[MakeshiftWalrus]

I'm inclined to agree with the people frustrated about the recent change in UI. I do think it was high-time we got something more visually appealing, and it does look good.

That being said, it's too busy, and too lacking in clarity, and I think it's going to cause much grief especially for newer players who aren't used to many of the classes, and skills in the first place. It isn't much of a problem for people who already have an understanding of how the system works, but when you take a look at, say, Hexer, it just looks dizzying. I'll be more concrete with my issues:




- It looks cluttered initially:
There's too much stuff happening. You have too many buttons at the same time, a ton of different colours many might not even know mean anything to this day, and an entire left side of dud information with bright visuals that do nothing for you, except distract you.

- The organization isn't as good as one might think:
Going back to the point of colours, it's all very pretty, but not even the dandy guide in the top right explain what the different skill-colours actually mean, and that's a huge downgrade compared to before when they were straight up sectioned off, and we didn't have to draw mental lines between what section of skills did what. When skills were grouped up, we could expect them all to be visually easy to identify with each other, and I don't think that's the case anymore.

- The class bar is annoying to navigate:
We have a lot of classes now, and that's absolutely fantastic. Suffering from success is a good thing to be proud of. Unfortunately the scroll-system for the class is messy to use with its static jumps, and infinite cycle if you accidently scroll too far. That everything is coloured is nice for the sake of keeping classes, and their promos grouped, it's also very distracting when you're already dealing with the issues mentioned above. The static jumps of the scrolling also cut off some classes from each other, such as in this case Duelist, and Firebird being one jump further up. Additionally, there's no visual indicator to what class you've got selected for when you click on Learn Skills, which can sometimes put you into a class you don't even want to look at.


- Solutions:
While I don't expect anything to be done about many of the things I've mentioned, I'm going to propose some fixes that I believe would work to remedy the overall frustrations of using the new menu. I want to point out that I do like it, it just needs more quality of life.

Firstly, re-introduce the spaced organization. It was an amazing, and easy way to differentiate skills. I know you said you didn't think it was important, but I must wholeheartedly disagree, and promptly apologize that it might mean a lot of work down the line. But such a tiny thing goes much further than you might think, especially for the lot of us who use the menu all the time.

Secondly, give us a real scroll bar on the class list instead-- one that halts at the bottom, without cycling. Scroll bars are amazing, that's why every browser in the universe uses them all the time, and fluid scrolling makes it easier to find what you're looking for in my own experiences.

Thirdly, add a visual indicator to what class you've got selected, so I don't accidently hit Priest when I really wanted to put points into Eclair. Additionally, and this is just personal preference, but muting all the colours on the class list when you're buying class skills would go a long way to make it feel less busy, and attention-hogging.

Fourth, remove all the + and - buttons from skills you haven't selected. Please. They make it look so abhorrently messy.

Fifth, add some explanation to what the different colours of skills actually mean. We've got a nice guide in the top right, but it doesn't actually talk about different skill-types at all. This would also go a long way in providing people-- especially new players, which much-needed clarity.


At the risk of sounding pretentious, I'm going to quote Frank Lloyd Wright: "Less is more, only when more is too much." And right now, I think that's where we're at. At the very least I hope the user-friendliness of the menu is going to increase from people's suggestions.

[WaifuApple]

Honestly, those suggestions I can get behind. The new UI is pretty nice, but I won't deny it has problems. Changes made to make it better are welcomed, compared to re-implementing the old version (the code might even be gone by this point, it may not be that easy)

Time spent re-implementing the old version could just as easily go towards making the new version better, and sorting through the issues it has. With the new chat, giving people the old version to work with led to plenty using that if they had concerns, rather than reporting them.

[Ham]

Walrus put it wonderfully. Though I'd suggest the class list menu on the left becoming smaller or scooting over a little more to make more room when you need to learn skills myself though, only muting the colors won't change the fact it takes up alot more than it should during that particular time.
I never knew just how Much we needed the scrollbar till Walrus mentioned it, and I must admit it's an excellent solution that'd make everyone's life alot easier.

And sorry Apple, but I must disagree again. I reiterate- SL2 updates and stuff aren't on a deadline, there is no real 'wasted time' when ultimately it all leads to the game being better bit by bit, and even If people do end up using the old and stop reporting on the new, I 100% see people still using the new one to check for bugs and whatnot Just because they want to see the game grow and get the new bugs and issues fixed, because I guarantee you new chat isn't abandoned, it's used alot more than people think.

