Rumor about why the UI is the way it is.

[Leefizzy]

I know, dead horse and all that.

https://www.reddit.com/r/GamingLeaksAndRumours/comments/1jisxhk/backstory_to_civ_ui_failures

It's a recent rumor I saw on reddit, there's a very negative review on glassdoor from a UI designer who worked there.
And the additional links and comments from all of them makes it seem like either
1. They had a major direction change too late into the UI development
2. An emphasis on console friendly UI
3. UI team purge a couple months back due to push back on the UI direction and an outside contractor did the UI as a result
4. All of the above
Gives a strong impression of mismanagement or the classic 'console first' argument when people were complaining about 6's graphics back when it was released/teased.

Unfortunately, it seems like the reddit civ post that's linked by the one above was purged by their moderation, so I'm a bit blind about where exactly to look to get a clearer picture and maybe someone here can help.
It'd be nice to know the story of how it went down, even if it won't change anything currently.

 

[protocol7]

This definitely tracks

 

[Gorbles]

Confirmation bias is going to be rife with this kind of stuff, and Glassdoor is full of, um, we'll call them interesting reviews.

Can't even access it as I refuse to make an account (for unrelated but imo valid reasons). I already have enough of that with LinkedIn, and I basically don't use that either (had to make an account years ago for a work retreat bonding exercise, ugh).

tl;dr: one Glassdoor review with claims made, one unrelated Blusky account saying generic but far less targeted things about the UI. Not a huge amount to go on, and I reckon people will come into the thread having already decided.

 

[ThichN]

Just an FYI if you're going to use this as a source (which you shouldn't -- veracity of this source is akin to using Wikipedia in a research article), then you should equally weigh Firaxis Games' overall Glassdoor which as far as these things go, is quite positive.

 

[Elhoim]

TBH, some stuff DOES check out, especially the reluctance of adding nested tooltips in a 2025 game, and how the game interface hides a lot of information to "streamline" the decision process. Like for example not being able to select which building to overbuild, so it feels they chose to hide the yields you will be losing and just focusing on the gains. Or thinking that your town is sending food somewhere when it's not, etc. It feels like a conscious decision to hide a lot of information to not overburden the player.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

For ease of reference, here's the most substantive reply to the Reddit thread referenced in the OP.

To be clear, I have no knowledge of any of this, so I'm not saying anything that follows is true or untrue. I'm sharing because the poster claims to have knowledge on this topic and some people on this forum may therefore be interested. Personally, even if true I find this all normal corporate stuff, nothing out of the ordinary, although I was surprised by the comment about Sukritect's purported role at Firaxis.

From reddit user ArcaneChronomancer:

I can confirm some details. I'm not 100% sure this is the same UI employee I've spoken to, I'm gonna ask him, but essentially the Civ 7 project leads told the original UI team they could not use the recursive/dynamic tooltips invented by Civ 5 lead dev Jon Shafer for his indie game At The Gates and later employed by Paradox following Jon Shafer working at Paradox for a while. Soren Johnson, lead designer of Civ 4, did employ these tooltips in his indie 4X hit Old World.

The UI team was also told to minimize normal tooltip usage as well because the project leads didn't want UI elements to cover up the expensive, high production value terrain and buildings on the main map or the animated leaders on the diplomacy screen.

There was also a major impact from launching on consoles including the Switch. The dev I talked to said that they did some cool stuff in spite of the limitations of consoles but they were incredibly upset about the tooltip rules.

Eventually, there was a big rift where the UI lead was fired, and several team members, if not all, quit in the wake of the fallout. This fight may have been generated by the mentioned ayahuasca trip the lead dev went on, but I can't confirm as of now.

Then iirc an outside contractor was brought in to do the UI and that is what eventually landed in the game.

Civ 7 uses the html/css/javascript binding UI library CoherentUI to make the UI. That's why modders like Sukritact so easily made large adjustments quickly.

Note that Sukritact was then hired by Firaxis months later as a technical artist, so he no longer works on UI mods and his job at Firaxis is not UI focused.

Some speculate that this was a "catch and kill" contract to stop him from making Firaxis look bad but there's no solid evidence, obviously, so I don't take the idea too seriously.

 

[Potworny]

There are traces of old UI design to be found in various places, and it is evident that some wonderful work has been scrapped. But an ayahuasca trip being a reason for the mess???

 

[Elhoim]

I just played the game with the update, and the tweak to the unit banners feels so much like programmers art. Basically, made by someone technical with no artistic sensibilities. The width of the border is too much, especially compare to the size in other borders, the inconsistent positioning and big size of the hp bar, it being just pure black, it all looks bad.

