that throws me off.

By comparison, the old TRS-80 Model 1 was easy for me to visualize. The memory map for that machine was simple, and intuitive for me. I realized at the time that it was also very inefficient, but I found it easy to work with. Nothing uses anything link that memory map today.

I'm sure that game designers would benefit from training and experience in other fields. The field of user interface design would need to be developed first. Another example would be Hospitality (i.e. Hotel Management). As games move toward online environments, where the players are "Guests", the people who develop and operate those environments should have some training in how to deal with guests.
You don't learn that by pounding on a keyboard, eating Twinkies and drinking Jolt. :)

-rcv-

[Whiggles]

I actually find Blizzard's RTS games to have by far the best interfaces. I like the left-click selects, right-click gives quick command format -- it's certainly a lot less confusing than the system Westwood and some other developers use, where the left button selects, issues commands and deselects. That just creates a system of chaos, whereby you have to be extremely precise with your selections, or you end up losing the unit(s) you had selected.

The worst RPG interface I ever used was, by far, Westwood's Nox. It used a right-click to move, left-click to attack system, except to move, you had to hold down the right mouse button and DRAG. If the mouse was near to the character, you would walk. If it was further away, you would run. It led to an incredibly frustrating system of sliding all over the place, trying to drag your character from point A to point B. I abandoned the game after a couple of frustrating days.

[Kevin]

It's called Human Factor Engineering, and ergonomics is but one part of it. There have been tons of studies on interface design. The basics like how many colors/shapes/sizes can a person really distinguish between, how loud and how often does a sound have to be played to catch attention, how far does the eye usually travel to monitor signals has been done countless times. Good HF Engineers can make quite a bit of money and find jobs pretty easily. Though you are correct in that the field isn't very mature yet and people will settle for less. I have looked into getting a job in the field, and have gotten serious consideration by some companies (turned down an offer I probably shouldn't have in retrospect actually) for that type of work, and this is all because I have had 2 classes dealing directly with it, and several others that are tertiary to it. So, yes, it is a big deal, and yes you can learn from scientific studies about what works and what doesn't, and yes, more work still needs to be conducted.

I also want to just point out in passing that ergomonics is much broader than just the trying to eliminate discomfort or injury, but that is the the common connotation/definition of the word, so isn't really a big deal.

I do agree that consistency in design is a problem with a lot of games and that it probably should be one of if not the top priority in game design since so much of the game is the interface.

If you want to see a horrible UI look at Master of Orion III, so so so much drilling when and so many static elements where lists and movable screens would work so much better. There are many things that take 10 to 15 mouse clicks to do that could easily be redesigned to take 3 or 4. Bleh.

As to some of the Starcraft specific points Pete made, I could be wrong thanks to War3, but shift-# should add a unit to a group and if the group doesn't exist, it should create the group. Control-# will create/overwrite that group number, which is useful if you put a templar in with your zealots and didn't want, you can deselect him from the group and then overwrite the group with the control-#, and there are other reasons why you need the 2 group creation/addition methods. I also thought that you could do the map location with either shift or control for similar reasons, since having mutliple map locations makes no sense they both simply work as the overwrite function. Again, if that is only in War3 then I apologize, I haven't played SC in about a year.

If I understood the left click/right click complaint, the right click is shortcut so you don't have to hit attack/move/harvest/whatever than left click. The right click is just a short cut for the common commands for that unit. So I don't see that as a problem really. I actually found the SC interface to be rather simple and well done. I did think it lacked in some of the feedback mechanisms and could have made a lot better use of color coding information but the control aspects of it didn't seem to bad, though again its been a while since I have played it.

Just some of my thoughts on the whole issue.

[Xiuhcoatl]

...but good games like SC/BW were not meant to be played by tired, intolerant geezers like you!

You actually learned a lot more in the 2 generous minutes you gave SC than 3/4 of Bnet; most of them don't know about the "shift+F2-4" function -). Then there are those who know all the hotkeys but "forget" to use them. I have gotten so accustomed to the interface in SC/BW that I just do it. Where I run into problems is when I try to explain what I just did to someone else =P. If you decide to give SC/BW another try, let me know and maybe we can get a few games going.

I always thought that part of being a beta tester for games is to offer input on game interface as well as gameplay and other issues. I don't doubt that the SC/BW interface issue were brought to the attention of a Buzzard rep and promptly ignored.

