Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Patch6, recuding hotbar real-estate

So to clarify further, the design philosophy behind the sort of hotbar which Larian has adopted comes out of the Real-Time tradition. Specifically real-time massively multiplayer games, where the player cannot pause the game state (because that would be putting the good of the one ahead of the many.) In that context, where Time is ultra-sensitive, a hotbar of this sort is very desirable. It allows the player to graft the rows of the hotbar onto keys on the keyboard, typically F1-F12 or the numpad. Also to rapidly cycle between hotbar rows of like twelve or twenty+ (F1-F12 or 0-9 with like a shift click say), since there are generally more abilities than a few dozen, to quickly execute the commands when time is of the essence.

BG1/2 were real-times games as well, but it was understood that there was an upward limit of only 6 players at a time in MP, and typically fewer than that. The game was designed primarily with the single player experience in mind, and so pause was a given. Instead the emphasis was on pre-organizing everything in a set position within the main interface. So if you wanted to cast a spell, you click that little icon with the crescent moon and 3 stars, and it would bring up a horizontal tab that showed all the prepared spells listed in a set order.

There were only a couple spaces available to customize, and we called those places the Hotbar, because that's what the end user could control. The player could determine what was hot and what was not, but it was obviously very limited. The benefit there, was that it didn't require the player to organize everything for themselves, only a couple things, and also that it didn't take up a whole ton of screen real estate. The tabs would open when the icon was clicked and closed when the player was done. The downside was that if you didn't like how the spells or whatever were laid out in the default scheme you couldn't really do anything about it. The whole thing was very point and click oriented, such that you didn't really need the keyboard at all. It wasn't MMO style in that respect. If they player needed some time to get at the right spell, they'd just pause and the game was built around that concept. The "see everything at once layout" really follows the rise of games where the player cannot pause or take their time to navigate through pop up or radial menus, they need it extra-fast to play effectively at a high level. Not really my style of play to be honest, but it was certainly popular with many others.

The ideal compromise would be a default layout that prioritizes the new first time player and which does a lot of the busy work for them, so they can concentrate on playing rather than building their own version of the UI, but then also allows for exactly that (building the UI layout) if the player so chooses. MMOs adopted this approach, with SWTOR being a good example. In that game the end user can design, not just the layout of their massive hotbars, but also just about everything else in the GUI. The entire screen is divided into a graph layout, which allows all the various tabs, portraits, menus and mini-maps to be moved around or rotated in any way the player might want, then saved as custom UI profile. SWTOR isn't KOTOR, they're pretty different games at bedrock, but the point is that you can make SWTOR feel a lot more like KOTOR with a some tweaking, and that really helps bridge the gaps.

I think this is the approach that Larian should adopt, because it is the one that allows everyone to be happy. Right now the Hotbar itself is a little perplexing for a PC game designed for a keyboard and mouse, and a TB one at that. This I think is why many people feel that the game is actually being designed for controller based play, and specifically for co-op controller based play on a split screen, like you mentioned elsewhere. It's very hard to imagine that the people in the Larian offices are playing the game the way many of us are at home. But then you'll see other things like Font scaling which would seem to indicate the opposite. So I think you might be onto something, and that there are probably two factions over there, butting heads about which way this thing should go.

For my part, I think a better approach would be to have several options available. One for prioritizing the Single Player and another prioritizing MP, and then for either scheme, an option which is more mouse and keyboard and another more for a controller. Is that a lot of work? Probably, but the upside is that then they can give their entire playerbase a reasonable shot at finding a scheme which suits their sensibilities, instead of pitting one against the other. I think the chain movement and the party size convos are the two discussions where these issues seem most intractable, but it comes up just about everywhere right now, and definitely with the UI preferences.

Because I'm a returning BG1/2 player my preference is for systems and UI layouts that look more like those games, but there is an equal number of players and perhaps many more who want the game to feel and play more like Divinity, or DA, or insert whatever RPG gave them the warmest and fuzziest recollection hehe. However challenging it might be from a development standpoint, I do think there is a way to make just about everyone happy, and that they should shoot for that. But I don't think that can be achieved with a singular presentation. One size will not fit all in this instance. It needs something a bit more bespoke.

I think its sensible for the default organization to be based more on the Divinity games, since Larian is the developer I guess. If they left the onus on me to arrange my UI more like BG2 I'd be fine with that, and having to make the extra effort there in the settings or whatever. But right now I don't have that sort of option, so it just results in frustration. Like "why can't they just make it the way I want?" I'd settle for having to do it myself, from the ground up if I could. But it would nice if there was an option called "Classic" that arranged everything in a way that looked instantly familiar to returning fans of the old BG games.