 

[UWHabs]

I seriously doubt the point about Sukritact. If anything, having a modder out there who can improve things helps give FX some plausible directions to improve in their UI, and at least makes people who know how to download mods able to better enjoy the game. I'm pretty sure that hiring is 100% because he makes absolutely fantastic mods, and that them hiring him gives a fantastic resource to help improve the next round of content in the game.

I just played the game with the update, and the tweak to the unit banners feels so much like programmers art. Basically, made by someone technical with no artistic sensibilities. The width of the border is too much, especially compare to the size in other borders, the inconsistent positioning and big size of the hp bar, it being just pure black, it all looks bad.

Speaking as a programmer who is forced to update UI elements, we try our best to make sure something is there and that it works. Give us a little break!

 

[Melkus]

Provided any of this has grains of truth:
So they made early prototypes - that look incoherent and are pretty hard to read with strange font choices, so they didn't make it. It happens. It comes with the territory of being a designer in a larger structure.
And the Elephant has not been brutally scrapped, it has survived.

I think the most likely interpretation (based on similar work experiences) is: The team leads were unhappy with the direction of the UI, they waited too long to make a decisive direction change because the UI team wouldn't go along with it.
And then everything blew up late and they got caught by a tight deadline.

Plus : there are now disgruntled UI people who spread uncharitable interpretations of this process.

 

[Elhoim]

Speaking as a programmer who is forced to update UI elements, we try our best to make sure something is there and that it works. Give us a little break!

Yeah, I know, as you can see from my signature I'm an indie dev, so trust that I understand being thrown into tasks you have little experience into

It's just crazy that a dev the caliber of Firaxis is having those issues. For example, you can tell the visual inconsistencies while playing, with the commanders having a 3px wide border, the unit 4px and the health bar 2px. It's all over the place.

If you set them all to 2px, cut the height of the HP bar, remove lower border and add a bit of transparency in the background, you get a much nicer result:

(Done in Photoshop, I don't know how to program this UI).

 

[protocol7]

My mouse cursor covers part of the hover tooltips making it impossible to read the start.

 

[evonannoredars]

The fact there was some sort of big UI redesign close to launch seems pretty clear at this point, though some of the details in the rumours seem a bit far-fetched.

While they could have some truth, it's also very possible these are just made up by people who dislike civ 7

 

[stealth_nsk]

I'm not very familiar with console UI specifics, but I'm pretty familiar with UI/UX in general and I know console compatibility usually butchers UI a lot. Elements requiring precise pointing, like tooltips, are really not welcome there. So, this alone could explain significant part of UI problems without additional theories. Not only you need to create two separate versions of UI with subvariants for resolutions and controllers, but also each time you want to add any interactive element, you need to plan it through for all of these.

P.S. Just for reference - Bethesda has simultaneous launch on consoles for their games and it butchers their UI

 

[Gorbles]

For ease of reference, here's the most substantive reply to the Reddit thread referenced in the OP.

To be clear, I have no knowledge of any of this, so I'm not saying anything that follows is true or untrue. I'm sharing because the poster claims to have knowledge on this topic and some people on this forum may therefore be interested. Personally, even if true I find this all normal corporate stuff, nothing out of the ordinary, although I was surprised by the comment about Sukritect's purported role at Firaxis.

From reddit user ArcaneChronomancer:

I can confirm some details. I'm not 100% sure this is the same UI employee I've spoken to, I'm gonna ask him, but essentially the Civ 7 project leads told the original UI team they could not use the recursive/dynamic tooltips invented by Civ 5 lead dev Jon Shafer for his indie game At The Gates and later employed by Paradox following Jon Shafer working at Paradox for a while. Soren Johnson, lead designer of Civ 4, did employ these tooltips in his indie 4X hit Old World.

The UI team was also told to minimize normal tooltip usage as well because the project leads didn't want UI elements to cover up the expensive, high production value terrain and buildings on the main map or the animated leaders on the diplomacy screen.

There was also a major impact from launching on consoles including the Switch. The dev I talked to said that they did some cool stuff in spite of the limitations of consoles but they were incredibly upset about the tooltip rules.

Eventually, there was a big rift where the UI lead was fired, and several team members, if not all, quit in the wake of the fallout. This fight may have been generated by the mentioned ayahuasca trip the lead dev went on, but I can't confirm as of now.

Then iirc an outside contractor was brought in to do the UI and that is what eventually landed in the game.