Xi

[--Pete]

Hi,

good games like SC/BW were not meant to be played by tired, intolerant geezers like you!

LOL.

You actually learned a lot more in the 2 generous minutes you gave SC

Well, that two minutes was just that one session. I used to play a bit of SC on b.net before BW came out. IIRC, I ruined one or two games that you were in :) I recently restarted the SP game since I'd never finished it and was curious what the story was all about. Besides, I just picked up BW from a bargain bin and so wanted to get back up to speed (or what passes for speed when I play an RTS :) )

If you decide to give SC/BW another try, let me know and maybe we can get a few games going.

I might do that if I'm still playing it after I finish the campaign. Me and four comp against you should just about be fair ;)

--Pete

[--Pete]

Hi,

As to some of the Starcraft specific points Pete made, I could be wrong thanks to War3, but shift-# should add a unit to a group and if the group doesn't exist, it should create the group.

Doesn't seem to work.

Control-# will create/overwrite that group number,

Yes, as I said. The three group commands (in SC) are Ctr-# assigns the selected units to a group, # selects that group, and ## selects and centers on that group.

I also thought that you could do the map location with either shift or control for similar reasons

That would make sense, but doesn't seem to work.

The right click is just a short cut for the common commands for that unit. So I don't see that as a problem really.

If you think of it as left click selects the subject and right click selects the action (i.e., go one step beyond "programmer" think) then you will see my point. I select a group of marines (left double click) then I select where I want them to go (right click). I select a barracks (left click) and the rally point (second left click) and then I select where I want it to go (should be right click for intuitive consistency, but it is left click). In both cases, I am selecting a destination, but I use left click in some circumstances right in others. I am *playing* the game, not *programming* it. I should not have to worry about modes and shortcuts. I should only worry about cause (which click) and effect (set a location).

I did think it lacked in some of the feedback mechanisms and could have made a lot better use of color coding information

Yes. Feedback like giving the group number of selected units. The rally point of selected structures. Some indication of what the selected unit is doing. A whole bunch of other stuff.

Not counting communication in MP games, bringing up menus that are unnecessary while playing, and build orders, SC has 12 hot key commands:

Space Bar . . . . . . . Center on last transmission
Shift F2, 3, or 4 . . . Save map location
F2, 3, 4. . . . . . . . . . Center on map location

Ctrl+C, Alt+C . . . . . Center on selected unit
Shift+unit. . . . . . . . Add/remove unit from selection
Ctrl-unit . . . . . . . . . Select all that unit type on screen
Doubleclick unit . . . Select all that unit type on screen

Ctrl+# . . . . . . . . . . Assign group number
# . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Select group #
## . . . . . . . . . . . . . Select and center on group #
Alt+unit. . . . . . . . . . Select group that unit is in

Shift+Command . . . Set waypoint

In those 12 commands, Shift, Alt and Ctr are all three used. It does not appear that anyone gave any thought to a decent interface, just went along with whatever the programmers hit upon as a first choice.

Yes, there are people who have made a study of the field. Two days of consulting fees to one of those people would probably cost much less than one of the trailers they put together for E3. And it would actually add to the game instead of the hype. But as long as most gamers buy the sizzle, they'll keep getting crap served in place of steak. :)

--Pete

[Archon_Wing]

Yes, Starcraft's interface is rather confusing. I will admit to never bothering to assign hotkeys to a unit. In fact, it's more practical to use the command hotkeys (A for attack) then to bother clicking on a command. Of course, the hotkeys are inconsistent too. M builds a marine while c builds a medic. Yes they do begin with the same letter, but that's still annoying. I don't know many people that can associate the letter c with medic immediately. Also, the hotkey for Psionic Storm is T. Why is it T? Yes, they forgot to realize we can't read progammer's minds. Bah!

But I did grow to like the game. My head was fortunately still intact. :)

Then of course maybe part of the fun is overcoming the difficulty of the interface. And of course the AI. Think D2 merc AI

On the other hand, the controls for First Person Shooters drive me nuts. Well, you can customize them, but I like to play games without memorizing keys. After all, it is better to point and click rather than hammer the keyboard in frustation only to find out you've been pressing the key next to the one you should.

[WarBlade]

Ooooooh the interface debate . . .
This is usually something I see in FPS discussions.