[GSM]

All memes aside, Demon Hunter's probably the one that got affected the most with this change, with the stances now almost entirely uncoordinated, and the stance actives/skills being mixed in without the stance passives.

Unfortunately, this reduces in-game clarity, and this can make the game much harder to understand for newer players.

I'm not asking for the new one to come back; the new UI does look great, but in my opinion and mine alone, it appears more to be form over function.

[Ham]

Christ, the DH thing never occurred to me. (Although partly because I'm too lazy to grind nowadays). It's so messy now.
That, is prime example of why while the manual method of arranging the skills takes time, it's Very important, especially for newer players who don't know the icons by heart like most of us veterans here (hell even this is my third year in the game and I don't know the skill icons by heart, I gurantee I will get lost in this new DH skill list). I'm sorry if I'm bloating the thread with half assed comments but yeaaaa this is the final nail in the coffin to cement just how important the arrangement was/is.

I hope, when it's manually arranged once more, that it's not a DH only thing, but for all classes because... yeah, you did it for one might aswell do it for all too.

[Neus]

I can only assume that people didn't read my last post in this thread since they're asking again for the manually positioned skills. The only part I'll repeat is that I have other things I would rather work on, as I don't see it as a critical issue.

There already is a visual indicator of the class you have selected in the learn skills window. It's in the top right, right above your skill points.

Removing the + and - buttons of the skills you don't have selected defeats the purpose of why they're there in the first place, which is to help expedite skill point distribution. While mouse wheel is an option, there are users who do not have a mouse wheel (or a mouse). Clicking +/- buttons next to a skill is much quicker than having to click a skill, click the +/- buttons, click another skill, etc. The buttons could be made thinner to look less 'cluttered' but this would also make them a little more difficult to click.

[Ham]

I'm pretty sure the only reason people mentioned the manually positioned skills thing is Because they read the post, Walrus and GSM made excellent points showcasing why while they might not seem important at first glance as you said, it's too much of a mess at this point of time to understand in the cases of DH. It's been as important as everything else has been in the class board, even computers would need things to be organized and fragmented properly to function faster but I digress.

Scrollbars can be used even without a mouse wheel, it's why scrollbars have arrows. Walrus' point was for it to flow better instead of it looping.

For the clutter, I feel it'll be cleared out if it looked a little spaced out like this (Wether it ends up being manually arranged or not):



Now, this isn't perfect by any means, but it certainly feels easier on the eyes when you're trying to allocate your Skill Points right?

[MakeshiftWalrus]

I can only assume that people didn't read my last post in this thread since they're asking again for the manually positioned skills. The only part I'll repeat is that I have other things I would rather work on, as I don't see it as a critical issue.

There already is a visual indicator of the class you have selected in the learn skills window. It's in the top right, right above your skill points.

Removing the + and - buttons of the skills you don't have selected defeats the purpose of why they're there in the first place, which is to help expedite skill point distribution. While mouse wheel is an option, there are users who do not have a mouse wheel (or a mouse). Clicking +/- buttons next to a skill is much quicker than having to click a skill, click the +/- buttons, click another skill, etc. The buttons could be made thinner to look less 'cluttered' but this would also make them a little more difficult to click.

I read it. But I felt it prudent to make it clear that many of us want the change, and that even if you decide not to act on it, that you'll keep it in mind for future content.

Let me clarify to what I meant with an indicator: When you're in the Skill Pool menu, there's no way to tell which class you've got selected, which can lead to entering the wrong class' skill page. Unlike the Learn Skills page, it doesn't automatically switch onto the class you click on, which would probably be an ideal thing to change. What I proposed, if it was to remain as it is now, was to visually indicate the class you've chosen in that section so you don't accidently enter the wrong class via the Learn Skills button.

Though it might expedite the process of slotting in points, it's a lot of completely useless information, too. It's admittedly more personal preference, but in my opinion, it detracts from an already cluttered UI. And, I'd argue if speed, and ease of use was the primary intention, skills, and their flavour-text wouldn't be separated by an additional click through an already miniscule silver arrow in the other corner of the menu. People are going to have to click that to see if it's the skill they want, because they assuredly won't memorize the placement, and mechanics of every single skill in the game.

Hopefully that gives a bit more clarity to what I meant.