Larian Banner: Baldur's Gate Patch 9
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Page 1 of 2 1 2
#759872 26/02/21 08:52 AM
Joined: Oct 2020
Ysh Offline OP
stranger
OP Offline
stranger
Joined: Oct 2020
Hello Everyone,

Since I couldn't find any thread concerning this matter, I'm bringing it up ^^

So far, I've loved this Baldur's Gate III experience. And I have to say, I'm impressed by this last Patch 4.

However, if I had to point out one thing that, for me, requires a huge revamp, it's the UI !
The UI is quite messy when it comes to spell, consumables (potions etc...), ability, actions, bonus actions, special ability, items, special items... I've written all those on the same line on purpose to give the same feeling as the UI ;-)
Those are all mixed together and it's extremely unintuitive. I've come to realised that several times when I had friends over who tried the game. They all were struggling with that.

I don't think it requires a huge revamp, but I think that there should be spreaded categories for at least the following :

- Spells / Special abilities
- Potions / consumables
- Items (special use)

This would greatly improve the game experience and knowing myself what it requires as a work quantity, it might not take that long.

I doubt that I'm the only one to have that feeling ^^

Let your voice be heard people !

Have a nice day

Joined: Mar 2020
Location: Belfast
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Mar 2020
Location: Belfast
There is definitely at least one dedicated thread for party control system, and complaints regarding UI are common. What worries me, that it's the same UI they used for their previous titles, so they might just be happy with it.I repeated myself enough times already so for anyone interested this summary includes post of my main greavances.

Last edited by Wormerine; 26/02/21 12:11 PM.
Joined: Oct 2020
Ysh Offline OP
stranger
OP Offline
stranger
Joined: Oct 2020
Great Thread !

Research tool didn't offer it as a result though.

Thanks ^^

Joined: Mar 2020
Location: Belfast
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Mar 2020
Location: Belfast
Don't worry, I think dedicated thread is well worth it. And finding other post on the same subject isn't easy on this forum. From what I have seen mods aren't terribly concerned about repeating threads unless it something very explosive that consumes other posts (cough, RTwP vs Turn-based, cough) so it should be good.

Thank you for bumping my post to the front again, though. That boosts my ego wink

Joined: Oct 2020
Ysh Offline OP
stranger
OP Offline
stranger
Joined: Oct 2020
My pleasure ;-)

Joined: Sep 2020
addict
Offline
addict
Joined: Sep 2020
And here were my suggestions so far - https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=750739
I keep on drawing more in my spare time for the rest of the UI.

Joined: Oct 2020
Ysh Offline OP
stranger
OP Offline
stranger
Joined: Oct 2020
Another great thread of suggestions ! In the end my thread will be the gatherer ;-)

I'll bump yours with my OP
I wonder if our thread are read ^^

Really hope to see those changes

Joined: Sep 2020
addict
Offline
addict
Joined: Sep 2020
Originally Posted by Ysh
I'll bump yours with my OP
Thanks. I'm really hoping for some of those changes.

Joined: Oct 2020
Location: Savage North
addict
Offline
addict
Joined: Oct 2020
Location: Savage North
Well, I'm old enough (on this forum, needless to say) to remember some posts from when they were posted, so I can use my memory to complement the advanced search function and the sometimes pages and pages of returned results.

Issues with the UI, Controls and Quality-of-Life features have been abundantly described in posts by Firesnakearies, Zellin, alice_ashpool, Niara, and myself, to name but a few (by chronological order, and this of course omits many such feedbakcs).

All of these posts are of the "one person, all topics" kind. I believe (read : hope) that there's some value in these, if Larian has someone dedicated to reading the forums and thoroughly recording the recurring issues raised by players. How big a leap of faith this requires is everyone's opinion.

Then there is the extreme opposite kind of post, which is the "one single topic, everyone posts here" kind. I believe (again : hope) that there's some value in these. I would presume that, if someone at Larian scrupulously analyses the forum posts, they would at least care about thread title + first page + number of replies. The thread on the way Larian manages party movement is dreadful recently got promoted to the mega-thread status, and I would be more than happy to see "UI and controls" join it. I don't know to what extend the OP's title can still be edited, but this thread might as well be it, for all I know (i.e. not all forum threads ever).

