Inventory+Party+Equipment+Quick-items+Swapping+Clicking+... what else?

[Osvir]

Continuation from here.

The Inventory UI screen is a bit of a hassle. Something I noticed mostly from playing PotD (Path of the Damned) difficulty. Swapping gear, quick-items, giving one player this or that, is a lot of clicking back and forth, checking out each character at a time, and thinking about synchronization, and then back and forth between several character. All of this becomes more important on PotD, but it is a bit of a hassle. So I wondered...

"What can you do to improve itemisation in an organized and manageable way to switch gear between the characters?"

All of those inventory slots each character have? They could be lined up as "Equipped Gear" and the Equipment Slots would go there, like "Quickbars" in the inventory to the right-side. "Quickquip".

By stretching this UI Window top-right and top-left would allow more "Inventory Slots" to be introduced as well.

The idea is simply that some basic Equipment Slots would exist as quickequip slots in the inventory to the right. Quickslot items as well. This will allow the Player to manage and equip their characters without having to click through every single portrait, which can be left to the more detailed equipment screen+detail equipment (Rings, capes, weapon sets, helmet, gloves).

Here's an example, a mock up concept. BB Wizard is selected, and I could be able to see everyone's equipment and swap it out easily from anyone's inventory space. I have only included Armor, Boots, 1 Quick-Item, due to wanting to finish the example quickly.

Edited December 11, 2014 by Osvir

[Hormalakh]

I kind of like this idea if I understood it correctly,. though I'd make a few changes. I'd leave the inventory on the Right side as it is, but I would make the weapon sets/armor/quick bar toggle-able on the right hand side. Basically, if you right-clicked your character's portrait, it would toggle between the inventory and their equipped items (like you've started to show).

 

Though, there's still a little bit more clicking.

[Osvir]

TL;DR: This Steam Screenshot picture is probably the best telling concept/mock up explanation. It gives me information of what everyone is wearing as well, even if I don't intend to swap anything out.

@Hormalakh: That'd be pretty nifty actually, it's one solution as well. But it could render the entirety of the equipment screen to the left useless, which is why I thought "Keep a few of the equipment slots in the left-only, for detail work, such as rings, belt, back, helmet" would keep the original inventory space untouched, mostly, and it'd be less work for Obsidian to do a complete revision.

Just copy+pasting the mockup I made took some time (Screenshots of all characters clicked, paint copy+paste each characters inventory into one picture etc.). I suspect doing the same thing in code would take both much longer and be more complex. Making a button that shows all equipment or "swaps" the inventory space like that could be an even more and more time consuming process. Though, I wouldn't know.

Edited December 11, 2014 by Osvir