Adjusting / improving D3's UI

General Discussion
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I wanted to share a side-project I’ve been working on now for a while. It is a fan-made UI mockup I made in Photoshop.

It makes several improvements to D3’s UI, but please be aware that this is not intended as feedback and mostly a passion project I made for fun, as it also reflects some of my personal ideas and preferences, but I think most of you will really like at least certain parts of it.

https://imgur.com/xWdQOqg

https://i.imgur.com/xWdQOqg.png

Same, but with other, more colorful Skill Icons:

https://imgur.com/WCTOEVC

https://i.imgur.com/WCTOEVC.png

General

  • significantly darked the Base Image, which also removes the „Luminous Fog“ effect and amplifies the vignette (like D2’s Light Radius).

UI (Major Adjustments)

  • 7 Skill Slots instead of 6

  • 2 additional Class-specific Innate Skills (with their own Skill Slots, for a total of 9)

  • Energy Shield Indicator around the Health Orb

  • Healthy Condition Indicator around the Health Orb (in D4, ‘Healthy’ is ‘above 80% Max Health’)

  • Health Potions with 3 Charges (and shorter Recharge Time, but they also doesn’t restore 60% Life instantly)

  • Stamina for Evade / Dodge Roll / Sidestep (or more Class-specific Evade Abilities like ‘Blink’ / Short-ranged Teleport)

  • small Health Potion and Stamina Indicators close to the Health Orb and the Resource Orb.

  • added a „Stagger Meter“ on the top of the Skill Bar as some sort of „Hit Recovery Mechanic“ as a Faster Hit Recovery Replacement. (*1)

(*1) Stagger Meter / Stagger Mechanic.

Intended as a (more manageable) replacement for D2’s Hit Recovery / Faster Hit Recovery.
The more Damage you take, the more Stagger builds up. Permanently decays quickly, but if you take too much Stagger within a short time, you get Micro-stunned for ~1 Second. Various ways to manage this.

UI (Minor and Medium Adjustments)

  • Diablo 2 Skill Icons, including Skill Icons made by Fans (*2)

  • Many buttons that were in the Hotbar (Inventory, Townportal, etc) got moved to the bottom-left and the bottom-right, which freed up more space.

  • XP Bar moved to the bottom (the Stagger Meter took its place on top of the Skill Bar).

Other

  • adjusted Adventure Mode Objective // Core Gameplay Loop (instead of specific objectives, it is now more ‘Go out in the world and kill whatever comes your way’, maybe with minor bonuses to random regions)

  • Replaced Wizards Arcane Power with Mana (its a Sorc now :D)

Skills on the Hotbar:
LMB: D2 Firebolt
RMB: D2 Fireball
1: D2 Firewall
2: D2 Hydra
3: D2 Frost Nova
4: selfmade D2-style Icon to resemble Slow Time
5: D2 Phoenix Strike Icon – used to resemble some Ultimate Skill (maybe a Skill with a Flaming Phoenix - couldn’t find another fitting icon)
6: Fan-made D2-style Icon (2) - to resemble Sorcs Innate Skill A ("Instant Energy Shield Recharge“)
7: Fan-made D2-style Icon (2) - to resemble Sorcs Innate Skill B („Spell Empowerment“, which empowers the next Spell that is casted – similar to DnD Metamagic or that Sorc Staff Skill from PoE)

(*2) shoutout to kongdev and cla$$ics for the Fan-made D2-style Skill Icons they made.

Closing Words

Thoughts? Feedback? Critique? What do you like and what not?
What adjustments would you made or what would you make differently?
Do you have some of your own ideas you wanna share?

Request: maybe a TL3 user can post the images directly. Ty!

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Really like not having the paragon level up bar in the field a play. Something people have been asking for forever.

9 possible skills would also be super nice. Many builds, 6 are fine. Some builds, especially WD builds it would be nice have an extra skill or two. This would completely make Challenge Rifts a :poop: show. There are some serious WTF builds will 6 skills. 9 would be hilarious.

2 Likes
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Well, there is two main things to consider:

1 - two of these Skills are pre-determined and can not be exchanged. Every class would have 2 Innate Class-specific Skills that fit the classes theme. So it would be 7 Skills for you to choose from and two that are always there.

2 - I always thought that having 100% uptime on many of the super powerful Skills is kinda stupid, so one thing to prevent that is to have a feature of “This Skill first starts its Cooldown until after its Effects expire” on Skills like Wrath of the Berserker, Ignore Pain, etc, and combined with many of the CDR Effects on items in general and legendaries (e.g. Obsidian Ring) being significantly reduced, so it would be impossible to have 100% uptime in the first place.

Similar to this:
https://imgur.com/gZD05ta

So in the end, the gameplay would be slower, more similar to D4.

