I don't know why they would wait to do the UI until last. Its only like the most important feature of the game, you'd think they'd want to get that dialed first.
I was really surprised at how little of the iconography and design elements from BG1 and BG2 were used to develop the look of the BG3 UI. Not that those UI's were interstellar by any stretch, but they really didn't use any of it for BG3. The 9 main menu icons for BG1/2 where all easily recognizable, and simple to parse. Same with all the generic action buttons, and most of the spells icons as well.
Reinventing the wheel and then reinventing the spindle just seems like an oddball choice. One of the major advantages of making a game within an existing franchise is to make use of that stuff, especially if it works well. They shouldn't be looking to Solasta's UI, they should make plays off BG1/2 for their icons and organizational flair.
I mean we don't even have the Skull button? You know the button that collapses the menus from the heads up?
Its kinda embarrassing hehe
Maybe they don't have the rights to whatever Beamdog owns, but the basic symbols and themes, they're so generic and familiar, why not just pay a designer to mimic and put a new spin on the classics?
In 2021 I expect a AAA game to either allow the player to organize their own heads up display or to treat the GUI like it's a legit project of fine art. This one feels like a mish-mash placeholder. It takes the concept of a hotbar (which should just be for what's hot) and expands it out to look like an MMO cooldown menu or something, you know where everything has to have a flashy colorful icon and be on display at all times. I think they'd be better off creating menus that look like books and scroll cases and whatnot, with popdown menus or click to select radial or just about anything other than One Bar to rule them all lol
I mean it needs to have some kind of organization such that all the skills and spells and abilities are accessible from somewhere other than the giant hotbar itself, even if we can control what does or doesn't go into that massive hotbar.
Last edited by Black_Elk; 03/08/21 12:40 AM.
