Suggestions for the new UI
Tanthalas
Member Posts: 6,738
I know that the UI is being improved upon so its possible that this topic will end up being pointless. But I'll leave some suggestions here for the new UI system.
Some of this stuff was originally posted by other users on reddit.
1. Allow us to customize our quickbar.
Currently, the only quickbar customization that we're allowed is for weapons (2 to 4 depending on class), 3 item slots and 2-3 spell slots (depending on class, for example a Thief/Mage doesn't have any slot available for spells). Considering that monitors are a lot wider these days there's a lot of unused real estate on the quickbar.
A great improvement to the UI would be to allow us to freely customize the quickbar with whatever we want (similar to Icewind Dale 2). In addition, it would be great if you could allow us to have more quickslots.
Some of this stuff was originally posted by other users on reddit.
1. Allow us to customize our quickbar.
Currently, the only quickbar customization that we're allowed is for weapons (2 to 4 depending on class), 3 item slots and 2-3 spell slots (depending on class, for example a Thief/Mage doesn't have any slot available for spells). Considering that monitors are a lot wider these days there's a lot of unused real estate on the quickbar.
A great improvement to the UI would be to allow us to freely customize the quickbar with whatever we want (similar to Icewind Dale 2). In addition, it would be great if you could allow us to have more quickslots.
Post edited by Tanthalas on
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Comments
Currently if you have a shield or offhand weapon equipped, you can not have a 2 handed weapon on your quickslot bar. What this means is that if you want to play a character that swaps from using a shield/dual-wielding to using a 2-hander you're forced to open the inventory menu and manually remove your shield/off-hand weapon to equip the 2 hander. In my case I was playing a dual-wielding Ranger that used a bow. This is really annoying.
Please change the UI so that the weapon quickslots aren't limited to your main-hand but rather include your off-hand as well, similar to how it works in Icewind Dale 2.
Currently if you're a spell casting class you can select your spells in combat in 2 ways:
a) Directly assign the spell to the quickbar (when you can, some class combos can't).
b) Click the spell icon on the quickbar and then click on the scrolling pages to find the spell you want.
At the beginning of the game, this isn't much of a problem as you don't have many spells to play with anyway. But when you reach the higher levels (and specially if you play a character like a Cleric/Mage) this means that you'll be scrolling through pages of spells until you find the one that you want.
- Instead of just having one spell icon on the quickbar for all spells, create different quickbar spell icons for Arcane and Divine spells.
- When the player clicks the spell icon (be it the Arcane or Divine icon) instead of going directly to your list of currently memorized spells, first bring up a menu where you select the spell level and then you get to your spells.
- This suggestion is a slight improvement over the previous one. I think it would be even better if when you press the spell icon (Arcane or Divine) you go directly to your list of memorized spells, BUT, there is another line of icons above those where you choose the spell level (similar to how when you're looking at the Arcane and Divine spell menus you have the spell level short cuts there) and selecting the spell level would automatically scroll you to the first spell of that level. This would work well if the game also memorized the last spell you chose and automatically scrolled you to that spells position on the list.
Currently there is no way in the game for the player to see a description for what a special ability does. Hell, the only way to even see if a character has a special ability is by looking at them on the field screen and hovering your cursor over it. For many special abilities this isn't a problem because we recognize their icon as being the same as a spell, but if you don't recognize the icon or there isn't an equivalent spell for it (as I believe is the case for Minsc's Berserk) you can't see any information about the ability besides its name by hovering with your cursor above it.
It would be great if there was a new menu where you can look at the special abilities that the character possesses and also see a description for the ability.
This suggestion might not fit very well with the rest of the UI suggestions, but I think it would be useful if when a character levels up, the level up information screen also include any new special abilities gained. For instance, when a Ranger would level up, the level up info would also include "Additional Animal Friendship use gained" or some such.
And is there some kind of character limit for posts? This was originally one single big post but I was only able to post it after breaking it down to smaller pieces.
Currently when your character is afflicted with a status ailment you only get an icon over the character's portrait and if you go to the Record menu you get a name for the status ailment.
I know this is something that comes up in the manual, but it would be helpful if you could find out what a status effect is actually doing to your character in the game.
I don't know if there's a simple solution to this. You could perhaps add more info about the status effect on the Record menu in addition to its name, but I'm not sure if this wouldn't be too cumbersome. Perhaps hovering over the status effect icon with the cursor in this menu could show a little box with info (the iPad version would require a different solution of course)? Another alternative would be having a Help menu in the game with this kind of info, though this might require a lot of work.
This isn't something major, just a little suggestion.
1. and 2. are much needed.
I wouldn't mind #3 and #4, either.
I'd also like to add: tear-offs for the UI, so you can have sidebars like the original, or tear them off to make them 'hover' as windows like in Elder Scrolls games (and have (customizable) transparency on these windows). And it goes without saying you can put them in any side, just like you can with the windows taskbar.
Also, where you get a 'string' of icons (grouped per character, let's say), you can dock it in different places: e.g. alongside the quickbar (shows only when the relevent character is selected) or around the portrait where it surrounds all four sides as per the amount of icons.
Heck let me start again:
1. Dockable windows that turn into sidebars or lock onto other windows.
2. Resizable windows.
3. Alpha transparency.
4. Skinnability, with multiple skins (BG1, BG2) shipped.
5. Dynamic updating of values using (internally) hooks, showing pre-change values (e.g. hovering eq over a slot and showing the difference hilighted in a separate stats window) and post-change. Have the font used for the hilighting be configurable.
6. Configurable fonts (see above).
7. (option) Automatically zoom in when dialog initiates.
8. Some camera ideas
9. Dockable 'icon strings' that can also wrap around associated windows (i.e. character portrait).
10. To be continued...
I don't know, its true that at higher levels you have the tendency of using bigger spells, but stuff like Fireball is great at all levels and my preferred method to get rid of mirror image has always been Magic Missile.
So go more in direction of showing first "x most used spells"? (x=>5)