Guild Wars 2

Hey guys! So just to get this off my chest; I am extremely paranoid about uploading these pictures lol I redesigned the UI on my own initiative therefore I don’t know if I’ve violated some Terms of Service etc (since nothing belongs to me). So I shall clarify: whatever elements I combined, edited, deleted and/or modified are all properties of Mr. ANet! I’m just an extremely visual person and I thought by designing my idea you guys could better visualize the concept Thanks.
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My personal problems with the current UI (I’m no unique snowflake therefore I’m sure another Joe or Jane has these same gripes).

1. Upon looking at my screen I sometimes feel there is WAY too much text!
2. The grudge border limits or “closes” the visual aspect of the game (our monitors already do this)
3. We can barely remove anything from the UI; only minimize things (Of which I am grateful
I’ve uploaded a picture where I did my best to have a clean UI: minimized everything, made the map and chat smaller.
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The 2nd image is what I did, so let’s run through everything uno by uno. Left to right.

1. Removed the grudge brush effect around the edges. “Opens” the game.
2. Changed the party UI; I feel the circular shapes are more organic, more attractive and occupies less space (more stylish too :P)
3.On the upper right hand corner I’ve added a new tray of icons:

- The lock icon locks the tray (the icons cannot be toggled on or off)

- The eye icon lowers the opacity of the entire UI (check 3 image!); However, all your skills etc may still be clicked and they remain functional

- The star icon toggles the personal story information or the living story. Depends on which one the user has activated.

- The check mark toggles your daily or monthly tasks. A red exclamation mark (notification) will remain there until you have completed your dailies, like a reminder.

- The other star will toggle the event information. Should you be in the area of an ongoing event, you get a notification until you leave the area or complete the event.

- The “N” toggles the mini map.

- The “XP” toggles the experience bar at the bottom along with our scaled and current levels.
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Whew!!! (Bare with me <3)

Now the addition to the utility bar is more of a Quality of Life feature but I thought it would be pointless to make another thread explaining my idea. Basically I’ve always wished we had more slots for weapons, gear, consumables or other miscellaneous items on the fly. I live in dungeons and do a lot of speed clears and I always have to have my inventory open and minimized at the corner so I can quickly grab something.

You Arah runners feel my pain lol plus I’ve seen this a lot in videos on YouTube.

The HP circle was modified to make the entire bar a bit more “streamlined” if you will. I view the HP circle as a visual hiccup when I run my gaze across

To fill these slots you open you inventory, right click the item and select “Assign to A” or “B” etc. These slots wouldn’t function like the utilities drop down boxes. Weapons assigned to the A and B slots could only be switched when you’re OOC. For example a guardian quickly switching to staff without opening the inventory for trash runs.

On the right we have slots for anything really! Mainly nom noms and other goodies (functions the exact same way). The slot on the far LEFT has no assignment – its function is to store the offhand weapon when switching! The slots could even be key bound!

There you have it! Would love criticism, opinions or thoughts. All that juicy stuff. Thank you for reading guys!

PS I tried to use html n textile codes to make the reading a wee bit easier but to no avail. Sorry.

PSS! I realized I forgot the icon for the chat yikes but it would also be toggled on or off. I know we have something similar but it would be nice to completely hide the chat for a bit!

I really like your redesign, I like simplicity UI and customization, especially opacity, I miss that from other games – I kind of miss the chat box though. Maybe I missed it in your description, where would it be?

edit to below comment: Lol, there’s a black edge on the screen?! I never noticed either greeeat. Now I notice.

Ok a few comments based off the screen shots!

First off… LOL I never noticed the black weirdness along the edges of the screen! Thanks to this… I’m probably going to notice it every day now cries

The second thing I like is removing the stupid story bar. I know completing the story removes it, but it’s not exactly something I want to do 8+ times.

Quick slots for consume items would also be very nice, having to open my bags every time I want to use something isn’t exactly streamlined. So I love that idea.

One thing I find interesting is that you changed the group/party hp bars to circles… while changing the players circle to a square… :P I actually like the bar version hp bars as I feel they are easier to gauge a percentage with. On that note, why not add percentage options for group/player/targets hp bars?

Prety nice ideas over all

Guild Wars had the UI perfect, seems like GW2 took a step backwards in many areas of the game.

The lack of support for a custom UI and additional hotkeys for macros, weapon swaps, consumables etc is my only big complaint about GW2. I’m sure it’s been hashed out a thousand times in other threads as to why we have to remain in the stone age with this basic UI but i am tossing my 2 cents in here. Hopefully in the future Anet will allow them to an extent.

@OP, amazing job with what you have done with your UI. Just the ability to single weapon swap or use an item during combat without opening bags would be game changing for a lot of us. (ie. 10 air strike grenades in EoTM that I never have time to right click and use).

It’s definitely much better than the standard UI. Most of all, I’d like the ability to remove the “quest log”, but unfortunately we’ve been asking for that for ages and ANet doesn’t seem to want it for some reason.

I like some of it!

I like the fading. It could be non-transparen when moused over.

I DONT like the Square shaped HP-bowl tho.

There’s no need to see u’r equipped weapons – remove.

There’s no need to have food visible… works fine today.

The other Clean up looks nice – to have the ability to hide those things – if u like.

I alos like the circular party-portraits.

And – “M” should Always toggle the map! Dont get why it should be “N” all of a sudden…

Frostfang.5109:

I like some of it!

I like the fading. It could be non-transparen when moused over.

I DONT like the Square shaped HP-bowl tho.

There’s no need to see u’r equipped weapons – remove.

There’s no need to have food visible… works fine today.

The other Clean up looks nice – to have the ability to hide those things – if u like.

I alos like the circular party-portraits.

