In Dragon Age Inquisition, PC gamers are getting some love. We have PC centric UI and i'm glad i bought the game that developer don't push me aside. Now that TW3 PC gamers will have same UI as consoles. I like the skill hotbar. Can we have something like that? And are we able to annotate our own notes on the map? Thanks
There are different type of bombs, potions, traps, swapping the swords, as well as signs. There are absolutely many reasons to. You can of course hide it if you dont like it. No reason to not allow those who want it simply because you don't want it. No?
Witcher 1:
The signs are shown on the left bar:
The stance and the active potions:
I think a hotbar will be really great additions that i can even swap different type of Steel/Silver swords (possibly with different elements: Ice/Fire/etc.). And also possibly swapping armor if they allow.
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To me the huge wheel in the middle of the screen is more designed for the consoles although it can be used on the PC. But what I dislike about wheel thing is when you are in action, for an example you have encountered a brand new monster and you do not know how to fight against it, you bring up wheel menu which blocks your view and stops action then you select item which you discover that doesn't work on this particular monster, then you bring up wheel menu again and select another item which again blocks your view and stops action, and you do that again and again. All that is breaking immersion, it can be done more fluidly by tapping keys on keyboard to change your spells or primary weapon without loosing sight from a monster and without breaking immersion. Usually these fights are accompanied with epic music which will probably mute while wheel menu is popped up.
Wheel menu can be used optionally for sure but it is not that good suitable in fights in my honest opinion, though consoles must use wheel menu because they lack buttons.
EDIT: Also inventory, journal, skill tree etc can be better designed (more artistic is better for fantasy game IMO) and arranged for a more natural K/M usage.
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Rather than a hotbar personally I just want to be able to assign signs to hotkeys like we could in TW2 and being able to assign item slots to hotkeys. Basically a hotbar that never actually shows on screen. That way I won't ever have to pause during battle. (if I do then that means I didn't prepare well enough for the battles ahead).
IIRC the music didn't mute even when pausing. It doesn't make a lot of sense if it would.
To me the UI looks OK. Some things here and there I'd like to change like the return of the 3D medalion from TW1. But generally I'm more interested on being able to hotkey items and signs, I have all these keys on my keyboard, let me use them please, don't force me to pause the action in order to select a particular type of bomb. I don't really care about the radial menu much because it interrupts the action. I don't need them to tailor the UI to my needs as a PC gamer,I don't need it to have a different layout, I just want it to be functional. I'm glad they got rid of the lists and that they brought back the grid menu from TW1 but with the categorization of TW2.
I hope the bestiary section will be more similar to TW1 rather than have it divided in 2 like TW2; in TW2 you had a section in your journal where you could see creature descriptions and then you had another that was only accessible from the character skills menu (knowledge) that described their habbits and weaknesses in more detail. I never quite understood why that information was divided in two completely separate areas of the UI.
IIRC the music didn't mute even when pausing. It doesn't make a lot of sense if it would.
To me the UI looks OK. Some things here and there I'd like to change like the return of the 3D medalion from TW1. But generally I'm more interested on being able to hotkey items and signs, I have all these keys on my keyboard, let me use them please, don't force me to pause the action in order to select a particular type of bomb. I don't really care about the radial menu much because it interrupts the action. I don't need them to tailor the UI to my needs as a PC gamer,I don't need it to have a different layout, I just want it to be functional. I'm glad they got rid of the lists and that they brought back the grid menu from TW1 but with the categorization of TW2.
I hope the bestiary section will be more similar to TW1 rather than have it divided in 2 like TW2; in TW2 you had a section in your journal where you could see creature descriptions and then you had another that was only accessible from the character skills menu (knowledge) that described their habbits and weaknesses in more detail. I never quite understood why that information was divided in two completely separate areas of the UI.
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Yeah, I saw the pc specific UI and it is strange to see BioWare of all companies give pc gamers more attention than CD Projekt is doing.
Every modern Bioware game has had a hotkey bar. When they were asked about PC gameplay, they mentioned hotkey bar and mouse controls, not much else. It's the Mass Effect 2&3 model, not the Dragon Age Origin model. CDPR gave us attention by making an inventory system that actually looks like a video game inventory system, not a cumbersome iphone menu. PC will be the last priority for Inquisition now that they have four consoles ahead of it. I can't believe you people are so easily fooled.
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In the 37min video you can see, that the signs can be switched while pressing a key, you don't have to open the wheel menu. You then can switch between the steel and silver sword like in the previous witcher games.
The Witcher 3 is not an Action RPG like Diablo, so there will not be 2 different gear sets you can toggle between. And why should you anyway. Since gear has a weight, you will probably not take a bunch of swords with you. You instead take the strongest sword you have and enhance it with a rune or oil to the specific fight.
Furthermore, the battle music does not stop during the fight, where did you get that idea?
Only 8 abilities on hotbar is an example of attention ?
