https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Vyb4E5
yeah that Skill tree definitely not gonna be used in any form on Season 6
and guild ? yeah still in concept i assume
4 Likes
Proves that all the good talent has probably left the company because the UI we ended up with in OW2, and I wish I was exaggerating, is probably one of the ugliest, worst looking UIs I’ve ever seen in gaming. Indie devs are capable of better on tiny budgets. Not sure how anyone can make a sequel’s UI look worse than the OG 6yo UI, but Blizzard found a way.
23 Likes
What UI are you talking about? Or specifically what aspects of it? Because as far as UI’s go, it’s pretty barebones and functional, one of the objectively good aspects of this title.
I’ve seen this thrown around, but for the most part it’s easy to navigate, it’s pretty simple to look at and tells you everything you need to know at a glance.
The only issue I have with it is the settings menu is slow and bulky when accessing it.
You and so many other say things like what you asserted, with the knowledge that MW2’s (and MW’s) entire UI somehow made it past focus groups, Halo Infinite’s UI is still broken (like broken broken), MCC shifted from an unusable UI to a functional one and then back to a dumb design.
4 Likes
I agree. It feels cheaply done and low budget. The scoreboard looks like it done by a fresher.
6 Likes
Eh, to each their own. I think the OW2 UI is a massive improvement over OW1. To me, OW1’s UI looks like a low budget indie team made it, and OW2 looks like something an actual professional team made.
(The one exception being the scoreboard, which for some reason feels very unpolished and out of place to me…)
3 Likes
I have no knowledge/memory of those games you mentioned, I don’t play them anymore, haven’t in a years, or never have at all.
And these are my biggest issues with it:
Because OW isn’t a mobile game.
Also this:
Is objectively false when compared to OW1.
But since you asked for specifics, I will grant you that, reader beware, super long post ahead:
The Main Menu
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1136466706013880411/1136466724124884992/uui1.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1136466706013880411/1136466824180027452/newui10.png
OW1: Everything you need right there on the left, including a little reminder each time OWL was live. Event end time clearly displayed on the main screen, don’t need to go look for it.
OW2: Menu all split up. Options and patchnotes hidden behind 2 additional clicks. Overwatch logo smaller and more plain. Highlights buried in the profile menu.
The Tab Screen:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1136466706013880411/1136468193108566047/ui4.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1136466706013880411/1136468255872143512/newui4.png
OW1: Large, easily identifiable hero icons, profile borders are pretty to look at, could see groups, ult charge and on fire easily visible, more available personal data, less opaque, doesn’t block as much of your vision, endorsement level visible.
OW2: Blocky and opaque for no reason, small, harder to quickly glean information, large portrait of my hero for some reason on the right (in case I forgot who I’m currently playing as???), looks basic and bland as hell. A child could’ve made this.
The End of Match Screen:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1136466706013880411/1136470189609853088/ui5.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1136466706013880411/1136487041299927071/image.png
These speak for themselves, but since I’m already going into detail:
OW1: Was a unique, fun addition to the game that made it more satisfying than other, generic scoreboard games, could easily show your appreciation for good players, could have been implemented in OW2 with the cards acting as additional cosmetics to show flare etc, but just wasn’t for some reason, further sucking the whimsy out of the game.
OW2: Oh wow, BattlePass. So fun. They couldn’t even add a nice seasonal themed image to the background to at least be interesting to look at. Again, just more bland, simplistic, devoid of creativity design choices.
Controls Screen:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1136466706013880411/1136471667267338320/ui7.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1136466706013880411/1136471726256050176/newui3.png
Besides the fact that they split stuff up and created yet more submenus to click through, they put the delete override button directly beneath the change hero button. It stresses me out every time I’m in this menu. At least in OW1 it was to the left and not directly in the path of the change hero button. Also, in OW1 it was just a drop down list in alphabetical order, click and go, but now I gotta click the button, load the hero screen, find the hero, click that, and finally be able to adjust their controls. Same for looking at stats.
Hero Gallery:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1136466706013880411/1136472773011701840/ui6.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1136466706013880411/1136472883913314364/newui11.png
Separating the roles makes the gallery look weird and messy, but that small nitpick aside, in OW1 I can immediately see how much of a hero’s collectibles I’ve acquired. In OW2, I have to hover over each individual head to see that same info. Also the slightly skewed portraits in OW1 look better than the straight boxes of 2 imo.
Recent Players:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1136466706013880411/1136474113553223721/ui10.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1136466706013880411/1136474247137607753/newui12.png
In OW1, avoiding and unavoiding teammates was simple, they were always visible and you could quickly remove players from your list in 2 clicks. In OW2, once again they’ve buried the feature inside an unnecessary submenu where accessing the list to remove requires entering a separate screen. Also, the recent players screen has an annoying function wherein if you’re looking at a profile of someone on page 2 (or 3 or 4), when you back out of the profile page, instead of being put back on the page you were on, you get sent back to the first page.
