UI needs a complete rework

PC General Discussion
1

World of warcraft has a chat that has high functionality/adaptability.

Thats a 20 year old game.

  1. Diablo 4 is far behind WoWs chat UI. We cant see items being linked unless we press enter - Why?

  2. When we salvage an item the new power added to the codex pops up for 2 seconds then is gone never to be seen again.

How about… Having it appear in chat saying "You recieved Aspect of the Blurred Beast 15/21

So we can actually check what the ***** we just got if we miss that 2 second window of pop up you have now.

Same goes for all kind of loot that you drop us.

Add this as a chat feature where we can turn on/off the notifications of items dropped, powers recieved etc and make us be able to alter the chat so that text disappears after 15 sec, 30 sec, 60 sec etc.

The UI in D4 feels so cheap. Theres so many menus.

in PoE2 it feels premium with far less budget. I dont know how to explain it other than D4 menus just feel extremely cheap and thin. Instead of being chunky and dark in theme with what the genre is all about. PoE2 got the UI way right. D4 UI is worse than WoW that came out 20 years ago.

Please hire extra people to work on this.

2 Likes
2

The chat UI was slapped together by people who don’t design UI’s. Keep in mind D4 team had a wanted ad for a UI designer not much more than a couple weeks ago. So they’re probably aware they suck at it. The chat UI hasn’t improved since beta.

The other/related UI that sucks is the report interface. They should just load up PoE/PoE2 (Rod did claim he installed & would be playing it) and check out how that works: you right click the name in chat (RMT-er for example), click Report… and a window opens up with the user’s message already copied into it, and you need only click 1 item from a drop-down menu & click Submit.

That’s it: two clicks & a single drop-down, with the user’s message copy-pasted in the report for you to see (& double check).

Let’s get on that, billion-dollar-a-year-revenue folks…

3

We have way bigger problems with the game than that. But i do aggree you , Diablo 2 had also a better chat function inside and outside the game. Oh and also had a chat gem :grin:

4

You’d have to show me a chart for how that works… I disagree. Yes, in totally different areas, there are “bigger” problems that players encounter. But the fact that there hasn’t been a dedicated & competent UI designer on board for a year and a half should be a top priority for some portion of that billion dollar Year 1 revenue.

D4 team agrees, and apparently they’ve had several recent postings. One page that doesn’t exist anymore (“Principal UX Designer”)…
https://careers.blizzard.com/global/en/job/R024693
…has this on the landing page:

We’re sorry… the job you are trying to apply for has been filled.

The search blurb reads as follows:

Lead UX Designer | Diablo IV | Irvine, CA OR Albany, NY. Available in 2 locations. Category UI / UX Posted Date 01/23/2025 · Lead UI Artist - Diablo IV | Irvine…

A position for “Lead UI Artist” is still up…
https://careers.blizzard.com/global/en/job/R024029/Lead-UI-Artist-Diablo-IV-Irvine-CA-or-Albany-NY
https://archive.ph/Odre4 (archive link)
…and shows these related positions at the bottom:
https://ibb.co/pZQQY93
…all posted this month, a couple of them this week.

So that’s possibly 5 UI-related job listings (it could be as few as 3), one of them having been filled recently. They have the money for several positions, and they clearly know they’ve needed to fill them. I guess they waited until VoH revenue was in the bag before doing such hires, probably because capitalism requires you impress your shareholders by delaying value-adding hiring until you can mesmerize them with a big pile of cash first.

The UI is a player’s most constant in-game interaction. It can’t be avoided, and it enhances or detracts from practically all other in-game interactions. It adds to or reduces in-game time, and they know it. Hopefully this many hires = D4 team starting to get its managerial crap in order, and isn’t just an indicator they want to prioritize the in-game shop even more (the word “shop” is prominent in the ad, and along with the word “store” they are the only identifiable in-game element in the wording).

1 Like
5

Im not sure anymore about D4 having different teams for everything. I feel like the same few dudes do all the stuff judging by the content they release each season.

6

10000000% Agree with you on every point. Thanks for the info as well.