Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback So many buttons on UI - Not Needed

Okay, here are the buttons on the UI we could consolidate or remove:

Melee Attack and Ranged Attack - You put your cursor on an enemy and a sword appears. Want to attack a non-enemy? Right click and pick Attack. Buttons not needed.

Weapon Toggle - If I want to attack with off hand, I can click on the enemy a second time, or that should be how it works. If I get more than 1 attack per action because of multiattack, the first two times I click on the enemy is with main hand. The third is offhand.

Sneak Attacks - Make it a toggle instead. Toggle is either apply Sneak Attack to Main Hand or Off, and have it auto apply to damage when it meets the conditions. (Stealth, BTW is a condition where Sneak Attack should apply, but in Patch 6 it's not working.). We don't need a Sneak attack button for both ranged and melee, one each, so we could just get rid of those buttons altogether.

Help Button - Hover over downed ally. Heart appears indicating you can help them. Click on them. You run up and help. No button needed. (Medicine roll should be made. Otherwise, Medicine skill is virtually useless.)

Menacing Attack and like combat special maneuvers - Consolidate to 1 Button each type of attack. Whatever weapon you have out, that's what you use and the special ability is applied to it. No need to have one for ranged and one for melee. So 1 Menacing, 1 Pushing, 1 Tripping, etc.

If you have more, please suggest.

Those would all be very helpful and convenient.

Yeah this is also what I would prefer. Basically target confirmation via left click followed by action reduces a lot of unnecessary load on the UI, and allows many functions to just be collapsed into the left click or right click, or double click. Less need for cancel action too and reduplication of buttons which basically do the same sorts of things. Current scheme just feels inherently backwards for me, where we are choosing action then target, when the reverse seems more flexible and more intuitive from other similarly styled rpg games.

+1 : Definitely agree with consolidating some of the buttons.

First of all i would like to ask what exactly would you get by this ...
More empty and unusable space? :-/
In that case -1 ... sory, there is too much of that allready. :-/

I use them a lot ...
How else would you like to switch between meele and ranged? O_o

What if you wish to attack with your offhand first?

Example: ... weak (1HP) goblin close to me, strong goblin far from me ... how would you manage to attack them both, and dont loose potential damage in the proces?

This one i would agree ...
But question here is how would you like to attack without Sneak Attack? O_o

I mean as far as i know, Rogue CAN add Sneak Attack bonus to any damage they do ... they dont "have to" ... do they?
Same example as with offhand attack ... weak goblin close to me, strong goblin far from me ... how would you manage to attack them both, and dont loose potential damage in the proces?

This one i like ...
Especialy that part with Medicine ... but im not quite sure if we should be able to waste our action with zero result. O_o

How about keeping help to get your companion to 1HP ... and roll dif 10 for example to incerase amount of those HP by proficiency (excluding negative values ) in Medicine for example? AND it certainly should not proc any "when healed" effects.
If your character have Medicine +2 and Wisdom +3 ... and it suceed passive Dif. 10 roll ... using help will give your companion 6HP instead of 1.
If your character have Medicine +0 and Wisdom -1 ... using help will give your companion 1HP.
Isnt that too powerfull? Doesnt seem so. O_o

I litteraly dont like this ...
I switch back to meele weapon often after every ranged attack, so i dont miss my AoO ... imagine i have to switch weapon do attack, switch back, then again switch, do attack, then aggain swtich back ... that really dont seem like improvement to me at all. :-/

I would agree by consolidating them to OPTIONAL (meaning we should be able to put on our action bar both specific maneuver ... or this consolidated method ... not like that nonsence we have now with spells) popup windows for either Meele/Ranged maneuvers ... or each maneuver having its own button opening meele and ranged options.

I agree to the fact that a lot of the UI has bad usability. To many clicks to achieve what you want (in some cases at least). I guess there is more than one way to improve this.

