multiple time I've succeeded at perception checks but don't know what I'm supposed to have noticed. there's no log to check. the thing I "noticed" isn't highlighted in any way.

Fact, I wish we could get the old purple and red outlines again

And they need to improve the textual feedback through the log window. On top of the fact that it closes and resets to the top every time you load a game or enter a new area (presumably a bug), it just doesn't give enough information. When you succeed a perception check, it has to say what you fucking noticed. Once or twice in the game, there'll be a voiceover like "you notice some scratches on the floor." But most of the time, there's just no indication of what it was. You see a perception check, and there's some half-second-long, pixel-small glimmer of light that's probably obscured by geometry and character models, and that's all you get. That needs to change.

Current game mechanics feedback in BG3 is atrocious, to so say it mildly.
Innate abilities dont show up, Its that bad. Picking level 2 two hands weapons specialization for the Ranger for example doesn't show ANYWHERE in your stats screen.

There is a sort of white-blue flash on the screen that stays for a second. So there is feedback. It might also be size sensitive, so the smaller the things are you noticed, the smaller the flash. As you often have your whole party perform the same check only half a second apart, the check bar might obscure the thing you just perceived. And perception checks often happen when you move your party and have your screen somewhere else, so you struggle to find the Pos1 key on your board, when you hear the sound cue (which only plays when the check failed or succeeded) just to come back to see that it already disappeared. Your attention might also be diverted elsewhere.

When you succeeded with the check you might even see the new thing, but have no idea what it is or what it actually does. So this is a button, what is it for? Is it a pro-active trap? The vent on the floor, I assume it is a trap? It does not help that you have to right-click it to see if it is a trap, and disarm it that way. So in case of the button there is nothing more that your awesome perception check tells you.
In BG2 the perception check or clicking on it with the mouse would have prompted a text like. There are a couple of wires connected to the button leading to the gargoyle heads at the far end of the room. There is an electric humming noise coming from the wires. Upon clicking it you would get a text like. The electric humming noises stopped. The switch seems turned off now.

Any feedback about the environment can only be described as awful at the moment.

It's just another example of cumbersome UI design that comes as a byproduct of the game being thought with multiplayer in mind.
I can't say I suffered this specific problem too much, but generally speaking I wish at least for single player sessions Larian would let us set autopause/highlight options.
It's kind of telling that even 20 years older games like the previous two BG had a far more sleek/ergonomic and pleastant-looking presentation when it comes to this stuff (spotting traps, hidden things, etc).

I had the same problems as OP at multiple times.
I have to find what I found each time I succeed a perception check...

Yeah, I agree. This is definitely a problem. I would prefer objects highlighted the way they do in Pillars of Eternity. Because there is no point as a player to search for something your characters have clearly seen. A waste of time.

Most things you notice is afterward added to "showed by pressing left Alt" group of objects, especialy bags or other lootable objects.
Not all of them tho, i certainly second this topic ... just saying that in some cases, you have it highlighted, you just dont noticed that this thing was not there a few seconds ago.

Yeah, I've definitely had times when I had a Perception check and then couldn't figure out what I'd allegedly spotted. Needs improvement.

Agreed on this. A plethora of character management screens with somewhat overlapping functionality (to ensure the player is confused), but neither is fit for purpose. Ideally there should be one, or maximum two such menus, with as little overlap as possible. Use submenus if you have to.

+1 to OP, it's far too easy to miss the perception check highlight.

Agree, and also I'd like an option to toggle "pause on check". Sometimes I'm not even looking where my peeps are moving and have missed checks all together. Be nice if they would pause on the roll, and also the log should reflect all trivial chat. Sometimes the off comments as peeps travelled are missed and no way to go back and see what was said.

But yes, better highlights on the items successfully checked is needed. Sometimes I have to seriously zoom and mouse hunt just to find it.

There should be a log and when you click on the entry it should zoom to whatever you found.

Yeah perception is super uneven and confusing. Sometimes the characters will comment about finding something, sometimes you will see a glowy object, sometimes you get nothing, and sometimes the characters will comment but will do it so vaguely I have no idea what did they find.

Agree.

Also with traps - you might suceed at perception and still not have the trap shown on the screen, so while you're figuring out, what on earth you've just perceived the whole party goes boom. (Goblin Camp outside area to the left of main entrance).

