I’ve played a few thousand hours of D2, probably between 15-20k hours of D3, and I hate that this is at all relevant, but played WoW for about 6 years.
PC players (or I should specify keyboard and mouse players) have been given a giant middle finger in the design of this UI. It all feels too mobile gamy combined with a “made for console” spirit.
Putting aside the graphics of D3, which many people didn’t like and found too cartoonish, D3 had a great UI. You could access all menus and the chat from the character selection screen (without being loaded in the game and playing). You cannot even chat in the current D4 character selection screen or open the social menu. The social menu (and pretty much all others) are way too mobile gamey. Why when you access the social menu (pressing O) it takes up the ENTIRE screen? Then in that screen when you right click on a friend, the right-click menu also takes up the whole screen. Who the hell designed this? Not only can you not chat or create a party while switching characters, but the chats don’t hover over menus. If you get a new chat while in the social menu or the map is open or the skill tree is full screen, the chat doesn’t appear. I don’t know what happens to chats received while in the character selection screen if you were talking to someone then receive a message while changing characters. Do they disappear? Also, who decided to put the chat on the right side of the screen when chat on the left side is standard across basically all blizzard games. You can’t even move it.
The map is bad. The entire map pin system is straight out of console games (console gamers don’t use the map in the same fashion as PC gamers do because they can’t open it quickly on the fly while still running and fighting). Console games introduced the compass feature or map pins literally showing you the way. We should be able to have a map overlay or at least make the map somewhat transparent so keyboard and mouse players can still see what’s going on while quickly tabbing to the map. The D3 map was honestly good, but a true overlay like PoE would be a step further in the right direction.
This entire game is way too guided. Map pins showing you the route to walk. Quest pins all over the map, showing you exactly where to go or highlighting an area. Diablo is about ADVENTURE. There is no adventure in following a map pin to the next NPC or going through dungeons that are so tunneled there is barely any room to explore. Don’t you miss quests like “Go to the oasis/ruins/forests/etc. and find the [quest item]." There were no highlighted areas on the map. You had to go find the damn thing and know which zone to travel to. That was it. I am sick of being guided to literally everything like I have no brain and no will to search for something and explore.
The game was made for console/controller and was ported in the most uninspired and careless way to PC. It is a shame that a franchise developed for PC for decades now gets this treatment.
The transparent map and Esc menu of D3 was good. The social menu and achievements menu of D3 was good. The character selection screen and chat system of D3 was good.
The map and pins on the map of D4 are bad. The dungeons being so linear and no open is bad. Everything is too guided. The menus are terrible. Move the chat to the left side.