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Joined: May 2014
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Here's an example of feat selection in NWN2:

[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]

And here's how it is in BG3:

[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]

Imo NWN2's UI is clearer for player to see what feats he/she picked and about to pick. And descriptions are in separate section so it can explain the mechanism more clearly.

While BG3's feat UI is very crowded, imagining more and more feats are added, the list will be very long because they have to put all name/description inside a small section.

Thoughts?

Last edited by dunehunter; 22/07/21 03:45 PM.
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Maybe. On my first Patch 5 completion, I felt it wasn't much of a problem. I could read each feat selection and minimize ones I didn't care about.

Would have to see how it feels when a large selection is available.

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Originally Posted by Zyllos
I could read each feat selection and minimize ones I didn't care about.
What, minimise all 20 of them? Manually, one at a time? Good for you, but it's not something I'd look forward for.

I agree with OP, a lot of screens in the game look like some sort of PoC, not having much thought put into them. I understand they needed to provide some UI which would do the job, but its convenience needs to be addressed.

As I understand, few players would come to the ASI screen knowing exactly which feat they are going to take. It might be more common among PnP min-maxers, but I suspect the majority of BG3 customer base will mostly have a question "Is there any feat here which will make my character stronger / more able than 2 points into my primary stat / CON would?"
In order to answer that question, they would have to read through the entire list, as UI doesn't help them to focus on things their character would probably benefit the most.

I can think of many ways how to provide such focus. For example, we can arrange feat names into some kind of a dynamic matrix, with one dimension being primary stat or class suitability and another, say, playstyle - frontline, backline, support, flanking, etc. So when the player clicks on the row / column headers, the list (or rather, the surface) is filtered by these criteria, not much different from a typical OLAP cube laugh

Oh, and feat descriptions should not clutter the space. Show them as tooltips, or maybe in a designated area, if going the NWN way. Just make sure that area is refreshed on mouse hover, not click.


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