Witcher 3 has the worst RPG UI ever ?

I love this game, I really do, 50 hours in, so don't come at me with "only gameplay matters". I know it, but I just can't overlook how awful UI is.

It's no secret that Witcher 3 was made with consoles in mind. The lack of key shortcuts for M/K in this game is just outstanding.

So let's start.

1. WHY DO I NEED TO OPEN INVENTORY FOR EVERYTHING. I need to open it to apply potion, oil, chose a grenade, read a book or a letter, that is, FOR EVERYTHING.

There are only 2 slots for potions. The same slots are shared with using food, too. You need to heal ? Open inventory, chose a food, drag food to a potion slot, replace potion with food, close the inventory, use the button to consume food, open inventory, drag the potion back to the slot. ARE YOU F*CKING KIDDING ME. Who designed this shit ?

You need to heal, you have many food but only in quantity of one item per each type. Bad luck, sir, you will open and close your inventory by 2 pieces of food at a time. Amazing, right ?

Potions itself share the inventory space with book and letters. So good luck finding them quick enough. You need to hover you mouse over every potion to see what it does, because their only visible difference is by color. Unless you have photographic memory you will have a bad time.

Even Skyrim vanilla had a quick access menu. Some sort of quick navigational menu would do the trick.

To open an inventory takes 5sec of your time with a controller. You need to invoke a menu with start and navigate to the inventory tab. And you will be opening inventory a LOT, to say it mildly.

2. You can not read the books and letters when you pick them like in other games. Again, you need to open inventory. At least, unread letters are highlighted with a star, but not books. So good luck finding a book you have just picked up among those you have already read.

3. No bloody compass for a minimap. I mean, putting SNWE would suffice, but no, you need to open a map constantly which takes 2 seconds to load even on PC to check where you are now. Besides on a controller is a double action of pressing start plus choosing world map in the menu. Really f*cked up honestly.

4. In the world map, no option to trace the path for a custom marker. So using a horse to travel to the assigned custom marker on a map is completely impractical.

5. Only assigning the quest as a main one is traceable. No f*cking hints where to go. You only see puzzle marks on the map. The thing making a quest traceable makes it too easy and kinda removes the excitement of discovery I want to use my own senses to orient myself in the world. I want NPC telling me where to go exactly like "you go north, then west etc.". I do not want to use markers to track my quests, but they are unavoidable, as NPCs usually don't give any clues how to get to the place in question. Either you discover it by yourself with random wandering arround or use a mission marker which basically highlights everything for you like in GTA.

6. Using the controller in playing gwent is quite glitchy on PC. Sometimes it just stops navigating between cards horizontally, not allowing you to chose the card you need. Only unpluging and plugging the controller or switching to the keyboard helps.

7. I don't need to know that I used a K/M control scheme every time I use a quick save key on my keyboard while playing with a controller. And the same size f*cking huge notification pops up again when you return to using the controller. WTF.

8. Oh yeh, picking items too. No way to highlight the container you need to open. In order to get to the right one, you will have to open them all and fill your inventory with trash items.

In short, UI sucks with M/K and sucks with a controller, only thing that makes it slightly better is using both, but by using both I can't get too far from my pc in order to play W3 from my couch. My ass is already hurting me for playing it with M/K and a controller at once.

I don't have an issue with the UI. It's stuffy, yes. But it's not the worst thing. The worst thing is the clunky, floaty movements, and having to pick items and Geralt walking over them.

You can use food without dragging it into a potion slot.

Was thinking about that today. Hate how you have to go to the menu for everything.

Oh you are right. That's really helpful. Still too many complaints remain.

Have you played Skyrim on PC?

Modded or vanilla?

@JangoWuzHere: How? My god I had no idea. XD

As I already told, Skyim had a quick access menu to which you could assign most used items in order to avoid going to the inventory for everything.

I'm using an Xbox One controller, you can just hit X on any consumable (food or potion) and it will use it. You can't do that during combat through, that's what the quickslots are for.

Yea, the UI is pretty atrocious. Not only are potions a major part of the game but they make it so hard to swap and equip them and then they throw in all the books in the same tab. then the text on everything is really fucking small

@JangoWuzHere: Fantastic, thank you!