And – “M” should Always toggle the map! Dont get why it should be “N” all of a sudden…

I had confused the supposed map chat icon which I forgot to include and “N” was North like in a traditional map! Thanks!

Good job. Especially additional slots / side bars for food, other weapons, minis etc. THIS MUST A kitten BASIC in every MMO!!

I don’t get why they didn’t do that from the beginning – but not even that, after months of UI complaints from the community, nothing changes. It’s really ridiculous.

+1
I like all of the changes you propose and they would all impact my gameplay experience positively.

Very well done on the mock-up as well.

As a note to ANet regarding potential UI changes in the future:

Changing an aspect of the game to be very different from what players have grown used to and/or enjoyed it being for quite a long time is very undesirable and I find such behavior to be quite disrespectful to the playerbase (human female running animation anyone?).

Because of this observation I would prefer any large style changes to the UI to be made optional instead of replacing the current one and forcing all to use a new layout style.

As many players may like the current UI and may not be interested in some or all potential changes, offering selectable UI layout styles (current, this one, others) would be very much appreciated.

I liked what you did a lot. For the exception of the HP bar tough, looks weird. You made party UI look more stylish and HP bar less. However, overall looks great.

And this too, Anet: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/UI-Hero-Panel-can-be-improved-Here-s-how/first#post4218473

Love ur ui

I did one in wow many years ago. Aura was a nice program sometimes I wish we could design the ui ourself via addon but then again I like the simplicity how it is now.

But ya plz devs hire that man

There is a lot to like here and the UI has always felt a bit… dated for such a modern MMO. I really, really, like the GW1 UI. Even without all the plugin shenanigans that other MMOs have (and man are some of those terrible rabbit holes), the ability to move and resize elements was really nice. I miss it.

DJRiful.3749:

And this too, Anet: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/UI-Hero-Panel-can-be-improved-Here-s-how/first#post4218473

I love that change to the equipment/wardrobe/dye sections!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry… got the map-thingie confused – my bad

Fine, one more opportunity to support a GUI rework. +1 hereby.

Oh, ceterum censeo carthaginem… uhmm… the big ugly target bar should be moveable somewhere less obstructive. Blocks boss animations, ground targeting and whatnot on 16:9 displays.

Georgieee.4958:

Hey guys! So just to get this off my chest; I am extremely paranoid about uploading these pictures lol I redesigned the UI on my own initiative therefore I don’t know if I’ve violated some Terms of Service etc (since nothing belongs to me). So I shall clarify: whatever elements I combined, edited, deleted and/or modified are all properties of Mr. ANet! I’m just an extremely visual person and I thought by designing my idea you guys could better visualize the concept Thanks.
—————————————————————————————————————————-
My personal problems with the current UI (I’m no unique snowflake therefore I’m sure another Joe or Jane has these same gripes).

1. Upon looking at my screen I sometimes feel there is WAY too much text!
2. The grudge border limits or “closes” the visual aspect of the game (our monitors already do this)
3. We can barely remove anything from the UI; only minimize things (Of which I am grateful
I’ve uploaded a picture where I did my best to have a clean UI: minimized everything, made the map and chat smaller.
—————————————————————————————————————————-
The 2nd image is what I did, so let’s run through everything uno by uno. Left to right.

1. Removed the grudge brush effect around the edges. “Opens” the game.
2. Changed the party UI; I feel the circular shapes are more organic, more attractive and occupies less space (more stylish too :P)
3.On the upper right hand corner I’ve added a new tray of icons:

- The lock icon locks the tray (the icons cannot be toggled on or off)

- The eye icon lowers the opacity of the entire UI (check 3 image!); However, all your skills etc may still be clicked and they remain functional

- The star icon toggles the personal story information or the living story. Depends on which one the user has activated.

- The check mark toggles your daily or monthly tasks. A red exclamation mark (notification) will remain there until you have completed your dailies, like a reminder.

- The other star will toggle the event information. Should you be in the area of an ongoing event, you get a notification until you leave the area or complete the event.

- The “N” toggles the mini map.

- The “XP” toggles the experience bar at the bottom along with our scaled and current levels.
—————————————————————————————————————————-
Whew!!! (Bare with me <3)

Now the addition to the utility bar is more of a Quality of Life feature but I thought it would be pointless to make another thread explaining my idea. Basically I’ve always wished we had more slots for weapons, gear, consumables or other miscellaneous items on the fly. I live in dungeons and do a lot of speed clears and I always have to have my inventory open and minimized at the corner so I can quickly grab something.

You Arah runners feel my pain lol plus I’ve seen this a lot in videos on YouTube.

The HP circle was modified to make the entire bar a bit more “streamlined” if you will. I view the HP circle as a visual hiccup when I run my gaze across

To fill these slots you open you inventory, right click the item and select “Assign to A” or “B” etc. These slots wouldn’t function like the utilities drop down boxes. Weapons assigned to the A and B slots could only be switched when you’re OOC. For example a guardian quickly switching to staff without opening the inventory for trash runs.

On the right we have slots for anything really! Mainly nom noms and other goodies (functions the exact same way). The slot on the far LEFT has no assignment – its function is to store the offhand weapon when switching! The slots could even be key bound!

There you have it! Would love criticism, opinions or thoughts. All that juicy stuff. Thank you for reading guys!

PS I tried to use html n textile codes to make the reading a wee bit easier but to no avail. Sorry.

PSS! I realized I forgot the icon for the chat yikes but it would also be toggled on or off. I know we have something similar but it would be nice to completely hide the chat for a bit!

I like this A LOT

Thanks for sharing, very useful UI design !!

I was pretty disappointed at the lack of UI customization in GW2. Many other MMOs at least offer the option of moving the UI elements around. The only the element we can move is the minimap. I wouldn’t hold out hope for a more robust UI customization soon either.