Melee and ranged buttons are more or less essential even if a simple click on the enemy attacks with the currently equipped weapon. To free the hotbars you could add a right click option on the button for battle maneuvers. Or make more visible hotbars. Im playing on a high resolution and those icons are still big. thers space for more.

everytime i see a new program, be it game or other i hope that the designers have not slept through most of the usability classes during studies .

I guess dish out ideas

Less clutter on the UI, yes. So, instead of 2 Buttons for Menacing Attack, you just have 1. I click on Menacing Attack button and if my melee weapon is out, it applies to my melee weapon when I attack. If my ranged is out, it applies to my ranged. What's the point? The point is I have more room on my tiny hotbar to put things. My UI isn't being cluttered up with non-essential buttons.

OK. I see what you mean about toggling back and forth between Melee and Ranged. So, you are right. How else would you switch. Good call out.

Off Hand, fair point. You might want to attack with off hand first. Okay, but can we have that put somewhere better than thrown randomly onto the hotbar? It often gets kicked to the second hotbar or lost in the clutter. I like your popup window idea. See below for what I'm thinking, which I think is what you're thinking.

Sneak Attack. Wait. I think I see when you might run into an issue without having a separate Sneak Attack button. If you have multiple attacks with your main hand, you may want to attack without Sneak Attack on your first main attack but use it on your Second Main Attack. OK. So it would need to remain as a separate button.

Help Button. One of the main points of the Medicine skill is to use to Help downed characters, stabilizing them so they don't die. So, it should be rolled each time you are attempting to stabilize a character who is dying.

OK. You don't like getting rid of 2 buttons per Special Maneuver like Menacing Attack. What if, instead, we did this? Instead of all the hotbar buttons with all those melee and ranged special attacks, why not create a popup window if you right click on the Melee or Ranged Attack buttons?

So, want to do Menacing Attack as a Melee weapon? Right click on the Melee Attack button and a window pops up with an option for Menacing Attack, Pushing Attack, Tripping Attack, Cleave, Lacerate, etc. Want to do Pushing Attack Ranged? Right click on Ranged Attack and a similar popup appears so you can see all your options listed there. Want to do Sneak Attack? Same thing. Want to do Off Hand Attack? Same. Then, Sneak Attack toggle would be below the Melee and Ranged Attack Buttons.

Speaking purely for myself:

As long as im able to put those spells on my hotbar and use them just they way they are used now ...
I dont really care what other methods they implement for others.

OK. See? I don't know why I let people make me doubt things sometimes. On the UI there are two buttons, the Melee and Ranged Attack buttons. Then, below that, there is a toggle to switch between Melee and Ranged. Then you have each special maneuvers for each weapon you have equipped. Then you have your special abilities like Menacing Attack and Sneak Attack and so forth. Then you have a toggle to switch between attacking Single or Dual, but you also have an Off Hand button on the Hotbar.

That's what I'm talking about. It's excessive. You don't need all that. It takes up too much space and is redundant. I'm talking about cutting down on the redundancy.

What do we really need on the UI?

1 Button for attack that pops up a menu of attack options such as Lacerate, Cleave, Sneak Attack, Menacing Attack and the like. Whatever your character has equipped at that time, whether ranged or melee, the button pulls up a menu of those attack options and clearly lets you know which are Actions and which are Bonus Actions. Then, you need a toggle below that button to switch from Melee to Ranged. It only takes one click to switch the toggle from Melee to Ranged, so what's the difference between that and clicking a big button that is Melee or a big button that is Ranged except that a toggle doesn't take up as much room? And why do you even need an attack button unless it is to open up a menu for Melee or Ranged Special Attacks and Maneuvers because if you want to attack, all you have to do is hover your cursor over and enemy and the Sword icon appears. So you don't even need the buttons if they don't pull open some sort of special attacks menu. If you aren't going to provide a menu like that, just get rid of the buttons altogether and expand the hotbar. Then, if you want to switch weapons, keep the toggle and put it under the expanded hotbar.

And get rid of the toggle for Single to Dual. Dual is not needed. More often than not it causes you to waste a bonus action. At the very least, have it set to Single by default, and if players really throw a fit about getting rid of it, let them have it, but at least set it to Single if someone is carrying two weapons.