My Witcher 3 experience so far can be resumed in this way:

Imagine a really awesome candy. You are really loving it. You suck it and suck it, but with a small condition, every 10 minutes someone kicks you in the ass. You enjoy it one hour, two hours, etc. and you can not stop enjoying it, and all this time you get your ass kicked every 10 minutes. Your ass start hurting you already and you want to quit it, but the candy is too good to stop. This game has been made by really evil people.

I beat level 24 dudes that can instakill you with a level 8 Geralt on Hard difficulty, what are you talking about? The game isn't hard whatsoever. It's pretty damn easy.

Lol I am not talking about difficulty. I am refering to horrible UI, sluggish controls and visual downgrades that make your teeth grate.

Bugs that lock you out of progressing in story, dozens of crashes, endless loading, lots of loading screens, floaty, clunky walk/run, picking up loot, picking up loot while swimming, and the bug that deletes .your save.

@princeofshapeir: You're on a Witcher 3 article, dumbass.

Are we still talking about Witcher 3? There are literally no loading screens unless you load a save or fast travel between zones (e.g. Velen to White Orchard).

@princeofshapeir: You didn't need to delete your post, and post it again. /facepalm

If you want to take everything literally, take this literally too: there are no loading screens unless you load a save or fast travel between zones.

I deleted it because the formatting was incorrect.

he didn't say many, he meant long.

Get a SSD.

And are you capable of reading? "lots of loading screens" = "many loading screens"

Only an idiot would say that, which is obvious from your ridiculous comments as you conveniently forgot to mention the other loading screens.

• You have to load the same map you're on at least once every hour due to the frequent crashes.
• Every time you fast travel within the same map.
• Every time you die.
• Starting a story event.
• Ciri portions of the game, and much more.

Also, don't be mean to him you spaz. He only made a small mistake, there's no need to be a patronizing asshole towards him, especially not with your shitty English.

All of those loading screens are short and infrequent compared to other games, especially other open world games.

And I don't care for derailing threads with petty arguments like this, but was there a need to be a "patronizing asshole" towards me? At least I didn't call him a spaz, or a dumbass, or call his English "shitty." All I ever did was disagree with you, yet you seem to be taking it very personally.

@princeofshapeir: There's no reason for you to be upset, I was just describing what you are and correcting your false information. But as expected of a blind fanboy, keep putting the game on a pedestal while ignoring all of its flaws and defending it as hard as you defend your virginity.

lol. I wasn't really upset, and I'm not fanboying this game. The Witcher 3 has legitimate flaws (notice how I didn't disagree with the other complaints you listed), but I don't think loading screens are among them. I just found it funny that you were condemning me for being rude when you've been pretty rude to me throughout this thread.

Doesn't do shit for games.

So 3rd game in the series and the UI is still clunky.

Reminds me of Oblivion and Dragon's Dogma, a mess.

It definitely does, but it varies by game. TW3 is one of those games where an SSD would be useful.

If anyone is upset in this thread it's you.

Was the UI for the games in general ever that good?

BF4 and DA:I say otherwise

@jhonMalcovich: keep in mind I'm addressing these using a controller, I don't know what it's like with a M/KB very much.

1. As others have mentioned, you can use all items in the inventory. Quickslots needed to use stuff in combat. Radial menu allows you to select grenades if you've slotted them. I would say they should have a way to equip through the radial menu open, such as select an item, then press up or down and it'd scroll through available items for that slot, then you could change it. Be easier, hopefully this will be patched/ modded in. One thing I don't like about using food in the inventory is consumption doesn't stack, and I don't believe the effects begin until you exit. So if you want to use 5 wolf livers for vitality regen with 5 (s) duration each, if you hit it 5 times and then exit, you'll have used all 5 livers but will only get 5 seconds instead of 25.

Menu navigation doesn't take too long. You can use the RS to move between tabs and left and right instead of going through each item.

2. I believe books are noted by stars as are any new item taken into inventory, could be mistaken though.

3. There is North indicated on the minimap. It's a small N, it's just small and difficult to see.

4. Yea, granted. Hopefully patched or modded in.

5. I agree with you here, it'd be great for immersion but doing what you're suggesting would be incredibly difficult. This is something all open world games abide by, so I don't see it as any more of a valid criticism on W3 than anything else.

