Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Spell levels indication by icons on hotbar ... (horrible name for topic)

So ...
As that horrible name suggest, i would like to talk about spell icons once more.

This time about those small Roman numerals we have on lower right corner, telling us what spell level the spell we are about to use is.

Curently as we all probably know, our bar looks aproximately like this:


But there is a bug on Chromatic Orb right now ... wich i didnt want to talk about.
And the Misty Step from the Neck we can loot from Minthara dont actualy cost us any spellslots ... wich i also didnt want to talk about.
So actualy it should have look more like this:


Meaning all leveled spells are proudly showing us that they are castable by using level 2 spellslot.
As far as i know (and feel free to corect me if im wrong) all spells are castable by using higher spellslot ... i believe the process is called upcasting?
Therefore logicaly, every single icon on our bar would say "II." right now, "III." on level 5 and "IV" ... "V" ... "VI" ... and maybe some day even "VII." in the distant future.

But since all spells are showing us the same level ... since they all can be upcasted ...
And since our max spell level is showed right there between spellslots ...
This information seems quite meaningless to me.

THEREFORE (and yes, just now im geting to the point)

I suggest that spells on hotbar should NOT show maximal possible level for casting ...
But on the contrary MINIMAL possible level for casting.

Reason is simple ...
I can allways cast Mage armor by using II. spellslot ... but i can never cast Misty Step using I. spellslot.

Therefore if spells would show their MINIMAL possible level for casting, we would at first sight see wich spellslots we have to save up for later use ... and wich we can freely use, bcs we either arent going to use it for anything important, or we still have enough of them.

The same hotbar would then look aproximately like this:



What do you think about this? O:)

This makes much more sense. Effectively you’re showing the spell level on the icon.

While it’s been quite a journey Rag, the argument and proposal seems very sound.

+1. 😳 Once again. We agree?

Seriously. Great suggestion.

Here’s my take:

1) Get rid of all level indicators on icons (they look messy anyway and will look worse when we get to IV or even VII). If you want to see what level a spell is you can hover or use the slot indicators to filter them. We also don’t need the same icon more than once (imagine when we have six magic missile icons with different numerals on them).

2) When you click a spell icon to cast it, everything on the hotbar dims and the slot indicators glow that are of an appropriate level for casting or upcasting that spell. Clicking on the slot indicator of your choice casts the spell and expends the slot. If you can cast from an item an extra slot indicator could temporarily appear on the far right that lets you use that charge.

That way there are less things jumping around and a direct correlation between remaining slots and expenditure.

Excellent suggestion, Ragnarok. I completely agree.

You are correct that any spell can be upcasted, even if doesn't benefit from using a higher spell slot. See an explanation, for example, here (especially the comment about Warlocks).

This logic can also apply when a player clicks on a particular spell slot. If they are out of Level 2 slots and are looking for a cheapest way to cast Misty Step, for example, the II on the icon will clearly show that they can't do it with SS1, so no point even going there (I'm talking about a post-release situation, of course). This should save them some effort and time.

Yeah, looks like it is viable as a universal approach, regardless of the filters.

P.S. One little correction, however. In your last picture, the Misty Step icon that comes from an item has no numeral on it at all. This might create some confusion for newcomers, because they might think it's somehow castable as a cantrip. As I suggested in your other topic on a similar subject, this icon should instead be placed on a different band within the same hotbar. And once it's there, sure, it can retain its proper numeral (just to designate the spell's relative power, if anything). Same, of course, should apply to scrolls.

TL;DR: No and no. Here's why:

1) Minimum spell levels are very useful. As of now, spell icons are not clear and distinguishable enough to rely on them alone (try Shadowheart on level 4 to see what I mean). Tooltips are out of the question because they take too much time to appear. If anything, Larian can replace Roman numerals for spell levels with Arabic ones. This is doable now as they appear to be ditching the keyboard shortcuts for hotbar items. At least they didn't work last time I tried them.

