Why care about Skyrim's menus?

[The Lugz]

I've been seeing numerous threads and articles complaining about Skyrim's interface and menu and what I just can't understand is...why? Why does it matter if the menu is slightly worse than it was in Oblivion? Does it still work for you? Can you still get to your items? Is at least partially organized? Yes, yes, and yes. So why make a big fuss over it? Judging from the tone of many of the comments regarding it, they almost make it out to be a total gamebreaker, when it's not.

Basic point, if you're going to complain about a game, make it so with decent points. Not because the menu doesn't look purrty.

i gotta say your missing the point.

the mouse sensitivity is ridiculously high, even on it's lowest setting

the screen moves, sways, zooms during menu operation ( ack )

the talent / perk screen messes around and flicks from tree to tree too easily when selecting individual perks ( it will go sideways to a new tree before diagonally to a perk in your current tree.. rather dumb. )

the menu, context and speech selections ( often ) highlight what they feel like and not what you click/scroll to
i've intimidated many a peasant for no reason and moved the plot in places i didn't want to ( like back-chatting a shrine god.. )

lastly, you are forced to menu thrash, want to use a potion? there are no hotkeys so off to the menu
but wait, you wanted to switch spell? after drinking your mana potion? what crazy person would do that? pff off to the game with you.. you cant do that now.
'pause again' - switch spell - unpause - cast spell - pause - weapon - pause - scroll
really? you cant just have:
weapon
scroll
spell
equipped on a page? there were jrpg's doing this on the psone... honestly.

lastly, i couldn't care how it looks.. as-long as it works so it's 'prettyness' is irrelevant and also not what people are complaining about.

i guess you found the game was playable and assumed people commenting on it's lacklustre performance are just drooling imbeciles

when what people are really saying is:
'bathesda, please hire a guy who knows how to put a pc ui on a console game, kthxbi'

because let's be honest what we have now is the console ui remapped to a keyboard as if the programmer had an afternoon off but someone said:
"hey joe, go add some pc controls!"
and thus the monster was born.

 

[ThePuzzldPirate]

The menu isn't so bad but for mouse use us pretty annoying, mouse is useless for skills and almost useless for skills, a very one sided menu for controls, hot keying should never a chore but it is Oblivion and Fallout 3 menu is easier to use which is kinda a sad thing.

 

[Soluncreed]

I think the issue is that for a game that is so well done, so polished, and improved upon, the fact that they had little to no ingenuity in the menu is what bothers people.

 

[predatorpulse7]

I've been seeing numerous threads and articles complaining about Skyrim's interface and menu and what I just can't understand is...why? Why does it matter if the menu is slightly worse than it was in Oblivion? Does it still work for you? Can you still get to your items? Is at least partially organized? Yes, yes, and yes. So why make a big fuss over it? Judging from the tone of many of the comments regarding it, they almost make it out to be a total gamebreaker, when it's not.

Basic point, if you're going to complain about a game, make it so with decent points. Not because the menu doesn't look purrty.

I guess you don't game on PC then, right?

People complain because it's AWFUL on the PC. They basically ported the interface which was made for CONSOLES and expected it to work on PC. It's serviceable at most(and I'm a pretty patient person) but it's incredibly frustrating when you have to press a button x times to view something which could have been seen from the get-go. I could mention other examples but you've probably seen them all on google.

Skyrim's interface troubles have nothing to do with its "purtyness" or lack thereof.

 

[Infinatex]

My biggest issue is that there is no screen showing equipment slots or anything like that, spent a good portion of the game not wearing boots just because I didn't realise you could. This is where something like the equipment screen from Diablo would be very useful.