Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Radial Menu Suggestion

Hi folks, saw a few threads on this but rants and links to other game methods aside I didn't see a list of suggestions, apologies if I missed something.

Frankly the radial system is very poor. I am moving between PC, Steam Deck and PS5 so radials are important. Every re-roll or weapon change means an issue to manage in the radials. It's getting in the way of enjoyment, affecting UX

I may have missed some stuff in game that can help with this so very open to suggestions for making this easier but this is my experience

I've listed some simpler suggestions and outlined how auto-generating radials might work as a larger change

Possible bug?
Remove radial and add radial behaviour are not consistent, sometimes it ignores you, sometimes you have to clear the radial to remove it and sometimes it actually deletes it.

Radial UX Improvements

When you let go of the analog stick the selector should stay where it is and not reset to the centre
Why: When customizing certain slots and as the pop-up/modal menu selector is also controlled with the same stick meaning it starts flipping through the options
Implementation Suggestion: add this option to the accessibility settings

Let us move the radials left and right
Why: Radial menus are all about quick decision making, thus prioritization and categorization are key. Having to rebuild entire radials because you want different orders is a chore and affects UX,

Add a confirmation to remove radial
Why: If you make this more consistent and allow us to dump whole radials full of actions etc it needs a confirmation (toggle in settings maybe)

Give us an indicator on the set slot menu for what is already on a radial
Why: This is obvious, I guess it must be in your backlog

Show specific items in bags in the set slot pop-up
Maybe not all items but Scrolls, potions, etc
Why: This is super annoying
(this also needs to happen in trade windows and other places where it won't show the item if it's in a backpack/whatever (Open does nothing) - you're making inventory management harder than it has to be!)

Add move slot option
Move slot behaviour would be to select move slot then use analog stick to move around the radial, taking an empty slot or MOVING the others around to let it fit in (do not swap)

Automatic Radials
this is the biggest change needed, others have said it and the code is there to fill the radial it "just" needs wrapping in some logic we can define

2 ways I see of doing this

• The best way would be to provide options for overall auto-fill/generate as well as individual radial categories for autofill
• Another option is to allow us to customize the categories/order of the set slot popup (this is simpler but has some dependencies for it to work, like Show specific items in bag in the set slot pop-up

Ideally we can do the following:

Set the Radials to auto generate based on collections of categories (e.g. Radial 1 = Cantrip, Class Action, radial 2 = Damage scrolls, radial 3 = potion, toxin, etc)
Also doing this by cost type would be very useful
(in the end there are multiple meta-data attached to actions and items we should be able to make choices with)

A subset of this feature could allow us to set auto-fill / auto-generate categories for a specific radial that we can then edit the slots for (e.g. auto-fill is not forced, doesn't reset until you select "auto fill" for a radial or radials)

Implementation suggestion:
Radial customization has an auto-fill option which brings up a selector of categories as above
Menu would be multi-select

Example expected behaviour

• Select auto-fill on Radial 1 and select Cantrips, Weapon Actions and Heals
• Re-order them as desired in the list (e.g. Putting Weapon Actions first)
• Fills the radial in that order from top slot going clockwise

Thanks for reading!

This would be great and gets my vote!

What about if there are too many of something for one radial? Could end up with 4 radials of scrolls!

I want the option to "lock" certain spells/abilities in place on a radial menu. Sometimes when you switch weapons or gear it then removes or changes the location of spells which is really annoying.

Also, when you cast a spell from a radial menu, then open the wheel again to cast another spell, the wheels reset to the left most wheel. It would be nice if it remembered the last used wheel and spell and put you back where you left off. Makes it less time consuming when you are trying to take multiple actions.

Great suggestions! Agree with all of them.

I'd add to this the ability to resize or reposition the radial on the screen. And to provide a visualization that allows for a survey scan of all radials at once. For example, each radial might have an associated color or number/name.

Then instead showing the next/last radial to either side taking up most of the screen, we might have a quick selection of all the radials in a row at the bottom of the screen. Selected radial could raise/lift from there and enlarge when selected, but the idea is to have positions that we can lock/re-order and to have that be easy to parse at a glance.

Here I tried to make a very crude example. So imagine the top is what we have currently, the bottom something more like what I'd want. Each penny is a different radial, each could have a different alpha/numeric or color designation and the radial once selected lifts from the view to prime position and enlarges so the icons are easier to read.



Something like that at any rate. Then the trick is to get the standard Hotbar and the Radial display to match up more coherently, especially if we change the default organization or order, so that switching back and forth between the two views doesn't make it so hard to parse what's going on.

Oh knock on thought just to clarify.

So the UI for radial management/ordering doesn't need to be the same as the UI for actually using the radials when playing, otherwise they'd basically just be re-making a hotbar for radial selection, which would be redundant hehe. Instead the idea is to make it easier to manage all the radials together, with that survey glance, so we can quickly add/remove/lock reposition the individual radials. This should be the sort of thing we only have to manage occasionally, like at lvl up say, rather than constantly needing to make adjustments on the fly. The purpose behind going smaller with a thumbnail view to survey is just to make that process more expedient.