2) The way Larian has organised the new UI is completely the other way around to what you describe. First you select the spell level, then you choose the spell from the filtered list, and then you cast it. The current implementation is a bit wonky, things don't work this way when you click the level 1 Spell Slot, but I hope they will fix it.
And if you don't know the spell level, but know which spell you need, you first choose the spell from the full list, then select the level and optionally version. The versioning adds a lot of mess for things like Chromatic Orb and Enhance Ability, so Larian will have to find a way to streamline this particular use-case scenario. Personally, I don't know how it can be done to be convenient.

In any case, what you suggest here would result in going back and forth between different bars:
2.1 Click on the spell icon on the hotbar
2.1.1 (Optional) For some spells such as Chromatic Orb, you need to choose the spell subtype / version. In Patch 6, this was done via popup; now it's done on the same hotbar.
2.2 Click the spell slot (I don't know, does Larian have an official name for that new black bar? Anyway, I'm going to call it "action bar").

The problem I see here is that players will definitely become confused as to how they are going to choose the spell level. The spell slot icons on the action bar have to have very strong cues to attract user's attention, because at this moment users look at a different part of the screen. This would be a UX disaster!

This isn't difficult in the slightest. You click on a spell, the relevant slots in the action bar highlight/glow/enlarge and you 'choose your casting level'. It's suddenly very clear for new users what these slots relate to, you can animate them being expended. It's super easy for experienced users to evaluate which casting level is best given the available slots. Particularly when we have 6 banks of slots at 11th level.

Right now it's an absolute mess with so many repeated icons with numerals on them. Changing them to arabic isn't going to help, it's still unclear whether the number is spell level, key shortcut or even remaining uses.

Thats something im fighting against for las year.

I mean i personaly belong between people who didnt play DnD before BG-3 (seriously i have found solid group and started play around the same time) i have heared about it ofcourse, but never known any rules in detail.
So ... im trying to look at this game by eyes of newcommer.

The point of showing lowest possible spellslost to cast a spell is for such newcommer, somebody who dont remember those things to see his options on first sight.
IF you would remove all level indicators from icons, the only way to plan your next few moves would be to check every tooltip for every spell you have on bar ...

Like:
"now i want to Misty Step and then i want to use Shatter ... can i?"
> With no indication of spellslots, you would have to check both tooltips to know (since you dont remember)
>> But if both spells will have "II." on them, you see on first sight without need of searching anything that they both cost you II. level spellsot ... then all you need to do is move your eyes for few milimetters to see if you have two II. level spellslots avaiable ... and if not, again all you need to do is check all yours I. level spells, to see wich attack you will be able to use
That is the point of this suggestion.

Exactly. ^_^

First to the green part ...
It is originaly placed on different band withing the hotbar ...
This is just some either bug or oversith i really like and im really using often (as i mentioned in UI topic) and really, REALLY, REALLY!!! hope they will not repair, since right now you are able to place anything anywhere on your hotbar ... so even tho you have section for "items" you can easily place spells there if you want to ... and vice versa you can easily place items between spells ...

Wich works just perfectly for persons like me who demand their own sorting order on such level it could be almost called an obssesion. :-/
So ... that is reason i really hope i shall still be able to place misty stepp from Minthara neck between my spells.

Now to the icon itself ...
I deleted the II. from it, bcs even tho it is second level spell, it dont actualy require any spellslot, so in my eyes there is no reason for indicating it ...
I believe the best way to resolve would be (as you say if i understand it corectly) to use Arabic number "1." there wich is indicating amount of charges, just as it does with scrolls and items.
That way it indeed should not confuse anyone.

Good catch tho, thanks for mentioning it.

LukasPrism,

I'm not going to comment any of that. I believe we have some UI designers here on the forum, and only if they would stumble into this topic, they would be able to explain us whether your approach is viable or not, from their professional point of view.

Personally, I hate when a sequence of actions is split between different UI elements and / or regions of the screen. I've seen software UI designed like that, and it only complicates things.

I still think simpler is better. We already have the banks of spell slots, so let's make use of them. In my system I'd just make it when you mouse over the spell icon the slots you can use to cast the spell will be slightly highlighted in the slot array. I'm not entirely opposed to there also being an indicator on the spell icon for the minimum level to cast the spell, but it needs to be done in a more appealing way than just slapping a number on it.

