E.g., there should be a single window dedicated entirely - and only - to spells, that automatically sorts them by level and whether they're prepared or not. In Larian's current mess of a UI, it'd be a hotbar icon that brings up a pop-up for all prepared spells, itself divided into pages of spell level. If you want, you can then drag spells from that popup onto your hotbar for easy use! But, if you want the hotbar to remain less cluttered, you also can not do that, because you can cast spells directly from that dedicated spell pop-up.
I still dont undestad how does this suggestion differs from allowing casting from spellbook (concidering spells there starts to sort themselves by some ... actualy any key). :-/
In that it would be smaller window? True, but that is i would say the only difference.
If someone likes a big giant hotbar up at all times, expanded to 68 squares or even 136, all the better. Go for it. I just don't want to have to look at that massive grid taking up like a quarter of my screen the entire time I'm playing.
Lets not be dramatic ... shall we?
Hotbar does not cover even 1/10 of screen ... and it would not even if we could spread it to its whole wide.
Some people are going to be maximalist and very hands on desiring the big hotbar like Rag, others will be minimalists and prefer to only open their "spells inventory" when they actually want to cast a spell like me lol.
And Larian certainly should provide us tools to do both ... agreed.
Right now, there is no general spell casting icon, just individual spells pinned in my hotbar. We have attack and action buttons galore, but if I want to cast a spell it's hotbar or bust, with no alternative.
There was many alternatives suggested ...
And usualy taken down by people who was against hotbar for various reasons ... if you search, you should find some of those topics.
Yes i know you are talking about curent situation, and not about suggestions ...
But look at it from the other site, you are developer in Larian ... you see people being unsatisfied with your design, so you search what they want and you see that everything except "just like Solasta" is denyed as insufficient. -_-
Yet you dont want to copy Solasta.
I have to open the spellbook from that tiny little icon below the minimap or hit a hotkey to pull that up. Then go into a full screen menu that fully obstructs my view of whatever is currently happening in the game. I have to drag the spell I want down to the hotbar and choose a spot for it. Then close the full screen spell menu, so I can get back to the regular gameplay GUI. Only then can I actually cast the prepared spell.
And now imagine that my suggestion of allowing spellcating from spellbook would be accepted and implemented ...
- you no longer need to search for tiny icon below the minimap, since you have hotkey for spellbook ... but even if you dont want to use it, that tiny icon below the minimap was suggested to be draggable to hotbar as regular icon ... so you can put it there anywhere you want.
- fullscreen menu has ben reduced to single charactre spellbook ... yes, its still quite big (question here is if it would still be if developers would count with it as something more action-packed, than just list of things you can drag to your hotbar) ... but certainly not fullscreen big, hardly 1/4 screen big (yet i repeat).
- you dont have to drag anything ... spells are right there and read for your click > cast action.
note that in spellbook spells are allready sorted by used resource and spell level ... so this part is also resolved ... it would still need some sorting in certain spell levels tho (i would suggest Alphabetical ... since right now its a mess)
- you dont have to close anything, since once you cast your spell and end your turn ... spellbook will dissapear
I really cant see the reason why people hated it so much.
So fingers crossed that someone can figure all this out for us eventually so we can all enjoy the game a bit more.
I drink to that!
