Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Issues with the ability UI and a suggestion

Hey Everyone,

I think that the way the ability selection in BG3 works right now has some major problems that are going to become even more apparent once more classes are added and the level cap is increased. Basically, the way ability selection works now is just about every spell/ability can be put onto the hotbar and then you can't really customize it when you use it after that. For example, casting a spell at a higher level is actually a completely separate ability from the spell itself. The one exception to this that I can think of is hex, which forces you to pick an attribute to debuff every time you cast it.

The big picture problem with this design is that 5E has a recurring theme of letting players "modify" certain abilities when they use them. Some examples of this are:

1. Great weapon master attacks.
2. Spells that have options you have to pick when you cast them.
3. Sorcerer metamagic (not implemented yet obviously).
4. Casting spells at a higher level.

As of right now, BG3 implements all of these in completely different ways.

Spells cast at higher level are completely separate abilities. This is pretty cumbersome and bogs down the spellbook and hotbar with lots of garbage.

Spell options must be selected every single time. This is an annoying extra step that must be taken every time you cast the spell, even if you would pick the same option every time.

Great weapon master is a toggle that must be turned on or off. This isn't horrible, but I think it could get cumbersome when you start to add more and more toggles.

The biggest problem with all this is that the game UI has multiple implementations for things which are essentially the same, just using an ability with some kind of modification. This seems unintuitive and clunky to me.

I think it kind of works now because we're only seeing low levels and limited classes. But when we start seeing higher levels and more classes, this could become a big problem.

For example, say you have a sorcerer that wants to cast Suggestion, to make a monster flee, at level 3, with quickened spell metamagic. This is three modifiers on one spell. I feel that the way the system is now, that would be incredibly clunky to do.

Instead, here is what I propose....

1. Only have one single selectable action for each spell or ability. No separate abilities for level 2 magic missile etc.

2. When the user clicks and holds on any ability, pop up a radial meu where they can select modifiers for that ability. The radial menu can be categories as well, and categories would open another radial menu.
Example -
A. Sorcerer holds mouse1 on magic missile, radial menu pops up with choices of "spell level" and "metamagic"
B. Sorcerer selects metamagic, radial menu pops up with choices of level 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Sorcerer picks level 5. Ability now becomes level 5 magic missile on hotbar.
C. Sorcerer holds mouse1 on level 5 magic missile. Once again, radial menu pops up with "spell level" and "metamagic."
D. Sorcerer selects "metamagic." Another radial menu pops up with "quickened spell" and "empowered spell." Sorcerer selects "quickened spell." Ability now becomes Quickened level 5 magic missile on hotbar.

3. The key point here is that the ability on your hotbar REMEMBERS what modifiers you put on it. So that slot will always be Quickened level 5 magic missile until you change/replace the ability. You could even have multiple entries for the same spell with different modifiers on your hotbar for easy access.


The things I like about this are:

1. It eliminates the tedium of having to choose "strength hex" every single time you cast it.

2. It provides one single way for literally all ability modifiers to be used. No more toggle for great weapon master, separate abilities for up-leveled spells, and context menu for hex.

3. It's extensible and could handle basically any number of modifiers being on a single ability. So be crazy and multi-class all you want, this should be able to handle anything.

4. It's both controller and keyboard/mouse friendly.

Let me know what you guys think.

Excellent suggestions+1

That is more or less exactly how I was hoping a spellbar might be treated, with some kind of expandable menu radial or tree or whatever. Just something to organize it more.

The hotbar needs to keep it hot! I still think the hotbar could easily be expanded by more rows generally, but these kinds of organizational UI shortcuts regarding how spells are prepared are really key. If it feels a little crazy right now dealing with just the first couple spell levels, things are going to go nutso when we get up to spell lvl5 and as you say as more classes are introduced.



Just a great description. I really hope something like that is adopted.

Thanks!

I wish Larian to play NWN2, Pfkm, Poe and learn a bit from their UI design, honestly bg3 has one of the most aweful UI for abilities, spells and inventory. How come the inventory and gears window not together. And have they think about how much spells there will be in high level when there are magic missile I, magic missile II, magic missile III...

Really great suggestions! In addition to that, I have one thing that might make things more manageable. Casting a spell on a higher level seems like a thing that would be done very often. Having 6 versions of e.g. Magic Missiles on the hotbar would be very clunky, and I might like to quickly decide in the heat of battle that I want to use more or less missiles, depending the situation. It would be very handy to have an indicator near cursor showing spell level. You could change spell level you're using with Ctrl + Mouse Wheel (could be customizable). That way I could have only 1 instance of Magic Missiles on my hotbar and choose level I want to use for it on the fly. I made an example image to show what I mean:

[img]https://imgur.com/nhP0pR5[/img]

Thanks!

I like your suggestion about ctrl+mouse wheel as well for changing spell level. The only thing I would add is to still let spell level be a choice in the radial menu, and have ctrl + mouse wheel just be a shortcut to change it. Reason being that the radial menu works for both controller and keyboard.

Absolutely agree that we need a much more sophisticated UI for abilities.

I've said before I think we need both a hotbar, and an "all abilities" bar - pretty similar to Pillars of Eternity 2 would be great, but allowing the "frequently-used abilities" hotbar to be player created and not just auto-generated.

Hotbar linked to number keys: where you quickslot things you commonly use, exactly how you use them - if a maximised 2nd level cast of magic missile is your favourite power move, you should be able to quickslot that ability as is so it is available at a single button press.

All Abilities bar: various buttons with context-dependent menus like you're describing for spells. Basic weapon attacks, other general actions (dash, disengage, hide, dodge etc), non-spell powers (non-spell class/racial abilities, and the weapon-based special powers introduced in the game etc), consumables (grenades, potions, poisons), spellcasting.

One way of doing the spellcasting menu would be as you described (a context menu for each prepared or known spell), alternatively it could be done on source. Ie. one button for racial spells or spells cast from items, including scrolls (as these can't be used with metamagic or cast at different levels), and then buttons for each level of spell slots you have access to. Then you'd select a spell slot level, and it would display all the spells you could cast using that spell slot based on spells known or prepared. The rest of it would proceed as you described, being able to add metamagic etc once you have selected spell and slot level. Additionally, this could easily display the number of casts you have left at that level as a badge on each slot level.

I think that some way of browsing through all spells you have prepared and choosing one to cast would be great. Either through how you describe, or even through just casting them directly from the "spell book" that the game has in its UI right now.