Originally Posted by Wormerine
Originally Posted by robertthebard
I can assign the more commonly used spells/potions/scrolls/weapon abilities to page 1, and go nuts from there on the other pages. I didn't check, but there's probably a hotkey to change the pages, but even if not, there's a click button on the hot bar itself to do that. In the options menu, under UI, you can turn on and off adding and removing spells, and other items, to/from the hot bar. So once you sort the bars to your liking, you will have to manually add them to the hot bar, in the location of your choice.

Yes, that means that some organizing will be required, but that's part of gameplay in most cRPGs, right along with the dreaded inventory management, a staple of most RPGs. So I'm left wondering "why add more UI elements to the screen if they're not strictly needed". I'm betting at level 10 I'd have empty pages, let alone slots per page under the current system.
No, not having good UI is not a staple of an RPG. UI has been better or worse, but as far as I played (and played most of them) this is exceptionally bad. In any other RPG I can start playing without tedious management. Any kind of management in other RPGs is conveniece, not mandatory downtime. Also unlike inventory, hotbar is not a mechanic. It's an interface for interacting with mechanics. And it should be as slick and convenient as possible.

If nothing changes, I will have to use system like you describe. But it's still shit. Shortcuts are there, but didn't manage to make them work. Even if they will work - WTF? That's supposed be more convenient then traditional UI? You can't even go straight to page 7 or 8, without scrolling through other pages. How is that supposed to save you amount of clicks? Buttons on the far right side are tiny, and in the part of the screen you have no reason to have your mouse around. It's bad UI. It's BAAAAD.

I guess good/bad UI is very subjective. I have seen UIs that consume a lot more space than this one does, and UI that consumes less. So there's nothing "exceptionally bad" about this one, especially if you have seen better or worse. In so far as "convenient" goes, this is pretty convenient. Hit the appropriate checkboxes in the UI section of Options, and then organize your bars to the way you want them. Then it won't change, unless you change it. As it is right now, despite your claim to the contrary, I can already start playing w/out a ton of management, because there's just not that much I need to manage starting out. Even my inventory is almost completely empty. Assuming the checkboxes aren't per save file, this would mean that it's "one and done", and I can start adding to my bars as I accumulate stuff that needs to be added, like skills/spells/items.

It's more than a bit ironic that you're starting a thread asking to reduce real estate used on the screen, and then complaining about minimally sized UI elements, isn't it?