Furthermore some items are ridiculousy hard to zoom in and pick up (lonesome keys, letters etc)

This happens most of the time, rarely can see what is highlighted and just a few seconds. This needs a huge red sign and keep the highlight until I move cursor over.

I think Larian wants these brief perception check animations to be a hint for further investigation, not a full explanation of what happened.

Sometimes it's explicit, like a successful check showing a brief glow highlighting a gas vent on the floor. Other times, we're expected to hunt around the area with the mouse to see what shows up under the mouse pointer, like a classic 2D Adventure game. Sometimes that works, but other times what we're supposed to find might be hidden from view due to camera rotation.

I like that we need to do a little work scanning the area sometimes, not just hitting the Alt key for a pop-up. But it needs to be a little easier to mouse-hunt for the reason in some of these locations.

Pathfinder: Kingmaker does that very well. It highlights the item or whatever you found with a purple border. impossible to miss. and very easy solution.

I wouldn't mind that, but that manual search on our part should still work in a way that we don't actually fight the UI and the camera (that's what we do now, unless the highlight happens exactly in a place where we have the camera already focused).
Has to be clear. We get a hint based on perception check > now we should investigate in a properly made search mode, leading to an usable result.

The current short hint just isn't working with the current camera mode.

What I do now, is have quick saves every 1-5mins, and every such things makes me reload and approach slowly and repeat until I found what was detected. That's a lot of loading screens.

Agreed, and I think it's the camera that's the problem.

Larian wants this mouse hunt mechanic to work like it does in a 3D isometric game with a fixed viewpoint. But allowing free camera rotation and zoom means that the item might actually be off-camera, either due to rotation or being blocked by another object. They can't predict the zoom level or the compass heading of the camera when the Perception check is triggered.

One kludgy solution could be automatically rotating the camera after a successful perception check to place the object of interest in the center of the screen. Or at least the general area where it is. That might feel a little too gamey. Maybe just always show a glow for a few seconds like the gas vents, allowing the player time to pan around?

The text log really needs to be expanded,

At the very least make the traps highlight red when you pass the check to find them...

What about if you get the message, then you have to look around the room until you find the correct direction to look. The item in question then is highlighted and stays that way until you interact with it. Party should stop moving immediately as well, rather than wandering pointlessly and usually onto a trap. This way there would still be some searching required but not the current easy miss of what you are supposed to see.

In my 50 or so hours of play I quickly decided that the best approach to succesful Perception check notifications was simply to ignore them because I'd spend a fair amount of time figuring out what they were even talking about and get annoyed. Instead, just combing through the areas for secrets and such as I usually play was a lot less stressful than trying to guess what the hell the game was trying to notify me about because that was really opaque

You guys just don't get it. Your characters made a successful perception check...now it's your turn

Joking aside, yeah the UI. feedback on perception is very poor. As someone else said in this thread, I also miss the infinity engine style outlines and highlights. Those would be a huge improvement over current labels which seem misaligned when there's a ton of stuff around

That doesn't quite work though. For example, the button in the trap room in the ruins. You spot it and it is a button. Apparently it turns off the gargoyle heads shooting flames, but you can click it multiple times and each click gives you no feedback what it does and turns the trap on and off, again. So it is fully possible for players to click it. Nothing happens, which is normal in BG3, then click it again. Nothing happens, so you just assume whatever you did was either working or not. There is no connection to be seen between the button and the gargoyle heads, especially since you will find the button before you find the heads in the room.
Additionally you can not really investigate further, because there is not textual audio or visual cue, that the button is connected to these and what it does. So, even if I acknowledge that these are supposed to be a low level riddle, it does not work, because the feedback is so poor that in order to realize what the button is for you have to reload the game.

I'll add my +1 to this

Yup and when you do detect a trap, most times the rogue cant disarm it. As in no option to do so. Eg the swamp area.

That. Also what the hell is wrong with Larian and traps

It makes me really mad when I find traps and there's no disarm option. And that's MOST OF THE TRAPS in the game!

Larian

And maybe stop all character movement as well? I'm sure it's not at all annoying when you spot a trap but the party keeps on walking.

Agreed, perception checks are frustrating. Also had a chest that was trapped, perception check succeeded, but never figured a way to disarm the chest and it never showed that the chest was trapped so maybe a assumption on my part, but the perception check came after it was lockpicked. Definitely need to make successful checks a persistent highlight.

The one in the cave where the four goblins are torturing the druid? It doesn't seem to be a way to undo that trap without using the key.