Civ 7 uses the html/css/javascript binding UI library CoherentUI to make the UI. That's why modders like Sukritact so easily made large adjustments quickly.

Note that Sukritact was then hired by Firaxis months later as a technical artist, so he no longer works on UI mods and his job at Firaxis is not UI focused.

Some speculate that this was a "catch and kill" contract to stop him from making Firaxis look bad but there's no solid evidence, obviously, so I don't take the idea too seriously.

I'm not saying reddit incentivises claims with no evidence for karma-farming, but if we look at subsequent comments, there's something of an underlying axe to grind:

(red block is something that might've tripped the forum censor, and I don't want it to look like I'm bypassing it - I just prefer screenshots r.e. direct evidence)

Also, as a software developer, it's incredibly funny to see the Coherent UI comment r.e. "making large adjustments quickly". The modders have simply worked hard, and in some cases non-stop. Sukritact isn't the only one making amazing progress in the features being developed (via mods) for Civ VII. So much for "making Firaxis look bad"

 

[itix]

Yeah, I know, as you can see from my signature I'm an indie dev, so trust that I understand being thrown into tasks you have little experience into

It's just crazy that a dev the caliber of Firaxis is having those issues. For example, you can tell the visual inconsistencies while playing, with the commanders having a 3px wide border, the unit 4px and the health bar 2px. It's all over the place.

View attachment 727139

If you set them all to 2px, cut the height of the HP bar, remove lower border and add a bit of transparency in the background, you get a much nicer result:

View attachment 727140

(Done in Photoshop, I don't know how to program this UI).

I am not a UI designer, but isn't this something the lead UI artist is responsible for writing guidelines for the UI design? And watch over others to follow his guidelines?

 

[stealth_nsk]

I am not a UI designer, but isn't this something the lead UI artist is responsible for writing guidelines for the UI design? And watch over others to follow his guidelines?

It depends a lot on company structure. Lead could be just a title with managing responsibilities.

As for UI guidelines (could also be design toolkit or design system), they are often joint work of a team.

 

[j51]

Clearly something has been going on with their UI department. Maybe some mistreatment. This might have been a really old problem of game design dismissing UI input. The typical “just make it look nice” without concern for how useable it actually is. Could have been a very frustrating situation to work in. But yeah I don’t know.

 

[Krajzen]

Clearly something has been going on with their UI department. Maybe some mistreatment. This might have been a really old problem of game design dismissing UI input. The typical “just make it look nice” without concern for how useable it actually is. Could have been a very frustrating situation to work in. But yeah I don’t know.

The problem may be "very old" but honestly I have never encountered any strategy game that has dropped the UI ball hard enough to turn it into #1 complaint about the game, to the point of seemingly like 20% potentially positive Steam reviews turned negative because of it (I mean the apparent share of them that complain only or mainly about the UI). Hell I can't even think of any video game besides master of orion 3 where UI has been amidst like top 10 complaints. The concept of a strategy game (or video game in general) having messy launch mostly because of the UI alone had been entirely alien to me prior to civ7 release.

That makes me fairly open minded regarding rumors of some insane drama happening in Firaxis, you need some unusual backstory to get such unusual disaster.

 

[Thormodr]

I know, dead horse and all that.

https://www.reddit.com/r/GamingLeaksAndRumours/comments/1jisxhk/backstory_to_civ_ui_failures

It's a recent rumor I saw on reddit, there's a very negative review on glassdoor from a UI designer who worked there.
And the additional links and comments from all of them makes it seem like either
1. They had a major direction change too late into the UI development
2. An emphasis on console friendly UI
3. UI team purge a couple months back due to push back on the UI direction and an outside contractor did the UI as a result
4. All of the above
Gives a strong impression of mismanagement or the classic 'console first' argument when people were complaining about 6's graphics back when it was released/teased.

Unfortunately, it seems like the reddit civ post that's linked by the one above was purged by their moderation, so I'm a bit blind about where exactly to look to get a clearer picture and maybe someone here can help.
It'd be nice to know the story of how it went down, even if it won't change anything currently.

There did seem to be a bit of turmoil at Firaxis so this is not out of the realm of possibility.

The fact that they went with the same lead designer two games in a row is odd. They had always got a new one for every game which had served them well. IIRC, 7 should have been Anton Strenger's game to lead. Perhaps he had a totally different vision for the game that clashed with other employees? Perhaps 7 would have been a much different game and pivoting sharply a few years ago lead to the game being rushed?