Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General BG3 UI development past/current

Here are two screenshots on the state of the UI. An old leaked shot versus right now.
Give credit were credit is due. Id say things are moving in a positive way.
Still needs some work? What do you think?

Agree that It definitely looks way better now, and hope to see future improvements.

I am a little surprised by how they appear to be making the UI updates step by step (i.e. updates from patch 2 to patch 3 to patch 4), as opposed to doing 1 or 2 big changes that are a bit more "future proof". Feels like that's a lot more rounds and iterations of artwork and design that the team will need to do.

The big question mark that is leading me to think this way is that the current UI set-up does not account for multi-classing at all (which to my knowledge is still a feature they are implementing). For example, the current level-up UI is clearly designed for single class characters. The abilities icons/UI doesn't look like it's ready for when we can combine multi-class abilities (i.e. a sneak attack with menacing attack), so I would expect that to change.

So if they are going to properly implement that later down the line, it feels like a lot of work is going into versions of UI that will eventually be scrapped.

I think I'm weird, I'd pick the top one any day of the week

They don't seem all that different, to me. Similar elements moved around a bit. I probably prefer the top one because there is more working space and less tiny buttons that are difficult to click precisely. The top one also feels more cluttered to me; probably a result (in part) of all of the buttons surrounding the mini-map.

I don't think either is particularly good - they mostly feel like a collection of stuff. The UI should explain itself better.

Who's in the picture? Is that the druid who sends the bird to go looking for Halsin? The one who doesn't want to participate in the ritual? I can't think of her name right now.

I like the top one for the main reason that it looks like you could zoom out further. As for UI I do like the current version better, but would happily give that up to go back to being able to see more.

Regarding UI, we need:
- A proper spell menu, no way around it.
High level characters will have tons of spells. With the current system there will be several full pages of the hot bar and it will be hard to find anything. You have to re arrange the hotbar every level up because you gain new abilities. And then you cast "heat metal" from page 1 of your hot bar and the next round you have to scroll some pages down to find the "cast the spell again" button.
Hot bars are nice to use the abilities and items you use most frequently.
They cannot replace a menu where you can see and use all of your abilities in a well sorted way.
NWN2 spell menu was the best I have seen so far, Kingmaker and PoE2 are Ok too.
- Better inventory management.
Moving items around between characters and the camp chest is annoying when you have to do it all the time.
Apart from normal items, over time your inventory gets flooded with keys and quest items and its hard to tell which of this stuff you still need or if it can be thrown away/sold.
Specialized containers (key rings, scroll cases, gem bags and so on) could be a good start, but I am sure more can be done.

At the moment the UI is usable, but often annoying.
This, plus the camera, are the biggest problems now.
The game itself (characters, locations, quests, graphics) is great. I am not a fan of some game mechanics, but this is an issue between DnD fans (me) and DOS fans.
But it should definitively be less annoying to use all the cool stuff you have.

Like the action bar lower like in the first pic, moving the two icons on the bottom would be nice and dropping it down. Minimap icons should fade away so they don't clutter the corner. Can you hide minimap? That would be nice also. Make the combat portraits smaller than the character portraits on the bottom. Big battles it becomes way to cluttered.

Don’t know if we need the character portrait shown 3 times.

Would also prefer dedicated buttons for spells and items.

At least they added portrait targeting which is very usefulz

You forgot this one at the first panel from hell.



According to me the minimap in the first pic is the best.
I hate having all these buttons arround it. The map feels very intrusive and the main buttons (character sheet, spells, inventory,...) looks like maps filters.
I think they deserve a place just for them, maybe on the bottom right.

I also like better the bottom UI in this third image. Atm the UI grasp 1 useless cm on the screen just to show your action/bonus actions.
I like better when this part of the UI is on the edge of the screen so it's less intrusive.

I see no meaningful difference between the two, outside original hotbar allowing to pack more spells on one screen - which, if it is how Larian wants to keep it - is better. There are necessary additons in the later release, like full/bonus action indicators, available spell resources - but other then that both are the same.

I don't have issues with the look of the UI, but functionality. And as far I am concerned it is Bethesda bad - with an exception that Bethesda did seemed to always ship with placeholder UI, while Larian's are very fancy-looking, just not practical.