Hello friends, here’s some feedback for Diablo 4 primarily centered around UI and user experience!
The first thing I noticed almost immediately is that the Diablo 4 UI seems primarily designed for consoles. Most of the changes suggested here would allow a PC player to better take control of their user experience in the game, which means a lot of these options might be better served as PC-only options.
While playing the beta, I identified the following additions/changes to the UI that I’d like to see in Diablo 4’s full release:
UI Improvement
- Text values for health and resource globes can now be made permanent above the globes
- An enemy’s affliction status is now shown as an icon under their health bar. Monster power affixes have been changed to be left justified, and current state such as stunned/vulnerable/bleeding are right justified on the same line. This applies only to elites and bosses, and is in addition to visual notices above the enemy’s head
- The chat box can now be repositioned
- The chat box can now be locked to always show
Inventory
- You can now inspect your own alternate characters’ gear from other characters on your account
- The sort method in the inventory can now be changed based on a variety of values: Power level, rarity, vendor value
- Materials from the materials page can now be tracked in the bottom of your inventory, up to three
- When hovering over the attack power label in the character/inventory screen, two listings are shown: The current calculation (Talents, gear, current buffs) and a pure calculation (Current active buffs excluded)
Map Improvements
- World boss times and notifications for your current zone are now textually noted under the minimap
- You can now toggle a dungeon list on the left side of the map screen. Hovering over an entry on the dungeon list highlights it on the map. A tooltip and pin option is also given for the dungeon on this list
- Subzone borders can be toggled to always show
- Climbing markers can now be filtered out of the map
- Minimap zoom level can now be slightly adjusted
- When hovering over the world state icon above the minimap, information is now given about the stats of your current world level
Quests and Journal
- The quest journal now includes a tab that shows which quests you’ve completed. It has the same collapsible sections as the primary journal tab
- You can now track up to X number of quests
Extra options
- At maximum level, players can now take control of their smart loot preferences. Players can choose which class they wish to farm for. For example, a barbarian who has a rogue alt can now select “rogue” as a smart loot option. This will not fully convert the smart loot experience to rogue, but 25% to 50% of all items from that point forward will be smart-loot-optimized for rogue, including items from Curiosities vendors. This can be changed at-will from any location with no cooldown
- There is now an option to hide player titles
Menu Design
- Options Menus, Codex of Power, Collections menus, etc, now have their background removed since the game cannot be paused. This will be especially helpful to hardcore players to stay alert of their surroundings while browsing their menus. From an RP standpoint, it stands to reason that we’d be able to stay alert of our surroundings with our peripheral vision while viewing various documents on the field
- The “Exit Diablo IV” button is now spaced further down from the rest of the exit menu options
- Challenges can now be linked in chat
- Challenges can now be filtered to “Show Incomplete”, which shows both “In Progress” and “Not Started” challenges together in one list
- Challenges can now be sorted within their sections by percent complete to aid in targeting your next challenge goal
- If the only additional information to show for a challenge is the title given, the “Show More Info” text is removed and replaced with the title given. The current drop down doesn’t save any space
- The zoom level and position of your skill tree is now remembered for each session
- Section labels now appear in the skill flyout menu when you hover over the section icon on the left of each row
- Tab hover labels have been added to many vendor menus and the Codex of Power
- When hovering over a title which you don’t yet possess, the tooltip for the challenge or activity associated to earn it appears, unless that activity is secretive or a spoiler
- When you click on a title which you don’t yet possess, and that title requires a challenge, then you are taken to the challenge menu and shown the challenge required
Tooltips
- When viewing a legendary item in your inventory, an equipment icon is placed next to the text if you already have that legendary affix active. The equipment icon shows which item you have the affix on. This is to make it easier to plan out gear swaps mid-game
- You can now toggle off the hint labels for item tooltips that show how to Equip, Link, Unequip, Hide Comparison, etc. This removes the need to scroll down on some items with long stat lists
- Item tooltip layouts have been modified slightly to be more efficiently spaced
- The “Slot Transmog: ON” label on the item tooltip has now been changed to show which transmog is currently set. For example: “Slot Transmog: Etched”
- You can now right click on players in town to access interaction options
Action Wheel
- The action wheel can now be toggled to be saved account wide
- The action wheel can be moved by dragging a newly implemented drag button, which is next to the Customize button
Keybinding
- There is now an option to hide the keybind labels on the HUD, the map keybind label below the minimap, and where ever else keybind labels can be found
- The skipping cutscenes and skipping conversations keybindings can now be rebound
- The “Show rewards” keybinding on the map screen can now be rebound
- The Codex and Challenges menus can now be given a specific binding. The collections menu still exists for future collectable implementations
- A binding is available to unsheath your weapons
Anti-cheat
- Skills cannot be swapped during combat. This is to prevent program-assisted use of more than the allowed 6 skills on the bar. It is possible to create a script that instantly swaps skills to your main bar mid-combat in the blink of an eye. Malicious actors could go pretty nuts with this
Thanks for reading!