Ironically, it was only just yesterday that I had some struggling moments with D2's badly designed interface. My left hand was running around Shift, Ctrl, 1, 2, 3, 4, F1 and F3 . . . ugh! Why do I still use these default settings? Because that's what I've grown accustomed to. One of my old jobs had me playing games and moving between machines on which the games were installed and it simply didn't pay off to deviate far from the default settings. :(

Fortunately I can forgive Blizzard for the shoddy character interface (a relic of D1) on the basis that the configuration screen allows some customization. B) But why the hell have they failed to add a Mercenary command interface yet??? Gah! I tear my hair out in frustrasion sometimes when knowing what the merc AI is capable of and not being able to override mercenary stupidity behaviour with a simple command of the ease and simplicity found in such games as X-Wing and MechWarrior 2 (mid '90s)

Isolde? You listening? :D

Well enough of D2. The interface debate is something I see from time to time is from the First Person Shooter circles. The one that always pops up is the inverted/non-inverted mouse debate. For those who don't know, the mouse usually controls the targetting reticule (or crosshair) that sits in the middle of the screen and shows where you steer or aim. Some players like myself prefer to have that pointer behave like a mouse pointer in Windoze whereby pushing it forward moves the pointer up and pulling back moves it down. The other (minority) group of players prefers the mouse to have a more joystick-like behavious whereby pulling the mouse back tilts your viewpoint up and movingti forward has you looking down.

End result? You hop onto someone else's machine running a game in which you fancy yourself an expert, make a vertical adjustment, find the pointer is behaving inappropriately, instinctively 'correct' the error and suddenly you find you are staring at the ceiling or the floor. :blink:

I find it interesting that pretty much all FPS games these use the "as mouse pointer" approach, but it was really nutty one time I first tried Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight which apparently had game designers of the opposite persuasion. The default setting had me staring at ceilings and floors and that one aspect in the configuration menu looked back-to-front - What a mindbender! :blink:

As for the rest of the FPS interface I, got hooked on Unreal Tournament's design and never looked back. Completely non-traditional this has me shoving the keyboard away through about 30 degrees and largely ignoring the left end of it. The best part about UT is all user preferences are stored on .txt so when you move from machine to machine you just grab your drink coaster, shove it in the drink coaster drive, copy the file and slap it straight in the UT "System" directory - All macros and mouse settings ready and waiting. :)

[Isolde]

Why isn't there a mercenary command interface? Ummm... I think it was because someone was afraid the game would turn into an RTS.

btw, you can copy your d2 key configuration file too. it's the file with the .d2s extension.

[Kevin]

Yes, as I said. The three group commands (in SC) are Ctr-# assigns the selected units to a group, # selects that group, and ## selects and centers on that group.

I don't have the game installed anymore, and can't find my CD's but are you sure that shift-# doesn't add a unit to a pre-existing group made with the control function? A minor point, because I am not disagreeing with your complaints on it, the way shift and control work should be universal, and from what you said it is not since control does not work for locations. I just want verification for my own sake about the shift-# for adding an additional unit to an existing group.

If you think of it as left click selects the subject and right click selects the action (i.e., go one step beyond "programmer" think) then you will see my point. I select a group of marines (left double click) then I select where I want them to go (right click). I select a barracks (left click) and the rally point (second left click) and then I select where I want it to go (should be right click for intuitive consistency, but it is left click). In both cases, I am selecting a destination, but I use left click in some circumstances right in others. I am *playing* the game, not *programming* it. I should not have to worry about modes and shortcuts. I should only worry about cause (which click) and effect (set a location).

There is a problem here though there is more than one action that a unit can take. With a combat unit, right click acts as attack or move (can't remember), those are very different functions. The way you want it only works if the units can only do one thing, but they can do more than one thing. This means, assumint a 2 button mouse, there are two ways you can handle the functions, you can have the mouse button that selects also control the action function (attack, move, harvest, repair, guard, patrol, etc) with or without a default action. Or you can have one button be the select and the other be the action function. You want the second approach. Blizzard went with the first approach. It is consistent, you can play the game with only the left mouse button, and in fact on a Macintosh where you only have one button this is how it is played. You left click to select, you select and action, you lift click again to carry out that action. This approach leaves another button that can still be used for something, so it was used as a shortcut button (and I think a two button mouse on the Mac allows the same type of thing). The game was designed to use one button on the mouse, and as such the interface does work.

