Could we get a minimal UI?

One that hides story step, achievements or the walls of text from events as well as the squad panel?

I am well aware that you can quit the chapter you're on, finish dailies or click on the events to reduce it, but I'd prefer an option that removed them entirely not only temporarily. Maybe checkboxes for each one.

Dailies might also be depending on map or game mode, story usually defaults to the Season 1 recap for me so quitting it doesn't fix this issue and squad or party UI if you switch to that will still take part of the screen, while not really being something I care about while playing normally. At least hiding chat entirely is really easy by switching to an empty tab and hiding the panel. I'd prefer having a minimal UI that hides those over having to use F8 to get halfway decent screenshots or simply be able to enjoy the game more without having up to 50% of my screen dedicated to information I've seen a million times before. Maybe the events could still show the name and a timer in that mode/have that option and one where it's gone entirely.

Thoughts?

Well, since you asked for my thoughts: I'd rather they give the UI as much flexibility as it had in GW1. Let us move things around, turn them on and off, and resize them to the extent possible.

I want to hide the exp/mastery/rank bar. Some of the colors are too bright/distracting for my liking (depends on what I'm leveling, the purple one in PvP is okay).

@perilisk.1874 said:Well, since you asked for my thoughts: I'd rather they give the UI as much flexibility as it had in GW1. Let us move things around, turn them on and off, and resize them to the extent possible.

That would work as well. As I said, I'd be fine with simply checking UI elements on/off but your suggestion would be great. Perfect: A combination of both.

Gimme dat immersive gameplay Arenanet! :)

+1 Upvoteor an autohide option and show when hovering over it. I'm so tired of the living story spamming the right side of the screen + dailies and events. As for the XP bar why not autohide it and show it only upon gaining xp.

After a bit of digging here and there, I found a mod that can toggle the UI on and off !! =D It's called Immersive Combat Mode, pretty easy to install and I don't see it impacting the game in any way as it only hides the UI, see screenshot below. Unfortunately, I won't be using it because it won't run simultaneously with the reshade :(

Just thought I should let you guys know. I really wish anet would just let us hide the UI as a feature.

The sidebar, and XP gain splash numbers should be able to be hidden, IMO.

I've asked for this (once) a long time ago, too. I like playing with the UI off, but I need to know, at a bare minimum, when I need to heal. All I need for that is the reddened border that appears with the UI on... to appear when the UI is toggled off. Also interesting: UI off = a sometimes-significant FPS boost.

It would be nice to be able to turn each part of the UI on or off separately. I know we can hide all of it, but I'd like to be able to hide just some things, or different things at different times. If necessary they could keep the option hidden/disabled until you reach level 80 and/or some amount of hours played so we don't get brand new players turning everything off and then not knowing how to find it again.

Another thing I'd love to see is an option to have the skill bar only show when you're in combat. Elder Scrolls Online does this and I really enjoy it - most of the time it's hidden and then it reappears automatically when you need it. It also acts as a helpful warning that something behind you or off screen to one side is attacking if you have the sound off and can't hear the music change.

I'd really like some more flexible UI customization options as well.

For us veteran players, I was thinking some minimal UI option that would hide the full skill icons and the health bar and instead make a thin little bar (less vertical, more horizontal) above the EXP bar that would show only the skill numbers or something similar, with small semi-transparent cooldown numbers above them. The health bar could be in the middle, a flat little bar with a percentage on it. After 3 years of playing the same class I don't really need to see the full skill icons and their explanations.

Of course, that's just speculating and will probably never happen. But what's above the skill bar is the real issue; we can't really choose what we want to see or hide, and we can place the "mission" list and the chat only in the corners. I'd also love to see the chat get a transparency slider (I know we can already make it transparent, but in order to change tabs or whatever we need to activate it again). Also, being able to change the size of the box more than we can now would be great.

All in all, the GW2 UI feels really outdated and clunky, and it desperately needs adjustment options, like most MMOs offer.

@darkaheart.4265:Thanks so much for bringing that UI mod to the light!!!

One my biggest gripes in GW2 is the inflexible, outdated UI that players need to put up with.

The issue has been brought up hundreds of times between the old and the new forums; however, the Devs have chosen to put themselves in "denial mode"and simply refuse to address the issue.

I just tried the mod and the fact that it allowed me to hide all the garbage text from the right side of my screen makes it a keeper.

It seems I can't hide the "OnMouseOver" skill descriptions that still pollute 1/3 of my screen but hey... it's a step in the right direction.