And, as far as Sneak Attack goes, I gave it some additional thought, and instead of a toggle between Main and Off Hand, and instead of the button we have now, why not simply have radial buttons. One radial button sets it to Main First Attack. Second Button sets it to Off Hand attack. If the character later gains 2 Attacks per Action, another radial button is put underneath the Melee/Ranged toggle. If the player wants the 2nd Main attack to have the Sneak Attack applied to it, they can click the third radial button. Thus, we can get rid of the Sneak Attack button altogether so the menu/hot bar is less cluttered.

And, again, we only need 1 button for each maneuver, not 1 for Melee and 1 for Ranged. Just 1 Menacing Attack, 1 Pushing Attack, etc.

And, again, give me a button for Spells which does the same thing, pulls up a window for spells listed by level and only showing the ones I have prepared. So, in a sense, replace the 2 attack buttons (Melee and Ranged) and replace them with Attack and Spells. Each one pulls up a menu listing what options you have available to you to use. You know, it would be just like the Throw button. When you click on Throw, it pulls open all the options you have to throw. So why aren't we doing that with some of the most basic Actions you can take in battle? Why do we have to hunt for things on a cluttered hotbar amidst seas of other things? 1 button pulls up a menu for attacks, 1 for spells, and we're good.

And for Ragnarok and others who really really like the hotbar as is, you can even keep it so that you could, if you want, still put all your attack abilities and spells on the hotbar.

Either way, what I'm suggesting would GREATLY clean up the hotbar for things like potions, scrolls, etc. that players will still want to have available to them without having to scroll through pages of hotbar tabs in order to hunt for things once you start really collecting a lot of special items like arrows and so forth. Honestly, I like the hotbar, for those types of things. That's what the hotbar should be for, in my opinion. It should be for all those special items and such that you may want to use without having to constantly go to your inventory to right click and then click use.

I would even be content with leaving those Action buttons like Jump and Disengage right where they are, but we really need a single button for Group and Ungroup as opposed to the yanking the chain method. That's annoying as heck. And although I love the hotkey, it doesn't always work right currently. And, it would be really awesome to simply have what other games have; the drag and highlight characters option where you can click on a part of the screen and hold the mouse button and drag a box around those you want to select.

And again, for the love of all that is holy, please provide us with Group Stealth. Constantly switching characters and clicking "C" or the button is hugely annoying. Just make it so that when they are Grouped, and I hit stealth, and we're not in battle, everyone goes into Hiding.

+1 for a better UI and less hotbar icons everywhere for everything.

Cunning actions could also appear in the left bar.
To make it easier to understand they could change the grey icon so it become half grey/half blue.

Click on dash (half blue/grey) and then select the dash action icon dash (grey) or the bonus action icon (blue) in exemple.

as to your first point....
don't think you've thought this through.... let's say you're looking for advantage on a fight, you're hidden right click on the enemy, how does it do the attack you want. How do you attack objects out of combat and have the choice of which weapon? Are you always going to be walking up to a firebarrel and breaking it melee, or are you always going to beat down a door with ranged... That's why these buttons are here, so you have a choice without making the game decide the wrong option you can't get around.

Help button.... you can help a downed friend like spelt for a whole action, or shove them to same effect for bonus action. if you have illithid powers and have the restoration effect you might want to do that reduce to 0 option.

Special attacks, these follow special rules and putting the decision on whether it's a melee or ranged attack on the system again creates issues, as game code writing for situations you get in to is severely limited.

Think more, speak less.

Please, just go away.

Isn't the obvious solution here just to use the weapon that your character has currently equipped? If you have a melee weapon out, your character attacks with your melee weapon. If you have a ranged weapon out, your character fires it.

We already have a button to swap between weapon sets; no need to have redundant buttons to tell your character to attack with weapon set A or B.