So, I believe you are arguing that the game should have been designed to use 2 buttons (meaning that you would now need to design a seperate interface for the Mac), or that more shortcuts be added to that second button so that since you gave it a purpose in the first place, you can use it for that purpose throughout. Is that correct? Again I don't disagree with it having the same function everywhere, once it has a function at all. So I concede that, they didn't follow through on it. I guess I after arguing my point, I see yours now. :) I was just looking at it from the way the interface is designed, as a single button interface, and didn't follow the ramifcations to the point of what actually got made, since as a single button interface, it is good.

Space bar should actually center on the last transmission with a 9 transmission history, but same difference, yes.


So, in the end, yes the game has interface problems, and yes it could have been better. Of course when Starcraft came out, the interface was better than pretty much everything that had come before it, and the trend of companies actually consulting with HF engineers hadn't really taken off. We are talking about a game that was released in 1998 afterall. :) So, lets hope that more gaming companies do get into the practice of paying more attention to such a critical aspect and use the resources available to them to do so. :)

[--Pete]

Hi,

are you sure that shift-# doesn't add a unit to a pre-existing group made with the control function?

Just loaded up SC and tested it. Nope, it does not work. Only way to add units to a group that I could find was to select the group, then shift select the units you want to add, then control-# the group again.

With a combat unit, right click acts as attack or move (can't remember), those are very different functions.

Depends on what you right click on (and what is selected). For instance, a SCV selected and right click on a resource, it starts harvesting. Right click on repairable things and it starts repairing. On open terrain, and its like a move command. Same thing is true for combat units. Right click in the open, they move there. On an enemy, and they attack. I'll give them credit for that, they did a good job on auto-selecting the meaning of right click. It is very seldom necessary to hot key (or select from menu) a command.

Again I don't disagree with it having the same function everywhere, once it has a function at all.

Exactly. Under some circumstances, you chose a location with the right button, under others with the left. *If* you are going to use the right button, *then* you should use it consistently.

[--Pete]

Sorry, duplicate post.

--Pete

[WarBlade]

Why isn't there a mercenary command interface?  Ummm... I think it was because someone was afraid the game would turn into an RTS.

:huh:

That's a curious response. :unsure: And here's me not even imagining any similarity between keyboard-only commands for wingman behaviour parameters and the task-specific point-and-click style of RTS gaming commands.

Thinking on it a little more, I realize I left it very open to interpretation there. I wouldn't really want to see D2 Mercenary commands get to the level where you are saying, "Right you. Attack that!" I would however like to see some small amount of control in merc behaviour ie. aggressive, defensive and standard behaviour as well as a TP gobbling "Flee" option.

They've always been too suicidal as they are and all of them can run around aimlessly for long moments when there's a fight on. :(

[ithil]

Archon_Wing:
> Also, the hotkey for Psionic Storm is T. Why is it T?

Because of Patrol and Stop.


Warblade:

Heh, inverted mouse control is completely ingrained in me at this point.

[Vandiablo]

...but good games like SC/BW were not meant to be played by tired, intolerant geezers like you!

LOL also.. that's a good description of Pete, and the direction I am growing in (or is it shrinking??)

Some things never change, though-- Pete posts about loading up a game and of course it's to complain! (Yer problem, Pete, is that evidently you have not accepted the triumph of stupidity in our universe (evil was a close second)). And of course mention SC or BW and you know Xi will see it! (HI XI!)

I don't play RTS (they still called that?) any more against actual people, at least not until angioplasty is performed by the corner drug store. Of course, my bro gave me WC3 and I loaded it and... it doesn't work *sigh* ... it's not like I would have liked it that much I guess. Tho it looks to me like Diablo 3 and WC4 will be combined into something called WoW (or was it HuH?), so I better get to know WC3 I guess. Guess I'll try to make it work.

Van

[Whiggles]

M builds a marine while c builds a medic. Yes they do begin with the same letter, but that's still annoying. I don't know many people that can associate the letter c with medic immediately.

I have a feeling that might be a leftover from the days of the original Warcraft, where "C" was for "Cleric", given that a Medic more or less fulfills the same function -- much in the same way that many people still refer to gatherer units as Peons and call the Command Center/Nexus/Hive the "Town Hall".