Again, thanks a ton from bringing up this Mod!!!!

Did you know that GW2 has a built in function for removing the UI for screen shots...just use ctrl+shif+H and the UI is removed, you can even play this way if you want, no UI at all and you don't need an add-on, doing it again restores the UI. As for the devs ignoring this request over and over, as the previous poster stated...if he really wanted to tell the truth he would admit that Anet has stated it would take a complete overhaul of the UI system to implement a lot of the changes we have requested and it would also require a lot of changes to subsystems because of the way it's integrated into the game...in other words, it would take up precious resources better put to use making new content(you can always set the UI to the smallest text setting if you don't care about it).

@Zaklex.6308 said:Did you know that GW2 has a built in function for removing the UI for screen shots...just use ctrl+shif+H and the UI is removed, you can even play this way if you want, no UI at all and you don't need an add-on, doing it again restores the UI. As for the devs ignoring this request over and over, as the previous poster stated...if he really wanted to tell the truth he would admit that Anet has stated it would take a complete overhaul of the UI system to implement a lot of the changes we have requested and it would also require a lot of changes to subsystems because of the way it's integrated into the game...in other words, it would take up precious resources better put to use making new content(you can always set the UI to the smallest text setting if you don't care about it).

That was already brought up but this isn't about taking screenshots, this is about playing the game without it holding your hand and taking up 40% of your screen at all times.

I did it, you guys !! I manage to run Immersive Combat Mode and Reshade together. I guess i overlooked it, got tunnel vision, or something! I kept going through 2 and 3 year old forums that didn't help, when it was clear as water. Anyways, when hovering over any UI element (map, chat, bottom xp bar, living story lol) the hiding UI pops back up or can be toggle to stay on. In end this is what it looks like.

Click on the link to see the comparison: https://sfx.thelazy.net/games/screenshot/67315/

PM if you want me to give you instructions on how to install it.

@Zaklex.6308 said:Did you know that GW2 has a built in function for removing the UI for screen shots...just use ctrl+shif+H and the UI is removed, you can even play this way if you want, no UI at all and you don't need an add-on, doing it again restores the UI. As for the devs ignoring this request over and over, as the previous poster stated...if he really wanted to tell the truth he would admit that Anet has stated it would take a complete overhaul of the UI system to implement a lot of the changes we have requested and it would also require a lot of changes to subsystems because of the way it's integrated into the game...in other words, it would take up precious resources better put to use making new content(you can always set the UI to the smallest text setting if you don't care about it).

Problem is that only gives you 2 options: show everything or hide everything. I, and I think a lot of other people in this topic, want to be able to choose which bits to show and which to hide.

For example I want to keep my mini map up at all times because I have no sense of direction and without it I can easily get turned around and end up going off in the wrong direction. But I don't necessarily want to see a list of achievements (I keep 1 achievement I'm not doing tracked so it makes the list as short as possible, but I can't get rid of it completely) a story step I'm not planning to do on that character any time soon, and 3 events I happen to be on the same map as, all my skills, buffs etc. when I'm not in combat, the party menu I'm not going to use at all today and whatever else is on the screen.

And some days I might want to track some achievements and use the party menu but I don't want anything else, or I might want my skills up because I'm theory crafting a build while I go along but I want to hide everything else.

Basically I want to be able to choose to show or hide each part of the UI individually, not just disable the entire lot to take a screenshot.

I'd also like to be able to turn the floating condition numbers off. I never read them, there's so many and they pile on top of each other so I couldn't read them if I wanted to, they just get in the way.

@Blocki.4931 said:

@"Zaklex.6308" said:Did you know that GW2 has a built in function for removing the UI for screen shots...just use ctrl+shif+H and the UI is removed, you can even play this way if you want, no UI at all and you don't need an add-on, doing it again restores the UI. As for the devs ignoring this request over and over, as the previous poster stated...if he really wanted to tell the truth he would admit that Anet has stated it would take a complete overhaul of the UI system to implement a lot of the changes we have requested and it would also require a lot of changes to subsystems because of the way it's integrated into the game...in other words, it would take up precious resources better put to use making new content(you can always set the UI to the smallest text setting if you don't care about it).

The UI doesn't take up anywhere near 40% of my screen, I'm lucky if it takes up 10%...it's more like 5% of my screen, and I only have the interface set on SMALL, but then I have semi-wide 23" screen and the game set to run in Windowed Fullscreen(I want to say native resolution is 3420 x 1920, so that might have something to do with it).