It could be handled from an entirely self contained radial management screen. Instead of showing everything every time you tap the radial button, it could also have it's own sub-menu within the main menu, similar to the inventory or spellbook screens, that allows for stuff like renaming of the radials or binding to particular keys/padmap combinations. I think right now the Game assumes the Console players will be overwhelmed by too much information at once, so what they did was to isolate and break stuff apart into separate windows/wheels. But once you know what's going on those breaks/cycles become unnecessarily tedious and click intensive, especially as you progress further along in the game.

The most important thing for me would be that, once the organization is set and the icons are in the desired order for quick use, this shouldn't change randomly unless the player signs off on that. In practice, I don't want the icons moving around unless I'm moving them with a purpose. Main hand attack should always be in the same place I put it, weapons specials shouldn't suddenly go from say 12 o'clock to 6 o'clock just cause I unequipped something. Gaps shouldn't appear unless I unlock the radial to re-organize stuff, and when I do, then that needs to be saved somehow etc. To be perfectly honest, I'm not even sure why a radial scheme is even necessary at all. I'd be perfectly happy using the thumbstick to navigate something more like the standard PC hotbar if that was an option, but I know they're going for something a bit more console oriented for that, or perhaps just to be novel for novelty's sake.

I think on the PC what I'd want right now (until it's improved) is a way to completely separate the Radial organization from the Hotbar organization (not have them key off one another when switching). That's a stopgap. The endgoal ideally would be to provide a very intuitive auto-organization, but the latter is hard, because abilities/actions are added as we go sorta chrono-organized if you never try to adjust anything. So it'd be different for each character. If we have to do a little radial Tetris, then the sorts of things I'd like would be like...

A Radial for standard exploration movement, maybe actions at the top bonus actions on the bottom for things like dash, jump, misty step, feather fall etc. Could be split top/bottom between actions/bonus or 2 separate radials depending on how many you have going. If you split the clock in 4 quads you might have say actions coming from items 9 o'clock, from class at 3 o'clock.

For spells you might use similar divisions of the radial between Concentration spells vs Non-Concentration spells. Or Buffs vs De-buffs. Dailies till long rest, vs short rest etc.

Same deal for equipment and consumables for the quick switch. Things of that sort.

Either doing an up/down split or a left/right split for a given radial in terms of how those icons are presented, again depending on how many icons the characters needs for all this stuff. Clearly spellcasters have a lot more noodling to do for all this right? But even for martials, a way to separate Standard attacks from Special Attacks, within that wheel. And then to put all the various wheels in whatever sequence makes the most sense for the player character.

I think a visual for a sub-menu to manage all this would be cool if framed out as the Tetractys.

So your top most used Radial would be the top of the Pyramid, and it branches as it goes down. Or middle out if you prefer that sort of conceptualization. Again, not the way it has to display when in-use during combat or whatever, but rather the display for organizing how these radials are ordered and assigned, customized initially etc. Then when you pull 'em up with the trigger or button tap you get a branch from the center, middle out. Or if the player wants to they could set a Left to Right (or inverted order) from there. Basically trying to get an organization that allows radials to be selected by clicking up and down as well as cycling forwards and backwards if that makes sense. Like making the full use of the thumbstick for the quick selection, instead of the tap tap cycler. To borrow from character creation, something like what they did for those cosmetic previews to help the player quickly gather the key information and find what they're after at a glance.

Triangles play well with Circles as a design motif though, so you could basically do 2 triangles within a circle that way.

Basically the inverted pyramid selection if you click up, regular if you click down for the branching. Assuming there are like 20 radials to be managed by the time you hit the level cap.



Like then we could just keep adding to it as we go along, cause you can repeat that motif indefinitely and it kinda recalls the D20 right?

Key idea is to call up radials using up/down inputs as well as cycling forwards/backwards or with Light/Right taps, so we can quickly navigate and map the various radials using the thumbstick, in much the same way we call up icons within the individual radials currently. Using that same sort of wheel-around, but taking advantage of the full range of the stick.

I think we need a quick toggle for meta-magic or switching from melee to range weapons for opportunity attacks too. Melee weapon should perhaps just be auto-selected, or having the weapon select built into the reaction when it happens as just like a free action, so you don't get hosed on that from switching to a controller. Stuff like that might form an outer ring around the selected radial, which displays simultaneously.

ps. the current radial has 12 positions, which to me recalls a standard clock, but it I'm not sure that's the best. The Hotbar display has 16 positions per row currently. If it has to be a clock, then 24 would be better, but I'm not sure it really needs to be a clock. The natural division of the thumbstick into 12 positions, or as an octogon probably right, but that's not really sufficient. I think a Hotbar with 20 positions per row would work nicely and be right around what I'm looking for. Like the extra 4x4 slots to stretch that heads up grid, which I think the PC hotbar could fit easily. Because then you could label the icons within the radial and also the various radials themselves by using the Num Pad and a shift-click, or any hold-click for that, to get 20. Like if switching between the Radial display and the standard PC Hotbar, to have all those slots match up somehow that way. Just an idea

Omg, this! So on point. My biggest peeve is the warlock hex spell and bardic inspiration creating a new radial. Why can't I lock it where I want it for next time it is cast, an option could be to have the icon grey out when it is unusable.

Another instance would be when heat is cast on me or disarmed and reequip, my setup is now wonk. Need a lock toggle for abilities/items please!