Yeah, that is one of the minor adjustments I made :smiley: Thanks for pointing it out with a good example for ‘why’ that is a good change!

If you look close enough, I also added a feature they have in D4 into this mockup: in D4, above each of the Skill Icons, baked directly into the UI, there is a small bar that shows how long a buff will still remain active.

I put that feature into the mockup, but here it is below the Skill Icons, but still baked directly into the UI / Skillbar. That also frees up some space.

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So like for GoD set build, you have hungering arrow and strafe fixed, or more class specific and generic like vengeance always goes there since very DH build used it?

Worst thing is playing HC doing a higher end GR, playing a WD or DH where you wanna click the edge of the screen, and hitting the stupid “paragon upgrade” button.

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Even in SC it’s boring, I prefer not to think about it in HC…

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These 2 Innate Skills would not depend on a Set or item, but on the Class.

As I tried to point out in the original post, this here is not intended to be feedback, but rather more on the fan-faction site.

I am mentioning that, because the two Innate Skills (which in the image are on the right side of the Hotbar, with Button 6 and Button 7, which are also separated by a gap between them and the 5 Skills in the middle of the Hotbar) would be (for the most part) two completely new Skills, that would need to be created, which would fit, underline and enhance the Core Theme / Fantasy of the class.

Core Theme for Wizard / Sorc is obviously Magic, so something which Empowers your Spells / your next Spell casted within # seconds and something with Energy Shield fits…

… so the example I gave, the Sorc would have something like “Instant Energy Shield Recharge” (Innate Skill A) and “Spell Empowerment” (Innate Skill B) as their two Innate Skills. Each Sorc build would use them, because you couldn’t not exchange them. Innate Skills are common in many ARPG’s and MMO’s.

The purpose is to enhance the Core Class Identity and Core Class Fantasy / Theme.

For a Demon Hunter, the Core Class Fantasy would be Ranged Combat, Hunting, Agility, Fast, or even Traps, so maybe you could put Vault and Hunters Mark, or a “Hawk Eye” Ability there, or an AoE Immobilizing Trap to enhance these Core Fantasies.

Core Themes for Barbarian would be Rage, Strength, Brute Force, etc, so some form of Enrage could fit, maybe even WotB (with the features I mentioned earlier that would make 100% uptime on that skill impossible ofc).

Necromancers Core Themes are Dark Arts and Necromancy, so maybe something like “Life Tap” and Revive, or a (customizable) Curse.

Crusader Core Themes are Holy, Sword and Board, Heavy Armor, Tank, Leader, so Skills around Armor, or (customizable) Auras/Laws or Holy Bubble, could fit.

Monks Core Themes could be underlined with something like a “Flurry of Blows” Buff, (customizable) Auras/Mantras.

2 Likes
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Hi Clueso,

I checked your image out when you posted this but wasn’t able to respond immediately. So sorry for the delay.

I will start with the negative critique and end with the positives!

The one thing I disliked was the icon style. Going backwards is not the way to go. The icons are one of the improvements that D3 had vs D2!

Now to the positives:

The UI in general is both slick, clean and elegant. The left side utility ones are perfect, it might be that the user would need to check them out and get used to. But that they are monochrome and stand out like that makes more apparent. Super plus on that.

As for the number of spells… Well let’s just say that it is quite often that I think how wonderful it would had been if we had 8 spells (somewhere in that range) to play with.

Nice work, take care.

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Seems it son just an UI improvement it changes all the game design

1 Like
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No problem! You are very welcome to give feedback anytime!

I also just today noticed that I got additional replies in this thread, haha.

I can understand that.

I personally like D4’s icon style (the Stained Glass Window Style) A LOT and actually wanted to use D4’s icons for this mockup / illustration.
However, the issue I ran into that D4 did not have the particular icons available that would have been required for this mockup, so I had to use D2 Icons, especially since there are also Fan made Icons and Icons I made myself available, so I opted for these…

… however, and I think you may like this, I also have a version with BG3 Icons to check out. Have a look, I think you may like these a lot more!

https://imgur.com/WCTOEVC
https://i.imgur.com/WCTOEVC.png

Thank you! That is awesome!
Yes, it was indeed one intent of mine to make it more sleek but also more overseeable.

Are you referring to the the 4 Buttons for “Chat ||| Character / Attribute | Skills | Cosmetics” on the lower left? Or that the LMB & RMB ones are a bit separated from the 5 Skills in the middle? Or the 2 Skills on the right of the Hotbar?

If itemization would not funnel everyone into the same skill-setups, it probably would have let to even more build diversity by having more than 6 skills :D.

Thank you! My pleasure!

