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I decided to play the beta for awhile first to make sure it isn't just an issue of being unfamiliar with the new UI, but now I really do think there could be some improvement to the graphical aspect of leveling skills up. Two points in particular have been bothering me:
1. Level up "mode" confusion
Yes there are shortcut keys to upgrade skills and stats, but that doesn't mean the manual method shouldn't be easy to use. Sometimes I'll manually click on the "level up" pop-up and then click on the skill I want to learn, but this can be a problem if done frantically in the middle of battle.
Specifically, after clicking on the "level up" pop-up the skill menu enters a mode where the next hotkey or click will level-up a skill only--not activate it. The level-up pop-up is still present and unchanged, and you can only tell you're in this mode by the gold borders that appear around your skill icon. This can be a problem if you try to level-up a skill very quickly and either hit the wrong key or misclick, resulting in your hero not leveling up a skill and staying in the level up mode. If you're trying to level-up a skill that can be leveled and you want to use it immediately anyways, then the problem is naturally solved with a double click/double tap of a hotkey. However, if you want to use a skill that cannot be leveled either due to being maxed already or the hero not satisfying the level requirement--and the hero is in level up mode, it can be frustrating repeatedly hitting the hotkey and being unable to use a skill because the game thinks you're trying to level it up.
This is partly a player issue in that keeping track of what "mode" a hero is in is the player's responsibility. Still, this can be improved for ease-of-use by making it more visually clear what state a hero is in than just gold borders around skills. Maybe make sure that the level-up pop-up changes graphics when you activate it, or add some additional effects to show that the hero is in the process of leveling a skill.
2. Leveling maxed/restricted skills
The second issue I have with the skill setup is semi-related to the first, in that it's difficult to tell when a skill has been maxed/when it is available for leveling. I've been playing dota 1 for a long time to the point that I level skills based on what I want to max first, keeping track of my hero and skill levels as a secondary effort.
The only indication of what level a skill is and if it's maxed are the 4/3 little boxes being filled in under the skill icon. In the warcraft 3 interface it's extremely convenient to tell what you can level/if a skill is maxed because the icon simply disappears from the level up skill menu. On the other hand in dota 2, it's easy to waste valuable seconds (yes I'm serious, seconds are valuable) trying to level-up an already maxed skill.
I don't have an in-depth suggestion for solving this problem, but there should be several relatively simple solutions. i.e. when a hero is in level up mode either completely black out skills that cannot be leveled, or very blatantly show what level each skill is currently at. The little boxes don't cut it.
I'm sure some people will just say that players should get used to the way things work or learn to use other options, but if the functions mentioned already exist in the game then there's no harm in improving them for the players that do want to use them.
1. Level up "mode" confusion
Yes there are shortcut keys to upgrade skills and stats, but that doesn't mean the manual method shouldn't be easy to use. Sometimes I'll manually click on the "level up" pop-up and then click on the skill I want to learn, but this can be a problem if done frantically in the middle of battle.
Specifically, after clicking on the "level up" pop-up the skill menu enters a mode where the next hotkey or click will level-up a skill only--not activate it. The level-up pop-up is still present and unchanged, and you can only tell you're in this mode by the gold borders that appear around your skill icon. This can be a problem if you try to level-up a skill very quickly and either hit the wrong key or misclick, resulting in your hero not leveling up a skill and staying in the level up mode. If you're trying to level-up a skill that can be leveled and you want to use it immediately anyways, then the problem is naturally solved with a double click/double tap of a hotkey. However, if you want to use a skill that cannot be leveled either due to being maxed already or the hero not satisfying the level requirement--and the hero is in level up mode, it can be frustrating repeatedly hitting the hotkey and being unable to use a skill because the game thinks you're trying to level it up.
This is partly a player issue in that keeping track of what "mode" a hero is in is the player's responsibility. Still, this can be improved for ease-of-use by making it more visually clear what state a hero is in than just gold borders around skills. Maybe make sure that the level-up pop-up changes graphics when you activate it, or add some additional effects to show that the hero is in the process of leveling a skill.
2. Leveling maxed/restricted skills
The second issue I have with the skill setup is semi-related to the first, in that it's difficult to tell when a skill has been maxed/when it is available for leveling. I've been playing dota 1 for a long time to the point that I level skills based on what I want to max first, keeping track of my hero and skill levels as a secondary effort.
The only indication of what level a skill is and if it's maxed are the 4/3 little boxes being filled in under the skill icon. In the warcraft 3 interface it's extremely convenient to tell what you can level/if a skill is maxed because the icon simply disappears from the level up skill menu. On the other hand in dota 2, it's easy to waste valuable seconds (yes I'm serious, seconds are valuable) trying to level-up an already maxed skill.
I don't have an in-depth suggestion for solving this problem, but there should be several relatively simple solutions. i.e. when a hero is in level up mode either completely black out skills that cannot be leveled, or very blatantly show what level each skill is currently at. The little boxes don't cut it.
I'm sure some people will just say that players should get used to the way things work or learn to use other options, but if the functions mentioned already exist in the game then there's no harm in improving them for the players that do want to use them.
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