I'm also hoping there's some value in the recent wishlist and worries threads, which are a bit less "one single topic", but should still be useful to Larian if they have someone meticulously recording feedback.

Of course, there's a lot of hope in here, notably the hope that Larian cares and has any plan to act on this feedback. And as much as I would think they'd be wrong if they thought so, I'd be happy to hear Larian say they won't change these things (be it because they like the way they are, or are just not capable of changing them, or else, the reason doesn't matter nearly as much as the decision). Given that these issues have been reported for a while, and that very little has changed, it's hard to be too hopeful. I mean, how hard is it to add a hotkey for jump ?

Last edited by Drath Malorn; 26/02/21 06:43 PM. Reason: Jump : hotkey
Joined: Oct 2020
Ysh Offline OP
stranger
OP Offline
stranger
Joined: Oct 2020
I'm starting to think that Larian won't make that change because of the following reason : Mods

We can't ignore the fact that the game will be extremely customisable and "mod-able". Therefore, I don't see why they would waste time on such things instead of working on the core of them game itself.
I guess I needed to write this thread to think it through ^^

Joined: Aug 2014
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Aug 2014
Couldn't agree more. The single hotbar in BG3 is a horrible mess. You shouldn't have to search for your abilities and items every time you want to do something.

Spells need their own interface. With level sorting and easy upcasting or metamagic.

Abilities need their own UI, where you can also tell by glance which short rest and long rest abilities you have available. Abilities granted by items should be bundled up with class abilities.

Consumable items like arrows, bombs and potions need their own sorting.

And finally, temporary actions like reactivating Witch Bolt or hurling Produce Flame need to appear above basic actions like Attack and Disengage.

Effective sorting should work better even on a controller. The UI rework should be a priority since it's so fundamental in how the game plays.

Joined: Mar 2020
Location: Belfast
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Mar 2020
Location: Belfast
Originally Posted by Drath Malorn
All of these posts are of the "one person, all topics" kind. I believe (read : hope) that there's some value in these, if Larian has someone dedicated to reading the forums and thoroughly recording the recurring issues raised by players.
I do assume that they must have some system of gathering feedback and passing it to relevant people. As it is, I think it would be tricky and time consuming for devs to gather anything concrete out of free-form forums like this.

Joined: Oct 2020
Ysh Offline OP
stranger
OP Offline
stranger
Joined: Oct 2020
Originally Posted by Wormerine
Originally Posted by Drath Malorn
All of these posts are of the "one person, all topics" kind. I believe (read : hope) that there's some value in these, if Larian has someone dedicated to reading the forums and thoroughly recording the recurring issues raised by players.
I do assume that they must have some system of gathering feedback and passing it to relevant people. As it is, I think it would be tricky and time consuming for devs to gather anything concrete out of free-form forums like this.

Let's hope so, because honestly, I've played yesterday evening again and that UI is so clumsy I can't find anything. And the worst is when spells disappear and that you have to put them back in your bars.

Added to that, I find the part showing the number of spell available left before rest not that great.

Joined: Mar 2020
Location: Belfast
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Mar 2020
Location: Belfast
Originally Posted by Ysh
Let's hope so, because honestly, I've played yesterday evening again and that UI is so clumsy I can't find anything. And the worst is when spells disappear and that you have to put them back in your bars.

Added to that, I find the part showing the number of spell available left before rest not that great.
Yes, the biggest issue is that it’s not one time investment but ongoing chore every time you change spells or level up. And that’s level 4. I can imagine playing mage level 10+ that way.

Amount of spells left is not too bad, though it took me some time before I noticed that. But unless you organise things yourself, you will have trouble to recognise on a glance what spells use which resource.

Overall, I just don’t like the hot bar. Kingmaker had the same issue, and I couldn’t be bothered to rearrange my hot bar for spellcasters after every swap of spells (which in Kingmaker is often). Luckily Kingmaker has a more traditional extension as well, though it less the ideal - you have to manually click to expand it, manually click on spell level, and then most likely manually retract it before casting a spell. That’s a lot of clicks, not to add that buttons are small and it’s easy to misclick - which in that game that can mean death. That said, I had slightly better time on 27’ screen, but on laptop it was a nightmare.

