Diablo III Interface
The "belt" interface in Diablo III is an evolutionary improvement on the versions seen in Diablo I and Diablo II. The form and function will be familiar to players experienced in the other games, but there are a few major changes in Diablo III that make the controls easier to use, but also guide players to operate the game as the D3 Team intends.
It's no longer actually the "belt," since belts in Diablo III are just another piece of armor; they do not have any special role as potion-holding devices.
Function
A Wizard's Interface, October 2010. Note the Arena modification; no healing potion in the #5 slot.
The way the controls work has been modified somewhat in Diablo 3.
The usual control method is to put active skills, ones your character will be using constantly, on the mouse buttons.
- The left mouse button (LMB) skill remains there all the time, unless/until you drag another skill down to replace it.
- The right mouse button (RMB) has two skills; you switch between them by clicking the Tab button, or by rolling the mouse wheel. These are usually the secondary skills, but ones you wish to use almost constantly.
- The visual aspect of the Tab skill was removed in mid-2011 though the function was preserved at that point.
- The 1234 buttons cast whichever skills are mapped to those buttons, targeting the spell for where the cursor is pointing, just like a mouse click. These are generally summoning or buff skills, but can also be direct attack skills.
- You may also map potions, elixirs, or scrolls to the 1234 buttons.
- The 5 slot holds healing potions. If you use up all of one quality level, any other healing pots in your inventory will automatically fill the 5-slot.
Casting a spell or skill from the 1234 buttons works just like casting it from the mouse button. You could, in theory, play entirely with the 1234 keys, only using the mouse to target. Generally, players put support skills on the 1234 buttons. Summoning spells, buffs, debuffs, and so forth. Direct attack skills can be mapped there as well; it just takes some practice to get used to casting these with keyboard buttons, instead of (in addition to) the mouse buttons.
Above the skill bar:
- Buff icons appear on the left
- Debuff icons appear on the right.
Auras?
Belt Interface, April 2009.
It was long assumed that there would be no Auras in Diablo 3, and as a side point, it wasn't clear how they would be controlled. Auras in Diablo 2 came from Paladin skills (and were also granted by some items) and worked as buffs that were active as long as the Aura was active on the RMB skill option. Players could cycle between multiple Auras; there were 20 in two skill trees; but could only have one active at a time, and Auras weren't "cast," they were simply active as long as they were on the RMB.
This control mechanism didn't seem suited to function in Diablo 3, since there were only 2 skills to cycle between on the RMB, and surely any character with auras would have too many of them to be content just using two over the course of the game.
The presumption that there wouldn't be auras was shaken by Jay Wilson during an October 2009 interview:
Controlling the Skills
Character and Inventory windows, Blizzcon 2010.
Mapping skills to the controls is very easy in Diablo 3. You just open the skill tree and drag skills down to the buttons you wish them assigned to. To change around skills, you drag a new one to an occupied slot (RMB, LMB, Tab, or 1234) and drop it. This puts the previous skill on your cursor, where you can drag it to a new spot or drop it anywhere else to discard it.
In late 2009 Blizzard revealed that the entire skill tree design had been redesigned and that skill trees were now basically a thing of the past. The skills and traits are now presented in long lists, rather than any kind of branching, prerequisite "tree" design.
Active Skills Window
In addition to the skill tree, there's an icon that opens the "active skills window." This is a small pop up window that appears just above the belt interface, which displays the icons for the active skills your character can use. Only the active skills; no passives, no skills without points in them yet, etc. This makes it very easy to see which skills can be assigned to the 7 skill places on the belt.
Skill Hotkey Theory
The appearance and function of the belt interface are two sides of the same coin. The appearance serves the function, and both mesh with the various skill and play style changes made in Diablo III. The D3 Team is designing Diablo III to be played with no more than 7 active skills per character. There are many more skills than that, but specializing in a half dozen or so active skills is the intended route to success, and the game prevents players from investing in more than 7 skills at one time.
Therefore, rather than throwing in 16 hotkeys, as in Diablo II, there are fewer than half that many in D3, with the design theory being that characters will have maxed out their points in a handful of skills which they will use constantly. (And respecing will allow changes, if necessary.)
The developers want the controls to support the half dozen skills characters use a lot, rather than allowing the unbalanced one-skill wonders we see in D2, or requiring D3 players to juggle a dozen or more skills for some builds, as is the case in D2.
The other main goal of the Diablo III interface is to be easier to use and more visual. Hotkeys were easy to use in Diablo II once a player knew how, but to a new user their technique was not immediately evident. There was no way to see which custom keys were set as hotkeys without opening a different interface, and only the active skills could be seen on the left and right mouse button icons, which forced players to memorize their skill setup. The D3 Team wants the skill menu to be much more visual and visible during play.
There's some debate about this approach amongst experienced Diablo II players. Some fans are skeptical, wondering if the D3 Team is going too far to make it easy for beginners, and watering down the controls and over-simplifying things in the process. Early play testing at BlizzCon and other gaming shows has yielded positive feedback, and the guys on the D3 team play the game every day and they like the new design. It won't be until the beta test that gamers get a chance to spend enough time at the controls to form an educated opinion.
Appearance
The look of the belt interface is similar to what we saw in Diablo II, with a few changes. Realize that this form is subject to further change during the ongoing development process. The functionality is closer to that of World of WarCraft than Diablo II
The most recent version of the belt interface was revealed in October 2010, and it's seen near the top of this page. The function hasn't changed since 2008, with only the location of the icons being modified. This belt, from April 2009, shows everything that's in the game even a year and a half later.
Belt Interface, April 2009.
This screenshot, of a Barbarian's belt interface, shows the key features.
There are 5 hotkey slots, into which skill icons or potions can be dragged. Hitting that button will immediately activate that skill or drink that potion. This is something of a change from Diablo II, where skills were always mapped to the mouse buttons, and could only be activated by clicking the hot key to move them to the mouse click. The 1-5 hotkeys can only be used with skills; any skill placed in one of those slots will be cast the moment you press the corresponding key.
The left click and right click slots are marked by an appropriate little mouse icon. The "Tab" key (and the mouse wheel) switches between two active skills on the right click. Skills are added to these controls by dragging them to the belt interface from the skill list. Newly-added skills are automatically added to the hotkey list, once you've put the first point into them.
There were slight changes made by August 2009, when this photo was taken of the screen at the Gamescon event. This is the same demo build that was shown at BlizzCon 2009 and the PAX 2009 show as well.
Belt Interface, August 2009.