Assemble Team:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1136466706013880411/1136475420481564673/ui12_2.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1136466706013880411/1136475516094910554/newui13.png
In OW1 there was a little drop down menu next to each player’s name that you could access during the setup phase to quickly mute, report, avoid, invite etc. That dropdown menu is gone in OW2 and doing any of those things involves, you guessed it, clicking a button, clicking another button, clicking their name, clicking the thing you want, and backing all the way out to the game.
EXTRAS:
In Game HUD:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1136466706013880411/1136477231439417514/in_game_hud.png
The in game HUD is also uglier in OW2. Aside from losing the portrait and the nicer looking on fire flame, they’ve also straight boxed the abilities icons, and squished the weapon between 2 cyan strips for some reason. They’ve also added your name under your HP bar, you know, handy for when you forget who you are, but also in just the ugliest font ever. What was wrong with the OG OW font? Nothing. It was very Overwatchy. Now it just looks very generic and plain. A theme with this UI.
This abomination:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1136466706013880411/1136477549313134663/newui9.png
I understand if they didn’t want to make separate tabs for console and PC stats on merged accounts, fine, I’m just happy with the merge, but couldn’t they at least put a little PC or console icon next the corresponding platform on this list?
The OWL Page:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1136466706013880411/1136478413075513435/ui8.png
Schedule front and centre to remind me what games are on and when. Minimal scrolling to find what I want.
The Post-match stat screen:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1136466706013880411/1136481560099569714/jhgjhg.png
I loved having this at the end of my match in case I forgot to tab before time ran out. And yeah, game reports exist, but not for every game mode and sometimes they bug out and aren’t accurate or complete.
The Battlepass:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1136466706013880411/1136483168862609408/image.png
Once you pass level 80, it stops telling you what level you are in the BP screen. You need to queue for a game, play the game, complete the game, and see what level the end screen shows you.
The Ranked Icons:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1136466706013880411/1136483744933499000/image.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1136466706013880411/1136484104934785024/Overwatch-Ranks.jpg
The OG ones were simply better looking imo.
And finally, I’ll give them credit for something I actually like and very happy that they did.
They went from this lovely original score page in OW1:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1136466706013880411/1136482162238038036/ui11.png
To this… ridiculous looking thing in OW2:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1136466706013880411/1136482305628704768/newui7.png
Buttttt, they have since totally redeemed themselves and fixed it to look like this:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1136466706013880411/1136482471702179912/newui8.png
Which I think is really nice and can stand up proud with the OG one.
That’s everything I could come up with off the top of my head, I’m sure there’s more stuff I’m forgetting but this took way too long to compile already and is long enough.
Hope that answers your original question.
27 Likes
I mean you say this but I’ve had to go searching for the options menu one too many times. Why was it removed from the menu?
Yeah no this is great.
Yup.
Also lovely write up!
1 Like
Nice. I rofled hard when i saw “abomination”. It really is horrible. I dread even looking at it.
The rank icon especially is bad. I can’t tell what is what. I can’t tell the difference btw gold & master icon they look so similar.
It is so downgraded. I always thought sequel would be better than the previous. A AAA dev shows that is not the case.
I hated looking the end of the round screen. It looks like flag of France.
5 Likes
If all that was just Concept (and partial testing) UI, that looks like it would have been freaking AMAZING to use…Compared to the crap we have now.
1 Like
it’s like in ow1 everything was better design wise, but they couldn’t keep them the same because this is ow2 a “new” game XD.
So many things have been reduced or complicated for no reason lol i can’t 
that one picture with assemble team in particular omg
4 Likes
Their metrics team probably designed good chunks of the UI based on what gets players to buy things. Blizzard is a design by metrics studio these days.
1 Like
Previz animation test for a fictional guilds card - for fun (for Overwatch done in Adobe Animate)
for fun
So no, this is not proof of guilds. The real question, who the hell is designing UI for fun?
I am a UXUI designer and to me OW has some of the worst UX and UI in a AAA game I’ve ever seen. Navigating around is really confusing and some of the design decisions are truly baffling.
A simple example is the average rank that appears at the beginning of a rank game… why is that information not available when the user tabs the scoreboard? If the average rank appears then why not show everyone’s rank? Its so strange and honestly amateurish.
3 Likes
some talented man/woman with proper skill ?
inb4 people will comment “can you do better???hater”
Lol, before they do there are already user created mocks that are better. Or use OW1’s UXUI which is still a pretty big improvement to what they have now.
I’m pretty sure the Tracer/Sojourn Polar skins that were from a winter location mission they teased long before PvE was cancelled have already been recycled. Still missing the other 3.
These ones:
1 Like
this could been OW1 compesation skin instead we got one very mediocre doomfist skin and clown sombra skin
I personally like most of OW2’s new UI. The only thing I dislike are the look of the new rank icon. I preferred the old rank icon instead. The recent players tab looks worse too in OW2.
Oh, I also miss the cards we used to get at the end of the round.
Honestly, I don’t agree with you on much, but I do agree that the “gift” to veteran players was pretty pathetic. Especially given how much they’ve been sort of ignoring OUR needs and wants in an effort to favour NEW players.
1 Like