Joined: Sep 2015
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Sep 2015
I totally agree, the UI is a big mess.

The Pathfinder does many things better and even there is lots of room for improvement.
I have not played Solasta yet.

We need:
- A spell menu where a) all spells are sorted by spell level, b) the ability to cast them at higher level, c) it should show if casting at higher level has an effect and if yes, what is the effect and d) the number of used and unused spell slots for each level.
The spell menu from NWN2 was the best I have seen so far and something similar should do a good job.
- A menu for class abilities
- A menu for items that can be used again (like the speak with the dead amulet or the amulet that can heal you)
note: Pathfinder put item powers and class abilities in the same menu and it can be confusing sometimes.
- A use manu, you press a button and see all items that can be used, in the best case sorted by type (potion, scroll, grenade type, special ammo, food)
Kind of the same thing as the throw button
- A way that players can customize the hotbar. Unfortuanatly I cannot see a way to avoid the hotbar entirely.

very nice to have:
- Items get auto sorted into different bags when you pick them up.
- You can sell items without moving all items from one char to the other. usually the char with most strengh who carries stuff is not the char with high cha who gets the best prizes.
I would cut the D:OS price system entirely. Everyone gets the same prize and it only changes when you change your reputation with a group because of a quest (or by randomly killing their members), no prize improvement by giving items away for free.

After some thinking I have an idea:
instead of the throw button we get two buttons "use as action" and "use as bonus action".
When you press them you see all items that can be used as action or bonus action and you can sort things into categories.
- When using an item on the enemy you throw it if it cannot be used in the usual sense (like use fireball scroll on enemy)
- If the target is an ally you can select if you want to use it on him/her or give it to him/her.
I think it makes no sense that you can swap items between characters and your own equipment as well during combat however you like.
Outside of combat it is fine, but it feels wrong to change armor during combat or put 20 health potions in the inventory of your friend.


groovy Prof. Dr. Dr. Mad S. Tist groovy

World leading expert of artificial stupidity.
Because there are too many people who work on artificial intelligence already :hihi:
Joined: Oct 2017
enthusiast
Offline
enthusiast
Joined: Oct 2017
Whilst as of Patch 4 the User Interface does look nicer, in terms of functionality it still leaves a lot to be desired. So here is my categorical list of everything that I find wrong with the UI.

#1 Hotbar.
The Hotbar is very clunky. Whilst you can disable it automatically adding items and powers to the bar, it still suffers from many problems. There are (broadly speaking) 2 ways to do spell selection in an RPG. The first is to provide a hotbar which can be expanded as needed by the player, the second is to use radial menus. BG3 tries to do the first, but you cannot expand it nearly enough in order to make it passably functional. If they want to go this route, it should look more like this.
[Linked Image from cdn.discordapp.com]
As you can see, there is enough space there to reasonably assign almost everything you could want to. With that being said, I dislike this approach because it looks messy and prefer something akin to the second option more. NWN 2 and Pillars of Eternity both do this well, with Pillar's UI being the example I will give.
[Linked Image from cdn.discordapp.com]
As you can see in the picture, each spell level is represented by an icon and hovering over the icon proceeds to reveal the abilities available. For non caster classes, you could have all the abilities hidden behind a single icon. You then have the option to assign abilities that you use frequently to keybinds by simply hovering over the icon and pressing the key you would like to assign to it, which works quite nicely. A hybridization of the 2 systems could do quite well, where character abilities (spells etc) are all buried within radial menus and you could then have a hotbar for consumables only.

#2 Journal.
This problem is left over from Divinity 1 and 2. The Journal is difficult to use because quests are not sorted in a logical manner and with the exception of filtering by completed (which was only added in recently) there aren't any good ways to filter down quests. I recommend once again, using a system for the Journal similar to Pillars of Eternity 2, whereby quests are sorted by the region you acquired them from, or the faction the quest is related to. Here is an example picture.

