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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
In Game Radial Menus
AidanKD
Member
Just a follow up from a topic on Discord over Radial Menus. Radial menus don't offer any sort of competive edge (to my knowledge) however they do offer great customisability for games with lots of bindings.
A great recent implementation was Baldurs Gate 3 - where the design intent was to allow controller users to have access to the mass of skills/item bindings needed and it worked pretty much perfectly.
Things that worked well with the design:
- You were unrestricted to what you could bind. Skills, items, emotes.
- You could have multiple radial wheels.
- You could have radials within radials - i.e. if you bound a container, clicking the container would open a new radial with the contents of the container.
I honestly am having a hard time thinking of cons - since if you exclusively compared Radials to keyboard and mouse - then keyboard and mouse will be quicker in most cases. But I think Radials are a system which can complement existing systems i.e. keyboard and mouse.
How would Ashes use it?
Pretty similarly to Bg3. You setup a binding to a wheel which you hold to bring up the wheel (maybe you set a finite number of wheels that a player can have, or maybe you don't) - and you can just assign actions to one of the slots. Click to select the action I suppose? Or let go to select - and a right click could "cancel". Maybe this could be an optional parameter on how people can use their radial.
We could assign skills, emotes and items as a default. Swapping out weapons/gear (if combat state allows). Maybe there will be macros like in WoW so you can setup little chat strings (whether they do this or not is irrespective of radials but just an example).
Customisation options:
- The way you select/cancel (as mentioned before).
- how many Radial wheels.
- Whether it's a wheel or another type?
- How many "actions" per Radial. Less actions means easier to hit options more intuitively - more actions means less bindings.
Implementation:
So long as the radials themselves are created - so long as you can assign actions in game easily enough - it should be an intuitive feature and hopefully not terribly complicated. The UI team has shown themselves to be pretty good and improving.
Future?
I am by no means expecting this game to be played with a controller so take this last bit with a grain of salt, but if a casual wanted to (and was able to) - play the game with a controller, perhaps similar to how FF14 handles it - then that doesn't really bother me and would just be added layers to flexibility/player choice. I would still play with keyboard and mouse - but if the radial features exist, then I don't see a reason the game couldn't be playable with controller input.
Let me know your thoughts, input and if you think this is something Intrepid should consider implementing some time in the future?
A great recent implementation was Baldurs Gate 3 - where the design intent was to allow controller users to have access to the mass of skills/item bindings needed and it worked pretty much perfectly.
Things that worked well with the design:
- You were unrestricted to what you could bind. Skills, items, emotes.
- You could have multiple radial wheels.
- You could have radials within radials - i.e. if you bound a container, clicking the container would open a new radial with the contents of the container.
I honestly am having a hard time thinking of cons - since if you exclusively compared Radials to keyboard and mouse - then keyboard and mouse will be quicker in most cases. But I think Radials are a system which can complement existing systems i.e. keyboard and mouse.
How would Ashes use it?
Pretty similarly to Bg3. You setup a binding to a wheel which you hold to bring up the wheel (maybe you set a finite number of wheels that a player can have, or maybe you don't) - and you can just assign actions to one of the slots. Click to select the action I suppose? Or let go to select - and a right click could "cancel". Maybe this could be an optional parameter on how people can use their radial.
We could assign skills, emotes and items as a default. Swapping out weapons/gear (if combat state allows). Maybe there will be macros like in WoW so you can setup little chat strings (whether they do this or not is irrespective of radials but just an example).
Customisation options:
- The way you select/cancel (as mentioned before).
- how many Radial wheels.
- Whether it's a wheel or another type?
- How many "actions" per Radial. Less actions means easier to hit options more intuitively - more actions means less bindings.
Implementation:
So long as the radials themselves are created - so long as you can assign actions in game easily enough - it should be an intuitive feature and hopefully not terribly complicated. The UI team has shown themselves to be pretty good and improving.
Future?
I am by no means expecting this game to be played with a controller so take this last bit with a grain of salt, but if a casual wanted to (and was able to) - play the game with a controller, perhaps similar to how FF14 handles it - then that doesn't really bother me and would just be added layers to flexibility/player choice. I would still play with keyboard and mouse - but if the radial features exist, then I don't see a reason the game couldn't be playable with controller input.
Let me know your thoughts, input and if you think this is something Intrepid should consider implementing some time in the future?
2
Comments
I kind of hate them if I'm using a controller since I can never select what I want T_T
with a mouse, then its fine. but I prefer just good old skill bars. press a key on your keyboard and ur done. much faster
As a controller player, I normally prefer using a set of modifier keys and holding buttons to switch between different "skill bars" or "macro palettes", but radial menus are becoming common enough that a lot of people gravitate toward them first.
I think this would be worthwhile to implement if it's not too huge a burden. It opens up more avenues for controller players to have even more variety of actions they can execute under short notice, and having multiple ways of achieving the same thing is, I would argue, a good thing, as it allows players to make their own informed choices of how they want to interact with the large palette of abilities that Intrepid has demonstrated in the showcases so far. I would certainly consider it for controller!
Can't see a reason not to have them. Just make them a form of customization. In other words, design the UI without it since not everyone likes that type of interface, then let people "activate" it and drop what ever they like into it.
I think that it's better for slower paced games, however for me the purpose of Radials wouldn't be for combat use, but the out of combat use. It can free up some UI space as well keeping things more minimalist for non combat actions/binds. I agree that I would typically use keyboard binds mostly, but wouldn't lie if I felt that in WoW i'm probably at the tip of my ability with binds.
Interestingly everyone has pulled into the controller side of things - that was only a little caveat I put in the end. It was more of a speculation point; but I think the main design would be with keyboard and mouse in mind.
That's exactly my intent. Entirely optional and just adds layers to the level of customisation users have. It's not forced upon anyone, but design breathing room permitted; I think it would be something people would use. Particularly from the RP crowd. I personally think with the focus on less/no alts and having a main, people might get more invested in a single character.
Ah, I didn't mean to do that! I just know that it's been really helpful to me as a secondary interface in games already, so it seems nice to have.
I agree with your point of having layers to customization, though. I strongly believe that the best user interfaces are the ones where there's multiple ways to achieve the same goal, allowing people to make a workflow that works best for them rather than hoping your designer figured out the one that satisfies the most amount of people.
I think its as great idea. I would love menus to be like that - move into the modern ages! Things like a smote wheel, options wheel and so on, would be really nice.