Read more, my friend. There would still be a button for Attack and a toggle to switch between Melee and Ranged. So, you have Ranged toggled, so you have your crossbow out. You hover over the enemy you want to shoot. The bow icon appears. You click and fire. Hit the toggle again to switch to Melee. Hover over enemy. Sword icon appears. Click and attack.

Want to do a special maneuver? Click on the Attack button. Melee is what you have out, so only the melee buttons for special attacks appear like Menacing Attack or Lacerate in a popup window similar to the Throw popup window.

So, want to shoot a barrel? Click on the toggle to switch to Ranged, if you aren't already toggled to Ranged. Highlight the barrel. Click and it shoots. If the barrel doesn't turn into the Bow icon, right click and choose attack; you know, like you can do that currently right now in the game.

Help button is specifically used for stabilizing downed friends so they don't die. You don't need a button for that. If they are down, hover over them and a heart appears. Click on them and you'll run up to them and stabilize them. I'm suggesting a Medicine check be used because, you know, that's the D&D 5e rules and it's there for a reason to give the Medicine skill a very important role in the game. I'm not even sure what else you said there. It's kinda confusing What does all that have to do with the Help button and removing it?

Special attacks. Why would creating a single button for each special attack be an issue code-wise? You click on Menacing Attack, it applies extra damage and condition to whatever attack you use. Here's a basic code that could work: =if(("Menacing Attack")*and("Melee"),(Melee Damage + randbetween(1,8))*and(Frightened Condition),(Ranged Damage + randbetween(1,8))*and(Frightened Condition) There. Code solved. Fixed. One button clicked, depending on what you have toggled, it applies it to that weapon's damage and initiates the savings through against Fear.

I was thinking about this lately ...

And i thought ...
Why dont we use metamatic options?

Rogue:
I mean as far as i know, Sneak Attack for Rogues should be aplicable to litteraly every and any attack they do ... no? (I mean including Elemental arrows)
So simply implement the same UI as Sorcerers get for Metamagic ...
Separate bar (prefferably abowe our curent action bar BTW) for Rogue with single button, that will say "Sneak Attack: Add 1d6 to your Damage dices, not consumed when you miss, usable once per turn" ...
And voila!
You can throw away Meele Sneak Atttack, Ranged Sneak Attack, Off-hand Sneak Attack and reaction Sneak Attack.

Battlemaster:
Same story here ...
Simply add toggable buttons for "Metamagic":
- Menacing Attack: "Adds 3+1d8 Piercing and possibly Frighten the target."
- Pushing Attack: "Adds 3+1d8 Piercing and possibly push the target back 4.5 m."
Etc.

I mean the Metamagic UI is beging for futher uses ...

Sneak Attack is an infinite conditional resource you want to use as much as possible unlike Battlemaster abilities which only have a few uses. SA would work well on a toggle while constantly having to switch Menacing Attack on and off would just be annoying. Sneak Attack also needs clear visual feedback on mouse over whether or not it will be applied to the attack so you can see it at a glance before attacking.

Menacing Attack should only have one button and execute on the currently equipped weapon. And equipping A and B weapon set buttons need to be separated from attack, which already happens when you click on an enemy. Ideally we would have a few more fast equip slots too.

Why don't we have a mega-thread for the UI?

I was just looking at my party's character sheets.

- Saving Throws are not listed anywhere

- Sorcerer: Spells from items like Invisibility from a ring, Scorching Ray from a circlet and Create Water from a staff are mixed in with my Sorcerer's known spells. Upcast versions of level 1 spells are also mixed in with my level two spells and the spells from items. This is SO confusing. It's really difficult to see which spells the Sorcerer actually knows when it's so unnecessarily cluttered. Abilities or spells granted by items need to be moved in the Action section where weapon abilities already are, or get their own section. The upcast versions of spells need to be removed from the character sheet entirely - it's just a choice you make when casting a spell, not a new spell. Upcast effects can be explained in the spell description.

- Shadowheart: Off-hand dagger's attack stats are missing completely. Spell section is even worse than the Sorcerer because Clerics know so many spells. Powerful and relevant Passive features from equipped items like Night Walker, Venomous Revenge and Aura of Protection are buried deep in the last panel. They should be more prominent and easy to find.