[Linked Image from cdn.discordapp.com]
If you filter by location.
[Linked Image from cdn.discordapp.com]
Give quests some tags, for example [Druid] or [Tiefling Refugees] or [Minthara] so we can tell at a glance which factions are associated with them and have some way to filter down information within the Journal. Give us a text search function as well.

I understand needing to not provide meta knowledge to the player in doing so and I am fully against map markers. I am also perfectly fine with quests giving vague directions or cryptic hints, but the journal should provide a high level of functionality in terms of what the player does know. The player, when they receive the quest, does know who or what they got the quest from and where they were at the time. It should be possible to order the journal by this. Right now the journal functions as if it is the journal of a disorganized person, which is I guess fine if the player is a disorganized person, but for those of us who like a little bit of order in our lives, its really frustrating to use and its functionality is limited.

#3 Inventory.
The inventory is a mess. On the one hand I understand the following.
1. For multiplayer, every character needs to have their own inventory otherwise bickering will arise.
2. For the purposes of realism, it makes more sense for each person to carry stuff than have everything carried around in some homogeneous blob (this is the way its often dealt with in other games).

On the other hand, not every item needs to be something stored personally. There are plenty of junk items which will be sold which could be stored communally. Furthermore, the amount of items which we carry around in the game without a pack mule to do the carrying is already unrealistic, its much more convenient to abstract it away to some shared storage. If the multiplayer component is really essential, you could add ownership tags to items placed into shared storage based on who picks them up and then when the item is sold the gold is placed into the possession of the person who it was tagged to. The way weight could be handled is, the shared stash has a weight limit equal to the sum of the party weight limit, minus the weight of the items on each person's character + personal inventory.

Once again, I would recommend a User Interface similar to Pillars of Eternity for the inventory. Here is an example picture.

[Linked Image from cdn.discordapp.com]
In the middle, you have your character with their equipment, on the right, you have their personal inventory and the party stash. Furthermore, the shared stash can then be filtered by item type. When you pick up items, you are faced with the following UI.

[Linked Image from cdn.discordapp.com]
You can either click on the portrait of the character you want the item to go into the inventory of, or you can click on the chest icon and it goes into the shared stash.

When it comes to selling items, there should be an option to automatically move all non enchanted items into the barter window, as well as an option to move all junk items. Larian should go through and label certain items as junk to support this functionality. The lack of these features adds a lot of unnecessary busywork which detracts from the overall play experience.

#4 Dialogues.
The key which skips dialogues (spacebar) should not also select a dialogue option (it currently selects the first). This has the unintended side effect where when you are trying to skip through dialogue, you accidentally choose dialogue options you do not wish to choose. This is especially problematic on subsequent playthroughs to the first, which is especially relevant to all of us early access players.

#5 Animations in Combat.
Whilst I understand some people like seeing the fancy animations on a roll of 20 with the big dice stuck in their face (and some of them are even asking for equally fancy animations on a roll of 1 with some spectacular failure), some of us would like the option to not see these animations and not have the dice be shoved on our screen, with combat just playing out as normal. I personally find the dice sticking itself on my screen and the animations played out as a result of it to be quite obnoxious and would like to be able to turn this off.

#6 Camera Controls.
I am not really sure how to fix these, but the way the camera controls currently is really, really bad. I find myself using both the mouse and keyboard while playing the game just to manipulate the camera and babysitting it is something that I have to do all the time. It is a chore and there has to be a better way of doing this. I think the camera in Dragon Age Origins was acceptable and also worked in 3d, so maybe looking at that as a starting point, but the camera as is has got to change.

Bonus Complaints.
These aren't really issues with UI, but they peeve me enough for me to stick them here.

#7 Party Controls.
This is a serious hassle. Please allow for marquee select for single player, the chain really feels bad to use.

#8 Pathfinding.
Astarion goes out of his way to avoid water when you want him to walk through it, but anyone else with any other surface will walk blindly through it when you want them to go around. Please improve the pathfinding in both cases. If the path around is too long, have the companion either jump over if they can or walk through if they can't. If the path around is short enough, have them just walk around the surface.