The spell ui as it is now is almost as bad as it was in the beginning. The sorting of spells in the hotbar is already a mess and will become worse the more spells u get, and spells i dont want in the hotbar also hops back in as i load the save. Its been like this since the beginning and they havent fixed this yet?

Well, at the moment you still need to consult your slots in the action bar, whilst choosing spells of appropriate level from the hotbar. There's still an assumption there that the user will understand the correlation. Admittedly it's not that difficult but where it does get messy is when you have repetition of spell icons when there are perfectly good buttons already on screen that can be used.

Filtering spells by the slots is a step in the right direction for sure. But it seems from what I've read so far that folk don't like the hotbar jumping around and changing, you're constantly reading around to find where something ends up. That's only going to get worse as we add more spells. Not to mention when you can also cast several spells from items.

Agreed ...

But as i said, problem with your suggesting i would have is that i dont remember and i stubbornly refuse to memorise my spells ... that is just job for wizards, not player.

So lets say you are in tight spot ...
You need to run ... and you also want to attack ... you have 2x I. level spellslot and 1x II. level spellslot.

Now you have:
Misty step, Invisibility, Silence, Thunderwave, Shatter, Magic Missile, Chromatic orb and Mage Armor prepared ... + of course some cantrips, wich are irellevant to this example.

My suggestion:
You watch your bar and imediately see:
II. Misty step, II. Invisibility, II. Silence, I. Thunderwave, II. Shatter, I. Magic Missile, I. Chromatic Orb and I. Mage Armor
Now if you look at your spellslots you know right then, without any futher searching ... that if you use Shatter, or Silence ... you will no longer be able to either run with Misty Step, or hide with Invisibility.
But if you attack with Thunderwave, Magic Missile, or Chromatic Orb, you still will be able to use Misty Step or Invisbilibty to run.

Your suggestion:
You watch your bar and see ... nothing, bcs you get rid of your indications.
> So you have to start planning:
"i want to do shatter" ... you click on it, spellslots II. will highlignt ...
"and then i want to Misty Step" ... you click on it, spellslots II. will highlignt ... and only then you realize (if you remembered that Shatter also require II. spellslot ... dunno about you, but i sometimes leave such thougths quite fast ) that this is not and option ...
> So you have to start planning again:
"I have to Misty Step away ... so i need some I. level spell to attack"
And then you can ofcourse simply click on I. level spellslot, wich will filter your bar, thanks to this new interactive UI Larian give us.

Now note that in your example you manage to only check single possible combination of your spells ... but in mine, i have it all before my eyes bcs its written on them.
But honestly, does this seems simpler? O_o

Can you provide a screenshot? I don't understand what you are referring to.

Oh bugger, you completely confused me! I thought you want things to look this way by default

I have nothing against such customisations. I'll probably make quite a bit of them myself, I just need them to be persisted in saves. As of now, every time I reload the game from save, everything goes back to default mess.
Yes, using Arabic numerals as an indication of the number of remaining charges is a very good idea. I think it would be even better if they will place this number in a different corner of the icon (say, top right instead of bottom right). This will provide a clear indication that this number has a different meaning.

Concidering his coments in other topic ...
He is talking about the time when you are picking if you wish to cast spell as level I. or II.

That would be also possibility ...
But i dont think its necesary ... i mean we dont want to spam whole icon with too many numbers.

And charges in bottom right one are allready thing for items.

Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. Okay then.

Also i just noticed that in top right corner there is small + ...
Informing us that spell can be upcasted (or more like lowcasted in curent state? )

They shouldn't display incorrect spell levels that hold no relevant information for the player so the suggestion is an improvement.

But I want this instead.

All memorized spells perfectly sorted by level where they can be intuitively found. Compared to BG3's "where did that spell go this time" hotbar design.

An elegant upcast system that doesn't clutter the UI with unnecessary extra icons. It is so clear you are casting a level 1 spell using a level 3 spell slot. And spell slots are displayed very intuitively as well. The only improvement this could still have is highlighting the spell slot you are about to use with a yellow color.

Best part: I can minimize this menu so I don't have to look at a million spell icons all the time when exploring.