The grid based inventory is imo the only element which can be interpreted as pro-PC (or better pro-M/K). Traditionally grid based inventories offer more information on a smaller place which is always an indication for a PC-centered UI. There was a design goal once to make scrolling and menu-clicking as little as possible and to offer as much information as possible at the place you currently look. That led to grid based inventories with small items and mouseover indications if you have much precision and freedom of movement with a mouse to actually be able to pick them up properly. Since controllers are more imprecise than mice and 360° movement on a planar space isn't exactly their no1 strength grid based inventories were often replaced with list based inventories in console games to enable a more convenient usage of inventories by just scrolling with pressing your analogue/digital stick up or down. With that came two changes/limitations: first with list based inventories you have less information on screen without further input and second weight is now the only possibility to limit inventory space. With a grid based inventory you can add size as a second level of inventory restriction. E.g. you cannot carry more than a few big items with you at the same time no matter how big they are if you implement a grid based inventory properly.
So yes, a grid based inventory seems to indicate a PC-centered UI in W3. But there are some problems with that or better signs that indicate the opposite.
These are the reasons why the UI is imo more controller oriented (apart from the grid based inventory):
1) Everything is "big". Every item is quite big so you're able to see and pick everything on a big TV screen. While the inventory is grid based items must be big enough to properly pick them with a relatively imprecise controller.
2) Missing mouseover information. Information (like weapon stats) is shown in a window on screen instead of exactly where you are currently browsing. Also there seems to be no item-comparison (inventory item vs item you wear) as mouseover information.
3) Full screen UI/inventory screen instead of a much smaller, flexible and even draggable windows which leads to more immersion breaking. That seems to be needed to offer enough space for all windows and big items needed for a "big picture standard mode".
4) Missing traditional PC UI conventions like a small "x" in the upper right corner of windows/screens to close them.
5) So far no drag-and-drop mechanics confirmed. That's not really a question of aesthetics but it goes hand in hand in this case.
6) Ring menu for skills/bombs/signs is clearly made for best controller use. It 1to1 emulates the movement of an analogue controller stick.
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You can, watch the 37min video. The player is constantly switching sign without going to the menu.
If you can change between bombs with a hotkey, I don't know. But opening the wheel menu for a second is no immersion killer for me.
the 3d medallion would be cool though, much demanded by the community.
Yes, that was quite annoying. It seems that the bestiary is in the journal, maybe as a seperate submenu like preparation is a submenu of meditation. When I see the beast described in the preparation menu, I believe the bestiary will be awesome.
Compared to not a single pc specific function regarding the UI? Yes it is.
So an overall better UI and Inventory for both PC AND CONSOLE is somehow worse than the same bad inventory and 8 spell limit with very minor tweaks for PC? Why do you care so much about being a special snowflake? Was Mass Effect 3 UI better on PC? No...
It will be the last reaction I will post about it here (for it being offtopic) but it shows me that an actual effort is being made to deliver the best experience to each platform instead of just making one thing and forcing it on all. Not to mention that I find the Inquisition inventory and UI to be better than the TW3 one based on what we know so far but that is taste/opinion.
Maybe chars in DAI are limited to 8 active spells/abilities at the same time? Without knowing the actual combat mechanics in detail you cannot say properly whether 8 spots on the hotbar are enough or not.
Or maybe it works like Divinity Original Sin in which you can toggle through multiple hotbars.
You had that in TW2 as well and it was completely pointless for me. What it does is basically scroll through your signs/items, you can't cast one instantly, you first have to select it. That takes time, time in which you can get killed not to mention that it completely breaks the flow of combat: I set a guy on fire stunning him for a bit, oh shit another guy's charging at me, let me run/roll away from him while press a button X times to switch to aard. No, just no... for me it was even worse than the radial menu.
That's why I was thrilled to see that I could assign each sign to a different key and just seamlessly switch between sword and signs. I couldn't switch between those and bombs, knives & traps because I had to pause to switch between them. And that's the reason why I rarely used them. I used them less than potions. It's not just about immersion, it's about the flow of combat and how it's broken up by these constant interruptions.
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I'm sorry, but no. This is objectively worse than even TW2, you will waste far more time in this badly over-designed UI than if they actually put effort into it.
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The comparison was bad in The Witcher 2 and I also see not a lot of improvement here. There are some green icons to indicate, that the stats are better than the other item, but that's it.
I want not to read small text or have mini icons to decipher, I'm all good with a full screen menu. How would you implement all the menu's and the information in the game world then? I also like the menu from let's say Dead Space, but in TW3, it's not gonna happen.
Smaller items + mouseover information = much smaller menu screens/windows
A well done PC UI is scalable as well imo. So you can adjust the size of fonts for example to your own likings (and based on whether you play on your big TV screen or on your ultra sharp PC monitor right in front of you).
But I agree with you that the comparison was already a bit lacking (or improvable) in TW2. There are better examples of doing a proper item comparison than that.
Now I understand. You want to press 1 for igni, 2 for aard and so on?
Well maybe you can, we don't know the possibilities of key bindings. On the other hand every sign has two modes. How would you approach that? And is that hotbar really the right way to do for a witcher game?