Also, if you want, you can give me feedback on this WIP Character / Attribute Window.

https://imgur.com/MBPmVmP
https://i.imgur.com/MBPmVmP.png

Would be interested in hearing your thoughts. Ty!

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Yes, you are right!
This is my personal “fan project” of “What D3 could have been”!
It is not intended as feedback, just a fun side project of mine.

It also goes much further than that.

Here is what can be seen in the Character / Attributes window.
It is redesigning mechanics and attributes, resistances, etc things a lot.
Still work in progress, so some icons are missing / not fully aligned and the number values might be off.

https://imgur.com/MBPmVmP
https://i.imgur.com/MBPmVmP.png

Some additional explanations, if interested:

  • If you hover over an Attribute (Physique, Mind, Spirit, Expertise), it will highlight the Affixes / Bonuses on the Attribute Screen that will be buffed by putting points into that Attribute (maybe also letting other fade into the background)
  • Physique will give different Bonuses for a Barbarian than for a Sorcerer, etc.
  • The “Stat List” on the left will by default only show the Affix Bonuses that will be increased by the Attributes, but clicking on the “Extend List Button”, it will extent the list to all stats / affixes.
  • “Core Defenses” are the ones that are found on Equipment in the Big Numbers (Leather Armor gives Evasion, Caster Armor gives Energy Shield, Animal Pelts give Vitality, Metal Armor gives Armor, Occultist Armor gives Wicked Blood)
  • “Wicked Blood” is similar to Vitality, but more catered to Necros, because Wicked Blood also gives Life Regeneration as a Secondary Bonus in addition to Max Life.
  • Vitality gives Max Life and maybe Resistances, dunno yet.
  • “Attribute Milestone Bonuses” gives additional Bonuses once a certain amount of Points has been spend into one Attribute or more, either via Hard Points, or Soft Points, or both (similar to Rare Paragon Nodes in D4).

… and more

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Yes that’s the ones, I failed to mention the far right side ones the same praise goes for them. :slight_smile:

Nope, look the icons aren’t bad neither d4’s or the ones you use they are clear and informative. I just like colors on them. :wink:

Like I said earlier the smaller ones left and right of the main UI are perfect as monochrome and would create an even bigger contrast.

Now to your attribute page…

Very well structured, if I would point out one thing it would be that it comes out as very “aggressive”. This due to how overwhelming all that info can seem at first glance.

On the other hand you don’t need to scroll like we do in D3. It is a bit annoying sometimes.

Well I hope you are helped by this little comment. I will try to check it out on my laptop tomorrow. I am on the phone now and it is a frustrating to try and review a picture.

1 Like
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Thanks for the feedback Stedia!

Some of the icons on the far left and the far right side are taken from Icons in D3, like the Character Figure, Cosmetics and the Town Portal.

The Malteser Cross on the left is from D2, the Inventory Bag Icon is either from D3 or from Median XL, and the Cogwheel is Median XL.

All the Icon Frames for these Buttons are also from Median XL.
https://i.imgur.com/tGTnqoG.jpg

They pop fairly well indeed.

Ah, I see.
For me personally, D3’s Skill Icons are too cartoony.
I also like having color in the Skill Icons, but the style of D3’s Icons is too cartoony for me, so I wanted something different.

Some of the D3 Icons I use there are made by me via GIMP and “fetched together” from original D2 Icons or Icons made by other fans. Maybe I can try to add more color to them. Not sure if it will look good though, as that is more than simply “making all the white stuff in color X”.

Maybe there is an AI out there which can be fed D2 Icons and be trained on them. If you know one, plz tell me.

But I understand that this is all personal preference.

Yes, I understand.

Its design is a bit “old-school”, though in many games / older games and D2 mods you have something similar when you open the Advanced Stats Page

https://i.imgur.com/xgnn564.png

One reason for why I opted for this “Old School Style” is because of a specific feature with this Attribute System. Each Class gains different Bonuses from each of the Attributes, similar to how it is in D4, but sometimes, two different Attributes can give a Bonus to the same Stat, just with a different amount.

For a Sorc for example, among other things, Spirit would increase Max Resource, give Spell Damage and Energy Shield, but only smaller amounts of each. Expertise would give much larger amounts of Spell Damage and a few other things, but mostly Spell Damage. So there is some overlap.

When you hover over an Attribute, the Affixes it will benefit will highlight and show by how much they increase), while the eventually unaffected affixes will fade in the background.

The Stat List on the left will also by default only list Affixes that are increased by Attributes, and only extend further when the “Extend List | All Stats” Button is clicked.

Plus, it looks cool, has an image of your char in the window, and I like it :smiley:
That is my reasoning behind that style choice.

Maybe the text size can be reduced a bit at some places, to create a bit more space.

Ty for the feedback!