6. Haven't noticed a single glitch, but I despise Gwent so I've only played about a dozen or so games. From what I've played so far though it seems OK.

7. Agreed. Don't know who the hell thought this was a good idea. Suspect it'll be patched as it's been a common complaint, as will the tiny font size.

8. Yup, a pain. I always have to readjust where Geralt steps. Like a fucking pixel hunt with an analog stick. Again, probably will be improved in a patch or mod.

One more I'll add that really is grinding my gears: meditating uses alchohol to refill. So if I have 10 potions, 4 bombs, 6 oils but only have one empty, if I want to do something as simple as just pass the time, the game will waste an alcohol for JUST that one item. Incredibly stupid. It should ask you whether to refill because meditating is not only used for refilling stock. As it is now I have to drop all alcohol to not waste it. This is a major pain and design oversight that a very simple question would remedy.

I think the UI is good. Better than most. Only complaint is no quick access to the Map. But two button clicks is just fine.

It's frankly baffling how the media have overlooked the myriad of problems.

Other games e.g. Total Wat get slated for the slightest thing...

It's almost, as if, they don't no what they are taking about.

I found Skyrims UI to be worse, but it got a lot of mods from the community to fix it.

My biggest gripe is having to go to the inventory so often, and there not being one button to get to it.

Granted, I am playing with a controller and have my keyboard right in front of me, and I bet there is a keyboard key to get straight into inventory so maybe I should just do that. (It switches between gamepad/keyboard on the fly so you can use both if you want to.)

What gamepad are you using? There's programs out there that let you bind keys to unused buttons. I have a Xbone controller, and I have the guide button set to quicksave. Been a lifesaver.

We got a guy locally looking to trade Witcher 3 for Wii U games cause he didnt like the feel of Witcher 3. He wrote in description, great game, not for me, will trade for Wii U games. Witcher 3 plus cash for Pikmin 3.

I was like DAMN son.

Oh wow. An Xbox One controller. I may have to do that...

You use JoyToKey? Now that you mention it a quicksave button would be awesome.

There's a way to disable that popup somewhere within some .ini files. I'll see if I can find it again. Although it doesn't bother me personally, I can see why people don't like it. It's an unnecessary large notification for something which doesn't need to be, a small text notification would have been enough in the bottom corner.

I do the same as you, use the mk/b for the menu's and quicksaving but a controller for general play. Makes the UI somewhat bearable with a mouse imo.

Edit: Here's how to disable the control scheme popup http://www.copons.it/blog/disable-the-control-scheme-changed-box-in-the-witcher-3/

on ps4 you can just swipe the touch pad upwards twice to go straight into the world map.

Thank you a lot.

@jhonMalcovich: I am playing this on console, played the last two Witcher games on pc, and I am loving the ui. For console at least it actually has grid based inventory and wasn't dumbed down ala mass effect2, dragon age or skyrim, which use a god awful scrolling menu with huge text item boxes. I love that it looks like pc ui on console...and frankly it works great. I don't get many of your complaints. Menu navigation is a key element in real rpgs. This isn't a action game, it's an rpg. Read a book you open the menu to read it.

I like Witcher 3 ui 100 more than the Witcher 2 ui, which I felt was too streamlined and lacking.

@Midnightshade29: Same here. I have the first two on PC and actually didn't like them (never finished). To me Skyrim probably better on PC (first person), but this 3rd person type of combat is better suited for a controller. And love the inventory system. Take note Dragon Age Inq. which is my favorite RPG thus far (or is it Fallout 3, or maybe Xenoblade) ..but TW3 has potential to be better. Have to finish before I decide.

xbone windows 8 and windows phone are the worst ui ever

witcher 3 isn't even top tier worst UI

No, using Antimicro.

Reading these comments and complaints about Witcher 3 I lost all hope and now I've just jumped in my time machine and gone back to Planescape Torment which to me was a classic, almost perfect game. While I was time jumping I somehow brought the internet with me and along with it a load of whiney, spoiled, entitled brats I don't know how that happened.

I am now reading comments about PT that completely ignore the amazing gameplay and story and narrative in one of the best RPG's of all time and instead concentrate on how poor the graphics and UI are compared to game X.

I am now trying to invent a device that immediately obliterates complete fuckwits on the internet on detection. It may take some time but I will get there. Don't say you haven't been warned.