Maybe ...
But i dont see any relation to topic. O_o

What (exactly if possible) do you have in mind, when you say "toggle" ?
Since as far as i know, metamagic menu is in fact exactly toggle.

Same as you click on Distant Spell ... then you clik on spell ... then you click on enemy ...
You would click on Sneak Attack ... then you click on attack you wish to do (Main / Off / Ranged / etc.) ... then you click on enemy ...

And if you miss, you can still use it for second attack ...
Right now, when you miss with your main hand, your SA remains wasted. :-/
Also right now, you have to choose between Sneak Attack and Special Weapon attacks ... im not quite sure how huge mess it would make if that would be aplicable both within single strike ... but somehow it feels right to me. O_o

I believe it does right now ...
Since you litteraly cant attack unless your SA is aplicable.

Well, that is the thing ...
As i said abowe:

Same as you click on Distant Spell ... then you clik on spell ... then you click on enemy ...
You would click on Menacing Attack ... then you click on attack you wish to do (Main / Off / Ranged / etc.) ... then you click on enemy ...

Obviously, if you would like to use Ranged Menacing Attack and you would have allready equipped your ranged weapon, you could easily skip the second part by clicking on enemy straight.
That is the advantage of non-casters ... curently we have only one main hand meele and one ranged attack.

What puzzles me tho is how this would work with weapons attacks ...
I mean can you even imagine how BRUTALLY OP it would be if you combine Menacing Attack with Cleave? >:]

Agreed ...
That is why i keep saying that there should be some notes on Icons ...

Like we allready have I. and II. for spell levels ... well, that is quite fine in my opinion, good start. (Even tho not all spells contain this ... every spell that starts at level 2 does not contain spell level indication, since this is its "lowest version" ... pretty lame if you ask me. :-/ )
There is also small + in bottom right corner of icons for upcasting popup window.
Spells you get from items dont contain either, since they dont cost Spellslots.

Personaly i would also like to see some indication of Concentration ...
Either small C in bottom left corner, or even better some kind of collored outline around the icon. :3

Also when you mentioned Sorcerer ...
Chromatic orb does not show any spell levels on icons at all (probably oversight) ... wich gets especialy anoying since in that upcasting popup menu spells are not sorted by any key, but seems to be sorting randomly ... so once is your Chromatic Orb lvl 2 on top right corner, next time its in bottom left corner, etc. etc. ... this is something i keep bitching about for last year, since it pisses me off with Warlock to keep searching for corect Hex (where it is even worse, since Hex also randomly change its icon )

No idea what are you talking about.

How many threads you going to make on the same subject?

+1 on UI mega thread, this thread mixes a lot of different topics and dilutes the value of each, which are all important IMO (GM4Him, I mean no offense, I agree 100% with all your suggestions but just fear that they will get buried as a side effects of the diversity of themes that you address, and of the suggestions section of the forum just mixing every theme together).
I'm surprised we don't have one mega thread per class TBH, pinned by mods (unless we do and I'm just dumb, which is also very possible). Or even bolder: one forum section per class. Although I can see the downside of added clutter of that last suggestion.

Back to the topic(s) addressed in this thread:
FWIW, I would speculate that the UI is still WIP. It's a little rough around the edges and I hope they won't release as is. Wouldn't be surprised if we see a redesign at some point.

Regarding Sneak attack, I've been playing with the Rogues Extra mod where they change the behavior of Sneak attack to be on auto all the time as a buff, and it's a game-changer. I can finally apply sneak attacks to weapon actions for example (or special arrow types).
Also, the bonus action for Dash just activates dash. No second click on your character necessary. You click on dash, no confirmation needed, it just applies. The game already does the same with hide, so I don't know why Dash should be any different, it's a bit annoying to have to second click when actions can only target the character that casts it.

Anyways, I have so much to say about the UI, and about Rogues, and about Fighters, but I guess I'd like dedicated sections for those themes.