Last edited by Sharp; 04/03/21 07:52 PM.
Joined: Oct 2020
Ysh Offline OP
stranger
OP Offline
stranger
Joined: Oct 2020
Very nice input from your part guys. Keep up the good work !

It can lead to some real improvement hehe

Joined: Sep 2015
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Sep 2015
These are some great suggestions.
As I said before, for spell menu I am still a fan of NWN2.

But you are right that PoE2 is a great example for inventory.
There is a group stash and a personal inventory for every char. The personal inventory is limited and you can only use items from your own inventory during combat.
When picking up stuff you can select to give it a character (anyone in the group) or to the stash.
At the moment the inventory is very annoying. You have to move things all the time for buy/sell stuff or equipping stuff.

Yes, the camera is not good often.
Sometimes I wish I could tilt the camera, so the camera can be anywhere between right behind a char and a top down view.

party control:
I do not like the chain system.
why not do it like any other RPG since BG1


groovy Prof. Dr. Dr. Mad S. Tist groovy

World leading expert of artificial stupidity.
Because there are too many people who work on artificial intelligence already :hihi:
Joined: Mar 2021
M
stranger
Offline
stranger
M
Joined: Mar 2021
Originally Posted by Madscientist
These are some great suggestions.
As I said before, for spell menu I am still a fan of NWN2.

But you are right that PoE2 is a great example for inventory.
There is a group stash and a personal inventory for every char. The personal inventory is limited and you can only use items from your own inventory during combat.
When picking up stuff you can select to give it a character (anyone in the group) or to the stash.
At the moment the inventory is very annoying. You have to move things all the time for buy/sell stuff or equipping stuff.

Yes, the camera is not good often.
Sometimes I wish I could tilt the camera, so the camera can be anywhere between right behind a char and a top down view.

party control:
I do not like the chain system.
why not do it like any other RPG since BG1


I am in agreement with this. Think most people feel the UI is so-so. And yeah the chain system is just a bad idea.

A side note of the UI. I am not a big fan of the opening menu of the game. Not the music nor the aesthetics.

Do we know if it is just a temporary menu under early access or do they plan to stick with it? Feel like there are so many RPGs with great opening menus that they could use for inspiration. BG2, NW, Mass Effect, Skyrim, Divinity etc. Does not have be something complicated as long as it sets a mode for the game. Now I feel like I am entering a caste only to find someone left yesterdays garbage at the entrance. Anyone else have this feeling, or is just that the menu does not match my preferences?

Joined: Mar 2020
Location: Belfast
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Mar 2020
Location: Belfast
Originally Posted by Madscientist
At the moment the inventory is very annoying. You have to move things all the time for buy/sell stuff or equipping stuff.
That's a fundamental problem. Unlike, let's say Kingmaker or even BG1&2, BG3 doesn't restrict items we have access to as there is the ability to send whatever we want to homebase, if I remember well (being EA I didn't care that much for my inventory and would just not loot anything not 100% necessary). As such there is no real reason as to not give players access to a more convenient "stash" that we can access at any time and not worry about weight limit. Which would be fine if there was weight limit, but there really isn't because of the stash, which we can access at almost any time, it's just annoying to do so.

Similarly, when we loot we can send anything we want to any party member, no matter the distance - "realism" then, is not a concern. But we can't freely switch between characters, who are chained and standing right beside, without exiting looting the container, unless they are standing right on top of each other. Which would be nice, as current UI demands constant management, and manual sorting of items into it's own containers on hotbar. Which means, I either have to use "send" button to spread desired items among party members (arrows to archer, granades to rogue, potions to relevant people etc. etc) and then manually hunt said items in the overstuffed inventory and then assign them to hot bar (automatic hotbar is of course off, because it just creates an unmanagable mess). Or! I have to open the container, loot what I want with one person and assign it directly to hotbar/container on hotbar, then switch to another character, open container again do the same, then yet another character.... That's one way to make a 100h plus RPG.

I mean BG1&2 inventory management was also very fiddly, but there was so much less of it. I had better time playing through Siege of Dragonspear on my tablet, then fighting with BG3 UI on PC.

Page 1 of 2 1 2

Link Copied to Clipboard
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5